by Daisy Tate
They just had been. They’d had their friends, their families, and, of course, they’d had each other. Now that she really thought about it, her mother and father had genuinely adored one another’s company. Fussing about this or that, reading bits out from the neighbourhood rag to one another then discussing it. Clipping it out, putting it in an envelope because they thought a brother, sister, aunt or uncle might find it interesting, too.
How could she have mistaken contentedness for colourlessness? Maybe facts made Trevor happy. Perhaps that was his reality. Facts = fun! It didn’t have to be her reality. Perhaps the question she should’ve been asking herself all these years wasn’t about what people were interested in, but why.
‘Tell me, Trevor,’ Flo asked, ‘How is it that you know all of these interesting things about Hadrian’s Wall?’
His wounded look stayed put as he warily answered, ‘I attend lectures through University of the Third Age.’
‘Oh?’ She bet the two meerkats went there, too. She made a note to make sure their paths crossed during the next biscuit and tea break. ‘Sounds interesting.’
‘Yes, there really are some interesting talks.’ Trevor’s voice brightened, ‘In fact I attended one the other day detailing the history of the ukulele which, I was shocked to learn, didn’t originate in Hawaii as popularly believed. In actual fact—’ He stopped himself and threw Flo an apologetic look. ‘Sorry, I do rabbit on endlessly. I doubt you’re interested.’
‘No, no,’ Flo protested, her insides beginning to crumble in despair and not about the idea of being given a second-hand lecture on the origins of the ukulele. No, her despair was tapping into something much deeper. Trevor’s self-imposed editing was her fault. A thought that horrified her, considering if someone did the same to her she would rail against it with all of her might. Worse, there was a frighteningly familiar ring to this scenario. Not the bikes and the rain and geriatric knee joints. It was the feeling of closing someone down. Something she realised she had done over the course of her married life again and again and again. Stu loved facts. Loved passing them on. Loved dazzling her and the children (who also loved facts) with little nuggets of insight into how the world as they knew it had been put together. Because of Stuart she knew there were approximately sixty thousand fasteners holding a Boeing 777 together. (It tortured him that he didn’t know the exact number.) Because of Stuart she knew the Cambodians had ‘lost’ Angkor Wat for nearly five hundred years. She knew tomatoes originated in the Andes and not Spain or Italy. That chocolate came from the Amazon and that Warren Buffet could lay claim to having the most expensively traded stock of all time unless you counted the tulip bulb craze in Holland between 1634 and 1637. All of these things she knew because of her husband. How much more would she know if she hadn’t shut him down? Hadn’t hurt his feelings. Hadn’t cajoled, pushed, and pressed him and the children to stop reciting boring old facts and do something. Do something interesting when all along Jennifer, Jamie and Stuart had been quite happy as they were. Everything Jennifer had said about her was true. She had been selfish. She had prioritied her version of life over theirs, preferring the love of a dog to her own family which, until this very moment, had made perfect sense. She should have cherished them more, valued them more, made them feel proud of their passions and interests. She would do all this and more when she got home. Lavish them with the same love and attention she gave Captain George without, of course, compromising the love and attention she gave Captain George. There were, after all, limits to how much one could change.
‘Tell me, Trevor,’ Flo said in a tone she hoped carried a thick layer of apology, ‘How did the Scots respond when Hadrian showed up with all of these workmen of his?’
‘Ah!’ Trevor’s eyes lit up. ‘Now that’s an interesting story.’
And for the next hour he talked and talked and talked, during which time Flo had plenty of time to reflect on how she might have been a better mother, a better wife and whether or not knee surgery might lend itself to Zumba Gold and, heaven help her, decaf coffee with ‘the girls.’
‘I owe you an apology.’
Sue started. She’d been so lost in thought she hadn’t even noticed Kath riding up alongside her. ‘Sorry, I—why do you owe me an apology?’
‘Kevin,’ Kath said, her expression a shade of grim Sue didn’t think she’d ever seen on TV’s Kath Fuller before.
