by Jo Baker
She lifts a vase out from underneath the sink, fills it from the tap. She unwraps the daffodils.
The cup is white and rimmed with silver; one of the three still remaining from the good china set. A wedding present; but from whom, Madeline can’t recall. Billie sets it down on a coaster, lays the blister pack of pills beside it.
“Thank you, love.”
“No problem.”
Billie puts her mug of coffee down too, then goes round to place the vase on the windowsill. The flowers seem almost to glow in the spring light. All these little things, these kindnesses that Billie does for her: it’s an odd reversal, being looked after like this. Madeline catches the scent of ginger and lemon, and the flowers’ sharp musk, and beneath that the warm oiliness of her daughter’s coffee, and then under it all the rank whiff of wool from the rug over her knees, and it makes her stomach churn. She swallows, raises her face to the breeze from the window. She feels a wash of love and gratitude, and after it an undertow of grief. Deep in her flesh, she knows what’s coming. What she’s going to put Billie through.
“Are you okay?” Billie asks.
Madeline nods.
“Tablet?”
She shakes her head. She’s afraid she’d just throw it up. She can feel the nausea build inside her. It’s the smells. They don’t even have to be bad—the slightest thing can have her running to the bathroom. And even then the smell of a used towel, or toothpaste, or even soap as she leans over to rinse her mouth at the washbasin can be enough to make her retch again.
“I’m okay. I just need a minute.”
Billie sits down, starts to sort through the clutter on the table. Madeline rests her head against the back of the sofa, allows her eyes to close. She’s so tired. Her bones ache. She wants to talk. About anything at all. Just talk. But she can’t summon up the energy to put one word in front of another.
The washing machine churns in the kitchen; a neighbour’s dog, left for the day, is barking. Luke, pacing on the pavement outside, speaks into his mobile phone. Madeline can’t hear what he’s saying, just lets the abrupt, serious patter of his words fade out of her hearing. He belongs to another world, where people stream in and out of office blocks and wear suits and make money out of money; what he says counts somewhere, even if it doesn’t quite make sense here. But she’s glad of him. It doesn’t matter now, that he seems so different from Billie; what matters is that he’ll look after her through all this, and be there for her when it’s all over. He is reliable, and she must be thankful for that.
Madeline opens her eyes, watches her daughter’s dry hands as they work. She used to be so wildly untidy. Perhaps the books hop has trained her into tidiness. Perhaps she’s just grown up.
“How are you feeling?” Billie asks.
“Better,” Madeline says. “How are you?”
“Happy we’ve sprung you from that place.” Billie grins. There are lines at the corners of her eyes.
“Me too.”
Billie lifts a handful of paperbacks, takes them over to the bookcase. She fits the volumes back into gaps.
“Sweetie, you don’t have to do that,” Madeline says.
“S’okay.” Billie turns back from the shelves, brushes her hands. “Can I get you anything to eat?”
Madeline shakes her head. “Sit down, love.”
Billie sits. “Not even a bit of toast?”
“No.” Her mouth is too wet. She fumbles for a tissue, presses it to her lips. “No thanks.”
“God, sorry.”
Billie just sinks down into the armchair and looks at her, as if there’s some solution to be found if she studies long and hard enough.
Madeline pockets her tissue, manages a smile. “It’s all right.”
All of this reminds her, uneasily, of when she was pregnant: the concern, the appointments, the indignities. That and the overwhelming queasiness, the fatigue, and the sense that your body is up to something. The clock ticking. Madeline wonders, suddenly, how Will is getting on. She should call him. He’ll be tangling himself up in knots about all this until she does. She thinks of him now with a different, more informed kind of sympathy. His body has been failing him every day for a lifetime.
“Drink that though, Mum. Try. It’ll do you good.”
Madeline sips. Just a little. The liquid is hot and sharp and faintly sweet, and with a pleasing afterburn of ginger. She swallows. It doesn’t heave straight back up. That’s something. She smiles to Billie, and Billie nods back.
