by Juno Dawson
It’s like riding a really super-fancy French bike. I catch my reflection in the mirror and smile at myself. I can do this. I can actually do this.
Chapter 38
Mum is a fighter. People say that about cancer patients a lot: they are ‘fighters’ and they are ‘brave’. It’s true though! She is getting sicker and sicker, but I see her clinging on to the dignity and routine she has left. Now me or Margot have to help her around the house. One of us has to walk her to the toilet and make sure she can get in or out of the bath.
Margot does most of it, silently and patiently, guiding her up and down the stairs. ‘Mother, I can manage,’ Mum will snap, even though she can’t. Margot says nothing, remaining at her arm.
For my part, I do my best to be as positive as I possibly can. It’s killing me, but I know Mum wants me to be happy. She already said she doesn’t want her last few weeks to be snivelly and snotty.
‘Do you want me to read to you?’ I ask. I’ve walked her out to the rose garden. It’s freezing cold, the ground silver and hard-packed. The paving stones seem to glitter and our breath hangs in the air. I’ve swaddled Mum in a duffel coat and scarf and blanket. With her head poking out, she looks a little like a turtle.
‘I don’t think so. It’s nice just to be outside.’ She closes her eyes. ‘Can you hear the stream?’
I strain, but I can’t hear it over the twittering birds. ‘A little,’ I fib.
‘I find it very soothing,’ she says. ‘Are you going to the studio later?’
‘Just for an hour or two, if that’s OK?’
‘Of course it is. All these hours you’re putting in – I can’t wait to see whatever it is you’re cooking up.’
I’ve been trying to practise every day, either before or after school. I need to get back in shape, reprogram my body. ‘If you want, you can come down to the studio and watch. I’m sure Margot will drive us.’
Mum takes my hand. We’re both on the dainty bench. ‘Felicity. I will be at that show if it kills me. Literally.’
She looks so gaunt, her cheeks so hollow. I wish I could believe that she will be, but I fear the worst. I’ve set myself a new goal. I just really want her to make it to Christmas. Three weeks to go.
I’m not an idiot. I know she isn’t going to get better. What hurts now is that I don’t know how much she’s suffering. I hate, hate, the idea that she’s in pain. I hate the notion she’s embarrassed or ashamed of needing help to the loo or in the bath.
I don’t really believe in God, and I know Mum doesn’t, but I’ve started talking to my bedroom ceiling of a night, speaking to anyone who’ll listen. It goes a bit like this: ‘Hi, God or Goddess. Listen. I know we don’t go to church/synagogue/mosque/temple (delete as appropriate), but my mum is a good person who spent her life making films that helped people. She made films about child soldiers and corrective rape and Romanian orphanages. As I understand it, if you actually exist, you’re in the business of rewarding the good. Well, Mum is good. If you only reward people who do things for you, if your love is conditional, I don’t think you’re all that, really. If you’re really as amazing as all these religions say you are, you’ll make sure Mum is looked after. And I’ll be good too. Deal? Awesome.’
One night, I find Margot sitting at the foot of Mum’s bed, just watching her sleep. ‘Is she OK?’ I ask.
‘She’s fine,’ Margot says in a hushed voice. ‘I’m just too tired to plot my next move, even if it is only to the sofa.’
I feel guilty for not helping more. ‘If you need a break …’
‘I don’t.’ Her eyes flick up, steely blue. She’s like a lioness guarding her cub. ‘I mean, thank you. I appreciate everything you’re doing. And I think taking part in this show is a lovely idea. She’s very excited that you’re dancing again.’
I nod. After a pause I say, ‘Do you believe in heaven?’
She seems to consider it for a second, tucking her wire-wool hair behind her ear. ‘No. I think there’s a lot to be said for an ending.’
I look at Mum and tell myself the lies that I reckon all of us, all the kids losing parents, and all the parents losing kids, must tell ourselves: it’ll be a release, it’ll be a relief, she’ll be free, she’ll be at peace. But maybe, like Margot says, it’s just the end, full stop.
I lean over and plant a kiss on Mum’s forehead. When she’s gone, we’ll still be here. That’s the hard part, I guess.
The day before Christmas Before Christmas, Danny and I go into town to get our Secret Santa presents. ‘I got Sophie,’ he moans. ‘Like what am I meant to get her? She’s so boring.’
