I’ve also been trying out Mindfulness techniques, inspired by Colette’s enthusiasm for the practice and a post in which Guy was posing in front of a sunset in a small pair of yellow shorts, with the caption: ‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called present.’ It’s unquestionably one of his most eloquent, so I casually forwarded it to Lucy to make sure she’d seen it, then sent her a text pretending it was an accident.
As ever, the only thing that seems to stop my brain skipping from one useless, non-specific worry to another is being in the garden. My dahlias have frothed into a vivid pink display, while the delphiniums are in high bloom, their tall spikes of pink and blue rising above the flower beds. But the unquestionable star of the show is the sunflower Oscar and I planted in April. I’ve been meticulously fertilizing and protecting it from pests and now it rises over the other flowers in the garden, its imperial yellow petals fluttering like the mane of a lion. When he turns up this week he rushes straight over, his eyes wide as he gasps: ‘Is that mine?’
We spend some time taking photos of him with it, while he entertains me with his repertoire of jokes.
‘What do you call a man with a banana on his head?’ he asks.
‘I don’t know, what do you call a man with a banana on his head?’
‘Poo head.’ He bursts into peals of hysterical laughter. This is typical of Oscar’s material, which always involves a punchline that includes ‘fart’ and/or ‘poo’, and ideally makes no sense whatsoever.
‘Brilliant,’ I say. ‘Your delivery is certainly spot on.’
By the time Mandy has finished cleaning and he trots off with a bag of tomatoes, my mood has lifted a little. It’s a feeling directly attuned to the sunshine on my skin, soil under my nails and also, I must admit, the image of Oscar’s face as he gawped at his sunflower. But as I head inside and I catch a glimpse of Colette’s homework sheet, I feel an intense stab of resentment.
It feels like an imposter in my bedroom, in my world. Why would I put myself through this, when I’ve already got everything I need right here? For the first time since I returned to Colette it occurs to me in a fully realised form that I don’t need to. I’m a grown woman. I can do what I want. As soon as I have recognised that the best course of action is simply to tell Colette that I’m just not going to do it, I feel empowered to the point of elation.
I take a deep breath and pick up my phone, to discover a new text from Guy.
Just been invited to a family wedding next month. Fancy being my plus one? X
I lower myself onto the bed and read it again. When I’d said I wanted to go out with him, I’d expected a couple of hours in the pub. Not a wedding. The thought that he wants to introduce me to his friends and family fills me with an equal measure of happiness and horror. I throw down the phone and pick up my iPad, perching on the edge of the sofa as I Google two words – ‘occasion wear’ – and watch as the results filter onto my screen.
Oh, my heart…
The designer gowns are divine, but even those within a high-street budget are glorious: silk halter-necks, asymmetric maxi dresses, elegant jumpsuits in every colour and fabric. I click on a long green dress with a wrap waist and a fluid pleated skirt. I imagine myself stepping into it and zipping up the back, twirling in front of the mirror before Guy arrives to pick me up. The thought evokes a scene from every American teen movie: Girl in a prom dress. Boy in a tux. Standing in a hallway anticipating not just one night, but a moment in time, after which everything would change. I snort at the silly comparison, then realise that my heart feels so full it might shatter.
Chapter 39
The star jasmine plant I ordered yesterday is standing at my doorstep in a plastic pot, supported by a five-foot trellis.
‘How gorgeous,’ I exclaim.
‘Must be my new aftershave.’ Jamie pokes his head out from behind the plant to hand me the signature machine.
‘Very funny,’ I say, signing my name. ‘God, it’s huge. I wasn’t expecting it to be so mature.’
‘Do you want to send it back?’
‘No, I love it. I just need to work out where I’m going to put it.’
He hesitates then says: ‘How are things with your therapist?’
‘Oh, fine,’ I reply breezily. ‘Yeah, pretty good. Pretty… fine.’
He nods. ‘Pretty fine is better than pretty awful.’
‘Yeah.’ I force a smile, then immediately cave in. ‘Urgh, all right, I’m having a nightmare. Why don’t you come in and I’ll tell you all about it?’
