A Song for Tomorrow

by Alice Peterson

  ‘Stop,’ I nudge him, ‘stop.’

  ‘Hi, Mary,’ Tom says in his own voice now.

  ‘I love you Mum and Dad!’ I shout before we all laugh.

  ‘We’re right outside,’ Tom tells them.

  Dad opens the front door.

  I rush into his arms. ‘. . . And about to come in and dance with you.’

  62

  ‘I’m concerned about the rapid decline in your lung function,’ Professor Taylor says, reading my results. ‘How are you feeling generally?’

  I can’t describe how I feel. I’m living in two worlds, one a whirlwind of excitement, the future filled with potential; the other reminds me I’m ill. The two desperately clash.

  ‘Much the same,’ I say. ‘Is there any news from Harefield? Do you think I’ll get a call again?’

  One moment I want the transplant. I can’t have it soon enough. Now that I have a recording deal I have even more to live for.

  A month after my interview with Vanessa Pollen, we had a photo shoot at the head office of Sony and I signed the contract. My picture has been splashed across the media, my story told in many magazines and papers.

  But in the next breath I dread the bleeper going off. I have to get my album out first, don’t I? Imagine if I die on the operating table before my album ever sees the light of day. It’s unthinkable. All my hard work reduced to nothing but ashes.

  ‘I can’t answer that, Alice.’

  ‘Please,’ I beg. I just want to know. I dread this uncertainty. I hate waiting.

  He shakes his head. ‘My job is to keep you as well as can be in case we get that call, but looking at these results, I think the time has come for you to be on your oxygen during the day as well as the night.’

  Normally I would fight this. The idea is horrifying, yet I know it’s important I listen; vital, even. I will have to be clever, make sure I’m attached to my oxygen tank when I’m alone. I shall be on it all the time when I’m at home, but when I’m singing or with Vanessa I don’t want it anywhere near me. I don’t want Vanessa to think she’s signed someone on the verge of death. Nothing can threaten my deal.

  The following morning I turn up to another photo shoot, this time in a five-star hotel in Mayfair. When I approach the reception, I can’t help noticing the uniformed man behind the desk staring at the tubes in my nose.

  I’m not a freak show. When I take it off you will see that I’m just an ordinary girl.

  ‘I’m here for the photo shoot,’ I say. When I give him my name, he looks staggered that I am the singer; I am the person who will be photographed.

  ‘Turn to the right, that’s great!’ the photographer says thirty minutes later. I’m sitting on a dark red velvet chair dressed in a stylish cap and jeans with heavy black eye makeup. No one would know only minutes ago I’d been attached to an oxygen tank. ‘Look away for me. Fantastic . . .’ Click.

  ‘Look straight into the camera.’

  Click.

  ‘Look happy.’

  Click.

  ‘Sexy.’

  Click.

  ‘Serious.’

  Click.

  ‘Try again.’

  I crumple into laughter.

  ‘Give me a serious “don’t mess with me” look.’

  I try not to smile.

  Click.

  ‘Think of someone you really don’t like, Alice.’

  Daisy Sullivan.

  Click.

  Miss Ward.

  Click.

  ‘Crikey, I wouldn’t want to mess with you. Now give us one of your beautiful smiles, as if you’ve just signed a massive two-album record deal.’

  Over the remaining summer more camera lights and flashes go off, chauffeur driven cars pick me up and take me home. Sony assigns me a full-time nurse and physiotherapist if I need one. I don’t, since Rita visits regularly and I wouldn’t trade her for anyone, but it’s incredible to think it’s on tap if I need it. My hair has never been brushed or styled so often, nor my makeup applied so perfectly. Flowers are being delivered daily, along with cards. It feels as if it’s my birthday every day. Dad takes Pete, Trisha, Cat, Tom, Jake, Lucy, Mum and me out to dinner to celebrate, making sure to order champagne. Never have I been busier or more excited about my future.

  I can’t listen to my body telling me it’s tired.

  That it’s had enough.

  It has to go on.

  I have to go on.

