At the Roundabout

At the Roundabout

Martin Cavanaugh has his breakfast and tea at precisely 7:15 every morning. He showers at 6:30, shaves, and dresses in the suit he has pressed and hung up for himself the night before. After breakfast, he drives his robin’s egg blue Mini Cooper to work, where he will be from 8 am until 5 pm, work permitting.

On his way to work, Martin will circle the roundabout near a bus stop on a residential corner. He does this every day. Archie Mason knows this. He sees him round the circular road every morning at precisely 7:45, as Archie walks to work. Archie doesn’t know Martin, but he knows his car: it’s the only one that color he has ever seen. Whimsical blue in a sea of dreary black and gray.

And because he knows precisely what time the car will pass, Archie knows precisely what time to step off the curb, to ensure Martin’s blue Mini Cooper will hit him.

But not today: there is too much to plan, too many loose ends to tie up. If all goes to plan, he won’t be there to see people go through his things, deciding what are important documents and keepsakes and what can go, but in case embarrassment is one of the emotions that transcends death, better to be organized.

The blue Mini Cooper wasn’t Martin’s idea. That was the wish of his late wife, Daisy. She wanted something that looked like it belonged with the sea and sand when they were on holiday on the coast; and would brighten the dreary streets of the city, when they weren’t.

When they were first married, they found their dream home, a city cottage, with a cupola on top. A little playroom for the kids, and arched windows that framed the view of their pretty neighborhood. It was big enough for their little family, but when Daisy died, it was far too big for him. So filled with the memory of her, he could hardly breathe. Their children had moved on, Daisy was gone, and the house was at once too large, and yet too suffocating.

Once the funeral was over, and family and children had returned to their lives, Martin started sleeping in the now-empty cupola. At first, because it was easier than facing the post-funeral mess, but now had become habit, and refuge. Everything in the house looked and smelled and sounded like her. Up here, there was nothing. Room for a spare mattress, an alarm clock, and the light that flooded the room, through the arched windows, from the view of the neighborhood. From the world that no longer knew Daisy.

Grayness enveloped Archie Mason. He had taken a position at a hospital hoping to make a difference, to maybe improve on the experience of the people who found themselves there. But what he found instead was a job at an overwhelmed intake desk at Accident and Emergency, and more overwhelmed patients. Patients he couldn’t help the way he wanted to. It felt like a broken promise. Just one of so many.

So, he stood at the corner of the roundabout every morning waiting for the robin’s egg blue Mini Cooper, knowing he could never fix what he had broken for its driver. A driver who wouldn’t know who he was, even though he had been present at the worst moment of his life.

Martin had worked at the Ministry of Housing long enough that its duties had become routine and mind-numbing, in the best way. It had provided a life for him, Daisy, and their two sons: steady hours, decent pension, paid holidays. Now it allowed for an escape from life, and all the thoughts from which his mind so achingly needed numbing.

He arrived promptly at 7:59, rested his coat on the back of the chair, turned on his computer, and spent the next nine hours entering data and approving requests. At 5:00, his computer hummed as it powered down. By the time it was silent, Martin was halfway to the Mini. His co-workers had long since abandoned extending an invitation to him to join them at the pub, after work. He was a ghost in a gray suit and tie.

Home was now for necessary routine: eating, showering, cleaning and ironing his clothes. Since he had discovered grocery delivery, there was one less errand to run. At least he was cooking now. The first year had been take-out delivery: a hot, if not very nutritious dinner, that became cold leftovers for breakfast. If he had eaten anything, made it through work, and come home, he considered it a victory. He did everything he needed to do, to have just enough. And sometimes, even that felt like too much.

After Daisy’s death, the intake desk at A&E became too much for Archie. He left that night, giving his notice. He just hadn’t thought through what to do next. Eventually, he found himself accepting a position as a night attendant in a hospice facility. It was a ten-minute walk from home, and he could help those who were dying, without being the reason they died.

