The To-Do List

by Mike Gayle

  I let out a small scream of anguish.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Claire found me curled up in a foetal position on the floor next to the sink. ‘Are you all right? Have you hurt yourself?’

  ‘I’ve got the pox,’ I whispered pathetically. ‘Listen,’ I choked back man tears, ‘I think you should leave now and take the children with you. I don’t want them to see their old dad sobbing like a schoolgirl before he passes to the other side.’

  ‘It’s chicken pox, not smallpox,’ said Claire briskly. ‘And I don’t expect you’ll be passing anywhere for a while yet.’ She bundled me back into bed, and left me trying to imagine what A PAIN EASILY WORSE THAN CHILDBIRTH would be like. I’d broken my leg once playing football and it had killed. Would it be worse than that? Or how about the time that I had gastric flu? The pain in my stomach had seemed unbearable. Would it be worse than that? And what about when I cut my shoulder open falling off my bike when I was five? I’d howled for days after that at the very thought of all the pain I’d been through. Just as I was beginning to whip myself up into a real frenzy Claire returned wielding a posh electronic thermometer, which she jabbed into my ear. When it made a loud beeping noise she examined the screen.

  ‘You’ve got a temperature,’ she said with all the authority of an especially grumpy Hugh Laurie. ‘I’m going to call the out-of-hours doctor, tell them that you’re an asthmatic and insist that they give you the anti-viral medicine to reduce the effects of the pox.’

  I sat bolt upright. ‘There’s anti-viral medicine?’

  Claire nodded sagely. ‘Apparently as long as you take it within twenty-four hours of the first spot appearing it can reduce the effects of the virus quite considerably.’

  I looked at my wife with newly acquired admiration.

  ‘How do you know all this stuff?’ I asked.

  ‘Google,’ she replied. ‘The second I realised Lydia had got it I knew you’d somehow end up getting it too.’ She shook her head. ‘Right, you start getting dressed, I’ll take the kids to your mum’s and when we get back we’ll head out to the doctor’s.’

  Not only did the nice doctor sympathise with my affliction, he also gave me a course of Acyclovir and informed me that if I felt even the slightest bit worried I should return without hesitation.

  I returned to my bed, took the tablets and waited for full health to return. It didn’t happen. Instead, I suddenly went very cold, and then I went very hot and then I started coughing a lot while drifting in and out of a feverish sleep. When I woke up a few hours later I tried to call Claire and discovered two things: first, my vocal chords had completely stopped functioning and second, by process of deduction (the newspaper with Monday’s date on it gave the game away) I had been asleep a lot longer than a few hours. I tried to get up but my legs wouldn’t follow my commands and so I had no choice but to wait patiently for someone to discover me. It didn’t take long. First on the scene was Lydia, long since recovered from her own encounter with the pox and now standing in the bedroom doorway considering me with a watchful gaze.

  ‘You’re awake, Daddy.’ She climbed up onto the bed next to me. I nodded as enthusiastically as I could.

  ‘You’ve been asleep a long time.’

  I nodded again.

  ‘Daddy? Why aren’t you talking? Are you being silly?’

  I shook my head but she clearly didn’t believe me because in a perfect replication of her mother, she rolled her eyes and then bellowed at the top of her lungs: “MUMMY! DADDY’S BEING SILLY AND PRETENDING THAT HE CAN’T TALK!’

  Duly summoned, Claire came up the stairs carrying Maisie and joined Lydia in staring at me.

  ‘I thought you were never going to wake up,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t speak,’ I mouthed silently. ‘Voice gone.’

  ‘I told you, Mummy. I told you he was pretending that he couldn’t speak.’

  ‘I really can’t speak,’ I mouthed in the hope that they might be able to lip-read. ‘I really have lost my voice.’

  Claire rolled her eyes. ‘Come on, Mike! Enough’s enough!’

