A Song for Tomorrow

by Alice Peterson

  Tom finds a quiet corner to sit down. As he reads, he can’t help but see the words . . .

  Incurable.

  A silent killer.

  Life expectancy is thirty.

  He closes the book. Takes a deep breath. Reopens it cautiously, as if the pages might bite.

  Thirty.

  Thirty?

  Tom slams the book shut, gets up and shoves it back into the shelf. She’d looked so well, positively glowing with health. It can’t be true. How can life be so cruel? Why should someone like Alice have CF? Why isn’t there a cure? She has only years to live. It makes no sense. There are people living well into their nineties for fuck’s sake. Surely something can be done to help her? He presses a hand against his forehead, cursing the lottery of life. He glances over at the assistant, desperately sorry for her that she lost her close friend to this monster of a disease that only minutes ago he’d known nothing about.

  What was he going to do now? Turn up at the hospital? Call her? But say what, exactly? The reality is he doesn’t know her. He probably imagined the chemistry between them. She has a boyfriend.

  Should he get involved?

  She is ill.

  She is going to die.

  He has no choice but to walk away.

  8

  Alice

  It’s Friday morning, I’ve been in hospital since Monday and I’m feeling better after starting a course of intravenous antibiotics (IVs). I force down another mouthful of cereal. Professor Taylor talked to me about an operation to insert a tube into my stomach, which would be attached to a night feed. ‘While you’re asleep you’d be consuming almost two thousand calories which could help you keep a healthier weight,’ he’d said. Apart from digestive problems, another reason people with CF are underweight is that we lose our appetite when we have chest infections. When we are well we need to stock up on our calorie intake so that the next time an infection hits us, we won’t become dangerously underweight when we eat less or skip meals. I don’t like the idea of a tube inserted into my stomach but if it takes the pressure off constantly thinking about eating, maybe it’s worth it.

  I still haven’t talked to him about my singing.

  Finding the right time is impossible.

  But I will.

  He’s here.

  Right now.

  I can hear him talking to one of the nurses outside. I haven’t even washed my face or had a shower. I grab my hairbrush before Professor Taylor strides into the room, dressed in his white coat, his entourage trailing behind. ‘I can see you’ve made yourself at home,’ he says with that half smile, glancing at my music machine and CDs sitting on the top of my fridge, my striped duvet cover that Mum brought in for me, a heap of glossy magazines scattered on the floor and across my bed, along with my lyrics book and sheets of paper with pencilled ideas for songs.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asks.

  ‘Much better.’ I decide to test the water with ‘Can I go home soon?’

  He turns to his disciples. ‘I put Alice on an IV course to knock the infection on the head.’

  ‘Knock? You mean give it a major Mike Tyson blow,’ I suggest, punching the air with my fist and making one of the registrars smile.

  Professor Taylor tries not to laugh too. I can tell he’s in a good mood. ‘You’re doing really well, Alice. Keep it up. I want to see you back on your feet, dancing hip-hop or whatever you call it, in no time.’ Professor Taylor has always known how much I love dancing. When I was studying my English degree from home he asked me, ‘How’s the degree in nightclubbing going?’

  I try another little push. ‘Do you think I could go home this weekend?’

  For a second he looks hesitant so I give it one more attempt: ‘You’re looking impossibly handsome today.’

  ‘Monday morning. . .’

  ‘Oh, Professor Taylor.’

  ‘. . . if you’re a model patient. I’ll check up on you later, make sure you haven’t escaped.’ As he heads out of the room, the registrar looks over his shoulder and winks at me. ‘Stop flirting,’ Professor Taylor says as if he has eyes in the back of his head. ‘She’ll eat you for breakfast.’

  The next morning, after blood tests to make sure I’m on the correct dose of antibiotics, I find myself alone, waiting for Susie and Milly to arrive.

  As I stare out of the window I think back to the first time I met Susie at The Royal Brompton Hospital, or the Brompton as we call it. It was five years ago. I was twenty-one, Susie twenty-three. I watched as she produced a tatty paperback and nutty snack bar from her rucksack, clearly prepared for our clinic to be running late. She had short light brown hair with a natural frizz and was wearing a cotton cardigan over a pretty flowery sundress, but what I was most drawn to were her petite red sandals showing off intricate vine-leaf tattoos. Tempted to get one myself, I’d asked if it had been painful.