  It’s early September and Vanessa is about to visit me at home. I doubt she has often visited her clients in their bedrooms but we both know that I must reserve what little energy and breath I have left for singing and promoting the album. I’m relieved that she hasn’t appeared to have any doubts about signing me given my health is deteriorating by the day. If anything I feel it has made her all the more determined. She has invested in me and this investment must pay off.

  Naturally we both want to get my CD produced and into the shops as quickly as possible. To save time, we’re not going to rerecord the songs, instead working with what we have. ‘All we need to do is finish and mix them,’ Vanessa had said. Mixing is about achieving exactly the right sound. ‘Think of your songs like a cake,’ she’d explained. ‘You have given me the perfect sponge, now all we need are the candles.’

  I hear the doorbell ring, Mum greeting her, before Vanessa heads downstairs.

  ‘Good news, Alice!’ She sits down on my bed, dressed in leggings and trainers, carrying a black file. ‘We’re planning to get your album out before Christmas. I’ve spoken to the marketing team and we think early November would be realistic. The only thing we need to do is to record “Inside of You” and come up with a name for your album.’

  ‘Daydreams.’

  She thinks about this for a second. ‘I like it. You don’t waste any time.’

  Without spelling it out we both know we have no time to waste.

  Time has never been on our side.

  63

  Mary’s Diary

  October 2002

  I have just listened to Alice on the radio. A DJ called Jo Whiley – Nicholas and I hadn’t even heard of her but Alice and Jake were quick to tell us (and frustrated by our ignorance too!) that she is one of the most influential DJs out there at the moment – anyway, Jo Whiley has championed Alice’s music from the start and made ‘If I Fall’ her track of the week before its official release date later this month. Alice came across brilliantly on air, even if I am biased. She has always wanted fame but it runs deeper than that, too. She wants to show that people with CF can get out there and live life to the full. Jo Whiley’s support has also given her confidence that she deserves to have a record deal; that it’s not just because of her background story.

  You should have seen Alice’s face when a brown cardboard box was delivered the other day. I helped her unwrap it – why do they always have to put so much parcel tape on? Alice was so impatient. Anyway, inside were her CDs and there she was on the front cover. Alice couldn’t stop holding one, touching it as if it were her child. In many ways it is her baby. Her acknowledgments were so touching. She thanked Nicholas for his back rubs, Tom for standing by her side; she said Jake was a brother she’d always look up to. She thanked Rita for looking after her so beautifully. Professor Taylor for all his care over the years. Cat and her anti support group – her most loyal fans. Trisha and Pete for their undying faith. ‘And most importantly I’d like to thank my mum – without your tireless and loving care I would not be here today.’ I wept. I just couldn’t hold it in any longer. Alice has made us all feel a part of this success, that it isn’t only her achievement.

  When Rita last visited, Alice played her the CD, Rita dancing and singing, gales of laughter coming from the bedroom. Rita was with us to take bloods as Alice is in the middle of yet another IV course. Despite all the excitement of the past few months, I can see she is weakening every day. The publicity and the rush to record ‘Inside of You’ (Trisha went with her but Alice told me every line was a strug
gle) has definitely taken its toll. I know she took extra steroids to reduce the inflammation in her lungs before the recording. I feel as if we are playing a game of snakes and ladders. We have these wonderful highs but it is not long before we abseil back down to reality. If we did receive ‘the call’ now, I truly wonder if Alice would be well enough to have the surgery. She has been on the list for just over a year and I am scared because I have stopped looking at her bleeper.

  64

  Alice

  ‘If I Fall’ is released tomorrow and I am stuck in hospital. The only consolation is that I can catch up with Susie who, like me, has been in and out of the Brompton for most of the summer and autumn, enduring one infection after another, the Prof trying to find an antibiotic that keeps her CF more under control.

  ‘It doesn’t give us one day off . . . does it?’ Susie says, sitting on my bed, the effort of breathing evident by the way she stops and starts. ‘It follows us around like a shadow . . . day and night . . . On holiday, at work, we get no day off. No rest, even in . . . our sleep.’

  Susie has had to give up her job at the hairdressers. She was missing too many days. Her wig-making course has also been put on hold. ‘What have I got to live for?’ Her lip trembles. ‘Sometimes the thought of death . . . it’s comforting. I’m exhausted, Alice.’

