I’d like to get to know him, and perhaps for Joe to have him in his life – but before any of that happens, I need to be sure that he is well and truly free of his past demons. Joe has had enough messing around from father figures – we all have – and I don’t want to bring any more chaos into his world.
I don’t think Poppy shares my enthusiasm for getting to know our dad, and I have to accept that. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m a parent myself that makes me more open-minded – he’s missed out on his daughters’ entire lives, and doesn’t exactly seem to be living the dream, working as a sad clown in Blackpool.
Maybe it’s because I think, deep down and buried under layers of more recent events, that I still have some residual memory of the time when he lived with us, and she doesn’t.
I was only two, but I feel like it’s there – a ghost of a thing, an intangible sense of someone who used to bounce me on his knee until I laughed, and jump in muddy puddles, and tuck me in at night, and smell of spices. It might not even be real, and if I try too hard to capture it, it disappears off around a bend in time. It’s like seeing something from the corner of your eye.
Whatever it is, I feel more of a connection to the man than my sister does, and I hope he gets in touch.
Poppy has spent the morning firing off work emails and frowning at her phone as though it’s Satan’s spawn, mumbling under her breath and occasionally swearing, very loudly. For once I’m glad that I don’t have a high-flying career – nobody would miss me even if I took a month off during term-time, never mind in the summer holidays. Being an anonymous worker ant has its advantages.
Eventually, she throws the phone on to the sofa, hard, where it bounces for a few seconds, then disappears off down the side, between the cushions and the arm.
‘You’ll have to stick your hand in and fish around for it, like you did for loose change when you were a kid,’ I say, pointing at the couch. ‘We used to find all sorts down there, didn’t we? Mum said it wasn’t a sofa, it was a black hole.’
‘Yeah. I remember. I once found a copy of one of those racy erotica books from the olden days down there – Black Lace, was it? I asked no questions. Anyway … the way I’m feeling at the moment, I’m not bothered if I never see it again. I’ve had it up to my eyeballs with work. I never wanted to do marketing in the first place … I think I’m going to get them to make me redundant.’
‘Really? How will you manage that?’
‘I have my ways … maybe I’ll go and live on a desert island and eat coconuts and seduce dusky young men. Or maybe I’ll come and live here, and write that book I always said I was going to write.’
‘But how will you support your many sponsor children?’
‘The flat is worth a fortune. And I can bash out a bestseller. I’ll set it in Paris, and it can be about a beautiful heiress who’s a bitch in the boardroom, and the bedroom … I don’t know. This whole thing – Mum dying, us being together again, the A–Z – has been awful in a lot of ways. I don’t know about you, but I feel like a burns victim right now, I’m so raw. But it has at least made me do some thinking, about my life, and what I want from it.’
I’m not sure how I feel about the thought of Poppy living here, forging her fresh start, and when I force my feelings to stop squirming around and look carefully at them, I realise that I am slightly jealous – but not unmanageably jealous. I mean, it’s not like I can move – Joe’s friends, his education, his whole life, are all firmly rooted in Liverpool. So why shouldn’t one of us stay on?
‘Well, I wish you luck,’ I say, and leave it at that. I’m worried that the jealousy part will sneak out and ambush my voice, and we are both still hyper-sensitive to any negative comments from the other.
‘Shall we do T? It says it’s another letter, and that we need to listen to David Bowie singing “Time”. I’ll find it on my phone, as yours seems to be otherwise engaged. I think the A–Zs are getting shorter, don’t you? I suppose she was trying to do them as she was getting more and more poorly.’
There is silence for a few moments, as we both ponder that hideous thought, interrupted only by the sound of emails and texts landing on Poppy’s buried phone.
‘Do you think it would stop if I set the sofa on fire?’ she asks, sounding half serious.
‘I think you might burn the whole cottage down. It’ll run out of juice eventually. Anyway, I’ve found the song – let’s just play Aladdin Sane really loudly so we don’t hear it. We can sit on the sofa and read the letter together at the same time.’
