Mum is waiting at the door like she always does, eager to see my presents so she can sniff that they’re too expensive, too much, and once she’s done that she says goodnight, kisses me on the forehead, and goes to bed.
I go into our living room and lie under the tree, staring up at the lights. When we were little Tai and I used to lie under the tree trying to guess what our presents were. This year, we swapped presents before he left with his family, promising each other we wouldn’t open them until Christmas Eve, because that’s our tradition. We always opened our presents from each other on Christmas Eve, unable to wait any longer. My present from him waits beside me, a lumpy parcel wrapped clumsily in tissue paper . . . but I’m not sure if I want to open it, not yet.
Just before midnight, I finally peel off the tape, undo the paper. It’s one of those dolls, the kind that pulls apart to reveal a smaller one inside, again and again, until you get down to that tiny last one, half the size of your thumb. In this doll, though, there is no tiny one – just a folded piece of notepaper, with a distinct lump in the middle. I unfold the paper and a ring falls into my lap. It’s the one I pointed out to Tai as we walked past a jeweller’s one day, before he got sick. It’s silver, or maybe white gold, with a square pink stone in the centre surrounded by tiny diamonds. He must have remembered how much I wanted it.
The note says:
Hey, Juliet.
I know I’m getting sicker. You know it too – everyone does. I don’t know how much longer it’ll be before I’ll be gone. Shit. You’re probably crying now. Sorry. The ring, this ring – I don’t want it to be a reminder that I’m gone. You’ll have enough reminders of that.
I just . . . I don’t know how sick I’ll get, you know? I don’t know what I’ll look like when that time comes. I might be hooked up to a zillion machines, covered in tubes and stuff. And I’ll probably be really drugged to keep the pain away. My pain, at least. I might not be conscious. I might not know who you are.
I don’t want you to remember me like that. Remember the beach walks. Remember when I dared you to jump off the roof with an umbrella like Mary Poppins, how I busted my face and had to get stitches. Remember how you made me eat a live beetle as punishment for cutting off Mr Bunny’s head. Remember when I said I loved you for the first time. Remember the good stuff, okay? Remember the guy who really loved you, not the one with his head sewn together, too drugged to know who you are. Don’t remember me as the guy stuck in a box in the ground. Please, girl, not like that. Just remember me as the guy who loved you. A lot.
After I’ve read the letter, and reread it, and jammed the ring on to my finger, I close my eyes – and then I cry.
Tai
Christmas Eve. The Last One, though no-one says it; it just hangs there, staling the air inside the holiday house Mum and Dad have rented. I take Hendrix and River down to the beach, try to teach Hendrix how to ride the waves with his body board from my place on the sand. River builds a sandcastle, digs a moat around it, and screams as the waves wash in, fill up the tunnels and swirl around his moat. We skip stones over the water and Hendrix jumps off the jetty, screeching with delight. While they stand belly-deep in the water, jumping as the waves break around them, I sit on my towel and stare at the sea. Everyone’s trying so hard to be cheerful, except for River and Hendrix, who are too distracted by the thought of Santa to really notice. I wonder what they’ll remember about me, if they’ll go into my room later on, look through my stuff.
An ice-cream van drives past then, stops just ahead of us, music jingling, and they look at me hopefully. I dig a fistful of coins out of my pocket and inspect them. ‘Yeah, okay. Go on.’
They eat their ice-creams sitting on my towel, swapping occasionally to have a lick of each other’s.
‘Tai? Are you really dying soon?’ Hendrix looks at me curiously.
River looks up, mid-lick, and melted ice-cream runs down his wrist.
‘Yeah.’ There’s no point lying to them.
‘I heard Mum and Dad talking one night when they thought I was asleep. They said the doctor told them there would be a funeral by the time autumn was over. Did the doctor mean your funeral, Tai?’
‘I guess so, Hendrix.’
River, face smeared with ice-cream, leaps into my lap. ‘I don’t want you to die, Tai,’ he says, eyes shining with tears.