‘Oh,’ said Sue. ‘Yes, well …’ She’d not actually heard what Kev had said herself as Kath was the only one who could hear him and, of course, the crew, and everyone watching television which was how word began circulating that Kevin was now being flown home under a cloak of shame and Ben Fogle was being left behind to do something on rhinos or hippos and then, of course, have a go at playing the beach volleyball team. ‘I think,’ she began, fighting against the discomfort of talking about it, ‘… not everyone has experienced what I have so I’m sure he didn’t mean to be insensitive—’
‘No, please,’ Kath waved a fingerless gloved hand. ‘What Kevin said was completely reprehensible. Your husband died by suicide. To make a joke of it, as if suicide was a way to escape a conversation you didn’t want to have, was inexcusable.’
Sue almost said she hadn’t tried to have a conversation one way or another with Gary, let alone a difficult one, so perhaps there was some merit in the crass statement. It got people talking. There were a thousand things she could have asked her husband that day and all the days before. But no. They had their routine and they’d stuck to it. For the rest of her life she’d have to live with the fact that the last thing she’d said to him was to leave her to it, she had things handled and that she’d let him know when supper was ready. She had, in effect, told him he wasn’t necessary. Having replayed the evening over and over again, she was quite certain he’d not heard the part about it being toad-in-the-hole, which could’ve been the problem right there because as her mother was fond of saying, the devil was in the detail and it was a detail she was desperate to get right. She considered asking Kath what she thought but she appeared to be on a bit of a roll so Sue didn’t say a word. As usual.
‘He’ll be reprimanded of course,’ Kath was saying. ‘I’d be shocked if some of the advertisers didn’t pull their support. It’ll be all over the papers. Who knows? They might even cancel the show. And make no mistake – he’d deserve it. I’d deserve it for having set up a situation where he could say such a horrid, horrid thing.’
‘Oh, no. Please, no. Brand New Day is an institution, I doubt they would—’
Kath barrelled on, ‘It was a tactless, insensitive, vile thing to say. Especially considering you are out here, just a handful of months after enduring such a painful, senseless tragedy, helping to raise money for people who hopefully won’t ever have to go through what you did. Suicide is a plague right now in the country. Did you know thousands of men a year take their own lives? Young men, middle-aged, teenagers all reaching rock bottom and seeing absolutely no light at the end of the—’
‘Please!’ Sue heard herself beg. ‘Please stop!’
Kath not only stopped talking but also stopped her bicycle and, to her surprise, so did Sue whose face wasn’t wet with rain, but tears and snot and all of the other ugly things she hadn’t let herself show since her darling, sweet, loveable Gar-bear took a ten-metre length of sailing rope and hung it from their loft beam.
They stared at one another until Kath dropped her bike, strode to Sue and fiercely pulled her into her arms, bicycle and all. She held her so tight and close she could actually feel Kath’s heart pounding against her own. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. And then, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ until she too was weeping and ugly crying and making animal noises that normally would’ve terrified Sue to the point that all she would’ve wanted to do was find Gary who would make her laugh and make all of her fears disappear, only Gary wasn’t here anymore. It was only Sue. Sue and her tears and a talk show hostess who would probably be out of a job by the morni
ng if what she’d just been saying about the sponsors was anything to go by and none of that was very comforting. She didn’t know what would be comforting. Maybe nothing at all. ‘Nothing’s going to take it away, is it?’ Sue sobbed. ‘Nothing’s going to fix the pain.’
‘No,’ wept Kath, angrily waving on a cyclist who was slowing to approach them. ‘I thought it would go away with time, but if anything it’s worse.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Sue wailed. ‘I don’t have the strength. There are all of those stages!’
‘What stages?’
‘The grief stages.’ Her words were coming out in solitary huffs and then as one big long sentence. ‘And the scariest thing is I don’t think I’m even at the first stage yet.’
‘What? Denial?’