I place my phone down on the side table, and the music starts. The haunting, melancholic voice of the late, great David fills the room. Time, he tells us, is waiting in the wings …
Chapter 61
Andrea: T is for Time
I hope you’re listening to the song, girls – poor David! When this album came out, I was just a girl really. I was so in love with him, and all his weirdness – he was like the ultimate misfit king. I couldn’t believe it when he died, and so young. Now I find myself – even younger – facing the same situation, and listening to these old tunes to try and take the edge off.
First of all, apologies – I know my writing is getting terrible. I’m struggling to hold the pen now, and struggling to stay awake for long periods of time, and struggling with the whole death thing, to be honest.
I’ve tried to keep this A–Z as upbeat as I possibly can, but I find that tonight, I’m running out of steam, and I’ve most definitely misplaced my smile. Perhaps it’s down the side of the sofa? Anyway, U is up next, and I couldn’t dredge up any enthusiasm for a long lecture about Understanding, or how Unbearable it’s been to see you two tear each other apart. So I’m making it U for Upping Sticks – because tomorrow, girls, I am leaving the cottage to go to the hospital, and realistically speaking, I know I won’t be back.
I have just packed my bags, and it was very tricky. How on earth do you plan an outfit for the end of the world as you know it? And how can it be that I will end my life with just a few odds and sods thrown into a wheelie case – how can I reduce everything I will need to a few random possessions? It makes me feel so small, so insignificant – like all the work, all the striving, all the battles I’ve fought, come down to nothing at all.
Anyway, I’ve tied up as many loose ends as I can, and hopefully not left anything embarrassing around the house to shock you with. I know Lewis will help me through the rest of this project, and I know he’ll look after my blue tits, and I know he’ll be with me through everything that I have left to face. He is my loyal and wonderful friend, and the day I met him was probably the luckiest day of my life. He’s like my guardian angel in tweed, and I know he’ll take care of me.
But still. Still, I find myself almost intolerably sad right now. I’ve missed my evening painkillers, because I want to be fully conscious for my last night here, in this place where I’ve built so many memories. I’ve sent Lewis home, because I want to be alone with those memories – to say my goodbyes. I suppose I had some drama-queen image of myself floating around the cottage looking ethereal, reliving past glories, making my peace with my future.
But for once, my drama queen has let me down. It’s hard to look ethereal when you’re tied up in knots with pain, and I simply can’t make my peace with it. I can’t say goodbye with any sense of justice, or fairness, or calm. I don’t want to go, girls. I don’t want to leave. I’d like to cling on here, to just go to sleep on the sofa and never wake up. If I was brave enough, perhaps I’d do just that.
They’ve offered to set me up at home, those lovely Macmillan ladies, but I can’t face that either. This cottage has seen its share of sadness, but I don’t want to turn it into a hospital ward. I want to leave it for you two, as a refuge, a safe haven. A reminder of what we all once had together. I don’t want it smelling of death and disinfectant; that would soil all that it has been to us.
So, I’ve wandered around the bedrooms, and had the longest bath, and now I’m sitting here, alo
ne, in my dressing gown, listening to David and feeling about three hundred years old. Three hundred years old, and yet still a child – because my time has run out, and I have no idea what happens next, and for once, I am scared.
I’m scared and I’m in all kinds of pain, and I feel so very lonely. I know it’s not fair to say that to you, but I’m not feeling very fair right now. I’m starting to wonder if this whole A–Z – this Grand Dame nobility of mine – hasn’t just been a folly. The foolish conceit of a dying old woman, who still thinks she can control the world. In reality, I can’t even control my own body – and perhaps, I think, I have made a mistake. Perhaps I should have told you.
Perhaps I should have sent for you both, and had you here with me now, for one last goodbye. One last hug. Even one last argument – anything, to get another chance to see your smiles; hold your hands; hear your laughter. Stroke the soft skin of your faces, just as I did when you were tiny children, and the world was a simple place.
