If there was one thing that Veronica Marie Jefferson savoured, it was the once familiar smell of success. A girl born into privilege, she’d scored straight As in her school exams, gained the highest First that Oxford had ever known, and later won a Pulitzer prize for her cutting edge journalism.

Ten years ago she’d surpassed even herself by giving birth to Angela - or Angel as she was called at home - without the need for an epidural. She’d dismissed offers from nurses with a wave of a hand, sure that it was only women who’d never risen to a challenge in their lives that took such an easy option. No, no, she would do this properly, she’d thought as the nurses’ cooing blurred around her.

Twelve hours later, she held her baby in her arms. The pain had been excruciating, of course, but she’d done it. She had done it because she’d been determined.

Since then, on Richard’s insistence, she had become a full-time mother, and the job was the first that she couldn’t quite manage. Yes, she was wonderful at the cooking and the cleaning, the school runs and the sleepovers, but, and she’d never admit this to anyone, she just couldn’t find a bond with her daughter. In fact, if home was a professional environment and Angela was her employee, she’d be fired with immediate effect for her poor effort and complete lack of ambition.

Though she’d allowed a little leeway in the first few years and had resisted the urge to put too much pressure on her daughter to walk and talk (though she was still quicker than Liz-next-door’s simple Sally, thank you very much), it was now that Veronica was starting to panic. Though she had her mother’s good looks, Angela had neither her way with words or her father’s mathematical mind. In all honesty, she was turning out to be decidedly average at best and a heart-stopping letdown at worst.

Whenever Veronica brought this up with Angela in family meetings, however, Richard would cut her off immediately.

‘She’s ten, darling,’ he’d say, the number in verbal italics as if Veronica could have forgotten.

‘I was winning short story competitions at ten,’ she’d retort, aware of her daughter sitting beside her, all goggle eyes and goofy teeth. ‘I don’t think it’s unfair of me to have expectations of her, Richard. There must be something she’s good at, for God’s sake, but I feel like we’ve tried everything.’ She looked at Angela and sighed loudly. ‘What do you want to do with your life? What are you passionate about?’’

Her daughter shrugged, a habit that Veronica loathed. ‘Don’t know,’ she said, more to the table than her mother.

‘How can you not know? I knew I wanted to be a journalist when I was seven. You’re ten! Didn’t I ever tell you about the review I wrote on The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe? My teacher thought I’d copied it from the Times Literary Supplement. How can you not know what you want to do? Time’s getting on, Angela. Isn’t there anyone you admire? Anyone you want to be like?’

She waited for a moment and prepared herself to be modest after hearing that all little girls wanted to be like their mothers. Me, Angel? She’d say, patting her daughter’s head as if she were an obedient dog. Oh, you’re just so sweet. Richard, did you hear that? Angel said she wants to be just like me, I can’t believe she-,

‘I like Ariel,’ Angela said suddenly, nervously picking the skin around her thumbs. Another horrible habit. ‘I’d like to be like her.’

Veronica drummed her fingers on her chin. Ariel, she thought. An unusual name. An actress? That could work, given she could pull enough strings to get Angela into the Sylvia Young school. A musician? Perhaps, though Veronica still hadn’t recovered from Angela’s terrifying recorder solo in the school concert. She still couldn’t believe that the audience had applauded!

‘Who’s Ariel, sweetheart?’ she asked at last.

‘The little mermaid.’

It was moments such as this that Veronica wondered if she’d brought the wrong child home from the hospital. And if it really was too late to take her back.


A few days later though, ever the lateral thinker, she decided to make her daughter a swimmer. A swimmer! What fun! At last, she’d told Richard, something she’s interested in. Something she wants to do.

He’d not shared her enthusiasm, though, and said simply, ‘Don’t be too pushy with her, Ronnie.’

‘As if I would be,’ she replied, already imagining another trophy cabinet beside her own.

Angela’s lessons were on Saturdays at 8am, and every week Veronica would go to watch her daughter from the sidelines, her nerves in shreds as if watching soldiers cross a minefield. Should she be splashing that much? she’d wonder. Shouldn’t she be quicker? Is that grunting sound normal?

Taking Andre the teacher aside one morning while Angela changed, Veronica asked, ‘How’s she getting on?’

He nodded quickly. ‘Fine. She’s getting on fine.’

‘Fine? That’s all? Do you think she’s good enough to go professional?’

‘She’s only been coming here for three weeks.’

Veronica met his eye. ‘That’s not what I asked,’ she said.

He sighed. ‘Most professionals start swimming a lot younger than Angela, but she could make it if she sets her mind to it.’ He handed her a leaflet from his back pocket. ‘Look, there’s a gala in two weeks. Why don’t you see if she wants to enter? It’ll be a good chance for her to swim competitively. And you can see how she’s doing compared to her peers.’

