I spent my late teens and much of my twenties trying to fill this mother-shaped void. Alcohol became my biggest friend and greatest enemy. Rob has stopped reminding me of the fact that he saved me from myself. We met when I was twenty-seven.
This last year is the longest I’ve gone without a drink. When I first kicked the booze, I envied all the lucky, normal drinkers who could control their intake and their behaviour. Which is why I used to keep going back to it, thinking that perhaps after a time of abstinence, I could control it too. I saw it as relaxation after a stressful day. I turned to it when I was miserable or bored. I poured it in copious amounts. I would control it for so long, then I would be right back where I started. I never found the answers I needed in the bottom of my wine glass. Nor could I numb any of my pain. It would come back, larger than life the next morning, each time worse than the time before. I’m never going back to it now. Jack deserves better. I do too.
I stare into the cloudless sky. Once upon a time, I would plan a sunshine tipple on my return from picking Jack up. That’s if I got to school time without one. That’s the thing with the booze – it’s used on sunny days, rainy days, and anything in between days, to celebrate and to commiserate.
A loud knocking at the front door, then the doorbell cuts into my thoughts. By the time I’ve hoisted myself from the sun lounger, I hear a voice and what sounds like a radio coming down the drive.
“Hello,” calls a female voice. “Is anyone there?”
“Can I help you?” I call back, my stomach lurching as I notice a policewoman at the gate. Then through the climbing flowers, I see a policeman towering behind her. Police in one’s driveway on a Monday afternoon are hardly likely to yield any good news.
“Detective Inspector Diane Green,” she announces, showing a card through the clematis, “and this is my colleague PC John Robinson.” He also holds his ID badge up. “Are you Mrs Fiona Matherson?”
“Yes. What is it?” Thoughts of Dad having done something stupid again flood my brain. He sounded down this morning, but he’d perked up by the time we had finished speaking, I’m sure he had. Or maybe Mum has had an accident. Monkey mind again.
“Can we come in?” she continues. Her face is unsmiling, troubled. She looks around the same age as me. God knows what she is going to tell me.
“Yes, sure. But I’ve got to collect my son from school shortly. It won’t take long, will it?”
Without answering, they come through the gate and follow me to the patio where I gesture for them to sit. I face them at the table, the parasol casting shadows onto our faces.
“I’m afraid there’s been an accident,” the woman says.
* * *
There was no guarantee of death, even at speed.
There was the possibility of survival,
yet this would be unlikely without some lifelong impairment.
And this was nothing less than what was deserved.
Chapter 5
I stare at her. An accident. It can’t be my dad having done something again. They wouldn’t describe it as an accident if he had. He didn’t sound that bad on the phone this morning, anyway. It must be my mother. Despite our differences, the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. What the hell will I tell Jack? How will Dad cope?
“Involving a car and a cyclist,” the policeman says.
“My mum.” My voice sounds loud amongst the birdsong. “She had a long drive. Is she alright?”
“It happened on the Denton Road between Otley and Ilkley.”
“But she left hours ago. She was on her way to Devon. Why are you only coming around now?”
“It’s taken a while for us to conduct the investigations at the crash scene. And to get an ID back from the cycle shop.”
“Cycle shop?” There’s a saying about ‘blood running cold.’ I think I’m experiencing it.
“There was a sticker on the bike to inform us that the cycle involved had originated from Chevin Cycles in Otley.”
I feel sick. It’s not Mum they’re here about. “You mean…?”
“We’ve checked the serial numbers and a bike purchased by Mr Robert Matherson in July 2018 has been involved in an accident this morning.”
I try to make mental calculations about when and where Rob bought his bike, like it even matters. I can’t think straight. I rub at my temples.
“What time did your husband leave the house this morning?”
They could ask me my name right now, and I don’t think I could answer them straight. Then I remember he left before Jack and Mum. “Just after nine o’ clock, I think. He was going for a bike ride.”
“Do you know where he was heading?”
I shake my head. Rob never tells me much about himself anymore. He rarely even mentions work. I was going to book us a table for an anniversary in a couple of weeks in the hope we could reconnect as a couple, instead of continuing as merely Jack’s parents and housemates. I’d even planned what dress I was going to buy. “He was going for a bike ride before work. Is he OK?”
They look at each other. “I’m afraid not.” The woman looks into my eyes, her eyes watery and her voice gentle. “A male cyclist, who we believe is your husband, has unfortunately been involved in a fatal road traffic accident at about ten-thirty this morning.”
I stare back at her. “You must be mistaken. He’d have got further in an hour and a half than Denton Road.
