If You Were Here

by Alice Peterson

  James agrees. ‘You need to see a doctor. Someone who can give you proper advice about what to do next.’

  I stare up at the ceiling. ‘I have a week left. I’ve given up my room, my job. How can I just take off as if nothing has happened?’

  ‘Maybe talk to Theo?’ Maddie’s tone is soft. ‘I know it won’t be an easy conversation, but I’m sure he’ll understand if you need more time to work things out here.’

  ‘The room’s still yours,’ James adds, ‘for however long you need it.’

  I can’t contemplate the thought of telling Theo yet. ‘Why couldn’t Mum have told me the truth?’

  ‘She probably wanted to protect you,’ Maddie says.

  Once again I feel anger raging within me. ‘I wouldn’t call it protection; I’d call it denial, wouldn’t you? What did she think would happen once she started developing symptoms?’ I place my head in my hands. ‘My entire childhood has been a lie.’

  ‘Do you know what I think you should do?’ James says.

  ‘What?’ I ask, a glimmer of hope in my voice.

  ‘Go to bed.’

  I laugh. ‘There’s no way I can sleep, but you go, there’s no point all of us—’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re going to stop scaring yourself.’ Maddie gestures to my laptop, to the videos I’ve found online about HD.

  I turn to James. ‘Maybe you could put me down?’

  ‘Stop it,’ he says.

  ‘Steal some meds from work,’ I go on. ‘A shot of something lethal.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Flo, stop it,’ James insists, fear laced through his voice too.

  My phone vibrates. I shiver when I see Theo’s name.

  Just checking in ☺ Hope all well at home. Can’t wait to see you, not long now. Love you xx

  I toss my phone on to the table. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t tell him yet.’

  I notice Maddie and James exchange a look. ‘Don’t worry about that tonight,’ Maddie says. ‘This is a massive shock; you need to take your time, think it through.’

  ‘Mum had years to tell me. What was she thinking keeping it from me?’ I continue to torment myself. ‘Maybe that’s why she had the accident? She could have been lost, confused. I always thought something didn’t add up.’ I look at them both. ‘What am I going to do?’ My voice breaks. ‘I’m scared.’

  James pulls me into his arms and soon the three of us are holding on to one another, wrapped up in this new world that we are now facing, a world that’s so very different from the one I was living in only yesterday.

  13

  Peggy

  I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here, in the dark.

  I close my eyes and see Tim. He is trying to say something to me, but no words come out. All he can do is scratch his face like an animal. I kneel down by his side, desperately trying to work out what it is he wants. I rush to get him a glass of water. The doctor says I shouldn’t, not when he’s fed and hydrated on a peg, but it’s the only thing that seems to give him comfort.

  He drinks the water from a straw, I press a little to his lips. ‘Tim, it’s all right, it’s all right,’ I say, stroking the burning red lines of frustration and anxiety across his cheeks, wishing I could take it all away. Wave a magic wand and see my old Tim, the Tim who used to come home from work late and slip into bed, whispering, ‘Are you awake, Peg?’ to which I’d say, ‘I am now,’ before we laughed, and he’d take my face into his hands and kiss me.

  I miss his touch. Being held.

  I miss someone needing me.

  I continue to sit in the darkness, paralysed.

  Oh, Peggy, what have you done?

  I ignore Ricky’s message on my answering machine. I don’t eat or drink a thing. Elvis is deprived of his walk. It could be glorious sunshine or the most beautiful full moon outside for all I care. Because what is my life worth without the people I love in it?

  *

  It’s ten o’clock. Normally I watch the news before bed, but the thought of being cocooned in yet more darkness terrifies me. I unlock my front door and walk outside, with no idea as to where I’m going or what I’m doing. All I know is I can’t be alone for a moment longer.

  I need a drink.

  I walk round the block, stopping when I come to a blackboard sign mounted on the pavement outside my local pub: Live Music Tonight.

  With no hesitation I buy a ticket on the door and head inside. The pub is surprisingly full for a Sunday evening, although I’m never out on a Sunday night so I’m hardly the best judge. The noise is a welcome distraction. I head straight to the bar and order myself a double vodka and tonic.

