Chapter 11
‘Ready?’ she said. ‘Gran is making chicken pie. She serves two types of potatoes with it, which is at least one too many, but Henry always says it’s one too few.’
I was laughing as we walked out onto the street, crossing the road and into the village.
Lucy beamed at me, as though she was pleased she’d said something amusing but wasn’t quite sure what it was.
She was one of those talkative people, who didn’t do social awkwardness.
When you meet someone like that, you can only respond in kind.
‘Where are we going?’
‘To Gran’s house. Henry lives in a cottage down by the harbour, and Mam and I live not too far from Gran’s.
’ She paused. ‘I need to start working again. Properly. Move out of home. I don’t think I’m cut out for working in a café,’ she said.
‘It’s much harder than it looks. Making coffee is an art, apparently.
But I went to art school and no one mentioned coffee once.
It was all teabags in filthy mugs and too much milk and cheap biscuits. ’
‘Why are you working in the café if you’re not good at it?’
‘Well…’ Lucy paused. ‘It’s to get me out of the house.
It’s Mum’s café, but she’s away on holiday and asked me to help out.
Jules has been working in the café for the last couple of years, but it looks like I’m there until I get out of this black hole I’m in.
’ She smiled. ‘Do you ever get stuck? I mean, you probably never do. You look like the kind of person for whom nothing goes wrong.’
‘I wish that were true,’ I said. ‘But why are you in a black hole?’
‘PTSD. According to my doctor.’ She glanced at me. ‘I was getting panic attacks and it seemed safer to stay at home. In bed for most of it. Beds are the safest place in the world. Excluding hammocks, obviously. Have you ever slept in one? I have. Big mistake. Huge.’
I laughed. ‘I too made that mistake. My friend Caitlin and I were in Mexico and we were in this hostel and we actually volunteered to sleep in one. I spent the night spinning around in it, and actually becoming so twisted within the hammock, I had to be cut out the following morning. Caitlin had spent the night hanging upside down in hers, like a bat, too afraid to move just in case she was swallowed up by it.’
Lucy laughed. ‘Mine was less glamorous, but was a campsite in County Clare, full of people playing the guitar and singing tunelessly about the old days, with goats and chickens pecking about.’
‘Sounds wonderful,’ I said, meaning it. ‘But you didn’t tell me about your PTSD.’
‘It was a sailing accident. At last year’s regatta.
Some other boat, a speedboat, rammed into me.
He should not even be in charge of a yo-yo, never mind a RIB, but he was loitering and then shot out, across my path.
If it happened on a road, they would have their licence taken away.
So, I was tossed into the water. My boat, Maeve, is only small.
I can fit two people in it, but I was on my own, and all I can remember is being flung in the air and then hitting the water with a slap.
The mast broke and I had hit my head and was trapped underneath it.
I mean, it must have been only minutes I was under, but there was this rope around my feet and…
’ She stopped. ‘Well, I have been having therapy, but I’m still not back on the water. ’
We had long bypassed small talk and had entered the world of big talk without noticing. When I was giving my TED Talk a couple of years ago, the guy before me had said small talk is the glue to society. If true, big talk is the superglue. ‘That sounds terrifying.’
We were past the village now and walking up a road with a terrace of red-brick houses, neat front gardens and cute little paths.
‘Oh, it was,’ she continued. ‘And I’m still not right.
The thought of getting in a boat again is horrible.
And I know Henry wants me to enter the regatta next Saturday, but I don’t want to have a panic attack out there, all on my own.
Sailing used to be my favourite thing.’ She looked agonised for a moment, as though she had lost something so precious to her.
‘I’ve lost confidence in everything, from socialising to sailing…
and I couldn’t even do my job. I used to be a graphic designer, websites, et cetera.
Mam and Henry are both determined to get me back to normal, but I don’t remember what normal is.
I want the old me back who went out and had fun, but I’m stuck with the new me, and I don’t know who she is, all I know is that she’s not the same and she’s not having any fun. ’
I knew exactly how she felt.
‘So what do you do back in Boston?’ Lucy went on. ‘And why are you on this accidental holiday?’
‘I mentor new businesses,’ I explained. ‘I match up investors and new businesses. It’s very rewarding.
Well, it was. I think I may be losing my touch.
And my personal life has gone to crap. My PA suggested a vacation and so did my grandmother and so I’m here.
Basically they said I needed to recharge. ’
‘Why’s your personal life so shite, then?’
‘Oh, my boyfriend… kind of… anyway, fiancé was seeing someone else.’ I felt foolish all over again.
