Carry You

by Beth Thomas

  ‘Oh, right. Good tip. Thanks.’ Note to self: never wear shorts.

  The next day, Sunday, Abby is out of bed and Lycra-ed up before me, so I have no chance to sneak off and meet Danny. We hadn’t arranged to meet, but he’s such a creature of habit I know he’ll be on that canal path at ten every day, without fail. But today he must travel alone.

  ‘I’m coming with you today, Daze. That OK?’

  ‘Course.’ I smile at her and do feel a little flicker of pleasure at the thought of a long walk with my bezzie. ‘It’ll be lovely to have you with me for a change.’

  She smiles broadly. ‘Good. It’ll give us a chance to have a chat about … stuff.’

  She doesn’t say any more but, about ten minutes into the walk, she stops suddenly, thrusts her face into mine and very darkly says, ‘Naomi.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Have you rung her? Have you asked her if she knows what Graham’s done? Have you asked her what share of your mum’s half of the estate she’s getting?’

  I hadn’t. I didn’t ring her on Friday, when I opened the letter, and I haven’t rung her since then either. I shake my head slowly.

  ‘Well then,’ Abs says, grabbing my shoulders and gripping them tightly. ‘You should do that. Come on.’

  ‘No, Abs …’

  ‘I really think you should. She might be able to shed some light, maybe explain what’s happened?’ She takes hold of my arm, but I dig in my heels. Literally. The magic trainers have very good grip. She turns around to fix me with her voodoo stare when she feels resistance, but I don’t look away.

  ‘No, Abs,’ I say, more forcefully. My God, I’m doing it.

  Abby blinks. ‘But–’

  ‘I really don’t want to ring Naomi now. I’ll do it, I will, but I’m not ready right now.’ We look into each other’s eyes for about ten seconds, and I feel myself weakening. ‘I’ll pop round there and see her, OK?’ Stare. ‘Soon.’

  She doesn’t move for a second or two longer, obviously expecting me to crumble, or explain anyway, but incredibly, I do neither. Finally she drops her gaze and my arm, in that order. ‘OK, well, it’s up to you. It would be beneficial though, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘I know. Thanks.’

  She shrugs. ‘Well I tell you something else,’ she sets off again, ‘whoever you’ve managed to rope in as your walking partner isn’t much cop coz you’re just as bloody slow as ever.’

  ‘No I’m not!’

  ‘Yeah, Daze, you are. Come on, pick it up a bit. Maybe I’ll take the morning off tomorrow and come with you both, speak to him – what’s his name again?’

  ‘Danny.’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe I’ll take a little look at Danny Boy, see if he’s up to the job. Maybe tell him a thing or two about fitness and walking and how to complete a marathon.’

  I’m literally cringing at this point. I stop walking, my eyes half closed and shudder from my shoulders. Abby, in her false-lash-effect mascara, acrylic nails and teeny tiny tight little shorts, telling someone like Danny about how to walk a marathon. Oh God.

  Plus, if I’m completely honest, I don’t really want Danny to see me like that. You know, standing next to Abby.

  ‘Jesus, Daisy, will you please come on?’

  ‘Actually, Abs,’ I say, remembering with relief something from yesterday and running to catch her up, ‘you won’t be able to, because I’ll be walking on my own for a couple of weeks from tomorrow.’

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’

  ‘Danny’s going on holiday with his brother for two weeks. Surfing.’ That was the errand he’d had to sort out Friday morning – collecting his dollars from the bank. ‘It’s fine, I’ll be fine. I’m much better than I was, and I’ve got used to the route now, so … What?’

  She’s stopped again and is now shaking her head with her hands on her hips. ‘Oh no, no, no, no. No you don’t. I’m not having that.’

  ‘Oh come on, Abs, I’ll be fine.’

  ‘OK, while I am now less terrified of you dying out here, I am still concerned about you getting lost, wounded, dehydrated or attacked. And I’m still a bit concerned about your pace. No, don’t look at me like that. I can see that you have sped up, no question. These nine miles are now taking you under four hours, which is a giant improvement.’

  ‘Only just over three.’

  ‘Yeah, OK, three hours. Ish. But you should be walking at four miles an hour by now. Nine miles should be taking you no more than two and half hours, if not less.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’

  ‘No. I’m not. That’s the pace we need to set to complete the walk in the allotted time. Seriously, if you take three hours to do nine miles, how long is it going to take you to do three times that much?’