  ‘Agony,’ she said, looking up from her book. ‘Ethan, my boyfriend, told me I was squeezing his hand to death.’ She then turned to me, saying, ‘But at least it was my choice to stick a needle into my body, you know what I mean?’

  I nodded. Since the day we’d both been born our bodies had been subjected to relentless scrutiny. As if reading my mind she said, ‘All this . . .’ gesturing to the waiting room and the haunting sound of coughing, ‘It’s hard, isn’t it? When I’m waiting to see the Prof I always imagine I’m somewhere else.’

  ‘Lying on a beach,’ I suggested.

  ‘Baking with my mum.’ She rolled up the sleeve of her cardigan before showing me a tattoo of thunder and lightning on one arm. On the other was a picture of the sun. ‘Mum used to say to me, “after the storm comes the sunshine”. She died a couple of years ago; breast cancer. I still miss her.’ I handed her my red handkerchief.

  Susie and I had been friends for six months before we met Milly in the hospital waiting room. Like Susie and me, she was slight in build, and her long red wavy hair accentuated her pale skin and green eyes. When a nurse began to hand leaflets round to each patient, leaflets encouraging us to join a support group, I only had to look at Susie to know she was conjuring the exact same image as me: a circle of sad droopy people sitting in a village hall. I skimmed over the leaflet before noticing Susie sticking chewing gum into hers. We then glanced at this red-haired girl, about the same age as us, clearly unsure what to do with hers. ‘Don’t sign up,’ Susie had whispered to her.

  ‘Positively bad for your health,’ I’d added.

  From then on, Susie, Milly and I decided to form what we called The Anti Support Group.

  Like me, Milly is close to her mother, but her father walked out on them when she was seven and never came home. ‘I think I put him off his food,’ she’d said, trying to make a joke, but it was easy to see the hurt ran deep. It made me realise again how fortunate I am that my family hasn’t fractured; if anything, my CF has made us stronger. I hear a knock on the door before Susie and Milly burst into my room, laden with shopping bags.

  ‘If you can’t get to the anti support group,’ Susie says, producing magazines out of one bag, ‘then we come to you, bearing gifts of celebrity gossip, rice pudding and custard.’ It’s a tradition of ours. Each time one of us is in hospital, the other two visit with high-calorie food and other treats. The last time Milly was in hospital Susie and I arranged for a beauty therapist to come in and give her a facial. Susie opens the fridge next to my bed. Every CF patient has his or her own individual room, along with a private bathroom.

  ‘Thought we could play some cards,’ suggests Milly, producing a pack from her handbag. ‘And you love this smell, don’t you?’ She hands me a pretty glass bottle of green tea shower gel. ‘Thanks so much,’ I say, touched, as they both gather round my bed for an anti support group hug.

  ‘Budge up,’ says Milly, taking off her thick winter coat before lying down on the bed. ‘Ah, this is heaven. A rest.’ Only Milly and Susie can get away with saying something like that. ‘My boss has been extra vile this week.’ Milly is a
PA for a high-powered businessman who lives in a multi-million pad on Richmond Green. She says he can be charming but on the wrong day it’s like working under a thundercloud.

  Susie picks a sheet of paper off the floor. ‘ “Nothing is Forever”,’ she reads out loud. I wrote the song the day after Phil and I broke up.

  Milly reaches for my hand. ‘I can’t believe he said those things to you.’

  ‘I can,’ Susie mutters. ‘Men are . . .’

  ‘Not all men,’ I argue.

  ‘You don’t know this Tom guy,’ Susie claims, always able to read my mind. ‘Most men are charming when you first meet them; even Ethan was.’

  Susie and Ethan have been going out together for almost ten years. I’m certain he doesn’t believe anyone else would take her on, which is why he thinks he has a licence to treat her like a skivvy because, deep down, he knows she’s never going to leave him.

  I would never have let Phil treat me like that but I am scared of being on my own.

  ‘I’m sure if you’re meant to meet Tom again, you will,’ Milly assures me.

