A Bicycle Built for Sue Read online

  She did love him. And the children. But she and Stu were getting older, not younger, so why waste all of this valuable time doing puzzles while they were able bodied?

  One shift at 111 would light a fire under him. She was sure of it. Discovering just how old folk could be. How frail. How helpless. On the other hand, there was always the risk he’d be comforted by his routine. Confirmation that it ‘kept him out of trouble.’

  All of which meant speaking to hysterical strangers on the telephone added that gritty bit of frisson to her life she needed to stay smiley.

  It made her feel terrifically guilty, of course. Whining about having a perfectly lovely life. Especially with that sweetheart Sue finding her husband dangling from the loft. It must’ve been terrifying. Flo’s husband might not have much zest for life but at least he enjoyed having one.

  She stripped her tone of snippiness. ‘I’m just doing my part for society is all, darling.’ She blew him a kiss then dug into her handbag for her keys. She never could find the ruddy things.

  Stuart leant back in his chair and tapped his pen on the folded newspaper. ‘You’ve not forgotten we’re out tonight, have you?’

  ‘No, love. I’ve got it clocked.’ She tapped the side of her head, then continued to forage for her keys.

  They went out for Valentine’s Day. Every year. Flowers. Dinner for two down the hotel (the one nice restaurant in the village but not so far that they didn’t have to worry about having a glass or two). They’d inevitably discuss when they’d next head to Portugal (already booked) and debate whether or not they should invite the children along (decided). She regularly voted ‘no children’, hoping for a bit of an adventure whereas Stuart loved the close access to the golf course the gated community offered and knew inviting the children meant they would be tied to the villa. He loved it. Loved it all. Reading the same stories to the grandchildren over and over, going to the same restaurants, watching little Lily and Jakie jumping off of the diving board again and again until Flo’s oldest, Jennifer, or, more likely, her husband William, insisted the children get out of the sun and go inside to watch some telly. Quietly. Jennifer hadn’t been born with much of a nurturing gene. Then again, Flo had found her own children utterly tiresome until they’d started developing little personalities and could be persuaded that Daddy’s way was the boring way. Then, of course, the tables had turned again. Jennifer had become an efficiency expert of all things and now Jamie just did exactly what his extremely ambitious Australasian wife told him to, including setting up home in Australia, so … so much for apples falling close to her tree.

  Taptaptap.

  It was the soundtrack to their mornings.

  Taptaptap. Pause. Taptaptap. Sip of tea. Taptaptap.

  Sue was tempted to march across the kitchen and grab the pencil out of Stu’s hand and snap it in two. Everything he did was irritating her lately. She needed a project. So she said as much.

  Stu surprised her by offering a suggestion. ‘Why don’t you help out Linda Hooper? She’s always looking for someone to help her.’

  Flo whooped a laugh. ‘Down the village hall? I’d go mad, Stu. I’ve never seen more people make a bigger fuss over fresh J-cloths and cleaning liquids in my life.’ Linda Hooper was also one of the ‘golf widows’ and would’ve tried to rope her into coffee time.

  Stuart’s eyebrows went up. ‘Cleaning liquids?’

  ‘Oh, you remember, Stu. As a ‘cost cutting measure’ Linda wanted us to start measuring out the bleach we were using to clean the hall after puppy training class. I brought in three enormous bottles of the stuff to get her to stop. But did it? Not a chance.’

  Stuart clucked and gave her a loving smile. ‘Not everyone’s as fortunate as us, darling. Able to solve problems with money.’

  ‘Precisely,’ snipped Flo, popping on her Akubra, brought back from Australia when she was young and interesting. ‘Which is exactly why I must get to work.’ She gave him a quick kiss on the head, Captain George a long, deep hug then waved her goodbye over her shoulder as she walked out the door. She’d use the car ride to come up with a project much better than working with Linda Hooper. Surely to god there was something that would capture her imagination.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘That’s right. Only a few more seconds. You can do it. I believe in you.’

