by Daisy Tate
‘No,’ Sue cut in before he could ask her about her story again. ‘I’m interested. Please. Go on.’
Marijuana, booze and … Raven was no expert … but she was pretty sure this latest group of young men were smoking crack. Not that they were openly smoking it, but they definitely saw her coming and were definitely behaving strangely. Excellent life choices, peeps! Not.
It turned out that when they weren’t on country lanes the cycle route took them ‘off road’ onto some pretty amazing cycle/pedestrian routes, many of which were regularly used by dog walkers, joggers, walkers, all sorts. There were also a healthy array of benches with plaques on. To Doris. To Harold. For The Beckermet Birders Who First Spotted the Long-Billed Dowitcher. She couldn’t blame the folk who stopped and took a pew for a while. Some of the nature-y bits were lush. Happening upon the ultra-urban looking lads in a beautiful woodland was a bit weirdy, though. On a par with riding her bicycle along the coast, only to round a corner and see a vast nuclear power plant looming above reams of chain-linked fencing, coiled razor wire and machine-gun-wielding police officers. It was like happening upon a surreal, post-apocalypse film set. There were big signs everywhere warning about the danger of entering, no drones (as if she carried one of those around in her back pocket) and, amusingly, a sign recommending cycle path users give way to passing trains. Errr. Okay?
She looked away as she passed the bench full of men – they looked older up close – sitting, legs spread wide apart, staring out at the valley below as they were bathed in a burst of unexpected late-morning sunshine.
How depressing. She hoped brain annihilation wasn’t what she was doing by turning down her places at uni, moving out of her parents’, and ignoring their increasingly irate once-a-week messages about how disappointing a daughter she was (this week’s was a corker) all to pursue hopes and dreams even she couldn’t pin down.
All she knew was what she didn’t want. Which didn’t really seem a brilliant starting point. Then again, deduction narrowed the field of choices, so …
‘Hello, there!’
Much to her shock, Raven turned to see Kath Fuller ride up alongside her without, miracle of miracles, her ever-present camera crew in tow.
‘How’re you getting on?’ Kath asked as she easily met Raven’s pace.
‘Good. Yeah. Fine. Just …’ she shifted a bit on her cycling seat. ‘You know. Finding my groove.’
‘I saw your Insta post during tea break.’
‘Oh?’
Ruh-roh.
‘I love your honesty,’ Kath said.
Raven winced. She’d not really minced words when it came to her thoughts on celebrities participating in charity events to up their popularity. She hadn’t cited Kath by name, but it was pretty clear the post had been inspired by her. Raven had made the post after she saw Kath stopping to sign some autographs for a group of women outside a coffee shop just a few miles into the ride, camera crew in tow. It had seemed so self-serving, particularly as she’d been banging on about doing the ride for her brother. It hadn’t felt an entirely fair assessment seeing as she had yet to divulge why she was on the ride, but …
‘It made me think,’ Kath said, as if putting oneself under the spotlight was a good thing.
‘Oh?’
‘Absolutely. The last thing my brother would’ve cared about was a bunch of people in lycra riding across the country to raise money for a charity.’
‘What would he have wanted?’
‘To be listened to.’
Raven nodded. She got that. If her parents had ever, like, for one minute even, sat down and asked, what do you think/want/believe, she might not be here right now.
‘Did you see those lads back there?’ Kath asked.
‘Yeah.’ She did her utmost best to keep a neutral face because she wasn’t quite sure where Kath was going with this.
‘They remind me of my brother.’
‘Oh?’ Gosh.
‘Ex-military, if their tats are anything to go by.’
Raven made a yeah, yeah, obvs nod. What the hell? Kath Fuller, down with the ins and outs of military tats. Who knew?
All of a sudden Kath applied her brakes and threw her thumb over her shoulder. ‘Want to go back and have a chat with them with me?’
‘Ummm …’ Not really, they were drug addicts?
‘I promise you it’ll be interesting.’
