Carry You

by Beth Thomas

  He grins. ‘Yeah, well that’s not saying much, to be honest.’ He looks down at the ground a few moments and fiddles with the bottom of his tee shirt. ‘So, from one fruit loop to another, you’re perfectly fine.’

  ‘Now I feel much better. Thanks.’

  He shrugs. ‘I aim to please. So what’s going on today? Why the sudden rush?’

  ‘What rush?’

  He jerks his head and squints ahead. ‘You. Unable to wait. Texting me at nine twenty-three. Demanding to meet up thirty-seven minutes early. Remember that? It was only forty-eight minutes ago.’ He shakes his head. ‘I dunno, I may have to rethink the whole “you’re not a fruit loop” theory.’

  I smile. ‘I wasn’t demanding that we meet up early. I merely suggested it. As a possibility. If it was convenient.’

  ‘All right, so no actual demands were made. Fine. Let’s just say you suggested very strongly, shall we? And before you say anything, it was convenient, it always is, so don’t start worrying that you’ve put me out in some way. More than happy to start early. Means we can either finish early, or go for a bit longer. But you haven’t answered me. What’s the rush? Why the sudden urgency?’

  I think about this for a few moments. I can’t explain about wanting to cross more things off The List. Apart from the fact that it would mean explaining why The List exists in the first place, which would involve telling him about Mum, and Graham, and my shattered life, which I don’t want to do, he would also conclude at the end of the story that I really am completely bonkers. What, rushing out to get my training done early so that I can get home more quickly and draw a line through some probably very simple tasks that I have so far found to be entirely beyond me? I don’t think so. But what can I say instead?

  ‘I’ve got an appointment,’ I resort to. No need for him to know it’s with a biro.

  He nods slowly. ‘Sounds intriguing. What is it? Hair? Nails? Feet?’ He bends down so his lips are at ear level, then whispers, ‘Proctologist?’

  ‘None of the above.’

  ‘Ooh, curiouser and curiouser. None of the above. Anyone would think you don’t want to tell me.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘But of course I know better than that. What could you possibly want to keep a secret from your oldest walking partner?’

  In spite of his rudeness, I find myself smiling again. ‘Well, if you must know …’ I search my brain frantically for something funny ‘… Jedward are coming round later to watch Othello.’ Not funny at all. I try to suck the words back in but they can’t be unsaid.

  He grins. ‘Really?’ He bows his head as he looks at me, as if in some kind of acknowledgement. Recognition of my razor-sharp wit, no doubt.

  ‘Yes. The Olivier version.’

  ‘I understand completely. We’d best get cracking – don’t want to keep those two waiting.’

  ‘You’re right. Especially not after last time.’

  He snorts this time, giggling like a girl. ‘They do love their Shakespeare.’

  ‘Yes they do.’

  ‘So,’ he says after a moment’s pause, ‘do you want to talk about your prevarication?’

  I look at him. ‘What prevarication?’

  He shrugs. ‘Might help you work out how to deal with whatever it is you’re avoiding.’

  ‘Who says I’m avoiding something?’

  ‘Well, you do, for a start. And, if I heard correctly, your mum is also worried about it.’

  ‘No, she’s not, she was talking about something else.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ He makes a ‘pfft’ sound with his lips. ‘You’ve really got this whole avoidance gig down, haven’t you?’

  I glance sideways at him but he’s not looking at me, he’s just walking along, smiling to himself, as if I’m some foolish child being ridiculous.

  ‘Don’t judge me,’ I say, maybe a bit more defensively than I meant to. ‘You don’t even know me.’

  He stops and turns towards me, putting his hands out. ‘Hey, no, I’m not judging you. I’m not, honestly. Please don’t think that. I’m just making conversation.’

  ‘Well stick to the weather, then, please.’

  We resume walking. ‘Plus,’ he goes on, as if I haven’t spoken, ‘it might even help you to talk about it.’

  ‘It won’t.’

  ‘Well have you tried?’

