Before I Die aka Now is Good

by Jenny Downham

  ‘Now make a V sign at that woman on the pavement, then blow kisses at those boys.’

  ‘It’d be more fun if you did it with me.’

  We pull faces, wave at everyone, say bogey, bum and willy at the tops of our voices. By the time we ring the bell to get off the bus, we’re alone on the top deck. Everyone hates us, but we don’t care.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Cal asks.

  ‘Shopping.’

  ‘Have you got your credit card? Will you buy me stuff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  First we buy a radio-controlled HoverCopter. It’s capable of midair launch and can fly up to ten metres high. Cal chucks the packaging in the bin outside the shop and makes it fly ahead of us in the street. We walk behind it, dazzled by its multi-coloured lights, all the way to the lingerie shop.

  I make Cal sit on a seat inside with all the men waiting for their wives. There’s something so lovely about removing my dress, not for an examination, but for a soft-voiced woman who measures me for a lacy and very expensive bra.

  ‘Lilac,’ I tell her when she asks about colour. ‘And I want the matching knickers as well.’ After I pay, she presents them to me in a classy bag with silver handles.

  I buy Cal a talking moneybox robot next. Then jeans for me. I get the same slim-legged pre-washed pair Zoey has.

  Cal gets a PlayStation game. I get a dress. It’s emerald and black silk and is the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought. I blink at myself in the mirror, leave my wet dress behind in the changing room and rejoin Cal.

  ‘Cool,’ he says when he sees me. ‘Is there any money left for a digital watch?’

  I get him an alarm clock as well, one that will project the time three-dimensionally onto his bedroom ceiling.

  Boots next. Zipped leather with little heels. And a holdall from the same shop to put all our things in.

  After a visit to the magic shop we have to buy a suitcase with wheels to put the holdall in. Cal enjoys steering it, but it crosses my mind that if we buy more stuff, we’ll have to buy a car to carry the suitcase. A truck for the car. A ship for the truck. We’ll buy a harbour, an ocean, a continent.

  The headache begins in McDonald’s. It’s like someone suddenly scalps me with a spoon and digs about inside my brain. I feel dizzy and sick as the world presses in. I take some paracetamol, but know it’ll only take the edge off.

  Cal says, ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He knows I’m lying. He’s full of food and as satisfied as a king, but his eyes are scared. ‘I want to go home.’

  I have to say yes. We both pretend it’s not because of me.

  I stand on the pavement and watch him hail a cab, holding onto the wall to keep myself steady. I will not end this day with a transfusion. I will not have their obscene needles in me today.

  In the taxi, Cal’s hand is small and friendly and fits neatly into mine. I try to savour the moment. He doesn’t often volunteer to hold my hand.

  ‘Will we get into trouble?’ he says.

  ‘What can they do?’

  He laughs. ‘So can we have this kind of day again?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Can we go ice-skating next time?’

  ‘All right.’

  He babbles on about white-water rafting, says he fancies horse riding, wouldn’t mind having a go at bungee jumping. I look out of the window, my head pounding. Light bounces off walls and faces and comes in at me bright and close. It feels like a hundred fires burning.

  Twelve

  I know I’m in a hospital as soon as I open my eyes. They all smell the same, and the line hooked into my arm is achingly familiar. I try to sit up in bed, but my head crashes and bile rises in my throat.

  A nurse rushes over with a cardboard bowl, but she’s too late. Most of it goes over me and the sheets.

  ‘Never mind,’ she says. ‘We’ll soon have that cleaned up.’

  She wipes my mouth, then helps me roll onto my side so that she can untie my nightgown.

  ‘Doctor’ll be here soon,’ she says.

  Nurses never tell you what they know. They’re hired for their cheeriness and the thickness of their hair. They need to look alive and healthy, to give the patients something to aim for.

  She chats as she helps me on with a fresh gown, tells me she used to live near the ocean in South Africa, says, ‘The sun is closer to the earth there, and it’s always hot.’

