by Bella James
‘I think he hated being called Benji, but it sort of stuck.’
He paused and took a sip of water.
‘What’s your sister like?’
He was nearly an expert subject changer as me.
‘Is she as charming as you?’ He gave the little laugh again.
‘Isabel is far more charming than I am and she hates her real name too. Everyone calls her Izzy.’ I look up and see two people walking towards us. ‘Actually, judge for yourself.’
As Isabel walked in with my mother, my heart crashed to the floor. She looked gorgeous in her irritatingly understated manner and much older than her almost fourteen years. She wore skinny jeans, ballet pumps and a T-shirt that shows off her slender brown arms and an unintentional touch of bare midriff. Her chestnut hair was tied back in a tight ponytail (I knew she was being sensitive because she never wears her hair up – it’s always cascading down her back and over her shoulders like mine used to be.) For weeks I’ve seen nothing but this damn ponytail and it annoyed the hell out of me. Maybe I want as many reasons for anger as possible, and her trying to take some of them away from me is making things worse. I forgot about trying to be nice in front of Michael and snapped at her.
‘That’s my T-shirt. It’s far too small for you.’
Izzy was having none of it. She ignored me and held her hand out to Michael.
‘So you’re the reason she’s cheered up.’
He started to laugh as he shook her hand but stopped abruptly when he saw my fuming face.
‘Well, you do have a reputation on the ward as a bit of a grump, darling.’
Darling. He called me darling like we had been married for twenty-five years. The sky was blue again and for all I cared, Izzy could have walked through the ward wearing nothing but nipple tassels.
‘This is Michael,’ I say ever so sweetly, ‘and this is Isabel, my sister, and Lilly, my mother.’
‘Lillian,’ she corrected, looking horrified, to my greatest satisfaction. My grandparents had been nineteen when they found out they were expecting. At that time they lived in a caravan as part of a travelling community. Lillian was born a blonde-haired little angel and they doted on her. For years, they told us the story of how they found her under a lily pad when she was a tiny baby and decided to bring her home. My mother cringes whenever she hears it. I suppose it suited her when she was little, wearing only a smile and daisy chain. Now she dresses in Jaeger and Donna Karan, and the smile has been replaced with a dissatisfied frown.
‘Nice to meet you both.’ Michael was oblivious to the chip on her shoulder pad.
‘How are you? They say you can come home soon.’ Izzy looked at me warily, prepared for another attack. My mood swings have become so erratic and she looked quite scared.
‘I feel OK, apart from the headaches and knocking over or dropping everything I touch.’
There was an awkward silence which Michael took as his cue to leave.
‘I’ll come see you after visiting hours; I’ll get some chocolate from the canteen.’
He kissed my hand like it was the most natural thing in the world and I couldn’t help smiling as he left the three of us alone.
‘God, he’s gorgeous, Anna!’
My smile disappeared and I glared daggers at Izzy.
‘Oh, great sis, fancy him, do you? I’m sure you’ll get your claws into him when I’m dead.’
I spat out the last word and she looked close to crying, but straightened her shoulders and said with perhaps more conviction than she felt, ‘Stop. Stop pushing everyone away. This is hard for us too, you know.’
I snorted derisively, doubting she would want to swap places. My sister and silent mother seemed to have sucked what little life was left out of the room. Or maybe it had just left with Michael.
‘Do you think I want the two of you staring at me with cow eyes? Full of pity! I can’t stand it any more. Please, just leave me alone.’ I looked up at my sister through streaming tears and saw the flush of colour in her cheeks where mine were now gaunt and sallow. Her hair is thick and shiny, full of the life I am losing. Looking at her just reminded me that the harder I tried to hold on, the faster I seemed to be falling.
Mum reached towards me with such utter uncertainty that I lost control once again. Why did she find it so hard to comfort me? What had I ever done to feel this alone?
