Sunflowers in February

by Phyllida Shrimpton

  ‘Number four,’ Dad announces, clearing his throat, looking down the list, ‘and number seventeen. That’s what we’ll do for our snow day. We will have a bloody expensive meal and drink champagne!’

  And there it is. My after bucket list is about to commence.

  *

  Dad appears wearing a jacket and tie, and Mum is wearing heels and a dress that now hangs off her, both ready to dine out at a restaurant they can’t afford.

  Due to Ben’s extremely casual wardrobe, I’m wearing the only smart clothes he has, his funeral clothes. I try to imagine how he felt when he was wearing them. Did he feel uncomfortable on the day, or did the smart clothes give him some protection, as if dressing like this was like stepping aside from normal life? Like armour for battle or a wetsuit for diving. I feel that wearing them for this occasion will be like washing them clean of death, and I hope that the next time Mum and Dad see Ben wearing these clothes, if there is a next time, they will not think of my funeral but of numbers four and seventeen on my list.

  *

  We all feel like whispering. The tables are pristine and the waiter is serious. We move carefully and behave very well, as if expensive eating should be enjoyed as quietly as possible. Dad orders champagne and the waiter brings a shiny ice bucket, in a shiny stand, and places it beside the table. When we’re ready he pours some into each glass, believing me to be sixteen, which I nearly am, if that even counts when you’re dead, and I watch the pale cold liquid change the reflections in the glass to gold. It looks exciting. He places the bottle back in the bucket and I hear the ice clunk loosely around it. As I take the glass, Mum tells me to hold the stalk of the glass not the bowl.

  ‘It must stay cold,’ she says. ‘Your hands will warm it up if you don’t hold the stalk.’

  So I hold the stalk. We take a sip together and I let it wash over my tongue, and it feels cold and bubbly. It makes me shiver and tastes sharp with just a hint of sweetness. I prefer cola but I’m not going to admit that to anyone. I smile blissfully. ‘To number seventeen,’ I say and lift my glass to my lips and we drink.

  So, is this a life-changing experience? Not really. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a lovely thing to do, and adds another thread to life’s rich tapestry, so to speak, but do I feel even the slightest bit as if I have taken a step towards being ‘ready’?

  No.

  *

  When we eventually close the front door on the dark cold evening that has finally descended upon us, conceding that we are all very tired from lack of sleep, and the emotional peaks and dips we’ve all been riding for the past twenty-four hours we head up to bed. Again we all troop up the stairs one behind the other, and as I walk sleepily into my own room I call out, ‘Number one hundred and twenty-six – go to a drive-through movie … in America.’

  Lily’s parents couldn’t put into words what was happening.

  Before Lily had died, life had been so black and white. They had always followed a basic formula: work, eat, provide, protect.

  Discovering their daughter had broken all the rules they ever believed in, and that she’d found a way to come back from the nothingness that was death, had distorted their outlook on everything. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope: toppling and turning fragments of life, creating a spectacularly beautiful yet darkly worrying picture.

  It was going to be so hard watching Lily trying to grab each day by the horns in order to get the very best out of her time, and yet they were both beginning to wonder how on earth she was going to ever find a point when she could honestly say she was ready to bow out and give Ben back his rightful turn.

  Each item that she could experience on the after bucket list would come with a cascade of mixed blessings. Which one, if any, would be the catalyst that might make her feel complete and ready to go?

  ‘I’m doing my best to believe in this thing Ben and Lily are doing,’ Amelia had said in the quiet of the night, ‘but it’s hard to know what is right.’

  James had turned on his side to face her, trying to make out the outline of her beautiful face in the dull light of the room. ‘We have to keep doing what we are doing, Ames. We have to keep giving her some experiences, while making sure Ben isn’t compromised. I’m sure she’ll work it out soon. If not …’ He hesitated. ‘If not … there is always the other way.’

  Amelia turned on her side to face James until their faces were only inches apart. ‘The other way?’

  ‘Sue said there was another way … where we could kind of make Lily go.’ He avoided using Sue’s words. The ‘messy way’ she had said. ‘But let’s give them a few days longer. Something will happen … it has to.’

  They lay quietly together, not speaking, in their mirror-image positions, until eventually, heavy with unspoken worries, their eyes closed and they slept.

  My dreams are muddled. Fragments of twisted images: notebooks and lists; Ben standing in the shadows shaking a bunch of purple hyacinths at me and calling me ‘dumb arse’; Uncle Roger laughing at me and holding his belly like a mechanical, coin-operated clown; One Shoe Sue pressing my arm and telling me not to be scared just before I bungee jump off the school science block towards the deepest darkest hole in the ground, the stretched bungee catapulting me in and out of the hole repeatedly in front of everyone I know.

  These images start spinning around a giant hourglass, their colours merging, faces twisted and mocking. The sands of the glass are trickling downwards, the words on my list disappearing through the gap between the two halves before I can experience any of them. I haven’t got time. I haven’t got time. I haven’t got time. I start to panic, and as the very last grain of sand falls, my eyes snap open and I sit up in bed. My forehead is sweaty and I am gasping for breath.

