Strawberry Sisters

by Candy Harper

  I don’t think going round the shops with me was much fun for Jasveen and Milly. I didn’t say much and every time one of them mentioned Lauren’s name I flinched. In the end, I just left them to it.

  When I got back to Dad’s house, Chloe was blocking the hallway and talking excitedly to Ella.

  ‘Where’s Dad?’ I asked Ella.

  ‘He and Suvi have taken Lucy and Kirsti to the supermarket; they’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Chloe asked.

  ‘Fine. Stop staring at me.’

  ‘You look a bit funny.’

  I wasn’t in the mood for Chloe’s smart remarks. ‘You’re the one covered in mud.’

  ‘I’ve just had rugby. Remember? It was my first session today.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I can’t think how that slipped my mind. I ringed it on my calendar and everything.’

  ‘It was amazing.’

  She had hair sticking up all over the place, a dirt smudge across her cheek and it was obvious that she’d been worked pretty hard because she had clearly visible sweat rings on the pale blue rugby shirt she was wearing.

  ‘Is that the team shirt?’ Ella asked. Chloe had gone on and on about how Thunder and the other youth squad members had been given swish shirts with their names printed on the back.

  Chloe shook her head. ‘They didn’t give us shirts. This is an old one of Thunder’s; he grew out of it.’

  Ella and I stared at the shirt. It was gigantic.

  ‘Well, you look like a proper rugby player,’ Ella said.

  ‘Uh-huh and you smell like one too,’ I added.

  ‘What was the stadium like?’ Ella asked quickly.

  Chloe’s face fell. ‘It wasn’t at the stadium; the girls are going to do their training at Langley Fields.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ella said.

  I couldn’t be bothered with this. I sat down at the bottom of the stairs and started unlacing my boots. ‘Does it matter where you are?’ I snapped. ‘As long as you all get to roll around in the mud and end up smelling like overweight warthogs on a hot day. That’s the point of it, isn’t it?’

  Chloe glared at me. ‘The point is rugby.’

  ‘And what was that like?’ Ella asked in an annoyingly sweet voice.

  Chloe stopped glaring. ‘Well, actually, that was really good. We did some throwing and kicking drills and they said that one week we might go and watch a women’s match.’

  I trudged upstairs towards our room. I needed to be alone to try and think about Lauren and what was going on with her.

  Chloe followed me, peeling off layers of muddy clothing as she went. ‘It was good,’ she said to me, as if I’d shown any interest whatsoever. ‘But I still don’t see why we couldn’t have shirts and protein drinks and everything that the boys are getting. We deserve them.’

  ‘Yeah, well, people don’t always get what they deserve,’ I said. ‘You might think you deserve special shirts and drinks, or a best friend who doesn’t lie to you, but that doesn’t mean that that’s what you’re going to get.’

  ‘It’s not very fair,’ Chloe said, pushing open the bathroom door.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s not.’

  Then I did something a bit stupid. You’d think by now that I’d know that I’m not very good at having a sensible conversation with anyone when I’m angry, but I wanted some answers. So I phoned Lauren.

  Except Lauren didn’t answer. Her mum did.

  ‘She’s resting, Amelia,’ she said. She sounded annoyed before I’d even said a word. But I was annoyed too.

  ‘I need to speak to her,’ I said. If she wasn’t going to bother to be polite, neither was I.

  ‘I’ll see if she feels up to calling you later,’ she said as if she was doing me a huge favour.

  ‘This is really important.’

  She sighed. ‘I’m sure you think it’s important, Amelia. But, if you don’t mind me saying, you sound rather aggressive and I can only assume that once again there’s some sort of issue between you and Lauren, which, as I believe I’ve mentioned, disrupts the peace and calm that Lauren needs at the moment.’

  ‘It’s not me that’s being disruptive!’ I said.

  ‘Please don’t shout. I know that Lauren wasn’t entirely clear about her condition before but you do understand now that she has a serious illness, don’t you? She really needs you to be considerate.’

