Chapter fifteen #2
Eunice Stafford’s bespoke enrichment apparatus had been delivered the previous day, while Lewis was conducting a coaching session on conflict resolution for the kitchen team.
The courier had left it in the shed, and he’d only had time to conduct two secret test runs, once before going home, and once very early in the morning, but Lewis was confident that he’d mastered the techniques. It was, literally, like riding a bike. Just a bigger one than normal.
Technically, he should have completed a health and safety form but had run out of time – and, in truth, was too excited to wait. He made a mental note to do it first thing and set off to find Eunice.
She was waiting with Pam in the reception area, swaddled in a pair of jogging bottoms and a sweatshirt borrowed from lost property, along with her soft red shoes. The outfit made her seem even smaller than normal but she looked like an excited child, waiting for a school trip.
Lewis could tell when Eunice was excited because she folded her arms, wagged her foot and pretended to look disapproving.
‘What in the name of heavens is that?’ she demanded.
Lewis wheeled it up to the front steps. ‘It’s a tandem.’
‘A tandem? I didn’t know they even still made those!’
‘This is a brand-new model.’
‘Is it yours?’ She gave him a suspicious squint. ‘Have you been splashing the home’s cash on bikes for yourself? Because that’s embezzling.’
Lewis informed her he’d hired it with his own money.
‘Why on earth have you done that?’
‘For you,’ said Lewis simply. ‘You said you always wanted to ride a bicycle but you weren’t allowed one. Well, today you’re going on a bicycle.’
‘No!’ said Eunice, but her eyes were darting between the tandem and him, as if she was daring herself to say yes.
‘I’m not going to let you steer, if that’s what you’re thinking,’ Lewis went on. ‘I’ll go on the front, if you don’t mind.’
‘You’ve gone funny in the head.’ She looked at it again, and licked her lips. ‘I should call the police.’
‘It’s not compulsory,’ Lewis pointed out. ‘I’m just offering you first go. I imagine there might be a queue, so if you’re not fussed—’
‘I didn’t say that,’ Eunice snapped.
‘Please don’t do this if you don’t want to.’ Pam was hovering a few steps behind, with Ellie and Kemi as backup.
‘Are you trying to stop me?’
Pam stepped back, hands up. ‘No, not at all.’
‘I see I’ve got an audience,’ observed Eunice. ‘Your girlfriend’s arrived, Mr Levison.’
‘My who?’
He looked across to where Beth was standing, shielding her eyes from the sun.
She was wearing a drapey sort of dress, which made her look like a Grecian statue, but her arms were bare – and his heart paused for a second, distracted from beating by the sight of her skin.
It was pale as a daisy petal, white but edged with the faintest pink.
He straightened his back, and felt taller.
Eunice was looking at him, smirking and pleased with herself.
‘She’s not my—’ he started to say, but Pam cut in, with a reproachful, ‘Eunice!’
‘Right, let’s get you up here,’ he said half to Eunice, half to the nurses standing by to help, but to their communal surprise Eunice startled them by scrambling up on her own.
‘Careful, Mrs Stafford!’ Pam steadied her, and shot an anxious look in the direction of Ellie as Lewis bent down to adjust the pedals.
Not that Eunice would be pedalling, thought Lewis. She just had to hang on, with those little hands already gripping the bars as if she was in the front car of a Blackpool rollercoaster.
Eunice perched on the seat behind him, and he barely felt any difference in the tandem’s balance when he swung his own leg over the frame. The helmet on her head looked as if it weighed as much as she did, and Pam had strapped on some bizarre kneepads too.
Lewis turned.
‘Ready?’ he asked, with a wink.
‘Are you?’ Eunice’s blue eyes glittered.
‘Mr Levison, are you absolutely certain we’re legally covered to—?’ Pam began but he didn’t want her to spook Eunice.
‘We’ll be fine, won’t we, Mrs Stafford?’ he said, firmly, and pushed off.
A cheer went up from the crowd at the door and he allowed himself a glance across to Beth, to see whether she was smiling.
She was. But there was something else in her face, a conflict in her brow that gave him a moment’s distraction.
No, thought Lewis, and focused hard: balancing the tandem with his pedal strokes and his forward momentum, straining his muscles to keep the machine aligned and moving, until they were skimming down the drive.
He heard something behind him, in his ear. A gasping, mewing noise that started out as, ‘Ohhhhooooooooo!’ and slowly built up into a loud, ‘Woooooooaaahhhh!’
Eunice Stafford was squealing and laughing at the same time. ‘Faster!’ she yelled. ‘Faster!’
Lewis increased his speed, pedalling as hard as he could.
A bigger joy rose inside him at the sound of Eunice’s unbridled delight; this was what made the hours of admin, the spreadsheets, the squabbles and the red tape worthwhile.
Listening to Eunice Stafford’s inner eight-year-old having the time of her life, screeching as if she really was on a Blackpool rollercoaster.
He did a full lap of the drive that went around the house – down the tree-lined approach where carriages had once clattered towards afternoon tea, around the tarmacked area where the modern extension had been tacked on for the old school – then did it again, urged on by Eunice’s small fist beating his back.
