by Kitty Wilson
‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ Belle says, her eyes casting around, lighting on one thing and then another. ‘I really don’t. It even…’ She stops and sniffs. ‘It even smells of Christmas in here.’ She starts to move forward and for a minute it looks as if she’s going to launch herself onto me but she stops at the last minute and instead runs her uplifted arms through her hair, looking at me intensely as she awkwardly brings her hands back to her side. ‘This is insane. You’ve done all this for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s … it’s amazing. The tree is so gorgeous, all those baubles, and they’re the ones I told you I loved. You’ve got me Christmassy snacks and a Christmas dinner too. I could cry. You have no idea how hungry I am. I swear I’ve been living off sandwiches, samosas and toast this week but…’ She pauses again. ‘Why? Why have you done all this? Apart from the fact that clearly you’re a saint and have completely become my best Christmas angel of all time.’
‘What do you mean, why?’
‘Why would you go to all this effort?’ she questions.
‘Most people wouldn’t ask that.’
‘Maybe not but I bet they’d all think it.’
‘No, I’m fairly sure most people would just accept it as their due. Why? I guess I want to say thank you for being my friend. Honestly, I expected this to be a difficult trip. The past, you know … and the fact that I’m here to—’
I realise I haven’t told her why I’m in the UK, about Mum’s diagnosis, and I assume she knows about Jessica, thanks to the invasiveness of social media and our linked past. I’m so used to keeping everything to myself, not seeing a need to share personal information, that she couldn’t possibly know why I am here. In fact, I know that I have very deliberately swerved the question when she has asked before. I sit myself down on the sofa as I debate whether I want to tell her and realise that it isn’t a case of whether I want to or not, it’s more that it feels weird not doing so.
She comes and sits next to me and looks as if she’s going to rest her hand on my leg but, again, stops herself and places her hands back in her lap. I look at her and we hold eye contact as if she’s silently acknowledging that she’s here, ready to listen and she wants me to know that. Then she pops a handful of the nuts in her mouth without once taking her eyes from mine and that smile sparkles at the corner of her lips, mischief peeks out of her eyes as she rolls them to show me how heavenly she thinks they are. I’m not unaware that she has deliberately not spoken. She’s waiting for me.
My mum would love Belle, although they probably couldn’t be trusted together. Together, the two of them would end up on the modern-day equivalent of wanted posters, the length and breadth of the land. My mum is a good judge of character though and I know she not only won’t mind me telling Belle, she wants me to talk to someone.
I take a deep breath.
‘I’m here because my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer.’ I can feel tears from nowhere suddenly prick in the corner of my eyes. I blink rapidly, pushing them back. This is not me. I do not cry. I’m good at many things but salvaging people’s reputations and supreme self-control are the things I excel in. Excel in. This is just the first time I’ve said those words out loud to anyone other than Mum.
Belle opens her mouth and, in an attempt to make her realise the truth of the situation, to see that I am a rational adult not an over-emotional child and that I know things are probably, no, are going to be okay, I quickly add, ‘It’s stage two but they’ve caught it early and the differences in prognosis, in a woman’s chances, are so different now to how they were ten years ago. I’m fairly confident that this time around she’s going to be okay.’ This time around, I say. I know that the chances of it recurring are high, that another time she may not be so lucky. Nope. I am not going down that road.
Belle makes a move just a fraction forward and I can see that she’s seeking to reassure me, to comfort me. I move away. In the back of my mind a sneaky voice warns me I’ll fall apart if she touches me. I’m scared of the torrent that a little bit of sympathy could unleash.
I shake my head to dispel such an unsettling thought.
I’m not going to get caught up in emotion right now. Facts are what matter. ‘The surgery is next week, just before Christmas, and her consultant says she has high hopes of it all going well. Mum will have a lumpectomy and they’ll get anything left and have a good look around, see what’s happening to the lymph nodes then decide on next steps. We don’t know at this stage if she’ll need radiotherapy or chemo or anything like that but like I say, the consultant is hopeful. They’ve moved really quickly; Mum says since the diagnosis it’s like being on a carousel as everything whirls around her. So, they’re being speedy, which is good, and we’ll know much more after the first surgery.’ I force a smile to my face, to reassure Belle there’s nothing to worry about.
‘That’s a lot. Of course you came home. I’m so sorry that is why you’ve had to fly back but it sounds like your mum’s got a lot going in her favour.’
‘She has.’ I’m glad Belle understands what I’ve been trying to say. That she appreciates my need to stick to the practical.
‘But you know that doesn’t mean you can’t be upset.’
I gulp.
She ploughs on.
‘You’re an only child, aren’t you?’
‘I am.’ And then all semblance of holding it together vanishes, a seawall finally washed over by the incoming tide, ferocious in its attack. Words spill forth. ‘And the thing is, the thing is that the thought of losing Mum as well, I just … I just can’t…’ I pause as I try and collate my thoughts that are now rushing at me in a fury. ‘Mum and Jess rooted me, they made me feel tethered. Secure.’ I sniff and take a deep breath but it’s as if now I’ve started talking I can’t stop and something in me, something I can never remember feeling before, something is encouraging me forward, reminding me that I am safe with Belle. That she will understand, that there will be no judgement.
