by Alex Morgan
“Bloody hell, Sanders. You were spying on me. What’s so interesting about me?”
He picked at a scab on the back of his hand. “I told you, I liked the bike – I’ve never seen one for two people before – and I wondered why you were so sad. I didn’t think just having a row could make someone cry so much their face swelled up like a football.”
“Thanks, Sanders. But how come I didn’t see you except when I came back from running?”
“I’m good at hiding.”
“So it would seem. Where were you?”
“That’s my secret.”
“Okay, but let me make sure I’ve got this clear. You’re Sanders and Sandra.”
“Aye.”
“I see.”
He turned to regard her. “No, you don’t. You don’t see at all. How could you?”
“Sorry, that was a stupid thing to say. Of course I don’t. Tell me then, why do you dress up as Sandra?”
“To help me decide.”
“Decide what?”
He put his hands over his eyes, opening and closing his fingers as he spoke. “Who I’m going to be.”
Paula frowned. “But you’re Sanders.”
“I was, and I am for now, but I’ll have to make my mind up soon.”
“I’m sorry, this is all a bit much to take in. Are you sure you’re telling me the truth?”
He jumped to his feet. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me,” he shouted. “I shoulda never tried to tell you.”
He stomped off across the park to recapture Bovis.
“I’m sorry. Please don’t go,” Paula called after him.
A couple of parents looked over at her, but Sanders ignored her. He got hold of Bovis’s lead and they jogged towards the gate.
“Well done, Paula,” she said to herself. “Another diplomatic triumph.”
Closing her eyes for a second, Paula leant her head back as far as it would go. She drew in a long breath of salt and seaweed and warmth, letting it out in a slow sigh. Things were different now, she was sure of it, and everything was going to be all right after all.
The clouds had passed, taking her paralysis with them, and the beach was exactly as it should be, sea and sand shimmering in the pure light. Her heart and limbs were weightless, thoughts clear.
She stretched out her arms, reaching into the still heat with each finger, and began to turn, feeling the dry grains that had once been stones and shells shift and tickle between her toes. There were no families, no dog walkers. The bay was all hers.
“Paula!”
She swung round. It was the little girl, her childhood self, standing at the foot of the steps leading to Mrs McIntyre’s garden. She wore that same familiar dress and held aloft the string of her gently tugging kite.
“Hello,” Paula called back.
“Will you play with me?” little Paula asked.
“Of course.” She took a step towards the girl. “What would you like to play?”
“No, stay there. We’ll play hide and seek. Shut your eyes really tight and count out loud to a hundred.”
“One, two, three …” As she counted, she heard the soft crunch of little Paula’s plastic sandals drawing nearer. “Sixteen, seventeen …”
“Count louder,” she ordered.
“Twenty-eight, twenty-nine …”
She was standing so close now Paula could feel the heat of her body, feel the air being displaced as the girl slowly circled her.
“Forty-two, forty-three …” she counted on.
The crunching grew distant again.
“Don’t count so fast.” Her voice was far away.
“Fifty-nine, sixty …”
“Count louder.” Further away still.
“Seventy-two, seventy-three …”
Paula had to strain to hear the words. “Promise you’ll come and find me.”
“Ninety-nine, a hundred.” She opened her eyes to see the yellow and blue tail of the kite flicking out of sight through the gap between the garden walls that had swallowed up Sanders and Bovis a couple of days earlier.
“Promise …” The plea was so soft, so distant, she might have imagined it.
Paula began to run towards the entrance to the alley, but she had gone only a few metres when she realised something was wrong.
Her feet were sinking, her movements slowing and becoming more laboured with each step.
She looked down. A mass of shiny blue-black seaweed was tangled around her feet and it was spreading, sucking and crackling, as it raced across the sand in every direction. In seconds, the entire beach was covered.
She pulled one foot free to take another step. It was coated with dark slime. Over at the water’s edge, a trio of penguins cried plaintively as they struggled to free themselves from the rampant weed. After each desperate flap, they sank deeper, their once white stomachs stained the colour of ink.
Paula bent down and dipped a finger in the gloopy mass. She sniffed it. Oil. The seaweed was covered with oil, and the level was rising.
It was up to her knees. She tried to take a step but it was so thick she could barely lift her foot and the swirling undertow threatened to tip her over.
“Help me! Someone, please, help me!” she shouted, but there was no one to hear.
Even the penguins were gone, pulled under by the horrible blue-black tide.
When she glanced down again, the oil was half way up her thighs.
“Please,” she yelled to the empty beach. “I can’t move.”
It was around her waist and, though the surface was smooth and still, she could feel its strange currents tugging at her legs. Everywhere she looked there was oil. The sea had vanished; the wall, the gates and steps were all disappearing. Before long the buildings would be beneath its greasy surface. Even the sky was turning black, as a thunderous curtain of cloud rolled across the estuary. She needed help – soon.
Opening her throat as wide as she could, Paula shouted again. “Help me, please. I’m going under.”
In the distance there was a rowing boat with a man at the oars. It was Pete. He had come to rescue her.
“Pete, I’m here, over here.”