  I lie back, feeling my heart pump inside my chest until I can visualise turning the hourglass round, so that the sands can begin again.

  I will make time.

  Nathan’s mum had got up really late, even for a Saturday. It was 11.45 and she was even later than Nathan, and that hardly ever happened.

  Yesterday’s shift at the care home had been awful. Old George had tried to take her hand, asking sadly, ‘Where’s your lovely smile, my darling? You used to light up this place for us oldies.’ She’d given him a tight smile, knowing that her ‘lovely’ smile had died along with Lily Richardson and moved on to Isabelle, the old lady who kept mumbling accusing words at her.

  ‘You know nothing,’ she’d whispered spitefully into Isabelle’s ear, and kept out of her way for the rest of the day.

  Nathan’s dad was sitting on the sofa, catching up with the news when his wife poked her head round the door to ask if he wanted a cup of tea. ‘Yes, please,’ he answered, taking in the vision in front of him. Her face looked grey, and her hair was flat, pressed to her head where she’d slept on it. Even through the folds of her slightly grubby dressing gown, he could see the weight she’d lost. She came back in, bringing two mugs with her, and gave him one, the steam from the amber liquid rising into the air. She settled on the sofa, moving a cushion that was now half covering the red stain on the arm of the chair. She cupped one hand round her tea while the other massaged her temple, as if she had a headache.

  Alex paused the television with the remote control. ‘You’ve got a hangover, haven’t you?’ he asked, and when no answer came, he added, ‘I’m worried about how much you’re drinking …’

  As soon as the words left his lips, he knew he’d chosen them badly. She fired gunshot words back at him, the level of her voice increasing rapidly as she informed him that she’d had a lot last night but only because she’d a particularly bad day.

  ‘You went out,’ she retaliated. ‘You had a couple of pints after squash. What’s the difference?’

  Alex tried again. ‘I went out and had a few pints but you’ve been drinking every night for a long time. I’m worried you’ll become an alcoholic at this rate.’

  She pounced. ‘If you think that having a few extra drinks makes me an alcoho
lic, then so are you and so are all our friends.’ Nathan could hear the shouting from his position on the stairs. He’d been making his way down when the argument had started, and found himself sitting there nervously straining to hear. When he had tried to ask her what was wrong the other night, she’d told him to mind his own business, then she’d cried and cried. Now he listened to his dad quizzing her – obviously he was worried too. At one point he had thought his dad was having an affair or something, or that they were splitting up, but he could hear the care in his dad’s voice and believed with a huge sense of relief, that it wasn’t that. No, there was something else wrong with his mum. So wrong that the lovely, funny, kind and loving person she had always been had almost completely disappeared.

  Alex held the palms of his hands up as if to deflect the blows of her words, and tried a different tack.

  ‘I don’t like who you are at the moment, that’s all.’ His voice was as soft as a caressing hand, and there was anguish in his eyes. ‘You are … different … and I am worried.’

  He waited. The silence in the room filled it entirely, resonating with expectation. His wife stared into her mug, as if the words of her answer were unfurling with the minuscule drops of water rising cloudily out of it.

  She finally looked up, placed the mug carefully down and rushed out of the room.

  A few moments later Nathan and Alex Peterson could hear her violently throwing up.

  *

  Later that day she had found herself back at work for the evening shift, without even remembering how she got there.

  Swallowing the telltale headache tablets she now kept in her bag permanently, she knew it was her turn to get Isabelle from her room and help her into the lounge area. Today, a team of hatefully cheerful people from the local theatre group were coming to sing for everybody.

  Isabelle looked up from where she sat in the chair beside her bed.

  ‘I know, you know,’ she started again in the same way that she had a couple of days ago.

  Nathan’s mum avoided her stare, heart pounding, the image of Lily Richardson smiling at her from the pages of the newspaper, swimming in her line of vision.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said as brightly as she could, stepping into the room, helping the old lady out of her seat, and propping her against her walking frame, half waiting for a gnarled finger to point its accusation at her, denouncing her as a murderer. She felt faint. But the image of Lily evaporated when Isabelle spoke next.

  ‘You drink.’

  Nathan’s mum was so relieved that she almost laughed.

  ‘It’s not funny … you’re heading down a slope made slippery by alcohol, my dear.’

  But Nathan’s mum didn’t really find anything funny at all. This was what Alex had said to her only that morning. She felt tired, and scared, and ugly, and twisted inside.

  ‘I can always spot someone who is in the grip of the stuff,’ Isabelle continued, her face now showing nothing more than her many years of wisdom. ‘You don’t get to be ancient without learning a lot about life … the only trouble is that by the time you know everything most people don’t stop long enough to listen any more.’

  Nathan’s mum’s heart was beating in two different ways: with relief that her most awful secret was still safe, and with anxiety that there was now a new ugly secret to consider. Alex’s words replayed in her head as Isabelle told the story of her own alcoholism.

  ‘… and when I somehow managed to swim to the surface of the vat of alcohol I’d been in for years I discovered that no bugger had waited long enough to pull me out,’ she said, cackling with a kind of mirthless laughter.