  There was a loud thump. A loud thump that happened to be me falling out of bed as I’d reached for a pen in order to write, ‘I’m not joking’. Normally, falling out of bed onto my head would have resulted in a modicum of yelling and shouting. Voiceless, all I could do was open and close my mouth like a flailing goldfish on dry land.

  ‘You really have lost your voice, haven’t you?’ Claire apologised profusely as she helped me back into bed. She handed me a pen and notebook on which I wrote, ‘Don’t worry about not believing me, don’t worry about the fact that I’ve been asleep for the best part of twenty-four hours . . . now that I know that Acyclovir isn’t working just call the doctor again and make sure he gives me something . . . anything at all . . . to stop A PAIN EASILY WORSE THAN CHILDBIRTH.’

  In the end, somewhat disappointingly (given the amount of time and effort I had expended trying to avoid it) the Acyclovir must have worked because THE PAIN EASILY WORSE THAN CHILDBIRTH never materialised. Instead, I suffered a smattering of blisters, some mild itching, a raised temperature and a comedy lost voice. It did take it out of me physically though and for days after the fever had gone and the blisters were on the way to healing themselves, all I felt up to was lying on the sofa watching various repeats of Murder She Wrote on TV.

  It was a week and a half before I was back to normal and at least another couple of days before the To-Do List got any kind of serious consideration. Even without counting up all the ticks it was clear I was getting behind and needed to get back on track as soon as possible.

  Chapter 17: ‘Find out if you really are related to Abraham Lincoln.’

  A couple of days later having thrown myself into activities as diverse as re-seeding the lawn (18), using a UV pen to mark valuables with postcode (144), and having had a go at learning basic HTML (832), Claire and I were settled down on the sofa in preparation for an evening of top televisual entertainment: Item 14: Season One of The O.C.

  ‘So how are things going so far?’ Claire asked as she skipped through the DVD menu.

  ‘Just look at me, I’m practically svelte.’

  ‘Indeed you are, but other than the diet, how is the whole List thing going?’

  I shrugged. ‘It’s okay, I suppose.’

  ‘Only okay?’

  ‘I knew it would be hard but not actually this hard. Even the easy ticks aren’t that easy and the difficult ticks are even more difficult than you think they will be. As time goes on and I start more things, I’m running around frantically spinning plates like a circus act in an effort to keep all these things going at once.’

  ‘Are you going to carry on with it?’

  ‘I know it sounds mad given everything that I’ve just said, but even though it is really difficult, it is already paying dividends. I’ve got more energy and when I’m working on the book I’m more focused because I know I haven’t got all day to mess about it with it.’

  ‘So what’s next for you To Do?’

  ‘I’m tracing my family tree.’

  Claire looked perplexed. ‘Mike, your family are from the West Indies. How are you going to do that from Birmingham?’

  I shrugged and turned off the TV. ‘I don’t know really. But it’s a good job I sorted out Item 611 back in January.’

  ‘What was Item 611?’

  I paused, reluctant to continue because I knew that Claire would blow a fuse.

  ‘Come on, what is it?’

  ‘ “Renew passport because you never know when you might need to leave the country in a hurry.” ’

  Before I could even form a defence, steam was coming out of my wife’s ears.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re planning to fly off round the world and leave me to cope with the kids on my own!’

  ‘Not necessarily, babe,’ I tried my best to calm her down. ‘Only if the need arises.’

  ‘How long for?’

  I faked confusion to buy myself a
few blissful moments of calm. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Exactly what I said,’ she snapped. ‘Should you go gallivanting around the world for this part of your To-Do List, how long would you go for?’

  There was nowhere left to hide. It wasn’t as though flying to Jamaica was like getting the train to London. At best it was a twenty-odd-hour flight each way and with all the various bits of research I’d need to do I’d be pushing it to be done in less than a week and a half.

  ‘How does a couple of days sound?’ I trimmed a few days off the total in the hope of softening the blow.

  ‘And who’s going to look after your children while you’re away in the sunshine?’

  Claire referring to our children as my children was a bad sign. I was in big trouble. For a second I contemplated suggesting that she recruited both mums to help out but then it occurred to me that Claire may well have meant the question rhetorically. Given that since Maisie was born I’d had sole responsibility for the girls for approximately three hours while Claire had her hair cut and had been so traumatised that I had had to take the day off from all To-Do-list-related activities to recover, I understood her fury.

  ‘Look, I’ll start the research and we can deal with whatever happens when it happens, can’t we?’

  ‘Don’t you mean that I can deal with whatever happens when it happens?’

  ‘No,’ I replied. ‘Whatever happens we’ll deal with it together.’ I presented her with my best sad face (capturing the very essence of contrition) quickly followed by a kiss and big cuddle, I added as some extra neck-nuzzling time for luck. Slowly but surely I felt my wife’s body go from rigid and unyielding to ‘slightly melty’. Only when it had concluded its transition to ‘warm putty’, did I allow myself to relax.

  ‘I love you, you know,’ I whispered in her ear. ‘A lot of women would make a big deal about their husbands clearing off around the world at the drop of a hat so it’s really cool that you’re being so understanding.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Claire rolling her eyes (a clear indicator that I had laid it on a little too thick.) ‘We’ll deal with it when we deal with it but I’m making no promises that it will be okay.’

  ‘That’s all I’m asking for. Anyway, chances are I won’t need to go so this will all just be a storm over nothing.’

  The following afternoon, in an effort to be more green and lose some weight I jumped on my bike (no takers on eBay yet!) and rode to Mum and Dad’s house. A journey that would have taken less than seven minutes by car actually took three quarters of an hour and I arrived looking like I was seconds away from cardiac arrest.

  When my mum opened the door she looked me up and down and asked if I’d been swimming. ‘I’ve heard it’s good for getting rid of all that belly fat,’ she said patting my stomach. ‘Still, it’ll take a few more laps before you start to see the difference.’

  There was little point in informing my mum that I was just sweating profusely, so I followed her into the kitchen for a drink of water.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘He’s gone into town. Why, did you want to speak to him?’

  ‘I actually wanted to speak to both of you.’

  ‘Why?’ There was hopeful inflection in her voice and a glint in her eye. ‘Have you got some news? Claire’s not pregnant again, is she?’

  I couldn’t believe it. It had only been a couple of months since I’d made her a grandmother for the second time and she was already holding out for more? Was no number of grandchildren enough to sate this woman?

  ‘Of course not.’

  Mum looked disappointed. ‘I’ve got a couple of balls of wool upstairs that could do with using up and I found a lovely pattern for a hat and booties.’

  ‘So you were hoping Claire and I would have another baby just so that they didn’t go to waste?’

  Mum laughed. ‘The more the merrier – that’s what I always say. So what do you want me for anyway?’

  ‘I need you to tell me everything you know about the Gayles because I’ve decided that I’m going to trace our family tree.’

  The main reason why Item 190: ‘Trace family tree’ was on the To-Do List was because I didn’t know a great deal about either side of my family beyond my grandparents whereas Claire knew pretty much everything there was to know about hers. Prompted by the birth of Lydia, Claire had done some in-depth investigations and traced a distant branch of the family to Hereford, a census entry featuring her great-great-grandmother and, through conversations with her grandmother, discovered that in addition to being part Irish, as she had always known, she was also part Jewish and ‘so rumour had it’ had a bit of gypsy in her too. The Richards side of her family sounded like a game lot and I didn’t want our children to think of the Gayles as being the boring bunch in the gene pool. This was pretty much the explanation that I gave to my mum.

  ‘Michael,’ she sighed, ‘there’s nothing much to tell.’

  ‘Let me be the judge of that.’

  ‘Well, I’m the eldest, and then there’s your three uncles and your auntie. Then there was my father Edward and my mother Gwendolyn and her mother . . . a lovely woman we used to call Juju and that’s pretty much it.’

  ‘What do you mean that’s pretty much it? What about your other grandparents?’

  ‘My father’s father had died long before I remember and so had my mother’s father.’

