She sits beside Zoe’s bed, wishing she could lift up the stiff hospital sheets and climb in beside her, wrap her arms around her and hold her close until the warmth of their bodies has dissolved the space between them. She wants to feel Zoe’s skin against her cheek, feel her breath hot against her neck, sing her favorite songs—“Edelweiss,” “Castle on a Cloud,” “Dream a Little Dream of Me”—just as she has done for the past ten years.
Audrey’s throat narrows and her hand tightens around Zoe’s fingers.
Ten years she has had to love her little girl; to protect her, comfort her, laugh with her, take pride in her. Ten years to wipe away her tears, sing her to sleep, kiss her scraped knees, bathe her fevered brow. Ten years to teach her to walk, talk, run, jump, paint, draw, sing, skip, read, write. But now a rogue collection of blood cells over which Audrey has no control is stealing her away.
Ten years: a lifetime and yet the blink of an eye.
Zoe’s eyelids flutter and the muscles pull taut across Audrey’s chest, a feeling she once thought might have been hope but which she now understands is simply love.
She remembers how, when Zoe was younger, she had always wanted to climb trees that were too tall for her. I can do it, Mummy, I know I can. Audrey had always capitulated eventually, letting Zoe climb a little way up, hovering underneath, her hands outstretched ready to catch her should she fall. And then, when the girls were older, it was always Zoe—not Lily or Jess—who climbed the highest: fearless, athletic, nimble Zoe. The child Audrey had once believed to be invincible.
Audrey glances at the clock on the wall: a quarter past six. She has promised to collect Jess from Emily’s house before seven and she is already at risk of being late. But she does not want to leave before Zoe has woken up.
Audrey is grateful to be here alone today. Most days Jess accompanies her and sits by the bed of her twin sister, reading to her or relating anecdotes from school, the resemblance between the once-identical girls now just a faint echo. It has become a strange after-school ritual the three of them share, one that Audrey worries may not be good for Jess, but the girls have been inseparable for a decade and it is painful enough that they no longer share their days, their nights, their hopes, and dreams without denying them this hour each afternoon too.
All three sisters had been so close, once upon a time, before Zoe’s frequent spells in the hospital cut short their childhood. Her three musketeers, Audrey had called them. On Sunday afternoons they would perform musicals for her and Edward—Annie, The Sound of Music, Bugsy Malone—all under Lily’s careful direction, seeking out costumes from the dress-up box or the back of Audrey’s wardrobe, outfits she hadn’t worn for years and couldn’t remember buying. Jess would invariably forget the words or the choreography and Lily would get cross with her until Zoe would leap to her twin’s defense, point out that it was supposed to be fun, tell Lily to stop being mean. But to Audrey it was perfect whether or not they were in tune or in time.
Had Audrey known what would happen later, she’d have recorded every single minute of it on film.
Audrey looks down at her daughter lying under anonymous hospital sheets and wonders, not for the first time, how it is that the fate of a life—the fate of a family—should swing on an imperfect collection of blood cells, invisible to the naked eye.
The parcel rustles in her lap and Audrey looks at the present wrapped in shiny silver paper decorated with tiny stars. Zoe has been fascinated by stars ever since she was little. Whenever she has been asked what she wants to be when she grows up, she has always replied that she plans to be an astronomer, to uncover the mysteries of the universe, as though such an ambition is entirely within her grasp. Now people no longer ask Zoe the question.
Audrey wonders about putting the gift on the chest of drawers next to the Walkman that gets less and less use as the days go by. The present is a double cassette of Now That’s What I Call Music! 11 and Audrey hopes it will help turn up the brightness behind Zoe’s eyes.