‘Jess was my everything. The love she had for me, the love she chose to have for me, made me feel like a king. She was the most remarkable woman I have ever met and to this day I cannot quite believe it was me she chose to be with. Me she saw a future with. I know you knew her, Belle, but you didn’t, not really. No one got that close apart from me. I was the one she chose to let in. I saw her, the whole of her, and she was perfect. Even in her flaws she was perfect. She made me feel I could conquer the world.’ I hear myself release a short, sardonic laugh. ‘When I was little I struggled a bit. I’m not alone in that but having my dad walk out before I was even born, to know that I wasn’t even worth holding once before he rejected me, to know that he didn’t feel that any good could come of his life if I was in it, that makes a child feel lost, unworthy. And the ridiculous thing was it didn’t matter how much love Mum poured into me, it was his absence that I dwelt upon.’
‘He didn’t know you, Rory, if he had he would never have walked away.’ Belle rubs my arm as she says it and I look at her face. It’s hard to read but I don’t believe she thinks that it’s that simple for one minute.
‘He did search me out once. I remember it so clearly. A primary school football match. This man no one recognised was there, some flash woman on his arm. Mum couldn’t watch that day, she was working, and I never gave this new guy on the sidelines a moment’s thought, why would I? Then he came and introduced himself as my dad with this woman cooing all over me as if I was some mystical creature. I must’ve been about nine. And he never came back again. That was it. Poof!’ I feel the tears streaming down my face and I move to brush them away.
‘Rory, that is not your fault. That speaks to the kind of man, the fool, that your father was, nothing about you at all. Do you hear me? At all.’ Her tone is fierce, and I know on one level she is right but there is a huge difference between rational self and emotional self and right now emotional me is taking a turn.
‘I know, but I think it’s made me wary of men,
does that make sense? Still to this day I don’t trust them until they’ve proven their worth. I trust women, I trust women like my mum who are there, who are staunch, honest and put the work in. And I’ve already lost one of the two women who has shaped me, the one that chose to be with me, and I will never ever get her back…’ I am choking the words out now. ‘I’ll never get her back, and now I am terrified that I am going to lose the woman who I have not lived a single day of my life without being secure in her love. And I have wasted all this time, I abandoned her, and now it could be too late. It could be too late.’ Belle remains wordless as my tears dry and my rant finishes. As I stop talking, she pulls me towards her and wraps me in her arms, squeezing me and stroking my hair. She does not say a word. She does not reassure me that all will be well. It’s as if she knows there are no words that I can have faith in and, in this moment, I want to nestle here and be protected for ever.
I last two minutes before embarrassment takes hold of me. I have just sobbed like a baby in front of someone that I have invited around for dinner. My heart had calmed but now it starts to beat real fast, the humiliation threatening to take control. I sit up, look Belle square in the eye and try to remind myself that she of all people can be trusted.
‘Hey, we should eat. Let me just go get everything ready.’ I take a deep breath, stand and pull out the blanket and make a show of laying it across her and tucking it in, my hands running down the sides of the couch, down the sides of her. Tucking her in. I feel a shiver at the intimacy of it, and a flash of how my mum used to do the same for me when I needed to rest. For God’s sake. My friendship with Belle is meant to help me escape my emotions, not intensify them. This evening is not going as I planned. I give her my biggest grin as I straighten up and try to wrestle back a semblance of normal.
‘Now you rest up, don’t move and I’ll be back in a minute with your dinner.’ But as I start my sentence she raises her brow and I know she now knows more about me than I am comfortable with any person knowing.
Take him and cut him out in little stars,
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun.
* * *
December Eighteenth.
Rory.
‘Hey, what are you doing awake?’ I ask Belle as she stumbles into the kitchen bleary-eyed but fully wrapped up in coat, mittens and scarf. ‘It’s half past four.’ I am embarrassed after my outpourings last night but am determined not to mess this friendship up by hiding away. I need to face this morning, and Belle, as if nothing happened. And maybe we can go on as we are, both pretending that I never said a word.
‘I could ask you the same.’ She is her usual self and instant relief fills my body.
‘After you fell asleep on the sofa last night I took myself to bed as well and fell asleep way earlier than normal, so consequently I’m awake now instead. Your turn.’
‘I’m sorry I fell asleep on your sofa, but I need to be back in Bristol for six, half six at the absolute latest, for work.’
‘No apologies necessary, you needed to sleep. You looked pretty cosy under that blanket. I’ll run you home. Oh, and you must take the tree.’
‘Oh, it was so good, no sofa should be that comfy. But honestly, don’t be daft. I can get home and I am not taking your tree. We can discuss that after Christmas!’
‘Seriously, you’re planning on getting a train home now and walking across the city in the dark to go straight to work?’
‘I checked, no train till six so I was going to get a Lyft.’
‘You’re mad. I’ll give you a lift home, no arguing.’
The drive didn’t take long despite going extra carefully. Overnight, the rain had turned to snow that battered the windows and the wipers were on full pelt to clear it. All of which is accompanied by Belle singing along to the Christmas songs on the radio.
