All She Wants

by Jonathan Harvey

  Tomorrow we’re driving miles and miles and miles to Newcastle. Bloody hell, we’re seeing all the hotspots.

  Miss you, Gx

  Sometimes people were sent to you to show you how lucky you are. I looked at my mum with fresh eyes. At least all she did all day was smoke free ciggies, not lounge around crying her eyes out all the time.

  Letter number eight:

  Whassssuuuuup?

  Yep. I have decided. Teresa-May may only be seventeen, but she is defo on her menopause an’ all. Today Mum said she wanted a chat with her, so me and Dad had to go for a walk. You can imagine how much I enjoyed that. By the time we got back Mum was making sandwiches and Teresa-May was on her bed crying. She pretended she wasn’t but I knew she was. Maybe Mum’s told her a few home truths – you’re a slag innit.

  Off out in a bit to see the Angel of the North. Mum’s always wanted to see it. It’s all about Mum. Grrr. Plus I think you’ve sent your last letter to the place we were in yesterday as Dad changed the itinerary, so I might not hear from you for a bit. Grrr. Maybe I should have a flaming menopause. Can fellas get them?

  Write soon. Gx

  This Teresa-May. Grr. She was really getting on my tits.

  Letter number nine:

  Hello, oh love of my life (see? You set a challenge and I do it. And no I don’t think you’re needy at all. You needy cow),

  Sorry if the handwriting’s all over the shop, we’re on the move, heading for Scotland Inversomewhere. Got a kilt on specially (lies). The Angel of the North is basically a big statue in a place called Gateshead and it looks like some fella with aeroplane wings. It’s what they call an icon of England, a bit like Paul Gascoigne. Personally I think they should have built it in Liverpool as it would have been a fuck of a lot easier to get to, know what I’m saying. It’s as tall as four double decker buses (I measured it) and has the wingspan of a jumbo jet (do they still make jumbo jets?). Guess who read their brochure? It’s stood up on top of this hill and it’s weird, coz when you’re up there you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere, but you know you’re not coz all you can see from every main road round there for miles about is the angel looking down on you. Mum asked me if I believed in angels. I said I didn’t know, I’m a bit funny about people when you can’t tell if they’re a bird or a fella. I was only messing, but our Teresa-May said someone at her work is going through a sex change and he’s dead nice, even if he has changed his name from Simon to Simone and started dressing like a hooker. Teresa-May’s been encouraging him to tone it down a bit coz everyone’s laughing. But that hasn’t stopped her, has it? Anyway, Mum said she believed in angels and ‘just wanted us to know that’. Off. Her. Cake.

  Anyway. Less of the Angel of the North and more of the Angel of Liverpool. It was so boss to finally talk to you last night and hear your voice. I’m sorry I didn’t have enough money to call you back again, and it didn’t seem to take incoming calls, so when you were probably trying to get through it wasn’t ringing. And after all that time of not speaking to you and writing I didn’t say what I wanted to say coz my mind went blank and I just spoke shite, which you already know, of course. I wanted to say you’ve kept me going this holiday and you’re the funniest person I’ve ever met (and I’ve met loads), and you’re dead fit, too. There, said it now, piss yourself. I know you won’t believe me. You’re always putting yourself down, but it’s true. When I get back I am so taking you out somewhere nice. Don’t know where, don’t know how, but I will and that’s a promise. So get your thinking cap on and decide where you wanna go and I’ll take you. Within reason. Deal?

  Mum has put Abba on the car/motor home stereo. It’s that slow song where they keep going, ‘I believe in angels.’ I feel like banging my head against the glass window and cutting it in two just to get OUT OF HERE.

  Save me, Jodie. Save me.

  Gxx

  P.S. All this Abba – Your Joey’s perfect holiday . . .

  He called me the Angel of Liverpool. Oh God. He really had forgotten what I looked like. Maybe I should be encouraging him to stay away for ever so that he never goes off me? Absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder, it makes the memory go all rose-tinted. Oh well.

