Sunflowers in February

by Phyllida Shrimpton

  Life wasn’t just about living and breathing. Everything was heavy, dragging at her skin and her muscles and her lungs. The air burned her eyes and buzzed in her ears, drying her mouth and stealing her oxygen.

  Confessing wasn’t the difficult bit, owning up to being the one and facing the nuclear fallout that would change and disfigure every single part of her life to follow from that moment, no, the difficult bit would be never being able to look in the eyes of Nathan or Alex again.

  To live without her family would be impossible, and even if Alex did stand by her, she believed that Nathan would never love her in the same way again. She would lose him.

  She used to be scared, but now she was nothing. There was, quite literally, nothing left of her except skin and the need for it all to end.

  ‘There is no tragedy that can’t be overcome, you know,’ Isabelle had said. But she had lied. This cannot be overcome, it cannot be changed, it cannot get better.

  Nathan’s mum accepted that soon it would be over … for everyone, and it brought a bitter sense of relief.

  We stand in King’s Lane surrounded by a countryside that is no longer winter bleak.

  The criss-cross hedgerows budding with the green of blackthorn and gorse and dog rose interlace their way between hawthorns, weaving a tapestry of spring.

  I have brought us here because I hate it. It is stained by the memory of the way I died and I want to change that. This is what I wanted to tell my parents in the car on the way back from the beach and now, finally they are trying to understand. I want this place to become the place ‘where Lily last lived’ rather than ‘where Lily got run over and ended up with her head on backwards’.

  ‘Oh, Lily, why did you walk home this way that day?’ Mum asks sadly, as she scoops some dead bunches of flowers into one of the black sacks I’m holding. My fingers clench round the bag that crackles as the flowers are placed inside, the musty odour of dying petals mixing with the sharp smell of plastic. It’s pretty embarrassing having to keep on explaining my stupidity and I want to snap at her, but I make do with a vaguely annoyed sigh and remind myself of One Shoe Sue’s moral code about moving forward. ‘This isn’t about what I did; this is about what you’re going to do from now on.’

  After an hour we have moved everything, except a wooden wreath that Mum and Dad laid there weeks ago, and a large terracotta pot with sturdy flowering plants. I guess Nathan’s mum put it here to replace the pot I smashed and now we’ve managed to get rid of all stuff here except that sodding thing. It is ironic watching Mum run her fingers across the terracotta.

  ‘Aren’t they lovely?’ Mum says, admiring the sturdy plants each carrying a host of opening florets.

  ‘Hyacinths,’ Dad adds, before I can tell them to get rid of it, my words catching in my open mouth.

  I look between the pot and my dad who is happily repositioning it now that the rest of the area is clear, blissfully unaware of how they got there. And in that precise moment something shifts deep inside me.

  It’s as if the world has suddenly stopped revolving and I am the one who is turning. The tiny opening florets carried by the sturdy stems of those hyacinths … are purple.

  Purple hyacinths …

  Ben’s cryptic message from One Shoe Sue’s house becomes as clear as a light switching on and I know that Ben is back beside me saying into my ear, ‘Dumb arse slowcoach! You took your time.’

  ‘It means I’m sorry,’ I say quietly.

  ‘What does?’ he answers.

  ‘The purple hyacinths … It means sorry. That pot is a message and it says “please forgive me” … in the language of flowers.’

  It takes a minute for my words to register, but when they do, Dad grabs the side of the pot, ‘You mean …?’ he says with a dangerously angry look on his face, and I can tell that just as I smashed the first pot he is about to do the same with this one.

  ‘Don’t!’ I hold my hands up, to stop him. An image of Nathan’s mum comes to my mind and as clearly as if she were actually standing in front of me I can see her ragged decline. I can see clearly now how my death has destroyed Nathan and his family as much has destroyed mine, yet unlike mine, they cannot move on. ‘It should stay here. I know it doesn’t make it any better, but it’s all they have to offer … I … I think … we should let them say sorry and forgive them.’ As I say it out loud, I realise that what I’ve just said is true.

