The A-Z of Everything

by Debbie Johnson

  ‘And that, I suppose, brings me to one of the other reasons I’m chickening out of seeing you, and leaving this message instead. I love you two, more than life itself – I hope you know that. But I have to be honest – and this is a time and a place for honesty, my sweets – you have broken my heart. Shattered it into tiny pieces, to be dramatic about it – which of course I always like to be.

  ‘Over the years, I’ve tried everything to bring you two together again. I’ve organised parties that neither of you attended, for fear of seeing the other. I’ve performed in dingy small-town theatres in the hope that you’d both come to the opening night – and neither of you did. I’ve pretended to be rushed into hospital with pneumonia, when I had nothing more than a nasty cold. I’ve lied and I’ve schemed and I’ve shamelessly emotionally blackmailed the two of you – all to no avail.

  ‘No matter what I threw at you, you simply didn’t budge. I know you love me, and perhaps right now, watching this, you are starting to realise how much – that is normal, don’t worry. It’s a punch to the gut that you will learn how to live with, I’m sure. But realising how much you love me now I’m gone doesn’t change the fact that in life, you couldn’t set aside your differences – not for your sake, not for Joe’s sake, and certainly not for mine.

  ‘I’m incredibly proud of both of you – you are, and always will be, my grubby angels. I’m proud of your strength, your resilience, the way you’ve made your way in the world. But you have both let your bitterness define you. You’ve both been moulded by this old, tired anger that you cling on to, until it’s become an almost physical part of you – like your curly hair, Rose, or your brown eyes, Poppy. What started as something painful seems to have become something you can’t live without, and that is what has broken my heart.

  ‘You’ve both built lives. Have careers. Rose, Joe is a wonderful, wonderful boy, and you’ve done a brilliant job of raising him. But no matter what you’ve achieved, or gone on to do in your lives, you’ve done it without each other – which means that nothing has ever been quite right, has it?

  ‘I know you both like to fool yourselves that you’re better off without each other, but you couldn’t be more wrong. I raised you to laugh together, to fight together, to protect each other. The world can be a cruel and scary place, and it was always a great consolation to me that there were two of you.

  ‘Bringing you up on my own was never easy. There were all kinds of cracks beneath the surface that you didn’t see – which I never intended you to see. I had to make compromises with my career, I struggled at times for money. It was challenging, and it was often lonely – but, I told myself, at least these two precious girls will never face this kind of solitude.

  ‘They will always have a best friend, an ally, someone to turn to in their hour of need. They won’t just be drinking wine at midnight and staring into the log fire looking for answers, like I often was.

  ‘But instead of turning to each other, you turned on each other – and this fight has destroyed our family. Destroyed our chance to be together, the way I’d always hoped we would be, eventually. I never gave up hope that the old wounds would heal, but now I have to accept that if they do, it’s not something I’ll be around to celebrate.

  ‘I’m not saying this needlessly, to hurt you – God knows that would be the last thing you need right now, after the news you’ve had. And I know you’ve both done your best. Rose, believe me, I’ve loved my visits to Liverpool, and all Joe’s Christmas plays and being involved in his life. Getting to play the Glamorous Granny has been one of the best roles I’ve ever had.

  ‘And Poppy, I do understand how hard you tried – all our holidays, and trips away, and the silly amounts of cash you always spent on my gifts. I’ve never had so many cashmere sweaters and hand-made leather bags in my wardrobe.

  ‘Time spent with the two of you was never wasted, and I valued every second I had with my two gorgeous girls – but for me, it was always bittersweet. Because I could see, more clearly than you could yourselves, how much damage had been done. Together, you could take on the world. Apart, you’re like a three-legged dog, or a tortoise stuck on its back – there will always be something missing. Something holding you back.

  ‘That, I think, brings me to more current events. To the here and now and the future, even if that is a foreign land I will never visit. To the whole purpose of this video, and the way I’ve spent my last few weeks. If you thought I’d emotionally blackmailed you before, then this time I’m going for gold in the Manipulative Mother Olympics.