Billie’s hands return to their work; she gathers up scattered sections of newspaper. They’re old, from the Sunday before Madeline went in for treatment. Billie heaps the papers together, shuffles them into a neat pile. And then she lifts the colour supplement. She stops. She just holds the magazine, looks at the cover. For a moment Madeline is puzzled, but then she remembers. The cover image is a photograph of a group of Afghan schoolgirls. Half a dozen young women, sitting on a dirt floor, schoolbooks on their laps, looking up towards the camera. The warm light comes from high windows off to the right. The composition is immaculate, the palette gorgeous blues and browns and creamy white. And the girls are beautiful; their faces are so bright and clear.
“Oh yes,” Madeline says.
Billie looks up, smiles at her. For a moment it seems like she’s going to say something, but then doesn’t. She just looks back down at the magazine cover. Then she flips through to the feature, presses the pages out flat on the tabletop.
Ciaran’s photographs.
“They’re wonderful, aren’t they?” Madeline says. “I can’t believe I forgot they were there.”
Billie gives her a look. “Mum, seriously, you’ve had plenty on your mind.”
“You tell him, when you see him next, tell him I thought they were stunning.”
Outside, in the street, Luke’s voice is getting closer. Yeah, yeah, no, still up in Oxford. He passes the window, a brisk shadow, and continues on.
Billie nods, studies the photo spread, head bent; Madeline studies her daughter. Her hair catches the light and glints auburn. She turns a page, still looking at the photographs. Her expression is unreadable.
“I mean, if you think he’d like that.”
“Of course he would. You know Ciaran.”
She does, a bit. She’s met him a few times. The Irish boy with the cheeky smile and the slate-blue eyes who was in Billie’s class in their foundation year. In the years after college, when Billie and Norah were flatmates, he used to crash on their sofa. He’d stay a week, a month, and then he’d be off again, on assignment overseas. But Madeline always knew without being told when Ciaran was staying, because Billie’d suddenly be full of buzz, enthusing about his work, excited about her own. And then he’d be off, away, and she’d be low for weeks. Just a friend, Billie always said. But Madeline never quite understood it. You either love a man, or you don’t. You don’t mess yourself around like that. But then there was Luke, and that seemed to work well, and she’s settled now, and that’s good.
“Have you seen anything of him lately?”
“No.” A pause. And then, “He’s renting my old room off Norah. But he’s in Iraq right now.”
“Oh my goodness,” Madeline says.
Billie looks up, shrugs. As if to say, I have no claim on him. I have no cause to be upset.
“He’s actually with the troops, is he?”
“Embedded, I think they call it.”
“That’s really brave of him.”
“No braver than the soldiers.”
“They have guns.”
Billie tilts her head. “I suppose.”
She turns back to the pictures. Madeline watches Billie’s eyes flicker across them, watches her attentive, assessing gaze.
“And Norah? How’s she?”
Billie closes the magazine, places it on the top of the pile. “I don’t really know. We keep missing each other.”
“Right,” Madeline says. She rubs at her arms.
“Chilly?”
Madeline nods. That must be it.
Billie gets up, closes the window. “Sorry.”
“Thanks.”
But the chill doesn’t go. It’s something else. Something’s not right. Billie keeps missing Norah. She hasn’t seen Ciaran. Is this a normal fading off; are these friendships that have simply been outgrown? It doesn’t seem quite right.
Billie pushes her hair back, catches her mother’s eye and tries a smile. It doesn’t really work. She looks so pale and drawn. There are purple shadows underneath her eyes.
“Will you be seeing Matty later?” Madeline asks.
“There isn’t time.”
“Why’s that then?” She speaks lightly, careful.
“We’ve got to get back.”
“Oh yes?”
“Luke’s got a lot of work on, it’s just madness at the office, they’re, coming up to the end of the financial year, so it’s difficult …”
“Of course.” Madeline lifts her tea. Another sip. She swallows.
“Is that still hot?” Billie asks.