  ‘Say sorry?’ He almost screams. ‘Forgive them?? They should confess, that’s what they should do; they should go to prison or pay a fine, or whatever the punishment is,’ Dad says, dumbfounded, swinging his gaze angrily between me and the flowers.

  ‘And what if the person who did it has a family? And what if someone in that family will be destroyed by finding out …?’

  ‘And what about our family?’ Mum asks.

  ‘It’s too late for our family, Mum, but it will ruin his life.’ I don’t think I should say it, but I know it’s going to come out despite what I think. ‘… It will ruin Nathan’s life.’

  ‘NATHAN’s father ran you over and never owned up?’ Dad shouts, and Mum looks horrified that it could be someone they knew that well all this time.

  ‘Nathan’s mother,’ I correct him, as he pauses for breath, and the stunned silence that follows stretches before us for a very long time while they both look wide-eyed and slack-jawed at me. ‘She didn’t know it was a person, she thought it was an animal, and, to be fair, it wouldn’t have made any difference if she had stopped and found me … would it?’

  ‘But if she had been looking where she was going, she wouldn’t have hit you in the first place,’ says Mum, while Dad opens and shuts his mouth, repeating, ‘Nathan’s mother?’ as if saying it over and over might make him believe it.

  ‘I told you it was complicated.’

  Dad whistles. ‘You don’t say.’

  It takes a while to come to an agreement. It takes a while for them to convince me that the course of justice is the only solution, and it takes a while for me to convince them not to phone the police immediately, and especially not to go to Nathan’s house and deal with the matter themselves.

  ‘Give me some time, and promise me you won’t do anything for the moment. I think I know what to do,’ I say.

  *

  Leaving the terracotta pot, we place all the surviving notes and pictures in a shoebox and bury it in the soil with the wreath on top, and in amongst the grass, all the way down the lane, we dig little holes where we drop the seeds of sunflowers and cover them over. We also plant some primroses and sweet william in little patches to give instant colour against the spring green.

  I’ve spent all my savings, which wasn’t a lot, and bought packets of seeds and bulbs to be planted in late September. Daffodils, snowdrops, bluebells and crocuses will now spend their winter here, tucked beneath the surface of the roadside, and in February next year they will begin to stretch and yawn, and eventually colour the edges of this road with their new life. Wildflowers will emerge at various times and surprise anyone coming past with their beauty.

  I’m delighted with my own idea. ‘OK, you two,’ I announce, covered in mud, and straightening up to look at them both, I make my demand. ‘This is my living gift. From now on it will be a place to remember my life not my death … agreed?’

  ‘Agreed,’ they answer together.

  On Friday afternoon, I walk out of school leaving everyone to their lessons.

  I walk out through the iron gates where bunches of flowers were once threaded through, like a guard of honour in respect of my untimely death. I pass the point where Joe and Graham pushed me to the ground and kicked me in the kidneys, and I can’t help give a grim smile at the trouble they found themselves in. I walk along the road where the buses will line up to take home the approaching tide of children released from the confines of education. A yellow sun hangs in the sky like a disc of thin tissue paper, and I make a phone call.

  I know where I am going.

  I’m back at t
he wooden door of Nathan’s very nice house. The beautifully restored Morris Minor is parked outside and I walk past it, running my hands over the paintwork of this car, built in a time before crumple zones, in a time where even the body of a teenage girl couldn’t make a dent in the fine curves of its dense bodywork.

  Nathan’s mum opens the door and as she registers who it is she immediately tries to slam it shut, to remove the vision of the twin brother of the girl she killed, standing right in front of her. This time I’m ready and I put my foot in the gap between the door and the frame and everything that she ever used to be – a loving wife, a loving mother, a great cook, a glamorous lady and, above all, a genuinely kind person – has gone. She is weak, and she is no match for me.

  She turns away and walks back inside the house, as if she’s now past caring if I stay on the step or follow her in. So I follow her, leaving the door deliberately open behind me.