  Letter number ten:

  Well, I thought we were going to Inverness, but we’re actually in a place called Fort William, which is just near Inverness. As you know, the plan is to stop here for a few days because Mum has family here and she wants to see them. I have to say, it’s pretty impressive. I’ve never seen countryside like it. I now understand why people like hiking and rambling and walking, everywhere you look you’re just . . . I dunno . . . shocked by how stunning everything is. Better than any photo. Better than any movie. I’m gonna bring you here one day. It literally takes your breath away. And it’s in our own country (United Kingdom. I know we’re not Scottish).

  When I was little we used to go to church and sing that hymn about the purple-headed mountain with the river running by. We used to have jokes about it coz Teresa-May said cocks had purple heads – mine’s green by the way; all will be revealed at a later date – and I thought it was a bit mad because everyone knows mountains are green, or white if they’ve got a bit of snow on them, but here they actually are purple. They’re every colour under the sun, and they seem to change colour at different times of the day. Madness. But nice madness. I feel so small. Part of something massive. I’ve taken loads of photos, but I know for a fact, Jodie, nothing will ever be as good as the real thing. I’m sounding like a mad born-again or something, aren’t I? But d’you know what? You really do feel like God’s here, you know. When you see something as amazing and perfect as this it makes you think. Someone else had a hand in this, I’m telling you. And it wasn’t Tony Blair, I know that much.

  Right, I’m going to stop going on about the scenery or else you’ll think I’ve turned into a God botherer and you’ll be dumping me and thinking I’ve gone all barmy on you.

  Hey, something funny happened earlier. Mum wanted to go and see this local church, so she and dad went and said they’d only be half an hour, but they were gone for two hours and when they came back they told me this.

  They went and sat in the church, at the back, taking it all in. And these people came in, so they thought, OK, there’s a service, let’s stay. And the church started to fill up. Then all of a sudden the organ starts to play and everyone stands up and guess what? A coffin was brought in. So they couldn’t leave coz they would have looked like arlarses, so they had to stay for a funeral of someone they didn’t know. And it doesn’t stop there. At the end someone got gabbing to them and, to cut a long story short, they ended up going to the drinks do afterwards and had to lie and said they only vaguely knew the dead fella. I must admit we did have a laugh when they told us about it when they got back. I was wondering where they’d got to.

  Oh, OH! Good luck with the audition for Acacia Avenue. I haven’t stopped going on about it. What a piece of luck, someone from the telly seeing you in Say No to Date Rape (I still say Asking For It? is better – never forget the question mark). I think you’ll be brilliant as a newspaper girl. I am assuming that means she delivers newspapers. She can’t work for a newspaper at thirteen, right? I will be keeping everything crossed for you tomorrow. I bet you’ll be brilliant. And yeah, like you say, if you don’t wear make-up you might look younger. And as for your comment about your boobs, I’m saying nothing. I am a gentleman! Everyone here wishes you good luck, too. Even all Mum’s relatives – she’s been showing off about you. Can’t wait to hear how you get on.

  Right, this is turning into some dead long book so I am going to sign off (phew says Jodie, bored rigid) and say I’ll speak to you soon and see you soon, I hope.

  Not long now. Seven more sleeps.

  Good luck tomorrow, though you’ll have done it all by the time this arrives.

  Love Greg xx

  PS If I haven’t said it enough I’ll say it again. Good luck x

  Greg seemed to have every confidence
in my acting. He really had forgotten what I was like, hadn’t he? Oh God. It was all going to go tits up when he got back. For sure.

  Letter number eleven

  Dear Jodie,

  I’m sorry about last night. I was a bit all over the place. I know you’ll be worried about me now. Don’t be. I’m OK really. Well, I will be. I didn’t sleep much last night, no one did, and I kept playing what happened yesterday over and over again in my head. Even when I closed my eyes to try and sleep it’s all I could see, all I could think about. I know I wasn’t making much sense on the phone and I know you were dead shocked, but as you said, something’s not been right on this holiday and now we know what it is. I couldn’t stay long on the phone anyway coz Mum’s cousin Morag’s a bit tight and kept coming into the hall, tapping her watch and sighing, so sorry about that. Where do I begin?

