Carry You

by Beth Thomas

  ‘Yeah, plants are great, aren’t they?’ Felix said beside me.

  I actually laughed! I turned and looked at him with his serious, reverential expression, like he’d just seen the thirty-third Chilean miner walk out of the capsule, and it made me laugh, even though I was crying at the same time. Anyway, I didn’t feel like explaining anything to him, so let him carry on thinking I was struck down in awe and wonder by the mere existence of a plant, I didn’t care. He went home a few minutes later and I carried the plant like the Olympic torch into my bedroom.

  There it is, on my dressing table. I can’t stop staring at it. And touching it. And smiling. It’s like having a little tiny piece of my mum back.

  My phone quacks. Shit, I really must get ready.

  Abby Marcus On my way home now. Hope you’re ready.

  Daisy Mack Yes, completely. Standing by front door, waiting for you.

  Abby Marcus Oh Christ. You haven’t even started have you? You’ve got fifteen minutes, Daisy. Log off and get changed.

  How does she always know?

  Daisy Mack Yes I have, actually.

  Abby Marcus Going into your bedroom and sitting on the bed doesn’t count. You’ve actually got to take your dirty clothes off and put some clean ones on. Preferably with a little wash in between.

  Daisy Mack I know, Abs. I’m doing it, don’t worry.

  Abby Marcus Please hurry Daze.

  There’s something a little bit plaintive about that last message. It’s in liquid crystal – or whatever it is that makes the computer screen work – in black and white, but I can almost see the pleading in her eyes and feel her hand squeezing my arm. Obviously I’m going to make extra special effort today, after what she’s done for Mum’s plant. And for me. It’s the absolute least I can do.

  Actually, maybe I should do a bit more than the least. Maybe I should do a lot more. Maybe I should clean the whole flat, do all the washing and make the dinner? I glance at the clock. Not feasible now. She’s on her way home. Shit. She’ll be here in ten minutes. The one thing she wants me to do right now is be ready by the time she gets home, so that is what I will do. The cleaning and cooking bonanza can happen tomorrow.

  ‘No.’ It’s the first word Abs says after walking through the door. Her breath smells of extra strong mints.

  ‘No?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No. Uh-uh. No way.’

  I shrug. ‘What?’

  She takes hold of my arm and leads me across the hallway and into her and Tom’s bedroom. I get that extremely uncomfortable feeling you get when you’ve been snooping around in someone’s private things, and later find out that they’ve saved and resuscitated a very important plant for you. I feel so guilty about it I decide to confess everything to her right then and there. I open my mouth, take a breath, and then she says,

  ‘You’re not going dressed like that.’

  I shut my mouth.

  ‘You look like my grandmother,’ she goes on. ‘And she’s been dead for eighteen years.’

  ‘Gee, thanks Abs.’

  ‘Don’t be stroppy. You’ve either looked in the mirror and are silently agreeing with me, or you haven’t looked in the mirror. Either way, you know I’m right.’ She flings open her wardrobe doors and plunges her arms in. ‘You shouldn’t wear black all the time,’ she mutters as she rifles through the clothes hanging there. ‘You need to mm kmmm shmmm …’ The final words are lost in the muffle of clothes, but I get the gist. ‘Aha, here we go,’ she says, pulling out a shiny turquoise top with black swirls all over it. ‘Try this on.’

  I take it but shake my head. ‘Abs, seriously, this won’t fit me. You’re much smaller than me.’

  ‘No, I’m not. Not any more. Can’t you see? All that extra exercise this past few weeks has made such a difference.’ She points at the mirror on the back of the wardrobe door. ‘Look.’

  I stare at her a moment, letting that information sink in. Is it really possible that I’m now as svelte and willowy as the gorgeous Abby? Could all this manic walking have had the side effect of turning me into Cameron Diaz? Abs smiles at me and nods again at the mirror, lifting her eyebrows, so I start to turn tentatively towards it. I feel like one of those women in those American TV programmes where they go away for three months and have thousands of dollars of plastic surgery and liposuction and false teeth and hair extensions and everyone is so proud and impressed with what they’ve achieved. I hear a swell of triumphant music in my head as an unseen hand pulls the red velvet drapery away from the mirror, there’s a drum roll, I gasp and … There I am. It’s just me, in my black jeans and purple tee shirt, looking pretty much the same as I ever did. Oh, my hair is a bit longer.

