by Green, Linda
‘What makes you say that, love?’ I asked.
‘Well, you and Daddy don’t believe in God.’
‘No. But we’ve always told you that you’re to make your own mind up about what you believe in.’
‘And I have,’ said Zach.
‘Can I go and play indoors with Millie?’ asked Oscar, cleared bored with the philosophical nature of the debate.
‘Of course you can, love. If that’s OK with Millie.’
‘Yeah. May as well. Nowt to do out here,’ she said.
Oscar manoeuvred his chair to the foot of the ramp.
‘How many buses are you jumping over this time?’ I asked.
‘Twenty-five,’ he replied. ‘It’ll be a new world record.’
Oscar managed to get himself to the top and I stood behind him to watch him over the drop.
‘Woo-hoo,’ I said. ‘Didn’t even touch them.’ Millie, who had seen it all before countless times, followed him in.
Zach sat back down on the step again with his book. He opened it then shut it again and looked up at me. ‘I know there’s not a God,’ he said, ‘because if there was one, Oscar’s muscles would work properly, wouldn’t they?’
I sat down on the step next to him and gave him a hug. Letting his pain seep into me and join mine.
‘If it’s a birthday party, does that mean there’s going to be cake?’ asked Oscar.
‘Let’s wait and see,’ I replied as we pulled off the cobbles on to the main road.
‘You must know,’ said Zach, ‘you helped to organise it.’ You really couldn’t get anything past him.
‘OK, there’s going to be a huge great birthday cake in the shape of a number two with icing and everything.’
‘Can I blow the candle out?’ asked Oscar.
‘Sorry, love, we’ve already chosen a little girl to do that. Her name’s Amelia. It’s her birthday today as well, you see. And she’s also going to be two.’
‘Is she going to die soon?’ asked Oscar.
He wasn’t being nasty. He understood what the hospice was about. ‘She’s got liver disease, love. She needs a new liver because her own one doesn’t work properly. She’s on the list for a transplant. That means if someone else dies and their family donates the liver, Amelia could have it put into her and get well again.’
I could almost hear the cogs going around in Oscar’s head. The fault-lines had appeared in my heart before he even said it.
‘They don’t do leg transplants, do they?’ he asked.
‘No, love,’ I said, trying hard to stop my voice from cracking. ‘I’m afraid not.’ I glanced over at Rob. He pretended to be concentrating on driving, but I knew he wasn’t. I knew he was hurting every bit as much as I was. I only wished he could find some way to show it.
It was only the third time he’d been to the hospice. He usually found some reason to get out of it, but he knew how much today meant to me. Besides which Oscar had insisted he come because it was ‘a family day out’ and he was part of the family.
The roads were quiet, even the Ainley Top roundabout, suggesting lots of people had already got away for the Easter holidays. When we pulled into the car park in Huddersfield we were clearly amongst the first ones there.
Rob went around to the back of the people carrier, opened the door and started unclipping the various belts which secured Oscar’s chair. Zach climbed down from his seat next to Oscar and ran around the back to help me with the ramp and the winch.
‘Ready for take-off,’ shouted Oscar.
‘Chocks away,’ I replied.
It was a well-rehearsed routine, but fortunately one that Oscar never tired of. Nor did he tire of coming here. The way he gazed around at the specially adapted playground in awe made me wonder what he’d be like if we ever saved up enough money to take him to EuroDisney.
‘Can I have a go on the roundabout before we go in?’ Oscar asked.
‘Go on then,’ I said. ‘Zach will come with you.’ He didn’t need asking either. He was already running over to the roundabout. I watched them. My boys playing together at a playground. Taking turns, arguing over what to go on next. Like brothers should. Only it was all too rare to see it.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked Rob.
‘Yeah, fine. Bit big for the swings, that’s all.’
‘They like it here.’
‘Yeah. I can see that.’
‘It’s good for Zach, too. When they can play together like this.’
He nodded.
‘It’ll be fine, you know. Inside I mean. It’s a party, remember. Everyone’s going to be happy.’
‘I know.’
‘I appreciate you coming, anyway.’
He nodded. Managed a bit of a smile. ‘Not often we get the chance to spend an afternoon together, is it?’ he said.
‘No, I guess not. Anyway, look, I’d better go in and see if there’s anything I can do to help. You can let them play for a while longer if you like. It doesn’t start until two.’
‘OK. We’ll see you in there.’
I waved to Oscar and Zach as I made my way across the courtyard and into the main building. Simon was wandering around in the foyer smiling at nothing in particular and fiddling with the buttons on his suit.
‘Nibbles,’ I said.
‘Sorry?’
‘You could always put the nibbles out if you’re stuck for something to do.’
‘Er, right, yes. Thanks, Sam. Actually, I’d better go and run through my speech again.’
I smiled at him. Simon didn’t do practical. But at least I’d stopped him wearing the floor out.
I walked along the corridor to Marie’s office and stuck my head around the door. ‘Oi, you,’ I said, catching sight of her at the computer. ‘This is a party, you’re not supposed to be working.’
‘Rotas won’t wait for owt,’ she said.
