Making A Run For It

A new friend is made in this atmospheric short story by Alison Boots.

YOU’RE fat, you’re fat; you’ve gone to seed.” Tessa’s pounding feet labour the point as she skirts the clump of elder and turns sharp right up the path to the cliff top.

She glances up. There is the man, silhouetted against the sky, his dog by his side.

Once again she wishes she had the nerve to stop and pass the time of day. He is standing by the bench, his golden retriever at his side, gazing out to sea as if keeping a vigil for someone far away.

He never moves or speaks, standing there with his fingertips just touching the dog’s head, and the tenderness of that one gesture tugs at the lonely place in her heart.

On her way up the hill she can observe him freely, taking in his fine, sensitive features and the way the dark hair sweeps away from his face in the wind.

Only his appalling dress sense mars the effect. Jeans, brown shoes, blue jumper and orange jacket: all of which remind her of Martin’s worst jibe of all, when he compared her to a stuffed olive in a jar of jellied eels.

****

Tessa had loved Martin, and she’d believed he loved her. Perhaps, for a while, he had, but nothing she did ever seemed right.

When her mum had her accident, and Tessa decided to go down to the coast to look after her, Martin was furious.

“Who’s going to look after me while you’re away?” he demanded.

“I’m sure you can manage,” Tessa replied. “Order take-aways if you don’t want to cook.”

But a series of texts from Martin followed Tessa on the long drive to the coast. How did the washing machine work? What day did the bins go out? Why hadn’t she ironed his shirts before she left?

Mum recovered quickly, and the texts dried up, but Martin remained distant and uninterested whenever Tessa phoned him.

“You must go home,” Mum urged Tessa after one particularly awkward call. “Surprise him. Sit down together; talk it out.”

So Tessa drove home with a boot full of Martin’s favourite foods and a bottle of wine, only to find him watching a box-set on their sofa, lying back in the arms of someone called Freda.

At first he apologised. Then he blamed Tessa: she was going to seed, fat, had got uninteresting, was going nowhere.

Well, she had gone somewhere, straight back to her car and Mum’s retirement bungalow on the coast.

It was the best decision of her life.

She found a good job, rented a cottage by the harbour, and made new friends. But a year on she still felt raw.

It was proving a long, hard road to run Martin out of her head and out of her life.

Every now and then he would phone, like he had this morning.

“Can we talk?” he’d asked, all bright and perky as if they had spoken only yesterday. “I just wondered how you are.”

“Fine.”

He seemed surprised at her tone.

“Are you still angry with me?”

“I’ve moved on, Martin.” “You haven’t got someone else, have you?”

“As if it’s any business of yours!” she snapped. He paused.

“Freda and I split up.” Another pause. “I really miss you, Tessa. I still love you.”

“No, you don’t,” she bit back. “You just need someone to iron your shirts.”

Then, before he could

There is something satisfying about stamping through puddles, especially when you’re cross . . .

start ranting at her for being fat, she slammed down the receiver and headed out for her run.

****

Tessa has grown to love this little seaside town with its art gallery, coffee shops and quiet air of optimism. Now Martin’s call has brought back the misery and made her feel useless again.

As she struggles up the hill towards man and dog, her resolve to stop and speak to him fails again.

Yesterday his dog’s nose just touched her hand as she passed – cold, wet and gone in a second. It was as if she had momentarily touched another world.

But today, just as she draws level with him, the man says suddenly, “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

She’s caught off-guard. Her foot snags on a tussock and she falls, hitting the wet ground with a heavy thump and an involuntary grunt. She tries to roll over, leap up and carry on, but she can’t.

Tears of self-pity well in her eyes. She wipes them away angrily.

Why doesn’t he come to her aid? Is he laughing at her?

She chances a glance at him. He has taken a couple of steps, leaning forward, both hands outstretched, seeking.

“Where are you? Are you all right?”

He’s blind. It’s obvious from the mismatched clothes to the uncertainty in his reaching hands.

“Over here. Yes, I’m all right,” she calls, relieved he can’t see her.

She reaches out and, as their hands clasp, her impression of him changes.

His grip is strong and certain as he pulls her upright, and he doesn’t release her but draws her close, his other hand resting on her shoulder. It’s a gesture of strength and comfort.

The dog is beside him, pressing between them.

“Get off, Jimbo,” he says amiably, adding, “He’s worried you’re hurt.”

“Only my dignity,” Tessa admits. “I should look where I’m going.”

“It’s my fault. I distracted you, but I couldn’t let another day go by without speaking to you.”

