Just One More Day

by Susan Lewis

  ‘So you were chatting?’

  ‘Yes, but only about the rubber.’

  What can you do but laugh. ‘You’ve got to try a bit harder,’ I tell her. I’m thinking about the final test she’ll have to sit next year for Red Maids now. I definitely don’t want her failing that.

  ‘Can my best friend Diane come here for tea one night?’ she asks.

  ‘If you start doing a bit better with your lessons. Where does she live?’

  ‘Up by New Cheltenham park, not far from Aunty Flo. Oh yes, I’ve got a note from school asking if we can go on a trip to the Roman Baths. Can I go? I want to.’

  ‘Let’s find out how much it is first. You’ve got the cruise coming up in June, don’t forget, and you’ve had this new dress.’

  ‘Can I wear it outside now, to show Janet and Sarah?’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Take it off before it gets dirty.’

  ‘Can I wear it up to show Gran on Saturday?’

  ‘No. It’s for Whitsun. Now go on out to play, you can practise the piano after tea.’

  As she thunders back down over the stairs, I hang the dress up again and tidy up some of her dolls. She don’t do badly, considering the little bit of money we’ve got. Neither of them do. It’s just me and Eddie who do without, really, but we’ve got decent clothes on our backs, and food on the table, so we mustn’t grumble, must we? No, mustn’t grumble, but it’s bloody hard not to.

  The days and weeks have gone on. It’s nearly the end of April now, and I’m starting to feel a bit worn down again. I have to have a rest in the afternoons, and sometimes I don’t get up again till the next morning. But like I tell Dr Tyldesley when I see him on Wednesdays at half past ten, it’s nothing to get worried about. I mean if I can get up to his surgery, instead of him calling in on his rounds, there can’t be, can there? Carry me samples on the bus I do, tucked inside me handbag so no-one can see. He’s gone and banned smoking in his waiting room, so I generally stand outside having a chat with the others out there, until me name is called.

  I always know I’m in for a telling off when I get in his office. ‘You shouldn’t smoke, you know how bad it is for you, it’s not helping you to get better, you should try to give up.’ I’ve heard it all a hundred times before, and today’s no different, so I just let him get it off his chest before I remind him of how much better I am, so it can’t be doing me that much harm, can it?

  Anyway, he goes on then about me latest tests and the letter he’s just had from the hospital. I can hear what he’s saying, but I don’t think I’ll take any notice. I’m not going to have him spoiling things now, when everything’s just starting to go right again. Instead I have a think about where to go when I leave here. I’m supposed to be going up our mam’s, but I don’t fancy it now, so I think I’ll call in and see Flo on my way back down the hill. Yeah, that’s a good idea, because I want to pop in the post office to get meself a provisional licence and it’s on the way. Eddie said he’d teach me to drive, so now let’s see if he really will. Blimey, if I pass me test, I could be driving us down Dawlish in the summer.

  Dr Tyldesley walks to the door with me. ‘You’ll be hearing from them in the next few days, I expect,’ he tells me.

  ‘All right,’ I answer. ‘Thanks then. Cheerio,’ and I skedaddle before he can say any more.

  Flo’s in when I get there, which is lucky, because she’s got herself a little job as a home help now, just mornings, but Karen’s got chicken pox, so she’s had to take the day off.

  She puts the kettle on and makes us a nice cup of tea, which we drink in front of the fire in her living room. It’s looking very nice in here. I remember when Bob put the wallpaper up and Eddie gave him a hand. Doesn’t seem all that long ago, but it must be a couple of years now. It’s a horrible thought, knowing Bob won’t be putting any more up – I wish it hadn’t come into me head. I wonder if Flo ever thinks like that. I suppose she’s bound to, but it don’t do any good to dwell on it, does it? You can’t help but admire how she keeps everything up together though, when she has to cope on her own. Must be hard not having a man about the place. I know Eddie wishes he could do more, but with me being under the weather all that time, he just couldn’t manage it. She’s got some good neighbours though, so I expect they help. They bloody better, or I’ll be knocking on their doors wanting to know why.