  The image of Lauren and Josh flashed into my mind again. ‘She’s the one being inconsiderate!’ I snapped.

  ‘Amelia,’ she said in a voice of ice. ‘This selfish behaviour is not helping Lauren. I trust you won’t continue this silliness when you see her at school.’

  And she rang off.

  Unbelievable. What a witch! I was so angry I was shaking. She was treating me like a selfish toddler, as if Lauren was a perfect angel who I was making sick. The way she’d said ‘serious illness’ made it sound as if Lauren was gasping her last breath and I was just bothering her with my silly complaints about the fact she’d lied to me again. My chest felt like someone was piling bricks on top of me. I could hardly catch my breath. I lay on my bed and the tears started to fall. And they kept on coming.

  I don’t think anyone noticed my blotchy face at teatime. Once I’d stopped bawling, I decided that I didn’t want to talk to anyone about Lauren. I’d already snapped at Chloe earlier and I didn’t want to bring anyone else down by talking about my rubbish life.

  Instead, I agreed to play cards with Ella and Chloe. There’s no TV at Dad’s house because Suvi says it rots the imagination so Ella and Chloe are always playing cards, as if it was during the war or something. I usually say no, but this time I was glad to have something to concentrate on.

  ‘What did you eat at the cinema?’ Chloe asked Ella, while she dealt out the cards.

  When you go to see a film, normal people ask you what you thought of it, but Chloe doesn’t care about that; she just likes to hear what snacks you ate while you were watching it.

  ‘I had one of those little tubs of ice cream,’ Ella said.

  ‘What flavour?’

  ‘Chocolate.’

  ‘You should’ve got some of those nachos. I love that runny cheese they put on them.’

  ‘We’ve all seen you eating nachos with runny cheese,’ I said. ‘And I’m pretty sure no one wants to be reminded of that image.’ I turned to Ella. ‘Was the film good?’

  ‘It was OK.’ Her forehead was creased again.

  ‘Was Crystal all right today?’ I asked.

  Ella studied her cards carefully.

  Chloe nudged Ella. ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She never does anything bad to me,’ Ella insisted.

  I laid down a card. ‘So who was she bad to?’

  ‘She was rude to the lady selling the tickets. And after the film was over and we were leaving she said, “I’m not coming back to this dump again.” It was really embarrassing.’

  ‘She sounds horrible,’ Chloe said.

  Ella sighed. ‘But she’s not horrible other times. She’s never mean to people at school, not like Jasmine is.’

  Jasmine is the meanest girl in Ella’s class. She’s so mean that she’s even horrible to Ella and that’s like being nasty to a kitten.

  Ella screwed up her face. ‘Ashandra says that Crystal talks about herself a lot, but I don’t really mind that because she does lots of interesting things and she’s fun and she’s generous.’

  Chloe looked surprised. ‘Do you mean you like her because she gives you stuff?’

  ‘Of course she doesn’t,’ I said. That didn’t sound like Ella at all.

  ‘She does give people chocolate and presents and things,’ Ella said thoughtfully. ‘But she does other things too, like she spent ages helping me and Kayleigh at hockey. I don’t understand how anyone who’s kind like that can be so horrible to their mum and nice cinema ladies that smile at you.’

  ‘People aren’t just all good or all bad,’ I pointed out. ‘Look at me: you’d think that someo
ne as obviously brilliant and intelligent as me would never have blazing rows with people but I have been known to.’

  Ella chewed her lip.

  ‘I don’t think you have to tie yourself in knots trying to understand Crystal,’ I said. ‘The way she talks to people makes you uncomfortable so I don’t think you should hang around with her.’

  Ella’s eyes widened. ‘I can’t stop being friends with her because of this. She’d think it was silly.’

  ‘But you don’t think it’s silly. You get to choose your friends.’

  Ella’s face cleared. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ I said.

  ‘Except us two,’ Chloe said, pointing a finger at herself and then me. ‘You’re stuck with us two.’

