Hold Me Close

smoke in the night

Lize rolls the joint with practised ease that makes me regret ever leaving Amsterdam.

It's late, but I have fully recovered from my Ibiza headache over these past two days at home. Well, sort of at home. I'm staying with my cousin and her husband for a bit before I visit Papa. He is far too invested in the build-up to Wimbledon to pay me any useful attention, and I don't think I fancy being left to my own devices in that house. It gets quite boring when the only things to do are stare at awards or flick through photo albums my mother thought were too heavy to take to Australia with her.

The night is temperate, at best – a climate I think I much prefer to the sweltering heat of Barcelona. I mean, even if the Spanish girls remain adamant about it not being that hot, I still sweat out half my bodyweight during training in April.

Lize's house is terraced and not too far away from the city-centre, with three bedrooms and a lovely paved garden with a writing studio (a glorified shed) at the bottom of it. We are sitting at the table, chairs pulled close together so that we can look at the dim light from the studio, both of us wondering when – if ever – her husband will join us.

Noa has been in bed long enough to actually be asleep, and Lize tells me that she finds entertainment in reading if she is still awake. It is a newly acquired skill for her, but one that her mother is glad she has. Noa is like me, in that sense. I preferred reading, too. I used to only sleep because I would be too tired for football the next day otherwise.

My cousin curses under her breath, and I almost forget that this woman is a teacher, surprised to see an aged face when I look up at her. I had expected to see a teenage version of herself. "Can you go get me a lighter? There should be one in the drawer."

"Which drawer?" I ask, feeling truly like I should have visited sooner.

"You know the one. In the kitchen." She gestures to something that I can't decode, and so I pretend I know what she means and take myself back inside.

I like Lize's house for a lot of reasons. It's warm when it needs to be, and it is just as comforting as my cousin's presence. I think of it like a promise, or a glimpse into my own future. A home full of love with a child who giggles more than she cries.

Their achievements, of which all three of them have many, are modestly filed in cupboards or kept in their own bedrooms, and there is no overbearing pressure to be the best the minute you step inside. It is different to the house I grew up in, definitely; a house whose walls heaved with success and roof threatened to fall down at the slightest thought of failure. A house that absorbed arguments like a sponge until someone squeezed and it all came pouring out. A house that saw what leaving does to a family, and witnessed the making of champions.

There are pictures hanging on the walls, proudly stating who they are and where they have come from. Family photographs in studios are few among the ones taken at football games and tennis matches – where my sweaty face is often kissing Noa's rosy cheeks, or Jaimie has stopped her tears to animatedly converse with all of them.

I find the lighter in a drawer in a kitchen as Lize promised, and flick it on and off a few times before resolving that I shouldn't leave my cousin with a joint and no way to smoke it any longer. It would be like dangling a lollipop in front of a child but telling them they are allergic to sugar.

"Good, you found it." Lize smiles, kicking my shin gently as I sit down. "What took you so long?"

"You're quick to frame pictures," I comment, meaning nothing by it really.

I had noticed scenes from the Champions League hanging up in place of another match they had attended. The photograph was taken by a professional, and was of Noa and I. And Alexia.