  We chat about the kids and this and that, you know how you do. In the back of me mind I keep wondering about Bob and whether she still misses him at all. She must, I mean, it’s not even a year yet, is it? He has to have left a great big hole in her life. I know Eddie would, if anything happened to him. I’m feeling a bit tempted to ask her about it, but that would be prying, and anyway, she probably doesn’t want to be reminded. She’s a lovely woman, quiet, never pushes herself on anyone, makes you wonder why God had to go and do this to her.

  When I leave her place I walk on down the hill and stop outside the park where I stare in at the swings and sliders. No kids there today, they’re all at school. Just old Bert, the caretaker, picking up some bits of rubbish. He gives me a wave, so I wave back then go on walking down to the post office. The sun’s gone in a bit now, but it’s still not cold. I keep me scarf tied up though, just in case the wind picks up from nowhere, the way it does sometimes, when you’re not expecting it. It’ll be handy when I can drive. Our car’s been quite reliable lately, so Eddie might even be able to give me a lesson tonight. He reckons we’ll end up having a row. He could be right, we usually do, about one thing or another.

  I wonder if he’ll be glad when I’m gone, no more arguing and fighting then.

  The letter turned up a few days ago, and now I’m sitting here on the edge of me bed with me coat on, staring down at me feet. Me little case is next to me, on the floor, me handbag’s already over me arm.

  ‘All right?’ Eddie says, coming in the room.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, and crush out me fag in an ashtray.

  He picks up me case, then puts a hand under me elbow to help me up.

  ‘I can manage,’ I tell him.

  I check me lipstick in the dressing-table mirror and decide to put on a bit more. I see him watching and try to give him a smile. ‘You can’t afford to take this time off,’ I tell him. ‘The last thing we need now is for you to go getting the sack.’

  ‘We’ll worry about that if it happens. I’ll take this on down then.’

  I watch him go, then I look down at me bed again and start remembering the night I had our Gary. No good thinking about that now though, is it? It’s time to go.

  ‘At least it’s a nice sunny day,’ I say to Eddie as we get in the car.

  ‘They’re saying it could go up to sixty-five later,’ he tells me.

  ‘That’s nice.’

  The engine starts after about the third go, and we reverse back up the street.

  ‘Have you told the kids?’ I ask him.

  ‘Not yet. I’ll tell them when they come home from school.’

  We drive on round past the Anchor and up New Cheltenham Road. We see a couple of people we know, walking, but we don’t stop to offer them a lift.

  ‘Make sure our Susan don’t wear that white dress before Whitsun,’ I tell him, ‘because if she has her way she’ll have it on tomorrow.’

  ‘You’ll be back home long before then,’ he tells me.

  ‘Yeah, course I will. I’m just saying.’

  ‘I’ll come in as often as I can.’

  I nod. ‘Shame the kids can’t come too, but it’s not allowed, so that’s that. Probably be too upsetting for them anyway.’

  ‘They’ll be all right.’

  ‘Yes.’

  When we get to Cossham I feel like I’m going to start sobbing, or screaming. I don’t though, I just pull meself together as we drive on by. You see, it’s not Cossham I’m going to this time, it’s back down the bloody General, the place where I had me first big operation. Never ever wanted to go there again in me life, but it don’t seem as though I’ve
got a choice now, does it? That’s where they want me, so that’s where I have to go. Thing that keeps going round and round in my head is, they can’t remove me liver the way they did me bosom, can they? I’ve only got one of them, and if it’s no bloody good any more, well then, I’ve had it, haven’t I? It’s all going to be over and I’ll never see me children again.

  Susan

  Mum’s gone back in hospital. She went last Thursday, and we don’t know when she’s coming out again, so Gran’s been staying with us, helping to get us ready for school in the morning, and making our tea at night. Gary’s been sleeping in with Dad, so I creep in too, and we all sleep in the big bed together. It’s not the same without Mum being there, but she’ll be home soon, Dad says, and I know she will because she’s come home all the other times when I was afraid she wouldn’t.

  She’s not up Cossham this time, she’s in the General, down town. Dad goes in to see her most nights, and sometimes we go too, but we have to wait out in the car. When she was up Cossham she could wave to us from a window, but she can’t down the General, so we just sit there with Gran, in amongst all the other cars, waiting for Dad to come out again. We play I-spy-with-my-little-eye, and sing ‘Ten Green Bottles’, or ‘One Man Went to Mow’. Then we sing on the way home with Dad.