  I press my lips together, squint a bit and look up at the sky. ‘Wait …’

  ‘Brilliant. The point is, I don’t want to be still trudging round London at bloody ten o’clock in the morning …’

  ‘Nine o’clock, Abs. Three times three is nine. Remember?’

  ‘Yeah, I remember, but what you’re forgetting is that after four or five hours, your pace is going to be considerably slower than at the beginning. Right? So even if you start off at four miles an hour, you won’t finish at that rate. Which means you need to start off even faster. Which means you need to pick it up now.’

  ‘Abs, can I ask you something?’

  ‘What?’

  I stop walking and pluck nervously at my tee shirt. ‘What’s going to happen to us if we don’t do it in the allotted time?’

  She shakes her head quickly. ‘Just …’

  ‘Are we going to be made to quietly disappear at the finish line? Will we ever be seen again? Will our DNA be found on a river bank somewhere in twenty years? Is our torn clothing going to turn up in the boot of a rusty old car at the dump?’

  ‘Yes. Either that, or we’ll be disappointed with ourselves.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Anyway, I think it’s time you started walking with that friend of mine I organised for you before you met this Danny character.’

  ‘He’s not “this Danny character”, Abs, he’s a really decent bloke.’

  ‘Sure. But …’

  ‘He’s kind and sensitive and so caring and sweet. Honestly, I’ve never met anyone like him.’ Oops. I bite my lip quickly to stop myself from saying any more. Bugger.

  ‘Really?’

  I push out my lips and wave a hand. ‘Yeah, well, you know …’

  She stops at this point and grabs my arm so I am forced, against my will, to stop and talk about Danny. ‘Hold on one second. Daisy May Macintyre. Have you fallen for this bloke?’

  I just shrug nonchalantly and pull the most ‘I’m-so-bored-with-this-conversation’ expression I can summon up. Abby is my unconditional, top of the heap, A-number one best friend. She’s kind, thoughtful and generous and always has my best interests at heart. She would do pretty much anything for me. I absolutely cannot let her know how I feel about Danny.

  It’s not that I don’t trust her. No, wait. It’s exactly that. I don’t trust her not to immediately start trying to make things happen between me and any boy I like, as soon as she finds out about it. For all his obvious charms, I don’t know Danny very well yet. He could well be into really freakish things like, I don’t know, Star Trek or something. Maybe he dresses up as Worf at weekends and goes to conventions and pretends to use a phaser (set to stun, obviously – those venues don’t have adequate insurance for anything else). Or worse, maybe he’s in a macramé circle and they all get together and swap patterns and eat flapjacks. And besides all that, if I’m totally honest, I know I’m just a lump of mud at the moment. Danny is a gorgeous, toned sculpture. He would no more look at me than he would consider going on a date with a bowl of Weetabix. I couldn’t bear it if Abby somehow managed to contact him and tried to set us up for a date. And then he had to look around him awkwardly and fiddle with a nearby pencil, and say something like, ‘Oh, yeah, g
reat. I’m just not sure how I’m fixed that day.’ And she’d know she hadn’t even given him a date yet, so she’d come home and make pity-chilli and we’d watch Notting Hill together on the sofa while she rubbed my hand. God no.

  ‘He’s OK,’ I say to her on Sunday on the canal bank. ‘Very sweet but a bit brainless, you know?’

  She grins and starts walking again. ‘Like, brawn, but no brain, you mean? Yeah, I totally get that.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it exactly.’

  ‘What a shame. I bet I know someone that knows him – could have found out a bit more about him if you want …’

  I shake my head listlessly, resisting the strong urge to grab her by the collar and shake her, screaming ‘Noooooo for the love of everything holy, noooo!’. ‘Nah. Thanks, but there’s no point. He’s sweet but dull. Know what I mean?’

  ‘OK. Well he’s away for two weeks anyway, so let me tell you a bit about your new walking partner instead.’

  When we get home, Abby settles in for a nice Sunday afternoon on the sofa with her beloved, and I settle in for a long session on my bed thinking about contacting Naomi. I’ve told Abs that I’ll pop round there, but at the moment that feels about as likely as me popping round to a house in Notting Hill to visit Hugh Grant. Although, frankly, nothing like as pleasant. Even if Hugh took one look at me and said ‘Piss off, you mad stalker’, it would still be quite significantly better than this proposed visit to Naomi.