  ‘You’ll feel better once you’re on the right treatment and when you get out of here . . .’

  ‘If I get out . . .’

  ‘You will.’

  She looks at me, her face withdrawn and pale.

  ‘You will,’ I repeat, before she lies down next to me, her head resting on my shoulder. I fear she is too tired to argue.

  ‘I have to be well when the album comes out,’ I tell Mum the following morning, just after Janet, my favourite nurse, who has a crush on Jake, has taken my blood pressure. She’s reading a glossy magazine by my bedside; Cat bought me a fresh batch last night. ‘If I Fall’ is out today, a few weeks before my album in early November, so why aren’t I celebrating in style? I shouldn’t be in bed, in my tracksuit. I should be celebrating in a cocktail bar. Dancing. Signing copies in a shop. Vanessa and Pete say they understand, but I know they are just as frustrated as I am. ‘It’s so . . .’ I’m about to say ‘annoying’ but soon I can’t stop coughing.

  When my coughing has subsided Mum says, ‘I know it’s hard.’

  I think of Susie and what she’d said to me yesterday, about what she has to live for, and a further sense of unease overwhelms me. ‘I’m getting worse, aren’t I?’

  I know what Mum’s silence means.

  I can’t even walk to our local Italian with Tom without getting tired and breathless. There is something in me that wonders if my body has given up after getting the deal. It’s screaming at me, ‘There, we’ve done it, can I have a bloody rest now? If you think we’re going to record a second album, you must be on another planet.’ Tom is encouraging me to use a wheelchair when I go out. Mum hired one from some charity place. He insists he can jog and push me at the same time.

  I never thought I’d end up in a wheelchair.

  Am I fooling Vanessa and myself to think I have a second album in me? How can I do this all over again? Am I deluded, thinking my bleeper will still go off? That I’m strong enough to endure hours under the knife?

  But the idea of death isn’t a comfort to me.

  It never will be.

  ‘We have to keep on hoping,’ Mum says as if she can read my mind. ‘We live for the moment, because that’s all we can do.’

  ‘Alice!’ Janet shouts. ‘They’re about to play your song! Radio One!’

  Quickly I switch on the hospital radio.

  I hear footsteps rushing down the corridor. ‘Everyone!’ Janet says. ‘Listen up!’ She flings open my bedroom door. Jo Whiley is on air saying, ‘She’s a major new talent that’s hit the West London music scene. Here is “If I Fall”, out today.’ Janet claps with Mum. ‘If you like Bjork, Dido and Beth Orton, you’re going to love this song. I guarantee by the end of the year everyone will be talking about this girl.’

  Susie enters my room next, still dressed in her pyjamas. Her bare arms look wafer thin and bruised as a nurse guides her towards my bed. ‘Wow, Alice,’ she says as I make space for her to sit down next to me. ‘I couldn’t miss your song.’

  ‘We can dance in bed,’ I tell her, before we both laugh at Mum and Janet dancing in front of us, as if they are at a school disco. A few more nurses enter the room, wondering what all the fuss is about, before they join in. Tom calls to make sure I’ve tuned in. Jake and Lucy ring. I can hear them playing my song at full volume in the background and it excites me to wonder how many people are tuning in right this second to hear me singing. People in their cars, in the office, at home cooking or ironing with the radio on in the background . . .

  We all stop dead when Professor Taylor stands by my door, his entourage behind him. ‘This is Alice’s song!’ Mum bursts out.

  Professor Taylor walks into my room and gives me one of his rare smiles before he takes off his white coat, flinging it across the room with wild abandon, and takes to the floor with Mum, his team standing behind him open-mouthed before deciding it’s always best to follow suit, especially when it comes to Professor Taylor. Soon I have the entire ward dancing in my room and along the corridor to my song and I shock myself by realising that this is so much better than being in some trendy cocktail bar.

  This means the world to me.

  ‘He’s not a bad mover, the old Prof,’ Susie says, making me laugh as I watch Mum dance with him.

