‘You won’t, I swear you won’t.’ I slip my hand into his. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ We look at one another as if we both realise this is it now. We are about to jump on to one of the most fearsome, scariest of rides and there is no going back.
26
Mary’s Diary
May 1999
I walked to the canteen and ordered some filthy-looking coffee, feeling like a neat gin instead. I couldn’t help noticing the woman sitting on the next-door table. She looked as if she hadn’t slept for weeks. Mind you, I’m sure I didn’t look much better. This woman was aimlessly stirring her drink as she stared into space. I wondered if she had a child with CF. Immediately I felt empathy. How I love and hate this hospital. I love it because the care is wonderful but I hate it because I’m here too often. Alice is here too often. Each time we come back it reminds me of what we are up against and how Alice’s turns, or ‘funnies’ as we call them, are so unpredictable. Believe me, they are anything but funny. It’s far from a term of endearment. It’s just a word we have attached ourselves to, probably because it sounds less frightening than saying we’re not quite sure what these ‘funny turns’ are. Professor Taylor doesn’t know how to explain them, either. When Alice’s face goes numb, when her arm goes dead, it looks as if she is having a mini stroke. Sometimes they trigger blood; other times not. The first time she had one was when she was about sixteen and after all these years I’m still not used to them. I never shall be. Every time she goes on holiday or away for a weekend, even out for dinner with Cat or with Tom, I fear she might have one. Even more frightening is the idea of her having a funny when she’s driving on her own. She could die.
As I sipped my coffee I missed my mother. She died of pneumonia when Alice was ten. My fondest memories were of walking around the garden hand in hand, Mum reassuring me I could always talk to her about anything that worried me. I wiped away my tears and glanced at my watch. I’d given Alice and Tom plenty of time.
I returned to the ward like a mother dragon ready to breathe her fire again. I was about to open the door when I saw, through the window, Alice and Tom in bed. In bed! I was about to barge in when I watched Tom wrapping his arms around her. There was something so tender about the way he did it – it brought more tears to my eyes. I realised it was the first time one of Alice’s boyfriends had visited her in hospital. Alice had always told them not to. But anyone that cared, truly cared, wouldn’t have listened.
The way Alice looked at Tom reminded me of the way I’d looked at Nicholas when we were young and in love. The way I still look at him. We met in Lausanne. We used to spend evenings at coffee bars drinking and smoking, but went out with different people until I met him a few years later at a dance. In he strode, tall, blond, blue eyes that lit up when he smiled. He was handsome in every way. I knew his face instantly, making sure I sat next to him over dinner. I sneakily changed the name places around. It’s something Alice would have done, too.
I jumped when I heard his voice. I turned to Nicholas and he held me in his arms. Nothing has changed. Our bond has grown deeper since having our children. If anything I love him even more. ‘How is she?’ he asked. ‘I’m so sorry I wasn’t with you.’ He’d been staying with his mother for the night.
‘You’re here now,’ I said.
Nicholas wanted to go in and see Alice. I also wanted to apologise to Tom. These funnies come without warning. Tom wasn’t the cause; he had simply been the easiest person to lash out at at the time. Nicholas knocked on the door. ‘Mum’s already caught us in bed once,’ Alice said with a small smile as we entered the room. ‘It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before.’ Nevertheless Tom stood up and shook my husband’s hand, before Nicholas hugged his daughter, telling her off for giving us such a fright. I caught Tom’s eye, wanting him to understand that I’d only been protecting my daughter, and I knew, just from the way he looked back at me that he’d never blamed me in the first place. In that moment I knew Tom was strong enough to deal with this and with us. If you go out with Alice, you go out with our entire family.
I looked at Alice. She seemed a better colour and much happier now that she had sorted things out with Tom. When a nurse came in to take Alice’s temperature she said, ‘I’m feeling fine now, can I go home?’ I couldn’t help but smile as Alice continued cleverly to negotiate her release.
27
Alice
‘Oh, I had it then,’ I hit my forehead with my lyrics book, ‘and now it’s gone.’
