22 June 2004
‘Promise me you’ve taken all your meds?’ Kerry says.
We’re alone by the beach on the first morning of training. It’s too early for the rest of Brighton, the lazy sods. They’re missing out on a trippy haze that makes the sea and sky blend into one.
‘What are you, my mum?’
She tuts. ‘No. But you already messed up my medical career once, and the last thing I need is another arrhythmia on my watch.’
‘Sure. Sorry.’ I stretch out my quad, showing her what to do. My repertoire of stretches comes back to me easily, like the lyrics of an old song.
‘What did they feel like?’ she says, struggling to keep her balance. Clumsy and cute at the same time. Except I’m not allowed to think about her that way now.
‘Huh?’
‘The shocks?’
I’ve tried to block out my low points, but I can’t forget how it feels to have 900 volts stopping my heart.
‘Sickening. Like someone had detonated a bomb inside me.’
Kerry looks at me closely, her blue-grey eyes as luminous as the sea in the morning light. ‘Yet you kept bringing them on. You must have been desperate, Joel.’
I turn away from her. ‘Almost as desperate as you are right now. I know your game. You’re asking me questions to put off the moment we start running. You’re scared you’ll be lapped by a junkie heart patient.’
But I bet she’s not as scared as I am. I’ve signed up to do a mini triathlon with her next month, in part as a thank you for all she’s done. But every time I’ve tried to run, in the cheap trainers and joggers they’d bought for me to wear as I detoxed, I’ve chickened out.
Part of it must be fear of another shock, I guess, even though I take my meds religiously now. But I’m scared, too, of feeling the same way I used to on the pitch, the pure joy of being fast. Because I have no right. I’ve hurt everyone. I don’t deserve anything good.
When I told Kerry I was struggling with training, she didn’t interrogate me, she just arranged to come to the beach one morning, after a night shift.
I really don’t deserve her.
But she’s here, real, and she reaches for my hand and starts to run.
I have to go with her.
She’s not a natural runner – she overpronates, the right leg twisting in. I try to pick up the pace, still holding hands, but she’s out of breath already.
Ha! Despite my crappy heart and my weak muscles, I am still Joel Greenaway. As soon as I realize that, and relax into the run, I begin to love it again.
Kerry is wrecked by the time we reach the beach huts at Hove, but if she weren’t here, I could keep going to Shoreham and back. Instead, we buy coffees from the Meeting Place and walk down to the water’s edge. I take off my dodgy trainers and feel warm pebbles under my feet. It’s unbelievable that a body I’ve tried to wreck, cell by cell, can bounce back like this.
‘Not bad for a man who has died three times, eh?’
‘I’m going to whup your ass at the swimming, though, Joel, don’t worry about that,’ she says.
The trouble with recovery is it’s not only stamina that’s coming back.
My sex drive is back, too.
I’m trying to train the desire out of myself, like a boot camp recruit. But it’s not working. Every week that goes by, my feelings grow. Whenever I train with Kerry, we fall into a rhythm together that feels like a substitute for what I really want to do.
The only thing that stops me acting on it is knowing I couldn’t live with myself if I hurt her again.
I don’t think she notices. She’s as focused as Coach Coley when we’re working out. We talk about VO2 Max and muscle-building diets, and avoid anything about feelings or the past. She also barely mentions Tim, though she says he’s hopeful he’s done better in his medical resits. Which is good.
I mean, I still hate the prick, but I want her to be happy.
Though today I wonder if I’m getting the full picture. After five weeks of training, we’re finally ready for the big event: a mini triathlon in Herefordshire, in the grounds of a stately home. We’re staying over in a pub to save having to drive back tonight. When we check in, I offer to pay for her room at the same time as mine – my parents reinstated my allowance after I took a urine test to prove I’m clean. It makes me feel like a loser every time I take their money out of a cashpoint, but I will find a way to pay them back.
‘You’re all right,’ she insists. ‘Tim’s already paid. As a treat. He . . . well, he thinks I’m here on my own.’
