A Run in the Park

by David Park

  On the journey home I ask Maurice if he’s nervous about our big run and after he tells me that he is I realise that when it’s finished we might not see each other or any of the others again. The thought saddens me but I don’t know what might preserve the connections we’ve made and I ask him if he intends to stay with running. After a little thought he says he probably won’t, although he’s going to keep on with some sort of fitness programme but isn’t sure what form it will take. He’s seen some sort of tennis-style game called pickleball advertised in his leisure centre and he thinks he might give it a go. Then, staring resolutely ahead and with both his hands clenching the wheel tightly, he says that whatever happens he’s not going back to the couch. I tell him even regular walking is good and that I’ve seen a brochure with some lovely-looking walking holidays – in the Swiss Alps, in Majorca and Croatia. As soon as I’ve said it I know how it sounds and so I try to backtrack by talking about Yana’s family and the food we’ve just eaten.

  But the moment when I should get out of the car passes. Suddenly there is a cascade of brightly coloured sparks in the night sky where someone has set off fireworks left over from Halloween. We both crane our necks to watch their slow cascade as they drift into nothingness. I go to say something about sparklers and toffee apples but before I can, Maurice, without taking his eyes off the night sky, tells me about his daughter Rachel and how worried he is about her. There are things I could say but I don’t interrupt. And even when he’s finished I don’t offer easy advice, because it’s complicated and I too am a little frightened. So we both sit silently in the car without any burst of illumination shooting across the dark sky, until I ask him if he’d like to come in for a coffee and he turns his head and looks at me, almost as if he’s seeing me for the first time. He hesitates and thanks me, but then says he should be heading home, and I pat his arm twice and get out of the car.

  I stand on the pavement watching as he drives away. None of us ever knows what secrets lie beneath the surface of other people’s lives. That’s something I’ve learned late in life and if anything should encourage us not to rush to judgement, it’s that. And I understand now that look on his face when we did our run past his daughter’s house, his uncertainty and his fear about what went on behind its closed door. I feel a wave of compassion for him, for his daughter and her child. And I think of my own daughter Zara in Australia and suddenly the miles that separate us don’t seem the worst thing in the world, and only for the fact that by now she will be fast asleep, I’d speak to her and tell her that her mother loves her and everything will be all right.

  On Saturday morning it’s Pauline who’s telling us that everything indeed will be all right. That we’ve been a great group and she’s proud of us whatever happens. She reminds us again that we start the run and finish as a team, waiting at the end until every single one of us has crossed that line. Sometimes I think Pauline would be the best prime minister we could ever have, telling this nation what it needs to hear. The things that would make it better at this time when everyone seems to be pulling in different directions. I’m glad we’ve done a whip-round and bought her a bunch of flowers, a decent bouquet and not some last-minute one picked up on a garage forecourt.

  It’s the perfect day for it – cool and dry with the winter sun shining, if a little weakly – and I’m surprised by the huge number of people who’ve turned up. There’s other groups like ours, some wearing matching colours, and individuals with watches on their wrists and whose lean limbs suggest they are practised runners. But there’s all ages, right from the very young to the very old, and if truth be told, all shapes. One man is dressed as a crocodile and one as Spiderman. There’s a couple who have T-shirts with a picture of a toddler on the front and underneath the words ‘For Emily’ with the all-too-brief dates of her life. And there’s a presentation before the start when a man called Eamon, who we’re told is eighty years of age, gets a special medal for competing in his hundredth run. As we clap him I wish for this morning at least he’d lend me some of his genes or whatever it is that enables him to do this.

  We’ve all registered online in advance, so we will be given a finishing time even though, as Pauline says, for most of us that’s not the crucial thing. Whatever happens now, I’m glad I’ve done it. And whether or not it’s good for my body, including my complaining shins, the feeling of being part of something where no one is left out, and that has no motivation other than the common good, has to be worthwhile and, bizarre as it sounds, I think of Charles Dickens and know he would approve. It’s been an important part of my being what he described as ‘recalled to life’. Then suddenly, amidst all the excitement as we get called up to the starting line, I realise for the first time I haven’t seen Maurice and I panic a little, begin to ask the others if anyone’s spotted him, but it draws a blank. I try to look for him but we’re off and I have no chance to do anything other than start moving forward.

  And I do it, running with Maureen, and yes, on our final lap we walk for about a minute but there’s so many people encouraging us that we get going again. Pauline runs with us, talking to us all the time. As we cross the finishing line we’re cheered home, hugged and congratulated, then as I get my breath back, my phone pings. I’m sure it’s going to be Maurice, but it’s an email from my daughter and there’s a grainy photograph of an early scan showing that everything’s all right and she’s asking if I’ll come and visit them after Christmas, spend time with her during her pregnancy. And, Maurice, forgive me but in the joy of that moment I forget about you and think only of my own child. And even with these weary legs, I’m already starting to run to her.

