A Bicycle Built for Sue

by Daisy Tate

  The lead weight in her gut grew heavier.

  She hadn’t given him the idea, had she?

  Her brain fuzzed with white noise then cleared. No. Absolutely not. They’d been happy. They’d talked and laughed. Confided in one another. At least she’d thought they had. He was the only person in the world who knew her secret wish to be a prima ballerina like Darcy Bussell. A mother dead set against airs and graces and ‘a stumpy torso’ had put short shrift to that dream, but even so, one Christmas he’d bought her a tutu. She’d worn it round the house when she did the hoovering until one day it had got caught on the kitchen door handle and tore. She’d told him about it, gutted that his gift had been ruined. He’d laughed, said never mind, and suggested as he poured her a glass of zinfandel that maybe it was time for a new dream.

  The only thing she hadn’t told him was just how much she disliked Terry’s chocolate oranges. He wrapped one up for her each and every Christmas. He always looked so pleased with himself when she opened it she hadn’t dared put him straight. She wondered if he had felt like that about his entire life. Regularly swallowing down the things he really wanted to say, desperate to keep the smile on her face. Unable to choke through one more toad-in-the-hole to the point *snap* he’d simply had enough. A rush of nausea washed through her. She wouldn’t have minded. Would’ve changed meal plans in an instant. Didn’t he know she was easy to please? That his smile was enough to keep her smiling? That anything he had to say she would’ve happily listened to?

  She stared at the door in front of her. Gary’s office. Still unopened since she’d violently pulled it shut the other week, the handle level with his ankles …

  She reached out to the handle, hearing the minor chords from a film soundtrack as she did. Ridiculous, of course. Her life didn’t come equipped with a soundtrack. And it wasn’t like she was going to find him in there. Or a secret family. Or, heaven forbid, a body. When the police and the coroner and heaven knew who else had been round that Thursday (she must send Flo a thank you note for calling 999 on her behalf), they’d checked everywhere, as if she might have all sorts of men hanging from the ceiling. Nope. Just the one. The last person on earth she would’ve ever believed would take such drastic measures. And just like that, her hand dropped away from the handle.

  Maybe tomorrow she’d see to any tidying it might need. Yes. That would be fine. Tomorrow she’d go into his office and start tidying up. Tomorrow would be a brand new day.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Dog walking services. Not one but two health and safety workshops. A reminder to wash your hands after you went to the loo. (Gross. Wasn’t everyone old enough to have worked that one out on their own?)

  Everything under the sun was on the work notice board apart from a blinking room in a blinking house for blinking let.

  Raven’s skin went prickly. Was she really making the right decision? Moving out to give herself some headspace? It seemed like the only option. Live with Uncle Ravi or endure a nonstop commentary on her poor life choices? Hmm … yeah, neither of those were sounding divine. Yes, moving out would eat into her savings, but it would also afford her time away from the Disappointment Faces her parents wore so well. She’d mulled and mulled and mulled over it and somehow it was already Friday morning, the clock ticking with the urgency of a tell-tale heart. As if her mortality was on the line. (It wasn’t as if she was going to go My Little Pony about things at this point in her life). It was strange feeling guilty for something she had yet to do.

  Sure, it wasn’t murder she was plotting. She was, to all outside appearances, a truculent teen throwing up two fingers to a life of assured financial security and professional respect. As such … it was a psychological form of murder. Every bit as stabby and complicated and, yes, darkly romantic (if everything ultimately turned out well). Could complete and utter destruction of her parents’ dreams for her have a happy ending?

  Would she like to become a Law Lord?

  Sure.

  What self-respecting baby Goth wouldn’t, with a job title like that?

  The business cards alone would be worth the slog, but … would she rather write a graphic novel about an Above-the-Law Lord who defied parental expectations so that she could make good on an innate ability to protect life’s more vulnerable earthlings?

  Maybe. Once she learned how to draw. Or figured out how to get the computer to do it for her.