  In her dining room she sits slowly down on one of the chairs in front of three sealed envelopes, which are addressed to the police, and my parents, and to Nathan and his dad. It doesn’t take me long to realise what is in these letters, but the one that bothers me is the one to Nathan and his dad, as to my mind there could only be one reason why whatever is in that letter couldn’t be told in person. She pushes the letter addressed to my parents towards me, and with an expression that is so empty, as if she has already left, she quietly murmurs, ‘It’s probably best you’re here … I … I can’t live with myself any more.’

  I recall how she had once held the dark curl of my hair in her hand and told me that I was beautiful, and how she had looked at Nathan at his party with such love.

  ‘I’ll take this,’ I say, putting the letter to my parents in my pocket, but I also reach for the one addressed to Nathan and his dad and tear it up, leaving the pieces on the table, ‘but you can tell your family yourself.’

  I pull a chair out from under the table and sit on it, feeling the slight give of the soft cushion beneath me, and I notice how a tiny flicker moves across her empty expression as she looks briefly up at me.

  ‘In a few minutes,’ I tell her, ‘there will be a knock on the door because I’ve invited someone here to talk to you.’ Nathan’s mum nods as if she is expecting me to bring in the entire British police force, although her terrified hand reaches for her lips.

  When the knock comes, she flinches, but her anticipation of an immediate arrest turns to surprise when One Shoe Sue walks lopsidedly in through the open door and presses her arm in her peculiarly reassuring way.

  I tell her the reason I am here clearly so there is no mistaking my words.

  ‘Mrs Peterson? I have come to give you your life back.’

  Sue pulls out another chair and heaves herself down, stretching her false leg out beneath the table before eventually introducing herself.

  ‘I’m Sue, a clairvoyant … I can talk to those who have passed on and I have come to tell you that I have a message for you from Lily Richardson …’ As soon as my name is mentioned, Nathan’s mum flutters with the movements of someone who is trying to contain an anguish that is so much bigger than she is. I see a weak flush of red creep up her neck and clash with the grey of fear that has been her pallor since I walked in. Her shaking hands hold each other for comfort and her eyes dart between us under a frown that gives away her confusion.

  ‘We know how Lily died,’ she continues, and her head nods gently in agreement with herself, ‘and we are not here to judge, but to give you Lily’s message.’ I glance at Nathan’s mum and wonder if she is going to pass out any second. The minuscule shred of colour that she had previously has drained away, although I think her need to know what Lily’s message might be is the only thing preventing her from sinking slowly under the table.

  ‘Er … would you like to give Lily’s message to Mrs Peterson?’ One Shoe Sue says, looking directly at me.

  Nathan’s mum does not move an inch, save for the continuous stream of saline that dribbles down her cheeks and drips off her chin as she tries to process what she is hearing.

  Ben had given me a clue … and then … nothing else! He had stepped back and left me to it, like we were playing one last game.

  I clear my throat, picturing the purple hyacinths. ‘Yes … she forgives you, Mrs Peterson … I forgive you.’ And as I say those words, it feels unexpectedly good.

  I no longer hate Nathan’s mum.

  As the word ‘forgive’ comes out of my mouth, Nathan’s mum gives up her grief. It pours out of her mouth, her eyes, her nose, her skin. It is audible, and visible, and painful. I reach out for her hand, and she leaves it within my fingers, believing that I am Ben, gripping back at me as if holding on to her own life through mine.

  After some time, she tries to talk. The words burst out in staccato jumps. ‘I’m … so … sorry,’ she says over and over. ‘I thought I’d hit a deer … I’m so sorry. I would never have meant to hurt her.’ Her eyes bravely lift until they meet mine.

  ‘I believe you,’ I say. And I do.

  ‘But how do you know all this?’ she asks us. ‘Has … she … really come … back? Has she really been watching me??’ She looks at Sue who smiles her lovely, calming smile.

  ‘Those who have passed on are often around us when we need them most. Sometimes we can see them, or feel them, but we often dismiss it as a puff of wind, or a glint of sun,’ she explains, and, bending the truth a little, she adds, ‘I have been given a special gift and because of that I have been able to communicate with Lily.’