How na?ve I must appear to Lucy. Here I was, thirty-two years old and still was at a loss when it came to love.
I braced myself for that familiar mixture of pity and sympathy, but she just appeared interested.
‘It’s…’ I tried to find the right word. Heartbreaking?
No, not quite. Since Caitlin, a lot of things had been put into perspective. ‘…Humiliating.’
Lucy rolled her eyes. ‘God, I hate this man. No wonder you needed a break.’
I laughed, touched by her instant support. ‘But I’ll get over the humiliation. I mean, I don’t have PTSD or anything.’
‘No man is worth PTSD.’
‘What’s worse is…’ Should I tell her, I wondered. How would she feel if I told her my best friend had died? It’s kind of a big thing to just drop into conversation.
‘What’s worse?’
I went for it. ‘I lost my best friend, Caitlin.’
‘You lost her?’ Lucy was looking at me, puzzled. ‘Oh! She DIED?’
Now I nearly laughed. ‘Yes, she died. I didn’t lose her. She died.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Lucy said, now straight-faced and empathetic. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss.’
‘Yeah, well… it’s her mom who is grieving very badly, the poor thing.
But there’s been a lot to sort out. I organised the funeral, and then the memorial service, and then I’ve done the plaque and ashes-scattering ceremony, clearing out her apartment…
Well, it’s been a lot. And I did want to get everything right.
I mean, she’d have done the same for me, right? ’
Lucy didn’t smile back, she just looked concerned, listening intently. It was easier to talk to her, I realised, than everyone back home who had known the old Kerry-Anne. I could be as vulnerable as I liked here and it was a relief.
‘And it meant I wasn’t quite as focused on work as I should have been and so I am here for a recharge and reboot and then, when I go back, everything will be much better. And then I suppose I’ll be distracted by the wedding planning.’
‘What wedding?’
‘My wedding!’
‘To who?’
‘My fiancé. I just told you about him.’
Lucy paused, as though her brain was unscrambling the information. ‘Him? The eejit?’
‘Yes, him. I’m going to give him a second chance.’
‘You are?’ She looked flabbergasted.
I tried to explain how complicated it was. ‘The fact I know about it is better than not knowing about it and it means we enter married life with full and open communication.’
‘Oh my God.’ Now, Lucy looked at me with pity. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’ I paused. ‘After losing Caitlin, it’s not that important any more. Like maybe before, I would have gone crazy about it and just dumped him, but now I see life is precious…’
‘It is!’ said Lucy with feeling. ‘All the more reason why you can’t throw it away.’
‘I’m not though.’
‘I think you need more time,’ she said. ‘You’re making decisions under very challenging circumstances. I forbid you to rush into anything.’
I laughed. ‘I promise I won’t.’ And then I began to open up a little and I wasn’t sure why – perhaps it was because I was in a strange place and had nothing to lose or because Lucy was so easy to talk to. ‘I feel kind of haunted by Caitlin.’ I’d never admitted this out loud before, but it was true.
‘Haunted?’
‘It’s as though she’s still here, as though she isn’t gone.
I keep expecting to see her. Every time I pick up my phone, I think there’s going to be a text from Caitlin.
But there’s not.’ I shook my head with the utter unfathomability of it all.
‘I know intellectually she’s gone, but emotionally I’m not there yet.
In my mind, she’s somewhere in the world, ready to call me or planning our next trip or our next night out or brunch.
She was the person who helped me find a sense to my life, who helped me create its shape, and without her, I’m not sure how to manage. ’
Lucy was listening, taking it all in.
I carried on. ‘And the worst thing is everyone keeps asking me how I am and reminding me. And if they didn’t keep reminding me, I might be fine. And I am, obviously… Okay, so I will just spend the rest of my life missing her, but everyone wants me to cry about it, as though there is a process…’
‘But there is a process.’
‘But it’s not obligatory…’ I paused.
‘No, but normal.’
‘Yeah. But I’ve never been one for being normal.’
‘Oh, nor have I,’ she said. ‘I hate normal. But the older I get, the more normal I feel.’
I laughed again. ‘Thank you for letting me divulge.’
‘Oh you should!’ Lucy spoke with passion. ‘Divulging is the only way to be as humans. People who don’t divulge are not truly alive. And for what it’s worth, I think this accidental holiday was exactly the right thing.’
‘You do?’
‘Oh yes. You’ve basically told life to slow the feck down. You’re taking control of time which is what super-heroines do.’ She slipped her arm through mine, and strangely, I relinquished my usual control and allowed myself to be guided to Lucy’s house.