Chapter 39
My favourite band gig of the year was definitely Egglethwaite Temperance Hall’s senior citizens’ Christmas party in early December. In a massive yah-boo-sucks to the hall’s founding fathers, there was always free-flowing wine and a full bar, and it made me swell with pride, watching our old folk stagger home afterwards. Plus it gave me the chance to get my slide around a juicy little solo in Frosty the Snowman that was off limits outside the festive season.
Tom met me from the concert – Dad used to do that once the nights got dark, even though, knicker theft aside, the crime rate in Egglethwaite was virtually non-existent – and we walked back to the restaurant.
‘So did the old folk have fun?’ he asked.
‘Till they were under the table. I swear the pensioners round here get lairier ever year.’
He laughed. ‘Give it 20 years or so and you’ll have Yo-yo to contend with too.’
I grimaced. ‘Yeesh. When it turns into an all-out orgy they can find themselves another First Trombone. So what’ve you been up to this afternoon?’
‘Me and Flash went down the viaduct. Looks like they’ve started work. There was a hell of a racket.’
‘Brilliant. I’ll ring Andy tomorrow, see if he knows when they’ll be done.’
Despite our split with the council, Andy was doing his best to be helpful in a personal capacity. I was sensing he felt guilty for the loss of our grant. We’d finally got the wildlife report proving there were no barbastelles, and he’d helped us organise workmen to get the resurfacing done.
‘Any word from Cam?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Tom said glumly. ‘Still not taking my calls. He did reply to a text I sent him, so that’s something.’
‘What did it say?’
‘Said he’s not ready to talk yet.’
‘But that’s good though,’ I said, trying to sound encouraging. ‘“Yet” means he will be ready eventually, right?’
‘Hope so. I’m sick of being a miserable bastard.’ He nodded to McLean’s Machines, which was blazing with light. ‘Stew’s work-ing late. If I’d known he was up I’d have dropped off that book he lent me.’
‘You two are getting pretty chumsome these days, aren’t you?’ I said. ‘Book lending’s bromance territory, you know. You’ll be singing along to Frozen and having boy sleepovers next.’
‘Sorry,’ he said with a guilty smile. ‘I know it’s the big brother’s job to resent the guy who done you wrong, but you have to admit he’s a hard man not to like.’
I sighed. ‘He is, isn’t he? Well, I’m glad you’re mates. You could do with a few more, Shyey McShyface.’
‘Have you forgiven him finally then?’
‘I’m… getting there.’
I cast a worried glance over my shoulder as we crossed the road.
‘Can you take my trombone in?’ I asked Tom. ‘I’ll just pop back and check everything’s ok. Ten o’clock’s late to be oiling chains or whatever. Stew might’ve gone to bed without realising he’s left the lights on.’
‘All right, Lana. Want me to do you a hot water bottle?’
I smiled. ‘You know, you don’t have to baby me just because Dad used to. I’m 26, I can make one if I want one.’
He smiled back. ‘Sorry. I just want to make sure our first Christmas without him is still the same old Christmas, you know?’
‘I know you do.’ I stood on tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek. ‘You’re a good little donkey, Tommy Donati.’
I handed Tom the trombone case and headed back across the road. The bell over the door jingled merrily as I walked into Stewart’s shop.
But the Stewart inside was far from merry. He was leaning against the counter on both elbows, staring straight ahead. His fists digging into his cheeks made him look like a grumpy bulldog pup with great hair.
‘What’s up, Stew? Everything ok?’
‘No, Captain Shiny-Buttons, everything’s not ok. It’s been a long time since everything’s been ok.’
Despite the crack about my band uniform, he didn’t sound his usual jokey self at all. His voice was thick, and I’d never seen such a dark look on his face.
‘Been drinking, love?’ I asked gently.
‘Might’ve had a couple.’
He was still staring, and I turned to follow his gaze. It was fixed on a bike against the back wall, half-covered in colourful knitwear.
‘My yarnbombing idea! You did it?’
‘Yes, for the Départ. Was going to put it in the window. I thought you’d like to see it from the restaurant.’
He was still speaking in the same flat, slurred voice, slightly muffled by his fists in his cheeks.
‘Why am I here, Lana?’ he burst out. ‘Why the fuck am I here?’
I blinked. ‘What, like, why do you exist?’
