Worn Out Wife Seeks New Life

by Carmen Reid

  The signal was loading, four dots were coming into view… one was on the West Coast of America, one was in the south of Spain and the two he homed in on now were in London.

  He identified his phone, then zoomed in on the other. The signal was live, Alex was there right now… it was in Croydon. Dave’s heart began to hammer when he realised that his beloved boy appeared to be on a railway bridge.

  As he rushed out of the building, he dialled his son’s number.

  43

  ‘Now!’ Alex said out loud, ‘Just do it now!’

  He pushed forward. He began to lift his right leg towards the edge of the bridge, when something crashed hard into the back of his left knee.

  The force of the blow caused Alex to fall onto the pavement. He yelled, as the pain ricocheted through his exhausted body: ‘Aaaah! Bastard, no!’

  He heard the clang of metal on metal, and hurried footsteps. The knee was painful, yes, but something much worse had happened.

  Someone had just saved his life.

  He had finally built up the strength to finish himself off, and someone had ruined it.

  He could hardly bear to look up; he didn’t want anyone here, to try to talk him out of it. He felt unbelievably angry. What right did this random person have to interfere?

  He felt a touch on his arm and forced himself to look up.

  Bending down over him was a girl about his age, with long auburn hair and bright blue eyes. She was wearing a brown leather jacket, and had a large, vintage camera over one shoulder. She had perfectly smooth skin, and her face was flushed, vibrant and full of life and animation. Everything about her seemed young and healthy. And her smile was so wide that her entire face seemed to reach out to him. There was no cynicism in that smile.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked. ‘I’m so sorry! I did ring the bell on my bike, but it never works, and then you moved really suddenly, and I couldn’t cycle around you!’

  She helped Alex up to his feet. ‘What were you doing anyway, was that a calf exercise?’

  ‘A… a what?’ Alex stuttered.

  ‘A calf exercise, was that why you thrust your leg out like you did? I do them a lot, whenever I’ve been cycling for more than a few hours, otherwise my legs seize up.’ She laughed a clear, simple laugh and gave that radiant smile again. ‘I’m yabbering on… are you okay?’

  To Alex’s astonishment, he realised that the girl had no idea what she had just done. She had no idea that she had saved his life. He was so completely confused by this bizarre turn of events that he had no idea what to say or think. He wobbled on his feet, then put out an arm to grab the railing. His head was spinning. The girl put her arm round him to help him stand.

  ‘You lean against that railing, mister!’ she said, propping him up against the barrier that only seconds before, Alex had tried to throw himself over. ‘Have a good old lean right there! Gosh, that’s such a lovely view over those train tracks isn’t it? It’s really got a cool, industrial, decaying sort of vibe, doesn’t it? I’m going to take get a photo of it. This camera is brilliant, proper retro; you have to print the pics in a dark room and everything, and it’s in black and white, for that sort of depressed vibe, you know?’

  Alex had no idea how to keep up with this conversation. He noticed that one of the girl’s lovely eyes had a slight squint. It gave her a unique look and brought a kind of energy and kookiness to her face. He found himself staring at her.

  ‘I know!’ she exclaimed, taking him by the arm. ‘If you wouldn’t mind standing just… there,’ she said, moving him slightly to the left. ‘Great! And then your arm leaning like that… and then just look nice and relaxed!’

  And so Alex found himself posing for a photograph on the very bridge he had been planning to throw himself from. This is ridiculous, he thought. He felt overwhelmed by the utter weirdness of his situation and stood there awkwardly, not knowing what to say or do, against this onslaught of newness and surprise. As the camera clicked, he even caught himself posing.

  Dave was on one of those cycles you can hire in London. He had already spent £60 on a taxi and now £15 for this bike. But nothing was too much, because he had to get there.

  He’d sat in the taxi frantically consulting his phone about the fastest way to get to the spot and taxi had narrowly trumped train. But then, when the taxi had come to a halt at a road works snarl up, Dave had not been able to sit still. The phone dot was still on the bridge. Dave could hardly bear to look at it. Did it mean his son was still there… on the bridge deciding whether to do this or not? Did it mean just his son’s phone was on the bridge? Or… did it mean that Dave was going to be too late…?

