If You Were Here

by Alice Peterson

  26

  Flo

  Somehow I get through my last day at work without a glitch, running on adrenaline and caffeine alone. It’s business as usual, until I’m called downstairs by Natalie at the end of the afternoon, who presents me with a chocolate cake, a bottle of champagne and a pale pink cap, embroidered with the letters ‘NY’.

  As the champagne is poured and my boss, Harriet, thanks me for everything I have done for the company, I can’t bring myself to let on that I might not be going to America quite as soon as I’d planned. However, I maintain the pretence, as it’s by far the easier thing to do. It’s the only thing to do if I want to leave here tonight without dissolving into tears.

  As Natalie grills me on all the things I’m going to do in New York, and asking if she can come out and stay, it becomes increasingly clear that I’m not ready to get on that plane in less than forty-eight hours. I’m not ready to begin my new life because there’s so much in my current one that I don’t understand.

  *

  Later that day, back at home, I glance at my watch. It’s eight o’clock our time, which makes it three in the afternoon for Theo. James wishes me good luck before heading out to see his old friend, Stu.

  ‘Call if you need me,’ he says, ‘we’re only round the corner.’ Sensing my fear, he adds, ‘You’re doing the right thing telling him now. I’m proud of you, Flo.’

  I nod. He’s right. I’m going to be brave. Tell Theo everything and suggest I stay home for a few more weeks to process the news and see my GP for advice.

  The moment I hear James close the front door, I pick up the phone, my heart thudding in my chest.

  ‘Flo,’ he says, immediately picking up, ‘I was about to call you. I was getting worried; you’ve been so quiet these past few days.’

  ‘How’s everything going?’ I ask.

  I can tell him. Just be honest.

  ‘Manic. How did your last day go?’

  ‘It was great.’

  ‘Can you believe it, Flo? You’re a free agent. You’ll never have to book anyone’s flight again – except your own.’ He laughs. ‘You all packed?’ He waits. ‘Flo?’

  ‘I’m here. Actually, there’s something I need to talk to you about.’

  ‘You’re making me nervous. You haven’t changed your mind, have you?’

  ‘No, no, it’s nothing like that.’

  ‘Is this about Granny? Flo, she can’t make you feel guilty—’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, despite myself, ‘she’s in hospital.’

  ‘Shit, is she all right?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. It’s her heart. She has really high blood pressure so she’s being monitored. I’m so sorry, Theo, but I can’t leave her, not yet.’

  ‘Oh, Flo. Of course, you must stay.’

  Theo’s understanding makes me feel even guiltier for lying.

  ‘How long will she be in hospital for?’ he asks.

  ‘Probably a week or so.’

  ‘Okay. You can probably claim insurance?’

  ‘Insurance?’

  ‘Your ticket, sweetheart.’

  I hadn’t even thought about that.

  ‘If you need me to give you some extra cash—’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I say, my guilt growing. ‘I’ll sort something out.’

  ‘So when do you think you can come out here?’

  ‘I’m not sure. Until I know what it is—’

  ‘Right. I understand.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say once again, registering his disappointment.

  ‘Stop saying sorry; it’s not your fault. I’m sad, sure – the flat feels lonely without you – but we’ve got our whole lives ahead of us, Flo, our entire future, so stay with her for as long as she needs you.’

  *

  Alone in my bedroom, I feel increasingly uneasy. I may have bought myself more time, but the truth is I’ve just lied to my future husband. I’ve blamed Granny and Mum for keeping secrets and here I am doing exactly the same thing.

  I think of James, dreading telling him I bottled out.

  Why couldn’t I tell Theo the truth? I had it perfectly rehearsed on paper. Maybe I couldn’t tell him because I don’t even know myself what it means to be at risk.

  I pick up Mum’s diary, opening it to the last page I’d reached last night. Mum was seventeen then.

  I touch her handwriting. I thought I knew her inside out. It’s like believing you know every single nook and cranny of your home, then discovering there was another room, on a secret floor, a room that was permanently locked.

  It will always hurt being shut out, but at least these diaries provide a key, and now that I’ve entered, there’s no turning back.