  After a while, Chloe wanted to play Slam and since only two can play that game I left them to it. I drifted out into the hallway. Dad leant out of his study. ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

  I shrugged non-committally.

  ‘Come in,’ he said and he pulled the other chair up next to his. ‘How’s Lauren?’ he asked, turning away from his computer to face me. He’s definitely much better at giving people his full attention these days.

  I wasn’t sure it was a good idea for me to start talking about Lauren; my anger had mostly faded away, but I was still confused and upset.

  ‘She’s OK,’ I said. Then I couldn’t help adding, ‘I don’t really understand what’s going on with her; it’s like sometimes she’s too sick to do anything and then other times she seems completely fine.’

  ‘I think that’s how it is with CFS,’ Dad said.

  I heard Lauren’s mum’s voice in my head asking if I understood that Lauren had a serious illness and an uncomfortable feeling started bubbling up in my stomach as I realised that I knew very little at all about CFS.

  ‘Are you feeling OK?’ Dad asked. ‘You seem a bit out of sorts.’

  ‘I’m just, you know . . . thinking about things.’

  ‘Anything in particular?’

  I shook my head.

  He opened his drawer and offered me a piece of fudge from his secret stash. We chewed for a minute.

  ‘What would you like to do tomorrow?’ Dad asked. ‘I haven’t seen much of you this weekend.’

  ‘Will the library be open?’ I asked.

  ‘Not on Sundays. Is it for homework?’

  ‘No, I thought maybe I could find out a bit more about CFS; Suvi says that books can help you learn about anything you can think of.’

  Dad struggled so hard not to show his surprise that I was quoting Suvi that I almost laughed.

  ‘I think I ought to learn some more about it.’ I rubbed my eyebrow. ‘I should’ve done it before. I was a bit stupid and I just sort of assumed that the doctors would make it go away.’

  ‘It’s tough when you realise that’s not always possible.’ He patted my knee. ‘You know another great source of information on any topic you can think of?’

  I shrugged.

  ‘People. And not just people who write books. There must be a lot of people who have experienced what Lauren’s going through and thanks to modern technology . . .’ he pointed to his laptop, ‘you can hear what some of them have got to say.’ He tapped away for a moment and then swung his laptop round so I could see what he’d found. It was a forum for CFS sufferers.

  I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. ‘Thanks!’

  Dad pushed back his chair. ‘Take as long as you like. I’m going to make a phone call.’ He picked up his mobile and left the room.

  I pulled my chair close to the desk. I don’t know why but I’d sort of assumed that Dad would hang around and talk a bit more. Maybe he hadn’t changed quite as much as I’d thought.

  I scanned down the page of thread titles and clicked on Is it just me that finds other people’s reactions to CFS hard to handle? The first post was by a woman who said she’d been suffering from CFS for years and that one of the most difficult things about it was that many of her so-called friends didn’t seem to believe that it was a real illness. Other posters replied saying how people had told them that they were lazy or that they didn’t ‘look ill’. I squirmed when I read that one. I knew I’d said that to Lauren a few times.

  I spent an hour reading different threads. Every time I thought I’d found the saddest story, I came across another one. There was a woman who hadn’t been able to travel to her son’s wedding. There was a man whose girlfriend had left him because she thought his illness was all in his head. And, over and over again, people spoke about feeling betrayed by their body and simply not having the energy to even get dressed in the morning. When dad came back to his study, I was crying.

  ‘Amelia!’ He wrapped me up in a big hug. ‘What is it, sweetheart?’

  ‘It’s so horrible,’ I gulped. ‘Poor Lauren.’ I wasn’t making much sense but Dad took a look at the computer screen and I think he got the general gist.

  He squeezed me tight and said, ‘It’s all right,’ until I got my sobs under control.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, wiping my tears with a tissue. ‘You mustn’t scare yourself with stories from the internet.’

  ‘But they’re true,’ I sniffed. ‘All these poor people have got CFS and it’s terrible.’ The tears started falling again.

