Carry You

by Beth Thomas

Abby just nods. ‘I guess that’s why he’s not really working, and still living at his great aunt’s place. After she died, he went on a year-long round the world trip, I think. Did all sorts of things. Wrestled alligators, bungee jumped into potholes, swam with sharks, that kind of thing.’ She presses her lips together, and when she speaks again her voice is very soft. ‘Maybe on some level he was trying to die.’

  A succession of images flash across my mind: Felix feeding his hand to a shark; Felix in a helicopter; Felix on a bungee rope. Felix, kneeling by a graveside, talking softly. Each one suddenly makes sense. I close my eyes. Then open them again. I shake my head, understanding something about him absolutely. ‘He wasn’t trying to die,’ I say, with certainty. ‘He was making sure he was still alive.’

  We don’t have time to discuss it further because at this point Taj Mahal Tom heaves into sight in the hallway, his face smooth and immobile. One corner of his mouth is marginally out of alignment and I stare at that part, longing to straighten it like a crooked picture.

  ‘Abby?’ he says, coming through into the kitchen. His tone as he speaks varies slightly, a half a semi-tone each way. He seems absolutely furious. ‘Are you ever coming back?’ He spots me. ‘Oh, hi, Daisy. How are you?’

  ‘Hi, Tom. Fine thanks. You?’

  He nods stiffly. ‘Yes, fine, thank you. We’re … er …’ He breaks off, unable to continue apparently. And in that second the thing in my subconscious that’s been troubling me for so long fizzes to the surface and breaks out in an explosion of fireworks. Bang! Tom and the kitchen conversation with unknown woman! Fizz! Abby smoking! Wheeee! Tom’s mysterious repeated absences and late night returns! Pop! Tom’s blind panic at finding Abby at home the other night. Crackle! (I’m running out of firework noises.) And then sitting uncomfortably in the living room first thing the next morning, looking wretched. Oh my God, it’s so obvious now. Tom is having an affair!

  Other things start to fall into place. I remember now, when I overheard that conversation between Tom and the other woman in the kitchen, I was very uncomfortable about it and ran off to have a shower rather than deal with Tom and whatever lame explanation he was going to try and give. And now I realise I have subconsciously been avoiding him ever since. I just know that as soon as he gets me on my own he’s going to ask me to keep my mouth shut about it. It’ll just be our little secret. Yeah, sure, like I would ever side with him against my best friend – my only friend. Especially something as important and betrayal-ish as this. No doubt he would say that if I told her, I would be the one hurting her and it would be needless because the whole thing was nothing, meant nothing, had ended. And I would be left standing there – or sitting most likely; he would definitely have made me a cup of coffee and asked me to sit down, fed me biscuits, told me how fantastic I look, blah blah blah, all to weaken my defences before launching his attack on my conscience, the troglodyte. So I’d be sitting there in a terrible quandary, not knowing what to do. Because although it’s obvious that Tom’s in the wrong and is trying to get away with it, I could still end up the bad guy here.

  But I immediately wiped it from my conscious mind to avoid having to do anything. What a coward. Suddenly I despise myself as much as I despise Tom. Well, almost as much. She who sees wrongdoing and does nothing is just as much in the wrong as the wrongdoer. Or something. The only reason this entire thing has gone so completely over my head is because I ducked low enough to avoid it. I rotate my head slowly towards Tom and narrow my eyes.

  ‘You’re what?’ I ask him, perhaps a little snappishly.

  He and Abby both flinch a little, then glance briefly at each other. ‘We’re … watching a film,’ he finishes haltingly, flicking his eyes at me, then away. Guilty conscience, obviously.

  ‘And I’ve got a surprise for you,’ Abby says, eyes wide. ‘Ooh, I’d forgotten about it. Come in the living room.’