  ‘What about their names or when they were born or where they got married?’

  ‘Michael, it was a long time ago.’

  My mum had a point. She was seventy-one and having left her native country all those years ago had packed more into her time on this earth than most people would have if they lived twice as long. It was no wonder that a few key names had been forgotten along the way.

  Over the next hour or so I got a few more details, like where she was born and the district that my grandmother had originated from in Jamaica (along with some great anecdotes that I’d never heard before about her childhood) but I still only had enough for a family twig. The success or failure of this particular tick now rested squarely on the shoulders of my dad. When I finally sat him down and grilled him too, he knew no more than my mum.

  ‘What were you hoping for?’

  ‘I dunno,’ I sighed. ‘A few more names and a bit more detail would have been useful.’

  ‘People didn’t really pay much attention to that kind of thing back in those days,’ explained Dad. ‘I bet you didn’t know that my birthday isn’t the one on my birth certificate.’

  I was flabbergasted. ‘How come?’

  ‘It was the law that a birth had to be registered within four months of it happening. People were too busy farming to find the time so when they did they’d always change the date to within four months so they didn’t get fined.’

  That explained a lot about the Gayle trait for ignoring or bending any rules that they didn’t see the point of (a trait that I possessed in abundance), but it didn’t get me any closer to a more extensive family tree. The only way I was going to get more information was by taking myself off to Jamaica – a trip that would cost me a fortune, reduce my daily tick count and seriously annoy my wife.

  Just then my mobile rang. It was Claire.

  ‘You’ve drawn a blank with your parents and you’re thinking about going to Jamaica, aren’t you?’

  ‘How do you know?’ I looked around the room for a hidden camera. ‘You’re not watching me are you?’

  Claire laughed. ‘No, I just guessed. I’ve talked family trees with your mum before now and never got very far myself, so I took matters into my own hands.’

  ‘What have you done?’

  ‘I’ve been on the internet and found a lovely lady called Mrs Bleether who is the answer to all your problems.’

  ‘And Mrs Bleether is what exactly?’

  ‘A Kingston-based genealogist who, charging by the hour, will get you your family tree thereby saving you having to fly off to the West Indies and saving me having to expl
ain to our kids why I had to strangle you, their father, with my bare hands. How does that sound?’

  A Jamaican-based genealogist who spent all day tracing family trees versus me, a three week stay in a country I hadn’t been to for over twenty years attempting to achieve something that I’d never done before. It was, to quote my agent, ‘a no brainer’. Such a no brainer that I felt like a bit of an idiot for not coming up with it myself. I emailed an enquiry to Mrs Bleether and she wrote back that although it would take a number of months given her current workload she would be more than happy to take on my case.

  Turning on my computer a few weeks later to send an email to my accountant in a bid to fulfil To-Do List Item 98: ‘Sit down with your accountant and don’t stand up again until you understand the basics of how he works out your tax bill’) I discovered an email from Mrs Bleether.

  I felt sure that she had succeeded in tracking down all the various branches of my family tree and that her email would contain names and dates of my long-dead ancestors whom I would be in a sense ‘meeting’ for the first time. How far back had she managed to get? I wondered. Would there be any surprises? Did my dad’s side of the family, as my mother always said, really originate from the ‘runaway slaves’ known as the Maroon people? And would this explain why we Gayles were all born with a stroppy rule-breaking streak a mile wide? And what about the rumour (possibly started by my middle brother) that we were related to Abraham Lincoln?

  I was seconds away from finding out the truth.

  Dear Mr Gayle,

  Unfortunately it has not been possible to trace your family tree with the limited amount of information that you were able to provide. Should you find yourself able to provide a greater wealth of information at some future date please do not hesitate to contact me.

  Yours sincerely

  Mrs C. Bleether

  ‘Are you disappointed?’ asked Claire after she read the email.

  ‘I suppose so. Not because of the missed tick. I was actually interested in finding out a bit more about the Gayles of the past.’