  ‘I know,’ he said soothingly. ‘It’s rotten that this is happening to Lauren.’ He smoothed my soggy hair away from my face. ‘What you have to remember is that the people who are posting here are probably at their lowest ebb. The internet is a useful tool, but you’ve got to keep in mind that it does have its limitations.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Who do you think is most likely to write a post on this forum? A CFS sufferer who’s having a bad patch so they’re stuck in bed, maybe with no one to talk to, or a CFS sufferer who’s doing well and is out having a good time with their friends?’

  I supposed he had a point there. ‘But the bad patches do happen.’

  ‘Of course, and I don’t think it hurts for you to know how tough things can be for someone with CFS, but it won’t help you or Lauren to dwell on it.’

  I suddenly felt tired. When my dad had come into the room and wrapped me up in his jumpery hug, I’d thought that everything was going to be all right; that he’d fix things like he did when I was a little kid. But he couldn’t fix it any more than the doctors could fix Lauren.

  ‘I’ve just been speaking to my friend, Azra,’ Dad said. ‘Remember we went to her barbeque last summer? She’s the doctor.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘I asked her what she knew about CFS.’

  So he hadn’t disappeared to make a work call. My tears nearly started again. He wasn’t leaving me to it; he’d been doing his own research for me. I swallowed. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Well . . . it’s a difficult condition. Not everyone is in agreement about what exactly it is or the best way to treat it.’

  ‘Does Azra have patients with CFS?’

  ‘She’s not allowed to talk to me about individual cases because their details are confidential. But she did tell me that in the course of her career she’s seen a wide-ranging level of impact of the condition.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means that sometimes people are confined to their beds for long periods of time, while some have cycles of improvement followed by relapse, but then others learn to manage their condition in a way that means that they can live something approaching a normal life. She’d even heard of sufferers who completely recover.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep.’

  I took a long breath. ‘So Lauren might get better,’ I said. ‘Or she might get better and then relapse.’ I thought about the first stories I’d read. ‘Or it might just be awful for her the whole time.’

  Dad looked serious. ‘You have to hope for the best,’ he said.

  ‘But what if she never gets better?’

  ‘Then I’m certain that you’ll be there to he
lp her through it. You can’t influence Lauren’s health so it’s no use worrying about it. Concentrate on what you can do and that’s being a good friend.’

  He was right. I knew that I wouldn’t be looking up any more sad stories. I was glad that I had a clearer picture of what CFS meant because now I could appreciate what Lauren was going through, but getting depressed about it wasn’t helpful.

  Dad pulled me in for another hug. ‘I know it’s hard,’ he said. ‘But I’m here if you need to talk about it.’

  And I felt better because, even though I was growing up and I knew that some of the problems I’d come across now wouldn’t be the kind that my dad could fix with glue or words or ice cream, I also realised that he’d always be there beside me, whatever I was going through. And so would my mum. And even Suvi. Some difficult things can’t be made better but they’re easier to get through if you have someone special by your side. I hoped I could be one of those people for Lauren.

  I went to bed early, but I couldn’t sleep. At midnight, I was still thinking about Lauren and the things her mum had said to me on the phone. Had I really been selfish? I turned my pillow over to the cool side and tried to relax, but Kirsti was stirring in the next room and a few seconds later she started to whimper loudly. I thought maybe I could shush her back to sleep before she woke Suvi up so I slipped into her room and scooped her out of her cot.

  ‘Shh, baby,’ I whispered, patting her softly on the back like I’d seen Suvi do. Kirsti was warm and soft and it was actually really nice giving her a cuddle. I rocked her gently and she closed her eyes. In a few minutes, I was pretty sure she was asleep again. I didn’t want to jolt her awake so, very slowly, I leant over the cot and lowered her back down. Once I’d managed it, I stood watching her for a while. Babies are a bit noisy and dribbly, but they do look quite sweet when they’re asleep.

  I tiptoed out of her room and walked straight into someone.