Cecelia Ahern - One Hundred Names

Jedrek watched the journalist from his seat in the pedalo. She was one of only two reporters who had bothered to show up despite their sending a press release to almost every publication, news and radio board in Ireland. She was standing on the edge of Malahide Estuary surrounded by swans, which were begging her for bread. She was wafting them away and continuing to speak into her phone.

‘What do you think?’ Achar asked, watching his friend. ‘She seems to be interested in us.’

‘Yes,’ Jedrek replied, distracted. She was currently arguing with somebody on the phone – her editor it sounded like – and this was not a good sign to Jedrek, though he didn’t want to worry his friend Achar. She was insisting she would tell her editor something on Friday and not a minute before. Jedrek liked that she was fighting for them – it was about time things moved in his and Achar’s favour – but this lady wasn’t just fighting for them, that much was obvious.

Achar looked at Jedrek with concern. ‘She wants us to break the record by the end of this week. Are we ready to do this in three days?’

‘Achar, we are more than ready. How long have we been training for this, my friend?’

‘Nine months.’

‘And how many days a week have we put into this?’

‘Five days.’

‘Exactly. Did we let the wind or rain, the ice or hail set us off course since we began our training?’

‘No, Jedrek.’

‘Even illnesses. I recall you and I both with flu and coughs and near fever out here in the boat. We have dedicated every free moment we have to this training. Our families, our friends, the boys in the pub and club, the sailing club, they are all supporting us. We are ready for this, Achar.’

‘Yes, Jedrek.’ Achar seemed to raise a few feet in the air as his back straightened and he pulled his shoulders back.

Achar was easily boosted in this way and Jedrek was good at motivational speeches. He had exercised this skill in the long cold winter when they had questioned their motivations and when the pedalo they had trained in had been destroyed by a mob of teenagers. It had been Jedrek who made sure they raised the funding to fix it and continue on. It had set them back three weeks but they had done it.

Jedrek knew that, to many, their goal was laughable, ludicrous even, but there was more to it than there seemed on the surface. Jedrek hadn’t worked properly for three years. A qualified engineer, he had made a good honest living for his wife and three children. He had loved his job, valued the friendships there and felt comfortable in his role as provider for the family. It was what he felt he was supposed to do, but not only that, it was what he was good at. When that duty was taken away from him, he lost his spirit, lost a sense of who he was. He felt useless to his family, a disappointment, as week after week he failed to get another job. He could forget searching in his field of qualifications, for there was nothing, but that had taken him a while to realise. He had fallen into a depression; he recognised that now, though at the time any mention of it from anyone had sent him into a rage. He had been extremely difficult to live with, moody, irritable, always looking for a fight, always feeling everyone and the world was against him, sensitive to every comment and problem in the world. But he was searching all that time for his role, any authoritative role at all he could find in the family.

An acquaintance in their local had innocently suggested, with-out malice, that he go back home if there was nothing here for him. But what that man didn’t understand was that this was Jedrek’s home. He had lived in Ireland for fourteen years, his three children had been born in Ireland, held Irish passports and even had Irish accents. They were in education, had friends, their entire lives were in Dublin. To go back to Poland would not be returning home for any of them any more. Much of his family were dispersed across the world: his brother in Paris, his sister in New York. His parents had passed away so there was no focal point for them in Poland any longer, just his and Alenka’s memories, which they tried so desperately to share and recreate with the children on annual summer holidays back to Poland. But their eldest, at thirteen, was now tired of the forced pilgrimage to a place that held no memories, no connection and no excitement for him. Of course they had been unable to afford the flights home for the past three years and so family holidays and Jedrek’s quest for connection with his roots were lost.

Their first Christmas without work he took a job stocking shelves in a supermarket at night. He had been ashamed, had told no one, but had felt a slight relief when he found himself working beside a reputable architect who similarly had swallowed his pride and saw the act of providing food for the family as the main goal as opposed to the job itself. This brought a little light to Jedrek’s situation, but having to watch his wife go to work in another home in an affluent area, to clean and do other people’s laundry had filled him with a guilt so deep, their own marriage had suffered. His wife was ever-patient, though they had their bad days. It seemed when one was up, the other was down, a seesaw marriage, which survived only if at least one person’s feet were dangling in the air.

Since that job in the supermarket Jedrek had found jobs here and there – driving a van, furniture removal – but nothing solid, nothing that allowed him to use his skills and knowledge, or to breathe a single sigh of relief that his family was safe. But nine months ago, something had changed inside him. Nine months ago, when he met up with his friend Achar at Erin’s Isle Football Club, his spark, which had so obviously gone out, was ignited again.

Achar had been a colleague of his in SR Technics and when they met again the friendship between their two families brought happiness and joy back to their homes. Their children were similar ages and enjoyed playing together, their wives got along and it made days out more pleasurable, plus Jedrek had the added support and conversation of a man who was going through exactly the same thing as Jedrek. He’d been unable to talk about it before but here was someone who understood.

It was while on a family day out in Malahide Sailing Club, when Achar and Jedrek were racing their eldest sons in a pedal boat, that they attracted the attention of other families who had gathered that fine day. To everyone’s surprise the unfit fathers won. Then when challenged by the other fathers they beat them too. And anyone else who dared take them on. This simple fun day out made both men feel as though they had accomplished something, they were good at something, they had made their families proud. They had a skill and they wanted to be recognised for it. They both had time, they both had hunger, they both needed acknowledgement and a pat on the back from society, from people other than their wives. This record attempt was a great deal more than it appeared on the surface.

Kitty finally ended the phone call to her editor. She looked strained, and Jedrek knew what a person under immense pressure looked like.

‘Ready?’ he called.

‘I’m sorry for keeping you,’ she replied, holding the stopwatch in her hand. ‘Ready now.’

‘On three,’ Jedrek said, and he and Achar prepared. ‘One, two … three,’ he said, and their legs started pumping wildly.

When they reached the buoy one hundred metres away they turned to find her jumping up and down on the grass in celebration, two thumbs up high in the air.

Jedrek and Achar laughed and gave each other a high-five.

Kitty sat on the bus, her adrenalin rushing inside her so much that she wanted to jump up and dance in the aisles. Instead she took out her notepad and wrote: