Page 5 of Statistically Speaking
He has come from Hungary and probably doesn’t understand a word I’m saying.As opposed to British dogs, I think, smiling at how silly this internal conversation is. British dogs would be quick to pick up on the subtleties of my emotional turmoil, wouldn’t they? Not.
We have just finished our run, and we are sitting for a moment to gather our wits about us. I am, at least—I’m notso sure about Bill. He’s the strong, silent type and doesn’t say much.
It is 7:30 a.m., and the beach is already busy with dog walkers. Dog walkers, I have come to learn, are a friendly bunch. I know none of their names, and I have never shared mine, but we know each other by our beasts. There is a man with a small pack of corgis, and a lovely lady with a chatty springer spaniel, and a woman with labradoodles called Bugsy and Ronny, and one with an enormous Old English sheepdog called Marvin. I have no idea how they refer to me in their minds: Bill’s mum, maybe, or the Ginger One with the Mixed-up Mongrel.
I have made up stories for them all, of course. I have assigned them fictional lives, complete with fictional partners and fictional children and fictional jobs. It comes as quite a shock when I see one of them out of context, and their actual lives don’t match up to the ones I’ve amused myself with. I mean, who’d have thought that I’d see Mr. Smiley Staffy in town one day, and he’d be wearing a policeman’s uniform, and be an actual policeman? In my version of events he was a landscape gardener who took his dog to work with him. Weird.
A small border terrier runs over to us and sniffs Bill’s bits. Bill doesn’t budge, or respond, or give any indication that he is alive. He is utterly inscrutable. It is a ploy that works, and we are soon left alone again.
It’s the first week of September, and the sky is a pure pastel blue, cloudless and serene, colliding with sea and sand in lines of perfect color. It is clear enough to see the Welsh hills in the distance across from me, to see the curve of coastline that becomes Lancashire to my right, and the towers and spires of Liverpool to my left.
It is a strange stretch of land, sand dunes and sea creatures and skylarks singing, thistledown and sea holly and marsh orchids and big horizons and ever-shifting views. All this in a marriage of convenience with giant wind turbines and the cranes and gantries of the docks, container ships and cruise liners ghosting past on mist-laden mornings. A perfect point of balance between nature and the city.
It is also home to an art installation calledAnother Place, a hundred cast-iron figures of naked men, by the artist Antony Gormley. Because we all need more naked men in our eyes, right?
The iron men stretch out into the sea, submerged by the tide, sunk into sand, often dressed up in football shirts or given Christmas hats or sunglasses. It’s another strange thing about this place, which I like. I have amused myself many times, walking from statue to statue, counting them, never quite managing them all for fear of getting lost at sea or sinking into mud, never to be seen again.
Today, this early, the tide is out, and the men are exposed, pitted and gritted and looking out at the edge of the world, unmoved and calm.
Me, not so much. I am not calm, and I am not unmoved, and I feel as though a cartoon version of me would feature a giant black rain cloud hovering above my head.
I have done everything I usually do to prepare myself for the day that lies in front of me. I have run my usual distance—three miles—which, for me, is just under six thousand steps. I have walked another mile at a slower pace. I have sipped my water. I have played with the dog. I have sat here and watched the world go by, for as long as I can manage. As an extra treat, I have even done some of that 4-7-8 breathing, with Bill looking on in amusement as I huffed and puffed.
None of it has worked. I still feel wired, and tense, and overadrenalized. It makes me want to start running again, and just keep going until I leave everything, especially myself, behind.
Maybe it’s because it’s the first full day back at the school where I teach after the long summer break. Maybe it’s because I’ll be meeting new students, probably new colleagues, and greeting old ones. Maybe it’s because Margie, the lady who lives in the flat beneath mine and actually owns Bill, keeps trying to find out my whole life story, and I just don’t do life-story swapping. Maybe it’s because Karim, the admittedly pretty gorgeous head of PE, has asked me out for a drink and I don’t feel ready to have a man in my life just now, even on a casual basis. Maybe it’s because I’ve agreed to a longer contract, adding another year on to the length of time I usually spend anywhere. Maybe it’s because I am starting to feel settled here, and I find feeling settled very... unsettling.
Maybe, I admit to myself as I stand and stretch and start the walk home, it is all of those things and none of those things.