  A wall goes up in my head. It’s the wall that always goes up whenever anyone mentions my mum. Not that he has, but he’s talking about talking about her. Or at least, he’s talking about getting me to talk about whatever it is that Mum seems to think I’m avoiding talking about. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘I reckon it’s something to do with … whatever your appointment is really about today. And as much as I’d love to think so, I don’t think it’s John and Edward.’ He taps his lip with his index finger. ‘And something to do with prevarication, although you’re refusing to admit that.’ He turns and looks directly at me.

  ‘No, I’m not refusing, I just don’t know what it is.’

  ‘Aha!’ He points a finger at me. ‘I knew it!’

  I shake my head. ‘No, no you didn’t. You didn’t know. Because I don’t even know, so how could you?’

  ‘Elementary, my dear Daisy. I put it to you that you do, in fact, know. Because when I came upon you a few moments ago, you were clearly having a conversation about it with someone who wasn’t even there.’

  ‘No, I wasn’t …’

  ‘And of course everyone knows what that means, right?’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Good grief, haven’t you ever watched a … well, any genre of film? OK, I’ll explain. If the protagonist is having a conversation with him- or herself, it’s really a conversation with their subconscious. Which means that whatever’s being said is the absolute truth, even if the protagonist doesn’t realise it. This is basic stuff, Daisy. Rom Com for Dummies.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t …’

  ‘So whoever you were chewing the fat with not so long ago – i.e. your subconscious – is telling you that you’ve overlooked something. Something important, I’m guessing, otherwise why would your subconscious have bothered to bring it up?’

  Part of me is angry and upset and devastated that he’s telling me the voice in my head that’s been a continuing presence in my life, guiding and advising me and keeping me from falling apart these past few months, isn’t my mum; but part of me is dying to know what it is that I’ve overlooked. I go through a split second spectrum of emotions, struggling for a moment to contain the furious outburst that seethes up inside me; then the drain of sadness that pulls me down; the quick prick of curiosity; and finally the overwhelming longing, the desire, the need to know what’s going on in my life and what I might have missed. I turn back to Felix, keen to know if he thinks he can help me delve into my psyche, root out what’s happened, and solve the mystery. He’s staring at me unblinking.

  ‘Christ alive, what the hell was that?’

  ‘What?’

  He stares at me and rubs the back of his neck. ‘That. What just happened. Right there.’ He jabs a finger at me. ‘On your face.’

  Oh no. Oh God. I’ve drooled or my nose has bubbled or something. I rub my hand over my face self-consciously, praying that if some vile secret product from my interior workings has somehow made it out in public, then maybe Felix didn’t see it. I close my eyes. Of course he saw it: he’s just referred to it.

  ‘No, no, there’s nothing there,’ he says, watching me wiping away at myself. ‘It was just a little bit weird for a couple of seconds.’ He bends at the waist and examines me more closely. My face gets all embarrassed again and goes hot, just to let me know that it’s gone bright red while he’s staring at it. ‘I thought you might be having a stroke.’ He turns his head a little and looks at me sideways. ‘But I see you’re actually fine.’

  ‘Oh, right, I see. Well yes, I’m OK.’ Apart from a severe case of palpitations and a hot flush. Maybe I’m menopausal. ‘Just
, um, thinking about what you said. About my subconscious and everything.’

  ‘Aha. Makes sense, doesn’t it?’

  I shrug, trying to look like I’m only partially interested in what he’s saying. ‘Yes, I suppose so. I was just thinking, you know, how I would … how would I, you know, find out this thing? This thing that I don’t know. How would I find out what it is? Do you think?’

  ‘Well that’s the beauty of the situation, Miss Daisy. You already know.’

  I frown. ‘No, that’s not what you said just now …’

  ‘No, what I said just now is that your subconscious is telling you something important. The fact that it’s in your subconscious means that you definitely do know what it is. You just haven’t noticed it yet.’ He looks around himself and spreads out his arms. ‘You can be a tad distractible, you know.’

