A Bicycle Built for Sue Read online

  Her sister-in-law, Katie, strode over from the small huddle of men she’d been presiding over. Katie never walked. She strode or jogged or, once, on her wedding day, glided. She pinched a sandwich between her fingertips then put it back down again, tipping her frown of displeasure into a benign smile as she gave Sue’s arm a fingertip squeeze. ‘Sue, love, this is a bit awks, but …’ she made a wincey face and then, ‘Are you still alright to look after the girls on Thursday?’

  Sue frowned. Thursday. When was Thursday?

  ‘It’s just that it’s been a bit of a struggle to get paid help in at such late notice and now that … well …’

  Now that Gary’s funeral was over? Was that what Katie was trying to say? Now that Gary’s funeral was over could they get back to normal please?

  ‘Of course,’ she said without entirely pinning down where Thursday fell in the realm of days beyond her dead husband’s funeral. She had work one of these days, but when exactly—

  ‘I completely understand if you’re not up to it, but I’ve got a regional meeting up in Manchester and Dean’s—’ Katie flicked a glance over in Sue’s brother’s direction, did a comedic little eye roll and laugh then, ‘Getting here today was quite the feat. Not that we wouldn’t have shown. Obviously. But you know what this time of year spells for Dean, don’t you?’

  As it happened, Sue didn’t have to imagine what this time of year spelt for Dean because on the ride to the crematorium, Katie had filled them in on just how busy his accountancy recruitment agency was from January to April. The end of the financial year. Not quite as busy as Katie’s construction recruitment business was at the moment, but that was because her business picked up at the start of the financial year which meant, between the pair of them, they were always terrifically busy.

  ‘Excellent. Thanks so much, Sue.’ Katie was already turning to leave then, as an afterthought added, ‘If you feel like spending the night—’

  Sue didn’t.

  ‘—we’re always happy to make up the sofa in D’s office.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Sue said. She’d rather gouge her eyes out and that was saying something because she had always struggled with gory things. Whenever Gary wanted to watch a film with a certain amount of bloodshed, he’d had to do it on his own. Her heart felt hollow as it lurched off of her ribcage. Had that been the problem? Leaving Gary to confront all of his fears on his own? ‘I think I’d prefer to stay at home, if you don’t mind.’ Perhaps then she could figure out why her husband had killed himself. The Support Officer who had come over to her parents’ a handful of times had tried to explain that the ‘circumstances’ of Gary’s death weren’t unusual. She simply couldn’t wrap her head round that. They were definitely unusual to her. After all, she’d only put together tea, called her husband to join her and found him hanging from a rope just the once.

  ‘Of course,’ Katie said a bit too quickly. ‘You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.’

  ‘It was very kind of you to offer.’

  Katie obviously thought so too and went off to tell Dean the good news.

  If Gary were here she would’ve added the story to their catalogue of Katie-centric tales that he told the lads down the pub – this pub – after the football. Remember the time at my funeral when Suey was freshly widowed and Katie checked to make sure she’d still be raising her children for her?

  Oh, how they’d laugh.

  And then Sue would go and do it anyway. Everyone’s favourite little helper.

  She glanced down at the wilted sandwiches. Perhaps the pub had changed management since they’d had Gary’s birthday. The catering genuinely had slipped. She made a mental note to put an addendum in her will (when she wrote one) that there should be minimal catering at her wake. Zero, in fact.

  No wonder no one had wolfed them down. They didn’t look at all appetising. Untidily cut brown bread, then white. Soggy tuna bleeding into the cheese and onion. Neon coronation chicken. Some rather lacklustre looking roast beef.

  She watched as her mother teased a bit of egg salad out of one of the more generously filled sandwiches then popped it into her mouth with a furtive look that suggested she’d be lying to her Weight Watchers app later.

  Gary had been loved hadn’t he?

  She’d loved him.

  Obviously not enough given the circumstances, but … she’d loved him in her own way. Quietly. Without too much fuss, but …

  Anyway.