His job had few responsibilities: change bedsheets, keep the floors clean, maybe offer a cup of tea and a warm slice of toast, to a patient who couldn’t sleep, and then listen to them as they ate, telling stories their families had heard dozens of times, but that the patients still needed to tell. They didn’t need to know his name; they didn’t need him to approve medication. He could just be there through the night, until the day shift arrived at 7:30, when he would change out of his uniform, button his coat, walk five blocks, and circle the roundabout, just in time to see the robin’s egg blue Mini.

Until the day he didn’t.

The cold had crept in early that October, a few weeks sooner than expected. The chill and the rain made the sky darker for most of the day now, not just earlier at night. Archie was pulling his coat lapel up around his ears to shield him from the rain when he heard a screech of tires, a splash of puddle water drenching his feet. Past the headlights of the little blue car, he saw Martin’s face, at once shocked and apologetic. Waving a contrite hand at Archie, he righted the car and continued driving, to an off-key chorus of car horns behind him. Shaken and confused, Archie ran the rest of the way home, slipping along the thickening mud.

By Sunday, there was a respite from the storms, and the sun made a brief appearance in rays through a cloud that would certainly start to rain by day’s end. Archie decided to take advantage of the nicer weather, and walked the two blocks from his home to the bakery, for breakfast. He had just picked up his coffee order when the tinkling bell that hung loosely on a string on the door, indicated there was a customer entering.

Before he saw Martin, he saw Martin’s car. It seemed that the encounter he had been trying to orchestrate would be one he now could not avoid.

Archie took his coffee and cheese Danish to a corner table, as Martin perused the baked goods. He tried to look nondescript, even invisible, but lost his balance and rattled his coffee cup and saucer as he sat down. Internally, he rolled his eyes at himself. “If I don’t completely blow my cover,” he muttered under his breath, “it’s not because I didn’t try hard enough.”

He didn’t know if it was the clumsiness or the self-deprecation that caught Martin’s attention, but he felt his eyes on him. And reflexes being what they are, he had no choice but to meet his gaze.

“I know you,” Martin said.

Archie braced himself for the reckoning he had feared since that night in A&D. Martin had come in with his wife, their little blue car parked at the entrance. She appeared fragile, and Martin supported her weight, so she could walk to the intake desk. He described what had happened that night: she had felt tired in the afternoon, and by dinner, was weak and nauseated. They couldn’t think of anything that had caused it, so they decided to bring her in to see if some tests would help figure it out. But the hospital had been overrun by patients that night, and there was no room for her at that time. Archie had told them there was no space, and that they would be waiting for hours to be seen. He recommended resting at home and hydrating, and if it was still bad in a few hours, to come back.

He didn’t know if the look on Martin’s face was one of annoyance or just concern for his wife, but he nodded, helped her turn to leave, and comforted her with promises that she would be alright. He would see to it. Archie didn’t have time to think any more about this interaction, as he was trying to coordinate what seemed like the population of London in this relatively small hospital. He wondered if this was the flu, or the plague.

Within a few hours, everything was under control, and it was calmer at his desk. Calm enough for him to see the little blue car pull up to the door behind an ambulance that was unloading Martin’s sickly wife on a stretcher. She had gotten worse, and an hour later, she was dead.

The memory of that night led to the haunting images of all the other patients whose fate he would never know, but whom he suspected met a similar ending. All those he had purposely taken the job to help. Had it all been his fault? As he watched Martin stride toward him, he awaited the inevitable.

“I know you,” Martin said again, with a lilt of surprise. “I almost hit you with my car, in the roundabout.”

“Oh!” Archie exclaimed, trying to mask his relief. “Was that you?”

“I’m so terribly sorry. Are you alright?”

“Oh yes, I’m fine,” he said, and then asked what he had wanted to know for two years: “Are you alright?”

Martin looked surprised, so Archie added, “All those cars behind you. I didn’t know if maybe one of them had hit yours.”

