A to Z of You and Me

by James Hannah

  She said to me, “We’ll have to set aside a little piece of the garden for you to call your own. You’ll have green fingers like your dad.”

  Slight twitch of a frown on my face. It presented a bad image of rotting green fingers deep underground.

  Maybe she noticed—I don’t know—but she quickly said, “That’s what they say if you love gardening. You’ve got green fingers. Have you never heard that?”

  I shook my head.

  She set me aside a little patch I could tend and look after all by myself. I grew sunflowers that first year, and the patch was soon allowed to stretch to the size of a full bed, an odd hodgepodge of annuals and perennials, herbs and vegetables. Within a few years the whole lot was mine, and my mum could confine herself to enjoying it around her on warm summer evenings.

  It was the least I could do.

  Funny what small things it takes to set your life on a particular course.

  • • •

  God, look at my face.

  I’ve got a triangle where the oxygen mask has pressed around my nose and mouth.

  I steady myself with my hands on either side of the bathroom’s sink and peer through the bad lighting into the mirror.

  My face is yellow. Dark gray under the sunken eyes.

  I slowly move my head around, checking out the angles, watch the pupils fixed stock-still, compensating for the rotating of my head.

  I’ve always done this, since I was a kid. Always pondered the fact that you can only ever see your face from one place, from your own eyes. I will never see myself looking away.

  Not without a camera.

  Jesus, though. I look more and more like my dad.

  There’s a face that’s imprinted on my memory. Dad. It’s the movement of a face that stays with me. The way he smiled. The way he laughed.

  From all those years ago, it’s still as strong, that blueprint.

  Face

  “All right there, little man?”

  There it is: the familiar face. Familiar old Dad smile.

  “Something up?”

  I look at him and twiddle the end of his bedcover. Comb my fingers through the tassels.

  “C’mon,” he says. “Tell your old dad.”

  I peer up at him. “I’m not allowed to bother you.”

  He considers me a moment, and I can see his face breaking into a little laugh. Not completely his usual laugh.

  “Who said that? Did Mum say that?”

  I nod.

  “Ah, well, she’s very tired,” he says. “But what you should do is be a good boy for her, OK?”

  Nod.

  “But don’t worry about me. You can play me up all you like.”

  I look at him, curious.

  “Are you going to die?”

  He frowns, and again it’s familiar, that deep groove straight down between his eyebrows. After a brief pause, he holds his hand out to me. I take it and roll myself up gratefully in his arm and end up looking away from him. Away from the frown. I feel him stroke the hair on the top of my head.

  His voice comes to me now.

  “It looks like it, little man. I’m really sorry.”

  I say, “That’s OK.” I have a strong sense that I don’t want him to worry about me.

  “Will you look after your mum for me?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And your sister.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then I’ll look after you, OK?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry we haven’t started work on that pond of yours yet.”

  “That’s all right. I don’t mind.”

  “Well, just keep it in mind. And you might be able to start it yourself when you’re old enough. When your mum says it’s OK. OK?”

  “OK.”

  “Just make sure you work slowly and carefully. It’s not a race. If you go a bit wrong, all you have to do is keep calm and put it right, yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What you don’t get right, you can always put right. Don’t be afraid to change your mind.”

  The words don’t mean much to me, but I hear the click of his lips behind me as they stretch into his familiar old warm smile. He’s happy he’s told me this. That makes me happy.

  What you don’t get right, you can always put right.

  But I couldn’t, Dad.

  I tried to put it right, but it just kept drifting wrong.

  Every night I would say to myself, I will not go out tonight. I will not get stoned tonight.

  But every night I would fail.

  I wish I could have asked you what I should do then, Dad.

  I wish I could have asked what I should do when every instinct in my body was urging me to do what I wasn’t supposed to do.

  And then I’ll look after you, OK?

  I’m imagining his smile.

  The ghost.

  Just thinking of that smile now, the calming, comforting movements of his face, it brings out actual physical reactions in my body. It makes my heart lighter. It makes my shoulders instinctively spread and settle.

  The ghost exists: my body has seen it, and shaped it.

  • • •

  “Hiya.”

  I look up suddenly, and the elastic on the oxygen mask plucks my stubble, makes me flinch and frown. Standing awkwardly in the doorway is Amber.

  “Oh, hello…”

  And ah, no, she’s caught me here in my mask. Ah, shit. I didn’t want that. Old man, old man.

  “Sorry about that,” I say, hooking the mask back on the canister. “I’m trying out the laughing gas.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Yeah, yeah, of course,” I say. “Have a seat—if you’ve got time.”

  She heads for the visitors’ seat and plants herself down, still in her coat. When you’re a kid you don’t think to take off your coat. You just put up with the uncomfortableness.

  I realize quickly when she doesn’t say anything that she hasn’t come here for any particular purpose. She just wants to hang out. She looks tired, but she’s clearly together enough to put on a public face. Matte scarlet lipstick to offset the shimmering blue streak in her hair, still troubled to put on the eyeliner.

