She primly readjusted the yoghurts. ‘Well, if you’re not interested in the yoghurt Trevor, perhaps you’d like something from the cold buffet.’
‘Trying to get yourself a job, are you?’
‘Ha!’ She sniffed and turned, making a dramatic display of pouring herself a bowl of muesli and milk before returning to her seat by Sue and Raven. A few minutes later when she couldn’t bear watching that poor girl from reception who was now also trying to be the waitress run herself ragged, she wrangled the two of them into helping her serve the hot dishes whilst the girl took the rest of the orders. Whenever she passed Trevor, she pretended she was hard of hearing. For him, the cold buffet would simply have to do.
Chapter Forty-Two
Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic.
Sue was definitely beginning to panic. What had so recently been an out-of-focus, out there, never-really-going-to-happen adventure, was suddenly a very real, very scary thing.
‘You sure you’re going to be alright in that?’ the man standing next to her asked when the first of what looked set to be a number of raindrops began to fall. Trevor, was it? She vaguely remembered him telling her something about Hadrian’s Wall last night. Or was it about bird migration. Perhaps it had simply been about the weather. There had been so many facts flying about the pub they’d all melded into one big indecipherable blob of information she simply couldn’t digest, so she had adopted her Sunday lunch face, a smile and a nod combo, until Flo finally agreed it was time to turn in. Raven, who was not one for group activities, hadn’t needed any convincing.
‘You know, the forecast isn’t looking very clever,’ Maybe Trevor said.
Sue looked at her light, allegedly waterproof jacket. ‘I should be alright?’
‘Doesn’t look hydrophobic to me.’ He tweaked a bit of the electric-orange fabric on his own jacket. ‘Keeps everything out, it does.’ He began to list the elements: wind, rain, sleet, hail …
‘Lucky you!’
‘It’s not luck, love.’ He tapped the side of his head, his expression turning schoolmastery. ‘It’s research. You don’t know what life’s going to throw at you, so it’s best to be prepared.’
‘Oh, okay. Well …’ She was fairly certain he didn’t mean finding your husband dangling in the stairwell. ‘Thank you?’
He gave her an I see you nod and clacked away in his nylon and fibreglass shoes which, Sue now knew, had a two-way adjustment dial-closing system because he had been detailing the merits of his road shoes over her eBay’d trail shoes for the last few minutes. Trevor’s shoes didn’t let water in. Hers, with a simple two-bolt system, definitely would. Wet feet spelt foot rot and without feet you were useless as a cyclist. Every good rider knew that. All this whilst she’d been silently trying to talk herself out of running to the train station and leaping on the first one, regardless of destination.
She tried to channel her fears into a single question. What was it that scared her the most?
The riding?
No.
Being on television?
Not really.
Kath had been so lovely to talk with, it had been less painful than she thought to admit to the whole of Britain that her husband had killed himself and left her in debt because he couldn’t run his own business. She’d couched it differently, of course, but … facts, she was learning on an increasingly regular basis, were facts.
Many of Gary’s customers had, thanks to Flo and Raven, paid up now. The surprise had been when even more people, having heard her story on Brand New Day, had tracked her down and sent in cheques or PayPal donations to cover those who wouldn’t. Those funds, she sent directly to LifeTime.
What scared her most, she realised, was for the ride to be over.
Between work and the ‘training/debt collecting’ sessions and shopping for bum-friendly cycling shorts and watching an entire boxset of Tim Burton films with Raven (Frankenweenie being their joint favourite), Sue had been busy and focused and completely bereft of time to think about the fact that when she got home, Gary wouldn’t be there to hear about any of this. Not the daily mileage. Not the poor choice of weatherproof gear. Not Trevor. A man Gary would’ve absolutely loved to mimic. But Gary would never mimic anyone, or laugh appreciatively, or give her a warm hug of congratulations ever again. And for that reason, she was absolutely dreading getting on her bike and beginning a journey that would conclude with the inevitable … acceptance.
She scanned the area for Raven and Flo. Hopefully they were meeting people filled with slightly cheerier tales and a more relaxed approach to cycling gear.
The more she looked, the more she worried she was the only one who’d used Primark as her main outfitter. She had one pair of padded shorts, a reflective vest and one cycling top with a pocket in the back, but the rest was really just leggings and t-shirts.
All around her, the fifty-odd riders were wearing lycra leggings, reflective, weather proof, wind-resistant, breathable jackets, the cleats on their far-more-serious-looking shoes clacking on the ground as they leant into some rather severe-looking stretching positions.
Suddenly her decision-making process – such as it was – seemed absolutely ridiculous. No wonder her mother had thought her completely mad for choosing this over a free trip to Menorca with Katie, Dean and the kids. That world, she was familiar with. That world, whilst not entirely pleasant, was safe.
What on earth had she been thinking? Going on telly. Telling the entire world she’d been so useless her husband had – well – had had nowhere to turn? Astonishingly, her uselessness as a wife had already garnered her quite a few Instagram followers even though she’d only put three pictures on so far. (Sticky toffee pudding, their helmets and her bag on the bathroom scales at Flo’s.) She didn’t have as many followers as Raven, who had informed
