A Bicycle Built for Sue

by Daisy Tate

  All around her, the fifty-odd riders were wearing lycra leggings, reflective, weather proof, wind-resistant, breathable jackets, the cleats on their far-more-serious-looking shoes clacking on the ground as they leant into some rather severe-looking stretching positions.

  Suddenly her decision-making process – such as it was – seemed absolutely ridiculous. No wonder her mother had thought her completely mad for choosing this over a free trip to Menorca with Katie, Dean and the kids. That world, she was familiar with. That world, whilst not entirely pleasant, was safe.

  What on earth had she been thinking? Going on telly. Telling the entire world she’d been so useless her husband had – well – had had nowhere to turn? Astonishingly, her uselessness as a wife had already garnered her quite a few Instagram followers even though she’d only put three pictures on so far. (Sticky toffee pudding, their helmets and her bag on the bathroom scales at Flo’s.) She didn’t have as many followers as Raven, who had informed them over breakfast that her numbers had already topped a thousand.

  ‘Can we have all of the riders over here please!’

  A red-haired woman about the same age as Sue was beckoning everyone over to the long row of bicycles just outside the two guest houses where many of them had spent the night. The woman was wearing an orange version of the brightly coloured LifeTime t-shirts they’d been handed at the group meal last night as they were given their room assignments (Sue, Flo and Raven were given a family room with a set of bunkbeds and a double bed which they’d drawn straws for). When the woman turned around, Sue saw she had BECKY printed on the shirt and SUPPORT TEAM.

  Flo, who was on the phone with her husband discussing how to apply Captain George’s poultice, signaled to Raven and Sue that they should go on over. She’d catch up in a minute.

  Raven, who looked quite different in her riding shorts and bright yellow t-shirt, was beginning to look as nervous as Sue felt. Little wonder considering the poor thing hadn’t really done all that much riding apart from their twice-weekly ‘debt collecting’ rides. Numerous times, Sue had invited her to ride into work with her, but she’d always declined for one reason or another.

  ‘If I could get everyone’s attention, please! Great. Excellent.’ Becky waved them all in closer. ‘I’m Becky Harris, part of your cycle support team from Newcastle’s very own Pedal Power!’ She whacked an arm around Kath. ‘Thanks to Kath here and her passion for LifeTime, you all are about to do an amazing, but very difficult ride. That’s why, so far, you all have raised over two hundred and twenty-three THOUSAND pounds!’

  Everyone cheered.

  ‘How about we double or even triple that by the time you cycle into Tynemouth?’

  Another cheer.

  ‘Okay. Now that that’s sorted, let’s talk facts.’

  Sue looked at Raven who made a scared face and pretended to bite all of her nails off. Despite her nerves, Sue giggled. Riding with Raven looked set to be as natural as living together had been.

  Becky put her hands into a film director square. ‘Big picture? All you have to do today is get on your bike and ride. There’s some lovely coastal bits, some beautiful country lanes and even some hill work for those of you who like a bit of a challenge.’

  Sue hid a smile when Flo arrived just in time to roll her eyes as Trevor shouted out, ‘The more hills the merrier!’

  ‘That bloody man will drive us mad by the time this is through,’ Flo intoned as she pulled her windproof fleece zipper up to her chin.

  ‘That’s the spirit,’ Becky gave everyone the thumbs up. ‘Right. The small print. We have an advance party van. It is manned by this lovely young woman to my left, KC and her trusty companion Dean-O. Give everyone a wave, you two.’ A pretty blonde girl who looked as if she were an outdoor-wear model waved, as did the hipster-type beside her. ‘Do not – I repeat – do not try to keep up with them. This is not the Tour de France. They’ll have tea, coffees, biccies, oranges, all the good stuff you need to keep your energy levels up at the twenty-mile marker and the forty-mile marker. Lunch will be picnic style and will be on the piers at the lovely seaside town of Maryport. For those of you who are extra speedy, there is an aquarium that is well worth a look. They have kindly extended complimentary tickets to our riders who arrive early.’

  Whilst the group applauded, Raven threw Sue a look that said all she needed to know. They’d be missing out on the aquarium.