  I turn to Abs with a frown. ‘What are you talking about? I look exactly the same.’

  She’s shaking her head and grinning. ‘No, you don’t, Daze. Seriously, when was the last time you looked in the mirror?’

  ‘This morning, obviously.’

  She’s still shaking her head. ‘You didn’t. You haven’t really looked at anything for ages, yourself included. Months. Probably not since before …’ She trails off.

  ‘Since before Mum died, you mean? You can say it, you know. It’s not as if you’re reminding me. I hadn’t forgotten.’

  ‘No, I know. I just don’t want to keep shoving your face in it. Anyway, the point is that you did actually put on quite a lot of weight the past three or four months. And now most of it has gone. You probably didn’t even notice, but that applies to a lot of things at the moment.’ She takes a little step back behind me and looks over my shoulder to admire my reflection.

  ‘Oh my God, Abs, that reminds me! I found the plant you saved. In the kitchen. It’s alive. I can’t believe it!’

  She becomes very still for a second, then turns her head away from the reflected me and focuses slowly on the real me instead. ‘Are you seriously telling me you’ve really only just noticed?’

  After a second’s embarrassed pause, I nod sheepishly.

  ‘I took that from your mum’s place months ago. While you were still living there.’

  ‘I knew it had gone. I thought it died.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Died? And then what? Blinked out of existence? Took itself to the rubbish bin? Floated up to plant heaven in a beam of golden light?’

  ‘No, no, I didn’t think that. I don’t know what I thought. Nothing, probably. All I knew was it had gone, and wasn’t coming back. But now … It’s almost as if …’ My throat closes over and my lip starts trembling. Abs comes up and puts her arms round me and I rest my head on her shoulder a moment.

  ‘Right,’ she says, drawing away and holding me at arm’s length. ‘I was happy to do that for you, you know, Daisy Doo. And I’m so glad it’s made you happy.’

  I nod but my throat is still aching too much to speak.

  ‘So is it safe to say that you kind of owe me one?’ I nod again. ‘Brilliant. So you can repay me right now. Don’t wear that plain old tee shirt this evening, wear this top instead.’ She flicks her eyebrows up once. ‘And maybe put some make-up on.’

  An hour later we’re walking straight into the Dragon’s Den, which is a pub just down the road from Abby’s flat. I’m in the turquoise top, which amazingly does fit me. ‘It’s a bit big for me,’ Abs added earlier, as I was pulling it over my head. ‘Mum seems to think my boobs are bigger than they are.’ She nodded with satisfaction. ‘Looks great on you, Daze. Much better than on me. You might as well have it. Just don’t ever wear it in front of my mum.’

  Which, with a stab, reminds me of Mum’s jewellery. After she’d given it to us, I wore some every day when I went to visit her. She loved seeing it. I won’t say it made her happy – nothing could do that in those final few weeks – but it certainly made her smile.

  ‘This colour is so beautiful on you,’ she said once, looking at a diamond and aquamarine ring I was wearing. ‘Graham gave me that on our tenth wedding anniversary.’ I was holding her hand and she was transfixed b
y the contrast between her grey, transparent skin and mine, cream and solid. Well, I was, anyway. I couldn’t stand looking at it for long, so I focused on her face as she lay there in the bed that had been her home for over a week. Her hair had become so thin her scalp was clearly visible through it, and her skin had a faint yellowish tinge to it. Apart from around her eyes, where it was very dark and shadowy. She felt so fragile, I was worried I would break her bones, just by holding her hand. That was the day I went straight to the hospital to visit Graham after seeing Mum in the hospice. He’d been admitted with severe breathing difficulties the day before, and Mum was desperately worried about him. I told her he was fine. I said he was being discharged that day, that it had just been an allergy to something. I told her I was going to go and pick him up now and take him home. I said he was being stroppy and demanding with the nurses. You can say anything to someone who’s dying. She’d smiled.