Madeline nods. She can hear Luke’s voice approaching in the street. She can hear her daughter breathe. The cup is warm in her hand. Steam rises to her face, softening her eyes. She watches as Luke passes again, hears the sharp sound of his leather-soled shoes. No, no we’re not doing that. No. I told him. Look, no, I’m driving back tonight. I’m in the office first thing tomorrow; I’ll send the documents straight over—
“Are you getting much work done yourself?” Madeline asks.
“Bit of sketching,” Billie says. “In the park, the street, that kind of thing.”
“Can’t you work in the flat?”
“The light’s too poor.”
Billie was given the back room to paint in. It had seemed generous. But, Madeline thinks, what if it isn’t? What if it just keeps her work, its mess and muddle, out of the rest of that immaculate flat? She recalls the pristine furnishings, the matte white walls, the shop-bought, obvious prints that Billie could not possibly have chosen.
She feels an uneasy shiver gather again in the back of her neck.
“Did you think any more about that residency?” she asks.
“I sent off for the forms.” Billie lifts her coffee. The cork coaster has stuck itself to the base of the mug. She plucks it off, twists it between her fingers.
“Good. That’s exactly what you should be doing.” Madeline relaxes a fraction. “I’m glad.”
“Mmm,” Billie says. She sets the coaster back down, sets the mug on top of it, without drinking. Then she screws her eyes shut, rubs at her forehead.
A wash of concern: “What is it, love?”
“Nothing. Just—”
“What?” Madeline lowers her legs off the sofa. Her scar twists as she moves. It hurts. She clenches her jaw, leans forward. Billie opens her eyes, doesn’t look up. It doesn’t matter, Madeline wants to say. Whatever’s wrong I’ll sort it out for you. If you’re not happy, you can just come home. Come home, and we’ll muddle along together for a while. For however long we’ve got.
“Tell me?”
Billie takes a breath. Hesitates. “This residency, Mum. I’m not sure about it. I just can’t face it.”
“Why not?”
“Right now, even filling in the forms just seems like too much.”
“You can’t keep putting things on hold, Billie love.”
Billie nods, her lips folded in together. Nothing is said. The moment stretches, and goes thin, transparent.
“It’s next year, isn’t it? Ages off …” Madeline says. It’s beyond the horizon, and slipping further away moment by moment. She sets down her cup, says, as lightly as she can muster, “I’ll be back on my feet by then, you’ll see.”
Billie just nods, and says, “I know. I know. I know.”
“So,” Madeline clears her throat. “What’s stopping you?”
Billie’s chin dimples. She scoops up the magazine again, flicks through to Ciaran’s photographs. Madeline watches Billie’s face, pained by the sight of her contorted, congested features. She waits for her to speak. When Billie was fourteen she’d been caught bunking off school. She’d been sneaking into anatomy lectures at the university. Her drawings were astonishing; the confidence, the energy of them. She’d have gone to the practical sessions too, she’d said, glowering defensively up at Madeline between curtains of hair, but they wouldn’t let her in: they only had so many corpses to go round. Madeline had tried to tell her off, had managed not to laugh: she’d felt, more than anything, a delighted pride. Not just at the brilliance of the sketches, but at the sheer bloody-mindedness, the determination of her little girl. When she was a child, Billie used to know exactly who she was, exactly what she wanted. She wouldn’t have hesitated a moment. She’d have grabbed an opportunity like this with both hands. Sucked the marrow out of it.
“Well,” Billie says.
“Mmm?”
“I’ve got to be realistic,” Billie says. “I’ve got to be practical.”
“Realistic about what? In what way practical?”
Billie shrugs, doesn’t reply.
“Billie?”
Finally she meets her mother’s eye. Her face is settled now, as if this is the easy bit: “Maybe I’ve got to accept that I’m just not good enough.”
Madeline feels a surge of bright, invigorating fury. That’s not you, she wants to say. That is not my daughter speaking. And I am not standing for this.
Madeline leans forward. “You do me a favour.”
Billie lets the magazine hang slack between her hands. Her expression is intent and serious as a child’s. “Of course.”