  I’d anticipated anger. Resentment. I knew she’d feel let down.

  But I also thought I’d feel relieved. To have at last told her, once and for all, to have got it off my chest.

  Yet I feel nothing but shame.

  I wonder whether Flo will still go to America. In many ways, I hope she does. If she puts off her plans, I fear she will resent me even more. If that’s even possible.

  I pray that Theo will support her, and that her life will go on.

  I pay for my drink and fight my way through the crowd to the nearest free table.

  ‘Give it up, please, for The West Brothers,’ someone announces, before everyone cheers and wolf whistles. And that’s when I see him on the small stage at the other side of the pub, his smiling face shining under the spotlights.

  Ricky steps forward, a guitar strap on his shoulder and a microphone in his hand, dressed all in black apart from his eye-catching red hat. He looks at me with shock. I can tell he wants to come over, but I shake my head, encouraging him to do what he came here to do. I even raise a smile and wave at him, because the last thing I want to do is talk.

  The music starts.

  Someone is on the drums and another member of the band zigzags across the stage in some kind of stupor with his cap worn back to front. I knock back my drink.

  Oh, what a dreadful noise. So dreadful I might just drown myself in it.

  *

  ‘Peggy,’ a distant voice says. I feel someone touching my shoulder. ‘Peggy, wake up.’

  Slowly I stir. ‘Is it breakfast?’ I sit up, my throat as dry as parchment, my head as heavy as a brick.

  ‘Peggy, it’s Ricky. My music must have sent you to sleep.’

  I look around me, noticing I’m the only person left in the pub aside from Ricky and a man drying up some glasses behind the bar. Then I remember with a sinking feeling my conversation with Flo. It wasn’t a dream.

  ‘I must get home.’ I stagger to my feet.

  ‘I’ll walk you back.’ Ricky follows me outside. ‘I knocked on your door earlier. I left a message on your machine.’

  ‘I was out.’

  He knows I wasn’t, but he’s kind enough to let me off the hook. ‘If I’m honest, Peggy, you’re the last person I was expecting to see here tonight. I didn’t know you were into dub rock.’

  ‘Dub what?’

  ‘Dub music. Reggae? Never mind.’ He touches my arm, lightly. ‘How did it go with Flo?’

  I quicken my pace. What if she has tried to call me?

  ‘Peggy?’

  We turn the corner into our street and Ricky follows me to my front door. ‘Peggy, please talk to me. I can see you’re upset.’

  ‘I’m fine. It’s over. I said it; it didn’t go well, but there we are. It was never going to be easy. Goodnight, Ricky.’

  He pushes past me and walks into my house.

  ‘What are you doing? Go home, back to your family!’ I shout, since I’ve had just about enough of it today. ‘You’re not my knight in shining armour.’

  ‘No, no, I’m not. I’m your friend.’ He follows me into the kitchen. ‘And I’m proud of you.’

  I frown, undeserving of his praise.

  ‘I’m not just saying that, Peggy. You did a courageous thing today, all right?’

  ‘Years too late.’

  ‘But you sti
ll did it.’

  I collapse into a chair, my body aching. ‘You should have seen her face, Ricky. All the trust between us, broken in an instant.’

  ‘You can get that back.’

  ‘Can I? How?’

  ‘You earn it back.’

  ‘I can’t lose her.’

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘How do you know that, Ricky?’

  ‘Because you’re going to fight for her. You just have to give her some time first.’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘At least a few days—’

  ‘But—’

  ‘And then you go round to see her again.’

  ‘But what if she won’t talk to me?’

  ‘You make her talk to you,’ he says, as if it’s his battle too. ‘You knock on her door until she opens it. You talk to her until she listens.’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m tired.’

  ‘I know you are, but you can’t just curl up into a ball and hide.’

  ‘Can’t I? That sounds like a wonderful plan.’ For the first time that evening, I smile.

  ‘You’re a strong woman, Peggy. Anyone can be a hero for fifteen minutes. You looked after your husband for almost fifteen years. You gave up your job, your life—’

  ‘That’s not heroic. I loved him and I’d do it all over again.’

