The A-Z of Everything

by Debbie Johnson

  Everything I’ve heard about Gareth, everything I suspected at the time, backs up my belief that sooner or later, all of that would have happened, with or without me. I’d always known that he was a monster. I didn’t create the situation – but I certainly exacerbated it, and put her in a position where it all sped up, steam-rollered over her, leaving her like a cartoon character, squashed and flattened on the floor.

  And I left her to deal with it all alone – if I’d still been in her life, I’d have been there, at her side, fighting her corner. Looking after Joe, kicking Gareth in the balls when he played up, protecting her. Instead, I hurt her, and made her even more vulnerable.

  Now, after hearing all of this, I have no idea what to say. How to console her without risking rejection. How to apologise yet again. How to express my regrets, and show her how I feel. I am frozen, sitting there at the old oak table in the Posh Room, an empty glass of Bolly and a cold Beef Wellington congealing on my plate in front of me.

  ‘So,’ Rose says, swiping tears away from her face angrily. ‘Is this the part where you say “I told you so”, and look even more smug?’

  ‘No,’ I answer swiftly, horrified but not surprised that she would expect that of me. ‘This is part where I say I’m sorry, again – because, let’s face it, Bastards don’t have to be male, do they?’

  Chapter 31

  Rose

  I wake up with sore eyes, a pounding headache, and a champagne glass lying next to me on the pillow, laid there like a boozy rose.

  My first thought is: where are the paracetamol? And my second thought is: did we set the garden on fire last night?

  After my long, drunken confessional session with Poppy, we basically decided that Mum was right (again) and that our lives needed more fizz. So we finished off all three bottles of the Bollinger, and avoided talking about anything too serious for the rest of the night.

  She asked questions about Joe, tentatively at first, as though I might refuse to answer them – but she’d found my weak spot. Like most mums, I can’t resist bragging about my brilliant boy and all of his amazing achievements. Every now and then, as I recounted some tale about his performance in the Year Six leavers’ play, or the way he saved a certain goal, or how good he is at the guitar, I would remind myself of who I was talking to, and temporarily clam up.

  It made for a weird stop-start conversation – a constant flow of maternal pride and childhood anecdotes interrupted by stilted silences and awkward moments.

  It was during one of these that Poppy suggested we should make an effigy of Gareth, and burn it in the garden. As I lie in bed now – staring at that bloody Boyzone poster – I wonder why on earth we thought that was a good idea. But then I remember that I’ve spent the night spooning with a champagne glass, and it all starts to make sense.

  We’d found one of my old dolls in the Hideous Extension, and cut its curly blonde hair off with nail scissors. Then we’d swapped her dress for a pair of trousers from an ancient Rupert the Bear, to make it look like a man – although Poppy decided it didn’t look male enough, and used a marker pen to draw a giant penis on its forehead as well.

  Then we held a little ceremony in the garden, dousing it in petrol we found in the lawnmower shed and setting it alight in the barbecue. There may have been chanting, possibly dancing – and there was definitely too much drinking as we watched its already creepy plastic face melt in the flames. It was all a bit pagan, and I was half afraid we may have conjured up some kind of scorned-woman voodoo; that I’d check my phone and see that Gareth had died the night before in a freak chip-pan fire.

  I roll out of bed, and grab my phone off the drawers. No. Nothing at all, which is a relief – because while I’ve often fantasised about Gareth getting bumped off, or at least moving to Australia, I wouldn’t like to actually cause his death with my freakish supernatural powers.

  I am still fully dressed from the night before, and groan as I make my way downstairs. I am a little woozy, and have to hold on to the walls as I go. The creaky staircase makes so much noise it feels as if it’s being piped directly into my head.

  I am expecting to see carnage when I get down there, but am pleasantly surprised to see that Poppy has already been up, cleared the Posh Room, and washed the dishes. There’s a smell of toast in the air, which I react to like a trained sniffer dog, following the trail to the back kitchen door.