‘Get away from me!’ I yelled. My face and neck were wet with tears. I tried to throw Isabel off but she was too strong now and wrapped her arms around me so I couldn’t move. As we sat in the same chair rocking and crying together, I glanced up for a second to see my mother’s back as she left the room, and I grabbed on to Izzy as though my life depended on it.
***
About an hour later we are still squashed in the same recliner, but now we have acquired a blanket and a cup of sweet tea each from a concerned auxiliary nurse. I even manage to share a KitKat with Iz for the pleasure and normality of dunking it into our tea like we used to.
‘Do you remember that time you fell off Starlight?’ she asks.
I nod against her shoulder.
We had been riding in the meadow and I was showing off as usual, trying to get Star to jump a fallen log. I cantered her determinedly up to it but instead of jumping, she stuck her hooves in the ground suddenly and I flew over her head. When you fall from a height like that, you don’t feel yourself going down; it is more like the ground is coming up – and at an alarmingly fast rate. Recently, I have found the simplest of things difficult to recall, but I can see that bumpy ground coming towards me like it was yesterday. Afterwards there was nothing until I opened my eyes to see my mother beside me in the meadow as Izzy had run to get her. She was crying. Why was she the one crying when I had been the human catapult? Mother kept asking over and over was I all right and what on earth had I been thinking, and I recall closing my eyes to try and shut her out.
A doctor visited a little while later and said I would be fine, that I just had a very mild concussion and that Lillian should keep an eye on me for the next few hours.
Izzy had tried to cheer me up by doing impressions of what I had looked like flying through the air, and while I laughed uproariously as she flung herself off the settee, she proceeded to bang her head on the coffee table, which of course ended up being my fault as well.
When Father walked in we were watching cartoons with matching egg-shaped bumps on our foreheads. He gave us a little iced bun each he’d brought back from the deli and planted a kiss on our noses, making us laugh again – he always would kiss our forehead, but wanted to avoid the two bruised bumps.
Dad was furious with our mother, and we looked at each other with widened eyes as he asked her to go upstairs so they could ‘Discuss this privately.’
I heard a lot of banging and imagined her throwing things and shouting. My father never lost his temper so I knew it was her – Always making things miserable.
‘I don’t remember Dad even being there,’ says Izzy, as I remember his annoyance that our mother hadn’t taken better care of us. ‘I hardly remember him at all. He was always working when we were little. I just remember Mum.’
‘Yes, working all hours because she was spending his money on that stupid bloody house. It’s not even a home, it’s like a museum.’
‘Not our special room though, that was always a tip! God, I haven’t been up there for years, not since we left primary school.’
The room Izzy is talking about is the attic which Mother had converted into a playroom for us when we were young. It was full of toys and a rocking horse, and it was certainly very pretty with its flowery wallpaper. But what no one, certainly not Izzy, remembers is that the mother she tries to defend used to lock us in that beautiful room and leave us there.
***
Michael came to my room a little while later, with chocolate as promised. I eyed the Twix nervously, as the half a KitKat I’d eaten earlier was like an eight-course banquet these days. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful b
ut I didn’t want to throw up in front of him either. So I nibbled the piece he gave me and sighed gratefully as he bit into the second biscuit himself.
‘I came back ages ago but you and your sister looked like you needed to be alone.’
He looked a little concerned, so I smile bravely and told him, ‘Thank you. Izzy always makes me feel better. I mean she drives me around the bend and back, but, you know …’
‘You love her?’
I shrug, a little embarrassed as I am not exactly in touch with my emotional side.
‘Yes, I do,’ I replied. Then, just in case he thought he might love her also, I added, ‘When she’s not being immature she’s OK, I suppose. Bit childish, really. She still picks her nose.’
Michael did his funny half laugh and I felt like he was laughing at me, so I nibbled at the Twix a little more seductively. I considered fluttering my eyelashes before I remembered I had none.