  Maurice

  As I put on my royal-blue Fusion Pro quick-dry long-sleeve half-zip running top (extra-large), I think this might be the last time I get to wear it, and I’m a little sad because I’ve grown quite fond of it. I’m proud that I’ve come this far, that I’ve actually completed the nine weeks, and though I’m apprehensive about doing the final run this morning, I know one way or the other I’m going to finish the course, even if I have to crawl on my hands and knees. And I’ve lost weight so I’m pleased when I need to pull the drawstring on my jogging bottoms really tight to keep them up. I’m eating better and avoiding all fast food. It’s helped that in my head I’ve stopped calling it fast food and now think of it as slow food, part of something that atrophied both my body and my brain into a slow-motion dullness. On the one occasion when I yielded to temptation and stopped for a takeaway, I felt that Pauline was standing watching me eat and experienced such a sense of guilt that I haven’t repeated it.

  I know Mina would be proud of me and it brings a renewed sense of sadness that she won’t be there to see me do the run. Or that Rachel and Ellie won’t be there either. But this morning I try not to dwell on those losses and, after a suitably healthy breakfast that Mo Farah would approve of, I do a few stretches while holding on to a chair in the kitchen. I suspect as I raise my leg then slowly do a squat I probably look more like an inflated Darcey Bussell doing her ballet warm-ups. I drink plenty of water before worrying that I’ve drunk too much and I’ll get caught short halfway round the course, so I go to the loo and try to get rid of it again.

  I tie my trainer laces for the third time and wonder if I’ll run with Cathy or if she’ll suddenly find a turbo-charged burst of hidden energy and stride out after Brendan and Ciara. I don’t care what time I do but I don’t want to humiliate myself. Then there are so many memories crowding in and demanding access that I’m in danger of being overwhelmed at the very time I need to be steady and balanced.

  My phone rings and with a start I see it’s Rachel calling. I know, I just know before she even speaks, and my heart is already racing as if I’ve just done the world’s longest run when I hear her say, ‘Dad, can you come and get us. Can you come now.’ And I don’t know how to describe how she sounds when she says those words, but I hear everything I never wanted to hear in my child’s voice and, as I start to ask her what’s wrong,
she cuts across me and repeats, ‘Come now please,’ so I tell her I’m coming and when the phone goes dead, I tell her again that I’m coming and keep repeating the words as I look for my car keys. Except I can’t find them. Can’t find them anywhere, and I’m in a panic, my mind blanking out when I need it to be sharp and focused. Afterwards, of course, I remember that having watched a television programme about how car thieves can now scan your keys from outside the house and drive off, I’d started to store them in a metal biscuit tin. But not a single realisation of that fact seeps into my consciousness as I turn the house upside down, more and more desperate, until I say to hell with it and almost flinging the front door off its hinges, burst into the street and start to run.

  And I’m not doing any soft-shoe shuffle, not moving sideways like a crab – I’m running – and because there’s people walking their dogs on the pavement, and lots of houses haven’t bothered to put their bins back in after the Friday empty, I take to the road. I don’t care about the people looking at me or the dogs startled into barking. Don’t care about a car pumping its horn or a couple of yobs shouting names. Don’t care because the only thing ringing in my ears is Rachel’s voice, and I know it was a voice shaped by fear and that fear flows into me and it’s stronger than the searing pain in my lungs or the complaints from the rest of my body. Her house is five streets away and I’m not halfway there. I try to tell myself that I’m not slowing, silently curse every sick note I ever forged, every games lesson I mitched and every hour I’ve spent on the couch. And the anger gives me new impetus, enabling me to gulp in more air, to hold it in my lungs before letting it out again, and I try to keep myself upright like Pauline always tells me.

  The remaining streets seem to stream past me in a blur, as if it’s time itself that has speeded up. And then I’m at the house, where I suddenly realise that I need all my strength, that I don’t want to collapse over the finishing line like Roger Bannister doing his four-minute mile, so I pause for a second before I rattle the front door. There is the sound of a lock being turned and a chain moved but the door only opens wide enough to allow her to see that it’s me. Wide enough for me to see that one of the eyes looking at me is shadowed and that she has a cut lip.

  ‘Open the door, Rachel,’ I say quietly, controlling my breathing and my anger as best I can. But she has it opened before I have finished speaking and so I find myself standing in the hall looking at my daughter who has a black eye and a split lip. Ellie is half-hidden behind her and at the foot of the stairs stand two suitcases and clothes stuffed into plastic bags.