‘I don’t want to either, buddy.’ I hug him and watch Hendrix, who is thinking.
‘Will it hurt?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t think so, though. I’ve got medicine for when my head hurts.’ Okay, so maybe I’m lying now, but they’re my little brothers, and it’s Christmas, and they don’t need to know that I’m pretty sure it’ll hurt, and hurt plenty, despite any medication they give me.
‘I’m going to miss you, Tai,’ River says, and he’s this close to bursting into tears.
‘I know, River. But you and Hendrix have to do a job for me, okay? You guys have to look after Texy.’ It pops out of my mouth before I’ve really thought about it, but afterwards it makes sense so I go with it. ‘Yeah. You know, pat him and feed him and stuff, like Grandma Eve’s doing while we’re here. He can sleep in your bedroom, if he wants. Okay?’
After they’ve cheered up and we’ve all had another swim we walk back to the holiday house, where I leave them in the lounge room, fighting over what to watch on television. Mum and Dad have got stuck in to the drinks and are listening to Christmas carols on the radio while Mum cooks stuff for tomorrow and tells Dad off for eating it and for burning the butter he’s meant to be melting in the frypan.
That night, after sandwiches made from Christmas ham, with mangos and ice-cream for dessert, Hendrix and River make me help them put out carrots for the reindeers, cookies and beer for Santa. They’re practically quivering with excitement, and by the time Mum tells them to go to bed they’ve got their underpants on their heads and are jumping around the lounge room, yell-singing ‘Jingle Bells, Santa Smells’. Eventually they go to bed, when Mum warns them that Santa won’t come if they don’t. I leave Mum and Dad sitting on the floor surrounded by screws, bits of metal, and the instruction manual for putting together two new scooters.
I can see the water from my window here, and I sit on my bed for a while, knees curled up into my chest, watching. The present Juliet bought me is sitting on the end of the bed, waiting to be unwrapped, but I can’t do it yet. I wonder if she’s unwrapped the ring I bought her, the note that I tried spectacularly hard not to depress her with. I meant it: the only thing that’s keeping me from losing my mind at the moment, as everything slowly gets harder, as this tumour wins a little more every day, is closing my eyes, shutting everything out, and remembering. Juliet and her crazy blue hair on schoolies, her arms around me. The way I tried to wake up before her so I could watch her sleeping, just for a bit.
There’s a knock on my door and Dad comes in, holding a glass of water and a plate with a pile of tablets – there’s a sleeping pill, a couple of painkillers, one that’s supposed to stop the painkillers from making me sick, and a couple that I can’t even remember what they’re supposed to do.
‘Your mum wanted me to bring this in,’ he says.
‘Scooter assembly going that well, huh?’
‘I’ve been forced to hand over my Allen key and demoted to wrapping duty.’ He grins wryly. ‘You okay, Tai?’
‘Yeah. Just thinking.’
‘About what?’
‘Dunno. Different stuff.’
‘So this is it, huh?’ He looks at me kindly, squarely. It is what it is, Tai.
‘Yeah. I guess so.’
‘You know, Tai, when you were born, you were so tiny. Tiny.’ He holds out an arm, palm up, and traces along it with the other hand, showing me. ‘Your mum, she was so tired at first, I’d do some of the night shift with you. The midnight hours, I called them. I’d walk up and down the hallway, singing and rocking you. I was always worried I’d break you. That I’d drop you and you’d just . . . shatter, and
then I wouldn’t have you anymore.’ Dad breaks off, looks at me, smiles sadly. ‘It’s going to be emptier without you around, Tai.’
I don’t really know what to say to him, so I’m glad when he leaves it at that, hands me the plate, and walks out of the room. I swallow the pills one by one, washing them down with the water, listening to Mum and Dad talking in muted tones; I can hear them talking, but not the actual words.