  ‘This time, I’m not going to be subtle. I’m not going to play games, there’s no point. I’ll state things as clearly as I possibly can: I am your mother. I love you. I am dying. And my one great wish is to see you two together again. I could never achieve that in life, and I am desperately hoping that I can in death.

  ‘Lewis – stop snivelling, Lewis! – has been at my side throughout all of this, and he is your go-to man, as they say in the movies. Listen to him, and do as he says, and buy him a nice cigar, because he bloody well deserves it. Lewis is, so to speak, my representative on earth, and he’ll be guiding you through this process.

  ‘I can practically hear the question – “What process?” – so I’ll answer it for you. The process of at least trying to rebuild your relationship. The process of putting the pieces back together, and moving forward in your lives – at each other’s sides, just like I always wanted.

  ‘Although I am, excuse my French, completely pissed off at being dragged away from life while only in my sixties, it has been a good life. Full and rich and never, ever boring. You two have been both the highlights and the low points, and I’m hoping that the low points will soon be specks of dust on the horizon.

  ‘At the moment, as I record this, I’m not afraid. I’m not afraid of dying, or what comes next, even if I accidentally end up in Goldfish Heaven – I’m only afraid for you two, and what will become of you once I’m gone.

  ‘I know that when my own mum died, I was suddenly swamped with questions that only she could answer. About my childhood, about her life, about the best way to make a steak-and-kidney pie, about everything.

  ‘Your mum is the person you most take for granted in your life and, right now, you’ll both be willing to give up your right hand to have one more conversation with me. To be able to pick up the phone one more time. To be able to sit and chat about mindless things, or not-so-mindless things – you will have questions, and that won’t stop.

  ‘As you get older, and your lives change, and you face new challenges, there will always be part of you that wants to call your mum and ask her what she thinks. Or to see her, and get a special mummy hug, one of those that makes you feel like everything will be all right in the end – the kind only mums can give, no matter how grown up you are.

  ‘I know that’s how I felt, at least. I still do, right now, at this very minute. I still wish she was here, all these years later. Losing your mother leaves a hole that is simply never filled. The pain of not being able to make that phone call, or get that hug, will always be with you, right up until it is your turn to walk in my shoes. It’s the cycle of life, just like in The Lion King, but without the lovable warthog.

  ‘I’m so sad, for you, that I won’t be here to answer your questions, or give you advice – at least in person. I won’t be picking up the phone, or just down the motorway, or trying and failing to use Skype, not any more. Believe me, if I could live forever and always be around for you, I would.

  ‘Instead, I am offering you a gift. It’s a strange gift, and it comes in many forms. There are videos, and diaries, and letters, and photographs. There are words of wisdom, and words that are undoubtedly lacking in wisdom, and there are small tasks for you to carry out. You know I always liked a good project – and this, my darlings, is my most ambitious yet.

  ‘I’ve been calling it the A–Z of Everything as a working title, always convinced that I’d come up with something better – but time s
eems to be running out on me, so I suppose that will have to do. And, truth be told, it’s accurate at least.

  ‘There are things in there that will surprise you. Shock you, even. Secrets to be told, mysteries to be shared, stories to be recounted. Don’t expect it to be easy – nothing worthwhile ever is, is it?

  ‘I’ve poured my heart and soul and most of the contents of my attic into this A–Z, girls, so I beg you to take it seriously, and treat it with respect. Lewis has it all for you, and I also beg you to accept this gift in the spirit with which it is given – in love, and in hope. The funeral is all sorted – sorry to deprive you of the chance to plan it all, Poppy – and there is very little for you two to do, other than show up, sit down, listen, and learn.

  ‘This is a project that you need to complete together. I realise that very thought is probably making you both shudder, and that even in this time of shock and grief, you’re thinking it’s impossible. That you need to find a way out. Maybe even that it doesn’t matter – that I’m gone, so what difference does it make?