When he finally circled back to the front steps, there were multiple faces at the windows, watching. Pam, Kemi and Ellie rushed up to the tandem like a Tour de France support team to unload Eunice and carry her to safety. Pam had to persuade her to get off; Eunice was up for another lap.
Beth approached, smiling, clapping her hands with approval. ‘That looked like so much fun. You’re going to have a queue!’
Lewis had recovered from the exercise but now his heart rate rose again. ‘Good cardio! For Eunice too – I bet that got her heart going faster than the armchair fitness lady.’
‘Pam was saying she’s never seen Eunice laugh like that. They didn’t even know she could smile until about an hour ago.’
‘Eunice is all right,’ said Lewis. ‘Between you and me, she’s not had a lot to smile about in her life.’
Beth nodded, understanding. Lewis had uploaded notes from his conversations with Eunice and even he, with his limited imagination, could see the story emerging between the lines: a youth spent caring for others, an adulthood scrimping and saving to make a better life for her children, then slowly being left behind by them in her old age as they ascended the social ladder.
‘Her Michael’ featured a lot; her daughters didn’t.
‘And I have to tell you,’ he added, peeling off his cycling gloves, ‘I enjoyed it too.’
‘I bet it goes even faster with two people pedalling,’ she said.
Impulsively, Lewis held out his hand. ‘Come on, have a go.’
‘What?’ Beth’s energy changed instantly. She took a step back, her hand flying up to her throat. ‘Me? No.’
‘Yes!’ Lewis held his hand out again. ‘Come on. Quick spin around the block before tea.’
‘No.’ She shook her head.
‘Why not? Go on, it’ll be fun.’
He tried to keep his voice casual, but inside Lewis felt alarmingly light, as if he’d been filled with helium and might float away.
The thought of Beth, as close to him as Eunice had been, but with the smell of her perfume where Eunice had emitted a waft of lavender and the industrial washing powder that the laundry used.
In his mind’s eye Lewis could see Beth’s wheat-blond hair falling out of its pins and streaming behind her, her pale chest rising and falling as she leaned in closer.
The pair of them pedalling, driving the bike on together.
He’d never wanted anything more, even though he wouldn’t be able to see her.
‘Please?’ he added, unable to stop himself.
Beth’s face crumpled. She mumbled something that he couldn’t catch – something about herself? – then struggled to regain her composure.
‘Sorry,’ he said, sticking a finger in his ear and wiggling it. ‘I didn’t catch what you said. Sorry, I think I’m going a bit deaf.’
‘I said, it might . . . tip over or something. I’m too heavy.’
It was so far from the truth that Lewis laughed. ‘Beth, men ride tandems together. You don’t weigh the same as a man.’
She turned her head and, again, muttered something he couldn’t catch.
Her whole demeanour had changed and Lewis panicked that the moment was slipping out of his reach.
Forget it, forget it. Change the subject, keep her talking.
‘If I’d known you were coming in today, I’d have . . .’ Have what? His mind raced. ‘Told you about the tandem. Who are you dropping in on?’
‘No one, actually.’ She tucked a hank of hair behind her ear; there was a tiny silver hoop in her lobe, and seeing the curl of her ear made something twist in Lewis’s chest. ‘I was passing, so I thought I’d pop in to check the box for any stories.
I found a really interesting one in there a few days ago. ’
‘Really?’
Beth looked up at the house. ‘A vignette about meeting a beautiful red-headed girl, in the hot summer of 1964, fruit-picking.’
‘Round here?’
‘I think so. But no names.’
Lewis started to wheel the tandem back; he wanted to prolong the conversation as far as possible but he did have to talk to the finance team at five. ‘Was it handwritten? Pam might recognise the writing.’
‘No, it was printed out.’
‘Does anyone spring to mind?’
‘I haven’t talked to everyone, but of the residents I’ve spoken to so far .
. .’ She bit her lip. ‘It’s someone who’s good with words, definitely.
I just wonder if they didn’t put a name on for a reason.
Maybe it’s someone who wants to preserve a special, important memory but doesn’t .
. .’ Beth searched for the right word. ‘How to put this? Maybe it’s a memory that they don’t share with the person they’re with now? ’
‘But why share it with us?’
‘I don’t know! Anyway, there was nothing in there today. I thought I’d mention it though. In case you had any ideas.’
They were at the old garden sheds, solid constructions with charmingly unnecessary, and now flaking, wrought-iron decorations running along the roofline; Lewis made a note to get a ladder up there and repaint them. Gold, maybe. He felt celebratory.
‘Is this where the tandem lives?’ she asked.
Lewis realised Beth had been wheeling the tandem along with her hand on the crossbar, while he’d been steering it. Her gaze was lingering on the red saddle, as if she was trying to imagine herself on it.
‘For the time being,’ he said. ‘I hope I’ll be able to get you on it before the summer’s out.’
‘Ha! Good luck with that!’ she said, but there was something in her voice that made him hope she wasn’t completely ruling it out.