When the head of her department handed her her diploma, Sue’s smile actually hit ear to ear. Gary would’ve absolutely loved this. Would’ve rented out the function room at the Royal Oak and this time … this time she would’ve filled it. She couldn’t believe how her life had changed. Would she have preferred Gary to be a part of it? Of course she would have. So she pictured him sometimes, standing at the far side of a restaurant or up at the pub bar, giving her one of his cheeky winks or one of those crooked smiles he’d once told her he reserved specifically for her, and then she made herself tune in, be present in whatever it was she was doing, and live her life, for that, after all, was what he had wished most for her. And now, thanks to having known and loved him, she knew the life she would lead from here on out would be so much the richer for having loved a man who had loved her every bit as much in return.
‘Suey!’ Dean clapped his hands together after they had finished the requisite family photos. ‘We were thinking we’d like to take you out tonight. Have a slap-up meal somewhere. What do you say? Indian? Pub grub? Something a bit more swish? Your call.’
She gave him a hug (they hugged a lot more these days). ‘Thanks, big brother. I’m afraid I’m busy.’
‘Oh?’ His eyebrows did that ‘tell all’ thing they did whenever he was trying to live vicariously through her life (he had recently expanded the business, with Dylan’s help, into IT recruitment).
‘Would you take a rain check?’ It was something she never would’ve dared asked someone before, least of all Dean but, she was a different person now. She could deliver babies. Help burn victims. Stop heart attacks (with the proper equipment or without). A myriad of things to help take away the pain when people needed someone most.
And, of course, tonight she would be doing more of the same. But not in her shiny new reflective gear. No. Tonight was something even more special than climbing out of an ambulance gurney and run bag at the ready. This was her gift to Gary. Her gift to life.
Incident Number: 1309
Call Handler: Sue Young
TIME: 21:47
Call Handler: Hello, you’ve reached LifeTime. My name is Sue. I’m a suicide widow, a paramedic and I’m here to help. What would you like to talk about today?
Caller: How much time have you got?
Call Handler: For you? All the time in the world.
Author’s note
In order to make this book as realistic as I could for the charity cycle ride, I decided I wanted to ride my bicycle along the same route Sue, Raven, Flo and Kath took. So I did. Were there flaws in my plan? Most assuredly. But was I pleased it went the way it did? Definitely.
Let me caution you: Think twice before not riding your bicycle for two years then embarking on a 174-mile journey from Ravenglass to Tynemouth. In October. During a week where the wind and rain are relentless. And it’s cold. And you told your husband you didn’t want to be tempted by his warm, cosy car if he was riding along as a support driver. So he went to Scotland instead. Which, for three rainsoaked hours you can actually see, as you round the corner from Anthorn to Bowness-on-Solway. I’d thought it was Brigadoon until a septuagenarian travelling alongside me for half an hour on his electric bicycle set me right.
Silver linings? I learnt a lot about what pushing yourself to the physical limit can do to your emotional state. It is long and hard and sometimes scary because much more of the journey was on actual roads than I had thought. There were far more hills than I’d anticipated (my planning could’ve been a lot better). And riding at the tail end of ‘the season’ meant there was A LOT of time on my own. Without headphones or podcasts or anything apart from my thoughts to keep me busy. Most of which went like this: I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.
Little nuggets that ended up in the book: Yes … my bum was sore. Insanely sore. Turns out it’s really, really hard to pull up not one, but three pairs of lycra shorts when they are saturated. It is also difficult to find a hedge to hide behind that isn’t knee deep in mud (that time of year) where the lorries can’t see you. No offence to the lovely Cumbrian town of Silloth, but for some strange reason, you smelt of tinned spaghetti to me. Which, frankly, had the chicken burger not been available, I would’ve gladly eaten a tin of. I ate sticky toffee pudding for dessert. Every night. I was in my bed and asleep by 8pm. Every night. I was also up at 6am and riding by 7am every morning. The longest day was the first, at fifty-four miles, and the shortest was the last but that was mostly because I can’t add. They all ended up being the same amount of hours long because someone didn’t inform Hadrian that