  Milly is permanently single. Both Susie and I believe she’s terrified of rejection, so throws herself into work instead. Add to that a father who walked out on them and I can understand why she is hesitant to trust a man, let alone believe he can make her happy.

  ‘You know what,’ I tell them, trying to snap out of missing somebody I don’t even know, ‘I’m having a break.’

  Milly turns to me. ‘A holiday?’

  ‘A break from men for three months.’

  Susie laughs as if it’s more likely she’ll travel to the moon. ‘Being single might work for Milly the nun . . .’

  ‘I haven’t met the right man yet,’ Milly points out.

  ‘Mr Right doesn’t exist,’ Susie insists. ‘Wait for him and you’ll be pushing up daisies in your grave. Hilarious.’

  ‘They don’t have to be perfect, no one is,’ Milly argues, ‘but I want to meet someone who supports me, who isn’t scared of what we face. I’m not going out with any old person just because I don’t want to be on my own.’

  Susie and I remain quiet. ‘Is it fair to let someone fall in love with us,’ Milly continues, ‘when we’re . . .’ She trails off, yet Susie and I know what she was about to say. The three of us have to face our own mortality every day.

  ‘Bet you a tenner it won’t last longer than a month,’ Susie challenges me, clearly desperate to change the subject.

  ‘Bet you twenty. I’m going to concentrate on my music.’

  ‘I always knew I wanted to be a hairdresser,’ Susie reflects. Susie is a colour technician. ‘Ever since I was little I longed for blonde hair like yours, Alice. I didn’t want to be the mousy girl, overlooked by the boys. I wanted to be the blonde bombshell. So I began to dye my hair, and all my friends’ hair, with Wella colour mousse. Dad hated the idea of me sweeping hair off the floor so he enrolled me on this computer course that put me to sleep. Finally I stood up to him, saying I was going to follow my own heart, do what made me happy, and I’ve never looked back since.’

  Milly agrees. ‘Because let’s face it, life’s too short,’ she says, just as someone knocks on the door.

  ‘Hello.’ He enters the room, carrying a plastic bag. ‘You don’t remember me, do you?’

  I’m still staring at him.

  Am I dreaming Tom is standing in front of me?

  ‘I’ll come back,’ he says, when he notices Milly and Susie also open-mouthed.

  ‘No no, you stay,’ Susie says, hopping up and putting her coat back on, ‘we were just leaving, weren’t we?’ She eyeballs Milly.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ Milly kisses me goodbye before hotfooting it out of the room.

  I pull my cardigan closely around me. The last place I wanted to see Tom again was in here. I catch Susie’s eye behind the small glass window of my door. ‘You owe me twenty quid,’ she mouths, before sticking her thumbs up and then promptly being pulled away by Milly.

  ‘I was passing by.’ I sense Tom is as nervous as me. He hovers at the end of the bed and glances at my lyrics book. ‘I’m interrupting you.’ He heads to the door, as if he shouldn’t have come. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

  ‘No!’

  Tom turns round.

  ‘Please stay,’ I urge, unable to let him slip through my fingers again.

  He walks over to the blue plastic chair by the side of my bed, close to the window and towel dispenser. His steps are tentative, as if he’s walking on eggshells. Like most men, clearly he doesn’t like hospitals. Dad can’t sit with me for more than five minutes before staring at the door, planning his escape.

  Still in shock I watch him take off his coat and scarf. ‘You’re not missing much outside.’ He rubs his hands together. ‘It’s freezing.’

  ‘How did you know I was here?’

  Tom blushes. ‘Please don’t think I’m mad, but after we met I called the gallery. Your brother happened to be there . . .’ He pauses. ‘I told Jake a white lie,’ he confesses. ‘I said you and I were hoping to meet for a drink, that you’d given me your number but foolishly I’d lost it.’

  ‘Right.’ I try to disguise my delight that he’d wanted to track me down.

  ‘He then happened to tell me you were in hospital.’ Finally Tom sits down. ‘You look well.’

  ‘I’m great.’

  There is another long pause.

  ‘I gather you have cystic fibrosis.’ He pronounces the words slowly. Cautiously.

  I wave a hand, as if shooing the CF away. ‘I had this bad infection, that’s all. I’ll be going home soon.’