My old friend self-doubt stopped by for a visit, and I started to wonder why he was being so nice to me. He knew I was a goner, did he just feel sorry for me? I can’t stand being pitied, so I pushed the thought away with a more comforting replacement. ‘Of course!’ I told myself. ‘He just wants to have sex with me. He has a thing for invalids because we are desperate and needy. He thinks I will be so grateful for some attention in my current state that he can just push me on the bed and have his way with me!’
God, if only. Until now he had been a perfect gentleman, possibly because a matter of days ago he had undergone an eight-hour surgery to remove the tumour by his spine. I’d spent as much time in his room while he was in recovery as possible. And during those simple days, I had started to feel a little better too.
In my determination to make Michael eat, I sat an example by making the effort myself, and even Mr Raj said I had a little colour in my cheeks. He said this with a twinkle in his eye, and I think most of the staff thought that the chance of love blossoming on the oncology ward was a welcome if surprising occurrence.
Not that they had dared to say so. My mood swings were still unpredictable, although looking after Michael, however briefly, made me forget my own plight for a while. One night I kissed his forehead and actually went back to my own room smiling. I was walking on air and if anyone had seen me sailing through ward five in the silent hours before dawn they would have thought I’d change places with no one.
So feelings were certainly growing between us. Yet here he was, sitting a respectable distance away from me in his wheelchair, absentmindedly eating half a Twix. I hoped he was secretly wondering what colour my underwear was.
He may have read my mind as I blushed and he smiled at me again. ‘So, this is weird.’
‘What is?’ My heart was beating suddenly fast.
‘Well, you know.’ He looked a little awkward. ‘We haven’t exactly met in the usual circumstances. We’re both ill and stuck in this place … and you’re leaving tomorrow. I like you so much, Anna. I don’t want this to be the last time we see each other.’
It would have taken me days, perhaps weeks, to think of a way to say those same words to Michael. He just said what he thought, and I wished I could be like that instead of considering all angles: whether or not opening up would work in my favour, or if I’d be rejected. I followed his lead instead.
‘I like you too – A lot, actually. It just feels doomed; beginnings should be movie dates and romantic strolls, not brain tumours and imminent death.’
‘I saw your mum in the canteen,’ he said eagerly. ‘She said you can get through this. In fact, she’s sure that you will. I really like her, Anna; she has such a good way of looking at things and cares about you so much.’
I said the next words very slowly, as though I couldn’t quite believe them. ‘You’ve been talking to my mother?’
He missed my tone and carried on, blissfully unaware of the tornado picking up ferocious momentum.
‘Yes, we had a coffee while you and Izzy were talking. She looked very upset so I joined her and we had a really nice conversation. She told me about you when you were little, how strong-minded you are. She’s so sure you’ll get through this it really inspired me. After what you told me I thought there was no hope, but Lillian says Mr Raj is brilliant … and perhaps you were being a bit pessimistic about your prognosis.’
His voice trailed off uncertainly as he saw the look on my face. Michael looked distinctly worried.
‘So you both think I’m lying?’ I gave a laugh that sounded very ugly. ‘Mother of the Year is telling everyone her daughter is exaggerating her illness. Did she tell you about the time I used her red lipstick to dot my face with chicken pox because I didn’t want to be in the nativity play? Or when I feigned feeling sick to avoid a family day out? This is priceless! Now she’s telling everyone I’m pretending to have a brain tumour. Look!’
I pulled off the headscarf I had so carefully placed earlier that day.
‘I’ve even shaved my hair off to go along with the charade! This is how it all started, you know –Me not wanting to go to sixth form, being sent to a real doctor. It was all an elaborate ploy!’
I was absorbed in my rage. How could she try and turn Michael against me? I hadn’t noticed him reach for me, and when I looked up his face is so close to mine I can see the grey flecks in his eyes.
‘No!’ He sounded distraught but I no longer cared. My dream was spoiled and sullied. ‘Anna, please, it was nothing like that. Of course she knows how dangerous it is, she believes you’re a fighter, that you’re stronger than she’s ever been. She has to believe you’ll be OK because she can’t face the alternative – Like I can’t.’
