The Cookbook of Common Prayer

by Francesca Haig

  Papabee wakes up after a while, lifting up his cap and squinting as he smiles at me.

  ‘There you are,’ he says. ‘I’ve just been enjoying this splendid view.’

  We drive through the skinniest bit of the Neck again, sea on both sides of the road, and I tell Papabee about how, in the olden days, the prison guards at Port Arthur spread rumours that the water was full of sharks, to stop convicts from trying to swim away. I’ve told Papabee that story a thousand times – we all have – but the nice thing about him is that he doesn’t notice. ‘You get very good value out of an anecdote, with Papabee,’ Dad used to say. So I tell Papabee again about the convicts, and the dog-chain on the Neck, and the sharks. I know the sharks were made-up but I’ve still thought about them every single time I swim here. All those stories circling in the water, ready to bite.

  On the way home we get hot chips from the petrol station, and eat them on a bench facing the water. It’s cold, but there are two families mucking about with dinghies. I remember that last summer at the Neck before Sylvie went into the hospital. Dan took us out in the dinghy. I remember Ella diving off the side, and Dougie laughing. Sylvie was watching them.

  ‘What did you two get up to all day?’ Mum asks, when we get home.

  ‘We went to the docks in town,’ I said. ‘Looked at the boats.’

  ‘Did we?’ Papabee said.

  ‘The boats, remember? The water?’ I prompt him. It feels a bit mean doing this – giving him little bits of truth to make him join in with my lies. I never knew, until Dougie died, how many different kinds of lying there are. And I don’t like how good at it I’m getting.

  ‘Of course,’ says Papabee. ‘A splendid day.’

  ‘Where did you have lunch?’ Mum asks him.

  ‘At Mures,’ I say quickly. ‘Fish and chips.’

  There it goes again, that lie machine: give him a little bit of truth, and out comes the lie, like a can of Coke from a vending machine: Clunk.

  ‘That’s right,’ he says. ‘Delicious. Excellent chips.’

  ‘Great,’ says Mum. ‘And I have good news too, about Sylve. The meeting with the doctors went pretty well. They even said it might be time for her to try a home visit.’

  When I play fetch with Sausage, sometimes I just pretend to throw the ball. I chuck my arm forward but don’t actually let go. At first Sausage used to go rushing off, searching the grass and the bushes. He doesn’t fall for it any more, but it took him ages to learn (‘He’s not exactly one of the great minds of this nation,’ Dad said). Now, when I chuck the ball Sausage watches carefully. He doesn’t chase after it until he hears it land.

  When Mum says Sylvie might come home, I feel like SausageDog. I want to be happy about it, but she’s come home so many times. I’ve learned that, most of the time, it’s just a trick. I’ve learned to wait until I hear the ball land.

  Gill

  I fold the latest letter and seal the envelope. Dougie and Gabe have caught a cheap flight to Paris, where Dougie’s cast has been removed at a walk-in clinic.

  It was hot in Italy and Greece too, but this is totally different. Here, all the heat bounces back at you from the pavement and the exhaust fumes, until I don’t even mind when Dad suggests ANOTHER museum, because at least there’ll be air con. Thank God the cast is off (though I felt sorry for the poor doctor at the clinic here who cut it off, given how bad it smelled!). Now I’m left with one leg that’s completely white and skinny, and kind of wrinkly – not a great look! – and doctors said I still need to use crutches until I get some strength back. The scars from the operations are pretty impressive – hoping it’s true what they say about girls digging scars.

  Today we did the Louvre, and I was kind of dreading it – gallery fatigue definitely starting to settle in (also, in my case, LITERAL fatigue thanks to the crutches). But in the end the Louvre was totally worth it – even worth hauling myself along miles of corridors (the Louvre’s like ten normal museums put together. It’s the mothership of museums). The funny thing about the Mona Lisa is that everyone tells you so many times that it’s smaller than you expect and that it’s really underwhelming, so by the time I finally saw it I thought it would be about the size of a postage stamp. Turns out, though, it’s actually a decent size, and once I’d squeezed past all the Japanese tourists it was really cool to see it. (No eyebrows! Remember when Ella overdid it with plucking her eyebrows a few years ago and they were basically completely gone?)