Frantically, she tried to pull her arms to the surface to wave, but she couldn’t lift them. The oil was round her chest. Lapping at her neck. Seeping up her face. She stood on tiptoe. The boat was getting smaller, shrinking every second as it pulled away across the bay.
Paula closed her mouth and held her breath. The oil trickled into her ears, rose in her nostrils, crept between her eyelashes.
All the panic and fight were gone. She surrendered to the inevitable. Shivering, she let her jaw relax and the cool liquid oozed into her mouth. Moving slowly like treacle, but far more bitter, the poisonous oil rolled down into her lungs.
Paula stripped the sweat-drenched sheets off the bed and put them in the washing machine. She had a shower, drank a glass of orange juice and sat down at her laptop. It was time to do some work. Upstairs, Mrs McIntyre seemed to have visitors – she could hear occasional footsteps and laughter. It felt good to have a bit of life going on around her, above her, but with no one expecting her to join in.
When she checked her watch, it was almost nine. Her stomach contracted, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten all day. She closed the laptop and went through to the kitchen. Flicking the kettle on, she shoved a teabag into a mug and dropped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster.
Hit and run
Paula opened the storm door before he had a chance to ring the bell. She stood half-concealed behind the inner door, uncertain how to behave until she saw how he would be. He was just delivering her solo bike and some other stuff, yet when she had got up from her desk to shower away the stiffness of another long day of work, she had put on her favourite top and a skirt. She wished now she had stuck with her usual uniform of jeans and T-shirt.
Andy stepped into the vestibule. “How are you doing?” he asked.
She could feel her cheeks flushing. Bending
forward he rested a hand lightly on her sleeve and kissed her cheek. “You look good.”
She tensed at his touch and made no move to respond. “Is this how you greet all your customers?” she said stiffly.
He took a step back. “Only if it’s repeat business.”
She heard herself ask, “Did you get everything?”
“I’ll unload,” he said.
Paula watched from the sitting room doorway, arms folded across her chest, as he wheeled her bike into the hall. “Careful, that was expensive,” she said.
“Don’t worry, I’m insured.”
“That’s a comfort,” she said sounding sarcastic.
“Where do you want it?” Andy asked evenly.
“Rest it there for now.” She pointed to a stretch of wall. “I’ll put it in the shed later.”
He brushed past leaving her momentarily dizzy. She willed him to reach out and pull her close, imagined the feel of his arms wrapped around her, his touch on her skin, his thick wavy hair between her fingers.
“Might as well do it now. Have you got the key?” he asked.
She got it from her bag.
He opened the kitchen door and they were enveloped by a rich herby smell. “What are you cooking?”
“Spatchcocked chicken with rosemary, thyme and red onions,” Paula said flatly.
She watched as he unlocked the shed and carefully balanced the solo against the tandem. Back inside, he carried the boxes he had collected from Jen into the study.
“That’s everything then. Apart from this.” Andy pulled a folded magazine from the back pocket of his jeans. “The cover caught my eye in a service station. I thought you might want a copy.”
Paula took the magazine without looking at it. As he walked to the door, she willed him to turn round and say something, anything, to give her a sign that she should ask him to stay. That the effort it had taken to plug in Mrs McIntyre’s spare phone and dial his number had been worth it. That his kiss was actually something more than a polite greeting. That her rudeness hadn’t spoiled everything.
He was halfway down the path when she tore the door open.
“Andy,” she called. “Sorry, I can’t believe I did that.”
She held out a handful of £20 notes. “I don’t know how we both forgot.”
He pocketed the money. “Thanks.”
“Thank you.”
Paula went back inside and closed both doors. She watched from behind the sitting room curtains as he drove off. When the van was out of sight, she sank down onto the sofa. Pulling her legs under her, she unfolded the magazine. It was Cycling Monthly.
The letters formed a banner across the front page: Pete Tyndall: tragic death of tandem champion. The feature inside, headed Tandem star killed on training run, covered two full pages. There were pictures of Pete and her competing, and panels down the sides of the spread were filled with tributes from leading figures in the cycling world.
She began to read the main article: The death of tandem champion Pete Tyndall, following a hit-and-run incident while he was returning home from a training run last month, has shocked the cycling community.
Paula’s eyes filled with tears.
Tyndall, 29, was out alone on a training ride near his South London home, just before 10pm on Friday, June 10, when he was hit by a car as he crossed a junction. The Renault Megane Coupe did not stop.
An off-duty paramedic who was passing on his motorbike summoned an ambulance and gave emergency first aid, but Tyndall, who suffered serious head injuries and multiple fractures to his body, was later declared dead at the scene.
Inspector David Mallone, of the Metropolitan Police, told Cycling Monthly: “CCTV footage showed Mr Tyndall rode through a red light. However, the driver of the car had a legal obligation to stop, which he did not do. He was later apprehended and charged with failing to stop after a collision.”
In May, the respected English teacher and his cycling partner, sister Paula, achieved their best-ever result, when he piloted them to a new UK hundred-mile mixed tandem record of three hours, thirty-one minutes and fifty-seven seconds, in the annual McQuarrie Memorial Event held by Southend Road Club in Essex.