YES!’ Sue shouted, no longer able to say anything without pushing it into the realms of hyperbole, as if all of the feelings she’d contained over the past few months were finally coming out in a series of FULL CAPS and PLOSIVES and LANGUAGE that described the most extreme states of existence like ANGUISH and TORMENT and HEARTBREAK. Heartbreak was EXACTLY what she had been trying not to feel since the beginning of February and PRECISELY, SEARINGLY PAINFULLY what she was feeling right this very second because no matter how hard she pedalled, or how many donations she raised for LifeTime, her beloved Gary wouldn’t, in two days’ time, be there at the finish line. He wouldn’t be holding a banner or a sign or a ridiculous bunch of unicorn balloons or even, as he sometimes did, a solitary rose. All that was waiting for her was several hundred miles away. A family who treated her like a spinster Auntie, even when she’d been married, and three more boxes of invoices that may or may not explain why her husband was dead.
‘He was supposed to be there,’ she said to Kath.
‘Who?’
‘Gary. He was supposed to be there when I finished. I don’t know if I want to finish now.’
‘You can. You will,’ said Kath in a way that sounded as if she was also trying to convince herself.
‘But how do you know?
‘Because we don’t have any other choice.’
Sue let her bike fall to the ground. Then sat down herself, right there on the roadside, too exhausted at the prospect of having to face the whole rest of her life on her own. Kath knelt down beside her, took one of her hands, but said nothing. So many of Sue’s life choices had been dictated to her. Her schooling. Her training (hairdressing had been her mother’s idea, not hers). Her role as N’auntie Sue. Neither a nanny nor an Aunt. But she had been a wife. And that had been by choice. Her one solitary choice and look how that had turned out. How could she trust anything she chose to do now? Even this. This so-called do-goodery. It wasn’t making her feel any better. If anything it was making her feel worse.
‘Go away,’ Kath yelled when her camera crew pulled up alongside them, ‘We’re having a moment here and I don’t want it fucking televised!’
They drove off rather sharpish.
Someone must’ve walkie talkied someone else because other riders did go past – but at a respectful distance, eyes on the ground or straight ahead – diligently sticking to the course that had been laid out before them while Sue and Kath remained glued to the ground, the weight of it all too much to bear on something as flimsy as a bicycle.
Sat there, in the rain, they talked and talked. Asking all of the questions out loud they had been too frightened to ask anyone else. Was it my fault? Could I have changed his mind? Was there anything I could have done to make him happy?
No. Maybe. Not really, because happiness came from within.
All of which led them to the one thing neither of them would ever know for sure. The reality was, they would spend the rest of their lives with unanswered questions, broken hearts and having absolutely no idea if they could or couldn’t have helped their loved ones because their loved ones had taken matters into their own hands.
‘Saying that,’ said Kath who’d now reached a more philosophical place, ‘I’m convinced Rob would’ve chosen something far sexier than choking on his own vomit.’
‘I don’t know,’ ventured Sue. ‘It sounds like something a rock star might do. You said he was super cool.’
‘Yeah, but …’ Kath tipped her head up, the rain falling more like a mist now. ‘I think he would’ve preferred to go a bit more by choice, you know.’
Yes, thought Sue. She did know. She’d never once thought of Gary’s choice as an act of empowerment. Maybe if he’d been in a cult or a monk living in an oppressive country, but … he was a plumber. An excellent plumber who had a wife who loved him and a football team full of men who he’d played with since he was eight and a local pub where they knew his drink without even asking.
‘Either way,’ said Kath. ‘I should’ve been there for him. I should’ve been there for him and I left him fucking hanging by a— sorry. Jesus!’ She went to slap herself on the forehead and bonked her helmet instead which threw her head back in a weird snapping motion. ‘Sorry, it was an analogy, I – shitfuckingbullocks I wazzocked that up, didn’t I?’ And then all of the sudden the pair of them were laughing. Laughing like a pair of hyenas. ‘Thank Christ Kevin didn’t hear that,’ Kath snorted. ‘I’d never hear the end of it. Forgive me?’
‘Of course I do,’ Sue said. ‘There’s nothing to forgive.’
‘I suppose there will always be things people say that end up hurting.’
Sue nodded and then looked up at the sound of Big Ben chiming.
