by Yvette Clark
Gran is waiting for us at the school gates at the end of the day.
“I know, girls, I know, you’re old enough to walk home by yourselves, but I just happened to be passing, and I thought that we could all go and get a smoothie.”
“I have an appointment with Anna, don’t forget,” says Imogen.
“How about you, Kitty?” says Gran, taking my hand. “You don’t see Sam today, do you?”
“No, but I’d like to go straight home please.”
Imogen and I are seeing different counselors from mum’s old practice twice a week, and have been doing so for the last six weeks. Imogen sees Anna, and I see Sam. Sam gave me a copy of The Child’s Guide to Losing a Parent, which says that I may be about to enter the rage stage. I’m quite looking forward to it. Having license to smash plates, scream, shout, and be rude to people while they have to “give me space to grieve” sounds most satisfying. I can clearly see in my mind a red-faced howling girl grabbing crockery from the shelves and hurling it across the room. I would reach first for the fancy floral china plates covered in pale-pink and deep-blue flowers with a gilt rim. They’re antiques and not allowed to go in the dishwasher, so have to be ever so carefully washed up, which is annoying. However, instead of the energetic, spiky rage I long for, I feel utterly exhausted, like a wrung-out dish towel. I wish I never had to speak again, or wash my hair, or eat, all of which seem to take monumental effort. It’s like when I had the flu last year. For days and weeks afterward, I felt floppy and feeble, needing to sit down at the top of the stairs whenever I went up to my bedroom.
Sam told me in one of our early sessions, when Mum was still alive, that he considers himself to be a companion to me in my pain. That he is there to bear witness to it without trying to take it away or to protect me from the truth of what will be lost. The last time I visited Sam, he asked me why I tell people that Mum had breast cancer instead of lung cancer.
“Does it make a difference to you, Kitty, what type of cancer your mum had, I mean?”
“Yes, it does, actually.”
“Why?”
“When I tell people that Mum had lung cancer, they ask me if she smoked, like it matters. When I say that she never did, they look surprised and say, what bad luck, as if otherwise it was partly her fault.”
Sam sat listening and nodded for me to continue. He often does this. Mum once told me that the more the patient talks, the better the therapist. Sam uses his words prudently. Anyone would think he was charged ten pounds each time he uttered a sentence.
“So, now I just say cancer. If people ask me what type I say breast cancer, which seems the most appropriate kind for a mother to have. Also, everyone seems to know someone who’s had breast cancer, so they start telling me about a half-marathon they’re running to raise money or show me one of those pink ribbons pinned to their jackets. It’s the best way to change the subject.”
“I understand,” Sam said. “You do know that you don’t have to answer questions about your mum being ill, right? It’s fine to say you don’t want to talk about it, even to me, and it’s my job.”
“Well, guess what Gran told me. She said that about one hundred people die of lung cancer in this country every single day, and fifteen of them have never smoked.”
Gran had turned to the internet when Mum was diagnosed to learn everything she could about treatments until it became clear that for her girl, there was no cure. Then she turned her energy to raising money and awareness. The inequitable funding of lung-cancer research became her specialized subject.
“Lung cancer is known as the poor cousin among cancers. A paltry seven hundred and eight pounds is spent on lung-cancer research for every person who dies from it, compared to three thousand five hundred pounds for breast cancer and a whopping ten thousand pounds for testicular cancer. It’s an outrage,” Gran said to anyone who would listen.
She insisted on including these facts in the newspaper notice about Mum’s death and wanted to put it at the back of the order of service for the funeral, but Mum said no.
“We need to fund research for all types of cancer, Mum,” she said, “not just lung cancer. It isn’t a competition between illnesses.”
But Gran was on a mission to raise the profile of the poor relative among cancers. That particular cancer, the one that stole her only child from her, became her sworn enemy. Mum asked that flowers not be sent to the funeral and instead for people to make a donation to Cancer Research UK or the Marie Curie hospice, where she spent her last two weeks. Some people still sent huge bouquets of suffocatingly scented flowers both to the church and to our house. Dad said they probably also gave money, but Gran and I both thought it was silly of them, and they should have just added whatever they spent on flowers to the donation. Gran scares lots of people, but cancer wafted her away like an annoying fly. Nobody and nothing could defeat it.