  ‘Ah, that sounds like him,’ she said. ‘Nothing wrong with him then. Just don’t let him see that you’re wearing the ring already,’ she’d called out to me as I was leaving her room. I had to come back in and ask her to say it again. Her voice was little more than the rustle of paper.

  By the time I got to the hospital, I’d forgotten all about the ring. As I approached the door to Graham’s room, a plump nurse in a uniform that was clearly far too big stopped me and smiled.

  ‘Don’t be too long,’ she said softly. ‘He’s very sleepy.’

  I was horrified by the sight of him – inert on his back, grey and thin with an oxygen mask over his face. His breathing was laboured, even with the oxygen, and rattled in his chest as he strained to push the air out again. But he raised his head a little and beamed when he saw me, then lifted one bony hand off the bed and held it out towards me. I reached to take it as I sat down, then caught sight of the ring still on my finger. Quickly I slipped it off and put it in my jeans pocket, then took his hand, blinking back the heat in my eyes. I don’t think he noticed what I’d done.

  ‘How’s your mum?’ was his first question. It was little more than a whisper. Like the sound of the nurse’s nylon-clad thighs rubbing together.

  ‘Fantastic,’ I said. ‘She’s doing so well today.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Oh yes. When I got there, she was standing in the hallway having a laugh with the nurse on the front desk. She’s off to her painting class now, and I think they’re having a little party later to celebrate someone’s birthday.’

  ‘How did she look?’

  ‘Um, a little pale, you know, but pretty good. She’s had her hair done, so it looks all bouffant and glamorous, and she’s done her make-up today.’

  ‘Oh.’ He relaxed his head back onto the pillow and closed his eyes. ‘That’s wonderful.’ He smiled faintly and after a few minutes his breathing eased a little and I realised he’d gone to sleep. I leaned over to kiss his cheek, then stood and left, pulling my car keys out of my pocket as I went. I didn’t even hear the ring hit the floor. It was only thirty seconds later I realised it had gone, but it might as well have been thirty years. It was probably already someone else’s family heirloom by then. I searched my pocket in the car park with growing dread, yanking the fabric right out, then the other side, then each one again, and again, and again. Eventually I had to accept that it wasn’t there, so turned and sprinted all the way back, panicky ‘unh’ sounds coming out of me with every breath. The plump nurse hadn’t found it and it hadn’t been handed in, so I conducted a fingertip search of every centimetre of lino in that hospital room, and outside the door, and along the corridor, on the stairs, on the next floor up and one down. My tears left dots on the vinyl. I never found the ring. Abby held me as I cried that evening.

  ‘I’ve got an idea,’ she said over my sobs. ‘Claim on your insurance. Use the money to have a replica made. There are detailed photos, aren’t there? Can you find them?’

  I raised my head off her shoulder. It wouldn’t be the same, it wouldn’t be Mum’s ring. It wouldn’t ever have been on her finger. But I would still be able to show it to her, and she would never know what I had done. And I would have an echo of the ring that was gone. A ghost. I hugged Abby so tightly then and felt a weak beam of light pierce the clouds of my wretched despair. I knew the folder with all the jewellery photos in it was in the safe in the hallway. I could ask Mum to let me use the key again. I would take the photo to a jeweller and get them to make an exact copy. I would get a bank loan to do it if I had to, and claim the insurance money back … later. When I had more time. This would only take a couple of weeks. Three tops, probably. I was sure I could hide the loss for three weeks.

  Mum died four days later. She never knew.

  The Dragon’s Den pub is a very bland, characterless place. There are tables with parasols on a terrace outside, an average menu and salad bar, magnolia walls and a ladies’ darts team. Inside it will be full of families tucking into scampi and warm chicken salad while Norah Jones plays softly on a mini sound system behind the bar.