‘Well at least come down for the cake-cutting,’ I said. ‘I think Simon’s going to need a bit of moral support for the speech.’
‘OK, but I shan’t stop long. You know parties aren’t my thing.’ I nodded. I suspected she didn’t even approve of the party taking place, what with finances being so tight.
‘It’ll be good for everyone, you know, to be reminded of how much we’ve done. Why we’re all here. Why no one should try and take a single penny away from us.’
‘Yeah, I guess so,’ she said, still sounding unconvinced.
‘Right, well I’d better go and do my meet-and-greet bit. See you for the cake.’
I made my way back down to the foyer, someone had put the nibbles out. It was a safe bet it wasn’t Simon.
It was only as I stood amongst the assembled guests later, waiting for Simon’s speech that the enormity of it all hit me. All these people whose stories I knew, some with their children, some whose children were no longer here, but all of them a part of this place. Not just because of their children’s names carved in glass bricks in the memorial wall, but because of the love which had cemented the whole thing together. The love that supported people, held them up when they were in danger of falling and propelled them through the next second, minute, hour of a day they hadn’t thought they would be able to bear.
I swallowed hard. It was impossible to believe that just over two years ago this place hadn’t even existed. Had all these people really come through our doors only in the past twenty-four months? So many precious moments: of a step forward, a breath taken, a smile to be remembered. And it begged the question what would they have done without us? And what would the next round of parents do if we were no longer here?
I glanced down at Zach and Oscar who were deep in conversation about the exact size of the piece of cake they would be having. I felt it more keenly than ever. The fact that I was lucky to have them. I was so aware that although this was a celebration of Sunbeams’ first two years, there were many people here today who would find it difficult to celebrate. Who would smile and raise a glass for us, but who inside were still full of hurt and lo
ss and grief.
Simon stepped up onto a small podium and called for hush. ‘I can’t tell you how good it is to see so many friends here today,’ he began. Despite his nerves he was a good speaker. His words were full of warmth and comfort, shared hopes and shared heartache. I let them wash over me, tuning out at the parts which I knew would push me close to the edge, allowing them to penetrate again only when I was sure I was strong enough to hear them.
I glanced at Rob. He was staring very hard at a picture on the far wall. His face expressionless. Perhaps not realising how much that gave away to me.
‘When are we going to have the cake?’ Oscar whispered.
‘Very soon,’ I said. ‘You’re doing really well.’
At the end of the speech the cake was brought out and Amelia’s father carried her forward in his arms. Clearly she was no longer strong enough to be able to walk. A cheer went up as her father helped her cut the first slice. I caught Rob’s eye as I turned around. He tried very hard to smile, but he simply couldn’t.
It turned out Newsnight didn’t need me to go down to London, only to the BBC studio in Leeds. Which was just as well, as Zach had been particularly clingy since the hospice party. And whilst I was disappointed not to get the chance to meet Paxman in person, it at least got me out of having to tell the boys I wouldn’t be there in the morning. I’d never actually spent a night away from them. Quite a few people seemed to think that was weird – although admittedly most of those people didn’t have a child with a disability to care for. The fact was if I went away and anything happened to Oscar I would never forgive myself. And I wasn’t sure Zach would forgive me either. So I stayed.
The taxi arrived at the end of the road. I half expected Jackie to be outside taking a photo, she’d been that excited when I told her they were sending a cab for me.
‘Right, I’d better be off then,’ I said. I bent down and kissed Zach, who had been given special permission to stay up late to say goodbye.
‘Don’t forget to tell them I came up with the name the Lollipop Party.’
‘I’ll do my best.’ I smiled.
‘And see if you can sell him one of my pictures or at least mention the name of my exhibition while you’re at it,’ said Rob with a smile. I pulled a suitable face.
‘Text me afterwards and let me know if I came over like a blithering idiot, OK?’
‘I will, but you won’t,’ he said. ‘An opinionated, unhinged woman from Hebden Bridge maybe, but not a blithering idiot.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, kissing him. ‘Although I’m not sure what for.’
I sat in the reception area at the BBC studio wondering if that was the description of me they’d put up under my name on the screen ‘opinionated, unhinged woman from Hebden Bridge’.
When I’d spoken to the researcher on the phone he’d given me a Paxmanesque grilling, I presume to try to establish whether I was a complete fruitloop or actually had something useful to contribute. I hoped the fact that I was here meant it was the latter, but I still wasn’t entirely sure.
I looked up at the large TV screen. The ten o’clock news was just about to finish. I didn’t understand why they hadn’t come to get me. Maybe they’d forgotten all about me. I’d go down in the history as the ‘nearly woman’, the one who would have been elected had she not been left sitting in a foyer with a cup of coffee while the big debate took place without her.
‘Hi.’ The bubbly young woman who had got me the coffee poked her head back round the door. ‘Do you want to come through now?’
I was ushered into what could only be described as a large cupboard. In it were a stool, a television camera and a rail of jazzy ties.
‘They’re the weatherman’s,’ the woman (whose name was Lisa or Laura, I couldn’t quite remember) said. ‘This is where he usually does his weather reports.’