We sit at the kitchen table while he throws a ball for Gertie and I fill him in on the first two sessions and my wedding invitation.
‘Sounds like it’s pretty serious between you and this guy these days then?’
‘Well, I want it to be,’ I say. ‘I guess it’s hard to believe that someone like him would be interested in me sometimes though.’
‘Don’t be daft. Someone like you,’ he mimics, shaking his head. ‘Anyway, if he’s invited you to a wedding he’s obviously more than interested.’
‘Yes, I hope so,’ I say, feeling my spirits lift. ‘So, any solutions?’
‘I hate to say it, but you’re probably just going to have to…’ His voice trails off as if his mind is elsewhere.
‘Jamie?’
‘Sorry.’
‘I just need to get on with it, don’t I?’
‘I was trying to think of a way to sound more sympathetic.’
‘I don’t want sympathy,’ I tell him.
‘Then yes. Get on with the walk.’
I twist my bracelet around my wrist and look up. ‘Will you come with me?’
Only as he considers this do I realise how much I want him to be the one. He lowers his eyes and I am transfixed by his lashes, how long they are, the way they frame his face.
‘Okay,’ he says.
I inhale sharply and smile. ‘Great. Maybe tomorrow?’
But he fixes the amber flecks of his eyes on me. ‘I’m not available tomorrow.’
‘Oh. All right.’
‘Let’s do it now. Come on.’
He reaches out and touches my fingers. His feel warm and strong and slightly rough. I squeeze them without even thinking about it and he responds with a softening of his features, before standing up.
He leads me by the hand to the door. I think about breathing exercises. I think about anti-anxiety techniques. I think about a sentence that plays on repeat in my brain: This is no big deal, really.
‘How far are we going to go?’ I ask, when we’re outside and in front of the gate.
‘Let’s just see how the mood takes us,’ he shrugs. ‘I reckon the best approach is to not think about where you’re going or how long we’ll be. Just put one foot in front of the other. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Have you got any headphones?’
I run back for the ones I keep in my sideboard, return and hand them to him. He plugs them into his phone, passes me one bud and tucks the other into his own ear. Then he scrolls through his music as we walk down the path again, to the gate. He presses play.
Nina Simone. ‘Feeling Good’.
We’d listened to it on the night of the cocktails and pop quiz, to its deep, bluesy vocals that soar like a magnificent, pitch-perfect cry. He takes my hand again. My palm is slick with sweat and I’m self-conscious about that but not enough to let go. I look up at him and am struck quite suddenly by how physically big he is. The simple registering of this fact, of his broad shoulders and thick forearms, is the most reassuring sensation. But I still can’t move when he takes his first step through the gateway. Our arms stretch out comically in the gap between us and my earphone pops out until he moves back, allowing me to quickly replace it.
‘You’ll be okay,’ he says. I nod. All I can do is go with him.
We are soon on the path outside Chalk View. Then we are walking across the meadow, our ankles swishing through the long grass with a quivering sun overhead. Our pace is
neither slow nor fast, but it is decisive enough to maintain a steady momentum. We don’t stop to look back. Heat collects in the creases behind my knees and there are moments when I’m so aware of my thrashing heart that it feels like it could break my eardrums. But as the space grows between us and home, I try not to think about my physical self beyond the press of Jamie’s hand in mine: the warmth of his skin, the strength of his grasp, his fingertips against my knuckles.
At times I feel as though I’m the protagonist in a movie, in which the fields and the sky and swaying wildflowers are all just scenery, a background. This thought doesn’t distress me though. To my surprise, none of it does. And by the time we have walked to the kissing gate at the edge of the woods, and taken the bridleway that leads up the steep escarpment, I realise I am okay. I really am okay.
We keep walking.
We talk about Billie Holiday and the ginger ale his mum used to make. I tell him about the time I came up here with Lucy and she climbed a tree then couldn’t get down until I ran all the way home and got Dad. We discuss our school days and how once, when he was fifteen, he bumped into an old teacher while she was buying a bra in Debenhams and didn’t know where to put himself. We talk so much and walk so much that before I have even registered it, we have completed a loop of the woods and have re-emerged in the field in front of Chalk View, with the red bricks of the house in sight and Gertie yapping at the gate.