  The agony of not knowing was unbearable. At least if he was running towards Alex that would be better than sitting here, so he’d paid the driver, jumped out of the car and realised immediately that with a great plastic boot on his leg running was out of the question. That’s when he’d seen the rack of bikes.

  Now he was rushing, faster than he could ever have imagined he could cycle, towards the scene, the phone instructing his turns. He was panting with effort and making every kind of bargain he could with the powers up there. He would be the best dad ever; he would be the best husband in the whole world too. Nothing, nothing would ever be too much trouble for him again. He would get fit; he would lose weight; he would attend every father and husband counselling session ever. Just please let him get to Alex. Please, please, please let Alex be okay.

  ‘Just let me find him,’ he begged, ‘just let him be okay. I want to tell him that everything is going to be okay and we will look after him for as long as he needs us.’

  Totally in the grip of adrenaline now, his legs pumped and he swooped down roads, round corners and through a wide park. Surely it couldn’t be far now.

  ‘There!’ the girl said, letting out another peal of laughter. ‘Thanks so much! Oh my God, what am I doing asking you to be in my photos?’ She was suddenly embarrassed. ‘I whack you in the knee with my bike, then I make you pose for my stupid art stuff! I have ADHD… I get distracted,’ she confided. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ Alex admitted truthfully. He felt strange. The panic within him had subsided. The urgency, the bleakness, the misery of his situation was somehow less. Against all odds, he could feel the warm glow of a smile breaking across his face.

  ‘I’m a huge, fucking disaster,’ he said, his turn to confide now.

  To his surprise, the girl burst out laughing at this. ‘Aren’t we all, though? You seem like a pretty okay disaster to me.’

  Alex laughed too. He couldn’t stop himself. It was a simple, short burst of laughter that bubbled up from him just for a moment. But even that tiny bit of lightness felt like it meant much more.

  The girl laughed again too, for much longer than him. She didn’t seem to know what she was laughing at, but seemed thrilled to be joining in. When the laughter stopped, he didn’t know what to say. But she broke the silence.

  ‘Well… it’s good to laugh,’ she said, ‘really… if I could, I would laugh all the time.’

  For a moment, they just stood on the bridge looking at one another, and then a car passed and that seemed to break the spell.

  ‘Awesome to meet you, dude!’ she said brightly, ‘But I’ve got to be going! I’m moving to Edinburgh tomorrow, believe it or not, and I’ve still got a million things to pack…’

  ‘Edinburgh?’ said Alex, his brain was scrambling for information. ‘My sister’s at uni in Edinburgh,’ he managed. Could this be enough of a connection? Could there be a chance this would somehow let him see this girl again?

  ‘Oooh, let me give you my number then,’ she added, quickly rummaging through her jacket, and pulling out a pen and a piece of card. ‘My phone is broken, because I dropped it over a bridge, funnily enough. Ah, there must be something about me and bridges… so I’ll have to write it down. If you have any problems, or if they have to cut your… they won’t have to cut your leg off, duh, haha!’ she
gave another laugh. ‘But seriously, if there’s anything up, or you’re in Edinburgh… give me a shout.’

  She pushed the card into Alex’s hand. On it, she’d written a number and below that, in neat, beautiful handwriting, she had written a name and her Instagram tag.

  ‘Emilee,’ he said, smiling, ‘@Emi-lee-wears-a-beret.’

  ‘That’s me!’

  ‘Emilee,’ he said again. Of course, she had a name like Emilee. And, now that he looked properly, she was wearing a beret. It was the same shade of pink as her cheeks.

  ‘Well… catch you later!’ she said, giving him another wide and delightful smile. Then, in a single movement, she jumped onto her bike, swung her feet onto the pedals, and sped off into the distance. Alex was alone on the bridge once more.