  So we all go through into the living room and sit down and Abby’s telling me something about a spa day she’s booked for the two of us for Wednesday, the day after we do our final big practice twenty-mile walk on Tuesday, and we’ll have pedicures and leg muscle massages and sit in the steam room and have a lush lunch and the whole time I can barely hear her because I’m so distracted by the presence of the granite-faced gargoyle that’s lurking on the armchair. He’s tapping his fingers lightly against the television remote control and the noise it makes is very soft and quiet, as if he’s so insipid he can’t even be irritating properly. My mind is seething, furiously processing information and trying to come up with the best course of action – should I tell Abby and cause enormous upset for her (and for Tom, although, you know, tough shit), feel destroyed by guilt when she has to move out, find somewhere else to live, separate her share of the furniture and all her belongings, and start her life all over again; or not? If I don’t tell her, he carries on carrying on and she continues to live a false life. But if I tell her, she gets very hurt and everything ends. I can’t begin to know what to think.

  ‘What do you think, Daze?’

  ‘Hmm?’ I look up at Abby’s face, grinning at me expectantly. ‘Oh, yes, that looks lovely, Abby. Thank you. Can’t wait.’

  She flicks her eyebrows up once. ‘Oh, right. Well, great. Good.’ She drops the brochure on the sofa next to her and turns back to two-timing Tom. ‘Well go on, press play then.’

  Tom looks from her to me, then down at the remote in his hand. ‘Right.’ They both focus back on the screen and I’m dismissed.

  TWENTY

  Lesley Jones

  Where does food deliverys this early im hungry but cant face the world yet ??????

  Mike Green Nowere you loser get up make sum toast

  Georgia Ling Lmfao pmsl! Les your such a lazeee bonez!!! Xxx

  Walking twenty miles is no mean feat. It’s a complex and difficult undertaking. We need a route worked out in advance to make sure we will have access to a toilet every five or six miles; ideally mostly flat terrain; away from traffic; and not too many roads to cross because that will slow us down. This requires in-depth and serious research and map consultation, not to mention prior preparation of refreshments, but luckily for me I know that I can totally rely on the exceptional organisational skills and attention to detail of the control freak that is Abby Marcus. She will have this all sorted out.

  ‘We’ll walk for ten, then turn round and come back.’

  Oh. Apparently not.

  ‘What? Is that your plan?’

  She looks at me and shrugs. ‘Yeah. You got a better one?’

  I haven’t, of course. I could have spent the past three days poring over Google maps, plotting a route, checking the contour lines for hills, finding out what pubs or cafés would feature along the way, working out the distance using the scale thing at the bottom. I didn’t do that. I have been doing other things. And to be honest, I thought Abby was doing it all. I’ve hardly seen her for three days so I assumed she was elbow-deep in walking plans. But now that I think about it, why would she be absent from the flat because of that? I realise that I’ve had an idiotic image in my head of her standing at a desk somewhere in a bunker, pushing little plastic people around on a map, sticking pins in charts, answering an old green telephone and barking instructions to a nebulous team of helpers in the background. She’s amazing at organising things. She’s always in control. I can absolutely count on her to plan everything with military precision.

  ‘Have you sorted out food?’

  She waves her hand. ‘Meh. We’ll find a café.’

  Today she has decided to wing it.

  Actually she has not been quite herself the past few days. Even though it’s only eight o’clock in the morning so I’ve literally only been in her company for fifteen minutes, I can tell that she is not as excited about this expedition as I thought she would be. She’s less excited about it than I am, and I have got a very bad case of reluctance syndrome this morning. It’s a genuine, recognised condition that makes everything difficult and slow a
nd accompanied by sighs and grunts. Abby has looked at me witheringly with every sigh, but has said nothing to encourage me, which is a very strange state of affairs that has hardly ever happened in our entire friendship, let alone since … well, since Mum died.

  As we set off now along the surprisingly crowded pavement towards the end of the first ten miles, wherever that may turn out to be, I’m starting to feel an anxious churning in my tummy and am very worried she’s worked things out herself about two-faced Tom. And if that’s the case, should I tell her that I’ve known all along, or should I act surprised and horrified? Well, I won’t need to act horrified. I am horrified. I am also disgustified and shockified, but not enough, apparently, to break the news myself to my best friend in the whole world.

  I need to examine why I decided not to tell her, but I don’t want to do that now. A large part of me is very worried that I didn’t want her to be angry with me, but I will think about that later, when I don’t have twenty miles stretching out ahead of me to be walked. With her at my side.