  I’ve read somewhere that serious athletes practise visualisation techniques to help them achieve their goals, although I’m not entirely sure how that would help. Apparently if you focus all your energy on your goal, get a very clear image of it in your head and then put yourself in that picture, truly achieving it, it will happen. I’m not convinced. Surely everyone would be visualising winning the lottery or sleeping with Matt Damon. I have, of course, been visualising that for years, but it’s never happened. Anyway, I’m a serious athlete now so I close my eyes and conjure up a clear mental image of the finish line: in this case, Naomi’s front door. I see the flawless black gloss paint, the brass letter box, the little ornamental tree pruned into a three-tiered pyramid in the pot next to the door. OK, good. Now I have to put myself into the picture. I start by mentally turning into Naomi’s road – Laurel Avenue – and walking along the pavement towards her house. Here we are. A 1930s-style semi-detached residence complete with block-paved driveway, full double glazing and gas central heating. Must be viewed to fully appreciate the range of accommodation on offer.

  I stand at the end of the path and look at the shiny black door, at the big bow windows, at the cherry blossom now covering the ground like used confetti, and my imaginary feet stall right there as the memory of the last time I was here slams into me.

  I’d gone round one evening because Mum had let slip to me in a morphine-careless moment that she hadn’t seen Naomi for a while. She realised by my reaction that she probably shouldn’t have said it, and refused to elaborate on how long ‘a while’ was. Then she dropped off to sleep, so I took the opportunity to pay Naomi a visit. The cherry blossom tree in the front was almost bare and the pavement was clogged with a litter of brown and gold leaves.

  ‘How dare you dictate to me when I should and shouldn’t be visiting my own mum?’ she demanded at top volume. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, the visitor police?’ We were still standing in her kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil. I hadn’t even taken my coat off.

  ‘I wasn’t dictating to you, Nomes, I was just worried about …’

  ‘Jesus Christ, just because you live there, doesn’t put you in charge.’

  ‘I never said …’

  ‘I will visit my own mother when I decide to. Have you got that?’

  Tears were already filling my eyes, and then Russell joined in. ‘God, Daisy, you’re such an interfering witch. You’ve got to let Naomi do what Naomi wants to do, without sticking your oar in all the time.’

  I’d rounded on him. ‘Why don’t you stay out of this? It’s got nothing to do with you.’ My mouth was starting to go out of shape as I fought to keep the tears in.

  ‘It’s got everything to do with him!’ Naomi exploded. ‘When he has to deal with seeing me upset every day and trying to make me feel better and help me cope with your appalling … dictatorship.’

  ‘That’s not …’

  ‘Mum’s not that bad at the moment anyway,’ she went on nastily. ‘She’s just using her illness to get people to visit her.’

  There was a horrified silence. We all just stared at each other as the kettle rumbled up to its boil crescendo and switched itself off. The click and sudden quiet seemed to snap us all out of our shock and I left soon after.

  ‘“Let Naomi do what Naomi wants”?’ Abs had said, outraged, when I told her about it. She was silent on the subject of what Naomi had said. ‘What a fucking hypocrite! He tells you not to interfere, which in itself is interfering! And this is two sisters talking about their dying mum he’s sticking his oar into. Ugh, horrible man.’

  Now she wants me to go back there and it’s almost more than I can stand to think about it, let alone actually do it. But I have to remember that Naomi wasn’t always like that. We used to be close friends. When I was nineteen and Naomi was twenty-one, we went for a week self-catering to the Sol de Mar apartments in Malaga. I organised the whole thing on my own as she always seemed to be so busy, but that was OK, that was how it was. We spent two days inert by the pool, then on the third day, after lengthy discussions, she finally agreed that we needed to be a bit more adventurous. We tied on our sarongs, slid on our flip-flops and set off down the beach to check out the activities. There wasn’t much – in the end it came down to a choice between pedalos – ‘dear God, no’ (effort) – inflatable banana – ‘please God, no’ (fear) or something called ‘Dreamz’. It looked harmless enough – a wide, flat inflatable that we had to lie on while it was towed behind a small speedboat. As we looked at each other we glimpsed in our periphery the narrow speeding horror that is the inflatable banana going past in the background; then grinned as we focused back on our nice, wide, comfy mattress. Yes, this was going to be most relaxing and enjoyable.