‘Right,’ I said, perching myself rather precariously on the stool. I remembered Jackie saying that such things were designed for men with small arses and made a mental note to add ‘stools for women’ to the mummyfesto.
I looked around for a TV monitor but couldn’t find one. ‘How do I see what’s going on?’ I asked.
‘We’ve found it’s best not to have a monitor,’ she said. ‘It’s too distracting for the guests. If you just look directly into the camera that’ll be great.’
I nodded. So although to the nation I’d be taking part in a television debate, actually I’d be playing blind man’s buff in a glorified broom cupboard. I understood now why the people in the link-ups on Newsnight always looked so dazed and confused. They also tended to have a live TV feed of some iconic national monument behind them. Presumably to make the viewer think, ‘Ah, the Acropolis, it must be Athens.’ I wondered if they’d have live pictures of someone throwing up outside a Leeds nightclub behind me.
‘I’ll just fix the earpiece in. They can be a bit fiddly, but try not to touch it once it’s on, it doesn’t look good on screen.’ I now had a vision of myself blind and partially deaf going into battle with Paxman. I half expected them to give me a gobstopper as well, just for good measure.
I glanced up and caught her looking at my nose-stud. Presumably they didn’t have many of those on Newsnight. For a second I thought she was going to ask me to take it out in case in interfered with the sound quality.
‘OK,’ she said. ‘You’re all set. The producer will speak to you in a moment just to check the sound levels and when the red light comes on we’re on air.’
I nodded and sat there, probably looking as if I were about to go to the gallows, as that was what I felt like. The producer did indeed speak into my ear, telling me they were going to have the main story of the day from the Leveson Inquiry and then come to the ‘Is there an alternative to mainstream politics?’ debate, which is when Jeremy would come to me.
I sat there rigid as Paxman introduced us. I wasn’t sure whether to smile, do that nodding acknowledgement thing or stare straight ahead and try to look serious and intelligent. I tried a combination of all three and suspected I looked as if I had something wrong with me.
The Health Secretary was in the studio, representing the government and mainstream politics, they also had a young man from UK Uncut, whom they introduced only by his first name – he being clearly too radical to have a surname – as well as a professor of politics from Warwick University. And me, the token northerner, sitting in a glorified broom cupboard awaiting public humiliation on national TV.
‘Is mainstream politics already dead or merely in need of lifesaving surgery?’ I heard Paxman ask in my earpiece. I panicked. I had no idea if he was talking to me or not. For all I knew my face could be live on screen, the nation waiting with baited breath for me to open my mouth and say something. Ideally something mildly intelligent.
‘I think it’s already—’ I started. But before I could go any further I heard them cut me off straight away and the politics professor answered instead. They hadn’t been waiting for me at all. Which meant they now thought I was some jibbering idiot, butting in when it wasn’t her turn, as well as a token crazy, nose-studded woman.
I listened as the debate in the studio intensified, not daring to say anything in case I was cut off again.
Finally, Paxman brought me in. ‘So, Sam Farnell, why the hell should anyone take the Lollipop Party seriously?’ The intonation in his voice as he said the ‘Lollipop Party’ made it sound like something out of an Enid Blyton story.
‘Because we are the only party who put children and families at the heart of everything we do, hence the name, which, incidentally, was chosen by my seven-year-old son, Zach. We don’t just pay lip-service to the putting-children-first thing, you see, we actually practise what we preach.’
‘But with policies which include selling off the Houses of Parliament to set up some tin-pot regional parliaments across the UK, and letting a bunch of online mums who are more used to debating potty-training scrutinise government policy, you’re clearly not going to be seen as a credib
le political force, are you?’
‘Not compared with a London-centric system in which women are woefully under-represented and which excludes MPs from outside the capital from being with their children during the week, you mean. And where a bunch of unelected peers gets to veto the wishes of the electorate. Compared to that, I think we look damn credible, to be honest.’
‘But how can you seriously expect people to vote for you when you’ve got no political experience whatsoever?’
‘For that very reason,’ I said. ‘How often do you hear people say that all politicians are as bad as each other? There are forty-six million registered voters in the UK, you know and yet only twenty-six million of them voted for one of the three main parties at the last general election. That tells me that twenty million people out there are sick of politicians. Well, we’re not politicians, that’s the whole point. We are normal people who care about the same things they do and we’re not in it for greed, or ego, or personal gain. We’re simply doing it to try to make this country a better place for our families. For everyone’s families.’
‘It’s all very well saying that,’ said Paxman, ‘but the reason normal people aren’t running the country is because they don’t have the expertise. What are your economic credentials for example?’
‘Our households are all solvent,’ I said. ‘Despite the difficult economic climate, we are not in debt. Whereas successive governments have been.’
‘She’s got a point, hasn’t she?’ Paxman said, addressing the Health Secretary. ‘The current system of government is anachronistic, out of touch with the modern electorate and regarded by them as a downright failure.’
‘What we have in this country,’ he replied, ‘is a democratic system that has served us well for centuries. If it ain’t broke, why fix it?’
The guy from UK Uncut proceeded to tell Paxman exactly why the current system was broken. Even the politics professor admitted I had a point. I could tell by the tone in the Health Secretary’s voice that he was clearly getting rattled.