by Bella James
Someone once told me we should forget whatever past we’ve been painting, that the future is a vast blank canvas rolling out in front of us. Empty, untouched, and waiting to be filled with the stories of our lives.
Now my canvas had been torn away in front of me. Before I had even begun to sketch outlines to fill its open spaces, it’s ripped short, taking with it my future.
Do we have to be so close to death to appreciate life? If life is a journey, does there have to be an end?
As I count the days I have left, I hope that death is just a big lie. Perhaps we fall asleep in this world and wake up renewed in the next. Somewhere better, somewhere I belong.
I wish I had explored the world and grasped hold of every opportunity life had thrown at me, run through every newly opened door with a sense of adventure – Believed in myself.
I cry silently into my blankets and wait for the pills to take effect. They don’t. Not even my trusted cloud of oblivion will come for me tonight.
I wonder if I had taken better care of myself and not made so many foolish decisions, would I still be suffering such an illness? Was I being punished? I feel suddenly overwhelmed by an unpleasant memory of a year ago, one I had tried desperately to forget.
I lost my virginity on this bed.
***
My father was rarely at home. He worked away for months on end and Mother had gone out for the evening, dramatically assured that at sixteen I was more than capable of taking care of Izzy for a few hours. The moment she left I swore my sister to secrecy and summoned Daniel, the only boyfriend I’d ever had, to come over.
Despite finding Elm Tree stuffy and oppressive, I loved to see my friends’ expressions as they saw where I lived. The house spoke of wealth and good taste; I would walk a little taller and pull my accent up a few notches as I showed them around.
‘This is Father’s study,’ I had told Daniel grandly, smiling as his eyes widened at the treasures within. An enormous brass eagle commanded my father’s mahogany desk, silently screeching at intruders.
‘Can we go in?’ he whispered, and I snorted with disdain.
‘Of course we can go in! This is my home, Daniel. We can do what we like.’
I refrained from mentioning that the last time Izzy and I had ventured into the private study, Father all but skinned us alive. I swung my legs from his great leather recliner and Daniel tentatively raised the upper half of a huge ceramic globe to reveal the hidden alcohol cache beneath. It had been my turn to look surprised and he grinned at me devilishly. There was a challenging note to his voice that made me regret having been quite so smug. ‘My uncle has one of these. Fancy a tipple?’
Daniel was in the year above me at school. I didn’t particularly like him, but an older boyfriend granted much kudos amongst the girls in my clique and we were forever trying to out-do one another. Danny was older, played football, and smoked.
My heart had begun to pound and an uneasy feeling of guilt washed over me. I suddenly wished I had just watched movies and ate popcorn with Izzy like she had wanted to do, instead of sending her forlornly to her room. I had spent the last few years wishing to be older, to be a grown-up exactly in a scenario like this– with a good-looking boy looking hazily at me and offering me a drink.
This memory had been uncomfortably buried, but it is so vivid now as I recall my first taste of whiskey, how it burned through me like fire down to the pit of my stomach. He had held my hand firmly as he led me upstairs and lay me on the bed and I obediently consented. Half curious, half petrified beyond imagining. This boy was a stranger to me. High school was just a soap opera to my girlfriends and I. We were only supposed to play the parts of the on-screen adults; holding hands down corridors, flicking our hair flirtatiously as we watched the boys kick a ball around, and rolling our eyes dramatically at one another as we complained of their latest antics.
My heart had pounded as he roughly tugged down my jeans and underwear in one pull, unzipping his fly, and offering me the occasional peck on the lips to show his gratitude. Panic gripped me, but I could not have stopped him. Rebecca Hartwood had done that last year and spent all of Year Eleven being called frigid. My mind felt numbed by the whiskey but there was no escaping the pain as he jabbed away between my legs. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be feeling, but surely not this? He came with a surprised look on his face and although he never told me so, I had imagined this was his first time too. Neither of us knew what to do afterwards, and perhaps he could see I was close to tears, for he gave an empty laugh and told me to lighten up. ‘We’ve been seeing each other for months, Anna.’ Shrugging his shoulders, he pulled up his jeans, and shortly afterwards, left.