‘Oh. Right. Makes sense, I guess.’
Except, does it? As I get ready to race, I wonder. Kerry lying to him isn’t exactly healthy. And why hasn’t he come to support her? If I were with Kerry, I’d always be waiting for her at the finishing line.
I pull on my wetsuit, glad it hides the ugly bump and scar of my ICD. What do I know about relationships?
We walk to the lake together, along with hundreds of other crazy people. We’ve agreed to do the race aiming for our own personal bests – so she won’t hold back to humour me when she’s swimming, and I won’t hold back during the run.
But as I launch myself into the lake, she’s there at my side.
‘You . . . go . . . on . . .’ I gasp, in between swallowing great gulps of cold water.
But she doesn’t let me drop behind and with her next to me, I’m safe.
We clamber out on the other side. She’s wearing a short wetsuit and her calves are mottled by the cold water, but she couldn’t look more gorgeous. We laugh as we get on our bikes, and keep laughing as our legs burn going uphill.
When we start the final run, she tells me to go on ahead. But what kind of scumbag would do that?
We cross the finish line together. When we hug, our bodies sweaty and smelling of pondweed, the warmth of her gives me this rush of something that . . . well, feels like love. And lust, too. I break away before she can notice.
‘No offence, but you need a shower, Kerry!’
‘Piss off. You stink way worse than I do.’
As I shower, the water running over my body, I think of hers as she emerged from the lake. I think of her now, in the room next to mine. Imagine knocking on her door, kissing her, telling her how I feel. After the triathlon, anything seems possible.
No. I’m damaged goods.
She’s waiting for me in the bar. She’s never looked prettier, though I don’t think she’s wearing any make-up. It’s just the euphoria, the happy chemicals she says exercise produces.
‘What a rush!’ Kerry says as she opens her quarter bottle of cava and takes a huge gulp.
‘Here’s to us. The mini-triathletes.’ I hold up my glass of Diet Coke – no booze for me, and I don’t need it when I’m with her – and we toast. ‘But we’re going to ache tomorrow.’
‘Let’s not talk about tomorrow!’ Her eyes cloud suddenly.
‘Did you call Tim?’
‘Yeah. He was pleased for me.’
‘So why didn’t he come up here? I’d want to support my fiancée if she was doing something so huge.’
‘I’m not his fiancée anymore, OK?’ she snaps. ‘Look, there’s a lot I haven’t told you because it’s private. But things have been difficult. I told him I needed time to myself this weekend. To think.’
It takes my brain a few seconds to make sense of it, but my heart has already understood. ‘Do you want me to leave you alone too?’
She shakes her head. ‘No. You don’t count.’
‘Charming.’
The pause goes on too long.
Now we speak at the same time:
‘Kerry, I need to tell you—’
‘Joel, I wish—’
I smile. ‘You go first.’
‘I wish I could feel like this all the time. I’m so sick of life passing me by. At home, I feel about a hundred years old, but here, it’s different.’ She takes another gulp of cava. ‘I think I might need something stronger. And steak. I need steak.’
As I queue at the bar, I feel closer to her than ever. Images of us making love are running through my head. I want her so much—
STOP.
I don’t want to be that man: the sleaze who takes advantage of someone who is having a tough time.
‘Two steak and chips, please, mate, on my tab. And a big glass of red.’
‘What do you want? We got merlot, shiraz, rioja . . .?’
I turn back to call across and ask Kerry which she prefers. She’s staring out of the window, frowning, and she looks exactly like that girl who once sat by my hospital bed, day after day, willing me to recover.
Now the images in my head show what our lives could have been like if I’d trusted her, instead of shutting her out, when the club let me go.
She’s not happy with Tim. What if that’s because what we had – what we could still have – is the real thing? If what I thought was lust is something much more important?
‘Give me the most expensive one.’ I only take my eyes off Kerry as he hands me the glass.
I stride back to the table and put the wine down.
‘I love you, Kerry Smith.’
She blinks. I try to read the look in her eyes. Hope soars. She’s going to say it back . . .
