by Joanna Nadin
I put my hand over his, pull his fingers to my lips and kiss them. ‘Meet me at the gate. At eight.’
‘Because it rhymes?
‘No, because it’s early and then I’ll know you mean it.’
It is the hope, they say, that ruins you, for hope rides bareback on disappointment, blows raspberries and jeers I told you so.
And I know this to be true: I held on to a tiny flicker of hope for so long it finally burned my fingers, and I had to drop it, scalded, shamed.
It was the fear of that sent me scuttling away from him that night, the night you nearly died for the second time.
But now it is hope that takes me to him. That sees me, at five to eight in the morning, still in pyjamas but with my teeth brushed, and the faintest trace of last night’s perfume on my still-glittering skin; sees me slip across the landing and down the stairs, careful not to tread on the floorboards that David hasn’t got round to fixing. I don’t want to wake you, or him. Then I slip, light as a will-o’-the-wisp, through the door and down the garden path, brambles snagging silk, damp soaking through the wool of a pair of your socks. For a single, dazzling second I consider climbing the apple tree, dropping down beside him like I did nearly thirty years ago. But as I pull on a branch to see if the calloused wood will bear my weight, I hear a handle being turned, and the gate opens, and he is there, in pyjamas too, and a frayed dressing gown, and with slippers on his pale, bare feet.
‘I didn’t know if you’d come,’ he said.
‘Yes, you did,’ I reply. ‘You’ve always known.’
‘I love you,’ he says then. ‘Dido Sylvia Jones, I love you.’
‘I love you, Tom Trevelyan.’
And then he nods. And then there are no more words.
There is just me and him in this glorious bloody Wonderland.
Now
So that, Edie, is the story of you and me. How we came here. To this point, to this room. Like Hansel and Gretel I have followed this trail of breadcrumbs from the gingerbread house, only to find they led back there all along. That perfect snapshot? It wasn’t me in the Lodge garden, in a polyester dress with someone else’s mother standing rigid behind me. But here, today, in this room.
This is it. This is our Kodak moment. So smile, and say cheese. Because we are all here. Our fucked-up, cobbled-together family. Me and Tom. David and Harry. And Toni, too.
I’d hoped there would be more of us. Hoped I would have children to tear round the room, for you to swear at but secretly adore. We tried, Tom and I, but after four years of assumption, three rounds of IVF and a decade of fading hope, we have finally accepted this is never going to be. All those pills, those panics, for nothing; every threat Jimmy made pointless. Like telling a legless man you will kill him if he can’t walk tomorrow.
The truth is that thanks to chlamydia, and a goth called Niall, I cannot have children, at least not of my own. But I have two splendid stepsons who visit us in the summer and we them in the fall. And every other Christmas our small house stretches at the seams as two strapping boys take over the spare rooms and the sofa, and use words like faucet and sidewalk; who call me ma’am, and even, sometimes, to my secret delight, Mom.
And I am a godless-mother to Harry’s youngest, Min, though I fear this is unfair as her two older siblings have a game show host and a former girl band member to guide them down the righteous path, whereas authors are not as lucrative in either actual money terms or the strange stock market that is still played out on hopscotch-painted tarmac and in the queue for the lower-school toilets. But then I remember that Milo and Martha have their own share of bad luck. Because their godmothers won’t teach them how to fake a sick note, or fend off a boy with a knee to the balls, or pour the perfect gin and tonic. Nor any of the useless, brilliant things you taught me.
Oh, Edie, you did teach me. So very much. And I never said thank you. I just rolled my eyes and slammed doors and swore under my breath that the sooner and the further I was away from you the better. All those days spent lying on a single bed rereading Othello, wishing I was black, or star-crossed, or just anyone but me. Scared that somehow, without trying, without even knowing it, I would manage to squeeze myself into your ragtag coat – the one that you wear to all your fuck-ups and faux pas.
How foolish I was, because we, Edie, we were the Queens of Bloody Everything. But only you could see it.
But here I am. Here we are. We had a second chance – more than a decade together, done properly this time. But the past is still in us, some of it diamond, some of it mica. And there are only so many things you can undo, mend. And years of drinking, a rotten liver, is not one of them.
So this is it, Edie. They’re coming to take you down to pre-op in a few minutes. And I know the others want to come in before that. So I’m going to say it now because you can’t raise a hand or your voice to stop me. And because, with the odds Dr Rowland has given us, I know I may not have the chance to say it again.
It’s been a fairy tale.
An enchanted-wood, gingerbread-house, handsome-prince fairy tale.
And you and me, Edie? We are the queens of the story. We are the Queens of Bloody Everything.
Thanks, Mum.
Acknowledgements
With thanks first to Fox Benwell, who kept each chapter safe as soon as it was written in case I pressed delete; next to my agent Judith Murray who fell in love with Edie and Dido from the very first page, and to Sam and everyone at Mantle who felt the same; to Nicola Murphy and Adrian McMenamin who filled in the blanks in my hazy memory of 1 May 1997; to Nicola Watkins and my friends from Saffron Walden who did the same for Essex in the 1970s and 80s – if you recognize yourselves or anyone from town, it is accident not design; to the Manatees for endless virtual cups of tea, and to Sarah Geraghty, Wendy Meddour, and Helen Stringfellow for actual ones; and lastly to Michael, for always believing I could do it.
A former broadcast journalist and special adviser to the Prime Minister, since leaving politics Joanna Nadin has written more than seventy books for children and young adults. She is the author of the bestselling Rachel Riley diaries, the award-winning Penny Dreadful series, the Flying Fergus series (with Sir Chris Hoy), and the Carnegie Medal-nominated Joe All Alone, which is currently being filmed for the BBC. She is a winner of the Fantastic Book Award, has been named Blue Peter ‘Book of the Month’ and Radio 4 Open Book ‘Book of the Year’, has thrice been shortlisted for the Queen of Teen award, while Spies, Dad, Big Lauren and Me was selected for the Richard and Judy Book Club. In 2011, Penny Dreadful is a Magnet for Disaster was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize.
The Queen of Bloody Everything is her first novel for adults.
Also by the author for adults and older teens
Wonderland
Undertow
Eden
First published 2018 by Mantle
This electronic edition published 2018 by Mantle
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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ISBN 978-1-5098-5313-7
Copyright © Joanna Nadin 2018
The right of Joanna Nadin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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