Margot & Me

by Juno Dawson

  ‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘Does it have dates in?’ I’ve never understood why you’d put fruit in a cake. Way to ruin cake, guys.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ he says in a thick French accent. ‘But I will check.’

  He returns a moment later and confirms there aren’t, so we order sticky toffee pudding and custard and it’s immense. I won’t need to eat again until Christmas.

  ‘OK,’ Mum says, ‘what’s the plan? Do we look for Christmas presents or shall we just look at clothes?’

  I figure in October there’s still plenty of time to get gifts so suggest I may need some winter clothes. I whip through Topshop like Taz of Tasmania before heading to Miss Selfridge, where I try on every party dress I can get my little hands on. ‘What do you think of this one?’ I say, modelling an A-line shift dress in softest pink suede. ‘It’d look cute with my purple platform boots, don’t you think?’

  Mum sighs. ‘But where on earth would you wear it in Llanmarion?’

  I pout. ‘I don’t know. Like parties and stuff?’ I realise this year there won’t be a St Agnes Christmas party and I won’t get an invite to Bethany Monroe’s cocktail night or the charity carol gala.

  Mum inhales deeply through her nostrils and closes her eyes.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m fine. I might need a coffee in a bit.’

  ‘Sure.’

  We get Mum a cappuccino and head to Miss Sixty, where I buy a somewhat risky denim miniskirt. After that we take a look in Schuh and finally Etam. I try on a pale purple leather biker jacket. I can’t decide if it looks amazing or a bit cheap and nasty. ‘What do you think?’ I leave the mirror and turn to Mum.

  She’s not just leaning on a clothes rail, she’s gripping it.

  ‘Mum? Are you OK?’ Her eyes are glassy, fixed on the floor. Suddenly I feel like I’m falling. That feeling when a lift goes down too fast. ‘Mum?’

  Her lips are milk white. ‘Just give me a second, Fliss.’

  She staggers forward and I try to steady her. Even I’m surprised at how light, how fragile, she feels. ‘Mum!’ I sink to my knees, trying to lower her gently to the matted carpet. ‘Please, help!’

  People are already staring and I look up into their eyes, begging them to do something, anything. Why are they just bloody standing there? I beg. ‘Please help! It’s my mum! She’s not well!’

  A shop assistant not much older than me ditches an armful of jumpers on the floor. ‘Erm … I’ll call an ambulance.’

  Mum’s eyes roll back into her skull. ‘Mum? Mum, can you hear me?’

  ‘Fliss …’ she mutters, like she’s dreaming me.

  ‘Mum … stay awake!’ I pat her cheek with my palm because that’s what people do on TV. ‘Mum?’

  Her eyes close and I look up at the onlookers. They stand there gormless, virtually indistinguishable from the mannequins. ‘Mum,’ I whisper in her ear. ‘Please don’t die.’

  You can’t, I think. You can’t die in Tammy Girl.

  Chapter 27

  By the time the ambulance arrives, she’s come round a bit. She’s able to answer the paramedic’s questions, but to me, because I know her, she’s still pretty out of it. ‘I just felt faint,’ she says, but she still can’t stand without support. They put her on a stretcher and wheel her out of Etam’s stockroom and into the waiting ambulance. ‘Can we not make a big fuss?’

  ‘She had cancer. Ovarian cancer,’ I tell the lady paramedic on the curb. She scribbles down notes. ‘She finished chemo in, like, July.’

  ‘OK, thanks, lovey. Hop in and we’ll get her to A&E.’

  I always thought it’d be exciting to ride in an ambulance, but it was just awful. Mum drifts in and out of sleep all the way to the hospital, but she grips my hand tight. Or maybe it’s me gripping hers, I can’t tell. Over and over, I repeat the same phrase in my head: Don’t die don’t die don’t die don’t die don’t die don’t die … What else are you meant to think? We’ve come so far. Five years and five hundred miles to escape Death. We’ve beaten him. Me and Mum together. He can’t have followed us to Llanmarion; I don’t remember leaving a forwarding address. Even if we had, I never thought he’d be arsed to come to this shithole.

  An owl-like doctor and a nurse greet us on arrival. The paramedics babble away in medical jargon and I don’t understand a word they’re saying. ‘What’s going on?’ I ask.