  Dad’s juggling work so has to put in a lot of hours on the laptop, but we usually do some sightseeing stuff in the morning (traumatic flashbacks to him and Mum dragging me out of bed for school!), before it’s too hot, and then he works for a bit after lunch, and we get back together for a cold beer in the afternoon and head out again. Still trying to persuade him that we should go to the test match at end of the month if we can get cheap tix back to London, but not sure how the timing will work out (plans still up in air, depending on the leg). I told him I’m desperate to go to Lords and he legit thought I was talking about Lourdes over here in France and started banging on about the architecture of some cathedral there – I think he thought I’d suddenly found religion and was after a miracle cure for my leg? I had no idea what he was talking about – just wanted to watch some cricket. Don’t know which one of us was more confused…

  Dougie’s grown taller. The injured leg is pale, with fat pink scars mid-thigh. His hands are calloused from the crutches, and as he sits on the grass in the Place des Vosges he picks at the thickened skin of his palms.

  Yes, definitely taller. I take out the same cookbook that we’ve always used – Women’s Weekly Children’s Birthday Cake Book – and slide a pencil from the mug by the phone. I place the book just above the last mark on the door frame – Dougie Jan 2016. Half a centimetre taller, at least, even if I press the book down firmly on that gelled hair. I hold the book perfectly horizontal and put the pencil to the wood.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  Teddy’s wandered into the kitchen, one of his soccer socks fallen down and bunched around his ankle.

  ‘Did you measure yourself?’ he asks, one hand in the biscuit jar.

  I can’t speak. The pencil hovers.

  ‘Can I take some for Papabee?’ he says, holding up the biscuits and already losing interest in whatever I’m doing. ‘He only has boring ones at his place – Digestives, or Scotch Fingers.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Here,’ I put down the cookbook and go to the pantry, trying to keep my voice steady – ‘take him a whole packet.’ I pass Teddy the unopened Mint Slice biscuits. ‘But only if you promise you won’t end up eating all of them yourself, OK?’

  ‘Promise.’ He’s halfway down the corridor. ‘I’m taking Sausage too,’ he shouts, without looking back.

  ‘Back by six, OK?’ I call after him.

  I hear the front door slam, and the dog’s nails on the wooden boards of the verandah.

  Leaning my face against the door frame again, I slide down to a crouch. I’m squeezing the pencil so tight I think it might snap. Teddy’s voice echoes in my head: What are you doing?

  ‘I’m emailing you a copy of the latest letter,’ I tell Gabe when he calls.

  ‘Maybe you shouldn’t,’ he says. ‘Maybe we’ve let this go on for long enough already.’

  ‘Because it’s working.’

  ‘For how long? What happens when she finds out?’

  ‘She won’t. And she’s doing well. Her weight’s stable. They’re letting her home tomorrow, just for a visit.’

  ‘This letter thing,’ he says. ‘I’m worried that it’s gone too far. I know you’re doing what you think is best. But do I have to read the letters? It feels so weird. I’m not sure I want to be involved.’

  ‘You are involved. You’re meant to be on this trip with Dougie, for God’s sake. You need to know what to say when you ring her.’

  ‘How can this be healthy?’ Gabe asks.

  ‘Healthy? It’s keeping her alive.’

>   ‘OK – perhaps healthy’s the wrong word. I don’t even know what that means, really. I just mean, what if what we’re doing is wrong?’

  There he is again: lovely, lovely Gabe, always trying to do the right thing. This is why I married him. This is why I could scream at him.

  Why can’t he see what the last few years have made of me? This is the awful truth: I no longer have the luxury of thinking about right and wrong. These distinctions are for other people. Morality is the preserve of those who are safe. It’s for those whose children are asleep in their homes. Those who have never cremated their sons, and those who don’t wake every day wondering if this will be the day their daughter’s heart gives up.

  It’s early afternoon and the sky is beginning to give up on daylight. Patches of snow sit, like dandruff, on the mountain. In half an hour I’m due to pick up Sylvie from the hospital.