  ‘Well, I can’t control what you do next. All I can do is ask – as your mother. Your dying mother, not to put too fine a point on it. Come to the funeral. See Lewis. Embrace the A–Z of Everything in the way you’d undoubtedly like to embrace me right now. Think of it as one last hug, and humour me.

  ‘I like to think it’s not that much to ask, as I’m at the end of the line here. To borrow a line from Frank, it’s time to face my final curtain. But, believe me, if you pull this off – if you see this one last mission through – I’ll be somewhere, up there, watching; giving you a standing ovation and clapping until my hands are raw.

  ‘But before then, I have a few final comments, and a task to start you off. First of all, let me say two very simple things – I love you, and I know that you love me. That sounds so simple, but grief has a sneaky way of obscuring those simple truths, hiding them beneath rainclouds of doubt.

  ‘When that happens, when the “I wonders …” start to kick in, then kick them straight back out again. I love you, and I know that you love me. Repeat as often as necessary, until it becomes so real you don’t ever question it. If you take nothing else with you from all of this, then at least take that.

  ‘Now, the teensy-weensy task I mentioned. I’d like you both to make a list. Poppy, I know you will relish this one, and you probably have some kind of app you can whip out on your incredibly clever phone, but please don’t. Do it the old-fashioned way. Rose, it’ll take you a while to find a paper and pen – try that little drawer by the telephone table you never use.

  ‘Once you’re ready, I want you both to make a list of the things you feel guilty about. Guilt is a terrible emotion. While it serves a purpose – it’s our conscience’s way of telling us we’ve done something wrong, and hopefully avoiding a repeat performance – it can also eat away at you like a disease. It sours every drink, poisons every meal, casts a shadow over every joyous occasion. I am not, as you might be able to tell, a big fan of guilt.

  ‘But we all have it. Everyone has regrets, and that nagging sense of self-loathing that comes out to poke at you in bed at night. So, take control of it, my dears – and make that list. Be entirely honest, because nobody will ever see it but you – rest assured that my next instructions are not to post it on Facebook, or whatever you young people are using these days. When you’ve made it, keep it safe.

  ‘As well as that, I need you both to think about the way things have gone wrong between you. And, just as importantly, the way things used to be right between you. When exactly did everything start to go wrong? And why was the wrong so much stronger than the right?

  ‘I imagine you sitting at home in Liverpool, Rose, pulling a face right now and thinking “Well, that’s bloody obvious, isn’t it?” And to some extent, yes, it is.

  ‘But if we’re honest, the obvious thing that went wrong was only part of it. Nothing could be shattered as thoroughly as your relationship was without there being some cracks already in place. So, I’m asking you, please – much as it might hurt, think about it.

  ‘And now, darlings, I’m going to sign off. I have a date with some excellent drugs, and a nurse is bound to pop in soon to see if I want any jelly … plus poor old Lewis looks like he badly needs a hug.

  ‘Remember, I love you both, so very, very much … and I know that you loved me.’

  Chapter 14

  Rose is splayed across the sofa, her tear-stained face hidden by a cloud of frizzy hair. She is in pain, everywhere. Her neck is sore and her stomach is screaming and her swollen ankles are tender. Everything hurts, and she has no idea how to make it stop.

  She’d quite like to make everything stop, especially the one thought that keeps going round and round in her exhausted brain: She’d broken her mother’s heart.

  No matter how much love there was in that video, how much pride, and hope, and humour, this was what had stayed with her: she’d broken her mother’s heart.

  Her wonderful, vivacious, ever-bright mother. Gone. How could it even be true?

  Part of her is still refusing to accept it. As pranks go, it would be cruel – but she’d take cruelty over the alternative any day. She’d give anything right now for the phone to ring again, and to hear Andrea’s voice.

  ‘Sorry I had to do that to you, Rosehip,’ she’d say, apologetically, ‘but it was the only way to get your attention. I’m not actually dead at all, but if I was, how would you feel?’

  She would feel … destroyed. Completely and utterly destroyed. Wracked with agony. Raw and exposed and empty.

