Before I Die

by Jenny Downham

  Where we end up is somewhere I didn’t expect – a muddy car park off the dual carriageway. There are two large trucks parked here, a couple of cars and a hotdog stand.

  Adam turns off the ignition, kicks the stand down with his foot and takes off his helmet.

  ‘You should get off first,’ he says.

  I nod, can barely speak, left my breath behind on the road somewhere. My knees are shaking and it takes a lot of effort to swing my leg over the bike and stand up. The earth feels very still. One of the lorry drivers winks at me out of his cab window. He holds a steaming cup of tea in one hand. Over at the hotdog stand, a girl with her hair in a ponytail passes a bag of chips across the counter to a man with a dog. I’m different from them all. It’s as if we flew here and everyone else is completely ordinary.

  Adam says, ‘This isn’t the place. Let’s get something to eat, then I’ll show you.’

  He seems to understand that I can’t quite talk yet and doesn’t wait for an answer. I walk slowly after him, listen to him order two hotdogs with onion rings. How did he know that would be my idea of a perfect lunch?

  We stand and eat. We share a Coke. It seems astonishing to me that I’m here, that the world opened up from the back of a bike, that the sky looked like silk, that I saw the afternoon arrive, not white, not grey, not quite silver, but a combination of all three. Finally, when I’ve thrown my wrapper in the bin and finished the Coke, Adam says, ‘Ready?’

  And I follow him through a gate at the back of the hotdog stand, across a ditch and into a thin little wood. A mud path threads through and out to the other side, where space opens up. I hadn’t realized how high we were. It’s amazing, the whole town down there like someone laid it at our feet, and us high up, looking down at it all.

  ‘Wow!’ I say. ‘I didn’t know this view was here.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  We sit together on a bench, our knees not quite touching. The ground’s hard beneath my feet. The air’s cold, smelling of frost that didn’t quite make it, of winter to come.

  ‘This is where I come when I need to get away,’ he says. ‘I got the mushrooms from here.’

  He gets out his tobacco tin and opens it up, puts tobacco in a paper and rolls it. He has dirty fingernails and I shiver at the thought of those hands touching me.

  ‘Here,’ he says. ‘This’ll warm you up.’

  He passes me the cigarette and I look at it while he rolls himself another one. It looks like a pale slim finger. He offers me a light. We don’t say anything for ages, just blow smoke at the town below.

  He says, ‘Anything could be happening down there, but up here you just wouldn’t know it.’

  I know what he means. It could be pandemonium in all those little houses, everyone’s dreams in a mess. But up here feels peaceful. Clean.

  ‘I’m sorry, about earlier with my mum,’ he says. ‘She’s a bit hard to take sometimes.’

  ‘Is she ill?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘What’s up with her then?’

  He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. ‘My dad was killed in a road accident eighteen months ago.’

  He flicks his cigarette across the grass and we both watch the orange glow. It feels like minutes until it goes out.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  He shrugs. ‘There’s not that much to say. My mum and dad had a fight, he stomped off to the pub and forgot to look when he crossed the road. Two hours later the police were knocking on the door.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Ever seen a scared policeman?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s terrifying. My mum sat on the stairs and covered her ears with her hands, and they stood in the hallway with their hats off and their knees shaking.’ He laughs through his nose, a soft sound with no humour to it. ‘They were only a bit older than me. They hadn’t got a clue how to handle it.’

  ‘That’s horrible!’

  ‘It didn’t help. They took her to see my dad’s body. She wanted to, but they shouldn’t have let her. He was pretty mashed up.’

  ‘Did you go?’

  ‘I sat outside.’

  I understand now why Adam’s different from Zoey, or any of the kids I knew at school. It’s a wound that connects us.

  He says, ‘I thought moving from our old house would help, but it hasn’t really. She’s still on a million tablets a day.’

  ‘And you look after her?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘What about your life?’

  ‘I don’t really have a choice.’

  He turns on the bench so that he’s facing me. He looks as if he’s really seeing me, as if he knows something about me that even I don’t know.