‘Probably.’ He jumped up and kicked the bike nearest him. ‘What the hell was I thinking, opening a bloody bike shop? Dozens of the bastards, right where I can’t get away from them.’ He pointed at the partially yarnbombed bike. ‘And he’s the worst.’
‘He?’
‘Yes. Herbert. The anthropo – doing that anthro thing helps me hate him.’ He blinked hard. ‘Sorry. I did actually have quite a few drinks.’
I’d been tiptoeing towards him all the time he’d been speaking. Now I reached him, and rested a calming hand on his arm.
‘What’s Herbert done, Stew?’ I asked softly.
‘He just sits there, judging me. Mocking me because I’m not taking part in the Tour next year. Or any year. Or any competition, ever again. I’m just a waste-of-space businessman hidden in some nowheresville in the back of sodding beyond.’ He aimed another savage kick at a nearby mountain bike, which fell from its stand and clattered to the floor. ‘Ow! And now I’ve hurt my bad leg on that fucking pedal. I told you the bastards had it in for me.’
‘I don’t think you’re a waste of space.’
He snorted. ‘Please. You think I’m the biggest waste of space of everyone. And I don’t blame you for hating me either, after the way I treated you.’
‘Here.’ I guided him to the bench behind the counter and took a seat next to him. ‘I don’t hate you, Stew – not any more. I mean, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still a bit sore. But Tom was right, you’re a hard man not to like.’
‘Tom said that?’
‘Yeah. Mind you, he hasn’t seen you taking your drunken anger out on an innocent pushbike.’
He let out a damp laugh. ‘Taught it a lesson, didn’t I?’
‘Yep. Sort of caveman and sexy, the way you stuck it to the bad old bike.’ I slipped one arm around him. ‘So you want to tell me what’s brought this on?’
He sniffed and rested his head on my shoulder. ‘Phone call from my friend who’s competing with Team Sky next year. It was nice to catch up, but he was so full of his training, all excited about the Tour… just reminded me how much I miss it.’
‘Can’t you cycle at all now?’
‘A little. Maybe an hour’s gentle riding before it starts to hurt. But I can’t race or time trial, and cross-country’s out of the question.’
I paused, seeking out a memory.
‘The night we went out, you told me when you fell in love with the sport it wasn’t about competing,’ I said. ‘You just loved the freedom. Like you were flying, that’s what you said.’
He turned a wan smile on me. ‘You remember that?’
‘Every word.’ I sighed. ‘How come you never called, Stew? Go on, the whole story.’
‘Like I said. I was planning to, then…’ He stopped to swallow a sob. ‘My injury came less than a week later, and I was distracted by that, getting it seen to. Then when they told me I wouldn’t race again – God, worst time in my life. It felt like there was nothing left for me.’
‘So you forgot me.’
‘Maybe at first,’ he admitted. ‘Not forgot, but it felt like there was… it’s hard to explain. Like you were part of a potential future that couldn’t exist for me any more. All I saw was the miserable present, and everything beyond that, all my dreams and desires, were swallowed up in this fog of hopelessness. Know what I mean?’
I thought back to when we’d found out Dad had cancer, and later when they’d told us the chemo hadn’t worked and it was only a matter of time. Every day, then, had felt like tomorrow might not happen. I hadn’t cared if it happened or not.
‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘I know what you mean.’
He brushed away a little tear that had started to trickle down my cheek. ‘Course you do.’ He sighed. ‘I’m a selfish bastard, Lana. Still to have my youth, my health, and to sit there feeling sorry for myself like the world was ending. You and Tom, everything you’ve lost, and there’s Stewart McLean with his poorly fucking knee.’
‘Depression isn’t that simple, love,’ I said, giving his shoulders a gentle squeeze. ‘And me and Tom had each other to get us through. Who did you have?’
He laughed. ‘Harper.’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘He was great actually,’ Stewart said. ‘Oh, I know he can be arrogant, vain, self-absorbed. But when I needed him, he really came through.’
‘He’s not a bad lad at heart, is he?’
‘No. Just spoilt by an over-indulgent mother and too much money, too young. For all his faults, he’s the closest I’ve got to a brother.’
‘So it was Harper who helped you out of it?’
‘Him and my physio, Shiloh. She got me into knitting. Reckoned having something productive to do would keep my mind occupied. And she was right: five holey scarves later I’d started to realise there could be a future for me, even without cycling, if I just went and found it.’ He glanced up. ‘And sometimes I thought about this girl I’d met before it all happened: a pretty girl with laughing, sad brown eyes and a sarky lopsided grin. Wondered if she was still single. If she’d want to know me now I was nobody.’