  It all started with a boiled egg – I know. A boiled egg. Mum had made us a packed lunch for this walk we were going on to see a castle called Inverlochy We couldn’t look round it as it’s not a proper castle any more, it’s actually a hotel that costs like a million pounds a night to stay there, so the plan was to walk up to it, go in and ask for a leaflet pretending we might want to stay there, then go and look round the grounds and have our packed lunch, hoping no one would see us. Everything went according to plan, though you could tell the fella in reception sussed us out straight away. As he gave Mum the leaflet he goes, ‘Madam, I must warn you our room rates are quite pricey,’ to which Mum goes, ‘Well that’s handy, coz I’m quite rich.’ I couldn’t help but laugh. When we were having our packed lunch in the grounds, hidden behind some trees on a bench that Mum reckoned was a trysting place where people went to cop off in the olden days, Teresa-May moaned that her hard-boiled egg was green inside. I looked and it was. Ish. It had green splodges on the white bit. Big deal. Dad told her to shut up and eat it. She goes, ‘I won’t.’ He goes, ‘You will.’ Then she threw it in the lake. (We were by a lake. Well, it might have been a river. Water anyway. I should have mentioned the lake/river/water thing before.) So Dad starts kicking off, and I don’t blame him, coz actually she hit this duck on the head and it like knocked him out for a few seconds, which TM thought was hilarious. So Dad starts ranting on about how most serial killers start their lives hurting animals for a laugh and Mum’s telling him to calm down and TM’s going, ‘Oh what, so I’m Fred West now, am I?’ And Dad’s going, ‘Your mum made that egg. Have some fucking manners.’ And Mum’s going, ‘It’s only an egg, Tony.’ And Dad has this like breakdown thing and keeps saying, ‘It’s not just an egg. It’s not just an egg. It’s your egg.’ And then he starts crying. REALLY crying. He sits back on the bench and puts his face in his hands and his shoulders are bouncing up and down and no one knows what to say. And that’s when Teresa-May turns to me and says, ‘Mum’s got cancer.’

  At that point someone from the hotel came out and told us that as visitors we were more than welcome to eat from their lunchtime menu and they could sort us out a table, but they couldn’t really let us carry on eating our packed lunch on their premises. He obviously hadn’t noticed Dad sitting there blubbing like a baby. But he soon did because Dad jumped up and started yelling at him that his wife was dying and he can fuck off and stuff like that. Well, God love the fella from the hotel, coz he was mortified and backed away and said, ‘Take as long as you want,’ and five minutes later they sent a tray of tea and cakes out for us free of charge. The cakes looked really nice, but Dad said it was time to go home, so we all had to get up and start walking home. TM stuffed as many cakes as she could in her pockets.

  Mum put her arm round me as we were walking along the river (it was a river, I’ve remembered now). I asked her if it was true. She said yes. I asked her if she was really dying and she said we all die sometime. But the doctors have said it could be anything between six weeks and six months. She said she was sorry it had come out the way it had, but she had meant to tell me tomorrow on the last night of the holiday. This is why they changed their plans and stayed in England, she’s not well enough to fly and she wanted to see a load of places she’d never seen before she died. I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing, what she was saying. It just didn’t make any sense. Apparently they have caught the cancer too late and she can’t have treatment and . . . Oh, I don’t know, Jodie, it’s all just so MAD. I can’t really take it all in.

  And now I feel lost. All I’ve done this holiday is moan about how crap it is, and all the time it was making Mum’s dreams come true and stuff like that and I went and ruined it. I can’t even say sorry to her coz I can’t speak. It’s like I’ve thought too many things last night and this morning, and the words those thoughts used were sucked up into my brain from the back of my throat and I’ve got no words left to say out loud. That’s the way I look at it anyway.

  Six weeks is nothing. Six months is better. But they might have got it wrong. You hear about it all the time, don’t you? People getting better with miracle cures or just stuff to do with praying and God and shit like that. TM says she heard about a woman at their work who cured herself from cancer by eating nothing but carrots or something. Mum likes carrots but says its all gobbledegook.

  I don’t know what else to say, Jodie. I’m gutted. I know people say that a lot about silly things, but on this one I really do feel like my guts have been wrenched out. I hate it. You’d better be good at hugging for when I’m home, baby girl.