‘Hello, my girl!’ I laugh and my steps quicken until I’m there, I’m home, being jumped on and snuggled by my dog, who appears to think she hasn’t seen me for a week. I stand up and find myself looking at Jamie’s chest.
‘What just happened?’ I ask. ‘And why doesn’t it always feel that easy?’
‘It will,’ he smiles. ‘It is easy.’
‘Well, you made it feel that way.’ A bolt of heat surges to my cheeks.
‘I can’t take credit for that. That was all you, Ellie. You did that.’ I blink, taking in that fact.
‘Same time tomorrow?’ he asks.
‘Great,’ I say, as he heads towards his van, and it occurs to me that he clearly was never busy tomorrow after all.
Chapter 40
The following day it rains in the way that it only can in summer if you live in the UK. Slanting, horizontal drizzle that seeps into every pore of your skin and gives the impression that it’s simply never going to stop. I foolishly assume that this means the walk with Jamie is off, and my relief is followed by disappointment in myself, a feeling that if I don’t commit to stepping outside today, then what happened yesterday will never be repeated.
I need not have worried. He turns up at 4pm as promised, with a large bag, from which he pulls out two pairs of waterproof trousers.
‘Where did you get these?’
‘My cousin John is a Scout leader. I knew he’d have masses of this stuff and I didn’t want you coming up with any excuses. Here you go.’
He throws me a pair, which I wrestle over my jeans, while Gertie barks in alarm, convinced a Gore-tex monster is attacking my legs.
‘They are a bit over the top, aren’t they?’ Jamie laughs as we head to the door. ‘We look like we’re preparing for a trip to the moon.’
‘I might as well be going to the moon the way I feel,’ I say.
‘Ah, you’ll be okay. Shall we take the dog with us?’
I look down. ‘Should we go for a walk, Gertie?’ Her ears prick up and she yaps. ‘This is a big moment.’
‘Come on then.’ He grins decisively. ‘Grab your poo bags and let’s do this.’
I dress Gertie in her own waterproof coat, step outside holding her lead, and she tugs me along to the gate. ‘What are we listening to today, DJ?’
He takes out some ear phones. ‘I put together a mixtape.’
I bat my eyelids jokingly at the romantic implications. ‘A mixtape?’
‘I mean, no. A playlist,’ he squirms. ‘Just a few songs to ease the pain.’
‘Of course. I didn’t… you know, mean anything. Obviously.’
‘No. Of course not.’
I reach for his hand and we step out of the gate. In the immediate seconds after this, the sky seems to swell and wane. Then he presses play and Gertie pulls at the lead as we start to walk.
We make our way up the hill, as Jamie’s not-a-mixtape unrolls into ‘She’s A Star’ by James and ‘Here Comes The Sun’ by the Beatles. It follows with Queen, Laura Marling, Aretha Franklin, Amy Winehouse and Echo and the Bunnymen. There’s eighties disco, nineties indie, jazz and Americana. I judge the distance not by how far we go, but how many songs we listen to and today it’s fourteen in all.
Sometimes I simply let this soundtrack drift over me; at other points he lowers the volume and we chat. The whole way, he’s there next to me, and I focus on the clasp of his fingers and the feel of his palm against mine.
* * *
The next time I open the door to Colette’s office I’m feeling rather good about myself. Possibly smug. ‘You look like you’ve had a good couple of weeks,’ she comments.
I hand over my homework sheet. ‘Yes, I think you could say that.’
After each walk I had to rate my anxiety levels from 1 to 10 and write a sentence or two in the box about what I was feeling. All the way down the page the rating decreases and by the final entry this morning the box includes words like ‘surprising’ and ‘in parts enjoyable’.
‘This is wonderful, Ellie,’ she says, scanning the sheet. ‘A great start. So where did you go?’
‘Just for a walk in the fields around the house. Not once but four times. I took Gertie twice. And I went out by myself. Well, just me and the dog. It was only for a few minutes but I did it.’
She looks up. ‘Must be nice to know you’re able to take your dog for a walk.’