Freaky was what it would be. Like Dorothy encountering a talking scarecrow or … She shrugged. Who was she kidding? It wouldn’t be any freakier than finding out Dylan was normal beneath all of his street talk and selfie obsessions or moving in with a woman whose husband decided to end it all out of nowhere.
Kath smiled as she rolled to a halt, unclipped her shoes from her pedals and studied Raven in a way that didn’t make her squirmy. Which was little short of a miracle, as being under anyone’s scrutiny tended to make her squirmy. ‘C’mon. It’ll be interesting. Particularly for someone with flame eyes who likes to champion the underdog.’
Ack. Now she did feel squirmy.
In her head she definitely did. In reality? Not such a great track record on that front. Although … she had sort of helped Dylan get a job. Well, Dean’s brother Sue had really, but she’d been the go between. By all accounts he was loving it. Said Dean let him wear anything he wanted to work so long as the computers stayed pukka.
Raven glanced back at the lads then thought, fuck it. I’m with Kath of Kath and Kev. They’ll stick two fingers up at us, tell us where to stuff it, then we can carry on riding.
Twenty minutes later, Raven was utterly gobsmacked. The men she’d thought were smoking crack told Kath they were actually ex-soldiers doing art therapy. Kath had rightly recognised one of their tattoos and they were astonishingly easy to mine for information. Maybe it was Kath being famous that made them so chatty. Maybe it was meeting a Big Boned Goth Girl with flames shooting out of her eyes and wearing lycra. Maybe they were just lonely. None of them could find a job. All of them were desperate to be listened to. To be heard. Desperate to figure out how to live in their small towns with their small lives making absolutely no difference whatsoever when they’d been programmed to put their own lives at stake for a bigger cause: a country that had, effectively, turned its back on them when they’d come home. They’d eventually pulled the notebooks Raven had mistaken for gear out of their jackets and showed them the mask templates they’d each been given to draw their emotions on.
Fucking harrowing came to mind when the first one reluctantly pulled out his drawing. Lonely for another. Savaged for the third. They gave her a template when she mentioned she liked to draw. She put it in her pocket wondering what her ‘inside face’ would look like if she let it out.
‘Is it helping you, chaps?’ Kath asked. ‘The therapy?’
‘Better than sitting round doing nothing,’ said one.
‘Yeah, definitely,’ said the one who’d drawn a face that made The Scream look like a cheery yodeller. ‘Takes what’s in here,’ he tapped his head, ‘and gets it out. At least for a while.’
‘Thanks for stopping,’ said the third. ‘It … it makes a difference. To be listened to. Properly.’
Kaths eyes got all leaky with tears as she hugged them all and promised to send a shout out on the next morning’s show for ‘taking the ride to another level’.
As Raven and Kath pedalled away, Raven began to craft a retraction for her previous Insta post. Kath wasn’t a do-gooder giving face time to a charity she kept at arm’s length. She was a woman actively making amends.
Chapter Forty-Six
10 SECOND INTERSTITIAL: BRAND NEW DAY
VISUAL: Sue Young
GRAPHIC: Sue Young, Fundraiser for LifeTime
AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:
SUE YOUNG: I can’t believe it.
Off-camera question: What can’t you believe?
SUE YOUNG: That I just rode my bike fifty-three miles.
Off-camera question: Have you not done that before?
/> SUE YOUNG: No. Nothing like it. It’s such a sense of … of … achievement, you know?
Doing something you thought you never could.
GRAPHIC: BRAND NEW DAY: Bringing out the Best in Britons Everywhere
Flo had never been more grateful to see a town in her entire life. Even a town that smelt, most peculiarly, of tinned spaghetti. Just a few hundred metres from the end of her ride, the smooth pavement turned to cobbles and her gratitude evaporated. Her bum had had more than enough reminders that she was mortal, thank you very much. She trained her eyes on the end of the street where she could see dozens of riders chatting, drinking energy drinks and generally looking as if they’d had an absolutely brilliant time versus having endured a grim reminder that she was mortal. Finally, mercifully, she arrived and dismounted her bicycle with little to no panache.
‘Alright, love? Good day out there?’