  Kath let Fola’s rich voice flood though her like a healing tonic as she forced herself to do three more burpees to the dying strains of Roxanne. She’d never realised just how many times Sting said that bloody woman’s name. Burpees, it turned out, had a way of punctuating the obvious. A bit like her husband. What on earth had possessed him today? Saying a bungee jump in South Africa might be a cheap way for her to get a face lift. The man wouldn’t let up. She’d half a mind to tell folk about his haemorrhoids tomorrow. As if she’d dare. Mind you … ratings were slipping and the advertisers would love it.

  She pulled herself up for the final jump and clap and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

  ‘Crikey, Fola! Why didn’t you say I looked like the back end of a donkey!’

  ‘What?’

  Fola’s smooth forehead crinkled, genuinely confused. Perhaps they didn’t liken things to the end of a donkey in Nigeria.

  ‘No. No, Katherine.’ Her trainer gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Everything he did was reassuring, the way he said her name as if it was a flower, the gentle way he guided her through her workouts, but his touch … finally she understood what it meant to have sparks and glitter bombs and confetti flickering through her system. Yes, she’d felt something when she’d fallen for Kev, too, but this … this felt more real. Less hungry.

  Yes, that was it. When she’d met Kev, she was hungry. For fame, for validation, for attention. And he’d showered it upon her. Until, one day, all of that amazing, doting, glorious attention had turned into micromanagement. Which was where they were now. Publicly micromanaging one another. Gaining, then conceding, fractional bits of kudos in the form of ratings pops, magazine mentions (god bless Woman’s Weekly, because she was always ahead on the magazine front), glitterati photos in any paper really (which worked better for Kev than for her as they had a softer touch with men’s aesthetics and laser-sharp talons when it came to a miniscule weight gain or eye crinkle or, God forbid, an annoyed glance at her husband as they left yet another party early because ‘someone’ had overindulged. It had made her a master of the jolly flow of excuses as Kev stumbled towards the car. (Oh, we had an early morning call was all. You know how it is. The alarm clock’s king in our happy home!)

  They were beyond being grand. Desperate was what they had become. Desperate to stay on air while they frantically resisted the inevitable. Being replaced by the next young thing.

  Fola took both of her shoulders in his large, rather gorgeous hands and gently turned her so that they were both facing the wall mirror. He was a good foot taller than her. Broad shouldered (all muscles of course), lean. Athletic, really. Quite unlike her short, stout husband who used to twirl her round the dance floor as if she were made of air.

  ‘Look at you,’ Fola said. ‘Do you not see what I see?’

  Her eyes met and his and fizz pop! Good heavens. Her va-jay-jay was obviously not as crippled by menopause as she thought it was. She looked back at herself, tilted her head to the side and tried to make an effort. Honestly? All she saw was a woman desperately trying not to launch herself at her personal trainer’s knees and thank him, endlessly, for making her feel better about herself. She’d never cheat, of course, and nor would Fola (there was, tragically, the occasional mention of a girlfriend). But … oh, the frisson when his fingers touched her pale skin …

  She forced herself to look in the mirror. Properly.

  What did she see when she looked into the mirror?

  All of a sudden she was blinking back tears.

  What she saw was a woman who no longer turned heads.

  A woman who had aged considerably since her dear, sweet, lovable, over
emotional brother had died.

  A woman straining to find some validation in a world that thrived off of other people’s misery. (She was mostly talking about Love Island and Celebrity Big Brother here, but honestly. Hadn’t they had enough of mocking people for their weaknesses, when, in actual fact, what the world needed more of was celebrating all that was good?)

  ‘Do you know what you do every day?’ Fola asked her.

  ‘Get up far too early, make a prat of myself on the telly, then come to you praying to keep all this from jiggling?’ She held her hands in front of her belly, looked up at Fola and saw him shaking his head sorrowfully.

  A deep shame filled her that she had answered the question so blithely. So thoughtlessly. Fola was one of the most genuine people she had ever met in the world. He had been asking her a genuine question expecting a genuine answer and she’d belittled it by being blasé in response.