‘You could never be nobody,’ I said with a warmth that surprised me. ‘Why didn’t you just call her and ask? That’s the part I don’t get.’
‘I told you. Ashamed,’ he said, dropping his gaze. ‘How do you ring someone after seven months and say “Hi, sorry about the delay, hurt my knee a bit. If you didn’t go and get married, how about that dinner?”’
‘If you’d just explained – ’
He shook his head. ‘You don’t know what it was like – what I was like. It was cycling that’d always given my life meaning. Without that I just felt so completely worthless, you know? Even after I finally started to come out of the worst of the depression, I didn’t dare believe someone like you could be interested in someone like me.’
‘You really think I would’ve cared you’d had to give up cycling?’
‘I don’t mean that, I mean me. The man I’d become,’ he said. ‘I was a state, Lana. Seriously, you didn’t want to know that self-pitying bastard. I certainly didn’t.’ He snorted. ‘I had a beard.’
I couldn’t help smiling. ‘I could fancy you with a beard.’
‘Not this beard. Put it this way: you ever wondered what Captain Birdseye would’ve looked liked if he’d fallen on hard times?’
‘What, selling sexual favours to get his golden breadcrumbs fix?’
He laughed. ‘Yeah. That was me.’
‘You could’ve talked to me when you moved here, instead of feeding me all that “let’s just be friends” bollocks,’ I said. ‘I honestly thought the whole thing had meant nothing to you. Do you know how much that hurt?’
‘I’m sorry, Lana. I wasn’t trying to be a dick. I was still in such a dark place, and you were dealing with losing your dad, I didn’t dare hope for anything more than friendship from you. Not then.’ He shook his head. ‘God, you must’ve thought I was pathetic.’
‘Now come on. You know I did no such thing. I hated you for a good while, but I never thought you were pathetic.’
‘You should’ve. I did.’
‘Don’t talk like that. Here.’ I put a finger under his chin to bring his eyes to mine. ‘You could’ve told me you’d won 50 Grand Tours the night we met and it wouldn’t have impressed me. You impressed me, Stewart. You made me laugh, and you made me feel safe and comfortable and happy, and you…’ I flushed. ‘You were different, I guess. Not because of your job, because of you. That’s why it hurt so much when you never called. I thought we had a connection, and then you disappeared, just like that. Whoosh.’
‘I missed you, Lana,’ he said softly, eyes shining with tears and drink. ‘The way you smile and scowl and joke. The way you randomly say “whoosh”. Even when I was at my lowest, I used to think about you.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. I was so excited, that night at the meeting when I saw you again. It was a real effort not to let it show.’
‘Is that why you got the shop? Because of me?’
‘Not exactly. I was looking for premises to start a business and suddenly there it was: shop and flat to let in Egglethwaite, available immediately. And when I discovered it was right across the road from you – seemed like fate or something.’
I shook my head. ‘You should have talked to me, Stew. I would’ve understood.’
‘Would you?’
‘Yeah. I know what it is to resent the future.’
‘You’re right, I should. I’m sorry.’ He summoned a slightly tipsy grin. ‘Mind you, you were kind of sexy when you were always telling me off. Like a scary but erotic medieval headmistress.’
‘Well, I’m sure I can still tell you off if you enjoy it so much,’ I said, smiling back.
‘Will you wear the corset?’
‘Don’t push it, McLean. The corset costs extra.’
‘So can I have a hug now then?’
‘Go on. Since you’re upset.’
I put both arms round him and pulled him close, feeling his damp cheek meet mine. He smelled so real as he sank into me: aftershave and sweat and wine, just as he’d smelled that night up at Pagans’ Rock.
‘You smell good, Lana. Like… kiwi fruit,’ I heard him whisper in the ear he was tickling with his hot breath. ‘Can I kiss you?’
I paused before answering.
‘No, lamb. Not just now. You get to bed and sober up, ok? I’ll see you soon, triple promise.’
‘If you definitely triple promise. Thanks for looking after me, kiddo.’
‘Well, someone has to,’ I said as I drew back from the hug.
‘And I’m forgiven?’
‘Yes, Stew. This time you’re really forgiven.’ I planted a little kiss on top of his curls. ‘Night night, my love. Take care of yourself.’