  ‘How long do you reckon this will take us?’ I ask, more to break the silence than anything else.

  She shrugs. ‘Gosh, I have no idea, Daisy. Twenty miles at four miles an hour …’ She does an elaborate mime of thinking hard for a few moments, tapping her chin with an index finger, squinting up at the sky, shaking her head. ‘I’m afraid it’s just beyond me.’

  ‘Are you OK, Abs? Only you seem a bit …’

  She looks at me properly, frowning hard, then forcibly smiles. ‘Oh Daze, I’m sorry. I’ve been a right cow, haven’t I?’ She gives me an awkward hug as we walk. ‘I don’t know, I’m a bit down but I’ll try to perk up. This will not be fun at all otherwise, will it?’

  ‘Well, I’m not really expecting it to be that anyway, to be honest.’

  ‘Oh. Great.’

  ‘I mean, you know, because of the massive distance we’ve got to cover, and the prospect of blisters, and aching hips, and sore backs.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘But we could also have a bit of a laugh.’

  She nods. ‘We could.’

  ‘And then we’ve got the spa tomorrow to take all our pains away.’

  She smiles at last. ‘We have indeed.’

  ‘And then in ten days’ time we can do the whole thing again.’

  ‘Shut up, Daisy.’ She glares at me a moment, and then we laugh and our shoulders knock together.

  At the end of her road, the opposite end to Felix’s house I note, we don’t go towards the park or the canal but carry straight on over the crossroads. I’m immediately in unknown territory. Again.

  ‘Daisy,’ Abby says, her tone serious. My stomach clenches. Is she going to tell me about Tom? That she’s found something out about him, how he’s let her down so badly and hurt her more than she can stand? How her heart is broken in two places and she’ll never trust another man with it as long as she lives? Oh God, please don’t let this be the end of Abby’s happiness.

  ‘What?’ In that one syllable I try to make her understand that I will always be there for her, will help her with anything she needs, and had absolutely no idea about Tom’s appalling behaviour beforehand.

  She looks at the ground for a moment, then meets my eyes. ‘I need to tell you something.’

  I can barely speak. ‘Uh-huh?’

  ‘Yeah. The thing is, Daze, I just want you to know … that I’m so, so proud of you. You know, for stepping up for this MoonWalk, and throwing yourself into all the training the way you have. I don’t want to sound patronising, I really don’t, but you’ve … Oomph! What’s that for?’

  I’ve stopped walking abruptly and seized her to pull her in for a smothering hug. ‘Oh, Abby!’

  She laughs lightly into my hair then holds me back at arm’s length. ‘Well of course I’m proud. You’ve had a horrible few months, but here you are, out on the street, doing the training, marching your little heart out. You’ve come so far, you really have. Literally and figuratively.’

  ‘Abs, d’you remember that time you said you didn’t want to sound patronising …?’

  She punches me on the arm. ‘Ah, there you go. That’s what I’m talking about. You’re back in the world again, aren’t you? You’re still alive! It’s great to see.’

  ‘Of course I’m alive. I always have been.’

  She’s already shaking her head. ‘No, no, you haven’t. Not really. Not properly. You weren’t living; you were existing, and doing a pretty bad job at that, too. It was like you went somewhere else for a while, and I’ve been trying to drag you back this whole time. And in the end it was Felix that did it.’ She beams at me and clasps her hands together under her chin. ‘You’re like Dozing Beauty, and he’s your handsome handyman, come to wake you up. It’s a real life fairy tale!’

  When she says his name, I get a strange twisty feeling in my middle. Not that she’s suddenly called him into my mind – he’s there the whole time now. But just hearing his name makes me feel … something.

  I didn’t arrange another walk with him after being rude and ungrateful on Sunday – I left in such a rush – so we haven’t met up since the grave site. His wife’s grave. I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that I’ll never see him again, but it’s so hard, mostly because I fully intend to see him again. As soon as I can. In the three days since I last saw him, I deliberately haven’t been marching for miles all round Abby’s neighbourhood hoping to come across him holding a heavy wheelbarrow somewhere. I couldn’t have even if I’d wanted to – and actually I very much did want to – because I’ve been busy crossing a few more things off Abby’s ‘TO DO’ list. Also, all the MoonWalk paperwork says not to do too much in the days leading up to the twenty-mile training walk, so my hands were tied.