  ‘Where is he now?’ I ask, but Rachel shakes her head to say she doesn’t know. And it’s as if she can’t bring herself to look at me.

  Then Ellie asks why I’m dressed funny and I kneel down in front of her and tell her that I’ve been out for a bit of a run. And when I ask her if she’d like to come and stay with me for a while, she smiles and nods, then asks if Mummy can come too.

  ‘Yes, Mummy can come too,’ I say and, going to Rachel, I take her in my arms and hold her tightly as suddenly her body goes into a kind of spasm and I think if I wasn’t holding her she would collapse. She doesn’t speak but she’s crying now and I feel her tears against the side of my neck.

  ‘You’re safe now,’ I tell her. ‘No one’s going to hurt you.’

  I touch her hair – something I haven’t done in a very long time – and then she straightens herself and brushes her tears away with the back of her hand, and down the vista of years I remember the same movement from childhood after she had fallen off a swing and skinned her knees.

  ‘We need to hurry,’ she says. ‘I don’t know when he’ll be back.’

  And as I look at her wounded face, part of me, a part that I never really knew was there, wants him to come back. Almost wishes he’d walk right through that front door, because there is a molten anger churning inside me, ready to flow out, but then I look at my daughter and grandchild and know this isn’t about what might make me feel better, but about helping them to safety. So I lift the two cases and wait while Rachel gathers up the plastic bags. When Ellie insists on being given something to carry, we find her the lightest one, then walk as quickly as possible back to my house.

  I know better than to push Rachel into talking about what happened so I just wait until she’s ready, and then it comes out gradually and enough for me to understand the world she’s been living in, but when I tell her we need to go to the police, she shakes her head. And it takes a long time to persuade her to let me take photographs of her face. When I do she won’t look directly at the camera, as if somehow the shame is hers.

  A couple of hours later Mark is banging on the front door. And the realisation that he’s outside sends Ellie running into her mother’s shaking arms and I tell them to go upstairs. I’m not a man who even knows what bravado really means, someone who’s managed to get through his life without ever hitting anyone, but I look round hoping to find something to have in my hand when I open it. There’s nothing, but I don’t go to it empty-handed because I’m holding a new surge of anger.

  When I do open it he’s ready to brush past me, but I’m good at filling a space so he doesn’t make it over the doorstep. And I don’t know how to fight, or even how to talk tough, so it must be someone else grabbing him by the throat and rattling his head against the metal door knocker, and someone else telling him that if he steps foot in my house, he’ll need someone to carry him expletive deleted out. And I tighten my grip again until his eyes widen, and then I shake him loose and shut the door as he turns on his heels, throwing nothing more than fat-boy curses. When I look round Rachel’s standing on the stairs with her phone in her hand and she tells me she’s phoned the police. And I’m proud of her. Two hours later he gets arrested and charged with assault and possession of class A drugs with intent to supply.

  I give Rachel her own space and she sits with Ellie on the settee while they watch cartoons. I remember the run I was supposed to do and how everyone will secretly believe I bottled it. When the phone rings it’s Cathy and I just tell her that I had family stuff to take care of but I think she understands. She’s done her run in a slow time but doesn’t care and Brendan did it in twenty-two minutes and then went back out to run with Angela. And everyone finished and Yana has asked her about how to apply for university and her own daughter has invited her out to Australia and is paying for the ticket. The news tumbles out and I listen in almost silence, unable to share the excitement.

  That evening, after I make my family a meal, we settle down to watch television. About eight, when Rachel is thinking of putting Ellie to bed, we both start as there’s a knock on the front door but I reassure us both that it’s not him. When I cautiously open it, at first I’m not quite sure what I’m seeing. It’s a group of people standing at my front gate and each of them is wearing an LED light on their head, so I think that they’re carol singers, but then it’s Pauline stepping forward and saying, ‘Hi Maurice, it’s good you’ve still got your kit on,’ and she hands me an LED. At first I don’t understand and when I do Cathy and Maureen say they’re all run out and will sit with Rachel if I like, and when I check with her that it’s OK, she tells me to go, that she’s glad I’m a runner.

  As I put on the head torch I see they’re all there and I thank them. Then we slip through a side gate into the sleeping park and Pauline asks if I’m ready. They circle round me, hands on my shoulders like I’m a boxer going into the ring, and then we set off, a bright cohort of light moving through the darkness, in a world that is slowly drawing in. And I feel sure that somehow Mina is watching, watching and smiling as I do this dancing in the dark for her, while we run on, banishing the shadows, our lights showing us the way.

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  Copyright © David Park, 2019

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  A Run in the Park is an original Radio 4 commission

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  ISBN: HB: 978-1-5266-1997-6; EPUB: 978-1-5266-1998-3

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