“I didn’t realise you’re blind,” she admits. “I feel such an idiot. I’m sorry, I just – thought you weren’t interested.”

Then she carries on in a rush.

“It wouldn’t surprise me, the way I look. I’m trying to lose weight and get fit.”

“You felt light as a feather when I pulled you up,” he says with a smile. “And you must be pretty fit to run up that hill every day.”

He takes her elbow and guides her to the seat, and they sit down.

Jimbo brings him a stick and lays it across his knees. He throws it and the dog races away, tail waving like a flag.

“I look a mess,” Tessa mutters, dabbing at a graze on her knee with a tissue.

“I doubt that,” he says. His voice is deep, with a slight Welsh lilt.

Jimbo returns with the stick, and he throws it again.

“I can tell by your step that you’re heavy of heart, not heavy in body. I can tell by your choice of perfume that you are gentle and kind.

“Most importantly, Jimbo likes you, for a thrill of excitement runs through him as you pass by.

“I’m Owen. And you are?’ “Tessa,” she says.

When he smiles, it’s like the sun coming out. His hands find her face and move over her cheek, then to her waist: a gentle inquisition that is personal without being intimate.

He feels the undried tears on her cheeks and the smile she can’t keep from her lips. His face is intense with concentration.

“You have clear, soft skin, your hair is like silk and your shape is firm, not flabby. But you are too hot, and your pulse is racing.”

With a shake of his head he gives that disconcerting smile again.

“You do know that overdoing the jogging is as bad for you as not doing it at all?”

“I need to get fit,” she insists.

“A brisk walk is just as good,” he says. “And more pleasurable. You have time to notice things; the smell of the earth, the sound of the sea. Lonely blind men hanging about hoping you will say good morning.”

“I didn’t have the courage,” Tessa says, adding, “Have you always been blind?”

“IED. Afghanistan. Four years ago.” His eyes, unseeing, gaze over the sea. “I work at the lifeboat station now, fielding emergency calls on the radio. You?”

“When my ex, Martin, and I split up, I moved down here. It’s near my mother, and I have a job teaching at the primary. I live in a little cottage by the harbour.”

“Ah!” he exclaims. “I’ve placed you now. The new teacher. My niece Rosie is at the primary.”

That familiar Welsh lilt. “Ah, yes,” Tessa says, making the connection with one of her pupils. “She’s mentioned her uncle Owen a couple of times.”

“She’s a tyke, that one,” he says with a chuckle. “Delights in moving stuff around my house so I can’t find it.”

“You live alone?” she asks, more hopefully than she would like to admit.

“Just me and Jimbo. There’s a fearsome woman who comes in to clean, because that’s the one thing I can’t do myself. Terrifies me, she does.”

Tessa can’t imagine him being scared of anyone; he seems so solid, so selfpossessed.

The dog returns to his side.

Feeling with his hands, Owen takes the stick and they spend a few moments in a tug of war, Jimbo grunting with the effort, tail wagging, but unable to free the stick.

When Owen lets go, Jimbo jerks back, then lays the stick back on his lap. “More tomorrow, boyo.” With deft hands he picks up the dog’s harness and fastens it on.

“Will you take a brisk walk with me back down the hill? To get off some of that non-existent fat you insist you have?”

They stand up and he offers her his arm. She takes it.

“I fear I would be a sad disappointment if you could see me,” she says as they set out. “All sweaty and covered in mud.”

“I can live happily with my illusion,” he says. “What illusion is your ex living with these days?”

As they walk arm in arm down the hill, she pours out the whole sorry tale.

“Saying you’re fat,” he says, “is just the excuse he used to make himself feel better for his appalling behaviour.”

“If I’m not fat, you can’t be blind,” she responds.

“I can see some light and shade, and some outlines,” he says. “I’m working on a technique of feeling colours through my fingers. I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

She glances at the extraordinary clash of colours he is wearing and decides not to tell him. Not yet, anyway.

He might just have terrible dress sense. Or maybe Rosie has been rearranging his wardrobe.

She takes a deep breath and plunges in.

“There’s a café on the sea front where they serve a decent cup of coffee and a decent bacon sandwich,” she suggests. “What do you think?”

“What would Martin say?” Owen asks.

He turns her way and she notices how expressive his face is, the humour around the corners of his mouth.

“I don’t care,” she says, suddenly realising that it’s true. “It’s my life, I’ll do what I like!”

“Brilliant,” he says, tightening his grip on her arm. “Bacon it is. And extra slices on the side for Jimbo.”

Together they walk down the hill. Not that briskly, but companionably, their steps perfectly in time.

The End.