  The doctor looks at me over his horn-rimmed glasses, although he continues to walk briskly alongside the trolley. ‘We don’t know just yet. Are you her daughter?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Felicity. Fliss.’

  ‘Well, Fliss, your mum’s in safe hands now and we don’t think she’s in any immediate danger, she seems to be stabilising nicely. You just sit tight out here and I’ll be back with more information as soon as I have it.’ And with that, all three vanish through a plastic curtain like they’re going into the car wash.

  I’m alone in a sad, minty green corridor that smells of disinfectant. There are brown signs pointing left and right in English and Welsh and I don’t even see a chair to sit on. I hover, about an inch away from lying flat down on the floor and crying.

  A nurse with simply enormous boobs and poorly dyed carrot-coloured hair takes pity on me. ‘You all right, love?’

  ‘They just took my mum in there.’

  She tilts her head. ‘Oh, bless. Come with me. There’s a family room. Is there anyone I can call?’

  ‘Can you ring my grandma?’

  Strangely, the thought of Margot arriving is hugely comforting. I think of the girl who kept her head as bombs fell and when Reg was arrested: good in a crisis. She rocks up about an hour after the nurse calls her. The double doors burst open and she sweeps in on a gale-force wind, thunder on her face. She’s still in her wellies and wax jacket. ‘What’s going on?’ she barks.

  I rise from the armchair and put last January’s Elle to one side. ‘They won’t tell me,’ I say. ‘She’s been in with them for about an hour now and no one is telling me anything.’ My voice gets higher and higher with every word.

  ‘All right. Calm down. I’ll find out what’s happening.’

  ‘They just keep telling me to wait.’

  Margot purses her lips. ‘We’ll see. Come with me.’ I leave all my shopping bags stuffed in the corner and follow her into the corridor. ‘Where did they take her?’

  ‘Through there.’ I point.

  Without a word, Margot just pushes her way through the plastic curtain and I go after her. We don’t get far before a nurse stops us. ‘Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Where’s Julia Baker?’

  Margot tries to step around him, but he blocks her path. ‘Madam, please! She’s under observation.’

  ‘Don’t “madam” me, young man. This isn’t a prison. I want to see her. I’m her mother.’

  He sighs. ‘Wait here.’

  A moment later he returns with Dr Owl. ‘Hello there. I understand you’re Julia’s family.’

  I feel totally rinsed out, heart beating in my ears. ‘That’s right,’ Margot says. ‘How is she?’

  ‘She’s stable and conscious. She’s tired, but you can go through now. We’ve just moved her onto the oncology ward.’

  I’m not a doctor, but I’ve heard that word plenty of times. Oncology equals cancer. ‘Margot, what’s—’

  ‘Come along, Felicity,’ she says, cutting me off.

  We follow the nurse, Gary according to his name badge, into a lift to the fourth floor. More toothpaste-coloured corridors, on and on like in Labyrinth, until we finally reach the cancer ward. There are about twenty beds, each partitioned with fabric screens. Mum is in the fifth bay. She’s been propped up and is awake. She already looks a million times better.

  I throw myself at her like a two-year-old. ‘Mum!’ I bury my face in her chest.

  ‘My God, Fliss, I’m so sorry,’ she says. ‘You must have been terrified.’
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  ‘It’s OK,’ I say, wiping back a tear of pure relief.

  Margot looms over the foot of the bed. Her face is ashen, but her arms are folded. ‘Julia, what on earth were you thinking? Taking the car? You’re nowhere near well enough! Felicity, was this your idea?’

  ‘Oh, Mum, stop bloody getting at her!’ Mum snaps. ‘It was all my idea. I was bored, all right?’

  Margot seems to soften. ‘Felicity,’ she says, ‘you’d better sit down.’ She gestures to the blue visitor chair next to the bedside cabinet.

  I don’t want to leave Mum’s side. I perch on the edge of the bed. Mum holds my hand. I can see where the silver needle sits in her vein, stuck down with a bit of surgical tape. ‘Why? What is it?’

  ‘She has to know, Julia. It’s gone on long enough. It’s not fair.’ Margot’s voice is quiet and firm.