  He was still trembling, but he didn’t think it was fear any more. In fact, it felt a lot like excitement. Nothing had changed. He was still a penniless, failed financial services intern, with insomnia, drinking issues, a disastrous room, depression, anxiety, suicidal tendencies and possibly no chance of employment ever. He still felt completely detached from his family and still had not even the slightest idea what to ‘do’ with his life, or where in the world to find truth, meaning and peace.

  But he felt different. He felt a little bit interested in life. What happens next, he wondered?

  A burst of sunshine broke through the trees and flashed against the train tracks down below, turning them bright gold. A girl with a camera, and a stream of wonderful nonsense had crashed into his world at exactly the right moment.

  Calf exercises… depressed industrial vibes… Edinburgh…

  He realised now that everything about the world wasn’t hideous. It was possible for this world to contain bad and terrible things, yes, but also vintage cameras and bicycles and girls with berets and broad, bright smiles.

  She saw things differently. She could take this miserable, broken world, and make it feel beautiful and cherished. Emilee had looked at the bridge and seen beauty in it. How did she do that? And how could he find out more about her?

  ‘I’m alive!’ he said out loud. ‘I’m alive, alive. God, what a stupid bastard I’ve been! I’m so lucky to be alive.’

  Someone was shouting his name… for a moment he thought he was imagining it. But no, someone was definitely shouting his name.

  ‘Alex! Alex! ALEX!!’

  This wasn’t Emilee’s voice.

  It sounded a lot like… how could that be? It honestly sounded like his dad.

  He looked across the road and saw a bike hurtling at breakneck-speed down a hill towards the bridge. There at the handlebars, beetroot in the face, was his dad.

  This day was already so full of astonishment that Alex didn’t even question it; he just waved and smiled.

  The bike slowed up a little as his dad crossed the final road, then pedalled right up to him. His dad didn’t even get off the bike, just leaned over and wrapped Alex up in a huge and totally comforting hug.

  ‘I’ve got you,’ his dad said in a choked and muffled voice.

  ‘Yeah,’ Alex replied.

  44

  It was nearly 4 p.m. the next day when a taxi pulled up outside Ambleside. Inside, Tess was crumpled, exhausted, and wrung out in the way you can only be if you’ve had to sort out, pack up, organise, and leave in a hurry, then make a huge and exhausting transatlantic journey, while keeping up with intense emotional events involving both of your children. The plane had been delayed. And she wouldn’t let Dave leave Alex to come and pick her up. So she’d done taxis, trains and another taxi to get here.

  Now, she was completely jet-lagged, ragged at the edges, and also strangely surprised to be back, to be outside her home once again. It felt as if months had passed, not just four weeks, since she’d last been here.

  There had been a lot of crying on the plane. She had cried over Alex… she had cried for Natalie and she had also cried because her adventure was now cut short and, all of sudden, over. From the plane window she’d seen some of the places that she might have visited in her final fortnight – the desert, Joshua Creek, maybe she would even have got to the Grand Canyon. Never mind, she’d told herself, I can come back.

  ‘This doesn’t have to be goodbye, in fact, I really hope it isn’t goodbye,’ she’d told first Nathan and then Larry. ‘I hope this will be the start of a good friendship.’

  ‘Yeah, you have to come back… every single year now,’ Larry had insisted, ‘when I will trade you tango lessons for tax returns.’

  They had hugged outside Larry’s apartment front door, when she’d come with the treats from her fridge and her fruit bowl, plus the news that for family reasons, she was all packed up and waiting for her cab.

  ‘Thank you for everything,’ Larry had told her, ‘for sorting the taxes… for sorting the pool… and let’s not forget River’s balcony.’

  They had laughed at that, remembering their first slightly crazy encounter.

  ‘Yeah, she better keep that tidy, or else, you let me know.’

  ‘Hang loose, Tess… and keep on dancing,’ had been his parting words and they had made her cry.

  Carefully, she had walked around River’s apartment one last time, checking she hadn’t left anything, cuddling the dogs, who would be off into Tom’s full-time care in a few hours’ time, and laying out her keys.

