But he doesn’t seem to hear that either.
So then I go for it.
Dad, you played rounders with me, even though you hated it and wished I’d take up cricket. You learned how to keep a stamp collection because I wanted to know. For hours you sat in hospitals and never, not once, complained. You brushed my hair like a mother should. You gave up work for me, friends for me, four years of your life for me. You never moaned. Hardly ever. You let me have Adam. You let me have my list. I was outrageous. Wanting, wanting so much. And you never said, ‘That’s enough. Stop now.’
I’ve been wanting to say that for a while
Cal peers down at me. ‘Hello,’ he says. ‘How are you?’
I blink at him.
He sits in the chair and studies me. ‘Can’t you actually talk any more?’
I try and tell him that yes, of course I can. Is he stupid, or what?
He sighs, gets up and goes over to the window. He says, ‘Do you think I’m too young to have a girlfriend?’
I tell him yes.
‘Because loads of my friends have got one. They don’t actually go out. Not really. They just text each other.’ He shakes his head in disbelief. ‘I’m never going to understand love.’
But I think he already does. Better than most people.
Zoey says, ‘Hey, Cal.’
He says, ‘Hey.’
She says, ‘I’ve come to say goodbye. I mean, I know I did already, but I thought I’d say it again.’
‘Why?’ he says. ‘Where are you going?’
I like the weight of Mum’s hand in mine.
She says, ‘If I could swap places with you, I would, you know.’
Then she says, ‘I just wish I could save you from this.’
Maybe she thinks I can’t hear her.
She says, ‘I could write a story for one of those true story magazines, about how hard it was to leave you. I don’t want you thinking it was easy.’
when I was twelve I looked Scotland up on a map and saw that beyond the Firth were the Islands of Orkney and I knew they’d have boats that would take her even further away than that
Instructions for Mum
Don’t give up on Cal. Don’t you ever slide away from him, move back to Scotland or think that any man is more important. I’ll haunt you if you do. I’ll move your furniture around, throw things at you and scare you stupid. Be kind to Dad. Serious. I’m watching you.
She gives me a sip of iced water. She gently places a cold flannel on my forehead.
Then she says, ‘I love you.’
Like three drops of blood falling onto snow.
Forty-five
Adam gets into his camp bed. It creaks. Then it stops.
I remember him sucking my breast. It wasn’t long ago. We were in this room, both in my bed, and I held him in the crook of my arm and he nestled against me and I felt like his mother.
He promised he’d come to the edge. I made him promise. But I didn’t know he’d lie next to me at night like a good boy scout. I didn’t know it would hurt to be touched, that he’d be too scared to hold my hand.
He should be out in the night with some girl with lovely curves and breath like oranges.
Instructions for Adam
Look after no one except yourself. Go to university and make lots of friends and get drunk. Forget your door keys. Laugh. Eat pot-noodles for breakfast. Miss lectures. Be irresponsible.
Adam says, ‘Goodnight, Tessa.’
Goodnight, Adam.
‘I phoned the nurse. She says we should top up the morphine with Oramorph.’
‘Won’t anyone come out?’
‘We can manage.’
‘She was calling for her mum again when you were on the phone.’
I keep thinking of fires of smoke rising of the crazed jangle of bells and the surprised faces of a crowd as if something has been snatched from them
‘I’ll sit with her if you like, Adam. Go down and watch TV, or catch up on some sleep.’
‘I said I wouldn’t leave her.’
It’s like turning off the lights one by one.
rain drizzles gently onto sand and bare legs as Dad puts the finishing touches to the castle and even though it’s raining me and Cal collect sea water in a bucket for the moat and later when the sun comes out we put flags on each tower so they flutter and we get ice cream from the hut at the top of the dunes and later still Dad sits with us as the tide comes in and together we try and push all that water back out so the people in the castle don’t drown
‘Go on, Adam. None of us will be any good to her if we’re exhausted.’
‘No, I’m not leaving.’
when I was four I almost fell down the shaft of a tin mine and when I was five the car rolled over on the motorway and when I was seven we went on holiday and the gas ring blew out in the caravan and nobody noticed
I’ve been dying all my life
‘She’s more peaceful now.’
‘Hmm.’
I hear only the fraction of things. Words fall down crevices, get lost for hours, then fly back up and land on my chest.
‘I’m grateful to you.’
‘For what?’
‘For not backing off. Most lads would’ve run a mile by now.’
‘I love her.’
Forty-six
‘Hey,’ Adam says, ‘you’re awake.’
He leans over and moistens my mouth with a sponge. He dabs my lips dry with a flannel and smears them with Vaseline.
‘Your hands are cold. I’ll hold them for a bit and warm them up, shall I?’
I stink. I smell myself farting. I hear the ugly tick of my body consuming itself. I’m sinking, sinking into the bed.
Fifteen, to get out of bed and go downstairs and it’s all a joke.
Two hundred and nine, to marry Adam.
Thirty, to go to parents’ evening and our child’s a genius. All three of our children in fact – Chester, Merlin and Daisy.
Fifty-one, two, three. To open my eyes. Bastard open them.
I can’t. I’m falling.
Forty-four, to not be falling. I don’t want to fall. I’m afraid.
Forty-five, to not be falling.
Think of something. I won’t die if I’m thinking of Adam’s hot breath between my legs.
But I can’t hold onto anything.
Like a tree losing its leaves.
I forget even the thing I was thinking.
‘Why is she making that noise?’
‘It’s her lungs. Fluid can’t drain away because she’s not moving around.’
‘It sounds horrible.’
‘It sounds worse than it is.’
Is that Cal? I hear the tug of a ring pull, the fizz of a Coke can.
Adam says, ‘What’s your dad up to?’
‘On the phone. He’s telling Mum to come over.’
‘Good.’
What happens, Cal, to dead bodies?
Dust, glitter, rain.
‘You think she can hear us?’
‘Definitely.’
‘ ‘Cos I’ve been telling her stuff.’
‘What kind of stuff?’
‘I’m not telling you!’
the big bang was the origin of the solar system and only then was the earth formed and only then could life appear and after all the rain and fire had gone fish came then insects amphibians dinosaurs mammals birds primates hominids and finally humans
‘Are you sure she should be making that noise?’
‘I think it’s OK.’
‘It’s different from just now.’
‘Shush, I can’t hear.’
‘That’s worse. That sounds like she can’t even breathe.’
‘Shit!’
‘Is she dying?’
‘Get your dad, Cal. Run!’