‘I wouldn’t describe the experience itself as entirely nice. It wasn’t quite relaxing.’
‘I don’t suppose you expected it to be.’
‘No, but it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. Even getting here today felt kind of undramatic.’
‘Why do you think it was better than you’d anticipated?’ she asks.
‘Because my expectations were so low,’ I shrug.
She smiles. ‘Anything else?’
‘Well, I created a safe environment around me. I listened to some songs – the kind of music that makes you calm but also sort of brave. I went with someone I trust but who isn’t as invested in this as my family are. He held my hand, which really worked. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. But I don’t feel any pressure with him. He is a very calm person to be around but still persistent, somehow.’
‘In what way?’
‘It was raining on one of the days and I thought: “Right, this is my excuse not to go”, but then he turned up with some waterproofs and he’d made a mixtape for me – although it wasn’t really a mixtape. It was just a bunch of songs he knew I’d like.’
‘Guy sounds like a real keeper.’
I snap up my head. ‘Oh no – it wasn’t Guy. This was the delivery man.’
Her pen stops and she looks up at me.
‘He’s called Jamie. He delivers my plants. He’s a friend now too. But no, I’d never do something like this with Guy.’
‘Oh. Why not?’
I’m tempted to ask if she’s ever dated before. Ever been at that stage of a relationship in which you present the best version of yourself and nothing less. The bit where your legs are permanently waxed, underwear always matches, tempers never flare, smiles don’t falter.
Guy has already seen enough of my faults and he’s still around, so I’m not going to continue to thrust them in his face, any more than I’m going to start farting in bed with him. That might be human reality, but it’s the fastest way to demolish a honeymoon phase.
‘It would put him off,’ I say simply. ‘It’s hardly a turn-on all this, is it? Anyway, he’s very busy. He’s a yoga teacher and has got a big private client list.’
‘I
think you mentioned that,’ she says.
‘Plus, he’s grown his Instagram account enormously recently and has a really active social life. It’s one of the things I love about him.’
‘That social life is something you want to be a part of?’
‘Absolutely. As soon as possible. He’s invited me to a wedding. I’m determined to be there.’
‘Aha. So that’s the prize.’
‘Absolutely. I keep imagining myself in a beautiful dress, on the dance floor with him and… I’m aware this sounds like I want to be Cinderella. Sorry.’
‘What are you sorry for?’
‘Ah, you know. It’s frivolous. Pretty shoes and romance.’
‘Pretty shoes and romance sound like something a lot closer to living. It really doesn’t matter what your motivation is, Ellie, as long as it helps you.’ She pauses and takes a sip of her coffee. ‘And the idea of going to this wedding doesn’t make you feel too anxious?’
‘Of course it does. If you asked me to fill in one of your “fear ladders” it’d be through the roof. The thought of walking into a big hotel room with loads of other people and a man I am in—’
‘A man you are in love with?’
‘A man I am in a relationship with. The point is, the stakes are high. As they always are with something you want. Those are the things I want to do with Guy and be able to do them without worrying that I’m going to lose it. Believe me, Guy could have any woman he wants. So I suppose there is an element of… I want to be worthy of him. To be the person he thought he was getting before he knew about my issues.’
‘But that’s not who you are, Ellie.’
‘Not yet,’ I correct her.
She thinks about this and nods. ‘You’re right. Not yet.’
Chapter 41
I’d forgotten how fast Mum travels by foot. She bounds rather than walks, with the kind of energy that I’m sure can’t be the norm for her age. Gertie scuttles at her ankles as if I’m not even here, though given that Mum and Dad have been her regular walkers for the last two years, I can hardly accuse her of disloyalty. Our country walk is a spontaneous venture, prompted by the convergence of a sunny day, a visit by Lucy and the fact that I can now attempt this without a drama being inevitable. Leaving home wasn’t completely without incident, of course. Even pulling a cardigan over my shoulders as I stepped out of the gate unleashed the dreads, but I reminded myself that the feeling would pass and, sure enough, as we leave the Coach and Horses car park behind us and head across the fields, it has.
The World at My Feet Page 19