She thinks back to the previous week, to how brave Zoe had been as the nurses had hooked a bag of medicine to the tall metal stand, as drugs had dripped through the transparent plastic tube into her vein to engage in yet another battle against Zoe’s defective bone marrow. Audrey thinks about the dozens of times Zoe has had to endure this process: all the times she has vomited into disposable cardboard bowls, all the times she has been unable to lift her head from the pillow because it makes her stomach churn, all the times she has looked down at her arms, her legs, her jutting hip bones, and questioned the bruises that seem to materialize overnight. She thinks about all that Zoe has had to withstand and her heart strains with the injustice of it and with the guilt that she is unable to take away Zoe’s pain. Keeping your child safe, keeping her free from harm: these are a mother’s primary tasks and Audrey has failed to fulfill them.
How many more times do I have to have that done, Mummy?
Zoe’s words haunt Audrey as she remembers how, at the end of last week’s chemotherapy session—as Audrey had wiped traces of vomit from her daughter’s lips, shortly before Zoe had begun to throw up again—Zoe had looked up, her expression fixed with a determination not to complain, and asked Audrey the question.
Not too many more, my love. Not too many more.
The ambiguity of her reassurance had grasped at Audrey’s throat.
She runs her fingers gently across Zoe’s scalp where once her hair had been. An image slips into her head that she feels should belong to another era but which she knows belongs only to the recent past. An image of Zoe, twelve months ago, soon after her second chemotherapy session, scratching her head and pulling back her hand to discover a clump of her beautiful dark, wavy hair in it. The confusion on her face, and then the horror, before the tears had welled up and tipped over onto her cheeks. The strength Audrey had needed in order to hold back her own tears, to clasp Zoe in her arms, to whisper into her ear that it was all going to be OK, that Mummy was there, that she would take care of her.
She thinks about how she has watched Zoe accept this most ignominious of side effects. She has observed the stoic resignation that has followed the flash of panic as Zoe has raised her head from her pillow in the morning to find it covered with hair no longer attached to her head. She has seen, through a gap in the bathroom door, Zoe run a brush through her hair and stare with disbelief and distress at the contents in the bristles after each stroke. On better days, during better weeks, Audrey has accompanied Zoe through the fabric department at John Lewis, picking out material to fashion into headscarves, watching Zoe smile reassuringly at shop assistants in response to their expressions of shocked, uncomfortable sympathy.
Now only a few stubborn tufts of Zoe’s hair remain.
Audrey has an envelope of Zoe’s hair at home, tucked away in a wooden box at the bottom of her wardrobe. She cannot let Edward know it is there: he thinks it ghoulish, macabre.
There have been days when Audrey has felt chastened by Zoe’s courage, days when she has watched her laughing at a nurse’s jokes even as a needle pierces her skin, days when Zoe has smiled to greet the doctor who will be prodding her for the next half an hour, days when she has nodded to reassure Audrey that she is OK as she lies down on a gurney for yet another biopsy. There have been days during which Audrey has watched the suffering, pain, indignity and distress of her little girl and felt an impotent fury that she is unable to stop it. There have been many days when Audrey has silently raged against her own powerlessness.
She places the star-wrapped present on the beige chest of drawers next to the Walkman and a selection of Zoe’s favorite cassettes: audiobooks of I Capture the Castle, Little Women, Roald Dahl, and Shirley Hughes. On top lies the tattered copy of Ballet Shoes that Jess often reads aloud when they arrive to find Zoe awake. The twins know the story of Pauline, Petrova, and Posy almost off by heart and they seem to find an unspoken comfort in it, as though time has reversed to the Christmas three years ago when Audrey first gave it to Zoe. Read
ing Noel Streatfeild, it is as if time has been paused in 1985 and they do not have to acknowledge what the future will bring.
Over the past few weeks, Audrey has watched Zoe grow weaker day by day. She has witnessed the tiny portions of food and water shrink even further, felt the heaviness of Zoe’s head as she has lifted it to plump her damp pillow. She has watched the life begin to seep from Zoe’s body, watched the light dim behind her eyes. Some days she feels as though she is watching her daughter slowly disappear, like some terrible, long-drawn-out magic trick, and there is nothing she can do to stop it.
