by Emily Dean
Rising before midday wasn’t the only way in which my mum had changed. The credit cards had been cancelled, Harrods food hall had been swapped for Sainsbury’s own brand and the bills had shifted from the hostile ‘DO NOT IGNORE!’ to the respectful, ‘Thank You For Early Payment.’ She threw herself into the role of grandparent, curating a book called ‘MIMI’S SAYINGS’ and making her dog family boiled eggs for tea. The turbulent wandering, the mountain of unpaid bills, the rootless existence – none of that, I could see now, had ever been her choice. She had simply jumped aboard a ship with someone who hadn’t anticipated passengers.
But in a curious way she’d come to depend on that role of fixer she fulfilled for my father. She still wrote letters to the Inland Revenue on his behalf and helped him sweet-talk angry creditors. Despite her boyfriend John coming over for weekly visits.
‘Do you think that being the child of an alcoholic has made you a bit co-dependent with Dad, Mum?’ I once asked her, perhaps unwisely.
‘Well, that’s one way of describing kindness, I suppose!’ she said, slightly hurt.
I sensed that she struggled to let go as Rach and I pursued our own lives. One year, when Rach decided to celebrate her birthday with friends in a bar instead of with the usual maternal dinner, my mother phoned in tears, telling us she’d driven to the bar and sat in the car outside. ‘I had to know where my daughter spent her birthday.’ She seemed sad if we did things without her.
She made great efforts to wheel my father out for occasional lunches, talking about ‘family’ with a slightly heartbreaking defiance. We collectively indulged in performances for his visiting relatives, and friends. He would tell his engaging stories and chuckle at Mimi’s malapropisms. He was never going to be one of those fathers you called about a motorway route, or for mortgage advice. He was still prone to absenting himself for long periods when a new woman entered his life, and always struggled with the whole truth. But he could offer profound insight into the psychology of a misbehaving boyfriend. And tell you, perhaps less usefully, which sanatorium Kafka spent his last days in.
He kept up the revolving door of educated, smartly-dressed brunette girlfriends, to whom we were sometimes introduced. There was the slightly imperious French one, then the actress who seemed way too ballsy to hang around for long, and Richard Burton’s widow, Sally, who swept him up into her rarefied world where ladies were shown menus without prices. ‘He’s trying to keep up with her,’ my mum sighed, when he turned up one day with a new car, a gold credit card and an Italian silk tie.
Then finally he got together with a widow whom he’d met via a dating agency. ‘He’s insisted she call her dog Plato,’ said Rach. ‘Of course he has.’ I laughed.
It was odd to think that even my domesticity avoidant dad had ended up with something resembling the dog-family experience.
I took my desperate longing for a dog into adulthood, boring friends incessantly with my ‘plans’, which we all knew were the chocolate-fireplace kind. People gave me glossy coffee-table books called The World of Dogs – my very own canine porn. I would stop to pet people’s terriers in the street with a needy intensity. ‘Well, we’d better be getting on then,’ they would eventually say, as if they were trying to round off that dutiful coffee with an exhausting friend.
Every time I got close to dog ownership, I bailed. There were too many reasons for it not to work. Who would look after the dog when I was at the office? What if I picked one with a horrible personality? What would the neighbours say if it barked? What if it died?
Of course, I never told anyone the real reason I didn’t get a dog – which was simply that I didn’t think I was good enough to look after anything.
Sometimes I went with Mum and Rach on a walk to the woods with Giggle, enjoying the pit stops to chat to other dog owners, the joy on children’s faces when they patted his head and Giggle’s delight as he bounded around, investigating the world.
Twelve months later, Rach’s second daughter, Bertie, was born. The Richard Curtis movie had finally come to its jubilant, heartwarming conclusion.
And then, something terrible happened.
Chapter Eight
5 December 2011
‘I can’t shift this baby weight, Em. It’s all just here.’
Rach grabbed her stomach and frowned in the Top Shop changing-room mirror. The teenagers talking about boys in the booth next door were competing with the thumping bass overhead.