The day after he died, they had been due to compete in a twelve-hour event in Norfolk, where they were hotly tipped favourites. The pair also held national records at fifty, twenty-five and ten miles.
In addition, Tyndall held the UK men’s fifty-mile tandem record with Ollie Matraszek, the twins’ coach for mixed events, as stoker.
Tyndall, who rode for Tooting Flyers RC, had enjoyed considerable success as a junior in solo events, and his club records for fifty, twenty-five and ten miles still stand.
His father, Derek Tyndall, who held the UK twelve-hour record from 1972-5, said: “No son could have made his family more proud. We still can’t believe Pete is gone, taken from us by a momentary loss of concentration. He was such a cheerful, upbeat personality, full of energy and humour, and equally gracious in victory and defeat.
“For Pete, everything was a challenge to be seized with both hands. Nothing was ever a problem or an obstacle. Cycling and teaching were the matching pillars of his life. He was a wonderful son, a wonderful competitor and a wonderful human being. The loss is unbearable.”
Pete Tyndall started cycling competitively at the age of eleven on a Peugeot Triathlon that was a birthday present from his parents. He began riding a tandem with his sister as stoker a year or so later, and they were soon winning local races and setting new club records. They were victorious in their first national competition, over ten miles, aged just sixteen.
Ollie Matraszek said: “Pete and I were best mates for more than twenty years, right from the week we moved to the same primary school at the age of eight and the teacher sat me next to him. We competed against each other in junior events and later I became part of team Tyndall on the tandem circuit.
“Pete was a formidable rider, even more so with Paula as stoker, and he was a brilliant friend, funny, loyal and supportive. His determination was an inspiration to everyone who knew him. No one could have had a better riding partner.”
Tooting Flyers president Vic Hartnet added: “Pete had been with the club since he was eleven years old and he had many good friends here. He devoted much of his spare time to coaching and encouraging the club’s younger members. He will be sorely missed by us all.
“To see Pete’s life ended in this way is devastating, nothing short of a tragedy.”
Tyndall’s sister Paula was unavailable for comment.
Paula closed the magazine and stuffed it under a cushion.
“So that’s what it all boils down to, eh Pete?” she whispered to the empty room. “A couple of pages in Cycling Monthly. You thought you were invincible. You couldn’t be arsed to stop at a red light and you were pushing so hard you didn’t even check the road. You fucking idiot.”
Wiping her face with the back of her hand, she went through to the kitchen and switched off the oven.
She leant against the units and gazed upwards. “I made a pretty spectacular mess of that earlier, didn’t I? Andy must think I’m completely crazy, all over him one minute and unable to say a civil word the next. Well, that’s about par for the course at the moment. Ollie, Andy, even Sanders – as soon as anyone wants to be nice to me, I push them away. What the hell’s the matter with me?”
She dug her nails into her palms. “Come on explain it,” she demanded more loudly. “You can’t, can you, you selfish bastard? Because you bailed out on me. You’re gone and I’m stuck here on my own. And that’s all there is to it. That’s the beginning, middle and end of it. You’re gone and I’ve got to get on with it. Just like all those poor singletons we used to laugh about.”
She sat down at the table and rested her head on her arms. “If they can do it, why can’t I? Tell me that, Pete. Why can’t I function? How am I supposed to do that without you?”
Tears soaked into her sleeves. “Please, help me,” she begged, her voice
almost inaudible.
Services rendered
Paula edged the storm door open. Andy stood on the doorstep. “Could we start again, please?” he asked. “That was awful.”
She nodded but couldn’t meet his eyes. “I know. I was horrible.”
“Can I come in then?”
“What? Yes, of course.” She stepped back and pulled the door fully open. “See, I’m doing it again. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Please, come in.”
“Hang on. I need to get something from the van.”
“Please don’t drive off again.”
“I won’t.”
He was back in seconds holding two bottles wrapped in blue tissue.
“I didn’t know if you preferred red or white, so I got both.”
At last she met his gaze. “Wasn’t that a bit presumptuous?” She winced at her own clumsiness. She had meant it to be a light-hearted remark but it came out sounding almost hostile.
“Optimistic. I think that’s a better word, don’t you?”
Andy smiled but his eyes were uncertain. She didn’t know which of them was more nervous. She must try to relax. The wine would help.
“Optimistic.” She repeated. “Yes, that’s good. Come through to the kitchen then, Mr Optimistic.”
He followed her down the hall, and she retrieved a corkscrew from a drawer.
“I was optimistic too,” she offered.
“Really?” He passed her the bottle of white. “This needs a while in the fridge.”
She tested it against her cheek and nodded.
Andy opened the red. “How did your optimism manifest itself?”
She felt him watching her as she stretched up to get wine glasses from the top shelf of a cupboard, revealing several centimetres of taut stomach. He kept his gaze on her as she adjusted her top, checked the glasses for dust and placed them on the counter. “I made dinner.”
“The chicken was meant for me?”
She grinned sheepishly. “You’re not a vegetarian are you?”
“I’m not. Slainte.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s Gaelic for cheers. You should reply ‘slainte mhor‘.”