Rita raises an eyebrow. ‘Why don’t you come back to it when you’re feeling fresh,’ she says, preparing to take my bloods. I’m back at home, in the middle of my two-week IV course, finishing off what was started at the hospital after my weekend in Dorset.
‘I never feel fresh.’ Restlessly I press ‘play’ again, listening to the chorus of ‘The Right Time’ that Pete recorded onto a cassette for me.
Pete is always going on about constructing a beat, a beat that is the heart of the song. I get now that my sound isn’t pop; it’s cinematic, orchestral, filled with strings, drama and the bass drum. The minor chord in this song makes it edgier and darker than ‘If I Fall’.
‘It’s like pulling teeth,’ I sigh, throwing my lyrics book down.
‘Stop being a drama queen.’
‘I can’t write.’
‘Yes you can.’
‘I can’t, Rita.’
‘As I said, come back to it . . .’
‘I don’t have time to come back to it.’ I’m seeing Pete this afternoon and he’s expecting some progress. I missed our studio session last week. He understands why, but I know he feels just as frustrated as I do. Missed sessions break our momentum. ‘Can you grab my inhaler?’ I gesture to my chest of drawers.
‘What’s wrong with your legs?’
Ignoring her, I listen to the song again. I had such a good idea in the middle of the night. Why didn’t I write it down?
Rita hands me my inhaler just as I rip the piece of paper out of my book and toss it across the floor. ‘I need to see more of the world to write, not feel trapped in the four walls around me!’ I say, before offering her my arm.
‘If it was a doddle we’d all be pop stars, Alice, rubbing shoulders with Madonna and the Backstreet Boys.’
The needle plunges into my bruised skin, making me want to swear, scream and shout, but I hold it all inside.
‘Nothing in this life is easy,’ Rita continues, ‘believe you me. If it came too easy we’d never value it.’
Sure, but sometimes I wish it were just a little easier . . .
As Rita packs up her things and is about to leave, she turns and says, ‘I haven’t travelled much. The sun hates me, I come out in hives, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t experienced life. You don’t need to travel the world to write a good song, Alice. Life is about relationships with other people, not visiting temples or climbing the Eiffel Tower. You’ve experienced more than most twenty-somethings. You just need to dig that bit deeper to find yourself.’
After Rita has left, everything is quiet except for the sound of Nutmeg purring at the foot of my bed.
I think about what Rita just said.
My mind then drifts to Tom and how I nearly lost him.
I pick up my pen.
Early afternoon I arrive in the studio. Pete is leaning against his desk, talking on his mobile. The microwave pings. I open the door and take out two soggy looking sausage rolls. ‘One for you,’ he mouths, gesturing to the two plates. I love this studio. The mixing deck, compressor, amplifier, all these machines have become my friends. I sit down on the squidgy sofa and take off my shoes. This place feels far away from home, the hospital, from the other life I lead.
‘You feeling better?’ Pete asks when he’s off the phone.
‘Fine. Good.’ I open my lyrics book. ‘Are you ready?’
Pete taps on the keyboard and soon the background music of ‘The Right Time’ is booming out of the speakers, Pete playing around with various buttons to adj
ust the sound, a line flickering across his monitor screen. ‘Stop,’ I tell him, picking up my guitar. ‘I’ve actually written something else.’
‘Something else?’
‘Yeah. I still want to work on the other song, but this . . . it just came out this morning. It’s called “Let It Rain”.’
‘Lost inside this demon town
please stay in me
I’m so scared I’m gonna drown
please forgive me
Let it rain
let it snow
I don’t care so long’s you know
that I don’t wanna be alone
without you
Let it rain
let it clear
let the sunshine reappear
I don’t care so long’s you’re near
believe me
so let it rain
I don’t know what I was thinking
til I thought of you
I didn’t know that I was sinking
til you came into view . . .’
At the end of the song I look at Pete. He leans back in his chair, rests his hands behind his head, his expression giving nothing away. Finally he says, ‘I was so fucking wrong about you.’
Early evening, after playing around with some of the lyrics, the background sound and recording ‘Let It Rain’, I collapse onto the sofa, too happy to care that every part of my body is aching. We have written our first song together. Pete asks if I want to celebrate with a coffee at the café round the corner. I look at my watch; it’s close to seven o’clock. We’ve been here for nearly five hours and neither one of us has had a break. Our sausage rolls are stone cold.
Over coffee I find myself confiding in Pete about my weekend in Dorset. It’s easy to talk to someone who isn’t part of the family or in my circle of friends.
‘Let’s give you a few more weekends from hell and we’ll soon have an album,’ he says. ‘In my opinion, being happy doesn’t make you as creative.’
‘You need to be a tortured soul, right? How about you? Are you happy?’
‘Happy is a tricky thing,’ he reflects, ‘but for the first time in years I’m in a relationship that’s not fuelled by drugs and alcohol. We’re in it because we love one another. Much scarier to say you love someone when you’re sober,’ he confesses, hinting to his darker past.
‘Will you get married?’
‘Maybe.’ He stirs his coffee. ‘I’ve done my time being an idiot and waking up in strangers’ beds.’
‘What’s Katie like?’ All I know is that she’s a nurse.
‘Beautiful. Funny. Clever. Far too good for me.’
‘How did you meet?’
‘Listen, I’m glad you told me about the transplant,’ he says, clearly wanting to change the subject. ‘My only experience of disability . . .’
I must have frowned.
‘. . . of adversity, then, is a friend of mine. He was running for a cab, lunged forward, signalling to the driver to stop, but had a stroke there and then that paralysed him down one side. He did rebuild his life, a strong bloke, but it was tough.’ Pete looks at me, as if he’s bracing himself to ask me something important. ‘Alice, when the time comes to approach record companies, do we mention your CF?’
I shake my head. ‘I want them to judge me for my music. Before I’ve even opened my mouth it’ll be ‘no’ in their minds. I’d be too much of a risk.’
When Pete doesn’t say anything, I press him. ‘Isn’t that what you think?’
‘I’m not sure, that’s why I’m asking you.’
‘If someone you worked with had depression you wouldn’t say to the A&R guy, “Oh by the way, this person is a manic depressive”, would you?’ A&R stands for Artists and Repertoire; they’re the people in the music industry who are scouting for talent to sign,
‘Probably not.’
‘Think of all those people who go to interviews every day, none of them baggage free . . .’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Let them fall in love with my music first.’
‘We’d need to tell them at some point.’
I smile. ‘We tell them after we’ve signed the multi-million five-album deal.’
Pete asks for the bill, before saying, ‘Alice, if you have a funny with me do I call 999? Do I rush you to A&E?’
I try to reassure Pete it won’t happen, but if it does all we need are a few empty Starbucks trays and to keep calm until the bleeding stops.
‘And you still don’t think you’re brave?’
‘I’m superwoman, didn’t you know?’ I put on a pretend cape and make out I’m flying to my car, parked only metres across the road from the café.
He laughs, catching me up before he opens the door for me, surprisingly old-fashioned. I like it. I sit down behind the wheel and wind down the front window. Pete leans in. ‘I’ve never worked with anyone like you, Alice. Why do you want this so much, why risk all this stress on your lungs to sing?’
‘It’s more of a risk if I don’t, if I stay at home wrapped in cotton wool.’
Why do I want this so much?
‘I want people to hear my voice, Pete, to feel something when I sing. My future, my tomorrow is uncertain—’
‘Don’t, Alice.’
‘But it’s true. I have to leave something behind.’ My songs for tomorrow . . . ‘Whatever happens to me, my music will live on.’
28
‘How’s it going with Pete?’ Jake whispers as the trailers play. We’re about to watch The Matrix, a sci-fi (not my choice) with Keanu Reeves.
I help myself to more popcorn. ‘We’ve recorded a couple of songs.’
‘When will you start knocking on the giants’ doors?’ He means the record companies.
