A Song for Tomorrow

by Alice Peterson

  ‘And remember, if all else fails, we’ve still got cake,’ Susie says, talking with a mouthful of gooey chocolate sponge. Laughing and crying with her, I pick up my fork.

  ‘Thank you, Susie.’

  ‘Anytime. And just remember what my mum says.’ She gestures to her tattoos, thunder and lightning on the inside of one arm, a golden sun on the other. ‘After the storm comes the sunshine.’

  22

  Mary’s Diary

  April 1999

  I was whisking cream, wondering why Alice was taking so long, when finally she came home. I knew instantly something was wrong. She rushed into my arms, saying, ‘I don’t want to leave you all! I’m not ready yet, Mum. I can’t leave you behind. I don’t want to die.’ All I could do was stroke her hair and hold her. I tried so hard not to howl. It broke my heart.

  When Nicholas came home I told him about her appointment. Professor Taylor has spoken to us already about the possibility that Alice will need a heart, lung and liver transplant but I guess, like Alice, we’ve tried not to think about it too much, to live each day at a time. It was hearing Alice say it out loud that really stabbed me in the heart. It felt too real, and too close.

  We were meant to be giving a supper party that night but Nicholas cancelled. Our friends have always been supportive and I love them dearly for that, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that occasionally it’s hard to put on a brave show. I couldn’t face the chance of hearing that their child was travelling or had accepted a job offer abroad, not after our news today.

  Nicholas longed to see Alice but I told him to give her some time alone with Tom, who had just arrived on his bike, from his office. I could hear them laughing together, she needed that. Tom seems like such a positive influence on her. It must be quite something for him to take all this on, as special and lovable as Alice is. I always knew Phil wouldn’t last. Alice needs someone strong, someone as strong as she is to face what lies ahead, someone that she can look up to and feel safe with.

  I called Jake to tell him the news and within half an hour he and Lucy were standing on the doorstep with carrier bags filled with fish and chips. In the end we had a surprisingly happy supper. Jake is always clever at diffusing tension with humour and Tom is a funny man, too. He and Jake seem to have hit it off. Nicholas also likes Tom very much and is now threatening to learn how to kitesurf. Alice was sitting next to me. When she gave my hand a squeeze under the table it made me love her even more. We decided life was too short for washing up, so we left all the dirty plates in the sink, before laughing at Tom who said he’d happily do it and was licking the whisk blades, still covered in whipped cream.

  23

  Alice

  The following morning Tom is out buying croissants, weekend papers and coffee as I do my usual old treatments. I plug in my nebuliser machine. Morning and night, I have to inhale two substances to make my breathing easier. The first one thins the mucus in my chest – I think of it like boiling water melting thick, sticky treacle; the second is an antibiotic to help prevent further infection. There’s always infection in my chest: it’s a matter of keeping it controlled. I’m on nebuliser two (nebs two) filling the tube with an antibiotic that I’ve just taken out of the fridge. I sit cross-legged on my double bed, mouthpiece attached, while my machine makes vibrating gurgling noises as it turns the liquid to a mist before delivering it to my lungs as a vapour. This is the first time Tom will have stayed over long enough to see me on my nebs, I think, grabbing the TV remote control. When he returns thirty minutes later I’m still plugged into my machine, my eyes wide, mist under my nose. For a moment I wonder if he will take one look at me and scarper . . . but then again, it’s Tom . . . not Phil . . .

  ‘You look like a dragon,’ he says as he kicks off his shoes and joins me on the bed.

  ‘Don’t make me laugh.’ When I cough Tom grabs the plastic bowl and thrusts it under my nose.

  Is this too soon? Talk about killing the romance or any mystery factor . . . although a lot of that went yesterday.

  But he doesn’t walk away. ‘Don’t say sorry, Alice.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  We laugh again.

  ‘I’m putting you off your breakfast.’

  ‘No,’ he says, before I cough up more green yuck into the bowl. ‘Maybe just a little.’

  I shoo him away, before taking one of the croissants and my coffee. ‘I’ll join you when I’m done.’

  I watch Tom outside, sitting at the garden table, reading and drinking his coffee, thinking how weirdly comfortable I feel around him already. He comes in when I’ve finished my second nebs and am doing my physio.