I pick up the present from Juliet. It’s light, and rattles when I shake it, and when I unwrap it something falls out onto the floor but I’m looking at another layer of paper. Pass the parcel, for grown-ups – or as close as I’m going to get to being grown up. I feel around on the floor until my fingers connect with something: a packet of Pop Rocks. Another layer, and I’m looking at a photo of us that I didn’t even know existed, taken at that party the first night we kissed. The next layer reveals a bunch of photos from schoolies and a pack of blue hair dye. I’m certain the next one has to be the final layer, but it’s not – there’s just a music voucher. The next one is my actual present, I’m sure: army-style dog tags, engraved with my name and hers. But there’s still one more tiny layer, and I know before I open it that it’s a note. It looks like it’s been folded and unfolded a billion times. There are blotchy streaks of pen coming through the outside of the paper, where she’s crossed out words.
Hey, Tai.
Remember that day you first told me about the tumour, we came back to my place and I poured us both vodka to drink? I didn’t know what to say. I still don’t, not really. I wish I did. Remember those choose-your-own-ending books we used to read back in primary school? If you didn’t like the ending you could just go back, start again. I’d always read the endings first so I could work out which pages to choose to get the ending I wanted.
This is nothing like how I pictured, nothing like how things are supposed to be. We’re supposed to be moving out together, going to uni together . . . maybe even being together for a long time. Maybe even having the fairy tale – you know, the ‘happy ever after’ bit.
I know you think you’re really good at hiding just how sick you are, Tai. But I knew you’d killed Mr Bunny No Head before you confessed, you were so guilty. I knew you loved me back before you told me you did. And I know, Tai. I know exactly how sick you are. And it kills me, too.
I can see it in the tiny little things you don’t think anyone notices. How you take just a little longer to stand up, holding on to the back of the chair or whatever’s nearby. You only started doing that a couple of weeks ago. How you always rub that place at the back of your head, where it hurts, without even knowing you’re doing it. How you trail off when you’re talking, in the middle of sentences and stuff. How you pretend you just want to watch a movie or listen to music or anything that means you don’t have to move, don’t have to try to balance. How you want to walk with your arm around me now, not just holding my hand, because it’s easier for you that way. How all the medication has changed who you are and you hate yourself for it, so you shut everyone out. I’ve known you practically forever, Tai, as long as I can remember. There’s no way I wouldn’t notice all of this stuff.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve cried and wished that things were different. That this wasn’t happening. That I got to keep you. But I don’t. And I know, even though I don’t want to, that I’m not going to have you for much longer. I know, too, I’m going to cry when it happens. For a long time. But one day I’ll be able to think about you and smile instead. Think about the stupid conversations we used to have on the bus, drinking Red Bull and listening to our iPods. About schoolies. About the beach walks.
So I guess I just want to say – thanks. For being my best friend. For all those times I cried on your shoulder. For not paying me out too much the first time I got drunk and threw up on your shoes. For being the first boy that ever loved me.
There is no-one else on earth like you, Tai. I’m so happy you loved me back.
• • •
The next morning, Hendrix and River come screaming into my room, way too early – Santa’s been and they want me to get up. Then they bounce on me until I do. I’m still half asleep while they’re going crazy for their new scooters, riding them around the house and crashing into walls. There’s wrapping paper flying everywhere, punctuated by shrieks from River and Hendrix, along with the occasional sound effect from one of their toys, while Mum hovers with the camera taking a crazy amount of photos, and I don’t want to think about why, even though I know. Mum and Dad give me money, a music voucher, new clothes . . . There’s a present from Grandma Eve, too: a hamper full of food, along with a note that tells me I’m too thin. As if I didn’t know.
By the time the present opening has finished it’s time for Christmas lunch. The table is so full of food there’s barely room for our plates. Dad’s set the table with wine glasses for everyone, even Hendrix and River, though they’ve got Coke in theirs.
Mum watches them anxiously. ‘Boys, please don’t break them. Please be careful.’
Hendrix pretends to drop his and we laugh our heads off while Mum glares at him. ‘Not funny.’