  She whisks the bed sheets from under me and conjures up fresh ones. ‘I get such cold feet in England,’ she says. ‘Now, let’s roll you back again. Ready? That’s it, all done. Ah, and what good timing – the doctor’s here.’

  He’s bald and white and middle-aged. He greets me politely and drags a chair over from under the window to sit by the bed. I keep hoping that in some hospital somewhere in this country I’ll bump into the perfect doctor, but none of them are ever right. I want a magician with a cloak and wand, or a knight with a sword, someone fearless. This one is as bland and polite as a salesman.

  ‘Tessa,’ he says, ‘do you know what hypercalcaemia is?’

  ‘If I say no, can I have something else?’

  He looks bemused, and that’s the trouble – they never quite get the joke. I wish he had an assistant. A jester would be good, someone to tickle him with feathers while he delivers his medical opinion.

  He flips through the chart on his lap. ‘Hypercalcaemia is a condition where your calcium levels become very high. We’re giving you bisphosphonates, which will bring those levels down. You should be feeling much less confused and nauseous already.’

  ‘I’m always confused,’ I tell him.

  ‘Do you have any questions?’

  He looks expectantly at me and I hate to disappoint him, but what could I possibly ask this ordinary little man?

  He tells me the nurse will give me something to help me sleep. He stands up and gives a nod goodbye. This is the point where the jester would lay a trail of banana skins to the door, then come and sit with me on the bed. Together we’d laugh at the doctor’s backside as he scurries away.

  It’s dark when I wake up and I can’t remember anything. It freaks me out. For maybe ten seconds I struggle with it, kicking against the twisted sheets, convinced I’ve been kidnapped or worse.

  It’s Dad who rushes to my side, smooths my head, whispers my name over and over like a magic spell.

  And then I remember. I jumped in a river, I persuaded Cal to join me on a ridiculous spending spree and now I’m in hospital. But the moment of forgetting makes my heart beat fast as a rabbit’s, because I actually forgot who I was for a minute. I became no one, and I know it’ll happen again.

  Dad smiles down at me. ‘Do you want some water?’ he says. ‘Are you thirsty?’

  He pours me a glass from the jug, but I shake my head at it and he sets it back down on the table.

  ‘Does Zoey know I’m here?’

  He fumbles in his jacket and takes out a packet of cigarettes. He goes over to the window and opens it. Cold air edges in.

  ‘You can’t smoke in here, Dad.’

  He shuts the window and puts the cigarettes back in his pocket. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I suppose not.’ He comes back to sit down, reaches for my hand. I wonder if he too has forgotten who he is.

  ‘I spent a lot of money, Dad.’

  ‘I know. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘I didn’t think my card would actually do all that. In every shop I thought they’d refuse it, but they never did. I got receipts though, so we can take it all back.’

  ‘Hush,’ he says. ‘It’s OK.’

  ‘Is Cal all right? Did I freak him out?’

  ‘He’ll survive. Do you want to see him? He’s out in the corridor with your mother.’

  Never, in the last four years, have all three of them visited me at the same time. I feel suddenly frightened.

  They walk in so seriously, Cal clutching Mum’s hand, Mum looking out of place, Dad holding open the door. All three of them stand by the bed
gazing down at me. It feels like a premonition of a day that will come. Later. Not now. A day when I won’t be able to see them looking, to smile, or to tell them to stop freaking me out and sit themselves down.

  Mum pulls a chair close, leans over and kisses me. The familiar smell of her – the washing powder she uses, the orange oil she sprays at her throat – makes me want to cry.

  ‘You had me scared!’ she says, and she shakes her head as if she simply can’t believe it.

  ‘I was scared too,’ Cal whispers. ‘You collapsed in the taxi and the man thought you were drunk.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. He said we’d have to pay extra if you puked.’

  ‘Did I puke?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So did you tell him to piss off?’

  Cal smiles, but it wavers at the edges. ‘No.’

  ‘Do you want to come and sit on the bed?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Hey, Cal, don’t cry! Come and sit on the bed with me, come on. We’ll try and remember all the things we bought.’

