Chapter 48
MAGGIE
This will be the first Friday shift at Flicks that I’ve done in a while. Nell asked if I could swap shifts with Claire tonight. I hesitated at first, but The Notebook is on tonight, one of my all-time favourites, so I agreed.
I unfold my legs, the lines from the cord carpet imprinted on the outsides of my thighs. I’ve been learning mindfulness. Phillip agreed (with what I’m sure was more than a little persuasion from Riz) to be my unofficial therapist. Riz says it helps him feel useful.
I mean, it’s not like I’ve told him the real reason why I’m seeing him, but I have explained that sometimes it feels like my head is filled with so many people’s thoughts (I bluffed and said I was always conscious of what people thought of me) that I can’t hear my own.
He says I need to turn up the volume on my own thoughts, the thoughts that matter, so that my own voice overrides the outside noise.
I’ve tried my best to stay present in the moment…
to imagine reaching out and turning up the volume on my own thoughts.
I imagine a dial, like the one on the DVP at Flicks, I start at one, then when I’m calm, I turn the dial to two.
I focus on my breathing, on the fabric of my clothes, the smell of the flowers in his room.
And it’s helping, kind of. It’s hard to concentrate on my own breathing and the sound of the birds outside when a carer on the verge of quitting puts a gentle hand on my arm.
But still, I’m trying. Trying to fix those broken parts of me, just as Riz had suggested.
I need to learn new ways to navigate my life, just as Jack has.
Over the past week, every day, for at least half an hour, I’ve been trying to take myself deeper into my past. Phillip thinks that the fact I can’t access my earlier memories is the key to turning the volume up so I can’t hear the ‘extra’ thoughts.
And that sometimes, when we’re filled with anxiety, when life is too hard to tackle, our ‘wonderful’ brains find ways to distract us, to bury the pain behind other thoughts, other things to protect us from discovering what may hurt us, like white noise that we get used to, he said.
I didn’t say that in that case my mind has practically been a rave for my entire life.
But still. I’ve tried to picture the house that I have flashcard-like images of.
There’s the cherry tree outside. But the house is always too far away.
The pathway never gets to the door. Yet every day I attempt to go further, and every day, I’m getting a little closer. I’m trying. But I’m not there yet.
As I climb into my car, the sun is beginning to set behind the haphazard buildings.
The Jack-shaped hole is still pulsing inside my chest cavity, but I don’t want that to go.
It’s good to still feel his loss because it reminds me of what I had, a true romance, just like the film, but without the drug dealers and, you know, Christian Slater.
And life is mostly good. I still haven’t accepted the job officially, but I’m spending time with more of the residents at the home.
I have a few new cleaning gigs, so yeah, life is good.
I turn the key again but there is nothing but a groan, a shudder, and a loud bang from my exhaust pipe.
No, no, no, no. I turn the key again, foot furiously pumping against the gas pedal.
Nada.
I climb out, picking up Henry and lifting him out from the back seat, where he’s strapped in like a toddler.
‘Here we are again, Henry.’ I think about the night of the storm, the night I met Jack.
Maybe something good will come out of this?
That thought is squashed as I stand in front of Fleetwood Road.
Roadworks, no pedestrian way through, a yellow diversion sign glowering at me.
Crap. I let out a long breath. If only this road had been closed the night of Jack’s stroke, things would have been so different.
Right now though, I need to think. I can do this.
It’s – I check the time on my wrist – half four.
By the time I get to the main high street, it will be almost five and the shops will be closing.
I dig my hands into my pockets and pull on my thick sheepskin gloves and start walking.
The minute I turn the corner to the main high street, my stomach bottoms out.
The path is buzzing with people. Heart-shaped banners and cuddly toys line the shop windows, and couples galore are strolling hand in hand.
Valentine’s Day. I expand my lungs, give myself a quick pep talk and give Henry a tug.
I look left and right, cross the road and begin making my way.
I manage to avoid people on the whole, and it’s actually quite nice, being around the buzz and loved-up atmosphere.
The breeze bites at my nose; the sea to my right is churning, but it’s not aggressive.
It’s as though it too is caught up in the feeling of festivities.
The unmistakable hint of seaweed and sand is refreshing, despite the deep rumble of trepidation inside.
There are a few close calls: a woman with a toddler who escapes his reins and runs straight for me, luckily, the mother abandons her bags and grabs him just in time.