‘No, she isn’t! She loves make-up for one thing. Get her some new brushes. We always need new brushes. Or something from MAC.’ I got Bronwyn – a much more difficult prospect. I ended up getting her a book about conspiracy theories, knowing there’s a very real chance she’ll already have it.
We go to the bookshop café and order their Christmas cappuccinos to go, which are flavoured with ginger and cinnamon. They’re heavenly. We share a gingerbread man wearing a little icing scarf and we’re so busy deciding who should get the head and who should get the crotch we don’t even register Megan’s mum until she’s right underneath us.
Literally. She’s in the doorway of the derelict pet shop, huddled under a sleeping bag. Her sign reads ‘hungry and homeless’. A dog – some sort of bull terrier – sits forlornly next to her. ‘Any change?’ she asks.
I feel a stab of guilt. I haven’t thought about Megan since I started back at school, but now wonder where she is.
‘No! You’re not homeless! You live on the estate,’ Danny says. I think if she’s desperate enough to sit in a doorway begging, she probably needs the money pretty badly.
But before I can attempt to relieve my guilt with a few coins, Mrs Jones spits about twelve very bad words and we rush away.
The next day we gather at Danny’s. They have a hilariously crap white faux tree in the living room covered in pink and purple tinsel which I think is meant to be ironic, although I certainly don’t say anything. His dad is working in the restaurant and his mum makes herself scarce, only nipping in and out with a plate of mince pies and some bowls of prawn crackers.
It’s the three of us, plus Robin and Sophie. I was nervously summoned to Bronwyn’s earlier to help her get ready. We raided her wardrobe and she owns, I discovered, a form-fitting velvet dress in pine green. It’s a bit Deanna Troi, but at least it’s not a hippy smock. We paired it with a simple lace choker and her usual Doc Martens. I French-braided her unruly hair and gave her smoky Shirley Manson eyes, and I must admit she looks like a whole other person. Robin can’t take his eyes off her, so I think I can give myself five gold stars.
For the first time in a really long time, I think of Xander back in London and feel a tiny pang of jealousy. Then I feel guilty for thinking about boys when Mum is so ill. I try to shake it off. I sip my hot chocolate. ‘Let’s do presents!’ I announce.
We had stowed our parcels under the tree and now Danny hands them out. I open mine and my Secret Santa has bought me a giant pink tutu. ‘Oh, very nice! I shall wear it every day!’ I put it on over my leggings and sweater dress. It clashes a treat.
‘Gorgeous!’ says Danny, wearing his new FCUK hat. Bronwyn, thank God, did not have that book and seems chuffed, and Sophie is genuinely pleased with her make-up brushes. They are, I guess, a lot more practical than a tutu.
‘So I have a favour to ask,’ I say when we’re all done opening gifts. ‘I need you all to be in my Chess Club Presents act.’
‘No way,’ Bronwyn says immediately. ‘I’m strictly there to do the lights.’
‘Please …’ I pretend-whine. ‘I really need you all or it won’t work.’
‘Fliss, I like really can’t dance,’ Robin says.
‘You don’t have to. I promise. I just need pairs of hands. Bron, people wouldn’t even see your face.’
I tell them what I have planned and they look at me slack-jawe
d. ‘Fliss, we can’t do that,’ Danny says, his hand covering his mouth.
‘I want to. It’s … what I want to do.’
‘I think that would be amazing,’ Sophie says, awe in her eyes. ‘People would totally freak!’
‘So you’ll help?’ I look at all of them.
Danny and Sophie agree at once. ‘I must be effing crazy,’ Bronwyn says. ‘But yes, if you’re crazy enough to go through with this, it’s the least I can do.’
Robin rolls his eyes. ‘Oh, go on then. But if I so much as see a pair of boy-tights, I quit.’
‘No tights, I swear.’ I grin. I guess Bronwyn made Robin’s mind up. ‘Thank you. I owe you one.’
‘OH MY GOD!’ Danny explodes. ‘It’s SNOWING!’ He wipes condensation off the window and we pile over the settee to see powdery flakes swarming under the orange street lights.
‘Do you think it’ll settle?’ Sophie asks excitedly. ‘Snow day!’
