Wednesday Morning

WEDNESDAY MORNING An Observed Scene at the Dundee Flat of Lacey "Last Call" Drummond Federation Site Publishes: Third-Person Account, Submitted to Media Intake ———————————————— [The flat is on the second floor of a sandstone tenement off Strathmartine Road, in the Hilltown area of Dundee. The stairwell is painted a recent shade of cream that hasn't been there long. The door has a frosted glass panel and a black brass number — 2B — slightly tarnished. The flat itself is two rooms plus a kitchen and bathroom. It is small. It is hers. The federation's media intake received, on a Tuesday evening, a request from Ms. Drummond's representative that the federation send a documentary crew of two — camera, sound — to her flat the following morning at half-past nine, to record approximately one hour of observed footage in advance of her Behind Closed Doors 8 Women's Championship defence. Ms. Drummond's stated condition was that there would be no interview, that the crew would not direct her movements, and that the federation would publish only the third-person account written by the documentary lead, with no footage clips appended. The federation agreed. The following is that account.] ———————————————— We arrived at half-past nine. Ms. Drummond opened the door in track trousers and a long-sleeved grey thermal top. Her hair was damp — she had been up since six and had returned from her morning gym session forty minutes prior. She greeted us at the door, told us to come in, and asked if we wanted tea. We said yes. She made it. The kitchen is small, with original cabinetry from probably the 1960s, repainted at some point in pale blue. There is a single window above the sink that looks out onto the back garden of the tenement — a strip of grass, a clothes line, a brick wall. The kettle is electric, white, with a black handle. She filled it from the cold tap and switched it on without measuring. While the kettle boiled she stood at the window with her back to us. She did not perform the back-turned moment. She was looking at the clothes line. There was a single bedsheet on it, faded blue, hung the night before by her own account. The bedsheet was dry. She would bring it in after we left. The Women's Championship belt was on the kitchen table. We were aware of the belt the moment we entered the kitchen. It was not displayed — it was sitting on the table the way a wallet or a set of keys would sit on a table. Strap folded once, face plate up. The plate is brushed steel with the STRIFE logo at centre and a deep-red enamel inset reading WOMEN'S CHAMPION. The belt has been hers for one calendar year as of two weeks from this filing. The tea was strong. She drinks it with milk and one sugar. The mug she gave the camera operator had a Dundee FC crest on it. The mug she gave me had a different crest — Dundee United. I did not ask. The mug she made for herself was plain. She sat at the table opposite the belt and put both hands around her own mug for warmth. Outside, the rain that had been forecast for the morning had not yet started, but the light was that wet-grey that promises rain within the hour. ———————————————— She spoke twice during the visit. The first time was at approximately 10:05. She had been silent for fourteen minutes, drinking her tea, looking at the belt occasionally and at the window mostly. The radio was on — the small kitchen radio above the cabinets, tuned to a Dundee community station, low volume. The presenter was reading the regional weather. Ms. Drummond looked at me, while the presenter was reading the weather, and said: "I read the Russian's letter." She said it conversationally. Not as a comment for the cameras. As if she was saying she had read the morning paper. I asked her what she thought of it. She thought about it for a long time before answering. Approximately twenty-five seconds. Then she said: "It's right that her father will be proud either way. That's the part I keep coming back to." She did not elaborate. She returned to her tea. ———————————————— The second time was at approximately 10:38, after we had moved with her into the small front room. The front room has a single armchair, a small sofa, a fireplace with an electric heater inserted, and a television on a low cabinet. She turned the television on, navigated to a streaming service, and pulled up footage of Kira Volkov's matches from a federation in Belarus that has uploaded them in low quality with poor audio. She watched two full matches without speaking. Forty-one minutes of footage. She did not take notes. She did not pause. She watched. After the second match ended, she looked at the camera and said: "She's right-handed. She fakes her left. Same as me." That was the second thing she said. She turned the television off. She got up. She walked to the kitchen. She brought back the belt and laid it across the arm of the sofa next to her, the strap folded the way she had folded it on the table. She sat down with the belt at her elbow. She sat there for the remaining seven minutes of the visit without speaking. The radio in the kitchen was still on. The Dundee weather presenter had concluded. A music programme was playing now — something Scottish, something traditional, something with a fiddle, neither boring nor performative. ———————————————— At 10:55 she stood up, said she had a one o'clock appointment to make, and saw us out. In the stairwell, on the way down, the camera operator asked me whether the camera should have caught the moment with the belt on the sofa arm. I told him I would not be requesting the footage from the federation. The visit was not for footage. The visit was for the federation site, for the broadcast record, in the form Ms. Drummond agreed to. The federation now has it. What I observed, in summary, is the following: The defending Women's Champion of this federation prepared for her first title defence by drinking tea in her own kitchen, watching her challenger's available footage on a low-quality stream, and identifying — in eleven words — the single structural feature of her opponent's work that she will be looking for in the cage. She is not training harder than usual. She is paying closer attention. Her flat is small. Her kettle is electric. She has a bedsheet on the line. The belt is on her kitchen table because that is where she puts the belt when she is at home. She has held it for a year. She intends to hold it for longer. That is all. ———————————————— End of submission. Filed by Allison Crawford STRIFE Media Documentary Services on behalf of Lacey Drummond