  She looked up into his eyes.

  ‘The truth is, Fola, I’m not sure anymore. I feel like candy floss. Utterly decadent nonsense that only causes rot in the end.’

  Even her children wouldn’t come home for Christmas anymore. It was that soulless. A home that couldn’t even offer Christmas cheer.

  ‘You, Katherine,’ Fola countered, ‘… bring joy. Every day you bring joy and sunshine and hope into the hearts of everyone who watches you. You remind people of the good things. Kindness. You are made of strength and commitment and beauty. And that is what I see every time we meet.’

  Kath’s chin began to quiver, her eyes darting from her own reflection to Fola’s and back again.

  Yes, she was sweating like a pig. Yes, she looked as if she’d been shoved through a wind tunnel backwards, but strangely, at this very moment, she felt beautiful.

  Chapter Ten

  Sue stared at the screen hanging from the wall. They were dotted all over the place in the huge warehouse-style complex, flickering and blinking. Tallying up the incoming calls they had, would and didn’t take. This particular screen was playing normal television channels. Presumably to make the Hot Drinks Station a bit more homely. A pair of sofas, some throw cushions and a coffee table with a spread of trashy magazines probably could’ve done it to greater effect. But then, Sue supposed, less work would get done, fewer calls would be answered and people might actually enjoy themselves. As her mother was fond of saying, it was called work for a reason.

  Though it was still a few days away, Sue was already dreading Sunday lunch. Katie and Dean wanted an answer to their ‘kind offer’. They also wanted to make an announcement. Excuses weren’t accepted when announcements were on the cards.

  The television was tuned into Brand New Day and had a little ticker tape running along the bottom of the screen filled with tweets from viewers about whether or not they thought this was Britain’s worst ever winter. It wasn’t going very well for Sue. She found herself raising her hand in agreement with Kath. It had been bad. Very bad, indeed.

  ‘You alright, hon?’

  Sue turned around, startled to realise there was a small queue behind her at the Hot Drinks Station. She looked back up to the television screen. The image had changed to a man standing at the end of a pier wrestling with an umbrella. Why did they do that to these poor weather people? Shove them out of doors into the thick of things. It didn’t seem right. It was as if, unless the viewing public witnessed someone being bashed about in the elements, they couldn’t possibly believe it was extremely windy and immensely unpleasant outside. In February. When it was traditionally windy and unpleasant. She lowered her hand. Perhaps it was time she started to look at things from a different angle. Not just ‘go along with the crowd’ as she usually did.

  As she watched the poor man lose his battle with the wind, the umbrella all but yanking his arm out of its socket, the look on his face reminded her of when she was learning to drive. She’d been terrified of the gear stick. Gary had thought it hilarious, her squeals of terror each time she’d lurched into a different gear, only to shudder to an ungainly halt. She’d felt as if the car was in charge and her knuckles had turned white clinging to the steering wheel, all the while hoping, praying, she could keep it under control, a bit like a wild horse. And then, one day, almost as if by accident, she’d done a gear change and realised she’d been in charge all along. Was this one of those life-changing moments when something, anything, might bloom in front of her, suddenly allowing her the 20/20 aspect she needed to realise she was actually in charge of her own life?

  It definitely didn’t feel that way today.

  Not with her mother dropping unsubtle hints about selling up ‘that house that had never amounted to much anyway.’ Katie and Dean’s peculiar offer. Her manager, Rachel, slipping a pamphlet about ‘discreet counselling opportunities’ onto her work station when she’d sat down this morning. Perhaps she’d been a bit too vacant on that first day back.

  But there was so much to think about now that she was the sole decision maker in her life.

  She’d had to dip into their holiday spare change pot today. The coins were in an old green glass flagon Gaz had found years ago out on a job. They religiously put their spare coins into it, only tipping it out once a year before they headed off to Benidorm for their annual get away with Gaz’s best mate from school, Mark, and his wife Shelley. (They’d come along to the funeral and had popped in to the wake, but had slipped out quite soon after as Shelley’s mum, who was in their care, needed her meds.