I could barely hear him as I shook with rage. I reached past him and pressed for the nurse. ‘I have a terrible headache,’ I said coldly and with a calmness I didn’t feel. ‘Please leave me alone. Despite what my mother has told you I am too ill to deal with all of this. So what if we like each other? I just want to get out of here tomorrow and forget about this place, that’s all I can think about right now.’
‘Do you want to forget about me?’
I met his eyes and my heart dissolved like ice in fire.
‘Yes, Michael. That is exactly what I want.’
***
When the nurse arrives, I grossly exaggerate the extent of my headache. I have done that a few times in here because the drugs are so good. A few excruciating minutes after swallowing the little capsules and I am drifting away on a euphoric cloud. The razor-sharp pain in my chest that told me I had blown it with Michael ebbs away as I fall deeper under the sedative spell. I am anaesthetized once more, not by wine or Father’s port, but by some pills I can’t pronounce the name of but have every intention of becoming very familiar with.
I wake up with a dry mouth and a cloudy head. Mother is packing my things and I can hear Izzy saying, ‘She’s waking up, I think. God, what did they give her?’
I open my eyes another painful crack and see her concerned face. She pulls me up to a sitting position and holds some juice with a straw to my lips. I ask her where my father is, the same question I have asked every day since he last visited.
‘He’s still in New Zealand.’ The voice of doom from Lillian, who must love to be the bearer of bad news. ‘He decided to stay out there and finish his appraisal when he found out you were being sent home. You’ll see him on Sunday.’
‘I knew he’d be back soon,’ I say smugly, and she makes a noise I cannot quite decipher. She is holding the palomino picture Michael gave me and I snatch it from her.
‘I was going to put it in your suitcase, Anna. We need to get going; you were discharged hours ago.’
I swing myself stiffly from the bed and try to walk with nonchalance to the bathroom. But my head is spinning and as I wobble Izzy looks away quickly. She knows when to offer help and when to let me get on with it.
I let them sort out my room and sit on the bathroom floor with the door closed. Silent tears flow as I remember the way I treated Michael. It was hardly his fa
ult that my mother was evil and wanted everyone to hate me as much as she did. I was still holding the picture he had left me, what seemed like eons ago. Under his original note was a number that hadn’t been there before, and I realized he must have come back to my room while I was sleeping. I took a moment to cringe a little. I’ve never been the prettiest of sleepers, so Lord knows what I must’ve looked like last night – Red, puffy eyes from crying, possibly drooling, and comatose with knock-out painkillers. Still, he had given me his mobile number and written in very small letters under it, ‘Don’t just leave me.’
I smile sadly and think of what could have been. How my heart had soared when he asked me to meet him in the day room and called me ‘beautiful’. I could never imagine feeling like that again. There was no room in my new world for such happiness, it just didn’t fit in with everything I was about to face up to: Like painting a rainbow on a torture chamber’s wall.
I allow myself one last look before tearing the golden horse into tiny pieces.
Chapter Five:
Elm Tree
I spend the journey home dosing in and out of consciousness, and it’s not until I open my eyes that I see we are not headed for Northampton, but winding through the familiar country roads to Elm Tree House. I glance sideways at my mother and notice her knuckles go white as she grips the steering wheel. She knows what’s coming and I do not intend to disappoint her.
‘Please tell me we’re not going home. Please tell me you haven’t completely lost the plot and are taking me back to the museum.’
Silence.
I spin round to face Izzy, who looks like a mouse in front of an angry viper. ‘We had no choice, Anna. Gramps has flu and the doctor said absolutely not. You can’t be around sick people.’
I digest this in seconds and grab on to my next thought. ‘Take me to Jules!’ Jules and her boyfriend Eddie shared a grim flat in an equally grim location, but anywhere was preferable to what had been proposed.
‘With Jules and Eddie? Do you really think they’ll take care of you? They’ve only visited a couple of times; they have no clue what type of care you need.’