  ‘I don’t know much about cystic—’

  ‘It’s boring.’

  ‘Not to me.’

  ‘It’s a lung condition. I’ve had it since birth.’ Please don’t feel sorry for me or call me brave.

  He hands me a bag. I take a peek inside and see grapes and chocolate. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You look well,’ he repeats.

  ‘I am.’

  Tom rests one foot over his thigh. His thick blond hair is swept back from his forehead, emphasising those blue eyes.

  He must pick up on my discomfort.

  I’d fantasised about seeing Tom’s face across a crowded room at a party. I don’t want him to see me dressed in a tracksuit, lying in a hospital bed.

  ‘When I was eighteen,’ he says, ‘I was driving up north in my red Fiat Panda. I was about to begin my first term at university.’

  Curious where this is going, I say, ‘You don’t look like a red Fiat Panda kind of guy.’

  He smiles back at me. ‘That night I was meeting my father for supper. He’d called to warn me, “If you’re late, son, it’s the Little Chef!” It was dark and pelting with rain, the roads were slippery, but I put my foot down.’

  I don’t like where this is heading.

  ‘My car skidded round a left-hand bend.’ He takes a deep breath, as if he can see the accident happening all over again. ‘There was a lorry. The moment I saw it I thought, this is going to be close . . . very close . . . it’s too close . . . fuck . . . I’m dead.’ He shifts in his seat. ‘The fire brigade cut me out of the car saying, “You’re safe. Stay with us.” I don’t remember much else except worrying about the lorry driver.’

  ‘Was he OK?’

  ‘Miraculously.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘I was lying on a slab in A&E, drugged to the eyeballs, when Dad came rushing to my side. He’s not one to show tears, he’s your typical Alpha male, so when I saw the pain and shock in his eyes I knew it was bad. I spent months laid up in hospital. The right hand side of my body was smashed to pieces. I didn’t think I’d ever walk or see the outside world again.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how awful that must have been.’

  He looks at me with kindness. ‘I imagine you can. It’s nothing like what you have to go through.’

  Don’t pity me. I’m not a victim. ‘Tom, as strange as this sounds, this i
s normal to me.’ I shrug. ‘I have to take my meds just like you have to brush your teeth.’

  He doesn’t argue but I sense he doesn’t quite believe it’s as simple as that either. ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘I thought I’d come by because I remember what a relief it was when friends visited me. It made a dull day counting the dots on the ceiling a little bit brighter.’

  A nurse enters my room. It’s Janet, one of my favourites. ‘Oh, I didn’t know you had company. I’ll come back later for your massage,’ she tells me.

  ‘Thanks.’ I turn to Tom. ‘She does the best back and shoulder massages.’

  ‘Alice, I was wondering . . . Alice?’

  I’m pretending to be asleep because I’ve just heard one of Mum’s art class friends, Barbara, talking to Janet, outside in the corridor. She enjoys broadcasting doom amongst the class. ‘Barbara loves nothing more than a good old cancer story,’ Mum says.

  I open my eyes to warn Tom, ‘I’m asleep.’

  The door swings open.

  ‘I’m a friend,’ I hear Tom whisper. ‘I’m so sorry, she went out like a light.’

  I snore, trying not to laugh.

  ‘My boring conversation must have finished her off,’ Tom says.

  ‘Bless!’ Barbara exclaims. ‘Well, I brought her some of my special parsnip soup, so warming in the winter.’ Next I hear the sound of a lid snapping. ‘All fresh organic ingredients made by my very own hand. Smell it.’

  Poor Tom.

  ‘Um. Delicious.’

  ‘Can you detect the secret ingredient?’

  ‘Er, parsnip?’

  ‘Curry. I know Alice loves her curry. Bless her, poor love, so fragile and thin. Such a pity! I don’t know how the family cope, I really don’t.’

  ‘Admirably, I’m sure, if they’re anything like Alice.’ Through a half-closed eye I can see Tom ushering Barbara towards the door. ‘Bye now,’ he’s saying, his hand clamped against her back.

  When it’s safe to open my eyes, I tell him, ‘You were amazing.’

  Tom bows. But why is he putting on his coat? ‘I’m sure you’re pretty tired . . .’