My sister had always been a great clothes-shopping companion. It takes someone who loves you unconditionally to deliver those necessary slams of sartorial tough love. We enjoyed our outfit rap battles. ‘That top’s a bit “Ibiza raver who now has a stall in Camden Market,” Em,’ she would say. Or, ‘Don’t like the belt on that coat. Bit “Seventies French Resistance film.”’ It was all hugely specific. But on this occasion I thought she was being hard on herself. I reminded her that she was forty-three, had a ten-month-old, and we were trying on clothes targeted at people who viewed the Spice Girls like the Golden Girls.
We had our annual conversation about Mum’s birthday. My mother took birthdays very seriously. For her they were ceremonial events invested with huge significance. Often Rach and I ended up having tense disputes about the plans. I usually selected somewhere ritzy and fashionable in central London. Then Rach counter-offered with a rustic, unassuming local restaurant. It was a battle of lifestyles that came to the surface every December. But Rach abandoned the battlefield this time. She was exhausted from juggling work and two kids, I could tell. She said anywhere would do.
Three days later, the three of us met at Bob Bob Ricard, next to the headquarters of my radio show. It was an Art Deco den of opulence, all brass rails, navy leather banquettes and vigilant waiters. There was a little bell in each booth that said ‘Press for Champagne.’ I thought the camp, Gatsby-esque decadence would appeal to Mum. She made full use of the champagne button and called the fish pie ‘absolute paradise!’ But Rach pushed her chicken around with a fork, explaining that she was off her food.
‘You still can’t shift that flu bug, darling, can you?’ Mum sympathised, stroking her arm and suggesting we call it a night. ‘Well, what a wonderful treat it has been,’ she said, ‘to be taken to a beautiful restaurant by my two beautiful daughters.’
Suddenly, Rach started to cry. ‘I’m so sorry, guys,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I feel like shit with this virus. I’m sick of it.’
It was out of character for her to collapse publicly like this.
‘Darling, you have two children, a house to run and a job. You’re overwhelmed. Your body can’t take it. Let’s get you to the doctor tomorrow,’ Mum insisted.
We abandoned our search for cabs and got on the tube at Piccadilly. It was heaving with office partygoers and smelt of tobacco, white wine and liberally applied sweet fragrance.
‘Can my sister sit down? She’s not well,’ I asked a middle-aged man.
He nodded politely, offering his seat.
My mother smiled at me approvingly. I caught Rach trying to conceal a grin, amused by my impromptu moment of deference for her. It was kind of not what we did. A polite gesture that belonged to the ‘How’s it going, mate?’ siblings.
17 December
I was on my way to Jane and Jonathan’s house for the Comedy Awards, juggling deodorant and false-eyelash glue in a cab, when Mum called. She told me in a surprisingly calm tone that Rach had gone to hospital.
‘Hospital?’ I repeated. ‘What’s happened?’
My mum only indulged in drama outside of a genuinely dramatic situation. In a true moment of unexpected upheaval, she was full of firm resolve and optimism. She said it was just a nasty infection: the doctor had diagnosed hepatitis but it was worth exploring further. Rach probably just needed rest and antibiotics.
I was preparing to make phone calls to Jane cancelling tonight when Rach texted me.
In hospital but just infection. GO TO THE COMEDY AWARDS! No drama. Come to
morrow. And bring me pants! And charger. Love you xx
My unease was down to the entirely foreign nature of this experience. Rach had always been the safe fortress from the frequent drama of our family life. Not the instigator. But her characteristically light-hearted updates throughout the night put my fears to rest.
A very camp male nurse, a bit like Gok Wan, has been pushing me in wheelchair xx
Old lady in bed opposite ranting about seeing pieces of cheese fighting. It’s gonna be a long night xx
I arrived the next day with magazines and pants and a stack of Percy Pig sweets. She wanted to hear all the gossip from the night before. Adam was away in New York on a work trip and had decided to fly back. ‘I’m sure it’ll all be fine,’ she said. ‘I just hate not knowing what it is.’