  ‘You really can’t get up and go, can you?’ he says.

  ‘Luckily I’m in no hurry to get anywhere.’

  ‘What happens if you don’t do all this?’

  ‘I could miss a day but I’d feel rough.’

  ‘Here, let me help,’ he suggests when I’m trying to reach my lower back. ‘Tell me what to do.’

  So I tell him he needs to cup his hand, ‘. . . like this, and hit.’ I clap my chest firmly in different areas, telling him Dad used to make up songs to help him with the rhythm. ‘It’s always Alice’s fault,’ I sing, ‘It’s always Alice’s fault, goes together like pepper and salt, it’s always always always always always Alice’s fault!’

  ‘See?’ I turn my back towards him and Tom taps me, his touch like a feather brushing against my skin. ‘Harder.’

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you.’

  ‘Dad used to hang me upside down and thump.’

  ‘I’m not doing that.’

  ‘Harder!’

  He does it again.

  ‘Don’t be a weed, put some muscle into it.’

  Pat.

  ‘Think of someone you really don’t like . . . like Daisy Sullivan,’ I help him out.

  ‘Who’s she?’

  Briefly I tell him how I’d fallen prey to her at school.

  ‘In that case she can definitely have it, along with piles.’

  ‘Harder, Tom.’

  Thump.

  ‘Ouch, that did hurt. Who were you thinking of?’

  ‘Whoever invented cystic fibrosis.’

  I turn and wrap my arms around his neck.

  ‘Do you think, when the time comes,’ Tom says with caution in his voice, ‘you would go on a list?’

  ‘Maybe. If I had to.’ Two years, five years . . . I still can’t believe it applies to me. ‘But can we make a pact not to mention the T-word again, and I don’t just mean this weekend.’

  ‘Right.’

  I think of Susie and how she’d said we mustn’t live with a death sentence over our heads. Sensing his uncertainty, slowly I unbutton his shirt. ‘Deal?’

  Distracted by my touch, he agrees. ‘Deal.’

  I am not going on a journey to an operating theatre, never to come out again. Not yet, not until I have at least recorded an album.

  ‘Alice, I was wondering . . .’

  ‘Um?’ I toss his shirt on to the floor.

  ‘George asked me if we wanted to go to Dorset next month . . .’

  I run a hand down his chest.

  ‘It’s in the middle of . . . nowhere . . .’ His eyes rest on mine. ‘Beautiful country . . .’

  ‘Um.’ I’m now unbuckling his belt.

  We kiss. Slowly.

  ‘I know it’s a while off,’ Tom murmurs, ‘but . . .’

  Soon my clothes join his on the floor.

  We don’t finish the conversation.

  24

  It’s May bank holiday, a Friday night, and Tom and I are driving out of London, hoping to get to George’s family home in Dorset by eleven at the latest.

  These past few months have been impossibly happy. Tom and I have spent virtually every night together, either going out for dinner or we hang out at my place. After Cat met him, she’d called the next day asking if he had a brother, and if so, to introduce them at once.

  Unfortunately for Cat, To
m does have an older brother, Ben, but he is married with two children and lives in New York. Tom claims that they aren’t close since there is a six-year age gap and they have always led such different lives. They didn’t play together as children as Ben was off doing his own thing with his own friends.

  As Tom drives, I ask him to tell me more about George since all I know is he’s an architect. ‘After my car crash he visited me in hospital, cans of beer stashed down his jumper. A lot of my friends didn’t know what to say,’ he confides. ‘If anything the accident made George and me closer.’ Tom says he thinks of George more as a brother than a friend. ‘We had a feral upbringing. We were like urchins scampering around, usually up to no good. We’d swim in rivers and come home for supper caked head to toe in mud. It was very Swallows and Amazons.’

  As we reach the motorway there is yet more gridlocked traffic owing to an accident. ‘Go on the hard shoulder,’ I say.

  A smile creeps on to Tom’s face too. ‘Do it,’ I egg him on. ‘If the police stop us I’ll act half dead and you can say we urgently need to get to a hospital.’

  ‘You’ve done this before, haven’t you?’ he says before he sticks on the hazard lights and cruises past all the law-abiding citizens in their stationary cars.

