Mark's day

Sunday. Mark drives across town to Northside under the pretext of dropping Kieran, a twenty-three-year-old who trains alternating weeks at Apex and Northside and whom Mark has been coaching for six months; Kieran signs in and Mark walks him to the change room. On the way back through the floor Mark sees Voss on the heavy bag at the far end, mitts off, working the body-head rhythm Mark has now watched twelve times on the projector — Voss is taller than Mark remembers, wider across the shoulders, moves his head off the line exactly the way the footage showed him moving it. Lev, Voss's coach, sees Mark and says, loud enough for the room: 'You here to scout or here to concede, swimmer?'; Voss drops the bag, turns, and looks at Mark across thirty feet of gym, holds his gaze for four seconds, nods once — the nod fighters give each other when the contract is signed and the talking is over — and goes back to the bag. As Mark reverses out of the Northside driveway a kid on a pushbike cuts across without looking and Mark has to brake hard; the bike clips the side mirror and Mark's shoulder whiplashes against the headrest. He sits in the driver's seat with his hands at ten and two and his heart in his throat for a full minute before he drives.