  ‘Exactly, so try to find the old Peggy again, the Peggy who stood by Tim through thick and thin, and the Peggy who lost her daughter but got through all that grief and trauma of losing their child, because that’s who Flo needs.’

  I take in a deep breath as if I’m about to enter the boxing ring again for another round. ‘Ricky, how is it you know all the right things to say? When Beth died, no one knew how to talk to me. I’d hear all the usual “time heals” or “are you feeling better now?” as if moving past your grief was like getting over a cold. As if grief had a time limit. Many of my friends didn’t even dare to ask, so in the end I just, well, I lost touch with the world. I think I lost me,’ I say, realizing that truth for the very first time.

  I look at this man, choosing to be with me late on a Sunday evening, to make sure I don’t drink myself into oblivion. This man who, somehow, I feel an extraordinary bond with.

  ‘I lost someone too,’ he confides. ‘Shelley and I lost a child before Mia came along. Our baby, Rose.’

  ‘I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It was cot death.’

  ‘Oh, Ricky.’ I reach for his hand. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I repeat.

  ‘It was hard. We’d only known her for a few weeks, but there was always this agonizing feeling at the back of our minds, you know. What if we’d done something differently, bought a new mattress or picked her up in time? She died under my watch, Peggy. I was the only one home while Shelley was out with friends, having a well-earned night off. I slept through it all while my little baby girl died.’

  I place a hand over my mouth, tears filling my eyes.

  ‘The grief crushes you, you know? Suffocates you. You get to a point when you think it’ll never go away. It’s why Shelley and I moved here. We couldn’t stay at our old rented place. Each time we walked into the nursery we lost her all over again.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  Ricky shrugs. ‘There is nothing to say, Peggy, nothing that can make it better or take the pain away. But when I picked up that photograph of Beth, I recognized you’d been through it too. I don’t know . . . it’s like you’re part of a club you sure as hell don’t want to belong to, but it helps if there are other members you can talk to. It makes you feel less alone.’

  I agree. ‘Well, I’m here for you Ricky, if you ever need to talk.’

  He looks up at me, nodding gently. ‘We nearly split because Shelley couldn’t stop blaming me. She needed to be angry with someone and I was the easiest target. She packed her bags and left. I kept knocking on Shelley’s door and talking to her until she listened to me. Until she understood we’re stronger together, not apart, that we’d already lost Rose and we couldn’t lose each other too.’

  ‘She’s a lucky woman.’

  ‘I’m a lucky man, too. She’s my rock.’

  ‘Won’t she be wondering where you are now?’ I say, not actually wanting him to leave me on my own.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere until I know you’re okay.’

  ‘Thank you, Ricky.’

  I don’t know how long we sit quietly, my tiny pale hand in his, until I break the silence, saying, ‘How do you wash your hair? It’s so long.’

  Ricky throws back his head and laughs. ‘Peggy, you crack me up, mate.’

  ‘But isn’t it uncomfortable in bed? Doesn’t it itch and dig in?’ I touch my own hair as if I can feel the discomfort.

  ‘My mum used to try to get me to cut it, especially for job interviews, but there are lawyers and docs with dreadlocks, too. My hair is my identity. It says, “this is me, I’m comfortable with who I am—” ’

  ‘So stick it up your pipe and smoke it,’ I finish.

  ‘Exactly. Confidence is the best gift you can give your children. And self-belief. It’s the best gift you can give yourself, Peggy.’

  I hear my mother telling me all those years ago that I’d better accept Tim’s marriage proposal because no one else was going to ask me. I see her scowling at me on her deathbed, saying she’d done nothing wrong by abandoning me. I’d walked away, fighting back the tears, saying nothing, not standing up for myself.

  This is me, Mum, this is who I am.

  She never loved me, but it’s time I started to love myself.

  And then I can stand up, feel tall and finally fight for my Flo.

  14

  Flo

  ‘Morning,’ I say to James when he joins me in the kitchen, his hair still damp from the shower.

  He stares at me as if I’m mad, or a ghost.