If I close my eyes, and let my mind drift, I can almost hear your childish laughter echoing around the room, listen to the sound of your feet running around upstairs playing a game. Hear one of you counting while the other one hides. I know they’re just ghosts – ghosts of all those carefree days when we were whole.
It’s selfish, but I miss you both so much – my precious girls. I wish you were here with me, now, holding my hand and looking after me and telling me it’ll all be all right, even though we know it won’t. I don’t want to be alone, and yet I am.
But perhaps I’ll feel differently tomorrow. I don’t know. I’m consumed by a fit of the black dog and can’t seem to shake it. This cottage has been my home – our home – for so long that it has become part of me. Leaving it tomorrow will feel like I’m accepting the inevitable, and it is breaking my heart. The unimaginable is starting to become real, and I feel weak and old and useless.
I’d give anything to have more time. More time here, more time in my garden. More time with you girls. More time with Lewis. More time on this beautiful, beautiful earth. I feel like my whole life has been so insignificant, so meaningless, and I don’t have any more time left to change that.
So, my darlings, please don’t make that depressing thought come true. Give it some meaning. Make the most of your time – because, before you know it, it will all have slipped through your fingers.
I love you both, more than I could ever put into words,
Mum xxx
Chapter 62
Lewis
I didn’t intend to be here, at Andrea’s cottage. I didn’t intend to be standing outside, like a Peeping Tom, watching those two young women go through their own personal hell.
I didn’t intend any of it. It just happened. I was out walking with Betty, a sad and solitary affair without Andrea, and my feet seemed to bring me here of their own accord. It’s happened a few times now – it’s as though I enter some kind of fugue state, and when I emerge, I find that I am here, outside her front door. Looking through the windows at a life that is no more. At a home that has lost its heart.
Betty, as she is doing now, knows that this is a special place – a place where her human friend will open the door and give her a cool bowl of water and, just possibly, a nice sausage as well. She is whining and scrabbling at the gravel in the driveway, keen to get inside and curl up on Andrea’s sofa. Much like myself, Betty hasn’t yet quite come to terms with the fact that Andrea is no longer here.
At first, I’m not quite sure what has happened to provoke the anguish I can see through the window, until I catch the mournful sound of that David Bowie song she loved so much. And then I know. They are on T, and that heartbreaking letter she scrawled to them the night before she left the cottage for the last time.
She’d wanted to take it out the next day, replace it with something more cheerful – ‘T for Tom Cruise, darling, they could watch Cocktail and throw drinks around the kitchen! That would be so much more fun!’
But I’d insisted she leave it in, and did my Firm Lawyer face until she finally agreed. I felt it was important. That they needed to know – to know how much she was suffering, and to understand how hard all of this was for her. They needed to know that it wasn’t all about their own pain – but about hers, as well.
Now, as I gaze nervously through the glass, I see the end result of that knowledge. The two girls – grown women, I know, but always girls to me – are huddled together on the sofa, their arms wrapped around each other like small children cuddling, weeping uncontrollably. Their misery, their distress, is so tangible you could practically reach out and touch it. I am a voyeur, intruding on their private pain, a spectator of their agony, and I cannot quite tear myself away.
They’re strangers to me, and yet they are part of Andrea – and I am on the outside looking in, watching them sob, unable to help.
I feel sharp tears sting my own eyes, and let them come. I’m old enough and ugly enough to let my emotions take over at times like this. Times of such pain, and such loss, that all we can do is roll over, legs in the air, and surrender.
I wonder if I should knock. Call in for a cup of tea. See how they are getting on. I wonder if we could console each other, us poor lost souls trying to rebuild a life that Andrea’s passing has devastated.
But no, I decide. Not right now. They are consoling each other, or at least sharing their unhappiness – and that is, after all, what Andrea had wanted. Seeing them there like that, faces raw and twisted with grief, doesn’t feel like much of a victory – but I realise, in a way, that it is. And that they have a few more steps to take yet.