  She tried not to think too much about the fact that writing a graphic novel about a Law Lord would entail actually learning about the law, but, hey. That’s what Google was for, right?

  She’d left the house as her mother had begun pointedly pre-packing the car for the trip to Birmingham on Sunday afternoon. A blanket in case of a breakdown. A box of energy bars in case a blizzard blew in (it was snowing in Scotland so, of course, her mother wanted to be prepared for all eventualities). An up-to-date first aid kit. Natch. Her parents ran a chemists so they were never knowingly under-prepared in the medicine cabinet department. Lucky, she thought, that she didn’t have an addictive personality. It’d’ve been far too easy to become a secret sniffer or drinker or, like Aisha … a cutter. Raven had bandages and antiseptics on tap. The one thing she wasn’t so keen on was pain, so. Defying her parents with a gap year had been her crack … right up until they’d called her bluff. And now it was crossroads o’clock.

  She looked to her right and noticed Sue staring at her so immediately looked away. Sue had been up here at the notice board at least once a day this week as well. Perhaps she needed to move house, too. Raven couldn’t blame her. She didn’t know if she could live somewhere where someone had – you know – done something so definitive.

  Then again …

  She looked back. Sue was staring at the board now, but staring in that blurry kind of way that suggested she was somewhere far far away. She knew the look well.

  Most college students had that slightly hazy look softening their features at least once a day. Drifting off with no actual thoughts in their head as the hormones took over. Raven caught herself doing it all of the time in the bathroom. Staring at herself, wondering who the hell the person staring back at her was, only to shake her head a few moments later and realise she’d lost track of time just staring into the abyss of her future.

  Today, in the Costa where she’d taken to putting on her make-up before she hit the bus stop, she’d actually almost kind of liked who she’d seen. She’d given her ebony hair a strident royal blue streak. Her eyeshadow feature colour was a glossy burnt tangerine with hint of glittery gold (it made her freaky eyes look mad weird and she would never admit it but she liked the double takes she got when people noticed them).

  Dylan had been at the bus stop again. Not much of a surprise seeing as it was his regular stop and not hers, but with her mother being so micromanagey, leaving the house without an ounce of make-up, dipping into Costas and then going to the bus stop was the easiest way to keep the peace and feel a modicum of power over her own life until she made up her mind about a life of indentured servitude with Uncle Ravi or one of penury with a splash of mental freedom. Dylan had asked if he could take a picture of her eyes for his Insta site but, mercifully, the bus had come and she didn’t have to figure out how she was going to lie about giving up social media for the year and, as such, not entirely confident to say yes.

  A bustle of movement beside her made her turn. It was Sue pinning a notice to the board. She scanned it before the blu-tack backing had a chance to take hold.

  Room to Let, it read. She took in the amount, the location, her savings and how much it would dent her monthly income with lightning speed. Before Sue’s hand had returned to her side, Raven had swiped the card off of the board and said, ‘I’ll take it.’ And then she remembered what had happened there.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kath brushed her hand along her shoulder as she stared at her reflection in the well-lit dressing room mirror. Trying to recapture the feeling she’d had the other day in the gym was proving i
mpossible.

  She did it again, this time giving each of her shoulders a soft caress.

  No.

  None of that fizzy sparkle.

  There was, however, a tad less self-loathing. She was pretty enough for fifty-three. Even prettier for fifty-eight, her real age. The one solitary secret Kevin had managed to keep about her. It felt weaponized. The secret.

  Dave, the floor director, popped his head into her room. ‘Alright, Kath?’

  She pinned on a smile. ‘Absolutely. Are we still keeping in the piece about Hadrian’s Wall?’

  If she called it the mental health piece, it always got axed.

  ‘If there’s time. Tight schedule today.’

  She waited for him to go until she let her smile drop. Dave and Kev were drinking buddies. Kev had no doubt ‘had a word’ yesterday afternoon whilst Kath was with her trainer.