I can remember curling up into a ball, tenderly touching between my legs and seeing only a little blood on my cold fingertips. Not the gallons of gore Nancy Page in Year Twelve had led us to believe.
With mixed emotions, I had eventually risen and pulled on my pale pink pyjama bottoms, looking at my reflection as I splashed cold water onto my face. I looked the same. ‘No big deal,’ I told myself with a lot more nonchalance than I had felt at the time. ‘At least I’ve actually done it now.’ I was left slightly bewildered what all the pandemonium about sex amongst adults was about, and began to wonder if we had even done things correctly.
Needless to say, I’d been in no hurry to repeat such a performance, and had ended my relationship with Daniel soon afterwards.
***
I must have eventually fallen asleep because I am either dead or dreaming when the sound of a horse’s thundering hooves pierce my unconscious mind.
I sit up in bed as the sound quietens, then picks up volume again. Starlight has been gone for years, and the hooves beating powerful circles into the meadow are not his dainty gallop. I can hear some excited giggles from outside my bedroom door and in a wave of confusion, I pull the blankets off and run to the window. As I pull back the heavy drapes I see Michael, standing in the meadow, while a black and white horse canters in circles around him. Michael holds the lunge rein taut and clicks, to which the horse responds in an obedient, muscular canter.
Once again, I hear Izzy’s uncontained giggles and the squeak of floorboards as she hovers outside my door.
‘EYEBROWS!’ I yell at her, and she is in like a flash, my freshly brushed wig in one hand and makeup bag in the other.
It takes me a long time to get ready and my annoyance at seeing Michael sitting in the kitchen talking to Mother abates the instant he looks up at me. No wheelchair.
‘Anna.’ He stands up and with only a slight limp, walks towards me as she scuttles into the conservatory. His hair is blond and shaved very close to his head, like a new army recruit. His eyes are bright and bluey grey, perhaps a little worried-looking.
‘You look so beautiful,’ he says, and I feel beautiful under his ardent stare. I step forward and he reaches out to hold my hand. For a moment I think he is going to shake it, but he pulls me towards him and I swear a thousand fireworks go off somewhere in the world as we fall into our first real kiss.
His mouth sets my whole body on fire until he pulls back and plants hard kisses on my jaw and my neck. ‘God, woman.’ He breathes and my legs feel unsteady. ‘I’ve missed you.’
We pry apart and I look up at him, smiling. ‘I can’t believe you’re here. I was so unkind to you.’
‘I accept the exceptional circumstances. You’ve got a brain tumour; you didn’t know what you were saying.’
I laugh because we both know I knew exactly what I was saying.
‘Anyway, I always wanted a stroppy, seriously ill, crazy girlfriend and you trump all those departments!’
I don’t hear ill or crazy or stroppy … I just hear ‘girlfriend’.
‘Well, I always wanted an annoying boyfriend with spinal damage. Who listens to everything my mother tells him!’
And that was that, we were Michael and Anna. Together despite everything, and apparently thanks to Mother, because she had called him yesterday
and said I might like to see him. Perhaps she has slightly redeemed herself.
I am pleased to see a fair-sized bag under the breakfast bar. It seems like he plans to stay a few nights, although he must have feared I would send him packing.
I suddenly remember the horse. ‘Michael, did you ride here?’
‘No!’ he says, laughing. ‘I came in the horsebox with a surprise for you.’ We wander out the back door, through the little rose garden and into the meadow. ‘This is Pinto; he’s a beauty, no? You can try western riding, like you said you wanted to.’
I look up at the sixteen-hand horse and think that sounded like a much better idea when I was snuggling up to Michael in the day room, trying to sound adventurous. ‘Ooh I’d love to ride in a real western saddle. I haven’t ridden since I was fourteen, but Father said I was a natural.’
I remember silently, ‘A natural at flying through the air.’
‘Don’t be afraid, Anna.’