  As I look at him he raises his eyebrows meaningfully and flicks his eyes from left to right. What on earth is the matter with him? I’m frowning – maybe he’s the one having a stroke? There’s a mnemonic about spotting a stroke – what is it? I’ve seen it on the telly enough times. In fact I think the last time was only a couple of days ago, after Homes Under the Hammer. The one where they had bitten off more than they could chew with that ghastly cottage in Fareham. Oh come on, focus. Why can’t I remember it? Something about the face. Face, face, what was it? His face is smiling at me – could that charming and very infectious expression have been caused by a bleed in his brain? No, that’s ridiculous, what am I thinking of? Maybe not a stroke then. I glance away to try and work out what he’s indicating and in that moment am absolutely stunned to discover that somehow, by teleportation or alien abduction or space wormhole or time-machine, we have seemingly already crossed the bridge over the motorway and are now safely tucked up in the run-down housing estate on the other side. I glance around at my surroundings, open-mouthed, feeling exactly like Lucy emerging from the wardrobe for the first time and staring around me at the enchanting wonders of Narnia – a black bin bag, ripped open by foxes probably, spewing take-away food onto the street; a few empty beer cans; cigarette butts and chewing gum; and most importantly, wondrous grey tarmac under my feet, stretching reassuringly, solidly, gloriously away towards the gleaming Vauxhall Cavalier parked next to the kerb ahead.

  ‘See what I mean, Daisy my dozy friend?’ Felix murmurs by my side. ‘You really are missing so much.’

  SIXTEEN

  Daisy Mack

  is quite frankly speechless. Dumbstruck. Without words. All that I thought I knew is gone. Is it irrevocably changed? Or the same as it always was? Was I wrong then, or am I wrong now? Could I be right, now? Is anything what it seems? Why are we here?

  Abby Marcus For someone claiming to be unable to make coherent vocal sounds, you sure do talk a load of rubbish.

  Daisy Mack Your support means so much.

  Abby Marcus Glad to help, of course. Now what in a cat’s chance in hell are you wittering on about?

  Daisy Mack A breakthrough. A weird one. Tell you later.

  Suzanne Allen What kind of breakthrough? Have you discovered the meaning of life? Have you stumbled on a crashed alien vessel? Are you ready to find Jesus?

  Jenny Martin You guys are great!

  Nat ‘Wiggy’ Nicholson Whateva it is, you enjoy it babe. Xxxx

  Georgia Ling Amayyyzziiiiing! Loooool! <3<3<3

  Abby Marcus Are you finally coming back into the world my darling friend?

  When you’re sitting in the beige, nondescript office of an oncology consultant, words coming from him in a low, unobtrusive monotone as he explains calmly that the world has just ended, everything takes on a peculiar, underwater sense of unreality. Dust particles caught in a shaft of September sunshine glisten like gold dust, suspended like us in that terrible moment, no longer affected by gravity. Strange words like ‘secondary’ and ‘palliative’ float in insubstantial speech bubbles above my head, not having sufficient power to penetrate fully the wall of my conscious mind. A close up photograph of a poppy – the single thing of colour to break up the beige banality of the walls – becomes first a screaming mouth, then a blood stain, seeping through the paintwork from some unseen violence on the other side. The world, the universe I now find myself in, is a cold, alien place, with nothing familiar, nothing predictable. The world I was born into, the only world I have ever known – the one with my mum in it – is coming to an end.

  ‘Looks like I’ve had it then,’ Mum said, as the difficult words and complicated vocabulary simplified themselves into a single, cogent fact. She turned to me but how could I meet her eyes? How could I look into that face, knowing what I’d done, what I was responsible for? I was looking down at our hands, linked together, and felt a distance opening up between us, me already pulling away, receding. Or was it her, starting to drift? That was the first day of the rest of her life.

  So now I’ve made it over the bridge without even noticing. A sense of unreality is upon me again, changing the universe, altering what I know – what I knew – to be fact. Things have massively changed. Again. Am I not afraid of heights after all? And if not, what on earth has been making me feel that I am? Or is it possible that I am so easily and completely distracted that I can encounter my phobia, my terror, my nemesis, the thing that’s caused me such acute stress and fear my entire life that I have spent massive amounts of time and energy going out of my way to avoid it, and not even notice?

  I look at Felix again, still smiling warmly at me. ‘This isn’t … I mean, I don’t … Did we … did we actually cross the bridge?’

  ‘Oh yes, we most certainly did.’ He glances behind him. ‘Look, there it is.’