She thinks about the doctor’s kindness when she and Edward had sat in his office six days ago: a compassionate elderly man who seemed to have the loss of every patient etched into the lines around his eyes. She remembers his gentle tone—almost a whisper, as if he knew the world wasn’t yet ready for what he had to say—as he had told them there was nothing more to be done. Recalling the conversation now, Audrey can feel the air leaking out of her, like a badly tied balloon, just as it had as she’d sat on a high-backed melamine chair, wishing her legs would carry her out of his office so that she didn’t have to listen to what he was saying. She hears his voice in her head, talking through their options: keep Zoe in the hospital; move her to a hospice; take her home. Three separate options, each with the same outcome: Zoe is going to die.
Audrey blanches as she thinks about all the arguments she and Edward have had in the past six days: more rows than in the past sixteen years. Audrey still cannot believe that he does not want to bring Zoe home, that he thinks she will be better cared for by professionals. They know what they’re doing, Audrey. They know best how to look after her. She’ll be more comfortable with them, I promise you. Sitting now beside Zoe’s bed, thinking of Edward’s rationale, disbelief rises again into Audrey’s chest, filling her lungs with a quiet fury. Her fists curl into tight balls, recalling her response: I’m the best person to look after my daughter. She’s coming home. There’s nothing more to say. She still cannot believe that Edward is prepared to forgo a single second of however long they have left with Zoe.
They have not told the twins the reason Zoe will be coming home later this week. She and Edward have discussed it and it is the one thing upon which they are agreed: Lily, at fifteen, is old enough to know the truth; Zoe and Jess are not. Audrey cannot bear the thought of the twins spending Zoe’s last few weeks under the cloud of knowledge that they are to be permanently separated. If it is not within her gift to ensure that her girls can spend their whole lives together, she can, at the very least, give them time together unencumbered by the awareness of what is to come. She does not want Jess’s overriding memories of her sister to be the crippling apprehension of Zoe’s imminent death. Audrey already feels certain that Jess will never recover from the loss. The twins’ closeness is something beyond language, beyond understanding, a bond formed in a place preceding memory. Audrey cannot imagine how any of them will cope with the loss of Zoe. But it is Jess, she knows, who will feel it most profoundly.
Zoe’s eyelids flicker, and then open slowly, as if uncertain where they might find themselves. “Mummy.”
One word, two syllables: enough to break Audrey’s heart.
She leans over and kisses Zoe on the lips. They are dry, the skin unyielding, as if coated in a thin film of plastic. Audrey raises her head, painting an expression of reassurance on her face. “Hello, angel. How are you feeling?”
Zoe smiles but with an effort that causes the muscles to contract inside Audrey’s chest. “A bit tired. Where’s Jess?” It is always the first question Zoe asks on the days her twin is absent.
“She’s at Emily’s today, sweetheart. She’ll be here tomorrow.”
Zoe closes her eyes and Audrey thinks that perhaps she has gone back to sleep. But then they open again and Zoe’s voice, when it emerges, is low and small as if she has drunk a potion in Wonderland and it has shrunk to a fraction of its normal size. “When can I come home, Mummy?”
Audrey squeezes her daughter’s hand, the reply lodging in her throat. She blinks against her tears, forces her lips into a smile. “Soon, my love. I promise.” The declaration tastes bitter on her tongue, not because it is untrue but because it is a half-truth so painful she is not yet ready to say it out loud.
Holding Zoe’s hand, she remembers the first day she cradled her in her arms, just seconds after Zoe had taken her first breath. She remembers promising always to protect her, to look after her, to shield her from harm. They are promises she is painfully aware of having failed to keep.
Zoe smiles again before closing her eyes and drifting back to sleep.
Audrey looks at her daughter, her heart aching with love. Where, she thinks, will all that love go when Zoe is no longer able to receive it?