  But he sits on Mum’s lap instead. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do this. I’m not sure Dad has either. Even Cal seems surprised. He turns into her shoulder and sobs for real. She strokes his back, sweeping circles with her hand. Dad looks out of the window. And I spread my fingers out on the sheet in front of me. They’re very thin and white, like vampire hands that could suck everyone’s heat away.

  ‘I always wanted a velvet dress when I was a kid,’ Mum says. ‘A green one with a lacy collar. My sister had one and I never did, so I understand about wanting lovely things. If you ever want to go shopping again, Tessa, I’ll go with you.’ She waves her hand at the room extravagantly. ‘We’ll all go!’

  Cal pulls away from her shoulder to look at her. ‘Really? Me as well?’

  ‘You as well.’

  ‘I wonder who’ll be paying!’ Dad says wryly from his perch on the window ledge.

  Mum smiles, dries Cal’s tears with the back of her hand, then kisses his cheek. ‘Salty,’ she says. ‘Salty as the sea.’

  Dad watches her do this. I wonder if she knows he’s looking.

  She launches into a story about her spoiled sister Sarah and a pony called Tango. Dad laughs and tells her she can hardly complain of a deprived childhood. She teases him then, telling us how she turned her back on a wealthy family in order to slum it by marrying Dad. And Cal practises a coin trick, palming a pound from one hand to the other, then opening his fist to show us it’s vanished.

  It’s lovely listening to them talk, their words gliding into each other. My bones don’t ache so much with the three of them so close. Perhaps if I keep really still, they won’t notice the pale moon outside the window, or hear the meds trolley come rattling down the corridor. They could stay the night. We could be rowdy, telling jokes and stories until the sun comes up.

  But eventually Mum says, ‘Cal’s tired. I’ll take him home now and put him to bed.’ She turns to Dad. ‘I’ll see you there.’

  She kisses me goodbye, then blows another kiss from the door. I actually feel it land on my cheek.

  ‘Smell you later,’ Cal says.

  And then they’re gone.

  ‘Is she staying at ours?’ I ask Dad.

  ‘It seems to make sense just for tonight.’

  He comes over, sits on the chair and takes my hand. ‘You know,’ he says, ‘when you were a baby, me and Mum used to lie awake at night watching you breathe. We were convinced you’d forget how to do it if we stopped looking.’ There’s a shift in his hand, a softening of the contours of his fingers. ‘You can laugh at me, but it’s true. It gets easier as your children get older, but it never goes away. I worry about you all the time.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  He sighs. ‘I know you’re up to something. Cal told me about some list you’ve made. I need to know about it, not because I want to stop you, but because I want to keep you safe.’

  ‘Isn’t that the same thing?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. It’s like you’re giving the best of yourself away, Tess. To be left out of that hurts so much.’

  His voice trails off. Is that really all he wants? To be included? But how can I tell him about Jake and his narrow single bed? How can I tell him it was Zoey who told me to jump, and that I had to say yes? Drugs are next. And after drugs, there are still seven things left to do. If I tell him, he’ll take it away. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life huddled in a blanket on the sofa with my head on Dad’s shoulder. The list is the only thing keeping me going.

  Thirteen

  I thought it was morning, but it isn’t. I thought the house was this quiet because everyone had got up and gone out. It’s only six o’clock though, and I’m stuck with the muffled light of dawn.

  I get a packet of cheese nibbles from the kitchen cupboard and turn on the radio. Following a pile-up several people have been trapped in their cars overnight on the M3. They had no access to toilet facilities, and food and water had to be delivered to them by the emergency services. Gridlock. The world is filling up. A Tory MP cheats on his wife. A body is found in a hotel. It’s like listening to a cartoon. I turn it off and get a choc-ice from the freezer. It makes me feel vaguely drunk and very cold. I get my coat off the peg and creep about the kitchen listening for leaves and shadows and the soft sound of dust falling. This warms me up a bit.