  ‘Mum …’ my mum starts, but then just stops and squeezes my hand more tightly.

  I look between them. ‘OK, like now I’m wigging out. Will someone please tell me what’s going on?’

  They share a highly loaded glance. ‘Fliss,’ Mum begins, ‘you have to understand that we both just want what’s best for you.’

  I don’t know where this is going, but my gut is screaming that the destination isn’t exactly Disneyland Paris. A fresh tear sneaks out of the corner of my eye. ‘Mum, are you ill again?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admits, and a tear rolls down her face too. She quickly wipes it away, pulling herself together. ‘Well, no, that’s not right either … Fliss … I was never better.’

  ‘What?’

  She takes a deep breath. ‘In July, Dr Palmer told me the cancer had spread to my bones and that it wasn’t responding to the chemotherapy. There’s nothing else they can do, love. It’s terminal.’

  My hand covers my mouth although there’s no sound coming out. It feels like I’ve been punched in the stomach.

  ‘I had two choices. I could either keep having more chemo and radiotherapy, even though the chances of it working were slim-to-none, or they could make me comfortable for the last few months with painkillers. Fliss, you know more than anyone how sick the chemo made me, and they don’t think it’ll make the slightest bit of difference. I don’t want to spend my last days with you off my face on drugs. I want to enjoy my time with my family. That’s why we came to Llanmarion.’

  Last days. I’m suddenly very aware of time. I can practically feel the seconds floating up like bubbles and then popping, gone. ‘How … long?’ I ask, my voice hardly there.

  ‘They said six months, perhaps a year, but that was in July.’ She can’t look me in the eye. A suffocating silence fills the cubicle. Margot is still stood like a tombstone over the bed. I look between them.

  ‘You lied to me! You told me you were getting better!’ Six months? Six months is all that I have left with Mum? No! Six months from July … which leaves me with, like, three.

  ‘Felicity, this is not the time or the place—’ Margot interrupts warningly.

  ‘No!’ I snap. ‘You lied!’ I pull my hand back from Mum’s.

  ‘Felicity!’ This time Margot shouts.

  ‘Stop it right now, both of you!’ Mum says. ‘Fliss, you can either throw a tantrum about how I don’t treat you like an adult, or you can actually behave like one. Which is it to be?’

  Well, I can’t say anything now, can I? I hide under my hair and bite my tongue.

  Mum goes on. ‘I didn’t want you to know until you absolutely had to, Fliss. I hoped they were wrong. I got a second opinion when we got here. I wanted to be sure. What good would knowing have done you? Who wants to hear they’ve got six months left to live? I just wanted things to be as normal as possible – for us.’

  ‘How could they be?’ My voice trembles.

  Mum looks me dead in the eye. ‘I had to bring you here first. To be with Margot. I think the universe is sending me a pretty clear message that it wants me dead.’

  I must visibly flinch.

  ‘We’ve got to accept that now, Fliss. We haven’t got time to faff around with wishing when there’s so much to do in so little time. Fliss, I’m not going to leave you alone in the world. I have to know that you’re gonna be OK with Margot.’ Now she turns to Margot. ‘And you – shut away in the middle of nowhere – it’s not healthy, Mum. You’re just going to get worse and worse until you’re the mad recluse that kids tell scary stories about. That’s why I need you two to get along. I don’t want to … go … worrying about what’s going to happen to either of you. I want to go in peace.’

  That shuts us both up. Now it’s not just me staring at Mum open-mouthed, but Margot too.

  ‘So now you know, Fliss. This was the time to tell you.’

  I guiltily track back through all the stupid stuff I’ve said and done since July. Every time I’ve whined, every time I’ve asked for money, every time I’ve wittered on about something on the TV. ‘I … I could have helped.’

  ‘You have, Fliss. You’ve done enough these last few years, more than most girls your age have to do. I want to see you live.’

  My brain starts to process what I’m being told. I thought Mum was getting better. After all this time it turns out she’s not. It’s the bit at the end of the horror movie when the dead monster gets back on his feet.

  My mum is going to die.

  In a matter of weeks.

  I start to panic.

  I want a do-over.