‘Wonderful,’ Veronica said, slipping the leaflet into her Prada handbag. ‘That’s just perfect.’

A moment later, Angela appeared from the changing rooms and Veronica forced herself not to see her daughter’s pasty limbs sticking out of a stretched Speedo suit, but instead a little mermaid. A little mermaid whose success she could make her own.


In the two weeks leading up to the gala, Veronica felt as if she were competing in the event herself. Every day she was up at 5am to take Angela to the swimming pool for two hours before school, then she’d be the first at the gates of St Joseph’s Primary at three-thirty, bundling her daughter into the back of the car for another an hour of swimming in the evening. Everything in the house began to smell of chlorine, and the tips of Angela’s fingers were permanent prunes. But what did that matter in the long run?

‘Do you think she’s doing too much?’ Richard asked one evening over dinner during which a silent Angela turned from shades of white to shades of green.

‘She wanted to be a mermaid, Richard,’ Veronica snapped. ‘A mermaid has to swim!’

‘I feel sick,’ muttered Angela.

‘No you don’t, darling,’ Veronica said, setting down her knife and fork and putting on her ‘fighting talk’ voice. ‘You feel fear. And what did I tell you about fear? Hmm? Come on, what do we say to fear?’

Angela made a sound that could have been her swallowing her own tongue, then turned the greenest green that Veronica had ever witnessed on human flesh.

‘Come on sweetheart,’ she encouraged through gritted teeth. ‘What do we tell fear?’

Her daughter looked up, burbled, ‘There’s no fear here,’ then vomited into her plate.

Veronica smiled with pride, then looked to Richard who was staring at her with his jaw dropped.

She rolled her eyes. ‘Nerves. What can you do?’


The drive to the swimming pool on the morning of the gala was beyond tense. Angela was in the back, already in her swimming costume at Veronica’s insistence, and Richard was in the passenger seat with the, ‘Go Angel, Go!!!’ banner folded in his lap.

‘She knows it’s not all about winning, doesn’t she?’ he asked in a whisper.

‘Don’t start that talk with me, Richard,’ Veronica said in a forced cheery tone. ‘You know what I think about that kind of thing. If she doesn’t want to win, she shouldn’t be taking part.’ She looked in the rear view mirror and caught her daughter’s eye. ‘Right, sweetheart?’

‘Right,’ Angela nodded.

Though she wasn’t one to judge, Veronica was certain that the majority of the other parents at the gala were the sorts whose children shouldn’t be in public swimming baths. The sorts who wouldn’t have paid the money she had to get Angel ready for this competition. No doubt they’d just hoped the school swimming lessons once a week would be enough to see them through to victory. The fools. Oh, of course she should pity them, but they were probably happy in their own little ways. People were like that, weren’t they? Even she’d seen Wife Swap enough times to understand that.

When Angela appeared with the rest of the swimmers at the deep end of the swimming pool, Veronica stood up holding the banner above her head.

‘Go on, Angel,’ she screamed, hearing her echo bounce back. ‘There’s no fear here!’

Rows of common faces turned to look at her, but she paid them no heed. Poor things, she thought, not giving their children any support. Still, someone had to keep the state schools running.

Feeling Richard’s hand on her knee, she turned to look at her husband.

‘You’ll be okay whatever the outcome, won’t you?’ he said hesitantly.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I mean, you won’t make her feel terrible if she loses.’

‘How can I make her feel terrible?’

‘By making her feel like a failure.’

‘A failure is someone who loses,’ she said. ‘And she’s not going to lose, is she? We’ve paid all that money. She’s had the best training possible.’

‘But what if-,’

‘No, Richard. No what ifs. She’s not going to lose. Is that understood?’

Moments later, a whistle was blown and the swimmers dived into the pool in a blur of action. All except for Angela who stood at the edge and, with her legs crossed, looked as if she was going to wet herself.

Though she opened her mouth to shout for her daughter to move, Veronica was silent and it took until the swimmers had swum one length for her to realise that Angela wasn’t going to be joining them.

Before she knew what she was doing, she had grabbed Angela’s swimming bag and hoisted herself over the wall separating the spectators from the swimmers, her heart thumping hard against her chest.

Though someone tried to stop her, she barged past and marched over to her daughter who was shivering now, tears wobbling in the corners of her eyes.

What the hell are you doing? She wanted to scream. I’ve paid good money for you to win this gala, and you’re making a complete show of me.

But while that may have been what she thought, it wasn’t what she felt. And as she wrapped a towel around her trembling body and held her close she wondered if perhaps they had come together after all.