  After the commotion has calmed down, the nurses are back at their station, and Susie has returned to her bedroom, it’s back to business for Professor Taylor. As Mum is about to leave, knowing he usually prefers to talk alone with me, he surprises us both by stopping her in her tracks. ‘Mary, could you?’ He gestures to the chair by my bedside, before asking his team to give him a minute. I fear what he is going to say; why has he asked Mum to stay? He looks so serious as he sits down on the other empty chair beside my mother. ‘Thank you,’ I say to him, ‘for looking after me. I know I haven’t exactly been a model patient, but I could never have got to where I am without you, Professor Taylor.’

  ‘That’s kind, too kind I fear. I think you and your family . . .’ he looks at Mum, ‘ . . .have got you to where you are today, but thank you all the same. There is something I need to say to you too, Alice, and today is the right day to do so. I have known you now for over ten years and often I curse this job, wishing I could do more. The path that I am lucky enough to accompany you on, accompany all my patients on, is hard.’ He looks at me with fatherly pride in his eyes. ‘But today I find myself marvelling at the view.’

  65

  That evening Cat calls me. ‘I’ve got Mark here,’ she whispers. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘Brilliant.’ I detach myself from my oxygen machine, brush my hair and apply some lip balm.

  Since being in hospital, Cat and I have been engineering a meeting with Mark, Cat deciding that she could casually mention to him where I am, suggesting they visit before they go out to dinner close by.

  Soon I hear Cat and Mark outside my bedroom. The door opens and Cat bounds inside, whereas Mark approaches me as if walking on spikes. He’s tall and slim and his dark hair has a soft wave.

  ‘What a surprise to see you,’ I say, avoiding Cat’s eye as I know we’ll both giggle.

  ‘We can’t be long,’ she says, ‘but we were just passing and wanted to say hello.’

  Cat is a terrible actress. Mark digs his hands into his pockets, looks at me shyly. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you, Alice. Been rather nervous to meet you actually, I know I need to pass the ‘Alice’ test.’

  I like that. Having power!

  ‘I gather your single was released today,’ he continues. ‘Cat played it at the office. Congratulations.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, immediately warming to him.

  Cat smiles. ‘You’re famous no
w. A star.’

  ‘So you two, I gather you’ve known each other for years?’ Mark asks, cautiously sitting down.

  I confide to Mark how I knew Cat would be a lifelong friend when she held my hand to make sure I didn’t come last in the egg and spoon race. My first sleepover was with Cat, too. She was the only girl in my class brave enough to invite me to one. ‘Her mum couldn’t get over how much I ate,’ I tell him. ‘She bought a bag of satsumas and I ate the whole lot. “You’ll turn into one”, she said to me.’

  Mark looks perplexed when Cat and I howl with laughter.

  ‘You probably had to be there,’ Cat suggests to him.

  ‘We find everything funny,’ I warn Mark, Cat still laughing. ‘One time, we were playing in her garden, trying to tie a stool to a tree to make a swing. Cat ended up tethering herself and dangling upside down, by her feet.’

  ‘Oh, I remember that!’

  ‘She’s the star, Mark. Cat gave up one of her rare days off before my modelling interview, years ago, and spent hours while we trailed every single place to try and find Adidas Gazelles burgundy trainers.’

  ‘They had to be in burgundy,’ Cat rolls her eyes to Mark, ‘that was . . .’ She makes quote marks with her fingers, “. . . the fashion”.’

  ‘She’s never let me face this on my own,’ I say, too, wanting to reinforce just how special she is, though judging from the way he looks at her, he already knows. ‘So how about you, Mark?’ I ask, urging him to tell me about himself. He pulls up a chair and looks more comfortable as he tells me he’s an only child, that while he works in finance his real passion is painting and photography, and if he could live anywhere else in the world it would be in India.

  When they’re about to leave, ‘You’ve passed, Mark,’ I say.

  ‘Thank God for that,’ he grins back before I give Cat the thumbs up when he’s not looking.

  Alone, I think of Cat and Mark having dinner together. For a moment I fast-forward their lives to new jobs, children, long car journeys to holiday places by the sea, the children squabbling on the back seat about what music to play. Maybe one day Cat will play my album to her children and tell them about our friendship.