  ‘Are you afraid, Tessa?’

  No one’s ever asked me that before. Not ever. I look at him to check he’s not taking the piss or asking out of politeness, but he returns a steady gaze. So I tell him how I’m afraid of the dark, afraid of sleeping, afraid of webbed fingers, of small spaces, of doors.

  ‘It comes and goes. People think if you’re sick you become fearless and brave, but you don’t. Most of the time it’s like being stalked by a psycho, like I might get shot any second. But sometimes I forget for hours.’

  ‘What makes you forget?’

  ‘People. Doing stuff. When I was with you in the wood, I forgot for a whole afternoon.’

  He nods very slowly.

  There’s a silence then. Just a little one, but it has shape to it, like a cushion round a sharp box.

  Adam says, ‘I like you, Tessa.’

  When I swallow, my throat hurts. ‘You do?’

  ‘That day you came round to chuck your stuff on the fire, you said you wanted to get rid of all your things. You told me you watch me from your window. Most people don’t talk that way.’

  ‘Did it freak you out?’

  ‘The opposite.’ He looks at his feet as if they’ll give him a clue. ‘I can’t give you what you want though.’

  ‘What I want?’

  ‘I’m only just coping. If anything happened between us, it’s kind of like, what would be the point?’ He shifts on the bench. ‘This is coming out all wrong.’

  I feel strangely untouchable as I stand up. I can feel myself closing some kind of internal window. It’s the one that controls temperature and feelings. I feel crisp as a winter leaf.

  ‘I’ll see you around,’ I say.

  ‘You’re going?’

  ‘Yeah, I’ve got stuff to do in town. Sorry, I didn’t realize what the time was.’

  ‘You have to go right now?’

  ‘I’m meeting friends. They’ll be waiting for me.’

  He fumbles around on the grass for the crash helmets. ‘Well, let me take you.’

  ‘No, no, it’s OK. I’ll get one of them to pick me up. They’ve all got cars.’

  He looks stunned. Ha! Good! That’ll teach him to be the same as everyone else. I don’t even bother saying goodbye.

  ‘Wait!’ he says.

  But I won’t. I won’t look back at him either.

  ‘The path might be slippery!’ he shouts. ‘It’s beginning to rain.’

  I said it would rain. I knew it would.

  ‘Tessa, let me give you a lift!’

  But if he thinks I’m climbing on that bike with him, he can think again.

  I made a fatal error thinking he could save me.

  Seventeen

  I start with assault, shove my elbow hard into a woman’s back as I get on the bus. She spins round, crazy-eyed.

  ‘Ow!’ she yelps. ‘Watch where you’re going!’

  ‘It was him!’ I tell her, pointing to the man behind me. He doesn’t hear, is too busy carrying a screaming child and yelling into his phone to know I just slandered him. The woman sidesteps me. ‘Arsehole!’ she tells him.

  He hears that.

  In the commotion, I dodge the fare and find myself a seat at the back. Three crimes in under one minute. Not bad.

  I rif
led through the pockets of Adam’s motorbike jacket on the way down the hill, but all I found was a cigarette lighter and a bent old rollie, so I couldn’t have paid for the bus anyway. I decide to go for crime number four and light it up. An old bloke turns round and jabs a finger at me. ‘Put that out!’ he says.

  ‘Piss off,’ I tell him, which I believe might count as violent behaviour in a court of law.

  I’m good at this. Time for a little murder now, with a round of the Dying Game.

  The man three seats in front is feeding takeaway noodles to the small boy on his lap. I give myself three points for the food colouring creeping along the child’s veins.

  In the opposite aisle, a woman ties a scarf about her throat. One point for the lump on her neck, raw and pink as a crab’s claw.

  Another point for the bus exploding as it brakes at the lights. Two for the great globs of melting plastic from the seats splitting the air.

  A counsellor I saw at the hospital said it’s not my fault. She reckoned there must be loads of sick people secretly wishing malevolence upon the healthy.