“You take it seriously,” Madeline says. “Even if no-one else does. Because I know you and I know that if you’re not painting, then nothing else will ever make you happy. Not long term.”
A slow flush reddens Billie’s cheeks. Madeline doesn’t know why. Guilt or embarrassment or pleasure; a mixture of the three.
“I’ve got to be practical—” Billie says again.
“Yes! Christ yes. Be practical. But that just means putting in the hours, working hard, making it happen. It doesn’t mean giving up on all you’ve ever wanted just because it’s—” she wafts a pale hand, “—inconvenient.”
Billie blinks. She nods.
“Fill in those forms,” Madeline says. “You do that for me.”
“I will.”
“And love?” Madeline lifts her cup again. “Do it for yourself too.”
The Churchill Hospital, Headington
October 14, 2003
BILLIE SITS BESIDE her mother’s bed. She has one foot tucked back up onto the edge of the chair to support her sketchpad. Her jeans are worn through just above the hem.
The traffic outside sounds like the sea; the sky through the window is tumbling with clouds. There’s a vase of Michaelmas daisies on the locker, and the smell of dinner being cooked somewhere, and the quiet blur of voices by other beds, and a nurse passes down the ward, striding softly in her trousers and tunic, and there is the glissade of graphite across the paper’s grain, and there is the ache in her throat that spreads down her chest sometimes, and sometimes, when she is not careful, it tightens into a knot and tightens and she can’t breathe, doesn’t even want to, just wants to press her forehead into the wall and close her eyes and let the impossibility of it just choke her.
Her mother’s head dents the pillow. She frowns in her sleep. The skin over her bones is so white now, translucent, like skimmed milk held up to the light. After the last bout of chemo, Madeline’s hair grew back blonde. Silvery-blonde. It’s like the treatment had somehow bleached her from the inside. Billie makes herself consider the angled rim of the eye socket. The bird-boned bridge of the nose. The junction of the jaw, the mauve-shaded dent above it and beneath. The dark hollow behind the ear. Her mother’s bones are beautiful.
The ward door swings open, closes. More visitors pass the end of the bed. A dark cluster of jackets, jeans; a
swinging bunch of chrysanthemums, a cool pool of outdoor air. Everyone seems to bring chrysanthemums now. Billie can’t stand them. Funeral flowers.
Billie shifts the pad, straightens out her knee to ease out the stiffness, props it up on the other, tilts and turns it till she gets the angles right. She measures by eye the angle between jawbone and clavicle. Her pencil accounts for distances, spaces. Light catches on her wedding band, and on the thin scuffed gold ring round the base of her thumb. Her throat is tight. She works. She marks out the space her mother takes up in the world.
Terry brings anemones. It’s the first she notices of him, the patch of colour in the edge of her vision; the blotchy blues and pinks of them, the blur of white wrapping. It makes her look up; makes her smile. He smiles back. His cheeks crease underneath his beard, showing old acne scars. He looks tired.
“You okay?” she asks. She lets her knee fall, so that her pad lies flat on her lap.
He nods. He puts the flowers down on the locker, draws a chair forward, sits down.
“She’s sleeping,” he says.
Billie nods. They both look at Madeline. The soft rise and fall of her breastbone. The fan of her fingers over the yellow cellular blanket. Her veined eyelids.
He leans forward, making his jacket crumple. His hand reaches out as if to take Madeline’s. It stops short though, drops. Billie recognises this—the urge to touch, the fear of hurting. He meshes his fingers. Two fingertips are stained black with ink. From along the ward there are voices, the squeak of soles on non-slip floors, the clatter of a trolley, the swing and creak of the doors.
After a little while he looks round, and says, “How are you?”
She smiles thinly. Shrugs. She closes her sketchpad and puts it away, tucking it down between her chair and bag. She tucks a foot up underneath her, swings the other leg slightly. She is vile. Brittle. Furious. She is difficult to live with. She is difficult—at the moment she is difficult, she knows that she is difficult, she has been told as much—to love.