  ‘How did you sleep?’ I ask, buttering my toast.

  ‘I didn’t. Did you?’

  I wish he’d stop looking at me like he’s already planning my funeral.

  ‘I slept fine,’ I say. ‘Sorry if I kept you up last night.’

  James casts an eye over my navy skirt and lilac shirt. ‘Are you going to work?’

  ‘Yep. It’s my last week; I’ve got so much to do.’

  Stop looking at me like that, James.

  ‘I thought maybe you’d want to take the day off?’ he suggests. ‘I could too? I’m sure my boss would understand if—’

  ‘I don’t want anyone else to know about this.’

  ‘Not even Theo?’ Maddie says, entering the kitchen.

  I shake my head. ‘Especially not Theo. I’ve made a plan.’

  ‘Why do I have a feeling I need to sit down for this?’ James says.

  ‘I’m calling my GP.’

  ‘Great, that’s good,’ Maddie says with relief.

  ‘I want to have the blood test straightaway.’

  ‘Straightaway?’ both Maddie and James repeat at the same time.

  I nod. ‘This week, before I go to New York.’

  James looks dubious. ‘From what I’ve read, you have to have genetic counselling—’

  ‘I know,’ I interrupt, ‘but I’m sure in exceptional circumstances you can cut corners.’

  James looks doubtful. ‘I don’t know, the guidelines seem pretty strict . . .’

  ‘Who cares about guidelines?’ I snap.

  James glances at Maddie for backup.

  ‘I need to know now,’ I reinforce. ‘I can’t have counselling for months. I don’t need it. I don’t want it. All I know is I can’t have this hanging over me.’

  I catch them exchanging yet another look.

  ‘I understand,’ Maddie says. ‘I’d probably feel the same, but I’m not sure you should rush into this. It’s such a big decision, Flo.’

  She doesn’t understand. ‘It’s not. This isn’t going to change my life,’ I insist. I wait for them to say something but their silence speaks volumes. ‘And I’m not telling Theo,�
� I add, ‘not unless I have to.’ They won’t change my mind on that front either. Telling him makes it an issue. Keeping quiet and taking the test puts me in control.

  Maddie looks anxious, twisting a strand of her hair around her finger. ‘Flo, are you sure you shouldn’t tell him?’

  ‘Why? Why scare him?’

  ‘But I’m sure he’d understand,’ she continues. ‘He’d want to support you.’

  ‘All I need to do is take the test and put this mess behind me.’

  ‘And Granny Peg?’ James asks.

  ‘What about her?’ I felt fine this morning, great, until James and Maddie came into the kitchen, dragging their doubts with them.

  ‘Flo, she’ll be anxious,’ he reasons. ‘I think you should let her know your plan—’

  ‘You mean like she let me know. Like my mother let me know?’

  ‘I get you’re angry,’ James tells me.

  ‘No, you don’t,’ I fire back. ‘You have no idea how this feels.’

  ‘You’re right, I don’t,’ he concedes. ‘You have every right to be angry, but I imagine she must feel terrible too.’

  ‘So she should!’ I stand up. ‘What did she expect, James, for me to just accept this and move on?’

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘She should have told Flo,’ Maddie cuts in, trying to calm the situation down. ‘To dump it on her now is not cool.’

  ‘I’m not saying it is,’ James argues, ‘but it can’t have been easy for her—’

  ‘James, can you imagine if Mum had kept this from us all this time?’ Maddie challenges him again.

  ‘Exactly,’ I echo, staring at him.

  ‘I’d be furious,’ James admits.

  ‘And what if I’d got pregnant?’ I protest. ‘I’m going to take the blood test, but by not telling me, they’d have robbed me of that choice, and that’s not fair.’

  ‘I understand, but it’s not fair Granny Peg lost her husband and her daughter because of it either,’ James says, his voice fuelled with emotion. ‘None of this is fair, Flo. Life’s unfair.’

  I have to stop myself from saying life hasn’t dished out too many problems to the Bailey family. Idyllic childhood, two healthy, functional parents, both Maddie and James have successful careers . . . Life has given my family a second helping of troubles. But something stops me.