  Beth’s Diary, 1986

  I wish I could tell people not to stare. If only I had the courage to walk over to their table and tell them how lucky they are that they can blend into a crowd, eat their meal at a restaurant without panicking that a storm is about to hit. Not worrying that plates, knives and glasses will crash on to the floor, that water will be thrown over burning candles to kill the flame.

  That’s what Dad’s HD has done.

  It has killed the flame of our family life, snuffed out any sense of normality.

  I wish I could articulate myself in front of people, maybe even explain our situation to put them at ease. If only I could talk to Mum, tell her how I feel, that it’s more upsetting going out these days than staying in watching Dad smoke in front of the TV with his bottle of beer.

  People’s stares are like kicks in the gut, reminding me that as each day passes, my father is fading in front of my very eyes, and there is nothing I can do to help him.

  All we can do as a family is carry on through the storm.

  I picked up Dad’s glass and mopped up the red wine with my napkin, while Mum called a waiter over, saying with her usual false cheer, ‘Oh dear, look what a mess we’ve made! We’re so sorry!’

  I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t write a diary. I wouldn’t know how to make sense of anything. I’ve always been much better with a pen or paintbrush in my hand. Words get stuck in my throat.

  The sad thing is today I should be feeling happy. This morning I found out I’ve been accepted into one of the best art schools in London – Camberwell – to do a fine art degree in painting. I listened to Dad’s advice not to take a gap year, even if I’m only seventeen and a year ahead, but to get on with art school. There will be plenty of time to travel in the holidays.

  Since Dad told me he had HD, we’ve had many more heart-to-hearts, Dad stressing we only get one life, one shot, so I was not to waste my time doing something that didn’t make me happy.

  Dad always wanted to be an artist. He would have loved to have been a sculptor, or maybe an architect, but he was never encouraged to dream or aspire. So I listened to him, not expecting to get into Camberwell, especially after my interview when the woman asked me what made me think my portfolio cut the mustard and why was I so buttoned up and polite?

  ‘Art can never be buttoned up and polite,’ she said. But what did she expect – me to be rude and spit?

  When she asked me who had influenced me the most, I think she imagined I’d say Cezanne or Picasso, but I said, ‘My father’.

  I found myself telling her about my childhood: Dad and me lying on the floor in his study, opera music playing, working on our doll’s house together, him telling me his dream was to design and build a house by the sea in his retirement, somewhere Mum could have her own veggie patch, and he’d build a swimming pool, too, for all his grandkids to play in.

  ‘I’m relying on you, Beth, to give me as many as possible, no pressure.’ Dad had always wanted a larger family; he would have loved for me to have had a brother or sister, but after my traumatic birth, Mum was warned against trying again.

  As I was holding back the tears, all I could think was how we make plans and God laughs at them. But we can’t stop making plans or having dreams, can we?

  We can’t stop living
.

  Dad’s speech isn’t so good now: his words are slurred, as if he’s had too much to drink, but Mum and I understand him because we know him inside out, so when I waved the letter in front of him today, saying, ‘I got in. They picked me!’ he said he wanted to celebrate. He wanted to go out, just with Mum, me and my best friend, Tibby, to toast my future.

  These days, Dad doesn’t like socializing with people who don’t know about his HD. He doesn’t want them to see the way he walks, or the way Mum sometimes cuts up his food to make it easier for him to swallow. He’s lost touch with his golfing friends, their diaries suddenly full.

  Anyway, Dad was determined we go out, and when he gets set on an idea, he’s like a dog with a bone. So we go to a restaurant that doesn’t have too many steps, somewhere we can park right outside. When the waiter shows us to our table, people stare as Dad bumps into somebody’s chair.

  They probably think he has Parkinson’s.

  We sit down and look at the menu. Dad picks something that is least likely to end up down his shirt. Spaghetti is an enemy. He loves steak. How wrong can you go with that? Until Mum is shouting, ‘Is anyone a doctor!’ and I’m helping Dad to his feet, Mum standing behind him, her small frame no match for Dad’s, but she is wiry and strong, and somehow she’s doing the Heimlich manoeuvre to remove that bolus of meat that’s made itself at home in Dad’s oesophagus.