  ‘About time,’ George says when we get there, kissing me on the cheek before telling Tom he’s the last to arrive. I walk into a typical country kitchen: cream Aga, stone floor, pots and pans hanging off hooks and an island in the middle littered with beer bottles, empty crisp packets and a duty-free box of Marlboro Red. Everyone is sitting round the table.

  ‘Let me get you a drink . . . Everyone, this is Alice. Alice, this is Mike, Dan, Tanya, Helen . . .’

  ‘Hi!’ they all say at once, the girls checking me out, one of them lighting a cigarette.

  George’s girlfriend, Tanya, has olive-toned skin and long brown hair tied back in a scarf.

  ‘Blimey, how long are you staying?’ George asks, helping Tom carry in our luggage. ‘What’s all that?’ he asks, watching me open the fridge to find space for my antibiotics and boxes of nebuliser solution. ‘Drugs,’ I say, ‘unfortunately not the fun kind.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ George looks at Tom before he looks back at me. ‘Tom mentioned you have cystic fibrosis. I’m sorry, that must be hard.’

  I sense Tom may have mentioned a lot more, too.

  Tanya swings round to me. ‘You look really well, though, you’d never know.’

  To change the subject, I ask George for a glass of wine. ‘Let’s get drunk,’ I say, raising my glass to them all.

  In the early hours of the morning Tom carries me upstairs to bed, Tanya saying, ‘You have him well trained, Alice.’

  ‘Don’t get any ideas,’ George demands, before heaving her up into a fireman’s lift, Tanya shouting, ‘Put me down, put me down!’ and clearly loving every moment.

  ‘Hi Cat,’ I say the following afternoon, lying on a sun lounger by the pool while the others play tennis.

  The line crackles, the reception poor. This is why I couldn’t live in the country. That, along with the fact that we had to go on a long walk this morning, through fields of nettles and bracken, and they were all walking as if it were a race. I had to stop repeatedly, pretending to tie up my shoelaces, just to catch my breath.

  ‘Can you hear me?’ I shout.

  ‘Just. How’s it going?’

  ‘Good. It’s beautiful here.’ I think of the view from our bedroom window, an expanse of green sloping hills, covered in buttercups, horses and sheep grazing.

  ‘What’s George like?’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘But?’

  I notice him looking at me all the time. Watching Tom and me together. ‘He’s lovely,’ I say, trying to shake off the uneasy feeling that’s been building up over the weekend.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Cat says as George approaches me in his shorts and T-shirt, clutching an expensive-looking tennis racket. ‘How about a game of doubles,’ he calls, ‘me and Tanya against you and Tom.’

  I’d rather stick pins in my eyes.

  ‘Does he know how seriously bad you are?’ Cat is laughing.

  ‘Oh shit.’

  ‘Just say no.’

  ‘Got to go.’

  ‘Where are the others?’ I say to George when he’s standing right by me. Can’t one of them play?

  ‘Budge up.’ I shove my book and headphones on to the floor to make room for him to perch on my sun lounger. ‘Gone into town to pick up some more beers for tonight.’

  I take off my sunglasses. ‘Sorry, I don’t have a racket.’

  ‘Plenty here.’

  ‘I haven’t got the right shoes.’

  ‘I’m sure Tanya could lend you some.’

  Tanya and Tom join us. ‘Let’s take a break, George.’ Tom drops his racket onto the ground. I can tell George is one of those people who always have to be doing something; life is for an adventure, not for sitting still.

  ‘Bless,’ Tanya sighs, looking down at me, dressed in a cute pleated tennis skirt with a pastel pink jumper draped over her shoulders. ‘It must be so gutting for you not to be able to run about.’ She holds her pristine racket across her chest. ‘Such a pity.’

  ‘I can play tennis,’ I say, sitting up abruptly.

  Us CF-ers, we’re not invalids, you know. I know someone who is a professional hockey player. He plays for his country. We don’t only cough for England . . .

  ‘You’re on,’ I find myself saying, much to their surprise, especially Tom’s.

  Upstairs I rummage through my suitcase to find my pair of denim shorts and Adidas trainers. ‘Are you sure you want to play?’ I find the concern in Tom’s voice almost as annoying as Tanya. ‘George can be a bully, but we really don’t have to,’ he says.