  And even though I called you last night I never even asked how your audition went. How crap am I? Think you’ll forgive me though (hope so). Well, I’m sure I’ll hear about it soon enough.

  I wish I could turn the clock back and we could do this holiday all over again so I could at least pretend to be interested in staring at ponies in the New Forest all day long. Wish I’d taken more pictures now as well. At least I liked Scotland. Scotland’s boss. I wish they’da told me before we came away and then I would’ve understood why we was doing it. Now I just feel like an arlarse. And then I wish they’d never told me at all coz I hate knowing coz I can’t think of anything else and it makes me feel weird.

  I’m gonna sign off now. Depressing myself too much, but I just wanted to explain.

  Greg x

  Shit. SHIT. And a bit more shit. Well, a lot. Oh GOD.

  Letter number twelve:

  Hiya,

  Don’t be so daft, it’s fine. We’ve all got our problems and it’s good for me to hear about things in the real world – I feel like I’ve been in a bubble these last few weeks – so honestly, forget about it. You had no idea what was going on when you wrote that letter, so quit worrying, bitch!

  Listen. Acacia Avenue’s a shit show anyway. You don’t wanna be on that, you’re too good for them. And who wants to play a newspaper girl anyway? I’m gutted for you obviously coz I know how much you wanted it, but I swear, Jodie, everything happens for a reason and there’s plenty more fish in the sea. Of course you forgot all your lines when you went in to meet them – nerves get the better of all of us every now and then. Like when we had that mock French oral test and Mrs Byrne asked us how often I played football and I couldn’t remember the word for week (semaine), so I told her I played every saucepan. WHAT A KNOBHEAD. And you never forgot your lines in Say No to Date Rape, did you? And even if you had to make them up as you went along you never let anyone down, like. In fact, you were so good it got you an audition for Acacia Avenue, which is shit as we all know, but it was a proper audition for a proper job and you’re only fifteen. Sixteen soon, though, and you know what’s legal then? CAN’T BELIEVE I SAID THAT! SHIT! And as for that rude fucker who you said kept looking at his watch while you were trying to remember your lines, tell me who he is and I’ll get the lads from St Eddie’s round to set fire to his house. He’s a piss poor excuse for a man and has no manners. And so what if you took a swig of water from your bottle and spilt it down yourself coz you were shaking so much with nerves. We’ve all done it. And at least you made them laugh by saying, ‘Get m
e with my drink problem.’ See? That’s a boss thing to say. I’da never thought of that. You’re dead funny. And they did laugh. And I don’t reckon you’re right. I don’t reckon they were laughing coz they were mortified. They were just laughing because you’re a funny girl, Jodie. Trust me. I’ve seen Michael Barrymore live and you’re a million times funnier than him. And a million times fitter, too. You, me and Barrymore on a desert island? I know who I’d go for HAHAHAHA.

  I’m glad you’ve made your mind up about where you wanna go on our date and I think it sounds boss. Fish and chips in Southport and a ride on the Traumatizer (sponsored by Tizer no less) it is. Can’t wait. We can go Saturday. Bring nothing but your good self.

  I tell you what, babe, as soon as this motor home pulls up in our yard I am getting on my BMX and coming right over to see you. So get your laughing gear ready for some lip-locking action. We’re stopping at Gretna Green tonight, so jump on a coach and we can be married by morning. Joking (or am I?). Mum says we need to talk more about death (help!). She says in the olden days when Queen Victoria was on the throne (that was a long bloody dump by anyone’s calculations) people were dead into death and funerals and they used to make a big deal out of it. Horse-drawn carriages, big statues by the graves and stuff. But then there was the First World War and people were dying left, right and centre and it was mostly young fellas like just a bit older than me and people got sick of death and it became more upsetting, so people stopped talking about it (God knows where she got this from, I’ve no idea) because it was so senseless. And she reckons we never really got over that, but we need to start celebrating death and life again, and talk about it and not be scared of it.

  Fat chance.

  Anyway. See you before you get this probably.

  Your Greg xxxxxxxxx