  Her features softened. Wouldn’t Kevin be absolutely furious if he knew how much she loved her training sessions? All of that passive aggression in the wake of putting her knee out on that ridiculous indoor snowboarding segment gone to waste. So she’d gained a kilo or two. At the time she’d been humiliated. Now, she was grateful that her comfort eating had brought her some actual comfort in the form of Fola Onaberi. Trainer to Birmingham’s glitterati. If only Kev knew just how rehabilitative her time with Fola was.

  Kev, of course, wouldn’t consider Fola a threat for a second. To put it simply, he wasn’t famous. He didn’t have a book, or an Insta page or a Twitter following. All of which made him staff and Kev wasn’t one to pay attention to staff unless they could do things for him or he could brag about them (like the one solitary time he did a ten minute workout with Gwyneth Paltrow’s trainer whilst she was on a book tour).

  A blessed relief, considering Fola Onobari was the kindest, most generous, loyal and – yes, she’d admit it – utterly breathtaking man she’d ever had the privilege to meet.

  Apart from his solid career as a personal trainer and physio, he was also, quite simply, a good man. When he wasn’t keeping his client’s tummy fat below the government-suggested guidelines, he coached children’s sports in poor inner-city neighbourhoods. Sport had given him a boost up and out of his own impoverished life back in Nigeria. He’d run the 300 metre race for Nigeria in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing (in his first pair of brand new shoes, no less) and had run .002 seconds short of a bronze medal. Instead of taking up a series of lucrative sponsorship deals with questionable companies, he’d retired from competitive sport and moved to the UK so he could earn some honest money to send to his family.

  They’d never been anything other than completely professional with one another, but he’d elicited something in her no one had in a long, long time. An ache to be her very best self. Her kindest self. Her honest self.

  As such, Kath had a decision to make. Leave her husband – the fame, the money, and all of the other trappings that went with being the other ‘alf of Kath and Kev – or spend a lifetime being consumed alive by her cowardly option to stay. No, those weren’t her only options. She could always have a stab at going solo, but morning television really did like a Mr and Mrs pairing. Maybe she could spin a twist on the magic combo of Holly and Phillip? Cast a younger man to be her sidekick rather than the other way around (the more likely route the network would take if she announced a separation). She did know one thing for certain. Things couldn’t stay as they were. Mid-life crisis?

  Maybe.

  Another glaring reminder that life was short and being miserable was of no use to anyone except, perhaps, Kev?

  Her brother’s death had hit her hard. Kev had been all tea and sympathy at first, but after a week or so, he’d counselled ‘snapping out of it’. A long face wouldn’t change things unless she was going to lose some ‘proper weight’ and ‘look haunted’ which she apparently wasn’t doing up to spec, so the best she could do was move on.

  How could she? Her little brother was dead. While there was nothing she could do change that, she could change herself.

  She’d never cheat.

  No matter how many women’s tits or bums he’d ogle, she knew Kev wouldn’t either. He couldn’t bear the headlines more than anything else.

  KATH FULLER’S OTHER ‘ALF TAKES MORE THAN HIS FAIR SHARE (The Mirror)

  KEV’S FULLA SOMETHING (OR SOMEONE) ELSE (The Sun)

  Or, for Kev, the worst one of all:

  RATINGS PLUNGE AS KATH AND KEV CALL IT A BRAND NEW ENDING (The Mail)

  It meant the world to Kev. This show. She loved it, too, of course. It had been hard won. Years of blisters, performing in nearly every talent show they could enter and, eventually winning the public’s hearts in a Royal Variety Show after placing second in the World Disco Dancin’ Championships that had catapulted a pair of virtually unknown Butlin’s dancers from holiday camps to children’s TV, on to prime time and now a level of fame and, yes, fortune, she’d never dreamt of. (The show producers had quickly distanced them from their ‘kitschy dance past’ and whitewashed Kev’s fleeting run as a ventriloquist in Blackpool, but for all intents and purposes, it was their kitschy/disco ball, Blackpool/Butlins past that had got them to where they were.) But her passion for the light, bright, morning fluff they created for ‘ordinary Britons’ heading out to work or getting their children ready for a Brand New Day of school had definitely waned.