  She blinked against some approaching tears. The last thing on earth she wanted was to be comforted. Or cry. Crying would be akin to admitting that this was all deeply, unmanageably, irrevocably real. She scanned the smattering of people glancing at their watches and relocating their winter coats from the backs of the stackable chairs.

  Was this all her husband’s life had amounted to?

  Barely a dozen people remained (there’d been more at the beginning but there’d been a mass exodus about forty-five minutes back when one of the wives ‘suddenly’ remembered their babysitter had a doctor’s appointment). They were mostly family now – hers – making awkward chit chat over their phones until the next booking pushed them out the door into the wintry gloaming.

  Perhaps she should’ve dug out Gary’s phone and made some calls. He’d been much more social than she’d ever been. Footie with the lads down the playing fields come rain or shine. Any position they’d needed. He’d run a 10k for the local hospice for the past four years back. Raised a few hundred pounds for them each time, he had. Spent years – his entire adult life actually – building up his father’s plumbing business. Installing hundreds of toilets and showers all over Oxfordshire. And Berkshire. Fixed her parents’ toilet heaven knew how many times. Gratis. His grandad’s shower. Her brother’s hot tub. He’d done countless kindnesses, her Gary, and this is how people repaid him on a day when he needed them most?

  She fretted at the hangnail again. Perhaps she should’ve made a bit more of an effort when he’d been alive to be their friend, too. One of those wives who knew just when to dip in and out of their laddish bantz. Knew when to pull out a tray of hot sausage rolls or a cheeky bottle of rum. To be perfectly honest it had never once occurred to her that there might come a day when Gary wouldn’t be there.

  ‘Sue, love.’ Her mother was holding a tray out to her. ‘Will you be taking the sandwiches or shall I give them to someone else?’

  She stared at the handful of people left in the room. Weren’t any of them hungry? Couldn’t one of these people show a bit of appreciation for her husband by eating a tiny triangular sandwich in his honour?

  She looked over to another table where the hot water urn was being replaced by a fresh set of tea and coffee jugs. A better grade of chinaware from the looks of things. The Agricultural Show folk appeared to have ponied up for a higher level of catering.

  Flo, the woman from work who had taken her call, was already in her winter coat. A bright red, knee-length, puffy down number that made Flo, a woman who definitely looked to be in Bus Pass range, look very … vital. As if both Flo and her coat would cling to every last vestige of life they were afforded. She held a small square of (stale) Victoria sponge in one hand and was asking for a cup of the freshly brewed coffee. The catering woman was shaking her head no, the fresh brewed was for the Agricultural Show.

  A surge of white-hot indignation rushed through her. Denying a woman a cup of coffee at a wake? What on earth did this woman know about anything?

  Perhaps Flo had a condition and required coffee. Perhaps she needed sobering up before she drove off home where, no doubt, she had a large, loving family waiting for her with a hot shepherd’s pie. Or a stew. Perhaps she was enduring a bereavement of her own. She didn’t know, did she? No one did. Not unless you asked. Just as she should have asked Gary when he came home from work how he was really feeling instead of running through the same conversation they always did.

  Alright, love? Nice day at work?

  Yes, ta. Dinner ready soon?

  P
op the telly on and I’ll call you when it’s ready. Coveralls in the laundry basket, please, Gaz. I’ll put them in the wash overnight.

  Fair enough.

  He had, as instructed, put his coveralls in the laundry basket. Just as he had every weeknight. He was as predictable as rain, her Gary. Monday to Friday, he’d come when called. Sat down at their tiny little table in their homely little kitchen. He’d talk her through his day when prompted. She’d tell him about hers if he looked tired. Saturday they ate out. Here, at the Royal Oak. Sundays was roast dinner in rotation between her parents’, her brother’s and Gary’s step-mum’s when she was about. Their tiny two-up, two-down row house had long since been too small to contain all of the Greens and Youngs.

  Three weeks ago Thursday she’d made toad-in-the-hole. She’d popped it into the oven, realized they were out of ketchup, called out to Gaz that she was going to nip out to the shop to get some while it baked, then, once back, table set, telly still burbling away in the lounge, Neighbours wrapping up its jingle in the kitchen, she’d set out the ketchup and called to Gaz that his tea was ready. He hadn’t come.

  He’d been hanging in the stairwell. Quiet as a mouse.

  Bog standard suicide, one detective had whispered to another. As if her Gary was just one in a crowd of thousands of men casually heading up to the loft to end it all before their tea. The detective had said a couple of other things as well. Things she simply wasn’t ready to take on board just yet. She supposed this particular detective had yet to attend sensitivity training. Which reminded her …

  She marched over to the coffee table, aware of her body moving with a different voltage. It was purposeful marching. She’d not marched anywhere except, perhaps, in Girl Guides? Had they marched in Girl Guides?

  Flo was pulling her handbag onto her shoulder, alongside another girl Sue recognised from the 111 Call Centre. Indian, perhaps? Dark hair, dramatic make-up, and tall. A good head taller than Sue, as were most people, but this girl seemed to own her height in the same way Sue shrunk into her petiteness.

  As she closed the space between them, Sue wondered if Flo thought her a bit simple, calling 111 as she had when it was clearly a 999 call. The simple truth was, she had known at the time it wasn’t an emergency and she hadn’t wanted to make a fuss. It wasn’t as if an ambulance racing over could have done anything. In the end, of course, an ambulance had come. Not until after the police had deemed it alright to move Gary and the Technical Coroner had taken whatever notes she’d needed for the inquest. It had sounded so suspect, having an inquest. But apparently that too was bog standard.

  The paramedics had waited their turn, then stomped their boots outside, their reflective clothing glinting in the streetlights, and, after struggling a bit with the stretcher in the stairwell and commenting on how warm it was in the snug little house, revealed some rather tired looking coveralls. Apparently it had been a busy day what with the unseasonal amount of black ice on the roads and, of course, flu season. All of it had been conducted briskly and businesslike. As if they’d come to measure up the stairs for a new carpet, not cut her husband down and take him away in a body bag.

  The Indian girl – Raven, if she remembered correctly – refused a cup of coffee with a wave of her hand and crinkle of her nose. She was a quiet, big boned girl, but Sue couldn’t picture her a different size. Or, frankly, at a different volume. Something about the defensive way she carried herself wouldn’t have suited a chatty, willowy girl. Such an awful lot of make-up. It was impossible to tell if she was naturally pretty or crafted to look so. The pitch-black eyeliner did show off her rather mystical-looking eyes to great effect and today, she supposed, it was appropriate.

  ‘Sue, love.’ Her mother announced across the near-empty room. ‘I’ll wrap these up before they go completely rancid.’

  Sue looked at her mother who gave her a what look in return. She turned back to Flo and gave her arm a quick pat. One she hoped said, I’m going to sort this little coffee situation out for you. She needed to sort something today. Just one, solitary, thing.

  ‘Give my friend a cup of coffee, please,’ Sue said to the catering woman catching Flo’s startled look out of the corner of her eye.

  The catering woman stared at her as if she’d spoken Swahili.

  In all honesty, she felt as though she was speaking Swahili. Sue didn’t give commands. She took them.

  When the woman did nothing, Sue’s ire rose with an unfamiliar, volcanic fury. ‘Could you please give my friend here a cup of coffee?’ The words marched out in staccato bites.

  ‘She’s been through an ordeal today and coffee is the only thing that will make it better. Fresh coffee.’ In all honesty, she didn’t know whether Gary’s funeral had upset Flo in the least, but white lies didn’t seem to matter so much in the face of an absence of civility.

  ‘I’ll pack the coronation chicken up for the children, shall I?’ Sue’s mother said to no one in particular.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind it in a takeaway cup if you have it, love.’ Flo shot Sue a cheeky smile, ‘If that’s alright.’

  The woman nodded and went back to the kitchen. The Indian girl looked away. Shy? Embarrassed? Difficult to say with all of that make-up.

  ‘Katie will take the roast beef no doubt, although I wonder—’ her mother tapped her chin as she looked out to the back garden where her daughter-in-law was having a cheeky cigarette – she normally vaped – with Sue’s father, their two heads bent together conspiratorially. They glanced back together, as if they’d rehearsed it, then guiltily looked away, grinding out their cigarettes underneath the heels of their good shoes before heading back into the function room.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ Sue turned back to Flo.

  ‘Oh, love. How could I not? We not,’ she added, nodding at the Indian girl. ‘Raven here was at the station next to me when I took your call. I was ever so fluttery afterwards. Just couldn’t focus. She had to make me a hot chocolate in the end.’ Raven nodded as if confirming an alibi. Flo winced apologetically. ‘You don’t mind me saying I was a bit upset after you rang off, do you, love? Normally, I don’t let them get to me, the calls, but …’ She finished the sentence with one of those shakes of the head that said, I’m only human.

  Her reaction hit Sue straight in the heart. Flo had cared. It meant more than she could express. This virtual stranger had come to her husband’s wake when only a few of his mates from the football had come to the funeral then left amidst a smattering of mumbled apologies that they had to get back to work. All of them? Not that she knew what she’d say to them, but at least it would’ve meant fewer sandwiches for her mother to fret over. Made the room feel less bare.

  Her niece and nephew had been kept away. As if Gary’s death was some awful, humiliating secret she’d be forced to keep for the rest of her life.

  ‘Sorry for your loss,’ Raven said, breaking the silence that followed.

  ‘Thank you, Raven,’ Sue said, meaning it. ‘Thank you for coming.’

  Raven. It wasn’t a very Indian name. Then again, her accent and style choices weren’t either, so perhaps Raven had been born to a family of British warlocks. A distant cousin of that goth from Bake Off. Who knew? Who knew anything these days, the world being the way it was. Chaos everywhere. One minute you’re making toad-in-the-hole and watching Neighbours on catch-up, realise you’re out of ketchup, and think that’s the calamity. So you get the ketchup, race back to the kitchen because the timer’s going on the oven, pull it out in the nick of time, catch your breath, problem solved, only to find yourself in the stairwell looking up at your husband’s feet. Was this Gary’s fault because he wouldn’t eat toad-in-the-hole without ketchup?

  ‘Right, we’ll see you at work sometime soon, then?’ Flo prompted.

  ‘Yes, I’m – I’m due in next week.’

  ‘So soon?’ Flo looked shocked.

  ‘It’ll be good for me,’ Sue said. ‘Getting back to the routine. Keeping busy.’

  Flo pressed a han
d to her forearm and gave it a compassionate squeeze. As if she somehow knew that none of Sue’s debit cards were working. That she’d had to ask her father to pay for the funeral until she sorted it out. That she’d told him she’d muddled up the security codes when she’d been to the florists, but the truth was, there wasn’t any money in their joint account. It seemed Gary had been quite the plumber, but not so talented at book keeping. Not that she’d looked into things with any great detail. Three weeks in and she’d still not been back to the house, called the bank, gone through his paperwork. Nothing. All she knew was that the account she thought had their life savings in it was empty.

  ‘Here you are, love,’ Beverly triumphantly presented her daughter with a bent aluminium tray of cling film-covered tuna and sweetcorn. ‘Take these. They’ll see you through until tomorrow.’

  Gary’s favourite. There was no chance she could have them in the house. Not tonight anyway. Perhaps tomorrow she’d regret not gorging on them as if she were reclaiming some of the time she’d never have with her husband, but tonight … No. She couldn’t face it.

  ‘It’s alright, Mum. You take them.’

  ‘What? You know how your father is with tuna in the fridge. He’d go daft.’

  Sue looked at her mother as if seeing a complete stranger. Couldn’t today be the one day her father pretended not to mind? The one day her mother championed her daughter over her son?

  ‘I’ll take them, love.’ Flo took the platter. ‘My Stuart’ll eat them. I’ll pass on his thanks in advance.’

  Sue smiled gratefully and watched them go. She liked Flo. Barely knew her to say hello, but perhaps at work, if they were on the same shift, she’d take the time to ask, ‘How are you?’

  Chapter Two

  Flo stood behind her husband and, just as she had the previous four mornings, held her hands out to the vulnerable, exposed length of his neck where it tipped down over the puzzle page … and pretended to strangle him.