  Becky clapped her hands together and gave them a rub. ‘Today is the longest day, but also one of the flattest.’

  Murmurs of relief rippled through the crowd.

  ‘But! Your health and safety are paramount, isn’t that right, Kath?’ Kath nodded. ‘If you need a rest, if you are in any pain, if you need something from your bag – just look to the back of the peloton – you’ll be riding in formation, am I right???’ She didn’t pause to find out, ‘I’ll be there for you in this big old van, yeah?’

  Someone began to hum the theme song from Friends.

  Becky laughed. ‘Alright, that’s enough for me. How about we have a quick hip-hip for the brilliant Kath Fuller who’s got a live spot coming up with Kev and then we all hit the road!’

  Ready or not, thought Sue, as she hip-hip-hoorayed along with the rest of the riders … here I come.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  ‘Do you mind if I touch you from behind?’

  As it happened, Kath didn’t mind in the least if Fola touched her from behind. Or the front. Her body, as usual, had sprung to high alert when he’d approached her through the crowd of cyclists pulling on their jackets and readjusting their shoes out here on the blustery green in front of the hotel. The truth was, she’d been tingly ever since Fola had boarded the large touring bus they’d all taken from Birmingham. Since then the feeling had only grown. It reminded her of being thirteen and falling deeply in crush with David Langham, a Jack the lad who regularly ignored her until one day one of her mates had pushed her towards him and their teenaged bodies had collided in a whirl of heat and hormones. It was days before they could get a moment alone to see if the frisson buzzing between them was real. It hadn’t been in the end, but, oh, that electric feeling of anticipation … Bliss. This trip had been much the same. Last night had been all bustle. Meeting and greeting the riders as they checked into the small coastal hotel where they’d set up a temporary headquarters. Going over scripts with her producer. Checking that Kev had arrived in South Africa with his crew. Going to bed on her own, spreading her hand out on the cool sheet beside her wondering what it might be like to have someone else’s body that wasn’t Kevin’s beside her … and then remembering that the entire reason she’d made this whole thing happen was to honour the life of her brother, not flirt with a desperately gorgeous and kind man fifteen years her junior, who would very likely be horrified to discover just how much she had the hots for him.

  This morning, after her usual plate of scrambled eggs and avocado with hot sauce and a rare foray into the magical world of toast (mmmm, carbs), she was crackly with anticipation. This – the bikes, the crowd, the charity logo everywhere, her brother’s picture on the back of her shirt – it all felt real. As if everything she’d done in her life, the good choices and the bad had led her here … to the start of a Northern yellow brick road she hoped would deliver her to a place of self-forgiveness and peace and resolution about her brother. It was that, or be haunted by a genuine fear that all she’d done with her life was forsake her family in the single-minded pursuit of dance followed by an empty life in the limelight that looked glittery and nice but was, in fact, entirely forgettable. She wanted to make a difference. A real, genuine, difference. If Oprah suddenly up and died (god forbid, she was completely Kath’s hero), the world would notice. Millions would fall into a collective grief as they reflected upon the remarkable life of a sexually abused girl from the wrong side of the tracks who had helped so very many people along the way and, in the process, sold squillions of other people’s inspirational self-help books. If Kath were to di
sappear … maybe a column inch or two in The Sun? A chance for the station to reboot the morning programme? A new model bride for Kev? That’d be about it. Unless she took this chance to truly change, no matter the consequences.

  Fola, clad in his usual workout gear – trainers, loose fitting t-shirt that showed off his broad shoulders, and slim line tracky bottoms – walked behind her. ‘If you really want to get the most out of this quad stretch, Katherine, you want to bend from here.’ She felt his fingers slip into the crease between her thighs and hips. ‘Lean forward, pushing your glutes back and your chest forward … Yeah. That’s right. Are you feeling it now?’

  Oh, she was feeling it alright. Feeling all sorts of tingly, heated glitter bombs going off like popping candy in her ‘treasure chest’ as Kev liked to call it. Not that he’d gone on any treasure hunts lately. A thought which immediately made the feelings go away. Oprah wouldn’t lust after her trainer. Fola’s fingers shifted to her hips, causing her to twitch in all sorts of wicked ways. Oprah would probably have a female trainer anyway. A girl who’d won gold in a 800-metre race, barefoot, against the odds, wearing nothing but a hand-me-down tracksuit she’d been given by the Red Cross after her entire village had been swept away in a tsunami.