  I told her my dad says cancer is a sign of treachery, since the body’s doing something without the knowledge or consent of the mind. I asked if she thought the game might be a way for my mind to get its own back.

  ‘Possibly,’ she said. ‘Do you play it a lot?’

  The bus sweeps past the cemetery, the iron gates open. Three points for the dead slowly prising open the lids of their coffins. They want to hurt the living. They can’t stop. Their throats have turned to liquid and their fingers glint under the weak autumn sun.

  Maybe that’s enough. There are too many people on the bus now. Down the aisles, they blink and shift. ‘I’m on the bus,’ they say as their mobiles chirrup. It’ll just depress me if I kill them all off.

  I force myself to look out of the window. We’re in Willis Avenue already. I used to go to school along here. There’s the mini mart! I’d forgotten it even existed, though it was the first place in town to sell Slush Puppies. Zoey and me used to get one every day in the summer on the way home from school. They sell other stuff too – fresh dates and figs, halva, sesame bread and Turkish delight. I can’t believe I let the mini mart slip my mind.

  Left at the video shop, and a man wearing a white apron stands in the doorway of the Barbecue Café sharpening his knife. A rack of lamb slowly rotates in the window behind him. Dinner money bought a kebab and chips there two years ago or, if you’re Zoey, it bought a kebab and chips plus a cigarette from under the counter.

  I miss her. I get off the bus in the market square and phone her. She sounds like she’s underwater.

  ‘Are you in a swimming pool?’

  ‘I’m in the bath.’

  ‘On your own?’

  ‘Of course I’m on my own!’

  ‘You texted me that you were at college. I knew it was a lie.’

  ‘What do you want, Tessa?’

  ‘Breaking the law.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s number four on my list.’

  ‘And how are you planning on doing that?’

  Before, she’d have had an idea. But now, because of Scott, she’s lost her definition. It’s like their edges got blurred together.

  ‘I was thinking of killing the Prime Minister. I quite fancy starting a revolution.’

  ‘Funny.’

  ‘Or the Queen. We could get a bus to Buckingham Palace.’

  Zoey sighs. She doesn’t even bother to hide it. ‘I’ve got stuff to do. I can’t be with you every day.’

  ‘I haven’t seen you for ten days!’ There’s a silence. It makes me want to hurt her. ‘You promised you’d do everything with me, Zoey. I’ve only done three things on the list. At this rate I’m not going to get it all done in time.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

  ‘I’m at the market. Come and meet me, it’ll be fun.’

  ‘At the market? Is Scott there?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’ve only just got off the bus.’

  ‘I’ll meet you in twenty minutes,’ she says.

  There’s sun in my teacup and it’s very easy sitting outside this café watching it shine.

  ‘I think you’re a vampire,’ Zoey says. ‘You’ve sucked all my energy away,’ and she pushes her plate to one side and rests her head on the table.

  I like it here – the candy-striped awning above us, the view across the square to the water fountain. I like the tang of rain in the air and the row of birds lining the wall over by the dustbins.

  ‘What kind of birds are they?’

  Zoey opens one eye to look. ‘Starlings.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I just do.’

  I’m not sure I believe her, but I write it down on my napkin anyway. ‘What about the clouds? Do you know what they’re called?’

  She groans, shifts her head on the table.

  ‘Do you think stones have names, Zoey?’

  ‘No! Neither do raindrops, or leaves, or any of the other mad things you keep going on about.’

  She makes a nest with her arms and hides her face from me completely. She’s been grouchy ever since she got here and it’s beginning to piss me off. This is supposed to be making me feel better.

  Zoey shifts in her chair. ‘Aren’t you freezing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can we just go and rob a bank, or whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing?’

  ‘Will you teach me to drive?’

  ‘Can’t you ask your dad?’

  ‘I did, but it’s not working out.’

  ‘It’d take a million years, Tessa! I’m probably not even allowed. I’ve only just learned myself.’

  ‘Since when did you care about what was allowed?’

  ‘Do we have to talk about this now? Come on, let’s go.’

