Seize The Day

Chapter Ten

Bill rode harder and harder. Sucking air into his painful lungs, the surge of lactic acid burned his thighs, but he had to keep going. These were the moments he lived for, adrenaline pumping, body screaming for release, and it was normally as he hit the summit of the hill and freewheeled the other side that the come down hit him, and he felt immense freedom. But the last week that had all changed. It was only as he fought gravity and the boundaries of his body, that he could clear his mind. He wished he lived in the Alps or the Pyrenees where the mountain roads seemed unending and he could punish himself even more. Because each time he coasted down, the fog of energy, pain cleared and real life hit him...hard!

But London was mainly flat, and he had to go home at some point, he had to work...every time he eased back, the reality of life came rolling back. He’d rode the same roads every night, three hours or more, after a heavy day in work. Travelling from the office to the small gym that he used, and that had become a base for his cycling club, as with every other night that week, he ate, showered and then either headed home very late...or went to his cousin’s house. Oliver didn’t ask questions, and Bill didn’t offer. But when the morning light hit him, where ever he was, he was still Bill Swift, and he was still a mess.

Tonight he was shattered; the accumulation of trying to avoid dealing with life was killing him slowly. He longed for his bed, his own bed, not a sofa in a house worthy of students with housemates arriving at all times of the day or night. So he showered quickly, and headed straight home.

Opening the door, the smell of something spicy wafted to his nostrils. It was days since he’d had a decent meal, and no one cooked Mexican food like Sophie...well no one cooked like Sophie in his eyes. His mother had relied on cooks, employed to help even for breakfast, she was ‘too delicate’ to provide anything, and his father too chauvinistic to venture into the kitchen!  The same was said for the children, a nanny was employed to care for him and his brother as his parents were too frightfully busy for that too. He had no real pleasant memories of childhood, they’d been commodities to his parents, he and his brother, but unlike the perfect Henry, Bill’s paternity was doubted, in a world where birthright was everything. It was no wonder he now rejected all that life meant.

Hunger ripped his body to shreds and suddenly he was almost faint with the desire for decent home cooking.

It had been an amazing day, in the midst of the most awkward week of her life, she’d completed the illustrations she’d fought to be inspired for, and the previous day had submitted them to the publishing house. She didn’t expect to hear anything for days, but before lunchtime the phone had rung, and with a rather unattractive expression, mouth open, tongue hanging out like a shattered dog in the sun, she’d heard the words.

                “Miss Carter has selected your designs without contest.”

There were plans to call into the office, discuss contracts, meet the much revered Sarah Carter whose books were tipped to rival those of JK Rowling. Sophie hears the words but none of them registered. Half an hour later an email confirmed everything and she screamed. Whooping she skipped downstairs, but there was no one there to celebrate with. So pulling on a coat, she skipped all the way to Camden, and into ‘ARTistic’ Margo’s shop. The always immaculate woman emerged from behind the counter in her usual cloud of Versace clothing and Chanel no.5.

                “I did it Margo!” She flapped the printed email in front of her, wafting it like a fan. “I got the job!”

Margo instantly knew what she meant, and reached across the counter to hug Sophie, “brilliant, just brilliant!”

Suddenly she pulled a bottle of Moet from beneath the counter, “I have a refrigerator here...for those special occasions!”

Much to Sophie’s surprise, crystal champagne flutes emerged next, no paper cups or chipped mugs for Margo Paternoster!