‘No you don’t.’ She takes a huge swig of wine. ‘Sit down.’
‘I know how I feel,’ I say. But I sit down, understanding why she doesn’t believe me.
‘Joel, I care about you, a lot. You’re doing your best to be kinder and braver. About time, too. But you hurt me too badly for me ever to love you like I did.’
‘I was an idiot—’
‘Yes. And what you’re feeling right now? It’s nostalgia, and the endorphins from finishing the race. Not love.’
I want to tell her I’ve changed. But have I? Only a few months ago, I hurt Zoë by stringing her along, without caring how vulnerable she was. Even if she’d never got pregnant, or had an abortion, I was always going to hurt her because I always look after number one.
Maybe the part of my brain that died when my heart stopped means I will let people down over and over again.
‘Plus, you’re not the answer, Joel.’
‘The answer to what?’
‘To all my cock-ups.’ Kerry laughs. ‘It’s not just you that’s made a mess of the last four years.’
‘It was my fault you went off on the rebound with Tim. He doesn’t make you happy.’
She raises her eyebrows. ‘And you did? That’s not how I remember it.’
‘Could be that neither Tim nor me are good enough for you.’
A group of people at the next table start laughing in response to a joke. Kerry sighs. ‘Life isn’t a Disney film, Joel. There’s no Prince Charming. Relationships take work.’
‘But they shouldn’t make you miserable, should they?’ My certainty that Tim is wrong for her makes me reckless. ‘And you don’t lie to someone you really love.’
She winces. ‘No? All I’ve ever wanted is to fix things. To make the people I care about happy, by doing the right thing. But I don’t know what the right thing is anymore.’
‘Have you told him that? The truth?’
‘The truth. It sounds so perfect, doesn’t it? So simple. But sometimes we think the right thing is to lie. And then there’s no way back.’ Kerry takes a swig of wine. ‘I’ve been lying to you too, Joel. For years.’
‘What about?’
‘About what happened on millennium night. About who it was that saved you, or hurt you, or however you see it now. It was me who pounded up and down on your chest so hard you felt like your ribs were cracked. Me who did the CPR.’
‘No. It was Tim. He told me himself.’
‘All this time, you were blaming the wrong person. He froze for . . . well, it was less than ten minutes but it felt like years.’
My brain can’t process this. My imagined version of that night’s events scrambles and I try to remake it but . . . ‘Why would you lie about something like that?’
She scoffs. ‘It was meant to protect Tim but it’s all backfired. See? I’ve screwed everything up too.’
I say nothing.
‘I should have told you years ago and I’m sorry.’ When I still don’t reply, she stands up. ‘Coming here with you, it was a mistake. It’s dredged everything up again. But at least you know the truth, and now we can all move on.’
When I say nothing, she mutters something about cancelling the food order – like that matters – and I watch her leave.
I let my head drop onto the table. All those times I blamed Tim for my incomplete life, for losing football, for the bump in my flesh where the ICD sits . . . What would have been different if I’d known it was Kerry all along? She lied to me from the first moment I woke up. Thousands of lies, for years.
But I’m not angry. What must it have cost her to keep this hidden? She did what she thought was best. Can I ever say that about myself?
No. I’ve been self-obsessed and weak and full of hate for so long. No wonder I liked drugs so much. They stopped me remembering what a bad person I am.
And if I’ve ever needed something to take the edge off, it’s now. Even here in the sticks, I bet I can spot the guy in this bar who’d know where to get hold of what I need. Takes one to know one.
Nothing too heavy. Some weed or . . .
But the sticky wood of the tabletop reminds me of the many floors I’ve passed out on. Compared to Zoë and Ham, I’m so bloody lucky. There has always been someone to pick me up when I fell: my parents, Ant. Kerry. The woman who saved my life.
I sit up. No. I don’t want to relapse. I don’t want to fill my body with shit so I can deny the damage I’ve done.
Move on, Kerry said. That’s what she wants. If she won’t love me back, I can do the next best thing. Stop feeling sorry for myself and start over.