Fat Boy Swim Read Online Free PDF Page A

Cadbury’s Dairy Milk with the wrapper rolled down. Primed. Half a dozen Irn Bru cans lay on their sides. Drained. Next to them in a neat pile, were several unscrunched Chunky Kit-Kat wrappers that Jimmy planned to fashion into silver goblets when he felt more energetic.
    Neither Jimmy nor GI Joe exchanged a word. There was no need. One sweep of the room, one glance at the shame and self-loathing on Jimmy’s face as he looked down on his stomach swelling up to meet him like a reproach, said it all.
    ‘This you with the rest of the family?’
    GI Joe picked up a framed photo from the sideboard. The only photo on display.
    Jimmy, days old, lay on Aunt Pol’s knee. He was asleep, mouth curled in a crescent smile as though he was harbouring some secret. No one else in the picture seemed as content. Dad’s expression was grim, the way Jimmy would always remember him. Mum was anxious, frowning over Aunt Pol’s shoulder as if she couldn’t trust her daft wee sister to hold a wean without dropping it. Aunt Pol – nothing like her dolled-up, laid-back, twenty-first century self – held Jimmy as though he was a bomb ready to detonate. At fifteen, she looked years older than she did nowadays.
    GI Joe frowned into the photograph.
    Just go,
Jimmy screamed silently at the top of the priest’s head.
Leave me alone.
    ‘This Dad?’ GI Joe asked.
    ‘Yeah, he’s dead. Cancer.’
    ‘Patrick mentioned that. Tough, Jim. I’m sorry.’
    Before GI Joe replaced the picture, he ran his fingernail slowly around the swaddled bundle in Aunt Pol’s arms. ‘Lovely wee baby,’ he said, almost to himself, then turned, catching Jimmy’s eye before he had the chance to look down. His voice was gruff, but more kindly.
    ‘A wee tidy-up here then we’ll get out for some air.’
    It was an order, not a suggestion.
    ‘Starving, eh, Jim?’ said GI Joe, very quietly, as Jimmy clunked his giant Dairy Milk in the bin.
    Not anymore, gulped Jimmy. The amount of rubbish he had scooped off the floor made him sick with panic. How? Why did he do this to himself? It never made him feel better.
    Jeez, it was sweltering, much hotter outside than in. Jimmy could hardly get a breath. GI Joe strode towards the Botanic Gardens, arms straining the sleeves of his grey priest shirt as if he was heading some SAS character-building punishment mission. Jimmy lumbered alongside, the contents of his stomach sloshing and churning audibly.
    ‘Looking a bit warm there, Jim.’ GI Joe turned into the gardens and steered Jimmy to a bench beneath a shady tree, the pressure of his hand printing a sweat leaf on Jimmy’s t-shirt.
    ‘Sit!’ GI Joe ordered, his command a benediction to Jimmy’s ears. From a backpack, GI Joe withdrew a tatty photograph wallet. And a bottle of water.
    Nectar,
screamed Jimmy’s thirst.
    ‘Need help with this, Jim,’ said GI Joe, passing a couple of photographs to Jimmy. Hesitating. Then passing the water casually.
    Gulping water, Jimmy’s eyes swept the first photograph. There was a miniature GI Joe staring back at him, dressed in a sweaty-looking vest and shorts. Spit of Bruce Willis in one of his action movies.
Diehard.
Even had his head shaved. He stood in front of some kind of hut. Low and long. Constructed from irregular strips of corrugated iron. Painted whacky colours. Roof was a tarpaulin secured by stones.
    ‘That’s my place. Way out in the bush in South Africa.’
    There was no hiding the pride in GI’s voice.
    ‘I’ve only two rooms right now. Need to make it bigger.’
    How barren the place looked. One ramshackle building and the man in front of it. In the foreground, rough soil, bare of grass. Nothing on the horizon. No trees. No houses.
    And it looked hot.
    ‘Looks like the middle of nowhere,’ said Jimmy.
    ‘Exactly what I said when I first saw it,’ said GI Joe. ‘Day’s drive to the nearest town.’
    ‘The middle of nowhere,’ Jimmy repeated. ‘Why d’you live there?’
    GI Joe slid the second photograph