Postscript(26)

I end the call. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ I say quietly to my phone.

‘Who’s wishing for what?’ Ciara asks. She’s been hovering behind me, eavesdropping. I tuck my phone into my backpack.

‘Nobody and nothing.’

‘Stay with us for dinner?’ she asks. ‘Vegan chili con carne, if you can stomach the lack of the taste of tortured animal?’

‘I’m barbecuing steak!’ Mathew yells from the back room.

‘Tempting.’ I smile. ‘Thanks, but I’ll go home. I have to start decluttering anyway before I move, so this is a good opportunity.’

‘Is everything OK between you and Gabriel? Did you tell him yet?’

‘Everything is fine, I haven’t told him, but I will soon.’ I shudder at the thought of the conversation. ‘Why am I so nervous about it?’

‘Because …’ she sighs. ‘You don’t want him to say no.’

Her words strike me, because they’re true.

Helmet on, visor on, I mount my bike and prepare to escape, not from the shop but from my head.

I began cycling after Gerry’s death. Before, I could barely drag myself to the gym, though my more youthful body was better at coping with lack of exercise. Now I thrive on the exercise. I need it. It doesn’t help me to think, it makes me stop thinking. Everything I could find to stop thinking was and is a gift. Pushing myself to the absolute maximum gives me a release I can’t get anywhere else. Motion is lotion. I like that I can choose a different route each time, even when going to the same destination. I don’t need to rely on traffic to get me there on time. My journey isn’t dependent on anyone but myself, I am the author of my own destiny. I see statues and streets I never noticed when I was in a car, I observe the way the light hits buildings in a way I never did before. I can take stock of everything, feel the wind in my hair, the rain and sun on my skin. It’s the kind of movement that helps me notice things, not one that stalls my mind and traps everything in there.

I feel free.

There is so much about me that Gerry wouldn’t recognise. I am older than Gerry ever was, I know things that he never knew, that he will never know. And it’s the little things that stop me in my tracks. He never lived to hear the word ‘hangry’. Every time I hear the word I think of him, he would have loved it when his belly was full and hated it when it was empty. The invention of things he would appreciate. New phones. New technologies. New political leaders, new wars. Cronuts. New Star Wars movies. His football team winning the FA Cup. When he died, he gave me his thirst for knowledge of the things he loved, and in the early years after his death I wanted to discover them for him. I was always looking for new ways to connect with him, as if I was the middle person between his life and death. I don’t do those things any more.

I outlived my husband, and now I’ve outgrown him. The beauty and challenge of long-term relationships is that you change and shift at different times in different directions, side by side under the same roof. Most often, these changes are subtle and you’re subconsciously adapting all the time to the constant but gentle shifting of another human being that you’re so connected to; like two shape-shifters battling to coincide, for better or worse. Remain who you are while they alter, or change with them. Inspire them to go in another direction, gently push, pull, mould, tear at, nurture. Wait.

If Gerry were alive, he might have adapted his form to accept and make space in his heart and mind for the woman I am today. But over the past seven years my shape has shifted without having to assent to the energy of another. If Gerry were to return and meet this woman seven years on, he would not recognise me. He would possibly not love me. I don’t even know if this Holly would have the patience for Gerry. But despite the fact I know me now and I like me, I’ll be forever sorry that Gerry didn’t get to meet this me.

The following day Gabriel and I sit outside in a café. The weather is warmer but we’re still bundled up in the May sun.

‘What happened last night?’

‘Ava was suspended from school for two days.’

‘What for?’

‘Smoking cannabis on school grounds. One more suspension and she’ll be expelled.’

‘Hopefully that will scare her off. The most trouble I ever got into was for kissing Gerry on school grounds,’ I say with a smile.

He watches me. He usually never minds if I bring Gerry up, so perhaps I’m being paranoid. ‘You were a good girl,’ he says, eventually.

‘I was. Were you like Ava at school?’

‘Unfortunately, yes. I was hoping I’d see something of myself in her, but this isn’t the part I was hoping for,’ he says, rubbing his beard tiredly. ‘But at least she’s finally coming to me.’

‘Hmm,’ I say dubiously, and immediately wish I hadn’t.

‘What does that mean?’

I question Ava’s timing. She didn’t want anything to do with her dad until she started getting in trouble. As the arguments with her mother and step-dad increase, the more often Gabriel finds her on his doorstep. And he’s gentler with her. So eager to please her, to be back in her life.

‘I don’t want her exploiting your good nature, that’s all.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ He’s a hunky chunk of anger today.