He must have seen my expression so I try to look less worried and tell him, ‘Maybe tomorrow, I have a sore head today. Will he be OK in the meadow?’
Michael doesn’t look like he believes me but he must not want to burst our happy bubble so he just smiles and says, ‘Sure. He lives out at home. I’ll just check his water and we can leave saddling him up until the morning; when you feel better.’
I am quite certain that I will still have a headache, and that it will possibly be slightly worse tomorrow.
***
My Father greets Michael with a death-grip handshake and a rather menacing stare. ‘Well, nice to meet you, Michael. Unfortunately, I’m off to Leeds on business for a few days, so err … watch yourselves now.’
Izzy is pulling faces behind his back and Michael and I try hard to stifle our laughter. My father has a very stiff upper lip, and very few social skills. Still, he takes my apparent joy and this new arrival as his excuse to take leave from the tense household for a while, hoping he will not be too missed.
My mother breezes past and smiles pleasantly at us. ‘Izzy and I are dropping your father off at the station, and then we’re going to dinner and a show. We’ll be back late.’ She half smiles and I can barely believe she is behaving almost human and giving Michael and I some time alone; although she could have been a bit more subtle about it.
As soon as they leave, an excruciatingly painful shyness descends upon me. The grandfather clock in the hall ticks in loud echoes, as though enhancing my nervous silence.
‘Are you hungry?’ I ask him.
‘No. Are you?’ He’s half smiling again.
‘No. I can’t remember what hungry feels like.’
‘I can.’ He stares at me and I give an involuntary shake of pleasure. Or nerves. I’m not sure which.
‘Would you like me to show you the house?’ I had heard Father saying this haughtily to his guests and copied his impressive tone.
‘Show me your bedroom.’ It is almost a whisper and I feel like my legs might fail me as I lead up the long sweeping staircases. Thankfully, the heavy curtains are still mostly closed and I feel relieved that it casts a more flattering light on both the dishevelled room and my pain-ravaged body.
He pulls me towards him once more and there is nothing else to do but accept my fear and live through it. Fear that he will see my thin body and be repulsed, fear I cannot make the wild love he may be expecting or that it might hurt as it had before. Daniel had left me disappointed and used, like someone had taken a beautiful silk scarf and blown their nose on it. I close my eyes and my thoughts mercifully lift, little dandelion wisps being carried away on a breeze, as he kisses me until all of my doubts drift away.
I lift my arms as he pulls my dress slowly over my hips and my head. I grasp at his T-shirt and breathe gently over his lean, strong body. I run my palms down the firm muscles of his chest and arms.
We move towards the bed and he lies me down gently. It feels right that he is taking control, pausing for a moment to look at my naked body as I lie shyly beneath him. While he watches me with hazy eyes, I silently pray he will not ask me to take off my wig. He doesn’t. Instead, he kisses from my neck to my navel, hard kisses that speak louder than words we no longer require.
I am absorbed in every moment of his exploring lips but I have a greater need, and pull him towards me to kiss him with urgency.
When Michael is inside me, I forget everything else.
I almost laugh with sheer joy as this new feeling consumes my entire being. It is beautiful, and as cliché as it sounds, I know this is the difference. It’s beautiful because I love him.
I’ll take my chance to be happy. Whether it’s for the next few hours or days, I do not care, because when we are together like this, I have become someone else. I am his and he is mine, and we have found something that matters. For the first time in my life I feel a sense of contentment and heart-aching happiness, and it feels so right maybe I do deserve it.
***
A little while later he looks down at me and brushes the falling hair from my face with his fingers. I try to discreetly scratch my scalp.
‘Is it bothering you?’
‘A little, now I’ve been hot under it!’ I feel comfortable enough to let him ease the wig from my head and take off the netting underneath.
‘Beautiful.’ He smiles so honestly that I almost believe him. My hair is barely there, but it’s growing back just a little. I’m not entirely bald.
‘Shall we go riding? It’s a perfect time. Sunset.’