It’s already dusting the grass verges and the tops of cars. ‘I don’t know,’ Robin says. ‘I think it’s too wet to settle, like.’
‘No!’ Danny grabs my arm. ‘We must pray to the snow goddess, Frosta. We didn’t have a snow day all last winter.’
I laugh. ‘Frosta?’
‘Yes, she has white hair and a snow leopard and is fabulous.’
‘How do we pray to her, exactly?’
‘I dunno, I guess we sing Christmas songs.’
‘“Let It Snow”? “White Christmas”?’ Bronwyn suggests.
Danny shakes his head. ‘No! For copyright issues, I think we should go with O come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, o come ye, o come ye to Llanmarion …’
‘O come let us adore her, o come let us adore her, o come let us adore her … Frosta, snow goddess,’ I sing.
The others laugh and the snow swirls and dribbles down the wet windowpane. ‘Yeah, that ought to do it.’
The next morning, I sit up in bed – my bedroom freezing cold – and pull back the curtain to see the whole farm is buried under heaps and heaps of marshmallowy white snow.
Margot pokes her head through my bedroom door. ‘No school today, Felicity. Might as well have a lie-in.’
Hark! Frosta has answered our prayers! Amen!
Chapter 39
Because life is a total, utter, ass-munching bitchnipple, Mum has to go back into hospital on Christmas Eve. She’s been hanging on by the skin of her teeth, desperate to have one last Christmas at home, but it’s not to be.
The snow is long gone. Everything is frosty and crisp and glacier-mint cold, but it won’t be a white Christmas this year. When Margot took her some lunch – and right now Mum can only manage soup – she had flopped over in bed and Margot couldn’t wake her up. That’s when, very calmly, Margot came to the living room, where I was watching Bedknobs and Broomsticks while shelling some sprouts into a big bowl, and told me that we needed to call an ambulance.
Credit where credit’s due, it arrived about ten minutes later, siren blaring. By this time Mum was awake and telling us we were making a terrible fuss, as if she had little more than a splinter. If only. She’s so, so thin now. Her collarbone juts through her skin and her spine is like a stegosaurus.
I held Mum’s hand the whole way. She told the paramedic, who in better circumstances I’d have tried my very hardest to marry immediately because he looked a bit like Usher, that she was fine, but she had moments where she tuned out of reality. It was so scary; she’d just stop mid-sentence.
Her body is coming apart from the inside. Soon it will get to her mind, and then what?
Merry Christmas, us.
It’s her calcium levels again. Now, as the sun sets, she seems a bit brighter, but they are definitely keeping her in overnight. She will wake up on Christmas morning on a cancer ward. At home I was halfway through peeling sprouts she won’t be able to eat. Now it’ll be a Christmas dinner of blended hospital goo.
But she’s alive. There’s colour back in her cheeks for now, so none of that stuff matters. Yeah, a farmhouse Christmas would have been lovely, but Mum will still get to see Christmas.
Mum naps while Margot and I wait to speak to the doctor about coming in tomorrow and spending the whole day with her. She shouldn’t be alone on Christmas day, surrounded by sick people. In my head, there’s still a little-girl version of me, the one who believed in Santa and the Easter Bunny. The little-girl me lives in a Barbie Wendy house and she still, on some level, thinks Mum’s going to defy science and magically get better.
I don’t have heart to tell Inner Little Me she’s deluded, so I just let her believe. She’s not doing any harm.
It’s after seven by the time we get to talk to the doctor and she tells us we can arrive from eight in the morning. We leave Mum sleeping, but looking, well, alive.
As we reach the Land Rover I’m suddenly starving. ‘Are you hungry?’ Margot asks.
‘Yeah.’
We climb into the car. She pauses. ‘Home or an adventure?’
I smile. ‘What do you think?’
‘Adventure,’ she says very seriously.
Off we go again.
We drive and drive until we find a little pub and guesthouse. It has a thatched roof and I can see an open fire flickering through the leaded windows. ‘Well, doesn’t this look inviting?’ Margot says.
‘It’s way cute. Where are we?’
‘Not the foggiest. Shall we see if there’s room at the inn?’
‘What? Really?’