  Kath stood up and took a couple of steps back from Fola. This had to stop. Unless it was actually love she was feeling.

  Was it? She stared at him, willing his expression to tell her. He looked at her, confused. Not really the lovestruck expression she was after. More likely her feelings were the complicated, menopausal, rat’s nest of complexity all leading to one inevitable endgame: admitting that her marriage to Kevin had been a mistake.

  ‘Alright, Katherine?’

  ‘Yes. Wonderful,’ she lied, looking into his eyes again, desperate to see something, anything, that mirrored her experience. The flickers of heat when their hands brushed. The tightness in her chest when their eyes caught and meshed. The bone-deep ache for change.

  ‘I’ll just go help some of the others if that’s alright?’

  Ah ha ha ha, she weird laughed. ‘You don’t have to ask my permission.’

  He gave her a lightly perplexed look that said, I know that. I wasn’t asking your permission, I was just being polite.

  Ah ha ha ha ha.

  Quicksand, take me now.

  She pulled her arm across her chest and pressed it flat with her other hand, feigning nonchalance. ‘Cool. Cool beans. I’ll just catch up with the crew and see you in ten for take-off?’

  Fola squinted at her in the way a mother might examine their child before pressing a hand to their forehead to check for a fever. ‘Alright, Katherine. Maybe do a couple of calf stretches as well, okay?’ He stroked one of his very long-fingered hands along his calf, evoking a ripple of goose pimples along Kath’s belly.

  ‘Excellent suggestion. I’ll get on that.’ She made a show of lifting her heel to her bum and tugging on it, realising, too late, that she was not doing a calf stretch at all, but she’d already made a complete div of herself so why not commit? She pulled up her other foot and gave that a stretch, too. Balance, she reminded herself from countless yoga sessions, balance was everything.

  Right then and there she vowed not to speak to Fola unless it was absolutely necessary. Doing anything else would be ridiculous. She didn’t want to have an affair. She wanted to make a difference. The way Oprah did. And Oprah did not get to where she was in life by crushing on her PT. So! It was time to put on the blinkers and go full steam ahead Oprah.

  Her crush would go away, she would raise loads of money for LifeTime and hopefully, somewhere along the next one hundred and seventy-four miles she would get a sign from her brother that she hadn’t been all bad. It was that or carry on being a jowly, middle-aged, almost has-been on the brink of seeing both her marriage and her career swan dive into the forgettable depths of lite entertainment television.

  ‘Kath?’ Her producer signaled that the lines were up between South Africa and Ravenglass. ‘Kev wants a word. Says the shirt you’re wearing makes you look like you have yellow fever. Any chance of switching into something a bit more flattering? His words, not mine.’

  Kath took in a deep breath and counted to ten. It was going to be a long week. And she wasn’t talking about the cycling.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  ‘So it’s goodbye from us here at the studio …’ Kev waved at the camera.

  ‘… and hello from …’ Kath twirled her hands into a magician’s assistant position as, through the magic of television she and Kev were transported to:

  ‘Cape Town!’

  ‘And the Lake District!’

  Kath waved again, her body catching unnaturally as if she were filled with shattered glass. Telling Kev she would be happier married to a pygmy hadn’t really been the best of farewells. Not to mention entirely politically incorrect. For all she knew, pygmies might have a reputation as fabulous spouses. Unlike Liverpudlian disco dancers desperately clinging to the embers of their morning television career.

  ‘You’re looking well rested, Kath!’

  Oh, ha ha ha. Marinating in Kev’s parting shot had kept the bouncing sheep at bay. You’re making a spectacle of yourself, Kath. Humiliating yourself. No one cares about a dead drunk. You making a show of it is doing about as much good as your brother ever did. It had been a particularly low blow. Even for Kev, who tended to shoot from the hip, not below it.

