Free Twenty Miles by Cara Hedley Page A

ya, Terry?’ the man smiled through a moustache, eyes slits in his wide face.
    ‘Just fine, Mo. Hi, Eileen.’
    ‘Oh hi, Terry! Oh shoot, did you just get here? You missed Hal’s goal.’ Eileen, dwarfed next to the huge man, had the tendoned neck of a bodybuilder, a restless mouth.
    ‘A beauty, Terry. Top right-hand corner. Deked the goalie. Fucking goalie’s a mess, anyways, but Hal schooled her.’ Mo chuckled.
    ‘I’ll catch the next one,’ Terry said, and the couple turned back to the game, Eileen gripping Mo’s jacket sleeve as the team threw the puck around the net.
    ‘Oh. Oh! Oh!’ Eileen breathed.
    ‘Shoot! Shoot! Corinne, you bloody scag – girl’s got the puck glued to her stick,’ Mo spat as the whistle went. Sig chuckled. Terry looked over at her as she pulled a fleece blanket from a handbag patterned with parrots. She wrapped it slowly around her legs.
    ‘Hi there,’ she said, smiled.
    ‘Hello.’
    ‘Who are you cheering for?’
    Sig craned her neck, looked for Iz on the ice.
    ‘Number Five. Isabel, my kid – my grandkid,’ she said, pointed to the faceoff circle where Iz was locked, arm in arm, with a short girl on the other team, her jersey practically a dress.
    ‘Oh yes, of course. She’s a rookie.’
    ‘That’s her.’
    The women followed the play to the opposite end of the ice. ‘Poor thing,’ Terry said. ‘How is she holding up? They’re not being too mean, I hope. Those girls can be so silly.’
    ‘Iz’s tough. Played with boys all her life.’
    ‘Oh,’ Terry nodded knowingly. ‘What did you call her?’
    ‘Iz.’
    ‘Right, right.’ Terry nodded. ‘I’m Terry, by the way. Chris’s mom – Number Seventeen. Right there.’
    ‘Sig.’ She reached her hand over and Terry took it, her fingers collapsing in Sig’s grip. ‘Good to meet you.’ They were silent for a while, cheers climbing up to them from the rows ahead, contagious spurts of clapping. Clouds of heated air, coils glowing orange on the rafters above.
    ‘Funny, I was just thinking – you said you call your granddaughter Iz?’
    ‘Yes.’ Sig looked over, tilted her head.
    ‘My daughter goes by Hal – that’s what the girls call her. Our last name is Hallendorf – ’ Terry coughed suddenly, her head whipping forward, hand flying to her mouth. She cleared her throat and smiled, one front tooth tilted in toward the other. A cheer swelled above the benches as the team scored.
    Eileen, hands blurred in a feverish clap, turned. ‘That’s her third point, Ter,’ she said. ‘She’s on a roll.’
    ‘Oh, good. She’ll be in a good mood tonight.’ Terry clapped quietly, watched Hal skate past the bench. She drummed her team-mates’ extended gloves, stick dragging next to her on the ice.
    ‘That her?’ Sig asked, pointing to the pin on the lapel of Terry’s purple coat. Behind a circle of scratched plastic, a girl posed in a jersey, tangled hair, her teeth too big for her head. Terry looked down, rubbed at a smudge on the plastic.
    ‘That’s her. She’s about ten there, I guess.’ She leaned toward Sig. ‘She hates that I wear it. It’s so embarrassing. I like to razz her, Sig. Is that bad?’ She laughed. ‘Well, and look how darling she is too.’
    ‘Nothing wrong with a bit of razzing,’ Sig said. ‘So that’s Hal, eh? I think Iz’s mentioned her name before.’
    ‘Oh, lord. I take no responsibility.’
    ‘What’s her real name, her girl’s name?’
    ‘Her girl’s name,’ Terry laughed. ‘Oh God, she would kill me if I called her by her girl’s name.’ Terry looked, distracted, toward the bench. ‘Don’t you dare, Mum,’ she mimicked in a high-pitched voice. Skin pulled tight across her cheekbones, patches of blush like burns. ‘I’m bigger than you, you know, I can kick your ass.’ She chuckled and turned toward Sig, leaned in. ‘Her name’s Crystalline,’ she whispered. ‘This is a big secret, apparently.’
    ‘Crystalline?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Unusual,