  ‘Let’s talk tactics.’ I pull him towards me. ‘I can’t hit the ball or run, so you are going to have to do everything, got it?’

  ‘Great tactics, Alice.’

  ‘How do you manage to be so slim?’ Tanya asks, a touch of envy in her voice as I walk on to the court. ‘What’s your secret?’

  Cystic fibrosis. ‘Genes,’ I say.

  Tom tosses the racket, saying ‘Rough or smooth?’ George and Tanya win the toss; George elects to serve.

  I take the right-hand side of the court. George bounces the ball up and down, posing as if he’s Agassi. Just get on with it. He double faults.

  Great start! Do another three.

  George serves, it’s fast, unfortunately it’s in, Tom hits it back to Tanya, she hits the ball into the bottom of the net.

  Great! She’s as bad as I am . . .

  Love thirty.

  George serves. I miss the ball. By miles.

  Maybe not . . . No one is as bad as I am, except Cat.

  ‘Fifteen thirty.’

  George serves to Tom. Tom hits it back. George whacks it at me.

  ‘Mine!’ I hear Tom call.

  ‘Got it,’ he shouts.

  ‘I’ll take it!’ Tom lunges over to my side of the court.

  ‘Yours,’ I say, when the ball is right in front of me. So funny!

  Thirty all.

  Yes! George does another double fault.

  ‘Bad luck,’ I say, which I know riles him.

  Thirty forty.

  Tom returns George’s serve to Tanya, she hits the ball off the frame of her racket and it flies over the fence and lands in the sludgy green swimming pool.

  Game.

  For the next six games Tom is running, diving, smashing the ball hard enough for both of us. When, finally, I manage to hit a ball over the net I turn to him in such amazement before I hear ‘Alice, watch out!’ But it’s too late. I shall have a lovely bruise on my thigh tomorrow.

  Five games to four and Tom is serving at match point to us. George returns the ball back at me so ferociously that I don’t know what to do . . . probably best to hide behind my racket. I don’t fancy a black eye, too. The ball hits the strings of my racket at a funny a
ngle and lands just inches over the net inside the tramline. ‘Run!’ George bellows at Tanya, but she has no chance given the odd little spin.

  I must be dreaming. Did we win?

  ‘Best of three?’ George suggests with a grimace.

  ‘No,’ Tom pants, sweat dripping off his forehead. ‘I need a strong drink.’

  Later that night, after supper, everyone lights up. ‘I don’t want to pour water over your fun,’ Professor Taylor’s voice says inside my head, ‘but why not ask if they can take their toxic little sticks of nicotine outside or your lungs might as well smoke a whole packet too.’

  Ignoring his warning, I feel a pang of guilt that I skipped physio and my nebs tonight. After tennis I had a bath and crashed out. I think I have a temperature. I feel dehydrated and already my chest feels tight.

  But tonight is more important than tomorrow.

  I turn to Tanya, determined to enjoy myself. I discover she lives close to Pete’s studio in Kentish Town; she works freelance in fashion and beauty PR. She met George through her flatmate and they’ve been going out for three months. ‘He’s suggested we go away at Christmas, so it must be going well.’ She crosses her fingers.

  ‘I fancy booking a ski chalet somewhere cheap and cheerful,’ George says across the table.

  ‘Nowhere is cheap,’ Tanya argues, before muttering to me that she’s always broke.

  ‘You on for it, Tom?’ George catches him looking at me. ‘Snowboarding?’

  ‘Christmas is miles away,’ Tom replies.

  ‘But it’s cheaper if we book ahead. How about you, Alice?’

  Something tells me George is testing how strong our relationship is. ‘Maybe,’ I say, before one of the others lights up. Tanya hits my back when I cough. ‘Does cough mixture help? You poor thing.’

  Don’t call me that.

  George heads over to the fridge and produces another couple of bottles of wine and beer. I shift in my seat when Tom says, ‘Listen, guys, do you think you could smoke outside—’

  ‘No,’ I cut him off. ‘I’m fine.’

  But they all stub out their cigarettes.

  ‘You really don’t have to,’ I tell them, frustrated with Tom.