“No, no, nothing like that,” he said and gestured to the chair across from Archie. “May I?”

“Of course,” Archie said, pushing the chair away from the table with his foot, as they introduced themselves to each other.

Archie didn’t know if letting Martin this close to him was the smartest thing he could do, but he felt compelled. He had been planning his own death for months, using Martin’s car as the weapon, and then it had almost come to pass on its own. He had spent the last two years hiding in a building designated for death, while plotting his own, in order not to cause any more pain. Could this conversation be any worse than that?

“I don’t know how it happened, really,” Martin confessed. “I take the same route every day, follow the same schedule. When that happened, I realized I was not paying any attention when I was driving. I was letting the routine drive me.”

“I understand that,” Archie said.

“I took it as a sign that it’s time to be more present, or I could hurt someone.”

I understand that, Archie thought.

“So, I thought,” Martin continued, “that the way to do that, was to change my routine. My Daisy loved this bakery, and it was a nice day, so here I am.”

“Your Daisy?”

“My wife. She passed two years ago, last September. She got sick and died quickly. There was no time to prepare for what life would be without her.”

“How has life been, without her?”

“A heartbeat. A body that works. A car that works. A job that is easy to do, and to keep. But not a life.”

“I felt that way after my mother died,” Archie said. “It was my 17th birthday. I had just gotten my driving license that day. A few hours later, she was very ill – fever, vomiting, heart palpitations. I was so nervous to drive, but I had to get her to the hospital. But A&E was overrun; it was some kind of contagious thing… they couldn’t help her in time. After that, I decided I would work for the NHS, to help things from the inside. But I didn’t.”

“That’s a heavy weight for a young lad,” Martin said. “No one has been able to do it yet.”

“I just felt like I had let them down: my mum, who knows how many others… your Daisy.”

“My Daisy?”

“I was there, that night,” Archie hesitated, but felt compelled to continue. “I was working the intake desk.”

“Did you know her?”

“No, but I recognized your car. It leaves an impression. Anyway, when you first came in, there wasn’t anything I could do for you, so I had to send you away. And then you came back, and… it was too late.”

Martin sat back in his chair and absorbed this information. After a few moments, he said: “And you’ve been carrying this, this whole time?”

“Yes, I felt very responsible. I had taken this job, so that what happened to my mum wouldn’t happen to anyone else. And now I don’t know how many are gone because of me. Because I couldn’t stop it.”

“Jesus, that’s a heavy burden,” Martin sighed. “I thought it was just me carrying it.”

“We actually lost a few that night. That was a bad infection.”

“But most of them survived, yeah?”

“Yes, I guess they did.”

“So, you did something right?”

Archie shrugged slightly and turned to the window, willing himself to contain everything inside that felt so ready to erupt.

Martin looked at him, directly but compassionately. “I never blamed you for a minute. I saw what that hospital looked like that night. I blamed myself for not pushing harder for her, but we didn’t know how bad it was, or how fast she’d go. And your mum wasn’t your fault, either. We have to stop blaming ourselves for not being able to save the world.”

He looked out at the little blue Mini. “She’s cute, isn’t she?”

“Very,” Archie agreed.

“Daisy wanted it because it looked happy. She said the city, and so many of the people and the cars in it looked so gray, she wanted to bring some color and light into it. I guess she was trying to save the world, too.”

He looked at Archie. “But we can’t, and that’s OK. It matters enough that we at least want to try.”

They decided to finish their coffees and go for a drive in the country, and show off the little bit of happiness on wheels. On the drive, they passed a field full of wild daisies. Martin stopped the car, and cut a large handful of them to take home.

“I’m ready for some beauty again, my love,” he said to himself. “Sorry to keep our world gray for so long.”

At home, he put them in a little blue vase and set them on a windowsill in the cupola. Then, he took the mattress and the alarm clock out of the little room. And he shut the door.

The End