  Tonight when he came back Dad said Mum was getting a lot better, so she could be coming home at the end of the week. I’m glad because she said my best friend Diane could come for tea. Dad wouldn’t let her, because it was too much for Gran. I’ve been up Diane’s house though, and I was even going to sleep there, but then I wanted to go home, just in case Dad was missing me, or Mum came back, so Diane’s dad drove me down in his car.

  We’re doing French in school now, so I can say bonjour to Mum when I see her, and comment allez-vous? She’ll like that, because she says it’s good to speak another language, even though she doesn’t like the French very much. They eat frogs’ legs and snails, which is really disgusting. Lucky we don’t have that for tea or we’d be sick.

  I’m trying out for the choir again next week, so I can be in the school concert. I’m going to sing my very, very best, so they don’t turn me down again, because I really want to be in it. Everyone else is, so I don’t want to be left out or Kelvin Milton will make fun of me again. I haven’t told Dad, because I want to surprise him.

  Gary’s in his school choir, and he’s done lots of paintings for Mum that Dad takes into hospital. I haven’t done any, because mine are no good, but I’m making her a card saying ‘Get Well Soon’ with bows and stars on it, which is nearly ready, I just have to make some more glue. I’m doing it in secret, up in my bedroom, so no-one else knows.

  ‘Bonjour frère,’ I say as Gary comes in the living room where I’m helping Gran wind some wool.

  ‘What?’

  ‘It means hello brother,’ I tell him. ‘It’s French. And you’ll never guess what the word for yes is. It’s oui.’

  He starts to laugh. ‘No it’s not, is it Gran?’

  ‘Yes it is,’ she answers.

  ‘You mean, oui it is,’ I tell her.

  ‘Oui it is,’ she repeats and Gary and I laugh our heads off.

  ‘What’s all this noise?’ Dad says, coming down from the bathroom where he’s been having a shave. He’s got little bits of paper stuck to his chin where he’s nicked himself, with spots of blood seeping through.

  ‘Susan keeps saying wee,’ Gary tells him. ‘And Gran did too.’

  ‘It’s French for yes, isn’t it Dad?’

  ‘Oui,’ he answers and we start laughing all over again.

  ‘Are you going down the hospital now?’ I ask him.

  ‘Yes, do you want to come?’

  ‘I don’t know. Can I go in and see Mum?’

  ‘You know children aren’t allowed in.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s in there,’ I say.

  ‘Now don’t start that nonsense again. Of course she’s in there, and we should find out tonight whether or not she can come home at the weekend.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ Gary asks.

  He always asks that question and Dad always says, ‘She’s having a little operation.’

  ‘You mean like having her tonsils out?’

  ‘Yes, a bit like that.’

  ‘Will she be able to speak after?’

  ‘Yes, but she’ll probably have to be in bed to recover.’

  We have to go through what recover means then, and after that we try to guess what the score’s going to be when England play Germany at Wembley in the World Cup.

  I didn’t go with Dad to the hospital the other night, but I’m going now, because Mum’s coming home. I’ve got my card ready to give her, and some scent I made with rose petals and water. It’s in a pickled-onion jar that Gran washed out for me, because it’s the only one we could find with a lid.

  I’m sitting in the back seat of the car, all on my own, while Dad goes in to get her. Gary’s got choir practice tonight, so he couldn’t come, and Gran’s gone to watch him so she can bring him home when he’s finished. I still don’t know if they’re going to let me be in my school choir. I did the audition, and I sounded really good, except for when Kelvin Milton and his friends starting wailing like cats outside and put me off.

  ‘It’s a pity it’s raining,’ Gran said when Dad and I left earlier. ‘The weather’s been lovely while she’s been in.’

  ‘Forecast is good though,’ he told her, and he must be right because the rain’s stopped now, but the sun still hasn’t come back out again yet.