  Only this time it’s as if we’ve accidentally stumbled into a Quentin Tarantino movie. It’s identical in every way, except there are no guns, knives or milkshake-drinking gangsters. And – I blink – rather more nerdy types in glasses. The room is unnaturally, disturbingly quiet, even though it’s pretty crowded, and everyone is unmoving, stilled as if by some unseen sorcerer’s hand. I glance around quickly, checking to see if there’s someone with an automatic weapon somewhere, keeping everyone under control. There isn’t, but dotted around are a number of small fold-out card tables, each with two people sitting at it, silent and motionless, both staring down intently at the table. Some of them are holding their heads in their hands. Some of them are softly drumming their fingers. One or two have leaned over and rested their foreheads despairingly on the table. The air is hot and humid, heavy with a thick zoo and fried onion body smell; but the most powerful scent in the air is the unmistakable stench of fear.

  ‘Oh Jesus, you’ve brought me speed dating, haven’t you?’

  ‘No I haven’t,’ Abs says over her shoulder. ‘Come on.’ She grabs my arm and pulls me further into the room. ‘We need to get a good table.’

  ‘What for?’

  But she’s ahead of me now, pushing and weaving through the maze of tables and hot bodies. She finds a free table and beckons me over.

  ‘Brilliant,’ she says delightedly. ‘Didn’t think there’d be any left by now.’ She glances around. ‘God, where are the rules? Usually they leave them on the tables.’

  I glance nervously at the crowd. ‘Don’t tell me. The first two are that we don’t talk about it, right?’

  She looks at me and laughs. ‘It’s not Fight Club, Daze.’ She gets up. ‘I’ll get us some drinks. The others should be here in a minute.’

  I’m not at all happy with those words ‘the others’. It reminds me of Lost. They’re obviously some nebulous and slightly menacing group, different from us in some vague way, who are all going to try and hurt me or trick me for no discernible (or ever explained) reason. Either that, or they’re people from Abby’s work.

  As she pushes through to the bar, I take the time to peer more closely at the small tables, but my view of each one is blocked by an elbow or a shoulder. I look frustratedly around the room, and finally spot a poster on the wall next to the bar, which reads:

  Here Tonight!

  Excitement! Thrills! Suspense!

  GAMES NIGHT

  and American supper

  I squint at the words, then look back at one of the square tables. As I watch, one of the three people carefully lays out some small plastic tiles in a line on the green board in front of him. ‘Palmette,’ he says, somewhat smugly. ‘Bingo on two triple words, one hundred and fifty-eight points.’ He leans back and folds his arms as his opponent’s mouth drops open just a little.

  Bingo? Triple word? Wait, is that … Scrabble? This hot, hormonally-charged, high-octane tension-fest is about Scrabble? I peer at the crowd, and now I
can see that most of them are not wearing the drainpipe-jeans-and-hoodie combo that has become the uniform of today’s troubled youth, coupled with the sunken eyes and sallow complexions of a drunken, drug-induced stupor, as I at first thought. This lot are mostly dressed in beige. I stare for a second, taking in the edgy, hostile atmosphere, and the snarling, undiluted aggression on the faces of all the nurses and primary school teachers. Weird.

  ‘Here you go,’ Abs says, putting a glass down in front of me. She’s only bought two drinks.

  ‘Is Tom coming?’

  Her face doesn’t screw up or look annoyed suddenly, or angry; but something alters. Some tiny muscles in the skin around her eyes contract slightly, or maybe her lips get a fraction of a millimetre thinner. I don’t know; the change is not really discernible. But it’s there. ‘No,’ she says, and slugs her wine. ‘Rod and Fiona are in the car park.’

  My malaise hitches up a notch or two. ‘Great.’ Rod and Fiona are from Abby’s work. These are the two dullest driving instructors in the world. And, apart from Abs, the entire species tends towards the dull side. Trainspotters shun them at parties. Actually, no they don’t, because Abby’s colleagues don’t go to parties. They’re all too busy cross-referencing their coin collections alphabetically by country and denomination.

  ‘Don’t be like that. We need them.’

  It turns out that we are participating in a pub quiz, and Rod and Fiona are our best bet at getting any science, history or parking questions right. Moments later, they appear from the car park, Rod grinning widely from his red face as usual, Fiona looking anxious in a cardigan. I’m not sure if these two are a couple or not, but every time I’ve been to one of Abby’s work dos, they’ve arrived together. Maybe they just car share. It seems more likely.