  “Oh, hey,” she says, reaching down and rooting around in her bag. “I’ve got something I wanted to show you.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “I went into college this morning, to try to stay in touch and let them know what’s going on—”

  “Good thinking.”

  “—and I was talking to my tutor, and I’ve managed to start up with this.”

  She retrieves a small, curiously familiar little shape. A scrap of oatmeal-colored crochet, slung over a hook and attached to a small ball of wool. “I wanted to try to…try to get my stitches to be even slightly as good as you’ve got on your blanket there.”

  I take the shape from her and turn it about in my hands. It’s so comforting, the fledgling idea, the work in progress.

  “Oh, wow, yeah. It’s really good,” I say. “Lovely tension.” I nod at her, impressed.

  “It’s good, when you’ve got so much going on in your head, to have something for your hands to do. Something to focus on.”

  It’s lovely, just these few seconds, she’s there, open-faced, setting her cares aside, completely immersed in what she’s showing me. And for a few seconds, I’m swept there too.

  “So,” I say, handing back the crochet, “how are things?”

  She takes it from me and looks down at it, kind of smiling. “Yep, pretty bad.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ve been trying to make some preparations. Organizing whatever bits of the funeral I can, trying to get all that sorted. Quite a lot to learn and do. Dad just sort of… He can’t do it.�
��

  I find myself lowering my eyes to allow her to swallow down another spoonful of sorrow in some sort of privacy.

  “It’s just… I don’t know,” she says. “It’s really hard, not knowing how to do this stuff.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I try to get to sleep at night, but my mind’s turning over and over. You know: what if I forget to do something, what if I forget to sign the right bit of paper, what if the coffin’s wrong, what if it’s not what she wants. What if the food doesn’t arrive for the after party. And it’s all… She’s not even gone yet. I don’t know when all of this is supposed to kick into action. It could be tomorrow; it could be weeks away.”

  “And your dad’s not…doing anything?”

  She takes in a great breath and makes an effort to pull herself together.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she says, and laughs. “You don’t need all this.”

  “No, no, don’t apologize.”

  She purses her mouth, does a little gulp.

  I can feel my breath getting shorter. I hung up that oxygen mask too soon. It’s no good. I’m going to have to take another hit. I sit myself up with difficulty.

  “Sorry, can I do anything?” says Amber, standing. She makes to shift the pillows to prop me up better. “Or…should I…leave?”

  I accept the mask from her, inexpertly rake the elastic over my head. I look up at her and frown, and she looks a bit shocked.

  “Sorry,” I say, muted in plastic.

  “No, no.”

  “Looks worse than it is.”

  Resigned, I adjust the mask in its place and let it settle in, settle me.

  She sits once more and just waits for me to reacclimatize. Look at her, her eyes are so tired and puffy.

  “I’m really sorry to see someone like you going through all this,” I say.

  She raises her eyebrows. I wonder for a moment if she’s going to cry, but she simply exhales and says, “Yeah. It’s a bit shit. I just don’t want her to be in pain anymore.”

  “They won’t let her be in pain. Not really.”

  “That’s all that matters. But…it feels so wrong…wanting it to be over.”

  “No, no. Not wrong.”

  She stares across the room, a lost expression in her eyes.

  “I mean, she’s been amazing. These last few weeks I think she’s been trying to protect me from knowing how bad she was. Didn’t want me to worry. It’s such a selfless thought, you know?”

  “Sheila told me she thought your mum was an absolutely lovely lady. Kind and uncomplaining. She really seems to like her.”

  “When Mum told me the cancer had come back, she actually said sorry.” Amber breathes a quick, quiet little laugh. “I thought, how can you say sorry for something like that? But she said to me, ‘I’m sorry to mess up your studies and make you worry.’ I think she liked to reduce it to a few little things she could be sorry about.”

  “It’s a lot to take on,” I say. “She’d want you to take such care of yourself, wouldn’t she?”

  Amber purses her lips again and looks down.

  “I know what it’s like,” I say. “Mind racing. Feeling trapped. Maybe…if you just…stick to the small stuff. Practical stuff.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Forget what-ifs. What-ifs aren’t yours to control.”

  “No, no.”

  “If you sort all the practical stuff, the big stuff tends to get done too.”

  “Yeah,” she says, frowning down at herself.

  “What’s on this afternoon’s agenda?”

  “I’ve got to sort out flowers, and what readings there are going to be, the music. I don’t know what she liked. It feels like I don’t know anything about her, even the smallest thing.”

  She looks so lost. She’s too young. She needs a dad.

  She needs her mum.

  “And there’s nothing your dad can do to help?”

  “He doesn’t know anything. He didn’t know her. He spent all his time off at work and… He wouldn’t be any use.”

  I can feel her anger simmering away, barely beneath the surface.

  “Do you mind if I say something?”

  “No, go on.”