The A–Z, I know, becomes altogether more random towards the end. She was running out of energy, out of time, out of everything, and I found myself often answering the door to delivery men bearing boxes of movies and other strange items. Those last few days were terrible, just terrible – how she managed to rally to make that final video, I still don’t know. Sheer bloody-mindedness on her part.
And love, of course. That was always her motivating factor – the love she felt for these two sobbing women; her precious grubby angels.
I put Betty back on her lead – it will be the only way to get her to move – and walk on as quietly as I can, hoping they don’t hear my feet crunching on the gravel. I’m sure they won’t – they are lost in their own moment.
As I leave, I am still crying, the tears streaking through the dust that our walk has left on my cheeks. I feel as though I might never stop crying, and yearn to be back out in the hills, where I can be alone with my memories.
My life feels so dull without Andrea’s light to illuminate it, and I am clinging to the forlorn hope that all of those stories I was told as a child are true.
That, when my time is done, and this useless old body finally catches up with my mind and decides that it’s had enough, we will be reunited.
Chapter 63
Poppy
A whole day passes before we feel able to move on to the next letter, even though it is cheerily marked as V is for Victory.
That letter – her last night in the cottage – destroyed us both. I know how guilty I feel, and know that Rose must feel the same. Mum had made her views on guilt very clear earlier on, but neither of us was at all capable of saying no to it after that. And I don’t think we deserved to.
The fact that we weren’t there with her wasn’t completely our fault. But the fact that she had been put in this position – unable to reach out to her own daughters – was.
I still don’t know how we would have reacted, if she had made that phone call. If we’d both been told that she was dying, and that she wanted us at home with her.
I like to think that we’d have both risen above our petty differences, called a truce for her last days – but I’m not 100 per cent sure we would. More likely, we’d have faked it, badly, and she would have seen that, and it would all have been so much worse. We’re a pair of absolute arseholes, and we are both right to be ashamed of our behaviour.
> The one positive to come out of that letter, to come out of our mother’s anguish, was the way we reacted – the proof that her A–Z was working. That it hadn’t all been wasted, or meaningless, or insignificant.
In the middle of all that pain, all that guilt and regret, we had turned to each other, and we weren’t alone. I had Rose, and Rose had me. That much, Mum had achieved.
Drained and battered, we are now both ready for round 22, which comes with a mysterious package and a note. It’s another British mammal card – a darling deer, this time – and I can tell from the slightly clearer handwriting that she is feeling a lot better than she did when she wrote T and U.
I find myself stroking the cardboard, and sniffing the ink, as though I can somehow find a trace of her there. A trace that I can hug, and comfort, and care for. Because, right now, I am sick of thinking about myself, and even about Rose – I just want my mum.
I want my mum, so I can tell her how much I miss her, and how much I love her, and how very, very sorry I am that we all ran out of time.
Chapter 64
Andrea: V is for Victory
Girls, I can only apologise for that last letter. I’m sure it was a difficult read, but the ever-wise Lewis insists that it stays.
I was feeling very down, and I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m all set up in hospital now, and it’s really rather nice. The staff are so kind, I have some superb drugs flowing through my system, and as much jelly as I can eat. Not bad!
There isn’t much space here, although I can use the back of the card as well, so onwards with V – and Victory. There are four items in your package. Two are medals – I’m so sorry they’re plastic, they were described as ‘party favours’ online and came in a pack of six. I’ve given the others to Lewis and Rhonda and myself, and left one for Joe. We are champions all, just like that delightful Mo Farah.
Also in the package is that lovely leather-bound copy of The Secret Garden that you won in high school, Poppy, for the Creative Writing prize. Such a clever girl. And Rose, you were named Forest Hills Young Scientist of the Year in 1991 – and here’s your prize, a paperback of A Brief History of Time. I can see that you read it, from the dog-eared pages and the notes you left in red pen, as though you fully intended to quiz Stephen Hawking at some later point.
The A-Z of Everything Page 27