‘Sorry. Sorry.’ Kath pulled her phone out of a little plastic wallet hanging round her neck. ‘Bums.’ She held up the phone. ‘Dean-O.’
Sue raised her eyebrows. She’d not really seen much of Dean-O. He rode at the head of the pack with the men who had skinny legs and muscled calves and, strangely, pot bellies.
‘Really? Seven more? Blimey. That’s quite a lot. Can we get Becky to … right. I see. Okay, we’ll let everyone know in Carlisle over lunch and I guess we’ll take it from there.’ She clicked off the call and put it back in her waterproof wallet.
‘Everything okay?’
Kath made a not-so-much face. ‘Depends upon how much you’re enjoying today’s ride, I guess.’ Kath popped on the smile Sue was much more familiar with. The ‘uh-oh, here comes trouble’ smile that usually preceded Kev pulling some sort of prank on her. Maybe she used to like it, the pranks. Perhaps she’d adored the thrill of the unknown. Loved it right up until the thrill changed into something else. A nightmare. ‘There are seven more miles on today’s route than we thought.’
‘Gosh.’ Sue had only mentally prepared herself for forty-seven miles.
‘And apparently the last seven miles are pretty hilly. And by pretty I mean—’ She put her arm up at a ninety-degree angle.
‘Ah.’
‘Never mind, Sue,’ Kath said, looking strangely bolstered by the news. ‘What is it they say? Pray for the best, prepare for the worst and expect the unexpected?’
‘They can’t do that. Just change the itinerary.’ Flo knew she was being churlish and that she should be putting on her sunshiney ‘of course you can sit in an upright position for ten hours even though it’s the same position they use for torture’ smile on, but she was in the depths of a very exclusive pity party and had no idea how to yank herself out of it. ‘That’s not what they said. We are meant to stay in Brampton.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Sue insisted. ‘You know, Trevor was saying Gilsland is where Sir Walter Scott met his wife.’ She frowned. ‘Or perhaps that was Brampton. Gilsland sounds like somewhere in one of the Hobbit books, doesn’t it?’ She made a rabbit face as a stand in for a Hobbit face, then smiled one of her dear sweet Sue smiles. ‘Don’t you think, Raven?’
Sue was quickly realising she needed someone else’s support in her ‘look on the bright side’ campaign. Flo, as things stood, was unwilling to be cajoled into smiling, let alone riding seven extra miles.
Raven nodded, but didn’t respond as she had a mouth full of baguette.
&nb
sp; Fuelling. That was smart. Flo didn’t have the energy to fuel. Not anymore. Not now she knew she was a selfish, overpowering, control freak who was single-handedly responsible for the fact her husband no longer had any energy to do anything beyond the puzzle page and her children rarely ever visited except when Stu was around. And then it hit her. This was exactly the sort of thing Jennifer would’ve hated. A turn of events that Flo would’ve insisted was an adventure and forced everyone into no matter how miserable or broken they were. And they always came. Into the souks of Morocco where they’d become terrifically lost. Jamie had somehow lost a shoe and Jennifer, with her blonde hair, had been pulled into a carpet shop without her even noticing. (Stu had bought her back, along with an exorbitantly overpriced cushion cover they’d ended up donating to charity in the end.) They’d all trudged into the Ethiopian restaurant she’d insisted would be delicious. They’d all hated it (even Flo, but she was hardly going to admit that to her whining, why-can’t-we-have-fish-and-chips-like-everyone-else children). They weren’t like everyone else, Flo had insisted. That was the point. To be unique. To be someone to envy. But did people envy her? Not really. Did they invite her to join them in their adventures? No. She was the one who cajoled and pushed and busy-bodied around folk until all they could do was relent. Even her poor, darling, Captain George who had run and run alongside her when she’d insisted upon doing that ridiculous canal loop. All these people so willing to please and what had she shown them in return?
Nothing but disdain.
Flo had never felt more disappointed in herself in her entire life.
She was no better than Linda Hooper and her capfuls of bleach down the village hall.