“Talking does help, you know, Kitty,” says Sam, bringing me back to the small, overheated office and his concerned gaze.
He would say that, otherwise he’d be out of a job.
Chapter Five
Ponytail Girl to the Rescue
Grief permeates our house, drifting into every corner like the fog that sometimes swallows up Hampstead Heath. I watch as if from above as it reaches into the heart of each member of my family.
It weighs Dad down—his center of gravity seems to have shifted, and his mouth, shoulders, head, and hands are all pulled toward the ground.
Imogen’s strange restlessness continues. She jumps at unexpected sounds, tosses and turns at night, clenches her teeth, and constantly taps her right foot. Skittish, Gran calls it, and says that Imogen is like an agitated racehorse prancing sideways at the starting line, waiting for the gun.
Gran herself seems oddly absent. Her gaze drifts off into the distance and when I say her name she looks surprised to see me, blinking vacantly. Gran was always so utterly present before Mum died that the change in her is more unsettling than Dad’s or Imogen’s behavior. I find myself holding on to Gran when I’m with her, demanding her attention like a toddler, trying to tether her to me instead of letting her drift off into her memories.
Kate, like Imogen, is a ball of energy. She bounces around on her visits, touching and hugging all of us and bestowing lip balms, hair ties, bath bombs, and cute pastel notebooks embossed with things like Reach for the Stars, Follow Your Dreams, and Look for the Magic, which pile up on my desk, their pages unmarked.
Cleo mews mournfully outside Mum and Dad’s bedroom door, which is closed to her since she stopped using her litter box and started peeing on their bed, her own silent protest to her favorite person’s unexplained absence.
Only Mrs. Allison appears immune to the miasma, baking up a storm in our kitchen to blow it away with sugar, frosting, and whipped cream.
I’m always cold these days and bundle myself up in cardigans and scarves from Mum’s wardrobe. Despite the sunny April days, my nails have a bluish tinge to them. I lie on my bed and look around my room in awe at the evidence of the energetic and productive life I used to lead. There are photographs of Jess and me climbing trees, drawings of Cleo in various poses, an unfinished scarf from when Mum tried to teach me how to knit, my beloved paint charts including my own color creations, medals for swimming, certificates from school, homemade vases, and a box I made covered in shells. And everywhere I look, there are photos of Mum. Mum at home, on holiday, swimming in the sea, horse riding, hugging us, on a bike, eating breakfast, reading, giving me a piggyback ride, making a snowman, smiling, smiling, smiling—so many moments captured, but no more to be made.
Life does go on though, and this is apparently our new normal. How to survive the unsurvivable? You just do. Gran told me that the prime minister in the Second World War, Winston Churchill, said: “When you are going through hell, keep going.” He was quite right, and we get up every morning, even if we don’t want to, and we go down to the kitchen and eat breakfast. Imogen pushes cereal around her bowl while Dad watc
hes her. I munch toast and Marmite and watch them both. We go to school and to work. We talk to people, answer questions, smile when needed, even laugh sometimes, eat at the appropriate times, come home, go to bed, and then do it all over again. Sam says that routine is healing, but I think it’s basic survival.
At some point over the next few weeks, Imogen goes back to ignoring me at school. When Mum was very ill, Imogen started talking to me during the day, even coming to sit with me at lunch sometimes and walking to and from school next to me instead of ten steps ahead. It’s strangely comforting to go back to our standard social operating model. Jessica, on the other hand, still never leaves my side. She’s like a loyal golden retriever, always there, ready to play or sit quietly. She positively growls at anyone who might upset me. Her protectiveness is sweet, but stifling. I felt disloyal when I said to Sam that Jess sometimes gets on my nerves and I wish we could go back to the way we were before.