  I realise when I feel the heat of the sun on my face that it’s not quite as early as I thought. In fact, I see when I bother looking at my watch, it’s just after eleven. I’ve had an unintentional lie-in.

  I see Poppy sitting at the wooden bench, a plate of wholemeal toast and a cafetiere of coffee next to her on the table. She’s just nibbled the edges of the slice, as if it might be poisoned. She looks a lot fresher than I do, and is reading a book. I recognise it straight away – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

  I pause in the doorway for a moment, not sure of how to behave. Not sure of how I even feel. Last night was exhausting. Talking about Gareth always drains me, which is why I’ve made an absolute masterwork of avoiding it over the years.

  It exhausts me because it is traumatic, and because, after all this time, he still has the power to make me feel bad about myself – except these days, it is different. These days, I feel bad about what I let him do to me. About not spotting the signs earlier. About not facing up to what he was before so much damage was done.

  Talking about him is bad enough – but talking about him to Poppy? The sister I cut out of my life so long ago? That is a double whammy of massive proportions.

  She didn’t react the way I’d expected. I could see her twitching, see her slow tears, see that she was desperate to reach out to me. To touch me and console me. I’m glad she didn’t – it would have been too much, too soon – but perhaps … well, perhaps one day, things will be different.

  For now, I decide on cautious civility as I walk barefoot over the grass to join her. For now, I’ll try and carry on doing what our mother wanted, and see where it leads. It would just all be so much easier if she was actually here to act as a buffer zone, make us laugh, chivvy us along – if she was out here on this gloriously sunny day, chatting and eating toast and making plans. I miss her so much.

  Poppy looks up as I approach, and I see a hesitant not-quite-smile hovering on her lips. Like she too doesn’t know how to behave this morning. She folds her page over, and offers me a slice of toast.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say, taking a bite and sitting down next to her. We both stay silent for a few moments, watching the blue tits on the bird table and admiring the riot of colour of an English garden in full summer bloom.

  ‘So,’ I finally say, ‘I’m not feeling awesome this morning.’

  ‘You’re feeling better than that Tiny Tears doll is,’ she replies, pointing to a pile of melted plastic and ashes in the barbecue.

  ‘Yes. We well and truly killed her, didn’t we? Anyway, what does Mum have planned for us today …? I hope it doesn’t involve climbing up hills or going to a nightclub. I’m too old for all of this.’

  Poppy nods, and doesn’t dispute my oldness – the cow – before replying.

  ‘It’s D, and all I know is that it’s some photos, and a video, which we can download from her account and watch on her incredibly clever TV. It has a catchy title, though.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ I ask, not sure what to expect. ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘Daddy Issues. Sounds like a classic.’

  Chapter 32

  Andrea: D is for Daddy Issues

  ‘Darlings – how are the hangovers this morning? I’m working on the assumption that you took me up on C at least. You wouldn’t be my daughters if you let a single drop of champers go to waste, and I hope you did me proud.

  ‘As you can see, I’m filming this one in the garden. Lewis is here, manning the camera, and we’ve just had a splendid little breakfast. It’s one of the first properly warm days we’ve had this year, and I think you’ll agr
ee it’s looking gorgeous. Lewis, pan round, will you? It means move the camera, you big lug! That’s it – do a full turn, like a slow-motion ballerina doing a pirouette – yes, keep going, nice and steady, so we get a full shot of the place.

  ‘Well done Lewis, we’ll make a cameraman of you yet! I think the hydrangeas are going to be especially lovely this year, girls. I don’t know what you’ll be doing with the cottage – it’s really up to you. Your lives are in other places, so I’ll understand if you sell it – but if you do, please make sure it goes to someone deserving, won’t you?

  ‘Not just someone who has the money, but someone who will love it like I have, and will take care of the garden for me. Someone who will keep the birdbath stocked and polish the garden gnomes and leave the animals’ grave-markers in place.