  ‘Don’t let that happen to you, dear.’ She gripped hold of Nathan’s mum’s hand. ‘There’s no tragedy that can’t be overcome, you know.’ And her old, dull eyes looked into younger, dull eyes, as she pulled herself back up onto her frame. ‘We’d better go and listen to all that singing.’ She tutted on her dentures and sighed. ‘Though why they can’t just bring us those sexy Chip ’n’ eggs, or Chip ’n’ dales, whatever they’re called, I’ll never know.’

  Nathan’s mum forced a tired laugh, suffocated by the knowledge that her own tragedy could not be overcome.

  My parents keep arranging stuff for me to do on my after bucket list at every opportunity, then studying me closely, as if each time I tick something off, I’ll be saying ‘toodle-pip’ as easily as Granddad Colin does when he’s off out to the shop for some tobacco.

  In a few short days I’ve been to the opera and not understood a thing, yawning ‘number forty-eight’ from the balcony; seen a West End show, clapping ‘number thirty-two’; had a number seventy-one night bus tour of London; fed an elephant by hand at the zoo, breathing ‘number thirty-six’ against his trunk; driven a Land Rover in a figure of eight in the middle of a farmer’s field, calling ‘number ten’ out of the window; skied down an artificial ski slope, shouting ‘number six’ to the onlookers; and climbed Snowdon where I stood at the highest point, arms outstretched and yelling ‘number fourteen’ to the sky.

  The world is a beautiful place.

  But I’m not sure I will ever be ready.

  *

  Now the coastal air blows in from the sea and fills my nose with scents of salt and seaweed and the anticipation of number five.

  Harrison, the guy at the riding centre we are at, has spent a fast-track morning teaching me the basics of riding and now we are ready with two beautiful horses to make our way to the beach. His horse, a huge black and white Irish Cob called Paddy, nuzzles me with his fat white lips, brushing their softness across my hand, before nodding his head and tossing his long wild mane. Mine is the most beautiful horse, dappled in greys and blacks, like an old-fashioned rocking horse, with white ears and a pink nose. Her name is Arizona and she looks down at me with soft, patient eyes.

  We head towards the beach, along a well-worn path, interspersed by leafy green trees and bushes that separate occasionally, revealing an expanse of sea beyond. We make our way slowly downwards into the never-ending landscape of an unspoilt world, where occasional bursts of sun break through patchy clouds to splash on the ground and reflect off the twinkling sea.

  Arizona carries me safely past rock and ditch until we reach the sand where the beach is wide and flat and edged with sloping hills dotted with the occasional farm building. Seagulls call all about us, screaming above the wind to each other, and as I sniff at the salt in the air and watch the waves lapping at the sand another burst of sunlight spills around us, and I am flooded with such a rush to be doing this that I wonder if this moment is all I need.

  Am I ready?

  ‘Is there anything better than this?’ Harrison shouts through the wind. ‘Couldn’t you just do this forever?’

  ‘Forever …’ I echo, knowing that he has no idea exactly how good forever would feel.

  Harrison confidently nudges the horses into a canter, their hooves splashing through the foamy-edged water, with shining droplets dancing from sea to sky all around me as I cling tightly to my saddle.

  I am flying.

  But in my heart I know that still I can’t let go.

  James found Amelia listening over and over again to the greeting Lily had left on her phone.

  Their daughter’s voice, sweet and young, said, ‘Hi, this is Lily, say something nice after the tone and I’ll get back to you.’

  ‘I love you,’ Amelia had said into the hole at the bottom of the blue diamanté phone cover.

  When she caught sight of James watching her she smiled, making a kind of sadness spread across her face. ‘There must be so many I love yous inside this phone,’ she said, studying the picture of Lily and Beth on the screen saver. ‘It’s difficult listening to Lily talk with Ben’s deep voice … I worry that I will forget –’ she sniffed, as the threat of tears caused her nose to go pink, and her eyes to water – ‘that I will forget what she sounded like.’

  James sat down beside her, ran his hand over her hair then let it rest
on her shoulder. ‘We have to believe she is here for a reason, and that the reason will unravel itself.’

  ‘I thought I knew what the reason was … when Lily said she forgave me for saying I wouldn’t come and get her if she spent that money; it was like barbed wire had been untangled from inside me. I thought … maybe … she’d come back to release me.’ She rested her head on his arm and sighed.

  ‘When someone dies, blame is handed around like a bag of chips,’ he said, remembering his own guilt at not keeping his precious daughter safe. ‘I’m glad you feel easier about it, although it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t anyone’s fault except that bloody driver. We just have to keep on the way we are for a bit longer.’

  Amelia looked up at him, now feeling guilty for what she was about to say. ‘As much as I will be eternally grateful for this chance with Lily, I worry about Ben all the time. I miss him … I miss the boyishness of him … and I miss …’

  ‘… the way he can burp whole sentences at you?’ James added and they both laughed.

  ‘Even that,’ she said.

  After a long silence, James took a breath. ‘She’s finding it easier, you know … to live Ben’s life.’

  ‘I know,’ she answered, and the awful truth found a spot between them and nestled there.

  It was over.