There’s a gaggle of teenaged girls with tiaras on their heads; and another jogger brushes my arm, but his thoughts were on his wife and the look of joy on her face as she’d opened a gift in a small square box.
The sun has started to set as I catch the glow of lights from Jack’s store up ahead.
I cut a glance up to the windows above, no lights on.
He’s probably safely away in the new shop anyway.
I’d seen Nell a few weeks ago. She’d told me he was doing well, that he had practically moved to the new shop and she’d suggested in a not-so-subtle way that maybe I should get in touch.
A horn from a car parps loudly, making me jump, the driver two-fingering at a cyclist who is powering down on the pedals, thick headphones on his ears.
My phone begins to buzz in my pocket. I turn my back, facing the sea opposite, wheeling Henry with me as Heritage Retirement Home flashes on the screen.
‘Hello?’
‘Maggie, love, it’s Gloria. I… it’s Riz.
’ The sea churns a little more, larger waves crashing against the rocks as my pulse begins to race.
‘I’m afraid—’ A lorry pulls up next to me, letting a car on the other side of the road come through, stealing the rest of the sentence. Nausea swirls inside my stomach.
‘Hello? Hello?! Can you hear me? Gloria?’ I jam the phone closer to my ear and begin walking back the way I came, the lorry still so loud I can’t hear. Finally the lorry begins to move away.
‘Gloria?’ I ask again.
‘It’s her time, love. It’s her time.’
Every part of me feels like its falling.
Like the cracks in the pavement are widening and I’m dropping down into them.
I look around the street desperately. A bus is coming along the street and I step out into the road, my hand up.
The doors hiss open. I scan the inside; it’s busy but I clutch Henry towards my chest. Words fall from my mouth at the driver, words about Riz, about Heritage, the address.
He nods and tells me he can get me there, and that it’s on his route.
I sway as I drop Henry to the floor. The seats are full – rush hour on Valentine’s Day – of course they are.
I have two options, to stand swaying and bumping against the other passengers, or to take the only seat next to a woman reading a book. I brace myself:
Why is she carrying a vacuum?
Should have got the earlier bus. I’m going to be late for EastEnders.
When I get home, I’ll make a to-do list.
Images of lives and homes bounce around my head, a collage of daily lives, love, regret, stress, tiredness, family, romance; the cacophony of emotions tap and snip and stroke at every part of my body.
I’m holding my breath but take my seat. I nudge away from the woman.
She’s young, dark hair pulled back, thick green coat wrapped around her.
I sit. There is little space as her bags are sandwiched beneath the window, and my leg presses against hers.
I close my eyes. Her voice is calm and rhythmic as she reads, her thoughts entirely focused on the plotline of her novel.
I let her words conjure up the image of a woman riding on a dragon, high up above a fantastical landscape.
But the images are blotted by my own thoughts, images of Riz, the pink pills, the pictures on her wall, the laughter and sparkle in her eyes as she told me about her life, her loves.
Gloria’s words that told me Riz is a private woman and it wasn’t for her to tell me anything Riz wasn’t happy to share herself. I should have touched her. I shake the thought away.
Nothing worse than dying on my own. Riz’s words crack open the images of the girl flying on a dragon and instead I’m filled with desperation.
She will not die on her own.
I will not let that happen.
The journey seems to take forever and I’m biting my nails; the driver glances at me in the rear-view mirror.
‘Quick detour!’ he shouts. I hear a collective groan and mumbles run through the bus.
‘Sorry, folks.’ I can feel eyes on me, but the girl on the dragon has landed and there is a battle ahead of her.
The image snaps shut and the woman instead turns to me, a hand on my arm.
I meet her eyes, wide, blue, and feel a wave of compassion, of kindness.
‘Is there anything I can do?’ she asks. I realise I’m crying. My cheeks and my throat wet.
‘I… my friend is dying and I don’t want her to be alone.’
I hear the kindness in her thoughts, a flicker of some of her own grief, an aunt, a call taken in the middle of the night.
‘I’m sorry too, for your aunt.’
Her brows pucker. ‘How did you—’
The bus screeches to a stop. Doors whoosh open.
‘Here you are, love, as close as I can get you!’
‘Thank you,’ I say. The woman nods, still with a look of confusion.
I lift Henry, brushing past people, each with thoughts of kindness and concern as they watch me make my way out of the bus.
I don’t stop to think, I just run.
She will not die alone.