A few weeks pass. I still haven’t worked out what to do about the whole Emma situation. Right now I’m opting for the very mature, completely self-aware ignore the whole thing and hope it’ll go away approach. Emma hasn’t been around that much, which helps. I think she’s got a lot on with work. I’ve got a mountain of assignments to do, and another placement coming up, so the days pretty much pass without me even being aware what’s going on. I’m still finding time to take the odd walk with Jess, but she’s got loads going on at work as well. It’s like the nicer the weather gets, and the more we’d want to actually enjoy it, the less time there is for us to get outside, which is a shame because I’ve been thinking maybe I could ask Jess for some advice on what to do about Emma.
But not this weekend – because whatever the weather, we’re all outside for the whole of Sunday. Well, me, Jess and Becky, anyway. Matt, one of my old friends from when I worked with Becky, has been living with stage four leukaemia for the last year, and a couple of friends are running the London Marathon to raise money for Cancer Research.
‘All you have to do is stand by the side of the road in Shadwell at the official cheering point for a few hours and gee up the runners,’ Becky said, when she roped the rest of the house in. Jess is well up for it. Turns out she watches the marathon every year, so being there for the actual thing is really exciting for her. I volunteered last year in the St John’s Ambulance tent, so I’m slightly less excited and slightly more aware that getting from our side of London to Shadwell on Marathon day is a feat in itself.
‘It’s really good of you guys to come along,’ says Harry, the charity stand organiser. We’re spread out across three folding trestle tables, with boxes of bottled water, bowls of jelly babies and packs of energy gel all ready to go. Jess dances around, banging the inflatable noisemakers together, trying them out.
‘You might want to save that for later,’ says Harry, grinning. He’s an old hand at this. He tells us he’s been running the cheering station here for the last ten years, since he recovered from leukaemia himself.
‘Least I could do,’ he says, with a self-deprecating grin.
‘Lazy bugger,’ says a woman who introduces herself as Andrea, Harry’s wife. ‘You could at least run the bloody marathon like I did.’
She’s dressed from head to toe in the charity colours, with a ridiculous inflatable hat on her head. She’s short and round and clearly the power behind Harry. Throughout the morning, I watch him glancing to her for approval regularly. She teases him incessantly and he winds her up. They’re obviously mad about each other.
There’s a long, long gap after the first runners go through, shooting past in seconds, following their pacemakers, and the wheelchair athletes, who move so fast that Jess almost misses the whole pack because she’s gone to the loo.
‘So what happens now?’ Jess sits down on a folding chair and shades her eyes, looking up at Andrea.
‘We wait.’ Andrea tapes down a sign that’s come loose.
‘Sounds a bit ominous.’
Andrea nods emphatically. ‘Rained the morning I ran it. I got soaked at the start, then had to run the whole thing in a damp T-shirt. And I lost five toenails.’
‘Yowch.’ Jess pulls a face. ‘How did that happen?’
‘It’s fairly standard – 26.2 miles is a long old way to run.’
‘Can’t believe you did it. That’s amazing,’ Jess says, looking incredibly impressed.
‘I can’t either. It was bloody knackering,’ Andrea says, then gives a snort of laughter. ‘But it seemed a hell of a lot easier than going through six rounds of chemo like he did.’ She nods in the direction of Harry, who is tying balloons full of helium to the side of the charity banner.
‘I love watching the Marathon,’ Jess says. ‘Especially that bit at the beginning where you see everyone’s stories and it makes you cry.’
‘Oh God,’ Becky says as finally she appears. She’s been staying with a friend in Poplar, so she’s on foot, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses to protect her eyes from the already-bright sunshine. She pinches a couple of jelly-babies. ‘Has she told you about how she sits there every year to watch the runners, weeping and eating toast?’
‘Shut up, you,’ Jess says, going pink.
‘True though,’ Becky says. ‘God I am so hungover. I need a saline drip. You haven’t learned to do that yet, have you, Alex?’
‘I don’t have one handy, no,’ I say. ‘And I don’t think the medical tent would be that impressed if you turned up and told them you needed rehydration.’
‘I’m going to go and find some full-fat Coke then. I need to be in full-on cheering mode for the lads from work.’
I nip to the loo and when I get back I stand for a moment, watching Jess chatting to Becky. I’ve been trying to work out how to talk to her about the whole thing with Emma – I mean if we’re friends, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be telling her, but at the same time, it feels – awkward. I don’t want to mention it in front of Becky though, because of her whole no relationships thing – not that it is a relationship. That’s kind of the whole point.
‘Ready?’ Andrea turns to me, and the moment is lost. From then on we’re caught in a strange mixture of cheering then waiting, waiting then cheering.
The Mass Race runners come through first – super fit amateur athletes who zoom past us wearing our charity colours, grabbing a drink and tossing it to one side before pelting on down the road in search of a personal best time.
‘I’m waiting for the people in fancy dress.’ Jess peers into the distance again. ‘I can’t believe the noise.’
‘That’s why I said earlier that you’d soon have enough of it.’ Harry grins and rattles the noisemakers near her ear. She ducks away, laughing.
Becky isn’t joking when she says Jess cries at the runners. When the charity runners start coming through with the names of the people they’re running for and their photos printed on the backs of their T-shirts, Jess basically starts sobbing and doesn’t stop. Becky teases her about it incessantly.
‘Shut up,’ Jess says, wiping her face with both hands. Any make-up she had on is long gone. She blows her nose on a spare bit of kitchen roll from Andrea’s picnic bag. ‘I can’t help it. It’s just so …’ and she points to a woman who’s half-walking, half-jogging with “This one’s for you, Dad” on the back of her T-shirt. And just like that, my heart cracks and I feel tears streaming down my face, too. I wipe them away, ineffectually. Jess hands me one of her tissues, silently, and bumps the side of my arm with hers.
‘I feel like I’ve run a marathon after all that,’ Becky says, hours later, as we fold up the last of the tables and high-five the other supporters. She blows us a kiss and heads off before we do, because she’s left her stuff at her friend’s place.
The tractors and clearing-up lorries have passed by now, following a handful of stragglers – some who were walking, some clearly baking hot in heavy fancy dress costumes. It’s a long way to go dressed as Big Bird on a sunny day. Still, Big Bird gave us a cheery wave.
‘You can do it,’ Jess shouted, clapping as the last few people made their way past. They had another five and a bit miles to go, and they looked completely wiped out. But they brightened when she cheered them. I picked up my noisemaker and gave them a rattle, and together we called out their names.
‘Come on, Brian, you can do it!’
‘Go on, Sarah!’
‘Jamie! Not long to go now.’
Without thinking, I put an arm around Jess’s shoulders as we cheered the couple who were shuffling along in a tandem bicycle costume and as they passed it turned into a funny, awkward sort of hug and I think Jess’s tears must be contagious because I saw they were running for our charity and I thought of Matt sitting at home watching the television and I had to wipe the tears away from my face again.
‘Gets to us all in the end,’ said Harry, clapping me on the back. He dropped an arm around my shoulder and squeezed me. ‘Get yourselves off for a drink.’
Jess went to collect her rucksack and Harry gave me a look. ‘Got a good one there, son.’
‘Oh she’s not my—’ I began, but he’d turned away before I could finish the sentence.