  ‘But … I don’t get …’

  He touches my arm lightly. ‘Come on, Daisy. I’m sure you already know that most phobias are in the mind?’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t make the fear any less real.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t, but you know it’s irrational. You know deep down that in fact you’re not in any real danger. You know this. If you really thought there was a realistic chance of plunging to your death from that bridge, you wouldn’t ever go across it, would you? Hands and knees, commando, or otherwise. But you know it’s actually safe. You’ve crossed it. So the fear is in your mind and all your mind had to do was think about something else and not the fear. Bingo.’ He grins. ‘Shall we carry on?’

  ‘Was that your plan then? You did that on purpose? Distracted me with chat and just walked me over?’

  He’s grinning so broadly, he’s obviously feeling it as a personal victory. ‘Well, kinda. No, I haven’t been plotting it for ages, but I did think that your friend’s brute force strategy wouldn’t always work. You needed to have a way of doing it when you’re not with anyone. The only thing to do was conquer it.’ He rubs his chin a moment and I hear the faint rasping of his stubble against his hand. ‘Have you ever heard the story of the wind fighting with the sun?’

  ‘Um …’

  ‘They’re arguing about which one is more powerful, so they decide that whoever can get this lone traveller’s cloak off him is the winner. So the wind blows and blows as hard as he can, but the harder he blows, the more tightly the traveller pulls his cloak round him. So he gives up and the sun has a go. He comes out and beams down and straight away the traveller takes his cloak off himself, no brute force required.’

  ‘Ah, I get it. You’re the sun, right?’

  ‘Well, you know, I have been told that.’

  We share a laugh and fall silent for a few moments. As we walk, I’m absorbed with it, amazed that my lifelong fear could simply be wiped out like that, so easily. And as I reflect on it, suddenly I’m startled by the realisation that it’s not a lifelong fear at all. How could I have forgotten this? There was a time when I wasn’t scared, before I was scared, and now I’ve remembered that, I’m amazed that I could ever have forgotten.

  When I was about fourteen, I went to visit my dad in New York, all on my own. Obviously I haven’t forgotten that
fact, it just doesn’t feature in any thoughts I have about my life at the moment. It’s almost as if it happened to a different person, a different version of me. Dad’s firm had only sent him out there about six months earlier and we hadn’t visited him there before, so I was very excited. But Naomi had her exams so she couldn’t go. Dad originally said that I couldn’t go either, not if it meant travelling on my own, but Mum spoke to him and convinced him I would be fine.

  ‘You’re a strong, independent woman,’ she said to me at the security check. ‘This journey will be a piece of cake for someone like you.’

  ‘I know, Mum. I’m not scared.’ I was already starting to glance around me, excitedly taking in my surroundings, noticing what was going on. A tiny wizened old woman was trying to walk round the outside of the electronic portal, and the fierce-looking guard kept telling her to do it again. She was getting very flustered, flapping her hands and looking back over her shoulder towards a shrivelled old man, presumably her ancient husband. He couldn’t help her though, he was completely occupied by trying to keep his trousers up after taking his belt off.

  ‘Good,’ Mum said. She hugged me tightly. ‘Remember, don’t talk to any strangers, don’t even make eye contact.’

  ‘I won’t.’ The tiny old woman seemed to think that she should at all costs avoid going through the portal. Meanwhile the old man was emptying his pockets and tossing the items into the plastic tray that had already been through the x-ray machine. The woman operating the conveyor belt rolled her eyes and moved the tray back to the starting line.

  Mum was holding my arms, gazing at me with wet eyes. I was only going for a week. She stroked my cheek. ‘Enjoy yourself, sweetheart. I’ll miss you so much. But don’t worry about me, I’ll be OK.’

  ‘OK.’ I hadn’t been intending to worry about her, but when she said that, I started to wonder whether I should.

  ‘Have fun,’ Naomi said grumpily. ‘Don’t get stabbed or anything will you.’

  I grinned. ‘Thanks, Nomes.’ With a final tight hug, Mum let me go and I walked away from them both (Graham had stayed in the car park for a smoke) without looking back once. When I got through the security check, the craggy couple were face down on the floor with their hands behind their backs.