Page 23 of The Notecard
‘I don’t know, Megs, it doesn’t sound like you,’ says Mum.
‘I’m going and that’s it,’ I say, before I get up and walk off. I’m going to deliver the notecard under Nick’s door.
‘I wasn’t done!’ shouts Laura, but I don’t care.
I walk out of our flat. Nick’s door is closed. I slide the notecard under his door, smile, and walk outside. I need some fresh air. I’m going to have a cigarette. I almost died today because of a grape. I know I should quit smoking too, and I will. Just not today. Today I’m going to bask in the glow of life. I’m going travelling soon after Laura’s wedding (that was a snap decision). I’m just happy and excited to be alive. To have the chance to travel the world. I look outside at the street, at London, and I have this overwhelming desire to run and keep running. I could run all the way to the river Thames. I could be that person. Spontaneous. Where’s Meg? Oh, she ran to the Thames and back. I think about it, but I’m not wearing the right shoes, and the clouds are coming in and they’ve forecast rain. I might be a romantic at heart, but I’m still practical enough to know that going on a spontaneous run has consequences. Instead I finish my cigarette and head back indoors. I’m still on the edge. Still looking out at the view. Hope.
Nick
Iwalk into the living room and see an envelope by my door. I pick it up. It’s grey and has nothing written on it. I open it up and the card has love hearts on the front in brown and yellow and the words ‘Thank You’ in white. I open it up and read it.
Dear Nick. I just wanted to write you a note to say thank you. Thank you for saving my life. For being there when I needed you. I have so many hopes and dreams for the future, and without you none of them would have happened. You truly are my knight in shining armour or navy-blue scrubs! Thank you from the bottom of my still beating heart. Love Meg.
I read it once quickly, devouring every word, and then I read it again, this time savouring it slowly. A notecard from Meg to say thank you for saving her life. My mind immediately starts working overtime, running over every possibility from why she wrote the notecard to what it all means. At the end is a smiley face and a kiss. A kiss from Meg. I’m smiling without realising. I sit down on the sofa and read it again. She has so many hopes and dreams for the future. I want to know all of her hopes and dreams. I want to be her knight in navy-blue scrubs. Love Meg. I read the last two words over and over. I know they’re words used flippantly these days, but when I read them, they make me think that maybe there’s a chance. Perhaps there’s more to it than just the words of a grateful patient.
I need to be braver. Mum was right when she said I need to grab life and see where it takes me. I suppose a part of the reason I’m so afraid of asking Meg out is because of my crippling fear of failure. I’ve always been the same. When I was younger, if I felt like I wasn’t good at something, I wouldn’t try. I knew I was good at science and would make a decent doctor like Dad but give me a one-thousand-word creative writing piece and I’d fall apart. Ask me to draw an apple and I’d have a full-blown meltdown. I can’t draw an apple! I’m not Pablo fucking Picasso! I’m not good at not being good. It’s one of my biggest failures.
Unfortunately, I’ve taken this fear of failure into adulthood. I know how to be a doctor, but when it comes to love and relationships, I’ve never been good enough. With Harriet, my first serious girlfriend (age twenty-three to twenty-six), she asked me out. We went out for three years, and it was fine, but we hardly set the world alight. I think we both knew it wasn’t going to last, but we clung on in the desperate hope it might. That it might somehow get better. It didn’t. After you’ve put in a year, you think that maybe it’s worth trying to stick it out. After two years, you think, well, it’s been two years, you can’t give up now. After almost three, I was sort of resigned to it. She eventually broke up with me at a service station on the M4 on a drive back from Bristol. We had been to a wedding and she said it made her realise she didn’t want to marry me. Not now, not ever. We sat drinking coffee at Chieveley services, depressing as hell, and then we drove home. It was one of the most uncomfortable few hours of my life. Especially as the radio in her car was broken, and so we sat in silence listening to the windshield wipers. I asked her if she was sure when we passed the exit for Wokingham. She said she was. Wokingham was it for us.
The front door buzzes and Mum is here. I let her in and open my door. She walks in a moment later and stands in front of me. She looks flustered.
‘What do you think?’ she says. ‘I didn’t know what to wear.’
Mum is wearing a grey dress with a yellow cardigan over the top and flat black shoes. She looks like a librarian. I don’t say this to her.
‘You look lovely, Mum.’
‘I had a bit of a nightmare, Nick. I must have tried on fifty outfits. My bed is full of clothes. I ran out of time to put them away, and I still don’t know if what I’m wearing is right. Is it too sensible for a date? Do I look like a librarian? Be honest.’
‘Mum, you look lovely.’
‘You promise you just aren’t saying that.’
‘Promise. Tea?’
‘Oh, go on then. I have ten minutes, and my nerves are through the roof.’
‘Do you want something stronger? I have Scotch? Gin?’
‘Tea will be fine,’ says Mum, following me through into the kitchen. ‘I don’t know how people do this. It’s so stressful.’
‘You’ll be fine. What are you doing anyway?’
‘A drink and a meal, but we could be going skydiving and wrestling a pig for dinner and I wouldn’t be any less nervous. It’s Michael Byron, Nick. I saw him on Top of the Pops when Top of the Pops meant something.’
I switch the kettle on and put tea bags into cups. It’s strange seeing the usually unflappable Mum like this. Flappable. She’s always been the calm one, the person who took everything in her stride. She usually handles everything well, or at least in a rational and orderly fashion. This version of Mum is a quivering nervous wreck. She’s unsure of herself, is doubting everything, and looks on the verge of a breakdown. Although the librarian outfit at least gives her an air of control. I relate far better with this woman. This is how I would be on a date. Absolutely terrified.
‘I’m proud of you, Mum.’
‘Why are you proud of me, Nick?’ she says, a confused look on her face.
‘For doing this. For putting yourself out there. And for the record, I think you and Michael will make a great couple.’
‘Oh, Nick,’ says Mum, a smile on her face, some of the uncertainty disappearing. She looks at me for a moment, and I am so proud of her. I just want her to be happy.
‘Woo hoo, hello, the door was open, I hope you don’t mind,’ says Dotty, walking into my living room. ‘I was just passing, and I thought I heard your voice, Sarah.’
I offer Dotty a cup of tea too and she says yes so I get another cup from the cupboard.