  The restaurant seems to freeze, the chatter dims, until Dad is back in his seat. I can feel his frustration, his pain, as he picks up his glass of red wine, Mum, Tibby and me watching in slow motion to see if it reaches his mouth.

  Of course it doesn’t, and Dad’s plate – his steak and chips – are soaked in red wine and knocked to the floor. And the restaurant hushes again, a few stifled giggles this time.

  If it weren’t so tragic it would be funny.

  I’m ashamed to say I might have laughed if it weren’t my dad.

  When he tries to pour himself another glass of wine, he pushes Mum’s hand away, shouting, ‘I can do it!’

  I can almost hear the other diners thinking ‘He shouldn’t be allowed out.’ The sort of people who think children should be seen but not heard.

  But do you know what the worst part of this is? It’s only going to get worse. I looked at Mum tonight, so wonderful and brave, but at some point this disease is going to defeat her, because she won’t let anyone help, except me. She’s too proud. Too stubborn.

  Very soon, Mum will have to give up her job to be a full-time carer. How can I skip off to art school when Dad is only going to need more and more support?

  I realize that one day Mum and I will look back and think a spilt glass of red wine and the stares were nothing compared to what we’re facing now. We’ll think these days were good, days when we could still get out of the house and toast my future.

  Because that’s what we did. Mum ordered the best champagne on the menu, which received yet another odd look from the waiter, who no doubt wondered what on earth we had to celebrate. But Mum poured the champagne into four flutes, giving Dad a tiny amount to cause minimal waste.

  ‘To my Beth,’ Dad said. I shall always remember that look of pride in his blue eyes.

  Sometimes, I get these panic attacks. They come on when I’m alone, at night, when I think too much about my own future, and darkness overtakes light. Tibby says I should talk to my GP. Maybe she could prescribe me some anti-depressants and something to help me sleep.

  ‘What you’re going through is traumatic,’ she says, ‘it’s okay to ask for help’.

  Mum and Dad must know that I have a fifty-fifty chance of inheriting the gene, too, and yet none of us have spoken about it. How can we? It’s too frightening. It’s like the elephant in the room.

  I’m seventeen. I can head off to art school this autumn, I can toast my future, but the thundercloud over my head, the threat of a storm, will follow me like a shadow wherever I go. The truth is, I have a potential bomb in my bag, and who knows when or if it will go off.

  27

  Peggy

  ‘What are you going to do when she’s in New York, Peggy?’ Ricky asks me over a cup of tea.

  James called me last weekend to say Flo had delayed her flight. A part of me felt relieved. Another part felt overwhelming guilt at being the person who had thwarted her plans at the last minute.

  Impeccable timing, Peggy.

  I longed to ask James what Theo had said, praying he’d been understanding and supportive, but couldn’t in the end.

  I shrug. ‘As long as she’s happy.’

  ‘Yes, but what about you?’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You can’t just sit here day in, day out, staring into space, wondering when Flo is going to forgive you.’

  ‘Why not? I’m perfectly all right. I don’t feel like seeing anyone anyway.’

  ‘Not even me?’

  ‘You’re different.’

  He smiles recognizing that’s a compliment. ‘When my baby girl died, I was given compassionate leave and I needed that time, but I’d have gone mad if I hadn’t had my job to go back to. Seeing other people and talking to patients kept me sane.’

  ‘Ricky, I’m retired.’

  ‘Yeah, but you’re not retired from life. And you can’t live through Flo’s. Now is the time for you to take up a new hobby.’

  ‘I’m seventy-nine, for goodness sake. I’m an old bag.’

  ‘There must be something you’ve always longed to do?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘I don’t believe you, mate. I want to learn the saxophone and my dream is to buy a beach hut for my kids, a place where we can talk and play music and dance by the sea.’

  ‘I’m not about to swan off to knitting classes or ballroom dancing, not when everything’s still so up in the air.’