That night, after River and Hendrix have crashed out on the lounge, I head down to the beach by myself, promising Mum that yes, I’ll be careful, and yes, I’ve got my phone on me. It’s dark, and it’s quiet. I’m the only one here apart from a couple of families, lugging eskies and kids and umbrellas back to their cars. They give me a curious look, and keep going. I want to go in the water, except I don’t think I could swim well enough tonight, don’t feel strong enough to push against the waves, so I sit on the sand, pretending it’s because I’m wearing jeans anyway.
‘So I guess this is it then,’ I say out loud.
Everyone has carefully avoided mentioning that it’s the last Christmas, but we all know it, and I hope Hendrix and River loved it. Hope they remember this afterwards, when everything changes.
Juliet
Mum and I do the Christmas lunch thing surrounded by relatives we only see once a year. My cousins run around screaming and cramming lollies into their mouths, while the adults drink too much champagne and talk about the blistering heat, like they do every year, even though the air-conditioning is on.
Great-Auntie Mabel sits next to me, patting my hand and telling me that my hair is very racy for a girl my age, that only sailors got piercings in her day. She asks where my little friend is, and I guess she means Tai, so I give her the short version of the story. Brain tumour, death inevitable, with his family.
She tells me about her best friend Gertie’s husband, Bert, who discovered a freckle on his leg that turned out to be a melanoma, and he was given six months to live.
I think I know where this is going already, but I smile politely.
‘That was eight years ago, dear, and he’s still going strong.’
Suddenly, I’m tired. I excuse myself, and go and find Mum. ‘Can we go home, please?’
• • •
I don’t see Tai again until New Year’s Eve.
When I get to his place, Hendrix and River scoot towards me like puppies, showing off new scooters, new toys. I haven’t seen Tai for almost a week, and when he finally emerges, I want to cry, No! Surely this rail-thin, shadowy-eyed person is not Tai.
Hendrix and River run around the house with party poppers and noisy things, claiming they’re going to stay awake until sunrise, but they’re crashed out on the lounge by nine.
Tai and I head to his room after that, to have some time alone. He’s tired, and I pretend not to notice that he falls asleep while we’re watching a movie. He wakes before midnight and we go outside just in time to see the sky light up with fireworks. We kiss, and it’s then I get the feeling that this is the beginning of goodbye.
Tai
Juliet and I watch the fireworks from our backyard on New Year’s Eve. When we get back into the house, Mum and Dad are getting ready for bed.
Mum looks at us. ‘Juliet, your mum asked me to make
sure you slept in separate rooms. I’ve put some blankets on the lounge, and as long as they aren’t still folded in the morning I’m going to assume you slept there, okay? Goodnight, you two.’
After she leaves, Juliet looks at me, stunned. ‘Did your mum just give us permission to have sex? That’s just . . . ewww.’ She shakes out the blankets on the lounge, rumples them up, and then grabs my hand, walks with me to my room, shutting the door behind us, locking it.
She’s pulling me in, kissing me, and I break the kiss, pull my lips away, and whisper, ‘I don’t . . . I don’t have any condoms.’
She blushes, then peeks up at me from under her hair. ‘I’ve got one in my bag.’ When I look at her, surprised, she shrugs. ‘Just seemed practical, you know? Being pregnant with my dead boyfriend’s baby would be a little too dramatic, even for me.’ Then she adds, ‘But if you’re too tired, we don’t have to.’ Too sick is what she means.
‘Well yeah, I’m tired, but not too tired for that.’ I smile at her.
We’ve done it twice since schoolies – once when Mum and Dad took my little brothers to the movies, and once when we just locked the door and tried to be as quiet as possible. Tonight – maybe because it’s so late or maybe because I’m so tired, or maybe both – there’s not that sense of urgent rush, that need to hurry before the knock on the door comes, before the parents get home. It’s slow, and it’s sweet, and we’re still kissing afterwards when I fall asleep.
Early January
Juliet
As I’m preparing to start uni, Tai’s doctor decides that he’s sick enough to be admitted to hospital for a while, though he won’t say how long that is, exactly.
Everything Left Unsaid Page 17