  Exactly how she feels now. She’s watched the video three times, and the panic has got worse with each viewing. She can feel it now, rising up to choke her, wrapping around her internal organs and strangling the oxygen out of her.

  Every moment is etched in agony in her memory. The way her mother smiled. The way she clutched the blanket on her lap. The way her nails were still painted, glamour against the grey. The way she spoke, so calm and deliberate and real. As though she was sitting in the room with her right now, not already dead. Already cold.

  The image of her mother in some chilly mortuary in the Midlands grips her, and she can’t get it out of her head. Lying on a stainless-steel slab, skin pale, flesh pallid, eyes closed. Fingernails painted, hair done, make-up still on. Looking like her mother, but not her mother – a waxwork model of her mother. She wants to bust in, and cover her up with a fleecy blanket, and keep her warm.

  The pain is so intense, she doesn’t know quite what to do with herself. Physically, she’s a wreck – short of breath, panting, paralysed by shock, aching. Emotionally, it is even worse, and she wants to die. If it wasn’t for Joe, innocently upstairs, now quiet, possibly sleeping, his shaggy brown hair curling over his forehead, she probably would.

  She wants to reach out for someone, to seek comfort, but has nowhere to turn. Joe’s dad Gareth is in London, on to his third wife and fourth child, and dead to her in any way that matters. Any way beyond terse emails about Joe, and the sly digs she knows are intended to hurt and always hit their target.

  She has friends, but they’re not the kind you call at midnight to sob uncontrollably. She has Joe himself, but she can’t use him as an emotional crutch. His granny’s death will hit him hard enough – she can at least let him sleep one last night without having to deal with it.

  She has a sister, but even thinking about Poppy makes the pain so much worse. It’s too big. Too frightening. Too much.

  There is nobody to help her. Nobody to console her. And all she wants is her mum. Her mum, who always smelled of Chanel Coco and had the softest skin and gave the best hugs. Her mum, who held her hand when she started school, and lurked across the road in the car on her first date in case it didn’t go well. Her mum, who got up at 5.30 a.m. that summer she had a paper round and did it with her just so she had company.

  Her mum, who had wiped away so many tears; and always had a tissue handy. Who talked her through the importa
nce of properly burping a baby, and took Joe out for huge walks in his pram when he had colic and Rose was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Who cleared her entire ironing pile while she zoned out on sleeping pills after Gareth left.

  Her mum – who taught her everything she knew about love.

  She’d broken her mother’s heart.

  ‘Oh God,’ she wails, muffling her words into an already snot-stained cushion, ‘please tell her I love her! Tell her I’m sorry!’

  God doesn’t answer, and, even if He did, Rose probably wouldn’t listen – she is lost and alone in her grief and her anguish.

  She rolls physically to the floor, and lands on the carpet in an ungainly heap. Crawling first on to all fours, then to her feet, she totters unsteadily through to the hallway. Her eyes are red and raw, and she bounces off walls as she walks.

  She pulls open the drawer of the telephone table so hard it comes out in her hand, and she drops it to the floor, spilling its contents: a small torch, a ball of string, a tube of Superglue, a rubber in the shape of Pikachu’s head, a Thai takeaway menu, a pedometer.

  She kneels down, breath heavy with the effort, and scrabbles until she finds a biro and one of those block memo pads for taking phone messages. Clutching them to her like a newborn baby, she walks back into the living room.

  There isn’t a desk down here, and she needs something to lean on. She finds one of Joe’s hardback books – a Star Wars encyclopedia – and covers up Yoda’s head with the paper.

  Her hand is trembling, and she can’t hold the pen properly. It keeps slipping, and making her scrawl, and she’s useless. Just utterly, pathetically useless. She can’t even do this properly. She stabs Yoda in the eye in frustration, and draws in a long, slow, shuddering breath.

  She knows the biology of what is happening to her. She knows she needs to calm down, to regulate her breathing, to inhale and exhale and simply stop bloody panicking. She takes in three long, slow breaths through her nose, tries to let them out just as slowly through her mouth.