  She imagined River walking into the now clean and peaceful apartment, enjoying the cleared desk and new bookcase, sitting out on the balcony with its new pots of plants, cooking in her pristine kitchen and taking a sparkling white shower… plus she now had a basketful of toilet rolls! She wasn’t sure when River was returning; Dave had promised he would sort all that out and she just needed to get on the plane.

  Yes, Dave had promised to sort that out. This was something different.

  And now she was in the back of the taxi on the driveway in front of Ambleside. The roses growing up the front of the house were out in full bloom, the soft and blousy flowers lifting in the breeze. Everything looked so gentle compared to the vivid brights of LA. The house was pale limestone, the plants were gentle shades of pink and green and look at the door in that perfect, weathered shade of blue. She had picked that blue paint and Dave had applied it… five coats, she remembered. Four would have been fine, probably, but she’d thought why not do just one more to be sure?

  They had done this.

  Together, they had taken this old, tired and weary house and made a beautiful home for themselves and their children, built their family here.

  Beneath the physical weariness, she realised how excited she was to see them all again.

  She got out of the car, paid the driver and unloaded her luggage. The taxi was just pulling out of the driveway when the front door opened and there was Dave. Tess had wondered what it would be like to see him. Really see him.

  And there he was, standing in the doorway of the family home they’d created.

  Her husband looked both totally familiar and yet slightly different. His hair was newly cut, his face freshly shaved. He was in a pink shirt that she particularly liked and this was tucked into jeans with that fashionably stiff and unbroken look that she didn’t recognise. Above the warm smile, she saw a hint of dark eye circles. No wonder, of course. Their son had tried… well… had certainly thought very seriously about killing himself.

  And Dave had spotted it. Dave had found him. When Alex was on the very brink, Dave was the one who had been there and caught hold of him. Dave had told her that afterwards, he’d taken Alex straight out for a hearty breakfast, then he’d helped him to pack up and clean his dismal room. And together, with two small suitcases and a binbag of possessions, they’d made the taxi and train journeys home. Dave had been looking after Alex since then, day and night. Apparently, Alex had mainly been soundly asleep. And in the midst of all this, Natalie had also arrived home, bringing a drama all of her own.

  Tess and Dave stepped towards one another now. He held out his arms and she did the same, hu
rrying towards him. Whatever she had thought she might feel about him after their time apart, in that moment it didn’t seem to matter, as she moved into that warm, familiar and comfortable place.

  ‘Hello, darling,’ she said.

  ‘Hello, Tess,’ he replied, sounding relieved, ‘it’s so good to see you. I’m so glad you’re back.’

  ‘Hello,’ she said again, hugging him hard and resting her face on his shoulder, ‘it’s good to see you too. But I am so tired.’

  ‘Me too… unbelievably tired… I’m so glad you’re back,’ he repeated.

  He put his face gently against hers and his cheek was softer than she remembered.

  ‘Come in… come and see everyone… I’ll get the luggage.’

  When Tess stepped into the hallway, she registered the missing presence of Bella, who would always put a cold nose into her hand and thump her tail against the wall when Tess came home. Poor old girl.

  Then she walked into the sitting room, expecting to see her children, but it was empty. Although it was clean and ordered, it had lost the pristine state that she had begun to keep it in. There were two sweatshirts on the back of a sofa, a pair of trainers had been abandoned on the floor, and a half-empty bowl of popcorn stood on the coffee table.

  A thud on the ceiling suggested that someone, at least, was upstairs, so she headed up the creaky staircase to investigate. There was a flurry of giggles from Natalie’s room, so she went there.

  ‘Hello!’ she called from outside.

  ‘Mum!’

  Natalie bounded to the door and gave her a huge hug. Not the depressed and tear-stained Natalie she’d expected, but a bright, tanned, blonde girl, bursting with life and energy. Soph and Ellie were here, of course, what else could Tess have expected? They were sitting on Natalie’s bed listening, no doubt, to every single tiny detail. Tess kissed them all hello and realised how lovely it was to see, not just Natalie, but the whole trio together.