  ‘Just for a few hours,’ Louise told me, when she rang yesterday to confirm the arrangements. ‘Reintegration. A chance to ease back into non-institutional life.’

  Once, we used to get excited about Sylvie coming home. The very first time she was discharged, Teddy made a poster for the front door: WELCOME HOME SYLVIE! in big crooked letters. Dougie skipped hockey practice so that he could be there when she arrived.

  After the first few attempts, we knew better. We knew what to do: run the vacuum over her room; fill the fridge with Sustagen cartons; hide the sharp knives and medicines in the lockable toolbox. Each discharge lasted one, sometimes two weeks. Every few days we’d go into the outpatients clinic at the hospital to see Louise and have Sylvie weighed. I remember thinking, once, that Sylvie’s sheets were due for a wash, and then realising that there was no point, because she’d be back in hospital in another day or two anyway.

  Having her at home is always provisional: everything dependent on the next meal, the next weigh-in, the next appointment. When she was briefly home last winter, Gabe and I were worried that she wasn’t maintaining her weight, and wanted to take her to the doctor a few days before our scheduled appointment. Sylvie snapped at us, ‘You always say that I might not make it to the next check-up, and I always do.’

  ‘Love,’ Gabe said quietly. ‘You only get to not make it once.’

  This time she’s just coming home for a few hours, and the preparations are different. I have to check the house carefully, hiding every clue about Dougie. There isn’t much to hide. The flowers and the casseroles are long gone, and I never put the condolence cards on the mantelpiece – it didn’t feel right to display them like birthday or Christmas cards – so they’re already in a shoebox under my bed. There’s some paperwork in the study – letters and forms from the insurance company and the coroner. I’ve been avoiding dealing with those forms for weeks; it’s a relief to stuff them into the box along with the sympathy cards and letters.

  For a long time I stand in the doorway of Dougie’s room. There’s dust on his hockey trophies, and on the bookshelves. I ought to do something about the dust, if this room’s going to be sitting empty for the rest of the year.

  I close the door to his room and fetch the car keys. It’s time.

  Sylvie

  In the car, Mum says, ‘Do your best to at least talk to Papabee.’ She’s concentrating on the road, but I can see her sneaking glances at me too. ‘I can understand if you don’t want to talk to me. Even Teddy gets it, more or less. But it’ll break Papabee’s heart if you give him the silent treatment.’

  ‘It’s not deliberate,’ I tell her. ‘I try my best.’ When I turn my head to look out the window, my nasogastric tube tugs at the back of my ear, where it’s tucked out of the way, its stoppered end dangling in my hair like some kind of decoration.

  ‘Papabee’s a finite resource, you know,’ says Mum. ‘He won’t be here forever.’

  I turn to face her. ‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’ I could swear her fingers tighten on the steering wheel. ‘Is he sick? Is that it? Is it cancer?’

  ‘Of course not. He’s fine. But he’s eighty-one. He’s not going to live forever.’

  I lean back against the headrest and look out the side window. ‘He’s strong as an ox. And he eats like one.’

  Mum exhales hard. ‘Despite your best efforts to die before him, he might still beat you to it and steal your thunder.’

  Silence.

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ she says quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to be flippant. You know how it can be – jokes can be a coping mech—’

  ‘It’s fine. I get it.’

  ‘Just be nice to Papabee, OK?’

  ‘I get it.’

  It’s been five months since I was last here. Inside the house, small things are different. They’re only tiny changes, but there are lots of them. A new dog bed, replacing the wicker one that SausageDog used to gnaw on. Two potted cactuses on the counter where the goldfish tank used to sit. I have to ask Teddy how to work the new remote control for the stereo.

  He’s hanging around optimistically, sitting slightly too close to me on the couch, and I know he wants to chat, but I’ve been away from language for too long. When I try out words in my mind, the letters float apart, and rearrange themselves. Every word turning into an anagram, like the alphabet pasta that Teddy loves. Or loved – does he still? I haven’t eaten a meal with him for so long. If I could trust words, I’d ask him what he likes these days.