‘Not for a while.’ I explain to Jake that Pete wants to refine my writing, produce a body of work with a consistent theme and sound, so that when I’m signed, ‘not if, Alice, when’, we’ll have it all ready to go, CDs hitting those shelves only months later. ‘Many artists turn up with only one or two songs,’ Pete had said. ‘They don’t know what direction they’re going in. We’re not falling into that trap. We’re taking our time to do it properly.’
‘As long as I don’t die before it happens,’ I mutter.
‘Don’t talk like that. You can be so morbid sometimes, Leech.’
Dark humour is my way of coping. Let’s face it, it’s better than crying.
‘How are you feeling?’ I hand Jake the tub of salty popcorn. ‘Are those feet cold?’ Jake is getting married this weekend.
‘They’ve had plenty of time to warm up. Anyway, there’s no way I’m cancelling, not after paying for the cake.’ Jake tells me it’s a work of art designed with entwined dolphins, blue flowers and seashells. ‘It needs to be put in a glass cabinet and displayed in a museum, not munched by our ancient relatives.’
Jake and Lucy have invited two hundred guests to the service, followed by an old-fashioned cup of tea and a slice of cake. ‘Phil once went to a wedding and was pushed head first into the cake,’ I whisper, ‘it was during the best man’s speech.’
We laugh, not caring too much about Phil’s fate. ‘I’d have killed him if it had been our cake,’ Jake adds, ‘and sent him the bill.’
‘When he’s dead?’
‘Oh yeah, didn’t think that one through. I’d inflict serious harm and then send him the bill.’
As we continue to watch the trailers, I reminisce with Jake about how he and Lucy had met ten years ago, when they were eighteen. They were both on a pre-foundation art course in West London. He met Lucy on the Number 31 bus. ‘I was way too shy to chat her up,’ he reminds me, smiling as if he can see Lucy on the bus now. Instead he timed her stops carefully with burying his head in a Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy novel. Finally, during one journey, Jake plucked up enough courage to ask her to a Bonfire Night party. Jake claims they kissed watching the fireworks. Lucy pretends not to remember, just to wind him up. For the next four years they both dated other
people, but then fate or coincidence brought them back together on the Number 31. ‘That bus has a lot to answer for,’ says Lucy. This time Jake wouldn’t let her off until he’d asked her if she was seeing anyone, pointing out, ‘Just so you know, I’m very much, entirely and completely single.’
‘You didn’t say it like that, did you?’
‘More or less . . . I wanted to make it clear.’
‘You’re such an idiot.’
If Jake wasn’t an artist, he’d be an actor.
After the movie, we walk back to Mum and Dad’s. ‘It was rubbish,’ I say.
‘Leech, you slept through half of it.’
‘No I didn’t.’
‘So if I asked you to tell me what happened at the end . . .’
Caught out, I confess, ‘OK, I might have nodded off once or twice.’
A lot of our childhood was spent watching films or television. When I was little Jake would do physio on me, rotating me like a sausage on the sofa, while we watched The Wombles, Blue Peter and John Craven’s Newsround. We would spend hours mimicking our favourite screen characters, including Morph from Take Hart. We moved on to Top of the Pops, Star Wars, The A Team, ET . . .
Jake goes on to remind me of watching Grease one rainy Sunday afternoon, Olivia Newton John in her black leather trousers saying to Danny Zuko ‘Tell me about it, stud’ before stubbing out her cigarette with her shoe.
‘Racy stuff for a ten year old,’ Jake muses. ‘Do you remember Granny coming into the room?’ He means Dad’s mother, coiffed hair, shirt buttoned right to the top to make sure no flesh was on display. ‘She said “How unbecoming”, before walking out again.’
Granny was born in Perth, Australia, and came across to England by boat. No one knows her background, but whatever it is, we all love her. My mother’s parents died when I was young, and Dad’s father isn’t around anymore so Granny often comes to stay with us and will be coming to the wedding. We know she feels guilty about my CF, believing she passed on the faulty gene. ‘It’s me, I am the carrier,’ she once said to Mum and Dad. Of course they’ve never resented her. None of us do. What’s the use of blame?
A Song for Tomorrow Page 13