Maybe it is because she is almost eighteen, and might be doing her A-level exams, like most eighteen-year-olds in England. Maybe it is because this year, I could have been her teacher. Maybe it is because after her A levels, if they go well, she might be choosing universities and courses, standing at a crossroads in her life as she looks at careers and maybe even a gap year. She might have a part-time job, and be planning a big party and her first legal drink, and she will be surrounded by friends and love and choices. She is looking at the future, and it is bright.
Of course, I have no clue if any of this is even remotely true—but I like to imagine it is. I imagine it, because I haveno other option. I am not a part of her life, and never will be. I acknowledge this, and let the familiar tug of pain have its way with me, and know that I cannot chase it away before it is ready to go. It is a tenacious creature, this particular pain, made up of tentacles and hooks and talons that plunge deep and hold on tight.
I have missed her every single day since she was born. I have dreamed of her, and yearned for her, and never stopped thinking about her. But still, I know that I did the right thing. I repeat this to myself over and over again, until I feel its familiar truth, sad but consoling.
I reach the house by the beach where I live. It is at the end of a small terraced row, tucked between grand Victorian seaside homes with pastel-colored paint jobs and fancy wrought-iron verandas, and more modern mansions made of sheets of glass and sleek wood. Our terrace is homely, small but perfectly formed, gardens and patios edging out onto the marram grass and sand, within hearing of the waves and within sight of the sea. As I approach, I see Margie pottering around her terrace garden in a bright-pink quilted dressing gown, and watch as Bill gambols toward her.
I see the balcony of my own home, above hers, with the small table and just the one chair and the blanket I’ve left out there so I can sit, alone, in the now-cool nights, looking out to sea and along to the lit-up wonderland of the port.
I know there are fourteen steps to go up, and that I need to shower, and eat, and try to coax myself into a back-to-school state of mind.
I open the glossy white gate at the end of Margie’s terrace, and Bill runs to her, nuzzling her gnarled hands as she tries to hoist a full watering can around. Without asking, I take itfrom her and start to sprinkle the patio pots, the mystery tubs, the fuchsias, the California lilac in terra-cotta. Every corner of her small space is filled with flowers and plants, with life and color, reaching upward and tumbling down and spreading into every nook and cranny.
Margie sinks down onto her cushioned chair and sighs. “Thanks, babe,” she says, massaging fingers that are curled with rheumatoid arthritis. She is only in her midsixties, but she suffers in ways I don’t even like to think about. “For that, and for walking the hellhound.”
“My pleasure,” I reply, trying to sound jaunty. Margie doesn’t like to need me, and I don’t blame her. “It’s good for me. What are you up to today?”
Some of the pain she experiences in the morning will ease as the day wears on—some will not. As well as her hands, she suffers from inflammation in her hips, knees, and feet. Her activities are not likely to take her far from home, which is perhaps why she has made her home so extremely welcoming. Inside as well as outside, it is awash with nature, cozy and bright and filled with softness, warmth, and comfort. I normally do not make friends with my neighbors, but Margie has seduced me.
“Oh, Daniel Craig’s due round at ten,” she says, grinning as Bill settles at her feet. “He’s coming by speedboat. I’ll be the talk of the town. What’s up with you, anyway? You don’t look yourself this morning. Something on your mind?”
Yes, I think.The impending adulthood of the daughter I have never known. The low-level anxiety of feeling trapped in my own skin. The ongoing need to present a normal face to the world when I am anything but normal inside. The persistent, nagging, unnamed worry that all of my well-managed eccentricities mightnot be so well managed one day, and that I will emerge from my chrysalis of coping and become my own mother.
“Nope, not especially!” I singsong back at her. She narrows her eyes in a way that implies she is not convinced, and I back away from her, out of the gate, saying my goodbyes as I jog down the path that leads to my own front door. It takes Margie a good few minutes to get out of her chair, so I am safe as long as I keep moving.
“You forgot my fact for the day!” she shouts, her voice following me and stopping me in my tracks. I dash back, pop my head around the side of the wall, and reply: “The Great Fire of London. Started this day in 1666. Be careful if you bake today, Margie!”
She cackles in delight, and her laughter is enough to bring a smile to my face. I have been reluctant to become a part of Margie’s life, a part of anyone’s, in fact—but I cannot deny the pleasure it brings me, this simple connection, this straightforward sharing of words and routine and affection.