  I’ve been doing some subtle investigative work though. This has mostly consisted of me asking Abby to tell me stuff about him. I’ve found out that he’s not strictly employed at the moment but is filling his time by doing favours for his – or rather Aunt Winnie’s – neighbours. When I first saw him he was laying block paving near the park for an elderly couple who had been ripped off by some cowboys. The builders had taken a few thousand quid off the old couple, then ripped up the tarmac on their drive, undermined the foundations of the wall separating them from next door, and promptly buggered off. The couple had been utterly distraught and not financially able to hire anyone else. Enter shirtless Felix clutching his famous wheelbarrow. He didn’t even ask for payment apparently, they just had to supply the materials and the Hobnobs (he loves them, she says; eats them by the boxload). I found quite quickly that I enjoyed hearing stories about him, and longed for more.

  ‘You are interested in our Felix, aren’t you?’ Abby said to me yesterday in the kitchen when I’d unwittingly been hounding her for snippets. ‘Want me to do a bit of digging? Find out if he reciprocates? I taught his neighbour’s boy about six months ago, I’m sure I could ask him to ask his mum to find out what’s what …’

  I made myself hold my breath for a count of five. Then another three. Then said, very casually, ‘Mm, yeah, good idea. How long is it since his wife died? No, no, forget that, doesn’t really matter, not if they were only married for two years. I’m sure he’s fine by now. Probably won’t be awkward at all. Go for it.’

  I held my breath. There was a brief but paralysing hiatus while she thought about it, then she wrinkled her nose as she looked at me. ‘You know what? I actually think it’s a terrible idea. Pestering a man who’s clearly not ready to be pestered. I think we should leave it for a while – a few months at least. Do you mind?’

  I released my long held breath very quietly and slowly. ‘Oh. Well, OK, maybe you’re right. I suppose he doesn’t really want some neighbour making clumsily unsubtle attempts to interrogate him discreetly. Maybe he’s hiding his grief really well and isn’t as chipper as he seems?’

  We both knew that I knew all about grief and what it can do. Abby nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. You’re right. Maybe in ano
ther six months, eh, Daze? Think you can wait ’til then?’

  I smiled, almost collapsing with relief. ‘Who knows?’

  On Monday, during a short walk I did on my own (definitely not wandering around the neighbourhood looking for wheelbarrow-wielding widowers), I spotted an opportunity to cross something else off Abby’s – or rather, my – giant ‘TO DO’ list. (I have created my own list in my head and the only thing on it is ‘Felix’. Crossing things off Abby’s list has become a kind of stepping stone towards crossing something off my list.) To complete my own list, I need Felix to think of me as less a pathetic lamo and more an irresistible siren, and in my limited experience I feel that I would have better credentials in the siren department if I wasn’t freeloading off my friends and kipping in their spare room. So when I spotted a ‘To Let’ sign a couple of streets away from Abby’s, I made enquiries. It was a very sweet little one-bedroom flat, freshly painted throughout with recently refurbished kitchen and bathroom, and I fell in love with it as soon as I walked in. The rent was only six hundred pounds per month, which included council tax and all utilities, so very reasonable and twice what I could afford. At which point it became obvious that I was staying at Abby’s. For now anyway. It seems a barmaid’s wages won’t stretch to suitable siren accommodation, so I’ve given up scouring the local paper, shop windows and notice boards for places to rent; and have instead been scouring the local paper, shop windows and notice boards for job vacancies. It’s a stepping stone towards a stepping stone towards full siren status. And a teensy start towards the rest of my life.

  Ahead of us, an old lady is blocking the pavement. She’s right in the middle so one or both of us will have to step into the road to get past her. She’s standing with her back to us, slightly hunched over, motionless. As we get nearer, I notice that she is actually moving, but not forwards or backwards, just rocking. Or swaying, really. When we reach her, she looks up at us and her lips start moving but no sound comes out. She reaches out a hand and touches Abby’s arm. Abs glances at me.