‘Wait!’ shouted Annie, Holly’s friend and owner of the Dandelion Cafe, who was serving tea and cake at the regatta. ‘You can’t go and help on your own!’ she scolded.
‘Annie, I’m fine,’ Holly hissed.
‘Get Matt to help you.’ Annie looked around for her boyfriend.
‘He’s on the water already,’ Holly said, ‘He’s the next race.’
‘Well I’ll come with you then,’ Annie said, starting to untie her apron. ‘You can’t go and start hauling out kids from the river in your condition.’
‘Annie!’ Holly snapped. ‘Keep your voice down.’
Annie looked around. ‘No one’s listening, they’re all watching that–’ She pointed to the broken boats, the sopping wet kids, the blades snapped and broken that were floating forlornly downstream, then she jumped in the passenger seat of the motorboat. ‘I’ll do any lifting, you just drive.’
Holly sighed. ‘Fine,’ she said and they drove over to where the safety boats, the umpire’s launch and a couple of friendly tourists in a rent-a-boat were helping pull the giggling kids from the river.
‘Hi, miss!’ One of them, Julian, a lanky blond, shouted from where he was treading water, ‘Sorry about that!’
‘It’s fine, Julian,’ Holly said. ‘You getting in here or are you going to swim? We need to clear the race course.’
‘I’ll swim, miss.’
‘OK, off you go.’ Holly stood up in her seat making the boat wobble and Annie grip onto the sides. ‘You lot, start swimming to the edge, let’s go, come on!’ She ushered them all across the river. ‘Stop messing.’
‘We crashed, miss, did you see?’
‘Yes,’ Holly said to an eager red-head, ‘We all saw. As crashes go, it was very impressive.’
‘Holly!’ A voice shouted from the bank. ‘Is that you! And Annie! Hi, guys!’
They both turned and saw a woman with big, bouffant blonde hair standing on the bank in front of the hospitality tent. She had a glass of champagne in one hand, her sunglasses in the other and a turquoise straw trilby on her head.
‘Emily!’ Annie waved from the back of the boat. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Drinking champagne!’ Emily laughed.
‘Get the river clear, Holly,’ Holly’s dad shouted through a megaphone.
‘Hello, Mr Somers!’ Emily turned to look in Holly’s dad’s direction and waved enthusiastically.
Holly’s dad gave her a nod but was more interested in getting the regatta back under way and boomed some more instructions through his megaphone. ‘I’m going up to the start, Holly, can you get that half of the eight that’s stuck by the bridge, drag it over and then we can get going.’
Holly sat back down. All the kids were now either clambering out by the bank or in the safety launch, so she started to drive towards the broken bit of carbon fiber. Annie sat forward in her seat. ‘You haven’t told him, have you?’
Holly didn’t say anything.
‘You have to tell him, even just so you aren’t dragging great bits of boat out the river. Here, stop, Holly, I’ll get it.’ Annie reached forward from her seat and caught hold of two of the metal riggers on the broken boat and, hooking the oars across their motorboat, managed to secure it like a sidecar so Holly could drive them slowly back towards the bank.
They watched as all the soaking-wet kids congregated where Holly was about to moor, all bursting with stories to tell of the crash. Holly glanced over her shoulder at Annie. ‘I will tell him. I just…’ She shrugged. ‘I think I have to believe it myself first.’
Annie smiled, ‘Are you looking after yourself? Taking folic acid?’
‘Ssh!’ Holly glanced back around, checking no one could hear.
‘Holly, they’ve got no bloody idea what folic acid is!’ Annie laughed, pushing cropped blonde hair away from her face. Her clothes were wet from where she’d pulled the boat out the water. ‘It’s quite refreshing actually, being covered in river water! It’s so hot,’ she added, ‘And I’ve got to get back in that ice cream van.’ For the duration of the regatta, the Dandelion Café had decamped into an old blue ice cream van that was parked on the left of the boathouse. Previously owned by the late island matriarch Enid, it had been pulled out of retirement for the day’s events.
Holly tried to land the motorboat, but it was too hard with the addition of the broken rowing eight and reversed so she could get a better angle.
‘We’ll get it, miss,’ shouted Julian.
‘No you stay there…’ she started but, ignoring her, all eight of them plopped into the water again and swam over to unhook the bit of boat.
‘Ah, you’re so good,’ Annie said as they swam-walked it back to the bank. ‘They’re lovely, your lot, and they clearly worship you.’
‘Annie…’ Holly glanced over her shoulder, ‘I know what you’re doing.’
‘I’m not doing anything, I’m just ‒ well ‒ I want you to know that I think you’ll be a lovely mum.’
Holly glared at her, worried that people on the bank might hear.
But Annie just leant forward and nudged her on the shoulder, saying excitedly, ‘You’re having a baby!’
Holly exhaled slowly and turned to look at the next race coming down the river.
‘Oooh, it’s Matt,’ Annie said and got up on her knees to start cheering from the boat.
Holly watched the race coming towards them. Cherry Pie Island Regatta was always her favourite day of the year. The sun was usually shining, the blossom was out, big, fluffy white balls of it, the petals getting in people’s hair and landing like confetti in the water.
Matt’s crew was winning by no more than a foot. The crowd on the bank were shouting and cheering. The two boats stormed past them like great, thundering racehorses, kicking out a wash that rocked their little launch. Annie wobbled and had to sit back down again.
This world Holly understood. But the world that was coming her way, she had no idea about. People often asked her what it was like at the Olympics. How she’d managed to cope with all the pressure. But it was like her old coach said to her, ‘There’s no such thing as a bad race, Holly, just bad equipment and bad preparation.’ She couldn’t have been more prepared when she’d sat on the start line of the Olympic final. Mentally, physically, she was in top shape. This, however, this now, this little lemon-sized baby, this was bad planning and bad preparation. And she was absolutely terrified.
Matt’s crew won. The crowd let out a roar. She watched her dad punch the air from where he’d just skidded his bike to a halt. Corks popped from the hospitality tent. Someone inside the ice cream van flicked the switch and the nursery rhyme tune blared out. Matt and all his crew saluted, dressed in their matching Cherry Pie pink racing kit.
In the motorboat, Holly drew them up level with the landing stage and cut the engine as Annie hopped out and tied it to the mooring.
Then, grabbing a megaphone that was on the bank, Annie shouted, ‘Free cherry pie all round.’ Then she grinned, held out her hand to help Holly out the boat, and when they were side by side, nudged her again and said, ‘It’s so exciting, Hol. You’re having a baby!’ Then, checking no one was coming over, went on to say, ‘Are you sure you don’t want to tell me who the father is?’
The kids all went wild