Before I Die aka Now is Good

Fat, kind Philippa, helping all the people between London and the south coast to die. She reaches down and hugs me. She’s warm and sweaty and smells of lavender.

After she’s gone I have a dream where I walk into the lounge and everyone’s sitting there. Dad’s making a sound I’ve never heard before.

‘Why are you crying?’ I ask. ‘What’s happened?’

Mum and Cal are next to each other on the sofa. Cal’s dressed in a suit and tie, like a mini snooker player.

And then it hits me – I’m dead.

‘I’m here, right here!’ I yell, but they don’t hear me.

I saw a film once about the dead – how they never really go away, but live silently amongst us. I want to tell them this. I try to knock a pencil off the table but my hand moves right through it. And through the sofa. I walk through the wall and back again. I dabble my fingers in Dad’s head and he shifts in his chair, perhaps wondering at the thrill of the cold.

Then I wake up.

Dad’s sitting on a chair beside the bed. He reaches for my hand. ‘How are you feeling?’

I think about this, scan my body for signs. ‘I’m not in pain.’

‘That’s good.’

‘I’m a bit tired.’

He nods. ‘Are you hungry?’

I want to be. For him. I want to ask for rice and prawns and treacle pudding, but I’d be lying.

‘Is there anything I can get you, anything you want?’

Meet the baby. Finish school. Grow up. Travel the world.

‘A cup of tea?’

Dad looks pleased. ‘Anything else? A biscuit?’

‘A pen and paper.’

He helps me sit up. He plumps pillows behind me, turns on the bedside light and passes me a notepad and pen from the shelf. Then he goes downstairs to put the kettle on.

Number eleven. A cup of tea.

Number twelve…

Instructions for Dad

I don’t want to go into a fridge at an undertaker’s. I want you to keep me at home until the funeral. Please can someone sit with me in case I get lonely? I promise not to scare you.

I want to be buried in my butterfly dress, my lilac bra and knicker set and my black zip boots (all still in the suitcase that I packed for Sicily). I also want to wear the bracelet Adam gave me.

Don’t put make-up on me. It looks stupid on dead people.

I do NOT want to be cremated. Cremations pollute the atmosphere with dioxins, hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide. They also have those spooky curtains in crematoriums.

I want a bio-degradable willow coffin and a woodland burial. The people at the Natural Death Centre helped me pick a site not far from where we live, and they’ll help you with all the arrangements.

I want a native tree planted on or near my grave. I’d like an oak, but I don’t mind a sweet chestnut or even a willow. I want a wooden plaque with my name on. I want wild plants and flowers growing on my grave.

I want the service to be simple. Tell Zoey to bring Lauren (if she’s born by then). Invite Philippa and her husband Andy (if he wants to come), also James from the hospital (though he might be busy).

I don’t want anyone who doesn’t know me saying anything about me. The Natural Death Centre people will stay with you, but should also stay out of it. I want the people I love to get up and speak about me, and even if you cry it’ll be OK. I want you to say honest things. Say I was a monster if you like, say how I made you all run around after me. If you can think of anything good, say that too! Write it down first, because apparently people often forget what they mean to say at funerals.

Don’t under any circumstances read that poem by Auden. It’s been done to death (ha, ha) and it’s too sad. Get someone to read Sonnet 12 by Shakespeare.

Music – ‘Blackbird’ by the Beatles. ