A Bicycle Built for Sue Read online

  Caller: Okay. Cool. Happy Valentine’s Day.

  Call Handler: Oh! Is it?

  Caller: Yup. That’s why we got so ruddy pissed last night. I mean – it was the prawns, not the booze.

  Call Handler: Yes, well, I’m sorry.

  Caller: What are you sorry for? It was me who made the bleedin’ things, wasn’t it?

  Call Handler: Nothing, I – Happy Valentine’s Day. Thank you for calling NHS 111.

  Chapter Seven

  Raven rubbed her hands together and gave her feet a little stomp. The wind seemed to whistle straight through the bus stop. What did it matter, though? Unless she came up with a plan quick smart, she was going to be riding in the back of Uncle Ravi’s Jaguar on the way to her first day as his intern in a few days’ time.

  Her parents had well and truly upped the ante on crafty parental tricks.

  One week. One more week until she had to either find a way to pay for her entire higher education or become a slave at Uncle Ravi’s law firm.

  Ugh.

  Birmingham.

  Double yuck.

  Sharing a room with her cousin, Aneesha.

  Triple vom.

  It’d be like living in someone else’s Instagram feed and if there was one thing Raven was sure of – she wanted ZERO social media in her life. Zilch. Nada. Nul.

  A swish of movement caught her eye.

  Dylan. The lad from the other day.

  He glanced at her as he settled against the leaning seat, but was thumbing a message on his phone at such a rate of knots, it must’ve blurred the rest of the world out of existence, which, of course, totally proved her point that social media overrode absolutely everything and was to be held in complete and utter contempt.

  When she’d deleted all of her apps she thought it would be completely curative. Life without having to account for her every waking second to a world that may or may not be watching. #WakeUpFace! #BFFsDoingItRight #LivingTheDream

  Instead it ramped up the FOMO to high anxiety levels.

  All of those things happening ‘out there’ that she wouldn’t know about. Was it better to know the enemy or pretend they didn’t exist?

  ‘Had your results?’ Dylan asked as if they’d been mid-conversation.

  She shot him a look. They’d all had their results. Months ago. Last year actually. In August. She’d been offered three places. ULAW (Birmingham Campus. Too close to Uncle Ravi’s office). LSE (Next to her sister’s office and three stops away from her and her neat freak husband’s flat which had a box room with her name on it). And Oxford, where her brother was a paediatric surgeon. Obvs. All within a stone’s throw of one Chakrabarti or another. They were everywhere. Her family. All lying in wait for her to fulfil her destiny as a law lord’s. She’d never known belief could feel so suffocating.

  ‘That your briefcase?’ Dylan pointed at the retro Pan-Am flight bag perched on Raven’s knees. She’d bought it off of eBay in an ironic attempt to show she was the mistress of her own destiny. ‘Do you work in a bowling alley?’ He laughed at his own genius, but in a nice kind of way instead of the judgey way loads of teenagers laughed. At you. Never with.

  ‘No.’ She pulled it in closer. She kept her purse, her eye liner and the ridiculous bright yellow polo shirt she was forced to wear at the call centre in it. The staff were colour coded. Like robots. Street light yellow for the call handlers (read: not flattering). An eye-catching red for the clinicians (a bit better but still not black). Dealer’s choice for management.

  Dylan stuffed his hands in his pockets then pulled out the linings. ‘I don’t need a thing to work at the palace of pleasure!’

  Raven gave him an ooo-kay look. Weirdo. Weren’t teenaged boys meant to be mute with discomfort or totes ignoring fat, awkward girls like her? He looked like the sort who would totally blank her if another lad walked in. So, what was the deal? She doubted he was lonely. Her mind pinged to Aisha Laghari and The Social Media Incident. She’d not been directly involved, but she could’ve said something. Done something to get the girls to stop. Then again, who can stop a person from posting something vile about something else? No one really.

  Raven’s tactic had always been to keep out of everyone’s way. It was the easiest way to avoid trouble.

  ‘I work at Curry’s,’ Dylan continued as if she’d just asked, wide-eyed, about his place of work. ‘Computer section. Sometimes they put me in AV but mostly I do the PCs.’

  ‘Ah.’ He was obviously very gifted at acronyms as well.

  ‘Good staff discount.’ He stuck out his leg and unearthed a shirt sleeve from his puffer jacket. ‘Check out my jammy uniform.’

  Black. Head to toe.

  Jammy indeed.

  She did the raised eyebrows thing and caught him doing a little double take. People did that sometimes. When they bothered to look at her eyes. They were this sort of weird mossy amber colour and when she did her eyeliner properly they popped. Sort of … reverse goth. Handy seeing as she’d never have alabaster skin which, from where she was sitting, seemed a total pain. Freckles, endless sunblock, zits unbelievably visible. She was quite happy with toasty cinnamon thank you very much. At least she had another thing she liked about her physical self. Eyes. But that’s where her body self-love peaked. She liked her cerebral self just fine, but it was a bit … isolating. Not lonely exactly as online could be a friendly place to be if you knew where to go, but wishing you were invisible in real life was never really indicative of being in a happy place, was it?

  ‘So,’ Dylan stroked the stubble on his chin. ‘Let me guess. If it isn’t a bowling alley, you work for … McDonalds? Starbucks? MI5?’

  ‘I work at a call centre,’ she finally admitted.

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Sometimes.’ She shrugged, tactically keeping the part about it being 111 to herself. 999 was far more aspirational. The calls into 111 were usually so … meh. No one really cared if you took twenty-three calls from mums worried about their baby’s cough. There had been, of course, the day Sue had called in and told Flo her husband was dead. That had got her adrenaline flowing. Even Flo, who didn’t look like she’d bat an eye if tanks rolled into the call centre, was flustered. The call had made everybody think. Especially her. Which was why she had agreed to go to the funeral. She’d wanted to understand what it would be like to simply disappear into death. Not forever, obvs, but … every now and again?

  To be honest, she hadn’t come out any the wiser on that front. It had felt like being a voyeur into someone else’s misery. When she’d got there … Fuuuuck. Even her finely tuned levels of detachment were rendered useless. Sue, a woman she’d totally dismissed as ‘nice’ and, at forty-something, ‘old’, had looked utterly shell-shocked. As if a tornado had whipped into town, picked her up and deposited her in an alternate universe. Her family had looked embarrassed for her rather than sympathetic. Going through the motions of there there, it’ll be alright, another cup of sweet tea, love? Packing up the sandwiches before everyone had left so as not to leave any trace that they’d been there at all. As if death by noose was the most humiliating way to go.

  If it wouldn’t have been the weirdest thing in the world to do, Raven would’ve happily filled them in on a ream of much more embarrassing ways to go. Falling off a cliff on a Segway when you were the owner of a Segway was one. Taking a selfie on live train tracks as the scheduled train approached was another. Death by Viagra, eyedrops, water and the list went on. (Google was full of it.)

  All of which culminated in Raven acknowledging that even the prospect of an eternity at Uncle Ravi’s law firm wouldn’t make her top herself. Which did beg the question, why wasn’t she eagerly swotting up for her law degree like a good little Chakrabarti instead of taking a year out? She knew the answer of course. She didn’t want to be a lawyer. She wanted to go to Newcastle Uni. And she wanted to study Art. Or maybe History. Or … and therein lay the problem.

  Chakrabartis don’t follow dreams. They pursue goals.

  �
�No contact with the general public,’ Dylan said. ‘Sweet.’

  Raven was on the brink of pointing out that working at a call centre was entirely about interacting with the general public but Dylan pulled out his phone and began to thumb through what looked like an Instagram account. He abruptly stood up and strode out into the sleet. He made a miserable face and did some weird twisty things with his fingers as he popped out a few selfies on his phone. ‘Gotta keep up with my peeps,’ he said back in the bus shelter. ‘Let the lay-deez know I’m ready for some Valentine’s action tonight.’ The way he said it made Raven smile on the inside. He knew he was being a dozy poser. She wondered if the strangers who saw his post would think he was being ironically chavvy or just think he was another self-obsessed social media twat. If he hadn’t spoken to her last week and again today, she definitely would’ve gone with the latter.

  If she ever were to go back on social media she’d want to be an Instagram influencer who hit that perfect note between darkly ironic and wise beyond her years. A Raven.

  She squinted at Dylan when he became properly engrossed in his phone again. Even though he’d said they were at college together, she still had yet to properly place him. He definitely looked familiar, but … She flicked her brain into etch a sketch mode and tried to picture him in the evergreen jacket, striped tie and white shirt all the boys had had to wear at college. She erased his slouchy beany hat and filled it in with a head of blonde hair. She added braces. A few zits.

  Bingo.

  He’d been in her computer programming class. He was good at it. Duck to water sprung to mind. Had to be a gamer. She was just about to ask what games he played when she remembered she had yet to tell him what her results were.

  All A*s.

  She’d not told anyone outside her family. It was embarrassing.

  Her brain found learning easy.

  But using it to go to law school? About as stifling as the drop-down scripts they had to follow at work. Still … at nearly ten quid an hour … one year at Newcastle Uni was only 438 hours of ‘You’re through to the NHS 111 Service’ away. And then a mountain of debt for the rest. She hated the idea of debt. Starting your actual, real life already in debt to the man. Her parents hated debt too, which basically meant their ultimatum wasn’t actually a choice at all. It was go to work with Uncle Ravi – and that was it.

  The bus pulled up and she got on without acknowledging Dylan again. Talking meant revealing more things about herself. She’d already seen how seemingly innocuous facts became terrifyingly elastic on the social media super highway and Dylan was obviously one of its players, ‘keeping up with his peeps’ and all. She closed her eyes for the rest of the journey and pictured herself getting off of the bus in Newcastle. It was her Oz. One day, with any luck, it would be her reality.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Never lets her get a word in, does he?’ Flo straightened her husband’s dressing gown collar then glared at the telly. That Kev was always talking over Kath. She would’ve told him to put a sock in it years ago. She tutted to herself.

  It was always easier to know what she’d do if she were in someone else’s marriage. That poor Sue, for instance. Looked half dead yesterday on shift, poor thing. How was it someone could live with another person for twenty years and not have the slightest clue they were planning to take their own life? She would’ve had that Gary sitting down with a strong cup of tea and said we’re not leaving this table until you tell me what’s going on—

  Would she, though?

  She gave Stuart’s shoulders a final smoothing sweep. When was the last time she’d really paid attention to him? Listened to what he was saying to her? For that matter, when was the last time they’d had a proper conversation? All they seemed to do these days was pass on information. Times. Schedules. Where and what his sandwiches were for the day. His soup. She clucked again. Best not to judge Sue, or anyone for that matter. Glass houses and closed doors and all that. She turned off the telly and unhooked her winter coat from the rack.

  Stuart looked up from the paper, his white hair still a bit mussed from the pillow, the puzzles she could see, only half done. ‘Off already?’

  ‘Bright and early sings the lark!’

  ‘Will you be back for lunch?’

  ‘Not today, love.’ She was on a ten to seven today. She could come home for lunch, but the breaks weren’t that long and besides, that poor Sue. She’d be in again today and Flo was dead certain that the poor girl wasn’t ready for it. All of that complaining and whining coming down the line. Half of the callers were lonely. The other half attention seekers. Most of them needed a bit of sense knocked into them, was all. Not a pull-down menu offering options. She’d always found flights where they’d run out of the chicken or the beef ran much more smoothly than the ones where people had a choice.

  Saying that … perhaps the menu would be a handy crutch for Sue. Offer her some insight as to where it might have all gone wrong. The poor lass had been in a daze at the funeral and hadn’t looked too much better yesterday. As though there’d been a loud explosion and she was still trying to orient her senses after the blast. That glimmer of fire over the coffee, though. It showed the girl had some zip in her somewhere. It had been nice to see. Normally she was so … pleasant. Not that being pleasant was a crime, but it sat a bit too comfortably with mild and Flo didn’t do mild.

  ‘What will I do for my lunch, then?’ Stuart asked.

  She wiggled her fingers towards the refrigerator. ‘There’s some of last night’s beef on a plate. Have it with the rest of that soup you had yesterday. Top shelf, next to the Actimel. I can do something hot for you tomorrow.’

  Stuart liked something hot for his lunch in the winter, but increasingly, there was a part of her that wanted to scream, you can fly airplanes! Surely to god you can figure out what to have for lunch!

  ‘Stu? Will you be alright taking Captain George along to his hydrotherapy?’

  Stu nodded, then twisted round to look out of the conservatory which gave a broader view of the elements than the kitchen window. His brow furrowed. ‘It’s horrid out there, darling. Wouldn’t you be better staying in today?’

  Flo pretended she hadn’t heard him. He was always trying to get her to stay home. Over forty years together and the man still couldn’t get it through his head that she liked the work. Loved interacting with people. Needed the … the … the rigour of human interaction. Mixing things up. Keeping life jazzy.

  She glanced out towards the conservatory. Stu was right. It was a wretched day. The entire week was meant to be like this, straight through to the weekend. Perhaps she’d sign up for some extra shifts. ‘You’ll be at the club this Saturday, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course, yes. The lads and I are due to meet the Pro at eight thirty.’

  ‘Oh! A group session.’ She smiled as if it were fresh news and stepped over Captain George as he stretched out on the floor between the boot room and the kitchen. Loveable old goat. She adored that dog. Couldn’t bear to think of the day when he’d—

  She’d take him out on one of his favourite walks this weekend if the weather brightened seeing as Stuart would be at the golf club, which was more often than not, these days. Now that the club had that new indoor robot thing that corrected his swing. There were three other retired pilot’s wives who could say the same. The same three wives who met for coffee ‘down the village’, talking on and on about how difficult it was having their pilot husbands home, underfoot all the time, messing up the lounge, the boot room, the ensuite. Flo couldn’t bear it. The predictability of it all. It was why she actively sought out jobs that required Saturday help.

  Three months back, after the charity shop she’d worked in had been forced to close its doors, she’d thought of retraining as a therapist, but Oxford traffic was becoming too tricky to negotiate. Even more so now that the optician had bullied her into wearing the varifocals. She’d tried one of those on-line courses for counselling but found the lack of human interact
ion tedious. No one spoke to one another anymore. No one listened. Even their cleaner wore headsets. All of which left Flo with precisely nothing to do round the house now that they weren’t breeding the Wolfhounds any longer (too much time in Portugal made that awkward, plus the neighbour girl had gone off to uni to study accountancy rather than veterinary sciences – not got the grades – but she’d always been such a help during whelping), so what on earth was she meant to do with her time? She was hardly on the brink of death! When she’d seen the advert for 111 call handlers, she decided she may as well help people who thought they were.

  ‘Darling,’ Stuart set down his pen and gave his wife one of those gentle smiles that meant he was going to try and reason with her about something. ‘If this is about you having more pin money …’

  She held up her hand. It wasn’t the money.

  She had her pension and Stuart was always very generous, having done very well at BA. So well he’d ‘earned the right to sit and read the paper all day long’ if he wanted to.

  For twelve years?

  Honestly.

  She’d die of anxiety reading about all of those people out there in the world doing something with their lives.

  She tugged the zip up on her coat.

  The man was too reliable.

  She’d liked it at first. His predictability. After all, you wouldn’t want a madman behind the controls of a jumbo jet would you? She’d ached to be a teenager in the sixties. Went proper wild when the saucy Seventies bloomed. Love-ins and flower power were all the rage by the time she’d realized her future was not in a factory or behind a typewriter and had been taken on as an air hostess in the mid-Seventies. When Stu started joining her at the bars in Swingapore, Rio and Cape Town, it had been like having a straight man to her mad trolly dolly. The King’s right-hand man to her Princess Margaret.

  Now it was just a bit tedious. Wasn’t he interested in throwing caution to the wind? Making good on the years-old promises to properly explore the world? To live? He’d done all the boring bits. Made the right investments, built a healthy pension, owned their house and the villa in Portugal, but oh, the tedium. There was not enough gold in the world to relieve the ennui that came with being married to a man who relished his retirement. Her very own cover boy for Saga.