  ‘We spent many happy years in this garden when you were children, and I’ve spent many more here since. After Penny Peabody, when the roles were few and far between, I started to enjoy the gardening a lot more. Discovered my green thumb late in life.

  ‘Anyway. I’ve got to go to hospital this afternoon for an appointment – don’t worry, Lewis is taking me – and I suspect that is going to be a more and more common thing in future. I know you’ll both still be reeling from the fact that I’m gone, and I’m not at all sure whether these little home movies will help, or make it worse – but once an old luvvie, always an old luvvie, my dears.

  ‘As you can see for yourselves, I’m not in too shabby a state. My appetite isn’t much to write home about, and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t pain, but I’m still here, still at home – where I plan to stay for as long as humanly possible. But when I need to decamp and take the nice medical people up on their offer of care and drugs, I will. I don’t know when that will be – it’s all so bloody uncertain – but for the time being, I’d rather be here, with the gnomes and all my happy memories, than anywhere else.

  ‘I know, as you watch this, that everything will feel unreal to you. That you might have had a difficult conversation last night. That you might have headaches.

  ‘That you still won’t quite believe I’m gone. The loss of a loved one takes a terribly long time to actually sink in. To start with, the pain of it is raw, and unpredictable, and all-consuming – but you hold it in and cope, at least until you get through the necessities, like the funeral.

  ‘After that, I’m afraid it’s something of a slow burn. You think you’re doing okay, but as time passes, you realise that you’re not. Something will happen – you’ll hear a funny story in the queue at the post office, or see an especially beautiful sunset, or hear a certain song on the radio – and it will spark some memory, or some urge to pick up the phone and tell me about it.

  ‘The real pain comes then – with the thousand tiny paper cuts of grief – the small things that make up a human life. The missed birthdays, or accidentally buying me a Christmas present even when I’m not here to receive it. The future losses will hurt as much as the current ones.

  ‘I don’t have any way of protecting you from that, my sweets, other than to do what I’m doing – trying to bring you back together again, so at least you won’t be facing it alone. And also to assure you that it does get better, with time – you’ll never forget me, but eventually, you will get through whole days and then whole weeks without bursting into tears. You’ll move on, and I don’t want you to feel guilty about that – don’t scratch at the scab once you start healing. Allow yourself to feel the pain, but allow yourself to let it go as well.

  ‘I’m sounding incredibly wise in my old age – but only because I’ve been where you are now, trying to come to terms with the death of my own mother, wondering how someone so strong and vibrant could be gone from the world, and how the world could go on without her.

  ‘I had you two, which was both a blessing and a curse – a curse because I had a lot to deal with, and it’s very hard changing nappies while weeping into the talcum powder. But a blessing as well, because I had someone to pour my love into, and so much to do that I was distracted from it all.

  ‘Your grandmother only met you briefly, as babies – well, you were a very chubby toddler at that stage, Rose, so adorable, and you were a few months old, Poppy. I know you’ve seen those photos, in the album on the bookshelf, but I think I have an old one somewhere of me as a baby, with my parents. I’ll root out a photo of her and leave it for you – she was a lovely lady, although very tough on the surface. They were often like that, women who grew up during the Second World War – life hadn’t been easy, and they’d learned to cope with a lot.

  ‘My dad died before you were born, when I was just a teenager, and that had a profound effect on me. It certainly explained some of my later behaviour – and it also brings me to the matter at hand: Daddy Issues.

  ‘This isn’t an easy thing to discuss for me and, even now, knowing that this might be my last chance, part of me wants to chicken out. Even thinking about it is making my head hurt.

  ‘Now, I know you two always had questions about your dad – and that was only natural. I’m afraid I simply never handled it well, and always fobbed you off or tried to distract you. That worked when you were little, and I think as you got older you were both too kind to press the issue in case I went into some kind of drama-queen meltdown.