  “Making all the decisions, it’s too much. I know it might seem easier—”

  “It is.”

  “But it’s not.” I lift the mask from my face, hold it in my hand a moment. “I mean, say you set everything up, you have the funeral you think she wanted… What about after? You’re left angry at your dad because you let him drift through it.”

  Amber glares down at her little scrap of crochet, turning it around and about.

  “You’ve got to plug him into this.”

  She looks up and tautens her mouth.

  “And it’s not…it’s not fair…to ask you to do this, but…he needs guiding through it.”

  I’m sure she’s listening to me.

  “He’s got, what, twenty-five years’ worth of life with your mum?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Quarter of a century. That’s a lot to ignore.”

  “Yeah,” she says reluctantly.

  “Even tiny little choices. Like, what music did he and she like? What”—another pull on the oxygen—“what were they like before you were born?”

  “Yeah.” I can see her eyes mulling over the possibilities.

  “Ask him: get three possible readings. Even if he says he can’t. Give him a day to do it. And you can decide between you, yeah?”

  “Only he won’t know any readings.”

  “But then he has to go and ask his friends. His friends who knew your mum. It’ll be his task. You just set him off.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” This seems to ease her brow a little.

  “You might be surprised. It’s a great…it’s a great opportunity. For everyone to remember her. In ways you might not have thought of.”

  • • •

  “Hallo, lovey!” says Sheila, waggling a bunch of lunch cards as she breezes into my room. “Have you chosen your lunch yet?”

  “Mmm, yes. Could I try a bit of the cod, please? No promises.”

  “Oh, right,” she says, swiping up my card and looking it up and down. “Bit more adventurous today?”

  “Yeah, something like that. I’ve just had Amber come to see me. We had a chat.”

  “So I saw. How’s she doing?”

  “She’s a sweet girl. So much on her plate.”

  “Hasn’t she? But she’s got her head screwed on. A real smasher. One of the lovely things about this job, you get to see the real good in people.”

  “Yeah. Sad to see her so young, though.”

  Sheila bites the edge of the lunch cards. It dawns on me that she must see worse. Much, much worse. “Still,” she says, “I’m really proud of you for taking the time to try a bit of mixing. I told you it’s a tonic, didn’t I, meeting a few different people?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, it’s been nice.”

  “It’s good to have visitors now and again. Where are you up to on your A to Z? You’ll nearly have it finished by now, I should think.”

  “I’m on G.”

  “G? Blimey, talk about taking your time. What have you got for G then?” she says, frowning out the window. “There’s gut, groin…”

  “Gonads.”

  “Oh my God, it’s all the rude stuff, isn’t it?”

  “We used to have a game at school called Gonad.”

  “Oh, right?”

  “You know, that age where you think every vaguely anatomical word is a swear word.”

  “Little boys, they’re awful for it. Terrible gigglers.”

  “Yeah, well, we used to think gonad was this majorly sophisticated swear word, and we had this game where we had to shout it out in class. Well, someone w
ould say it quietly, then the next person would have to say it a bit louder, and the next one even louder, you know.”

  “Oh, right. So we know what kind of a little boy you were then.”

  G

  Gut

  “I’m getting a gut,” I say, looking sadly into your bedroom mirror. “I never thought I’d get a gut.”

  “You haven’t got a gut.”

  “I have. Look, it’s there.”

  “Where?”

  “There.”

  “That’s a stomach.”

  “It’s a gut.”

  “Look, I’m a nurse. I’m practically qualified. It’s a stomach. You’re as neurotic as your sister, do you know that?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  You hold up the iron and blow a dismissive cloud of steam at me, before dumping it back down on the ironing board and continuing to nose around the buttons of your uniform.

  I turn and indulge myself in another look at my ugliness. I was always proud when I was a teenager to be able to hitch up my T-shirt and see—well, never quite a six-pack, but at least a pure, taut line from belt buckle to breastbone. I could suck it in and make a cave. See myself as a skeleton. Is vanity so bad? I just want to look my best and stay that way forever.

  You finish with the iron and hang your uniform over the wardrobe door before taking your familiar position before the mirror.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I hate getting older.”

  “Well, twenty-eight.” You tut. “Ten years past your prime.”

  “I hate being diabetic. It makes me feel old.”

  “Old’s got nothing to do with it. And you’re not fat.”

  “It’s not like I wanted to have diabetes,” I say, jiggling my love handles and then smoothing them with flat palms, as if that’s going to get rid of them. “But then part of me used to think it was quite nice to have a thing. Is that bad?”

  You do a kind of Gallic shrug with your mouth. “Everyone wants a bit of attention once in a while.”

  “Yeah, but I used to play up to it really badly. I mean, really badly. I wouldn’t eat properly, and I’d miss out on shots, even if I was feeling ropy.”

  You say nothing, draw your fingertips through your hair, and glance up at me in the mirror.

  “It started to feel like, the more tired I felt, the happier I was. And the thinner the better. You can get to enjoy that stuff.”