  A knock sounded on the door. ‘That’s your five minutes, Kath.’

  ‘Stacy,’ Kath waved their long-term producer in. ‘What do you think about leading with the Hadrian’s Wall piece?’

  Stacy’s eyes shot to the door. Kev sometimes came in at the five minute call to run Kath through the segments he really wanted to push. The exec producers were all firmly in Kev’s court, meaning Stacy had to bend like the willow when Kath requested specific segments.

  Stacy’s mouth rectangled into an apology smile. ‘Kev thought it’d be fun to do another bit on your trip to South Africa.’

  Of course he would. She wondered if Stacy knew the plan. The real plan.

  They’d go to South Africa, try to get Ben Fogle or someone like that along to big up a conservation project. Maybe fly in Bill Nighy to talk to the meerkats. She’d hang around for that. Something about the meerkat’s quizzical expression reminded her of her brother. Hopeful. Ever hopeful. Until, of course, he wasn’t.

  ‘What is he suggesting?’ Kath asked.

  ‘Something about a bungee jump?’

  Ah. So he was trying to build it in. The ‘back story.’

  ‘I didn’t know you always wanted to go on a bungee jump.’ Stacy looked genuinely surprised.

  Kath didn’t. Never had. Her idea of a complete and utter nightmare actually. ‘Oh, you know. One’s got to grab life by the horns at some point or another!’ Or the back of the ears as Kev had suggested when he’d first showed her the Uplifting Safari Tours online brochure. Nip Tuck Tourism with a plausible cover story.

  Kev had come up with ‘the bungee jump incident’ when she refused point blank to go under the knife in front of their entire viewing public. It’d be a fascinating experience for our audience, he’d said.

  Oh, it would that alright. It would also betray everything she believed in. That beauty came from within. That public acceptance of plastic surgery exacerbated the already perilous relationship young women had with their bodies, their faces. That acceptance of the person you truly were was critical if a full, rich, happy life was the goal. It was why her brother had only found comfort at the bottom of a vodka bottle. He couldn’t believe anyone would or could love him after all of the things he’d done as a soldier. He was loved. So very much. The only one who couldn’t believe it was him.

  Whereas, Kevin’s main worry in life seemed to be that his wife was developing jowls.

  Lying about her age was fine. And the fact they had someone make them calorie-controlled meals instead of cooking from the stacks of freebie ‘fitness first’ cookbooks lining their gargantuan kitchen shelves. Even actively ign
oring the fact they had grown children was okay. For some reason jowls were where he drew the line. Lip wrinkles were one thing (make up was magical), but the first hint of a softening jawline? Call in the devil to whip out his paintbrush and palette! No one wants to watch a face made for radio, Kath, her husband had said, with the sobriety of a doctor warning an alcoholic – like her brother – about cirrhosis of the liver. Least of all on a woman.

  ‘Stacy,’ Kath gestured for the producer – a permanently exhausted single mother of twins – to close the door behind her. ‘Can I let you in on a little something?’

  Twenty minutes later Kath sat back in the sofa as they hit their first commercial break.

  ‘Happy?’ Kev asked, that sparkling white smile of his stuck in a Joker-like leer.

  ‘Very,’ Kath replied, terrified at what she’d just done, but strangely calm as well. ‘I think the audience are really going to love seeing His and Hers Hols. Especially,’ she added, ‘The day when you go bungee jumping. It’s bound to be a ratings bonanza.’

  She looked up into the control booth and saw Stacy grinning away, giving her a big thumbs up.

  Girl power, when properly harnessed, was something to be reckoned with.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Flo applauded. ‘Good on you, girl. About time you showed him what you’re made of.’ She whirled round triumphantly to Stu. ‘What do you think of that, then, love?’