Page 25 of Statistically Speaking
I laugh, and feel a hint of red touch my cheeks, and say: “Don’t get too excited. I also talk to her about the postman and the senior hottie who does the quiz at the Hornet.”
He smiles at me, and it is an excellent smile. One that comes with a depth of warmth and promise that makes me blink, slowly, and sends a little shiver down my spine.
“Anytime you need distracting, let me know,” he says. “Anytime you want to talk, or go for a run, or have a drink, I’m your man. And if you’re too busy or too wrapped up in your mysterious stuff, just say so—you really don’t need to climb out of windows.”
“Okay,” I reply, nodding. “I get it. And thank you.”
“No worries,” he answers, getting up and walking slowly toward the door. I look on with way too much interest, until he says, “I know you’re watching!” and disappears into the corridor.
I find that I am mildly embarrassed, unreasonably warm, and grinning. I realize that Karim is, as Margie suggested, the perfect distraction—I haven’t thought about my impending visit to the Bell household for the last five minutes.
Now, though, those five minutes of respite are up. I do a quick breath-counting exercise and stay still and silent until I can hear the slowing thud of my heartbeat within my chest. I move my pens in the Konami Code formation before packing them up, and find myself wondering how many pens I haveused in my lifetime. I would usually allow this to be almost as good a distraction as Karim, calculating the number of times I need a new one, multiplying that by workdays, adding in my time at school, going back over the years and spending a huge amount of time doing weird mental arithmetic until I come to some random number like seven thousand, which I will find oddly comforting. I am, I freely admit, a very strange person sometimes.
This evening, I don’t have that mental energy to spare. I stayed later to finish some grading and plan to go straight to Erin’s house on the way home. Katie has had free periods for part of the day and will “probably be lurking around,” I’ve been told.
I make my way to the car park, gulls screeching overhead, the sky a vivid blue, my mind a confused bruise. I manage the drive to their house on autopilot, parking near to the terraced house with the purple door and the green gate and the lavender pots outside. The lavender is fading now, a few late-season bees humming around it hopefully.
For some reason, I stand on the doorstep and smooth down my hair and straighten my skirt before I knock—as though I’m going to a job interview, or facing some kind of judging panel on a reality TV show.
Erin throws open the door, a cloud of white around her. There is a random moment of visual uncertainty: it looks as though she is standing in a cloud of snow, a tiny pixie inside a glass globe. I realize that it is, in fact, flour, whooshing up from coated hands that she’s wiped on her top before letting me in.
Bits of it settle in her hair and on her face, and white fingerprints appear on her hips as she holds her hands against her leggings.
She is already laughing as she ushers me inside, and starts to apologize when a small flurry of flour lands on my jacket shoulders.
“Oh lordy!” she says, giggling, “I’m a disaster zone! Come on through, don’t mind the mess. I had this idea that I’d bake a pie. It was a pretty stupid idea because I’m crap at baking, and no amount of watching strangers do it on telly ever helps.”
I follow her into the narrow corridor, through a door that leads to a long living-and-dining area, the kitchen at the end.
I stand for a while looking around me, taking it all in and letting the assault on my senses have its way with me.
It smells of cinnamon and ginger, which might be from the attempt at baking, or from one of the several scented candles that are burning around the place. The room is cluttered in a way I could never tolerate but which feels wonderful to step into as a guest—piles of books randomly stacked on and around shelves, houseplants curling their leaves over the mantelpiece next to a huge vase of lilies, framed art deco prints of moonscapes against pale-green-painted walls, a huge black sofa covered in mismatched cushions in a kaleidoscope of colors and textures.
A big pine dining table is covered in papers, textbooks, yellow notepads, pens, all scattered chaotically. Erin’s work, I think, wondering how she functions like that and also a little bit envious of her ability to do so.
Music is playing in the background, something deep and soulful, and I spot an old-fashioned turntable in one corner, a huge stack of vinyl next to it. I spy albums by Billie Holiday and Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin, alongside Nirvana and the Kings of Leon and Blur. It’s quite a mix, and I don’t knowif some are Erin’s and some are Katie’s, or if Katie is like most kids of her generation and digital only.
There are framed photos all over the room, and I walk slowly around, inspecting them. Erin is chatting to me from the kitchen, and I am somehow managing to reply even while my focus disappears into the world of their past, of a life lived by Katie and her mum and a sandy-haired man with glasses, who I presume is her dad. I see Katie as a toddler, bundled up in a snowsuit, sitting on Erin’s lap on a sled. I see her at a similar age in a high chair holding a bright yellow spoon covered in yogurt. I see Katie as a gap-toothed schoolgirl, beaming smile and ginger bunches. I see Katie waving from a turquoise sea on an obviously foreign holiday, a snorkel mask on her face. I see her in school plays, in a variety of costumes. I see her at parties, in fancy dress, in uniforms, playing a violin, at her high school prom, on sports days. I see her as a tiny tot and as she is now, and every stage in between. I see her grow up before my eyes, and I am not quite prepared for how that affects me.
I am staring at these images and wondering if the face of the baby I held in my arms eighteen years ago could have grown into this face—into this person. I am wondering how I can have lived without her, how I can have missed so much, how I ever could have given this up. But I am also wondering what kind of life she would have had with me, what our photo wall would have looked like—how many magical and carefree moments she would have experienced if I’d kept her in my world. I don’t suppose that is a question I can ever answer, but it is also one that I will never be able to stop asking myself.
“Are you all right?” I hear Erin say, her voice miles away. “You look as white as a sheet. Do you want to sit down? I’vegiven up on cooking. It’s like that scene inBridget Joneswhere she makes blue string soup, only worse. Come on, sit down, I’ll make you a cuppa, if you fancy? Or get you a pint of Baileys or whatever?”
I let myself be guided to the sofa and half sit, half fall onto it—or into it, more accurately—immediately enveloped in a soft fabric cuddle. It’s one of those sofas you can never get out of. Erin passes me a cushion, bright lime-green velvet, super-soft to the touch, and says: “Here. Hug this. It’s my Wonky Cushion, for when I’m feeling a bit below par. Pure magic.”
I squeeze the cushion as instructed and manage to mutter a few words of apology and fictional explanation. I tell her I forgot my lunch, that I’ve been extra busy today, that I’m prone to getting a bit light-headed occasionally. And, of course, the biggest fiction of all—that I’ll be absolutely fine in a minute or so.
“Don’t worry about it,” she replies firmly. “At least you’ve not farted yet, so we’re off to a good start. It was probably looking at our ugly mugs made you feel a bit queasy.”
She is gazing up at the photos, and I shake my head.
“No, they’re gorgeous,” I say. “Really lovely. You can see how much you all love each other. No wonder Katie’s such a great kid.”
“Yeah, she is, isn’t she?” answers Erin, grinning proudly. “Even after this last year and a half, she’s stayed on top of her schoolwork, handled the move, made new friends. She misses her dad—we both do—and that will never change, but at least now it feels like we’re not trapped in the grief—well, she’s not anyway. I think I’m just really good at faking it. I’m hoping that if I keep faking it, it’ll eventually be true.”
Either the Wonky Cushion is working its alleged magic, or Erin’s obvious pain somehow nudges mine away. I cannot be so selfish as to sit in this woman’s house, surrounded by pictures of her now-dead husband, and make it all about me.
“What was his name?” I say gently, following her gaze to a photo of him and Katie standing by mountain bikes against the backdrop of a rugged green landscape.