  There’s a stripe of dog hair on the thigh of Teddy’s left trouser leg, from where SausageDog always rests his chin. On the other couch Papabee has his legs crossed at the ankle; he’s wearing odd socks, one grey and one blue. In the kitchen, Mum’s chopping something, the unhesitating chopchopchop of a proper chef.

  I make myself take a long, slow breath. These small things are something. If you notice them, if you gather enough of them, you could almost have enough to call a life.

  Down the corridor, Dougie’s door is shut. I wonder what it would be like if he were here. I wonder whether I could go in, sit on the floor and lean against the bed, and talk just like we always used to. Whether I could make the words come out right.

  But he isn’t here. I stand in the doorway of my own room. In the last three years, I’ve spent maybe five or six weeks here. A few nights, a few times, before my weight got too low, or my heart-rate too high.

  Mum’s done her best, but if you look closely you can see the clues. The room smells of a mixture of Spray n’ Wipe and dust. Under the bedside table a dead fly lies on its back, its legs curled inwards. The bedding is the set I chose when I was about ten, with purple and white flowers. Along the top of the dressing table sits my old collection of dolls and stuffed animals.

  This is a child’s room. A museum. I was fourteen when I last lived here. I have no idea what this room would look like now, if I’d stayed here. Who I would be now, if I hadn’t stepped out of my life.

  Is this what I’ve done with my body – turned it into a museum of my childhood?

  My body. There’s been damage – the kind of damage that doesn’t go away. My bones – fucked, probably, after all these years. Louise has talked about it a lot: bone density, calcium. So I have osteoporosis to look forward to. Kidneys and liver have taken a hit too. Fertility: probably ruined, after three years of no periods. Last time Mum asked, Louise said, I’m not entirely without hope that there may be a chance that Sylvie’s fertility hasn’t been totally compromised. I might’ve missed three years of school, but I know enough to recognise a sentence tied up in the knots of its own qualifiers and double-negatives. So, fertility: fucked too, probably, which doesn’t bother me too much at the moment.

  It’s a problem for later – and I’m only just beginning to be able to imagine a later.

  Teddy

  All week, I’ve been trying to get some time alone with Sylvie to give her the needles from the Secret Tree. Every time I’ve gone into hospital after school, Mum’s been there. Now Sylvie’s home for the afternoon, but Mum and Papabee are here too and I still don’t know how to get Sy
lve by herself. I’m nervous too, about whether I’ve got the price right this time. Nervous about what she’ll say if I’ve got it wrong, and also about what she’ll say if I’ve got it right.

  I go into my room and open the drawer. Some of the pine needles have stuck to the jumper they’re hidden under. I peel the needles away from the bobbly wool, careful not to break them. I get out the notebook, and look through my list of family words. I decide to try some of them out – a little test, to see if Sylvie still remembers.

  Back in the living room, I squish up next to her on the couch. She’s reading, one hand stroking SausageDog’s ear. On the couch opposite, Papabee’s humming quietly.

  I can’t ask her if she wants a napple, because she doesn’t eat much normal food yet. Instead, I ask, ‘Did you notice my big growth squirt?’

  ‘Sure did,’ she says, not looking up from her book. ‘You’re basically a giant, Teddy.’

  And even though she’s teasing me, because I’m still small for my age, I can’t help doing a big smile. I bend down and put my face in SausageDog’s fur, right in the doggy stink of him, so she won’t see me smiling. And I feel like I’m almost a poem, or an open door. Like I’m about to become something else, and it doesn’t even matter what I might be about to turn into, because it’s the aboutness that matters.

  Sylvie gets off the couch and goes to the loo. Mum’s coming in from the back door, holding the washing basket.

  ‘When Dougie’s back, I’ll get him to help me level that patch at the top,’ she says, pointing to the end of the garden. ‘I trip every time I go to hang the washing.’

  ‘Mum.’ I look down the corridor. I can hear the tap running in the bathroom. ‘You don’t need to do that. She’s gone.’

  ‘The bloody dog’s had another go at the fence, too,’ Mum says. ‘Up past the compost bin.’