  I want the last five years back so I can make every moment golden for her. I want to scrub clean the times I refused to do my chores or stayed out late or played my music too loud. ‘Mum, I don’t want you to go.’ It sounds pathetic, but it’s all I want to say.

  ‘I don’t want to go either,’ Mum says, holding me close.

  They might discharge her tonight, we’re told, so me and Margot are sent to the family room to wait. The heating is on too high. My eyes feel dry. Hot Dettol and machine coffee acid sting my nostrils. I sit, but Margot stands, loitering by the door. She looks me over. ‘Are you all right?’

  Is she serious? ‘No. My mum is dying.’ The room bulges with the silence that follows. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Yes,’ she admits.

  ‘The whole time?’

  She considers her next words for a second. ‘We thought it best to give you a chance to settle into Llanmarion before you knew the truth.’

  The anger is the only thing keeping me afloat, so I cling to it like a life raft. ‘You should have told me. It’s not fair.’

  Margot doesn’t take her eyes off me as she lowers herself into one of the stiff armchairs opposite. As elegantly as you possibly can in Hunter wellies, she crosses one long leg over the other. ‘I bet you don’t remember Lewis, do you?’

  The sudden change of topic throws me. ‘What?’

  ‘Lewis. Your mum went out with him about a year and a half after your father died. Tall man, long blond-ish hair.’

  I tuck my hair behind my ear with great purpose. ‘Is this going somewhere?’

  ‘He was absolutely charming. Very talented visual artist, if I remember rightly. Started a charity to get young offenders into the arts. Handsome, intelligent and sweet. Knew your mum was still grieving, waited like a perfect gentleman.’

  I throw my hands up. ‘So what, Margot?’

  ‘The reason you don’t remember him, Felicity, is because your mum broke it off with him. For you. She thought it was too soon. She didn’t want you to feel as if she’d replaced your father with a new one.’ Her eyes drill into my skull. ‘She could have been really, really happy with Lewis. And she gave it all up for you.’

  I can’t take it any more. Why is she doing this to me? ‘Oh my God! What do you want me to do? Feel worse? I don’t think I possibly could!’ I blub.

  ‘Don’t ever question why your mother does the things she does. One day you’ll understand.’

  Through snot and tears I stare her down. ‘What? When I’m a mother? I guess I’m not much younger than you were.’ She recoils
slightly, only a fraction, but enough for me to notice. At once I feel bad for hitting so far below the belt. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Margot doesn’t retaliate, although she’d be well within her rights to. Instead she sighs like she’s never been more disappointed in anything.

  Chapter 28

  Here’s the science bit. Concentrate.

  At some point since her last bout of chemo, malignant cancer cells spread to my mum’s hip bone and her spinal cord. Her bones are crumbling, she has too much calcium in her bloodstream and she’s in constant pain. She’s constipated and losing bladder control. In short, Mum’s forty-year-old body has completely turned against her.

  She is dying.

  How could I have not seen this? I’m so stupid! Am I that self-centred? It had struck me as a little odd that she was still looking so pale and skinny, but I allowed myself to believe it was just another cold, that it was all totally normal for her to be so frail. I pushed it under a mental rug. I didn’t want to see it. I pretended.

  The hospital kept her in on the Tuesday night, but Margot brought her home the next day. She spent the rest of half-term week in bed or hobbling around with a crutch. Her hips are breaking up. It’s too awful to think about for long.

  I throw myself into being a perfect little nurse. I pull up carrots and parsnips and cabbages from the vegetable patch to make broth. I get Margot to kill and pluck the chicken. You have to draw a line somewhere, right? I read to her and help her to the bathroom. At least now I know the truth I can help, reverting back into nurse mode. It’s babyish, but I suppose a part of me thinks if I take good enough care of her she might not … well, die.

  Margot and I … cooperate, I guess. For Mum’s sake. We’re finally on the same page. I can play nice if she can. All the days roll into one. I make up an excuse to skip Danny’s Halloween night, and, before I know it, it’s Sunday and I haven’t even started my holiday assignments. ‘I’ll get Margot to write you a note,’ Mum says from under a blanket on the sofa. ‘Christ, Fliss, I’ve written you excuse letters for less. You once had a period every week for a month so you didn’t have to do swimming.’