Free Gold by Chris Cleave

explanation.
    “Knees completely locked,” he said. “Trouble exiting the watery grave.”
    “Should I call an ambulance?”
    He grimaced. “Call the vet. Have me put down.”
    The girls were shaken, he could see. He was a fixed point in their lives, and God knew they needed fixed points. He’d better get back to being one, but he was shivering so hard his legs were banging on the lino. He was flapping like a landed fish.
    “Let’s all just relax,” he said. His mouth was John Wayne and his body was Flipper the dolphin.
    Kate said, “Can I get you some blankets or something?”
    He waved the idea away. You got to a certain age and kindnesses became these invisible flies to be swatted.
    “What can we do?” Zoe said.
    “You, sweetheart, can sell your luxury apartment. It’s not good for you. Come and live in my spare room, I’ll cook you three meals a day and keep you out of mischief.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “That’s what you brought me here to say.”
    “Yeah,” he said. “You can go now.”
    Kate said, “Can we lift you?”
    “Catherine, honey, I’m sixty-five kilos. You could bench-press me.”
    She laughed. “Would you put some clothes on first?”
    “Maybe. If you train hard.”
    She made as if to punch him. “You’re an arsehole, you know that? I thought you’d had a heart attack or something. I was worried.”
    “You kids worry at the drop of a hat. When I was your age it hadn’t been invented.”
    Zoe squeezed his hand. “You’re frozen .” She looked at him, and he was amazed to realize that she actually cared about him. He felt the sting of tears and fought them back.
    He coughed and looked away. “Let’s get me on my bloody feet, shall we?”
    They got him upright, and he took most of the weight on his legs as they helped him into the living room and sat him in a chair by the simulated fire. Zoe brought the duvet from his bed, laid it over him, and turned the simulation on.
    “Oh, the fucking glamour,” he said.
    He started shivering harder then. The cold had hit him worse than he’d thought. Kate brought him a tea and he closed his hands around it, trying not to jitter the whole lot out of the mug.
    He had to get on top of the situation.
    “Okay, you two,” he said. “Different speech from the one I was planning. We have eighteen weeks till the first heats in London. Every minute counts, and look at me. I’m the oldest coach in the business, and this is the last Olympics for both of you. I have to advise you, as your coach, that you might want to think about working with a guy who has knees.”
    He watched their faces to see how they reacted. But they turned away from him. They looked at each other. Something passed between Zoe and Kate and they looked back to him, their minds clearly made up.
    “No,” Kate said. “You’re our coach. Who else would put up with us?”
    Zoe nodded. Her face was calm. “Don’t bring it up again, please.”
    Tom swallowed. “You’re both bloody idiots,” he said.
    He walked painfully to the kitchen and did something he hadn’t done since Mexico ’68. He allowed exactly two tears to roll down his cheeks. Then he coughed, wiped his face dry, and went back to the living room.
    “I’ll get both of you to the Olympics though,” he said. “And that’s a simple promise.”
    “Yeah yeah,” said Zoe. “But what happened to your teeth ?”
    “Ask me again and you’ll be picking up your own.”
    Kate laughed. “But seriously?”
    “Seriously,” he said. “A nice girl like you doesn’t want to know how I lost my teeth.”
    Back outside, Kate said, “I reckon he crashed.”
    Zoe shook her head. “I reckon he had them removed so he could give better blow jobs.”
    Kate winced. “You need help.”
    Zoe showed her the middle finger. “ You need an extra foot of pace in the finishing straight.”
    “I’m quicker than you.”
    “No you’re not.”
    “I’m way quicker,” said Kate. “When I let you win sometimes in