Audrey stays for a few minutes more, watching, waiting, wishing that the sheer strength of her love could make her daughter well again. She leans over and kisses Zoe’s forehead, strokes her cheek, and is filled with a panicked disbelief at the thought that there will come a time, very soon, when she will never be able to do this again. A time when she will never again be able to caress her daughter’s skin, kiss her lips, hold her hand. It is baffling to Audrey: how can Zoe be here now and yet soon she will not? How can that possibly happen? It is incomprehensible, yet Audrey knows it to be true: a knowing and a wishing not to know that sears her heart as she gazes down at her daughter, yearning to fuse their bodies together so that she would never have to leave her side.
She kisses Zoe again—twice, three times—knowing there will never be enough time for all the kisses she aches to give. Grief stings her eyes with the loss she knows is to come. She hesitates beside Zoe’s bed, aware that it is time to leave yet longing to stay. The ticking of each precious second chimes loudly in her ears and she knows that in just a few days’ time she will leave the hospital for the last time, carrying in her arms the little girl she had once thought invincible, the little girl for whom she would give her life to shield from harm.
Part Five
June
Chapter 35
Audrey
The babble of conversation filled Audrey’s ears as she looked around the room at her fellow choir members and then down at her watch.
In just over an hour and a half, all ninety-three of them would step onto the stage of the Royal Albert Hall and, with Ben conducting, perform a song in front of a five-thousand-strong audience, half a dozen TV cameras, and potentially millions of television viewers.
Something caught in the back of Audrey’s throat and when she coughed it was like glass shattering in her chest. It could just be nerves but in all likelihood wasn’t. The breathlessness and the coughing had escalated in recent weeks, just as her doctor had warned they would. She’d breathe in only to find that her chest cavity seemed to have shrunk, as though her lungs had begun to give up the fight long before Audrey was ready.
She leaned against the dressing-room door, thinking about all she’d done in the past few weeks, all the researching, planning, and booking. The idea had come to her as she’d lain in the hospital on the night of her collapse, unable to sleep because of the woman snoring in the bed next to her and the whirring of her own memories. But as soon as the thought had nudged its way into her head, Audrey’s only surprise was that it hadn’t occurred to her sooner. It seemed so obvious: the one thing, surely, that neither daughter could refuse. And yet, although decisions had been made, tickets paid for and reservations confirmed, Audrey’s confidence still plummeted every time she imagined telling Lily and Jess what she’d done and asking them to come with her.
A group of female musicians walked along the corridor, carrying instruments and chatting to one another without any sign of nerves. They were all in their late thirties, the same age Jess was now, the same age Zoe would have been. Audrey studied each of them in turn, wondering whether Zoe might have smiled as generously as the violinist or laughed as unselfconsciously as the clarinetist; whether her hands would have move
d as expressively as the flautist’s or whether she’d have listened as attentively as the oboist. Perhaps, Audrey thought, Zoe would have been all those things and more. Or perhaps she would have been none. Perhaps she would have been completely different in ways Audrey couldn’t even begin to imagine. And the thought of it—the thought of the impossibility of ever knowing what kind of an adult her little girl might have become—made Audrey reach out and grab the edge of the door to steady herself.
“Are you OK, Gran? Do you need to sit down?”
Audrey shook her head in spite of the dizziness, as Phoebe looped arms with her. “Just a bit of nerves, that’s all. How are you feeling—excited?”
Phoebe nodded with half-hearted commitment.
“What is it? What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. I’ve just been thinking about stuff recently. I’ve been wondering about you and Grandad . . . about how you knew that you wanted to be with him forever?” A light flush, the color of strawberries and cream, dappled Phoebe’s cheeks.
Audrey suppressed a smile. She glanced across the room to where Harry was laughing with some of the other choir members. She’d thought there might be something between them, but things had clearly moved faster than she’d realized. “Forever can be an awfully long time, Phoebe. You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. Don’t feel you have to commit to anything—anyone—until you’re sure you’re ready.”
“I know that. But you weren’t much older than me when you got married. I just want to understand how you knew that Grandad was the person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, especially when his parents didn’t like you very much.”
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