I sat up and looked down at the orange glow of the town. Soon I would have to return, a journey I dreaded, but that night was different. I drove back down knowing that any time I needed some kind of meaning in the mess of it all, I could close my eyes, see that constellation and be blinded by it.
54
The marbled purple bowling ball rolled down the lane, veered off to the side, clipped the edge of a pin and disappeared into the black beyond. The pin teetered, steadied itself and stood still. I turned to look at my teammates; Mr and Mrs McCoy shrugged in abetter luck next timekind of way. My mum and dad, our opponents, made the same gesture before Dad got up, rubbing his hands together.
‘Right, here comes the pro,’ he said with a wink, collecting his ball. Dad had been bowling just as badly as me and only happened to feel like a pro because Mum, his teammate, had turned out to be a surprisingly good bowler and was racking up all the points.
‘It’s alright,’ said Mrs McCoy when I sat down beside her, ‘none of us are naturals.’
‘Except that mother of yours,’ said Mr McCoy, ‘she’s ruthless.’
Mum noticed the three of us staring at her.
‘What?’ she said.
We burst out laughing.
‘What?’ she said again, laughing along with us in a confused way.
‘Would you stop with the laughter? You’re putting me off my game,’ Dad said, jokingly, in mid-bowling pose. ‘The Big Lebowski needs his focus.’
He drew the ball back and swung. When it left his hand it quickly veered into the right-hand trench and shot straight down into the darkness with not a single pin disturbed. We all erupted in laughter and Dad turned to take a bow as we applauded him.
It had been Mum’s idea to go bowling. It seemed inappropriate when she first mentioned it but I came round to the idea the more I thought about it.
‘Sometimes we need to create a bit of a lifeline for ourselves,’ she’d said. ‘And, at times like this, sometimes we need to offer one to others.’
I’d been managing to speak to the McCoys on the phone on a daily basis since regaining some energy and engagement with the world again. They’d barely left the house since the funeral.
I wasn’t sure how the suggestion of bowling would go down when I mentioned it to them, but they rang back the next morning to see if that night would suit.
So, thanks to Mum, we met at the bowling alley and it somehow seemed like the right place to be when we were there. Us all full of so much grief. Maybe that’s why we threw those balls with such force and with so little care for scores. It was only when we sat down in one of the dining booths after the game and ordered soft drinks that we realised none of us had looked at the screen to see who the winner was.
‘Well, I don’t think we need any evidence,’ said Mr McCoy. ‘The champion’s quite clearly that baby-faced bowling berserker over there,’ he said, nodding at Mum.
‘Baby-faced what?’ she said laughing.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mr McCoy, ‘just came out of my mouth – what’s a berserker anyway?’
‘No clue,’ Dad said. ‘But sounds appropriate – no wonder she was the one that wanted to go bowling so badly.’
‘Been practising all this time,’ said Mum sarcastically, flexing her muscles. ‘Just needed some unwitting victims.’
We all laughed.
‘But no, thanks for the boost,’ said Mrs McCoy. ‘We needed something because, I’m speaking for both of us here, self-compassion – not our forte.’
‘No one’s forte, Emma,’ agreed Mum.
‘Well, we are doing aweebit of self-compassion, though,’ said Mr McCoy. ‘I’ve been joining Emma on the weekly support group meetings.’
‘Did I or did I not tell you to go from the beginning?’
‘I know but we couldn’t have both went because one of us had to be … had to be at home.’
They looked at each other and Mrs McCoy reached across the table and took her husband’s hand.
‘Well, there’s a few couples who’ve lost a child that attend … I didn’t think that’d be us,’ she said.
