Life After You by Siân O'Gorman

Author:Siân O'Gorman [O’Gorman, Siân]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books

Upstairs, in her office, Catriona had her head on her desk and her eyes closed. She lifted her head when she heard me.

‘Are you all right?’ I said, quietly.

‘All right might be going too far,’ she said. ‘I have survived. I am surviving. I will survive.’

‘Can I get you anything?’

She shook her head. ‘I thought we were doing okay, but it’s as though a bomb has just exploded in my life, and it’s just chaos. Did you know that the only thing I have eaten in six days is Sugar Puffs? I’ve become addicted to them. At first it was nice, it gave me this beautiful, comforting feeling in my stomach, this warm rush, as though all was well with the world. But I am worried that I will never eat anything else ever again,’ she admitted. ‘I felt I had totally got this parenting thing. Everything was timetabled: nappy changing, feeding, sleep, play, fresh air. But it couldn’t last. And so, I just had another bowl, and then another, hoping for the high of that first one. And then another, and then another, and you never manage to reach it again. And now, I’m on something like fifteen bowls a day.’ She turned to look at me, her pupils were dilated, her hands on the desk trembling.

‘Oh my God,’ I said, ‘you poor thing.’

And then she started to cry. ‘Don’t be nice to me,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear it when people are nice to me. When we used to go and stay with my grandmother, she would make such a fuss of me. My granny, Lydia, would bring me breakfast in bed, and make me apple pies and she taught me to knit.’ She held up a trembling hand. ‘I still miss her every day,’ she went on. ‘Granny would have been able to sort this out. She would know exactly what to do. We lost TV reception one Christmas Day and she got up onto the roof with a coat hanger and it worked.’ She sniffed. ‘She wouldn’t let me eat Sugar Puffs, she’d make me eat a roast dinner or a baked potato.’ She groaned. ‘A baked potato. What I would give for a baked potato.’

I let her cry, and talk about Granny Lydia, as the tears and memories came in waves. And when she eventually had calmed down, I ushered her over to her office sofa, helped her to lie down, took off her trainers which revealed odd socks, one a man’s sports one, the other a chenille slipper sock.

‘You should go home,’ I said.

‘Too tired,’ she slurred.

‘I’m going to go and run in this race and when I come back, I will sort this out for you.’

‘Okaaaaaay.’ And her eyes closed and she went back to sleep.

Downstairs, back outside on the street, Jarleth was on fire.

‘Burpees!’ he shouted. ‘Explosive energy! Let’s go! McAvoy’s Are Go! Give me star jumps!’

I stood at the start line of the round-the-building relay race. Beside me were my colleagues, now fellow competitors.

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