Finally, on the morning he stopped to do press-ups on the pavement outside the house, I opened the front door and stepped out. I leaned against the porch, my arms folded across my chest, watching until he looked up. ‘I wouldn’t stop there for too long. Next door’s dog is a bit partial to that bit of pavement.’
‘Lou!’ he exclaimed, as if I was the very last person he expected to see standing outside my own house, which he had visited several times a week for the seven years we had been together. ‘Well … I’m surprised to see you back. I thought you were off to conquer the big wide world!’
His fiancée, who was doing press-ups beside him, looked up, then back down at the pavement. It might have been my imagination, but her buttocks might have clenched even more tightly. Up, down, she bobbed furiously. Up and down. I found myself worrying slightly for the welfare of her new bosom.
He bounced to his feet. ‘This is Caroline, my fiancée.’ He kept his eyes on me, perhaps waiting for some kind of reaction. ‘We’re training for the next Ironman. We’ve done two together already.’
‘How … romantic,’ I said.
‘Well, Caroline and I feel it’s good to do things together,’ he said.
‘So I see,’ I replied. ‘And his and hers turquoise Lycra!’
‘Oh. Yeah. Team colour.’
There was a short silence.
I gave a little air punch. ‘Go, team!’
Caroline sprang to her feet and began to stretch out her thigh muscles, folding her leg behind her like a stork. She nodded towards me, the least civility she could reasonably get away with.
‘You’ve lost weight,’ he said.
‘Yeah, well. A saline-drip diet will do that to you.’
‘I heard you had an … accident.’ He cocked his head sideways, sympathetically.
‘News travels fast.’
‘Still. I’m glad you’re okay.’ He sniffed, looked down the road. ‘It must have been hard for you this past year. You know. Doing what you did and all.’
And there it was. I tried to keep control of my breathing. Caroline resolutely refused to look at me, extending her leg in a hamstring stretch. Then, ‘Anyway … congratulations on the marriage.’
He surveyed his future wife proudly, lost in admiration of her sinewy leg. ‘Well, it’s like they say – you just know when you know.’ He gave me a faux-apologetic smile. And that was what finished me off.
‘I’m sure you did. And I guess you’ve got plenty put aside to pay for the wedding – they’re not cheap, are they?’
They both looked at me.
‘What with selling my story to the newspapers. What did they pay you, Pat? A couple of thousand? Treena never could find out the exact figure. Still, Will’s death should be good for a few matching Lycra onesies, right?’
The way Caroline’s face shot towards his told me this was one particular part of Patrick’s history that he had not yet got round to sharing.
He stared at me, two pinpricks of colour bleeding onto his face. ‘That was nothing to do with me.’
‘Of course not. Nice to see you, anyway, Pat. Good luck with the wedding, Caroline! I’m sure you’ll be the … firmest bride around.’ I turned and walked slowly back inside. I closed the door, resting against it, heart thumping, until I could be sure that they had finally jogged on.
‘Arse,’ said Granddad, as I limped back into the living room. And again, glancing dismissively at the window: ‘Arse.’ Then he chuckled.
I stared at him. And, completely unexpectedly, I found I had started to laugh, for the first time in as long as I could remember.
‘So did you decide what you’re going to do? When you’re better?’
I was lying on my bed. Treena was calling from college, while she waited for Thomas to come out of his football club. I stared up at the ceiling, on which Thomas had stuck a whole galaxy of Day-glo stickers, which, apparently, nobody could remove without bringing half the ceiling with them. ‘Not really.’
‘You’ve got to do something. You can’t sit around here on your backside for all eternity.’
‘I won’t sit on my backside. Besides, my hip still hurts. The physio said I’m better off lying down.’
‘Mum and Dad are wondering what you’re going to do. There are no jobs in Stortfold.’
‘I do know that.’
‘But you’re drifting. You don’t seem to be interested in anything.’
‘Treen, I just fell off a building. I’m recuperating.’
‘And before that you were wafting around travelling. And then you were working in a bar until you knew what you wanted to do. You’ll have to sort your head out at some point. If you’re not going back to school, you have to figure out what it is you’re actually going to do with your life.
‘I’m just saying. Anyway, if you’re going to stay in Stortfold, you need to rent out that flat. Mum and Dad can’t support you for ever.’
‘This from the woman who has been supported by the Bank of Mum and Dad for the past eight years.’