The doctors suggested it was best to keep her in over Christmas, to monitor the infection. She had constant fevers and was feeling weak. They thought it might be something to do with her liver.
‘Liver? But you don’t drink or take drugs,’ I said, slightly outraged.
‘Exactly, a bit George Best, isn’t it,’ she said, and smiled, closing her eyes to absorb the cool breeze of the fan.
Adam arrived, full of positivity and reassurance. Rach reached her hand out for him often, and I was relieved that she had a co-pilot to navigate her through this mystery ailment. He used the pronoun ‘we’ rather than ‘you’ when discussing her virus. As in, ‘We’ll feel better when we know what it is.’ These were the times when dog families came into their own.
25 December
We had decided to transfer Christmas to the hospital ward. ‘Rach is hosting Christmas for us!’ my mother declared brightly, her Blitz spirit kicking in.
Rach assessed the lacklustre hospital Christmas decorations. ‘Where is tinsel more depressing, do you think, in a hospital or an insurance office?’
My father decided to join us. Adam brought Mimi and Bertie to complete the family visit.
I was aware that Rach had conflicted feelings about whether or not to expose the girls to the potential confusion of seeing her in hospital. And I thought I knew why. When your own childhood had seen you propelled into puzzling adult conversations, when you could recall how you craved routine and certainty, perhaps it was an instinctive urge to want to shield your own children from drips and hospital wards.
We gathered round Rach’s bed, my mum wielding carrier bags bursting with curly magenta ribbons and metallic bows. She enveloped Rach in hugs, and arranged flowers. Adam carried a smiling Bertie, and Mimi followed behind him clutching bags of presents. She took in her mother’s scrubs and drip.
My father stood by the bed, not really sure how to be. His coat stayed buttoned up, messenger bag worn across his torso like mittens tied through a toddler’s anorak. It was a strategy to combat an absent-mindedness that had recently evolved into early-onset Alzheimer’s.
Rach and I had been to the doctor’s the previous month, to discuss his diagnosis. As we chatted over scrambled eggs in the café where we discussed the next steps I felt the relief of shared sibling responsibility.
He mumbled to himself by Rach’s bedside, rehearsing his words before committing them to public scrutiny, something he had always done, even before the diagnosis. Determined to nail the performance.
Rach was too tired to open the presents. She drank some juice and I peeled a satsuma for her, a little ritual we had developed, which made me feel useful. Adam handed Bertie over to Rach and she bounced her up and down, making silly faces and kissing her.
I suggested doing a video on my phone, so we would be able to look back on that weird December we all spent in hospital. I wanted Rach to have a record of Bertie’s first Christmas. We all delivered Happy Christmas messages. Dad woofed at Bertie, and Rach caught my eye. ‘Our father has just woofed at my baby,’ she whispered, ‘and I’M the one on heavy medication?’
‘I’ve got a hair appointment a couple of days after Boxing Day,’ I told her. ‘Do you mind if I get here a bit later in the afternoon?’
‘Of course not. I’m jealous, look at my Courtney Love roots!’
I smiled. I had bought her a voucher from my hairdressers for Christmas, for when she was up and about again. And I would look back and torture her over this particular episode. ‘The one where Rach made us eat canteen turkey rolls for Christmas.’
28 December
I was in the hairdressers when Adam called me.
‘Em?’
His voice sounded fractured, like cracked paint on a derelict building.
‘How’s Rach?’
His composure broke.
I rushed through the salon doors out into the chilly Soho street. Rain spat down on me, blending with thick molasses hair dye, which started to trail down my temples.
‘What’s happened, Ads?’
‘She’s got cancer, Em. They’ve found cancer in her liver.’
His voice softened the second time he said the C-word. As if it were too toxic to pronounce.
Something shot into my stomach, a wrecking ball of pain. Not the usual jolt of hurt dismay that crashes in when you hear unpleasant news: a boyfriend telling you ‘it’s just not working’, or a boss saying, ‘we’ve come to the end of the road.’ This intrusion felt entirely foreign. The wrecking ball had lodged itself there. It was not a temporary visitor. It was part of me now. It was simply going to have to develop a decent working relationship with the other organs.