‘Well, what could be more appropriate? Come along, Felicity!’ She’s already bounding out the car and towards the door, her handbag swinging at her side. I trot to keep up. I’m still wearing the Indoors Outfit – Adidas tracksuit and slipper boots – that I had on when the ambulance came.
We enter the pub and, through a thick cloud of cigarette smoke, I see a handful of locals having a Christmas Eve drink. A couple of grizzled men with nicotine-stained beards stop talking and scan me over like I’m a mince pie. I guess my trackies deter them as they quickly refocus attention on their pints.
A huge open fire crackles and holly wreaths are pinned to sturdy oak beams. Mistletoe dangles over the bar, inviting patrons, no doubt, to kiss the barmaid – an older woman with a mass of dyed black hair and blue eyeshadow. ‘Good evening,’ Margot says with her usual authority. ‘I know it’s very short notice and I know it’s Christmas Eve, but I wondered if you had any rooms for the night?’
The woman looks a little surprised. ‘We do, love. It’s a quiet time for us, is Christmas. Two rooms?’ She speaks with a down south accent – English down south.
‘That would be lovely. And are you serving food?’
‘I’m sure our Ken can knock you something up, love.’ Her acrylic nails are very long and blood red with tiny Christmas-pudding designs. I wonder, honestly, how she wipes her bum. ‘I just need to take a deposit for the rooms, if that’s all right.’
‘Of course.’ Margot reaches into her handbag, a plain brown satchel, and hands over her credit card. The bar is covered in soggy, smelly beer towels.
The landlady goes to scan it, pauses and looks up at Margot. ‘Margot Hancock?’
‘Yes?’
‘You didn’t used to be Margot Stanford, did you?’
Margot frowns. ‘Well, yes. Yes, I was.’
The woman gasps, her red talons clutching her heart. ‘It’s me, Doreen Mitchell! Well, I ain’t been Mitchell for nearly fifty years, but you know what I mean! Do you remember me?’
Margot shakes her head in disbelief. It’s the first time I’ve seen her thrown. ‘Oh my! Of course I remember. Gosh, Doreen … I … I can’t believe it.’
Doreen lifts the hinged part of the bar and comes around to our side to embrace Margot. Margot is awkward, but returns the gesture. ‘Look at you! Margot Stanford, you’re a sight for sore eyes, let me tell you.’
Margot blinks as if to check she’s not hallucinating. ‘Goodness, you’ll have to give me a minute. I … I mean, how are you? Wh
at on earth are you doing here? I don’t even know where we are.’
‘Been one of those days, has it?’
‘One of those years.’
‘Well, come sit by the fire, pet.’ She steers us to a prime spot next to a sumptuous Christmas tree weighed down with glitzy decorations and fairy lights. God, I love the piney smell. ‘You’re about three miles outside of Pontypridd. And, to answer your other question, I never left, love.’
‘After the war?’
‘Yeah. Ken was one of the pilots at the hospital. Remember the old asylum? We married in ’48. Nearly fifty years, can you Adam and Eve it? It’s not always easy, is it? There’s days I could happily murder him, truth be told, but I wouldn’t trade him in for a younger model. Ain’t that right, Derek?’ she calls to one of the locals at the bar.
‘You’re breakin’ me heart, Dor.’ He grins back.
Margot smiles dreamily and I nudge her.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Margot says. ‘Doreen, this is my granddaughter, Felicity.’
‘Oh, I should have guessed. You are alike.’ Are we? ‘Such a pretty thing. Have you seen your gran back in the day? Stunner, she was.’
I smile. I bet Margot just loves ‘gran’. ‘I’ve seen pictures. She was a total babe.’
Even Margot’s face cracks into a laugh at that.
‘Margot Stanford in my pub!’ Doreen says. ‘Well, I never. Look, what can I get you? And then we’ve got fifty years to catch up on.’
Margot and Doreen talk for what feels like hours. She gets a diluted version of what I know. Margot makes no mention of Christopher, or Grandad dying of AIDS, sticking to her stellar career and her decision to come back to Llanmarion. She does explain about Mum and why we’re driving aimlessly on Christmas Eve.
Doreen, now a mother of four and grandmother of six herself, goes to prepare our rooms as midnight approaches.
‘How weird is that?’ I say, leaning close. ‘That we’d randomly show up at Doreen’s pub. It’s like fate or something.’