Jess and I are sitting in the playground on one of the few benches, attempting to do our French homework, when Scarlett Wilson and a couple of her friends saunter over, their identical ponytails swinging with self-importance. How do they get them to swing in the same direction like that? My hair will barely go into a ponytail, and Jess has curly hair, which doesn’t really swing, but springs around wildly. The idea of Jess and I being able to synchronize the movements of our hair is laughable—an unattainable goal for us mere mortals. Scarlett is in the year above Imogen and is the self-appointed queen of the school although I think she looks a bit like a weasel.
“Move, you two! Senior school privileges,” they chorus in identical bored voices.
Usually that would be enough to get us off the bench, but today I don’t feel like moving and Jess, after giving me an anxious sideways glance, is along for the ride.
“No,” I say. “We’re not moving. You move.”
Scarlett scowls at me.
“Oh, I’m so sorry, I forgot you get dead-mum privileges. How long do they last, by the way? How long do we have to be nice to the Wentworth sisters? Your mum had lung cancer, didn’t she? Maybe she shouldn’t have smoked!”
I jump to my feet, my face blazing, but before I can spit out a reply, Imogen descends from nowhere like an avenging angel.
“Scarlett Wilson, you are such a pathetic bitch,” Imogen says. She speaks softly and enunciates each syllable, the quietness of her voice adding weight and menace to her words. “My sister will sit exactly where she wants to sit. In fact, I think I’ll sit here with her.”
Imogen plonks herself down, pulling me back onto the bench, and picks up my dog-eared French textbook, which she starts leafing through.
“Oh, I remember studying this,” she says, addressing Jess and me as if Scarlett and her friends don’t exist. “It was so easy!”
Imogen looks up at Scarlett and her friends and acts all surprised to see them still standing there.
“Oh, wow, you’re still here. You can go now, but thanks so much for coming.”
Jess and I look on in amazement as the group of girls storms back across the playground. As soon as they’re out of sight, Imogen shoves the book at me, rolls her eyes, and strolls off.
“Wow!” says Jess. “That was cool.”
“It was,” I say, watching my sister disappear across the playground. Her own ponytail, the glossiest of them all, looks like a superhero’s secret weapon. This would make a good book, I decide—Ponytail Girl, watch her save the world, and then make a YouTube video for a homemade deep-conditioning avocado hair treatment. The bell rings, and Jess and I troop in for our English lesson. I spend the rest of the afternoon writing notes and designing a stylish costume for Ponytail Girl with a range of coordinating scrunchies she can shoot off her wrists. The ponytail can extend or contract as needed, and Ponytail Girl can use it like Spider-Man uses his web shooters to swing from building to building. I think to maximize the dramatic impact of the ponytail, our heroine should be able to jettison it, like a lizard losing its tail, except cooler. The ponytail can then be used either as chains to imprison villains or as a detachable whip to fight the forces of evil. In its place, a new, even more lustrous ponytail would grow instantly. This character has a lot of potential.
Chapter Six
Eavesdropping
Mrs. Allison has taken up residence in our kitchen. Most afternoons, when I get home from school, she’s there, up to her elbows in flour, Sir Lancelot panting under the kitchen table. Her baking is fantastic. Tins of gooey marmalade cake, glossy lemon tarts, and fluffy chocolate chip muffins are piled up in the cupboards. Mrs. Allison has just found out that she has a place as a contestant on the latest season of The Great British Bake Off, and when she isn’t baking, she is reading recipe books and rewatching episodes from previous seasons. Unfortunately, Mrs. Allison spending so much time at our house has not improved her relationship with Gran, who is constantly complaining about her to Dad.
“Elizabeth is such a busybody. Doesn’t she realize that we have quite enough to cope with without her taking over the kitchen and ruining the girls’ appetites with her sugar-laden concoctions? I’m sure that dog shouldn’t be slobbering around when she’s baking. Most unhygienic.”
Our appetites are their battleground. As Gran tries to fill us up with sugar-free and salt-free lentil soups and casseroles, Mrs. Allison retaliates with yummy Swedish cinnamon buns and Italian cream-filled rolls called cannoli. In a concession to healthy eating, she made carrot cake, but Gran, having looked up the recipe, found it contained four hundred grams of sugar.
“Half of it was brown sugar,” Mrs. Allison protested.