Flo forced on a yes, of course smile as Becky, one of the group support team, took her bicycle out of her hands and wheeled it into a long row of cycles. ‘Yes, fine, I—’
‘You wouldn’t catch me out there on one of these things,’ Becky interjected chirpily.
‘Oh?’
‘Wouldn’t last five minutes.’ She ran a hand the length of her body. ‘This was not built for endurance.’
‘No? I’m sure you could—’
Becky waved Flo’s feeble protest away. ‘Honestly. It’s why I do the van. Makes me feel athletic just keeping up with you lot.’
‘But … you drive at the back.’ Which did beg the question, how had she got there before Flo?
A vague memory of a van passing her as she pulled up next to the seaside hotel came back to her. Had it really taken her five minutes just to get off her bicycle?
Jennifer’s warnings about pushing things beyond their limits sprang to mind, as did an image of Captain George lying in his bed, his shaved leg and hip looking painfully thin without his coat of shaggy fur.
She willed Becky to move on, spread her cheer elsewhere. If she were to take one step her weaknesses would be as exposed as George’s were.
‘Fola’s doing stretches in the hotel ballroom if you need a bit of a cool down.’
‘Oh, I’m fine.’ Flo lifted one foot and pretended to do a little stretch. A move that unleashed an unexpected rush of emotion. She’d felt incredibly alone today in a way she hadn’t felt since before she’d been married. Alone and guilty and desperate for news on Captain George which she daren’t ask for because hearing Stu’s calm, steady voice would only add to the guilt and longing for his familiarity she was already feeling.
‘Are you doing the ride on your own?’
‘No, I …’ Flo scanned the crowd for Sue and Raven, and came up empty. Little wonder as Raven had, with her encouragement, ridden ahead much earlier in the day and set off from the tea breaks near enough when Flo arrived.
Sue had ridden ahead as well, occasionally falling back to check that Flo was alright, but, again with Flo’s encouragement, had pushed ahead, clearly enjoying listening to everyone and the stories that had brought them on the ride.
‘Well, let’s get you inside for a nice hot cuppa before teatime, shall we?’ Becky pointed towards the hotel entrance where, to Flo’s delight, Raven and Sue were scanning the crowd. She waved, they waved, Flo excused herself from Becky and all of her positivity, gratefully accepting the ginger biscuit and cup of tea Sue handed her as they entered the hotel where they would regroup, sleep, then find a way to do it all over again.
Kath closed her eyes, lifted up her chin and let the sea air buffet her. It had been a long, emotional day but strangely curative. As if taking these baby steps towards marrying her public persona with her private self were helping her tap back into the person she never realised she wanted to be: a listener. Of course she listened to people on the telly. But she also had a producer’s voice in her ear, Kev’s expressions to read, her own reeling thoughts trying to keep herself a few seconds ahead of what was actually happening right this very moment, so … this was new. Listening and receiving without a plan.
‘Katherine?’
She blinked her eyes open and jumped straight into TV hostess mode. ‘Fola! Hello. How did you get on today?’
‘Good,’ he nodded earnestly. ‘Really good. Lots of thinking time.’
‘Oh? Did you not ride along with anyone today? It seemed a pretty chatty group,’ she added to cover the fact she’d been tactically ignoring him hoping that, because he was so gregarious and beautiful, he would have met people on his own.
‘Yes, absolutely. I chatted with many people, but I also had a lot of time to think.’
Six hours and thirty-seven minutes, if anyone was asking.
‘It is amazing meeting all of these people who—’ he looked out to the sea, searching for the right words. ‘People who have known such loss. Who are so honest about how they feel. How they got to where they are in life. I find it very humbling.’
‘You? Fola, you’re a total saint. I think you don’t have anything to worry about on that front.’
Fola shook his head. ‘No, I am no saint and it’s never a bad thing to be humbled.’
He said it in exactly the same way the Dalai Lama would’ve said it. Come to think of it, the Dalai Lama was a pretty humble guy.
‘Oh, come on. You’re one of the kindest, nicest, most helpful people I have ever met.’ She touched his arm. He looked at the spot her hand had vacated and then looked her in the eye with an electric intensity.