  She scrapes her chair back, but I’m not ready yet. I want to watch that black cloud drive towards the sun. I want to watch the sky turn from grey to charcoal. The wind’ll pick up and all the leaves will rip off the trees. I’ll race about catching them. I’ll make hundreds of wishes.

  Three women appear, hauling buggies and children across the square towards us.

  ‘Quick!’ they cry. ‘In here, quick, before it rains again.’

  They shiver and laugh as they squeeze past us to an empty table. ‘Who wants what?’ they cry. ‘What do we want?’ They sound just like the starlings.

  Zoey stretches, blinks at the women as if wondering where they came from. They make a great fuss taking off coats and plonking babies in high chairs, wiping noses with bits of tissue and ordering juice and fruitcake.

  ‘My mum used to bring me to this café when she was pregnant with Cal,’ I tell Zoey. ‘She was completely addicted to milkshakes. We used to come every day until she got so fat her entire lap disappeared. I had to sit on a stool by her side to watch the telly.’

  ‘Oh my God!’ Zoey snarls. ‘Being with you is like being in a horror movie!’

  I look at her properly for the first time. She hasn’t made any effort; is just wearing shapeless jogging pants and a sweatshirt. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her without make-up before. Her spots are really obvious.

  ‘Are you all right, Zoey?’

  ‘I’m cold.’

  ‘Did you think the market was on today? Were you expecting to see Scott?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Good, because you don’t look great.’

  She glares at me. ‘Shoplifting,’ she says. ‘Let’s just get it over with.’

  Eighteen

  Morrisons is the biggest supermarket in the shopping centre. It’s nearly school kicking-out time and it’s busy.

  ‘Take a basket,’ Zoey says. ‘And watch out for store detectives.’

  ‘What do they look like?’

  ‘They look as if they’re at work!’

  I walk slowly, savouring the details. It’s ages since I’ve been in a supermarket. At the deli they have little saucers on top of the
counter. I take two pieces of cheese and an olive, realize I’m starving, so help myself to a handful of cherries at the fruit bar. I munch on them as I walk.

  ‘How can you eat so much?’ Zoey says. ‘I feel sick just looking at you.’

  She instructs me to put things that I don’t want in the basket – normal things like tomato soup and cream crackers.

  ‘And in your coat,’ she says, ‘you put the things you do want.’

  ‘Like what?’

  She looks exasperated. ‘I don’t bloody know! There’s a whole shop full of stuff. Take your pick.’

  I choose a slim bottle of vampire-red nail varnish. I’m still wearing Adam’s jacket. It’s got lots of pockets. It slips in easily.

  ‘Great!’ Zoey says. ‘Law successfully broken. Can we go now?’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Technically.’

  ‘That’s not anything! A runner from the café would have been more exciting.’

  She sighs, checks her mobile. ‘Five more minutes then.’ She sounds like my dad.

  ‘And what about you? Are you just going to watch?’

  ‘I’m your lookout.’

  The assistant at the pharmacy is discussing chesty coughs with a customer. I don’t think she’s going to miss this tube of Relief Body Moisturizer or this small jar of Crème de Corps Nutritif. In the basket go crispbreads. In my pocket goes Hydrating Face Cream. Tea bags for the basket. Signs of Silk Skin Treatment for me. It’s a bit like strawberry picking.

  ‘I’m good at this!’ I tell Zoey.

  ‘Great!’

  She’s not even listening. Some lookout she is. She’s fiddling about at the pharmacy counter.

  ‘Chocolate aisle next,’ I tell her.

  But she doesn’t answer, so I leave her to it.

  It’s not exactly Belgium, but the confectionery section has miniature boxes of truffles tied with sweet little ribbons. They’re only £1.99, so I nick two boxes and shove them in my pocket. A biker’s jacket is very good for thieves. I wonder if Adam knows this.

  At the end aisle, by the freezers, my pockets are bulging. I’m wondering how long Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food would last in a coat when two girls I used to go to school with walk by. They stop when they see me, bend their heads close together and whisper. I’m just about to text Zoey to let her know she needs to help me out when they come over.