  ‘Maybe not right this minute.’ He’s smiling again. ‘Sorry, I’m just imagining you doing the waltz, Peggy. Or the tango.’ He pulls me out of my chair and starts to tango with me around the kitchen floor.

  ‘Stop it, Ricky, honestly!’ I say, though a smile is reluctantly creeping on to my face.

  ‘God forbid if anyone stepped on your toes,’ he says, carrying on. ‘Ouch.’

  ‘Ricky! Enough!’ But I find myself laughing with him. We must look a ridiculous pair.

  ‘I’m more at home on a footie pitch,’ he admits, both of us sitting down again. ‘All I’m saying is—’

  ‘I know what you’re saying, and I’ll think about it once this is sorted,’ I promise, wondering how many of Beth’s diaries Flo has now read, praying that no matter how hard reading the truth is, it will help her.

  Ricky catches me staring at my mobile again, willing it to ring.

  ‘Flo will go to America,’ he states. ‘She will live her life, and that’s what you need to do, too.’

  *

  Later that night, when I’m tucked up in bed, my mobile rings. It’s James.

  ‘Hello,’ I say, sensing immediately something is wrong.

  ‘I’m sorry to wake you, Granny Peg.’

  ‘Never mind. Is Flo all right?’

  ‘That’s why I’m calling. She hasn’t come home.’ I glance at my clock sitting on my bedside table. It’s one in the morning. I sit up abruptly. ‘Well, where is she?’

  ‘I was kind of hoping she was with you,’ James says.

  28

  Flo

  ‘A glass of white wine, please,’ I say to the man behind the bar. It’s Monday night and I’ve spent another full day alone in the flat reading Mum’s diaries.

  I hate thinking about what she went through, seeing her father suffer, watching helplessly as he lost his job and was left unable to do all the things we take for granted.

  It hurts me to think she carried this burden alone.

  If only she had talked to me about it. I’d have hated anticipating the same thing happening to Mum, but I would have been there for her.

  Why couldn’t Granny and Mum talk about it? Why did
they have to pretend everything was all right? The ironic thing is the only person who wanted it to be out in the open was Granddad.

  As I drink my wine, my mind flits to James and Maddie. I couldn’t bring myself to tell them I’d wimped out of telling Theo the truth. Instead I’d pretended that he’d taken it in his stride. Maybe my instincts were right in the first place. I should talk to him face to face, not over the phone.

  As I sit, slumped at the table in the far corner of the bar, all I can hear is my mother’s voice inside my head, speaking the words from her diary.

  I can head off to art school, I can toast my future, but the thundercloud over my head, the threat of a storm, will follow me like a shadow wherever I go. The truth is, I have a potential bomb in my bag, and who knows when or if it will go off.

  I don’t even notice a man taking a seat next to me until he says, ‘May I get you another?’ He gestures to my empty glass.

  ‘Thanks.’ I hiccup. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Nate.’ He shakes my hand. He’s well over six foot, fair like Theo, and has a smile that would make you agree to pretty much anything. ‘What’s a beautiful woman like you doing on her own?’ he asks.

  But he needs to work on his chat-up lines.

  He waits, a flicker of amusement in his eyes that again reminds me of Theo. ‘Do you have a name?’

  ‘Rosie. Rosie Chambers.’

  I don’t want to be Flo Andrews tonight.

  Or tomorrow.

  Or the next day.

  *

  The moment he heads towards the bar I take off my engagement ring and hide it in my wallet.

  When he returns with my drink he tells me a few of his friends are moving on to a nightclub after this. ‘Fancy coming?’

  My mobile rings. It’s James.

  I hesitate before I reject his call.

  Let me forget who I am, James. Just for one night.

  29

  Beth’s Diary, 1987

  You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. It’s close to two in the morning. I should be sleeping, but I need to write everything down.

  So, I dragged myself into college this morning, makeup smudged, my skin sore and red, irritated from kissing Ben, who, despite my protests, is still experimenting with growing a beard. I prayed I wouldn’t bump into Mark on the way to my studio, but of course I did.