‘A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.’
YOKO ONO
3 May 2013, Leeds
It was just past seven in the morning as Frances Davies, a 45-year-old lawyer from York, was driving down Whitehall Road, Leeds, listening to Stan Graham, a favourite folk singer of hers.
She’d been up since 5.30 a.m., as she had been every working day for the past 20 years. As a busy mother of two, it was the only time when she could have a moment to herself. The house was quiet and her husband, Mark, and their two children, Jay and Jack, would be asleep, so she would potter around their Victorian terraced house in the centre of York, listening to motivational TED talks on her computer, soaking up the words and ideas of Diana Nyad, who, at 60, was the only person to swim from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage. Either that, or Frances would sneak in an extra chapter of a book, with her yoghurt and fruit, reading about ex-headmistress Anne Mustoe’s account of cycling around the world at the age of 50. And then she’d kiss everyone goodbye while they were still asleep in their beds, get into the car and drive the 25-mile journey to the office and the job she’d had for the past 13 years.
Sitting at the traffic lights that morning, dressed in her grey suit and white shirt, with her chin on the steering wheel, she watched the same old man walk the same elderly dog across the same road at the same time as he did every day. She looked up the road towards her looming office building and across at all the other commuters sitting in their cars. She thought of Patrick Swayze from one of her favourite films – Point Break – and those ‘dead souls inching along the freeways in their metal coffins’.
There were only a few lights on in the office – she’d be one of the first in, again, and one of the last to leave. She’d miss school drop-off and pick-up as usual. She’d probably have to stop for a drink with a client at the end of the day and wouldn’t be home until well past nine that evening.
‘Who knows what’s around the bend? A brand-new start or the bitter end?’ sang Stan Graham in Easy Street.
Frances glanced at the radio, her palms feeling clammy, her heart beating harder in her chest. A brand-new start? Or the bitter end? The bitter end. ‘Will this be my entire adult working life?’ she thought to herself. Wearing the same old groove? Going on the same journey 25 miles in and 25 miles out of Leeds? Every. Single. Day?
‘That’s it,’ she said to herself, pushing herself back in her seat. ‘I am asking them again. They can only say no.’ She put the car into gear. Her mother had died at the age of 58 from breast cancer. Frances was 28 years old at the time and her mother’s passing left a huge hole in her life. Her mother had lost her battle with cancer when she was little older than Frances is now. She had not lived long enough to meet Mark or her grandchildren – a loss that Frances had always felt very keenly.
‘We are only here once,’ she reasoned. ‘We should make the most of our short time here. I’m fed up with going to things and hearing how “busy” everyone is. I don’t care who is “busy” or who is not “busy”. What is admirable about being busy? I don’t care about any of that. I want to get out and do something else.’
One of the things about the death of her mother that had always inspired Frances was how she never gave up – she always carried on fighting. For years she battled cancer with a serenity that was humbling. Her courage against all the odds was overwhelming.
So, after refuelling with a weak, tepid coffee from the office kitchen, she sat down at her desk and wrote this email:
From: Frances Davies
Sent: 03 May 2013 08:19
To: Janette Benaddi; Niki Doeg; Helen Butters; Caroline Lennox
Subject: Atlantic Campaigns | Atlantic Rowing | TALISKER Whisky Atlantic Challenge | Atlantic Rowing Race – Helen – don’t delete!
http://www.atlanticcampaigns.com/
Morning,
Do you remember my suggestion at the boat club dinner? I thought I would forward this to all of you. I do see that it sounds very silly, but I think we could do this race. Other people have done it and we must be just as good as they are.
I think it’s possible to enter as 1, 2, 4, 5 or 6, so any combination of us could enter. It’s quite pricey and, of course, would mean taking a couple of months out of our regular lives! We would need sponsorship. Mark obviously thinks I’m ridiculous, but I have sold it to the boys on the basis that they get to go to Antigua to meet us at the finish!
It would be amazing and probably life-changing, and we definitely won’t want to go back to work afterwards – we could maybe sign up for it if we get very drunk in France in September.
Anyway, have a think about it.
For those racing this weekend – good luck.
Have a great weekend
F xx
She pressed send, sighed and waited. Shuffling through the papers she needed for her first meeting that morning, she kept her eye on the screen.
It took Janette precisely 13 minutes to reply:
From: Janette Benaddi
Sent: 03 May 2013 08:32
To: Frances Davies; Niki Doeg; Helen Butters; Caroline Lennox
Subject: RE: Atlantic Campaigns | Atlantic Rowing | TALISKER Whisky Atlantic Challenge | Atlantic Rowing Race – Helen – don’t delete!
Life’s for living, so let’s really live. I am definitely up for it.
J
Janette Benaddi
That was so very typical of Janette. An impetuous force of nature, she is a self-made businesswoman who has been running her own clinical trials company for the past 20 years. Married to Ben, a French-Moroccan, whom she met dancing in her sister’s sitting room, she has never knowingly taken a duvet day in her life. Even after the birth of her first child, James, she didn’t take any time off. Not even a day! It wasn’t meant to happen that way, but she’d been booked to give a talk in London. She had originally thought she’d be fine. She’d have her baby; he would be two weeks old and she’d leave him with Ben for the day while she popped down to London to talk at the conference and popped back up to York again. But James was a first baby and first babies are often late. He was two weeks late. Janette had no choice, not unless she didn’t want to be paid, and anyway, she didn’t want to let them down. So she gave birth at 8 a.m. on the Tuesday after a long 36-hour labour with gas, air and ventouse. Come 8 a.m. on the Wednesday, she was on the train to London, leaving Ben in charge of their newborn son. During a break at the conference, there were a few doctors milling around, drinking tea and eating biscuits, and one of them approached Janette.
‘Do you have any children?’ she asked, smiling politely and nibbling the corner of a custard cream.
‘Oh yes!’ replied Janette, beaming with new-mother pride. ‘A son.’
‘How lovely,’ replied the doctor. ‘How old is he?’
‘Oh,’ replied Janette, her brain whirring, not wanting to lie that much. ‘Um… two weeks?’ she ventured.
‘Two weeks!’ The doctor was horrified; the crumbs went flying. ‘What are you doing here? Are you mad! You should be at home!’
Little did she know that, back in Selby, Ben was busy explaining Janette’s absence to an equally appalled midwife, who turned up to weigh the baby