‘They’ve got rivers of gold…’ She is giving the song her all.
‘How on earth do you manage to be this happy in the morning?’
‘This cleaning job has made me see the joy in early mornings. Before, I would have scowled at anyone who dared to talk to me before nine, now I love the early mornings. There’s a magical quality about the city as it wakes, and the streets are almost deserted.’
‘Did you want me to drop you at work or at home?’
‘Oh, home, please, although…’
‘You’re very secretive about this cleaning job. I’m still not sure you’ve told me where it is.’
‘No, I very probably haven’t but seeing as it’s only quarter past five now, do you want to do something proper lush and magical?’
‘That could be agreeing to anything.’
‘Uh-huh. Trust me?’
‘I must be mad.’
‘In that case let’s go to Eastville Park. I can easily walk to work from there, it’s literally three minutes away, and I’ve been itching to do this but not on my own in the dark.’
‘Eastville Park, here we come.’
Before I know it, Belle and I are walking through the park, in the dark, with the snow still falling heavily. Like the morning we sledged down the hill, everything around us is white and untouched bar some paw-prints running across the wide-open space.
‘I haven’t been in here for years, and I don’t think I’ve ever explored it properly.’
‘Okay, well, it’s pretty ace. It’s got a disused lido that they sometimes use for theatre but I’m hoping they’ll turn it back into an open-air swimming pool, and you’re going to love this.’ She grabs my hand, her mitten in my glove, and starts to pull me along at speed.
‘Woah, it might be icy,’ I say
‘It’s not icy, come on.’ She pulls me down a wooded path, the trees snow-topped and Narnia-like, and then we are at a huge lake.
‘Look, isn’t that something? I love the reflection of the moon on water but a few years ago Luisa made me promise to not walk here alone at night. I’ve missed it. Isn’t it beautiful?’
‘It is.’ It’s eerie, quiet but quite special. Ethereal.
‘I love it here, I half expect fairies to tiptoe out for moonlit winter balls, but also, on a more practical level, it’s such a haven for wildlife.’ She encourages me down onto a bench. ‘Loads of people use this as a photography spot. You get herons, and kingfishers, and otters. I love otters. Not to mention the more obvious foxes and badgers, swans and ducks. It’s amazing. Teeming and bang in the middle of a city.’
‘I didn’t know you were into wildlife.’
‘Yep, for sure. Although I’m not very science-y about it. I tend to think about them all as having mummies and daddies and brothers and sisters.’
‘Anthropomorphise them?’
‘Yep, isn’t that the best word? Anyway, I know more than you’d think about wildlife.’ She looks at me quizzically as if she is deciding to say something or not. I hope she isn’t going to reference the conversation we had last night. I am pleased that I opened up a bit but it was definitely a one-time deal, I can’t do emotions again today, and certainly not before dawn has even broken. ‘Let me tell you about wood frogs,’ she says. I grin; that is not what I expected. ‘They’re so interesting, although we don’t find them here, but in cold, cold places like Alaska, where in winter they freeze almost completely solid. But they’ve evolved so they make glucose, which acts like an anti-freeze and keeps them alive. They live in this frozen state for weeks and weeks and then as the temperature rises their hearts start to beat again, they gulp for air, have a little wriggle and off they hop to look for a mate. Kinda cool, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah, that really is.’
‘I always thought so.’
‘But they don’t live in Eastville Park?’
‘Nah. But otters do and they’re awesome. Let me tell you some amazing facts about otters.’
‘Whilst I would like that very much, I’m bloody freezing. You must be too.’
‘Here.’ I grab her hands, even though they’re encased in wool, and blow onto them in an attempt to warm her. She looks at me funnily but doesn’t pull her hands away.
‘Come on then. I need to get back but I want to make sure we’ve got time to do one more thing first.’
‘One more thing?’
‘Yes!’
‘Go on then, Wilde, lead the way.’ We weave our way back through the Narnia trees and she runs off the path right into the middle of the large expanse of snow-covered park, stops and plonks herself down, waving me over with a huge grin on her face.
‘I’ll get wet!’
‘Damn straight. But you have a seat warmer in your car so you’ll be toasty before you’re even on the other side of the city. C’mon.’ It strikes me that I have been very easily bossed around this month but nonetheless I am trying to be more Belle so I sit down next to her. The damp snow is three inches thick, soft and not as cold as I anticipate.
Then she drops herself back so she is lying flat out.
‘You too,’ she commands. I do as I’m told, unable to stop a laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.
We lie there looking up, the moon shining bright and the stars twinkling in the blue-black sky. I’ve never done this before and I wonder why. I feel the vastness of the universe, the smallness of me and the joy of companionship as I look across to the nutty girl lying by my side, who makes me do these crazy, life-affirming things that I would never have even dreamt of.
‘You know what we have to do now, right?’ she asks.
I haven’t a clue.
She moves her arms up and down and her feet across from side to side at the same time.
‘You’re bonkers!’ I laugh.
‘Do it!’ she shouts, the laughter in her voice cutting through the threat, and, of course, I obey.