Dad describes being stuck in the middle of Gran and Mrs. Allison’s culinary hostilities as being “caught between a rock and a hard place.” At least that’s what he told Dominic earlier this week when he came over to our house for supper. I haven’t lost the habit of listening at doors that I developed when Mum got sick. It’s the only way I have of finding out how Dad really feels.
“I can’t believe I’m a widower,” he said. “Did you know that if a widower remarries, he’s not called a widower anymore? How can that make sense?”
“Do you think you ever would?” asked Dominic.
I nearly fell through the door as I strained to hear Dad’s reply.
“God, I don’t know, Dom. I can’t imagine it, but I can’t imagine being on my own for the rest of my life either. What am I going to do when the girls have gone off to university? Hang out here with Eleanor, Mrs. Allison, and the cat?”
“Don’t forget the dog. You’ll have Sir Lancelot for male bonding.”
Without waiting to hear another word, I raced upstairs to Imogen’s room.
“Kitty, how many times have I told you to knock before you barge in here? Get out!”
“Dad says he’s going to get married again! He just told Dominic.”
“What? When?”
“I heard them talking just now. Dad said he’ll get married, so he doesn’t have to live here with Gran and Mrs. Allison when we’ve gone to university.” I burst into angry tears.
Imogen grabbed me by the hand, swirled me down the stairs, and we hurtled into the kitchen.
“Did you just say you’d get married again? Mum only died ten weeks ago. It’s disgusting!” she said.
“Girls, girls, calm down!” Dad held his hands up as if he was trying to tame a pair of wild ponies. “Imogen, what on earth are you talking about?”
“Kitty heard you. She was listening at the kitchen door just now.”
“Kitty, love, you really have to stop listening at doors,” Dad sighed. “We’ve talked about this before. It can cause all sorts of misunderstandings and hurt feelings. Yes, Dominic did ask me if I might ever get married again, and I told him that I couldn’t imagine it, but I also can’t envisage myself being on my own for the rest of my life. I miss your mum every single minute of every day.”
I broke free of Imogen and ran to Dad. Imogen joined us in a family hug, while Dominic stood lookin
g awkward, probably wishing he could disappear. I think he blamed himself for the drama. Imogen and I left the kitchen, but while my sister headed straight back to her room, I lingered in the hallway.
“For God’s sake,” said Dad. “What am I supposed to tell them, Dom? That I feel absolutely lost without Laura? That the world doesn’t make sense without her? That I love them more than life itself and that if the three of us can just hold on to each other, we’ll be okay?”
“That last one sounds good to me, mate.”
“I sometimes think the girls wish,” Dad continued in a shaky voice, “I mean, I know they do, they wish they still had their mum, and that it was me who had died. It would have been easier for everyone.”
“No, Rob! You mustn’t ever think that. The girls love you. They love you and Laura. They don’t want you or her. They want both of you.”
I slipped away in shame, wishing I could unhear what Dad had just said.
Still, I can’t get the idea of Dad getting married again out of my head, so after overhearing that conversation, I start checking Dad’s laptop for signs of him visiting dating websites or other suspicious online activity. This isn’t as bad as it sounds because I am allowed to use his computer. He even gave me his username and password so I could log on if I needed to when he isn’t here. I’m only really supposed to use the laptop for homework, though, so to make me feel less guilty, I do my online sleuthing when I’ve finished my homework.
This evening I have to research life in Viking Britain as part of my history assignment. We’re going on a school trip to the Viking Center in York next week. Imogen went three years ago and said it’s “dullsville,” but I’m looking forward to it. The museum has life-size dioramas depicting everyday scenes from Viking Britain. I’m writing the diary of a Viking girl for the main part of my project. I named her Alfhild, which translates to “battle of the elves.” What a cool name! Vikings have a terrible reputation, but they weren’t all bloodthirsty marauders. Alfhild and her family live peacefully on a farm, which does make for some quite dull diary entries. I gave Alfhild a kind older brother named Ingolf, who is much nicer than my non-Viking sister with the same initial. He has a pet wolf and a more fun life than Alfhild’s, because he gets to look after the animals while she’s stuck in the longhouse making stew and sweeping the hearth.