  Kev, who could clearly see his monitor, began whistling the opening measures to ‘Singin’ In the Rain’. ‘It looks as though the heavens have decided to smile down upon one of us.’

  Kath wrestled her umbrella back into submission. ‘I’m feeling a bit more like Mary Poppins than Debbie Reynolds today!’

  She grimaced. What percentage of their viewers would even know who Debbie Reynolds was? Should she throw in a Carrie Fisher reference or would that just confuse people further? Buggeration. Three hours sleep was taking its toll and she had fifty-three miles ahead of her today.

  ‘Good to see the bank holiday British weather can be relied upon to put us in our place. Some of us, anyway!’

  Oh, he really was going for it today, her Kev.

  She blinked away some raindrops and tried to pretend she was in The Notebook, but a little less sexy. Fuck Kevin and his bloody ratings. This was important. Her brother had been important. All she had to do was keep walking that tightrope between entertaining telly and heart on her sleeve and the advertisers would stay happy. ‘It’ll be like riding through a facial, Kev. That’s what I’m going to tell myself anyway.’ Urgh. Amping up her beauty regime. Way to relate to the punters. ‘I can’t see my monitor, but I’m guessing things are a bit sunnier where you are.’

  Blah. What are you on about?

  ‘Quite literally, Kath!’

  She sang through a few bars of ‘Singing in the Rain’. Most of their viewers would be about to head out into this, so best to make the most of the sympathy card.

  ‘Tell me, Kath,’ Kev cut in, ‘Will you be doing any riding yourself, or will you be getting your trainer to do it for you?’

  Oh, ho ho ho ho.

  Apparently, one of Kath’s many flaws (Kev had quite the list), was that she … let’s see … how did it go? … ah yes. She ‘delegated to deleterious effect.’

  In case she hadn’t understood what he’d meant, Kev had clarified. (This, whilst tapping out a series of texts to his assistant about what she should pack for him.) Kath, apparently, ‘lacked the spine to see anything important through.’ Getting her brother into rehab? Fail. Keeping her appearance up to snuff? Fail. Championing Kev, the true star of Brand New Day? Epic fail – particularly when she kept insisting on throwing his sage advice back in his face and upon turning the spotlight on her bloody, useless, drunk, dead brother instead of focusing on something fun which is all viewers were after anyway, did he really, after all these years, and all he’d taught her, have to continue to do everything for her as if she were that same clueless Geordie he’d met at
Butlins where she’d no doubt still be if he hadn’t taken pity on her.

  A flame lit deep in the morass of darkness that verbal lashing had carved out inside of her. Kev was full of horse shit. She was talented. Relatable. A damn fine dancer, presenter and now, an inspiration to others to not hide their pain. She’d earned her spot in the limelight every bit as much as Kev had. More so, now that the advertisers seemed to have perked up since she’d announced her ride.

  With that in mind, she decided it was time to start sticking the screw in.

  ‘As you well know, Kev, while you’re down there enjoying a bit of beach blanket bingo, I’m going to be riding every single mile along with our LifeTime riders. I think most of them will agree, the physical journey will be short compared to the emotional journey most of our riders have taken to get here. Looking out at them now, knowing the heartache some of them have endured, makes my heart want to burst. We’ve got one hundred and seventy-four long miles ahead of us.’

  ‘I’d say you’d need those miles to burn off calories from all of that sticky toffee pudding you lot got stuck into yesterday.’

  He probably needed them too, if his road producer’s report on the number of G&Ts he drank on the plane to Cape Town was anything to go by.

  ‘It was certainly a fun way to start off the trip, Kev. What better way to bond than getting a tour of Cartmel’s very own sticky toffee pudding headquarters? We’ll show you that exclusive inside glimpse after we set off, but as you can see we’ve got quite a few riders keen to get on the road to earn some more money for LifeTime.’ She pointed at the crowd of people behind her who waved and cheered. A gust of wind caught her brolly and tugged it out of her grasp. A crew member bounded out to get it and as he ran back towards her she did a ‘Melania flick’ as they’d come to call the tight hand gesture meaning he should stay out of shot. A gesture, it should be noted, usually reserved for Kev.