Page 33 of A Loser by Christmas
“But you haven’t?—”
“Videoed any new rescues in well over a year?” I can’t hold in this sigh. “No. No, I haven’t.”
“So you really do need more content.”
Calum’s hand slipping from mine means I talk even faster. “I held back the best work I did when I was shadowing Reece. Forty minutes of it, which helped me to meet the third rule.”
“Which was?”
“Submitting a draft for shortlisting in October. The final entry is due?—”
He proves how hard he’s listened. “The same day the boat show closes?”
“Oui. Just over a week away. It’s then or never.”
“Because?”
“Because this is a contest for under twenty-fives, like the videographer the contest is named for.”
We’ve worked our way along a wall curving towards a prize that I’ll age out of ever holding if I don’t submit an entry this December. We reach the end of the line together, where Calum reads a placard under a final headshot. He sighs, and I know why. I did the same the first time I read it.
“Awarded posthumously.” He studies a photo of a woman I don’t know. Who I don’t remember. And who could be a stranger if Calum didn’t read out the name we share. “The Juno Award.”
Christmas music plays somewhere in this building. It’s faint. Or maybe I’ve got Dad’s increasingly selective hearing. I tune into the rough velvet of Calum’s Cornish accent.
“Her name was Sylvie?” He touches the glass covering my mother’s photo. I shouldn’t be able to feel that. Shouldn’t hold my breath next as if it’s my hair his fingertips brush. “You have the same waves.” His fingertip moves on to trace her jawline. I feel that too. “Same sharp lines. Same stark angles. Same big, dark eyes too. I mean, she looks... interested, yeah? You do as well. All the time, Valentin. So fucking interested in everything and everybody. You never stop watching.” He flicks a glance my way, then gets back to reading. “This says she won it after...”
He pauses for so long that I finish for him. “After the Anglo-French convoy of medics she was shadowing was blown up in Afghanistan.”
“You can’t have been?—”
“Old enough to remember her?” I shake my head.
“That’s why you grew up with your grandparents?”
“I don’t really remember my grand-père either. Just my grand-mère.”
“And your dad. You had him too.”
He’s certain. Then he’s doubtful.
“Didn’t you?”
“Not often. I mean, not until later. He was busy resurrecting an old family business. He transformed it. Made it what it is now.”
Calum is silent.
Don’t ask me why I rush to fill it. “You know how the boat-show circuit is. All that travel. Dad sent so many postcards. From Cannes, Dusseldorf, and Barcelona. From Monaco and Southampton, all with speedboats on them. And he didn’t just sell boats. He designed them. Was closely involved with every build.” I wince as if I can still hear the squeal of shearing metal and the non-stop drilling that Dad shouted over to explain a boat-building process while a younger version of me wished I was someplace else entirely. “It was better that I went to boarding school.”
“When?”
“When I was eight.”
“In France?”
“No. He, uh...” I’ve always viewed my sudden change in location from a close-up kid’s perspective. Focussed on having the wrong accent in a country where I didn’t know the word forhomesick. Now I stand with Calum, who has only known me as an adult, and it’s so easy to zoom out.
Dad’s decision looks different.