  It’s seventeen minutes past six.

  Maybe something different will be out in the garden – wild buffalo, a spaceship, mounds of red roses. I open the back door really slowly, begging the world to bring me something startling and new. But it’s all horribly familiar – empty flowerbeds, soggy grass and low grey cloud.

  I text Zoey one word: DRUGS!!

  She doesn’t text back. She’s at Scott’s, I bet, hot and happy in his arms. They came to visit me at the hospital, sat together on one chair like they got married and I missed it. They brought me some plums and a Halloween torch from the market.

  ‘I’ve been helping Scott on the stall,’ Zoey said.

  All I could think was how quickly the end of October had come, and how the weight of Scott’s arm across her shoulder was slowing her down. A week has gone by since then. Although she’s texted me every day, she doesn’t seem interested in my list any more.

  Without her, I guess I’ll just stand here on the step and watch the clouds gather and burst. Water will run in rivulets down the kitchen window and another day will begin to collapse around me. Is that living? Is it even anything?

  A door opens and shuts next door. There’s the heavy tread of boots on mud. I walk across and stick my head over the fence.

  ‘Hello again!’

  Adam puts his hand to his chest as if I gave him a heart attack. ‘Jesus! You scared me!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  He’s not dressed for gardening. He’s wearing a leather jacket and jeans and he’s carrying a motorcycle helmet.

  ‘Are you going out?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  We both look at his bike. It’s down by the shed, tied up. It’s red and silver. It looks as if it’d bolt if you let it free.

  ‘It’s a nice bike.’

  He nods. ‘I just got it fixed.’

  ‘What was wrong with it?’

  ‘It got knocked over and the forks got twisted. Do you know about bikes?’

  I think about lying, but it’s the kind of lie that would catch you out very quickly. ‘Not really. I’ve always wanted to go on one though.’

  He gives me an odd look. It makes me wonder what I look like. Yesterday I looked like a smack-head because my skin seemed to be turning yellow. I put earrings in last night to try and counteract the effect, but I forgot to check my face this morning. Anything could’ve happened during the night. I feel a bit uncomfortable with him looking at me like that.

  ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘There’s something I should probably tell you.’

  I can tel
l by the discomfort in his voice what it’ll be, and I want to save him from it.

  ‘It’s all right,’ I say. ‘My dad’s a real blabbermouth. Even strangers look at me with pity these days.’

  ‘Really?’ He looks startled. ‘It’s just I hadn’t seen you around for a while, so I asked your brother if you were OK. It was him who told me.’

  I look at my feet, at a patch of lawn in front of my feet, at the gap between the grass and the bottom of the fence.

  ‘I thought you had diabetes. You know, when you fainted that time. I didn’t realize.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I mean, I was very sorry when he told me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It felt important to tell you I know.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Our words sound very loud. They take up all the room in my head and sit there echoing back at me.

  Eventually I say, ‘People tend to get a bit freaked when they find out, like they just can’t bear it.’ He nods, as if he knows this. ‘But it’s not as if I’m going to drop dead this very second. I’ve got a whole list of things I’m going to do first.’

  I didn’t know I was going to tell him this. It surprises me. It also surprises me when he smiles.

  ‘Like what?’ he says.

  I’m certainly not telling him about Jake or about jumping in the river. ‘Well, drugs are next.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘Yeah, and I don’t mean aspirin.’

  He laughs. ‘No, I didn’t think you did.’

  ‘My friend’s going to get me some E.’

  ‘Ecstasy? You should take mushrooms, they’re better.’

  ‘They make you hallucinate, don’t they? I don’t want skeletons rushing at me.’

  ‘You’ll feel dreamy, not trippy.’

  That’s not very reassuring because I don’t think my dreams are like other people’s. I end up in desolate places that are hard to get back from. I wake up hot and thirsty.

  ‘I can get you some if you want,’ he says.

  ‘You can?’

  ‘Today if you like.’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘No time like the present.’

  ‘I promised my friend I wouldn’t do anything without her.’