The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(22)

I stare at him, perplexed. ‘Thing?’

He shrugs. ‘You know, a workshop type of thing.’

‘You’re not selling it very well,’ I say, half smiling because I don’t know what else to do.

‘It’s a grief workshop, okay?’ His words come out in a rush, scorn-laden, as if it pisses him off that they’re leaving his mouth. ‘Mindfulness, that sort of stuff.’

‘A grief workshop?’ I say it in the same tone I might use if he’d asked me to bungee jump or sky dive. Jonah isn’t generally the type to focus on his inner chakras, or whatever they do at mindfulness workshops. I expect this kind of stuff from Elle; it’s a surprise from Jonah.

‘It’s being run in the main hall.’ He couldn’t look more uncomfortable if he tried. ‘Dee, one of the new supply staff, is a trained yoga and mindfulness teacher. She’s offered to run a session if there’s enough interest.’

Dee strolls into my head, shiny-haired and bendy with an ever-ready smile that borders on pious. I catch myself being unkind for no reason and wonder if that is who I am now, bitter like over-brewed coffee.

‘I’m not sure it’s my kind of thing.’ I soften the rejection with an apologetic smile.

‘I’m not sure it’s mine either,’ he says, sliding his sunglasses on. ‘It was just an idea.’

I nod, and he nods, and after an awkward moment of silence he turns to walk away again, but then he stops and turns back for a second time.

‘The thing is – I think it might help.’

‘Help with what, exactly?’ I ask slowly, even though I think I know what he means. I wish he’d carried on walking rather than coming back a second time, because I can feel this conversation straying towards dangerous ground.

He looks skywards, thinking before he speaks. ‘This,’ he says, stretching his arm out towards Freddie’s headstone and beyond. ‘Help with handling all of this.’

‘I’m handling it my own way, thank you,’ I say. The last thing I want to do is sit in a room full of strangers and talk about Freddie.

Jonah nods, swallows. ‘Told you,’ he mutters, but he’s looking at Freddie’s stone rather than at me. ‘I told you she’d say no.’

Oh, hang on just a minute. ‘You told Freddie I’d say no?’

Pink spots fire up on Jonah’s cheekbones. ‘Was I wrong?’ He isn’t someone who generally raises his voice; he’s the natural mediator in any argument. ‘I told him I was going because I thought it might be good for me and that I’d ask you to join as well. But I told him you’d say no.’

‘Well, there you go then.’ I throw my hands up in the air. ‘You’ve done your duty and now you can leave without feeling guilty.’ I regret the words as soon as they leave my lips.

‘Without feeling guilty,’ he says. ‘Thanks for that, Lydia. Thanks a bloody lot.’

‘What do you expect when you gang up against me with my dead boyfriend?’ I say.

‘It wasn’t ganging up on you,’ he says, more measured than I feel. ‘I just thought it’d be helpful maybe, but I get it. You’re busy, or not interested, or scared, or whatever.’

I snort and shake my head, looking away down the row of grey headstones.

‘Scared?’ I mutter, and he looks my way and shrugs, unapologetic.

‘Tell me I’m wrong?’

I snort again and throw in a huff for good measure. I know he’s trying to goad me and I can’t stop myself from walking straight into it.

‘Scared? You think I’m scared of some poxy school-hall workshop? I’ll tell you what scared looks like, Jonah Jones. It looks like a police car pulling up outside your living-room window, and it looks like having to bury the man you love instead of marrying him. Scared looks like standing in Sainsbury’s thinking about swallowing every damn pill on the medicine shelf because you just remembered that stupid argument you had in the next aisle about biscuits of all things, biscuits, and it winds you. Physically winds you, right here.’ I bang two fingers over my heart hard enough to leave a bruise. ‘Scared looks like knowing how endlessly long life seems without the person you planned on spending it with, and also knowing how shockingly, unexpectedly short it can be. It’s like that trick with the tablecloth and the teacups except we’re human fucking beings getting broken, not teacups, and …’ I stop and gulp in air because I’ve lost my thread about being scared and I’m bloody crying with anger, and because Jonah looks ashen and horrified.

‘Lyds –’ he says, reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder.

I shrug him off. ‘Don’t.’

‘I’m sorry, okay?’

‘No. No, it’s not okay. None of this –’ I gesticulate sharply around the graveyard – ‘is ever going to be okay.’

‘I know. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

I don’t know where this landslide of anger has come from. It’s as if Jonah moved a rock and caused an avalanche, and now it’s pouring out of me, uncontrollable as lava.

‘Oh, sure, you didn’t mean to upset me,’ I spit, horrible even to my own ears. ‘Digging at me via a dead man. What is it, Jonah? Do you need someone to chaperone you and tell the supply teacher that you like her?’ He looks confused, as well he might. ‘Just write it on the damn whiteboard. Or ask her out. One or the other, either works, but I’m not up for holding your hand. I’m not your replacement wingman. I’m not Freddie.’