‘Katherine. I have a confession to make.’
Oh, please no. Don’t let him confess that he loved her. Not now that, after her own six hours and thirty-seven minutes of contemplation, she’d finally come to terms with the fact that loving him was completely mad. Seeing those soldiers today … it had been … beyond real. They didn’t have a solitary second spare in their lives to live on cloud cuckoo land because they were too busy dealing with the reality of it.
So, no. She didn’t love Fola. She loved the idea of him.
This little fiction she’d been carrying around – this secret romance – it was so much lovelier to dream about than face the reality that she didn’t love her husband anymore.
She was a textbook menopausal mid-life crisis.
Her thoughts pinged back to the ex-soldiers and how grateful they’d been to have been seen, to have been heard. Now that had been humbling. Maybe instead of Fola she should fall in love with a combat veteran – No! She returned to the mantra she’d been repeating over and over with each turn of her pedals today: What would Oprah do? How would she SuperSoul this?
Oprah would look it in the face and call it what it was. A time to decide what kind of person she, Kath Fuller, actually wanted to be.
Oprah did not fill emotional voids with deeply gorgeous, incredibly compassionate personal trainers. Oprah did not pretend she was happy in a relationship she didn’t want to be in anymore. No, Oprah dug deep. Right into her soul. Fearlessly. Unafraid to admit she had, in her time, felt bad about herself whether she was fat or thin. That being rich didn’t take away the hurt that came from people having told her she was ugly as a pre-teen. That fame came at a price … a vulnerability to public opinion. Opinion Kath had tried to keep entirely positive whilst stuffing secret after secret into her closet. Oprah kept it real. Which made opening up the closet to the rest of the world a pain-free exercise. There was nothing to hide.
‘My girlfriend and I were talking—’ Fola began.
‘Oh?’ Her smile stayed bright, but she saw instantly that his ‘confession’ was tactical. He knew she fancied him and was finding the kindest, gentlest way of letting her down which made her feel worse than she already did, but … alas alack, served her right for having believed a life in the limelight with Kev would make her feel whole.
‘Yes, we were talking and I said to her, I have learned a lesson today.’
Kath’s brow furrowed. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. I learnt that you are made of much
more strength than you think you are.’ Fola smiled that sweet smile of his and despite herself, she blushed.
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m no different to any of the other riders.’
‘That’s what makes you strong,’ Fola said.
‘I don’t follow.’
‘I’ve never really seen you interact with other people and I thought—’
Oh, god. He’d thought she was a spoilt princess.
‘I was impressed today,’ he said, instead of spelling out what they both knew. She had been a spoiled princess, and then her brother had died and the scales had dropped. Or whatever it was that happened when you realized, too late, giving money to someone who was asking for your time was perhaps more cruel than pretending you’d never received the call.
It was too late, of course, to truly make amends to her brother, but … she could spend the rest of her life trying. ‘Thank you, Fola.’
He gave her shoulder a squeeze then scanned her in a way that she saw now, was entirely professional. A physio looking for faults. Not a future lover looking for clues about the intimacies they might one day share.
‘You’re off the clock, actually,’ she said, giving her hands a swift rub and her feet a quick stomp. ‘You should go get a drink. Eat a family pack of Oreos or whatever it is trainers do to indulge themselves.’
Fola laughed then. A proper, full belly laugh. ‘You know what I do?’
‘No.’ She hadn’t a clue. Much to her shame, she had never once thought about Fola’s real life. Just the fictional one they might live if they ran away from her troubles and her stresses into a future dappled with rainbows and unicorns … Now that she thought about it, she knew next to nothing about Fola Onaberi other than that he was gorgeous, kind, funny, smart, proactive, and obviously in love with his girlfriend who she hoped to god appreciated what a lucky woman she was.
‘I watch your show.’
‘What? No you don’t.’
‘Honestly, I do. You make me laugh. You make everyone laugh. Your heart is kind.’
‘What? Because I know how to take a cream pie in the face?’
That month where Kev had lobbed a pie at her every time a politician got one in the gob had been a cracker. Not.