  They’ve been in there a long time, and I’m starting to get worried that Dad can’t find her. Or that they’ve forgotten all about me. The car doors are locked, but I can always climb out of a window to go and find them. If the windows won’t go down I could end up living here, in the back of the car. I expect one of the nurses would give me a blanket to keep warm, and I might be able to beg some scraps of food from the kitchens. It’ll be handy if I get ill.

  A man and woman come across the car park and get into a car behind me. I turn to watch them out of the back window and the woman gives me a little wave. I don’t wave back though, because I’m not allowed to wave to strangers.

  I jump as the passenger door opens and turn round as Dad starts to help Mum get in.

  ‘Take it steady now,’ he’s saying. ‘It’s all right, I’ve got you. There you go, are you down?’

  ‘Yes, I’m down,’ she says. ‘I just got to get me feet in now.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that, I’ve got them,’ and he lifts her feet inside.

  ‘All right to close the door now?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  She tilts herself to one side a bit and the door slams closed.

  ‘I’m here, Mum,’ I say from behind her.

  ‘I know you are,’ she says. ‘How are you, my old love?’

  I start to say I’m all right, but then she turns round to look at me and I want to scream. She’s got a funny-colour face. It’s all grey and dark and the whites of her eyes are yellow.

  ‘Look a bit of a fright, do I?’ she says as Dad gets in. ‘I’ll be all right when we get home.’

  ‘I’ve got a card to make you better,’ I tell her, but I don’t want to give it to her because I don’t think she’s my mum.

  ‘There’s lovely.’

  ‘And some scent.’

  ‘Oh, that’s good, get rid of the horrid hospital smell, eh?’

  I pass it over and she unscrews the lid to have a sniff.

  ‘Whew!’ she says, jerking her head back. ‘There’s nice. I’ll put some on after I’ve had a bath, eh? And look at this lovely card. Did you make it yourself?’

  ‘Yes. All on my own, didn’t I Dad?’

  ‘No help from anyone,’ he answers.

  I want to climb on Dad’s lap and whisper in his ear if he’s sure it’s Mum, but he’s driving the car, so I sit back on the seat and stay quiet. She should have put some lipstick on, and so
me powder, because it’s scaring me to see her that horrible colour. I don’t want her to be like that. It makes her look like a ghost.

  When we get home Dad takes her straight upstairs, and Gran goes to help her undress and get into bed. When she’s ready Gary goes in to see her, but I stay downstairs with Dad and Gran.

  ‘Aren’t you going up too?’ Dad asks when I go out to the kitchen to see what he’s doing.

  I shake my head.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he says.

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Go on up and see your mum. She’s missed you.’

  I shake my head again. ‘I don’t want her to be in bed,’ I say. ‘I want her to get up again.’

  ‘She will when she’s better.’

  ‘But she’s never better. She’s always ill. Why can’t she be like other people’s mums and be all right?’

  ‘Ssh, now, or she’ll hear you, and you’re old enough to know that she doesn’t want to be ill. That’s why she’s had an operation, to make her better again, but it takes time to get over it.’

  ‘How much time?’

  ‘We’ll have to wait and see.’

  Mum’s been home from hospital for nearly two weeks now and she still hasn’t got out of bed, except to go to the toilet, when Dad or Gran have to help her. We’re not allowed to go into her room very much, in case she’s asleep and we wake her up. We just pop in to give her a kiss before we go off to school in the morning, and then again when we come home to let her know we’re back. Sometimes we go in and say goodnight, it depends how she’s feeling.

  The doctor comes nearly every day, and Mrs Weiner, but she doesn’t seem to be getting any better. I wish she’d hurry up though, because we want her to watch the World Cup with us, and to come up Kingswood for the Whitsun parade. I don’t care about the school concert, because they won’t let me be in the choir anyway. I hate them, and their choir’s just stupid. So’s Diane Meadows, because she’s gone off with Caroline Fry, and I don’t want a best friend anyway, so there.

  Gran’s gone back home again for a couple of nights, so Dad’s making the tea tonight. He’s standing in front of the stove, checking the boiled potatoes to see if they’re done. They’re always crunchy when he makes them, so you can’t mash them properly, and they go a funny colour too. I wish Mum would come downstairs and make our tea.