We were in that featureless haze between Christmas and New Year. Tense commuters had been replaced with carefree shoppers and lunch parties. I watched families coming out of Japanese restaurants, high on sugary puddings and the heady seasonal freedom from responsibility. The fairy lights in the window opposite glittered menacingly.
Rach had cancer.
I focused on trying to breathe. I had heard people use the phrase ‘I couldn’t breathe!’ to describe receiving bad news. I’d always assumed it was a slightly overblown statement designed to emphasise shock. Like, ‘My world turned on its axis,’ or ‘I practically died.’ But then, I had never imagined receiving news this frightening.
‘How bad is it?’
‘They’re going to tell us more tomorrow. She’s taking some diazepam to calm her down. She wants to see you.’ His voice broke. ‘Come to the hospital, Em.’
This didn’t sound like one of the cancers with inspirational survivors’ stories and ribbons and midnight walks and high-profile ambassadors. It sounded unalterable.
I walked slowly back into the hairdressers, trying to recall what it felt like to be the person who walked out a few minutes ago. My pre-wrecking-ball self.
Rom, the sweet young colourist, put his arms around me when he saw my face.
‘It’s my sister, she’s got cancer, Rom,’ I said, watching tears blend into stray globules of hair dye on the black nylon cape. ‘I have to go.’ I ripped off the robe.
‘It’s okay,’ he soothed me. ‘We’re all here for you. Maybe I should just wash the colour out quickly, before you go?’ he added, not unreasonably, negotiating with someone temporarily not of sound mind.
I followed him to the basin, focusing on the glossy shots on the wall while the water ran over my head. A heavily lipsticked woman with a geometric chromium yellow bob. A mixed-race model with a deep burgundy crop. I felt a wave of shame that I was in the hairdressers when I found out. ‘What did you do today, Em?’ ‘Got my roots done. How about you, Rach?’ ‘Got diagnosed with cancer.’
I jumped in a black cab. One of my closest friends, Polly Vernon, who had been a loyal pal since we met at university, had texted me to ask how Rach was doing. She had been offering me daily support through this unsettling hospital stay of Rach’s, dropping everything to meet for drinks, providing the distraction of laughter. Just as my lifelong friendship with Jane now wrapped me in a comforting blanket of love, my twenty-year friendship with Polly made me feel rooted and safe. I had told Polly all sorts of extraordinary things in texts. Describing the stra
nge bedrooms I’d woken up in. And the appalling things I’d done.
But I couldn’t tell her this in a text.
Some people always pick up instantly when you call. Polly was one of those friends.
‘Rach has cancer,’ I told her.
The elderly cab driver looked up in his mirror and then averted his glance respectfully.
Polly said, ‘Rach will beat this. It’s going to be okay.’
I decided to believe her.
When I got to the hospital, Adam and Mum were sitting by Rach’s bedside. She was in pink scrubs, blonde hair messily contained in a ponytail, her eyes slightly glassy from diazepam.
I ran to hug her. I had been determined not to cry but it was hopeless. I couldn’t hide anything from Rach.
‘It’s really bad, Em, isn’t it? Cancer,’ she said with a composure that floored me, staring at me with those familiar cornflower-blue eyes framed by infuriatingly perfect eyebrows. ‘Great brows, Ma’am,’ a scent-sprayer once whispered to her at a New York department store before he spritzed her with perfume. We said it to each other all the time now.
We also called each other ‘C’. ‘Catch you later, C.’ ‘Love you, C.’ I’m afraid it stood for the other offensive C-word, the one that threatens sensibilities rather than lives. It was something we’d picked up from a book written by my friend David Baddiel: ‘C’ was the ironically affectionate way the central character greeted his brother.
I wanted to put my arm around Rach and say, ‘Come on, C! We’ll be okay.’ But that sardonic, Gen X language felt redundant. I didn’t know how to speak to my sister when she had just been told she had cancer. I couldn’t call her ‘C’. It felt wrong.