  ‘But how can you forgive me?’ she asks Ben, and although I don’t know exactly what Ben would do in this situation I’m going to give it a pretty good guess. I think back to the evening in the posh restaurant and how Dad had two glasses of champagne, and a coffee liqueur and then the waiter brought complimentary drinks for them both at the end of the meal, which he felt obliged to drink, and yet he still drove home.

  ‘I’d say something about only throwing stones if you’re perfect,’ I answer.

  ‘Let he who is without sin cast the first stone,’ Sue clarifies.

  ‘Yes –’ I point a knowing finger at Sue – ‘that one.’

  ‘This blame … from that single moment in time,’ I add. ‘It’s destroying too many people. My parents know it was you now, and they’ll come to accept it in time,’ I say, ‘but I will give them this.’ I pat my pocket with the letter in it.

  I push the letter that she’s addressed to the police towards her. ‘Do this –’ then I point to the letter I tore up – ‘but absolutely don’t do this.’

  ‘I think Alex might … just … understand, but Nathan … how could a boy ever understand this?’ she whispers.

  She has a point. Me forgiving her is not enough but I have an idea. Nathan needs to forgive her too.

  ‘Don’t tell them tonight … tell them tomorrow evening … there’s something I need to do.’ I wait until I have her promise, then add, ‘Just so you know, it was me that sent you the Facebook messages … sorry.’ I think it’s fairer to let her think that Ben sent them, than let her believe that Lily did it, even though I did. ‘And one last thing … the pilgrimage to King’s Lane …? Make it right in a different way.’ I have no idea how she should make it right in a different way, but that’s her challenge, not mine.

  As we leave, Nathan’s mum stands by the front door, looking as if she’s just been turned inside out and dragged through a hedge backwards, but there is something in her eyes that wasn’t there before. Her hand briefly touches mine as I move past her, and she simply says, ‘Thank you … You have saved me … and … I hope … my family.’

  As Sue and I walk down the path, the sun slides out from behind a white cloud, spilling over everything I can see, and I tilt my face upwards to its warmth and light, and somehow, inside, I feel the same. I am finally free of the burden of hate I’ve been carrying around and it feels good.

  Sunlight glints off windows and cars, and a lawnmower buzzes in the distance and the air smells
of the promise of summer to come.

  I love summer so much. That wonderful feeling of being outside, letting the warmth soak into my skin and inhaling the scent of fresh-cut grass carried along on breaths of cool breeze, of picnics and barbeques and light, lazy evenings. I breathe deeply through my nose, absorbing every single trace of the season to come, and suddenly I know that it is no longer mine to have.

  As Sue’s car pulls away from Nathan’s house, I realise that, like the spider, I have repaired my web.

  ‘It’s time,’ I say, staring at the road ahead, and as Sue indicates to turn left out of Nathan’s road, she simply says. ‘Yes, dear.’

  Back home, I take the after bucket list and go to my own room.

  I study everything on it, my eyes travelling along the lines and down the list. I look only for the numbers that I’ve managed to tick, remembering everything: the delicious and luxurious meal with Mum and Dad, and the taste of champagne on my tongue; the wind in my hair and the salt up my nose on the beach, feeling the strength and the beauty of Arizona as she carried me safely along the edge of a foamy sea. I can feel my face lifting to the cool blue sky at the top of Snowdon, and my sense of achievement at sliding down a ski slope without falling over, and I smile with pride when I think of the wildflowers that will nod their heads all the way down King’s Lane. Before closing the book, I tick one more item on the list.

  I go to my drawer and get out my own stationery and begin to write to the people I love. One for my mum and dad, and one for Ben. My writing is my own, round and pretty and familiar, not the elongated scrawl of Ben’s hand that I have perfected over the last few weeks. It takes a long time, writing a message for the ones you love, which has to last them a lifetime until you meet again. I sign the end of their letters with the loopy way I write ‘Lily’ and place a tiny heart above the ‘i’ as always. I put the after bucket list carefully alongside the letter for Ben and push them into an envelope.

  Finally I lie back on my own bed looking at my own things and thinking of the people in my life who have made me what I am. In everything, I wish I could have enjoyed it more. I wish I had not taken anything for granted.