  It was one of the most terrifying things I have ever done. We smugly took hold of the handgrips – just canvas straps at the front – propped ourselves up on our elbows and prepared for a pleasant ten-minute chat while we bobbed gently over the waves. Then the operator started the engine, opened up the throttle and flung the boat out into the open sea. Naomi and I slid instantly to the end of the float, our arms stretched to their limits, and instinctively – and lightning fast – wrapped the straps around our hands so tightly our fingers went purple. The operator seemed to feel we would get the most out of the ride if one or both of us got dumped in the drink, so he spent the entire ten minutes zig-zagging the boat through very fast, very tight, violent turns, making us bounce over the not inconsiderable wake he was leaving. He did this with one hand on the wheel, one eye on the horizon and the other gleefully fixed on our shocked, pleading faces. The float skidded across the surface of the waves in a huge arc, from the extent of the rope on one side of the boat right across to the other side.

  But in true indomitable English spirit, Naomi and I clung on. The more he flung us, the tighter we gripped. Every muscle in our bodies was rigid with the effort of keeping afloat, and our arms and shoulders burned with the massive force of our entire body weight pulling on them. We were not chatting, we were not smiling, we were not enjoying it. This was an endurance test and we were determined to get through it.

  After one hundred and twenty-seven hours on the thing (about four minutes), I could feel my grip and my resolve weakening, and for a moment I gazed at the deep water next to me with longing. It would be so easy just to slide into that churning blue and white void, just to let go and slip away into oblivion. I risked a quick glance to my left and caught a brief view of Naomi’s wild eyes before she slid out of sight as we changed direction again. Seco
nds later she was back, briefly airborne, then thudding back down onto the canvas with a sickening jolt. Her hair, red at that time, slapped down onto her face a nanosecond later. She was shocked, white, and bleeding from the mouth, but I could see fire in those green eyes and a grim determination on her bloody lips. She reminded me of the woman clinging to King Kong’s hand as he carried her off through the jungle. The survival instinct had kicked in and Naomi had zoned out. She wasn’t on that float any more, she wasn’t aware of her pain and her struggle, she was just doing it.

  And then I knew I couldn’t – wouldn’t – let her down. She was never more my hero than at that precise moment, getting through, surviving. I twisted the straps another turn around my aubergine fingers and dug in for the duration.

  Finally, finally, the boat slowed. The driver, defeated, turned round in his seat to face forwards again, and Naomi blinked and found herself back on the float. We turned and looked at each other with hope. Was it over? Had we survived? Bouncing over the waves behind that little boat was like crashing repeatedly into concrete, and we looked down to assess the damage. All four of our elbows were skinned and bloody; Naomi had bitten her lip badly; one of my acrylic nails had been torn off, along with most of the nail bed; and our wrists were swollen and sore with deep, red welts from the straps that had been wrapped round them. But we were triumphant! Breathless, wounded, shattered, but triumphant – and elated. Tentatively I released one of the straps and raised a numb, near-black hand towards Naomi for a weak, mid five, but she didn’t respond. Instead, she dragged herself to the front of the float, raised herself up on her poor damaged elbows and yelled at the driver, ‘Is that all you got?’

  Back on my bed in Abby’s spare room, I’m finding that visualisation doesn’t work. Either that or I’m doing it wrong. Tears are sliding silently down my face and plopping into my lap and I’m hit yet again with the aching pain of loss. Only now I can acknowledge that it’s not just my mum I miss; it’s Naomi too.

  Two days later, on Tuesday afternoon, here I am, in the park, waiting for my new partner to turn up. I’m pacing up and down, frowning a bit, shaking my arms, and it’s not because I’m trying to warm up before we start. In truth, I’m not really sure what to make of this situation, but I know I’m not thrilled at the prospect. I’m about as far as you can get from thrilled before you start coming back again. But I also know I’m a long way away from indifferent, which has left me feeling rather mixed up and apprehensive. We’ve met before, more than once, but I’m still unsure whether I like him or not, so spending three or four hours a day with him for the next two weeks feels like an ordeal looming. I almost made an excuse not to come this morning, but then I reminded myself that today is May 12th, which is only just over two weeks before the MoonWalk itself. I really do need to train every day if I’m going to complete it without, I don’t know, dying or something. Plus there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Abby would find out if I didn’t show up today. So here I am. This strange man, whom I can now see approaching me across the grass, has already motivated me to come out and walk today. Great.