I hesitate for a second, not wanting to disappoint my new-found love. He does not give me time to think of an excuse, as he leaves the room quickly, telling me to wrap up warm.
I touch up my makeup, try to find some warm clothes that are both sexy and sensible, and run to find him in the meadow with Pinto.
Pinto really is a beauty. He is black and white with a long, silky black mane that reaches far down past his neck. He looks like one of the painted horses Native Americans would ride into battle.
I reach up tentatively and stroke his neck. ‘Should we be riding when we’re ill?’
Michael just smiles and adjusts the reins, leading the horse to the fence. ‘I can’t ride yet. You’ll have to do it for me. Don’t worry, I’ll lunge him so you’ll just go in steady circles.’
I still feel very dubious as he holds my hand and I climb onto the second rung of the fence.
‘Put your foot here.’ He holds out the Western-style stirrup and I place my one hand on the pommel and the other on the back of the huge saddle. I swing my leg over and settle down gently; remembering how Starlight hated it when we landed heavily in her saddle. I find my balance and Michael places my other foot in the stirrup. I look up through Pinto’s forward-pointing ears and see the sun beginning her low descent into the silver birch forest ahead. I look at Michael and as his eyes meet mine, I realise I have the biggest smile on my face I can remember.
We start in slow circles, and my fear dissipates as I feel the cocooning comfort of the saddle. As Pinto’s pace changes from walk to slow trot, I laugh as I forget to rise and stay low in the saddle.
‘I love it much more than English riding!’
‘Of course.’ Michael tries to sound cool, but I can tell he’s delighted. ‘Think you can go solo?’
My nerves flutter, but only for a second before I nod bravely. I can do this by myself.
As Michael unclips the lunge rein, I guide Pinto away from him and we walk gently to the far edge of the meadow. As we turn back around, I see the sunset breaking into magnificent oranges and gold, and my heart lifts once more. If someone had told me a few months ago I would be riding a beautiful horse into the sunset with no hair under my cowboy hat, I would have thought they were insane. I could never change places with the old me now, and I tap my heels with urgency so Pinto picks up my command and breaks into an easy canter towards the setting sun.
If you have never cantered a horse, you need to. It is the most exhilarating feeling as you hear the stead
y, pounding hooves and sway with the rocking motion of the magnificent gait.
If the end of something, like the end of this day, could be so beautiful, perhaps I had nothing to fear after all.
***
As night falls and Pinto has been groomed, blanketed, and fed, we leave him nibbling the grass and swishing his tail. Walking hand-in-hand to the kitchen, I tell Michael he is no longer my true love.
‘Let me guess, you love the horse more, right?’
‘Yep.’ I laugh and hit him with the cowboy hat he brought me, seemingly oblivious to the fact that I look less than respectable with no hair.
‘I knew you’d like him, he’s one of my favourites too.’
He tells me about the horses, including a palomino like the one in the picture he had given me in hospital...
‘I tore it up.’ I blurt out my guilty secret
‘You were hurt; I can get you another one.’
‘I’d really like that. You don’t know how happy it made me when you gave me the picture. I felt it was all so doomed, out of my control.’
‘Well,’ he changes the subject, ‘they are one of the most beautiful horses in the world. We have a Palomino on the ranch; I’m the only one who rides her.’
‘Why only you?’
‘She is quite flighty, always on her toes but I seem to have a calming influence.’ He looks at me sideways and I hope he is not comparing me to a highly strung horse.
‘I’d like to see her one day.’
Michael smiles and ends the conversation, to my pleasure, with a kiss.
***
By the time Izzy and Mother got back, we were drinking hot chocolate in front of the fire. I was so content I even poured Lillian a glass of wine and she happily joined us. The moment was instantly ruined when she let out an exasperated cry as Michael told her I had been riding.
‘Really, Michael, I’m surprised. I thought you brought the animal to show her, not for her to go galloping around the fields. Some days she can barely walk.’
My eyebrows knitted together crossly as he tried to explain, ‘Pinto is my gentlest horse, Mrs. Winters. A child could ride him.’