  ‘That was unfair of me, and I apologise – but all I can say is that I did have my reasons, which may or may not become clear, depending on how you choose to proceed. Because you have a choice to make right now, girls – and it’s a choice you both need to agree on.

  ‘This is going to be, if all my plans work out, a bit like one of those books you had as children, where you could pick your own endings. Do you remember those? You’d reach a certain point in the story where you were asked what you wanted to do, which road to take, or which magic box to open, and it would take you to a different part of the book. You in particular loved them, Poppy, although you always cheated and read all the endings first.

  ‘So, this is your choice – if you want to know more about your father, I will tell you. You simply have to carry on with our little A–Z, and you’ll get there in the end. Round about P, in fact. I know that seems a while to wait, but it’s a big deal, and I’d prefer it if you two were a little more robust by the time you got there. There’s all kinds of lovely adventures planned before then – don’t groan, now! – that will hopefully allow you to feel better about the world.

  ‘But, and this is entirely up to you, you can also choose not to find out. I mean, you’ve gone the whole of your lives without knowing much about him, so you might decide that you’re happy to let it go, and continue as normal. I would understand that – and believe me, choosing to know won’t be without its complications. I can’t predict what they will be, but I’m certain they’ll exist.

  ‘So, if you do decide to pass, and sweep the daddy issues under the rug, then you need to completely skip P and Q. I’ll ask Lewis to package those up in such a way that you can’t see anything from the outside – I don’t know, perhaps he’ll find some nifty crime-scene tape, like in the movies, or one of those biohazard stickers? He’s very resourceful. If you don’t want to know, then just throw them away. Burn them. Throw them into the sea tied to a stone. Whatever you like.

  ‘Either way, it’s up to you. I’m sorry I’m not there in person to answer all your questions, although not sorry enough, it seems, to actually contact either of you right now and say “hey, girls, why don’t you come over for lunch and I’ll tell you all about your daddy?” It seems that I am still chickening out, just a little bit – please forgive me!

  ‘Anyway, I’m going to sign off for now – I’m sure I’ve given you plenty to think about. After our visit to the hospital, Lewis has promised to drive me up to Carding Mill Valley, and we’re going to try and do that little walk to the reservoir. Maybe call at the ice-cream shop on the way home, if I’m feeling up to it. There’s nothing like knowing your time is limited to make you relish a little bit of ras
pberry ripple, believe me.

  ‘I know this is all a bit of an ordeal for you, so I’ve planned a bit of a treat with E, I promise – nothing heavy at all. In fact, it may make you giggle.

  ‘So, my darlings, farewell for now – and please remember, always, how much I love you both.’

  Chapter 33

  Poppy

  We’ve watched the video with the curtains closed, to block out the sunshine that was glaring off the screen, and now the room feels heavy and dark. The streaks of sun that are creeping in around the fabric are casting golden yellow stripes, like spotlights, filled with dancing dust particles.

  We are both silent, and both, I suspect, confused.

  First, we looked at the old black-and-white photos that had been left in the D envelope. Neither of us had seen them before, but the notes on the back told us they were of Mum, from the 1950s. There aren’t many – I suppose photos were more of a luxury back then – and they are small and square and not very clear.

  She is dressed in white, her hair a fuzzy blonde halo around her head, and she’s sitting on the lap of her own mother, chubby knees poking out of what looks like a home-made dress.

  My grandmother, who of course I don’t remember at all, does, indeed, look a little bit stern, trying to smile but seeming uncomfortable with having her picture taken. My grandfather, who is a tall man wearing a lot of Brylcreem, is standing behind with his hand on her shoulder, with the same half-grimace on his face.

  It’s not quite got that frozen-sepia look that you see on really old pictures, but it’s hard to imagine them as living, breathing people – the people who created my own mother. People she lived with and laughed with and loved and grieved for, just like we are grieving for her.