Page 112 of Oar Than Friends

It was so cold this morning it would take me a few hours to thaw out. I thought I’d easily survive a winter in England, given the ones on the east coast were enough to freeze the breath from your lungs, but I’d been wrong. I’d taken to sleeping in the clothes I would wear to training so I could get out of bed and not have to bare a single unnecessary inch of skin to the frigid air. And while I tugged on more thermals I’d question my sanity, as I looked longingly at my warm, cosy bed.

The only thing that had kept me going the past two weeks was our results from the Tideway training. Since I’d taken over as cox for the men’s Blue Boat, our mornings had begun earlier – leaving at five a.m. (yes, puke) – for the drive to London, so we could practise. It had taken me a week not to feel guilty about dragging them all out of bed, but they hadn’t complained once.

Every morning we’d take to the River Thames in the dark, and row the Boat Race course over and over, and Will Norris had been correct; they were getting faster.

Much faster.

We’d knocked off a minute and thirty seconds from their time set at the beginning of last week – my first day out on the water with them. This morning, they completed the Boat Race course in their second-fastest time yet.

Most of the boys were still sitting on the benches by the time I made it out to the bus, even though Coach Westcott was still shouting for everyone to hurry up and get on it. Something else I’d learned in the past two weeks: the boys set their own schedule.

‘Asters, give us the time,’ called James Potting, the Cambridge number three, who was yet to put his sneakers on.

‘Get on the bus and I will,’ I shouted back, jogging out of the boathouse and into the warmth of the Cambridge bus.

I settled into my seat halfway down, pulling my thick dryrobe over me like a comforter. If I was lucky I’d get another hour’s sleep before we arrived back, maybe longer. Even though we had all been told to hurry up, and we all had to get back for morning class, it was still another five minutes before we were ready to set off.

‘Finally,’ barked Coach Westcott, jerking me awake. ‘Everyone here?’

Will Norris stood up, taking a quick roll call, ‘All present and correct.’

I groaned quietly as the bus lurched forward and set off down the narrow path away from the river, and out of London. As I had every morning when we’d trained here, I watched the big flag flying on top of the boathouse opposite – the one Oz had taken me to – and made a small wish the second before it disappeared out of sight.

My wish this morning was the same as all my wishes had been recently.

To make it through the race. To succeed. To win.

To try not to think about the fact that me winning meant Oz losing.

Or if Oz won, it meant I’d lost. And if I lost, there was a good chance I’d lose more than a race.

I’d also tried not to think about Mary Heston, but since her performance in my dorm room and her not-so-veiled threat about my scholarship, it was nearly all I’d beenthinking about, even if Oz did keep telling me how ridiculous I was being. In fact, the more I tried not to think about it, the more I did.

I’d done my best to avoid her as much as possible. While my training timetable had been flipped because I now trained with the boys, we still had weekend sessions together, and after it had been announced I’d be coxing for the men’s crew she had very strongly voiced her opinion that I wasn’t good enough for the role. Thankfully, it was something none of the coaches agreed with, though it didn’t stop the small voice in my head from wondering if perhaps she was right.

I’d given up trying to figure out whether I was more determined for us to win to prove her wrong, than I was towinwin because it was my first-ever Boat Race. It was something I’d questioned every morning after a hard ninety minutes on the river. Thankfully, I was wrenched from today’s impending doom spiral by Coach Westcott’s not-so-dulcet tones.

‘Excellent work this morning,’ he barked. ‘We’re still eight weeks out from the race, so I don’t want to get any hopes up, but I think we can be quietly confident in a victory again this year.’

Several whoops sounded out from the boys sitting on the back seat.

‘Where’s Kate?’ Coach asked, and I raised my hand, sitting up straighter.

‘Here.’

‘Want to share the times this morning, let the boys out of their misery?’

Eight more sets of eyes turned to me, along with Coach Westcott’s two assistant coaches, Thistleton and his assistant, plus Barker the team physio who’d been joining our early mornings on the river.

I grinned, flipping my notepad open.

‘The first go around we took the course in eighteen minutes dead.’ I glanced around and waited to see if anyone would react, but nothing. I’m not sure I even saw a blink. ‘The fourth and final session was raced in seventeen minutes and forty-three seconds.’ I paused again, nothing. ‘The third go around we did it in sixteen minutes and thirty-eight seconds, but the second time we raced our time was sixteen minutes and thirty-two seconds.’

There was a sharp inhale of silence right before a deafening cheer which echoed around the steamed-up windows as the boys high-fived. Even the rarely seen smile of Coach Westcott stayed put.

‘Holy shit,’ cried Ben Roache, the number five seat, ‘that’s only thirteen seconds slower than the fastest time ever set in the history of the Boat Race – by Cambridge, of course!’

‘Everybody quiet and sit down,’ yelled Westcott again, even though no one was out of their seats. Everyone stopped talking. ‘As I was saying, you can be quietly confident but no more. There are sixty-eight days between now and the race, and we all know that’s plenty of time for things to go wrong. We must stay tight and vigilant.’

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