  She guessed she wouldn’t be going to Benidorm this year.

  Anyway, she’d taken the coins because she hadn’t got any food in the house and thought, perhaps today would be the day she’d be hungry. She might pop into the Asda after. The one off of the roundabout where her mother didn’t work.

  ‘Are you alright?’ The woman asked again, giving a pointed look at the Hot Drinks Station where Sue realised she was now standing and, from the looks of the dribbling hot water, making a drink.

  ‘Yes, sorry, I—’

  ‘Your cup’s melting. You have to double up if you use those.’ When Sue’s response wasn’t instantaneous, the choppy-haired woman bustled her to the side and swiftly shifted Sue’s wilting plastic cup to the sink with a couple of poorly disguised swear words. She reached into the cupboard, took down one of the mismatched mugs that presumably belonged to other call handlers who’d been more prepared, and fixed Sue with an impatient look. ‘Was it tea you were having?’

  Sue looked at the mug, then at the hot drinks machine with its array of choices. She usually picked whatever there was the most of because she knew some people really cared if they were out of cortado. Whatever that was.

  ‘What do you want?’ the woman asked again.

  Sue wanted her husband back.

  Before she could answer, the woman threw an impatient ‘do you see what I have to deal with’ look over her shoulder, huffed out a little sigh, grabbed a pod from the tower, shoved it in the little pull-out drawer, clapped it shut, then jabbed a button before throwing a look back at the queue with a ‘Don’t worry, I got this’ look.

  Normally, Sue would’ve been mortified. She hated causing a fuss. Today she was relieved. She obviously wasn’t up to the task. Thank heavens for the drop-down menu dictating the advice they gave the callers. Otherwise, who knew what she’d end up saying? Don’t ask me, I just muddle along with the crowd. Not entirely reassuring when your child had a fever outside of surgery hours, was it?

  Another stream of liquid, brown this time, drizzled down into the ceramic mug.

  Why hadn’t he left a note? Wasn’t that part of the whole thing? Making it clear why he’d done what he’d done? If he’d gone out to the pub and not left a note she’d be properly cross with him. And here he was, never coming back and there was nothing. Not even a scribbled ‘out with the lads’ on the stack of unicorn-shaped notelets by the phone. For some reason, her sister-in-law was completely convinced Sue had a thing for unicorns. They were lovely, unicorns, but not necessarily her favoured item for hom
e decor. She didn’t need unicorn notelets, oven mitts and drinks mats. She especially didn’t need a unicorn throw rug. Perhaps Katie thought an abundance of mythical creatures made up for the fact she and Gary had never had children. Perhaps it was easier than thinking about what Sue might actually want when obligatory gift-giving was required. Gary thought the whole thing so hilarious he’d started buying her items, too. As a joke, of course. She particularly liked the bedside lamp that sent dancing unicorns round the room at night. And the toothbrush.

  Her sweet, darling, full of life Gar-bear. Had he really meant to see it through? Perhaps he’d hoped she’d hear him futzing about with the rope or cut him down before it was too late? No. He wouldn’t have trusted her on the ladder up to the loft. Never had. She wondered again about a note. If he’d left something in the office. The thought struck that perhaps he’d posted her something. Perhaps the envelope was sitting in the kitchen now, tucked up alongside the post she’d yet to open. A mixture of sympathy cards and bills from the looks of things. She wasn’t a hundred per cent sure what she was waiting for. Not to shatter into a million unfixable pieces, she supposed.

  ‘Here you go,’ the girl handed her a brown drink that came halfway up the mug then noisily went about popping another pod into the machine making sure everyone knew she would be quick about it, unlike some people.

  As she stood to the side, a sudden, searing pain burned Sue’s ribcage. Was there nothing she could do properly? Nothing that made a difference? Gary hadn’t even waited to have his toad-in-the-hole. Not that ending one’s life on a full stomach was standard practice (as if she knew), but it felt like an additional, unnecessary slight on top of a sledgehammer of a message: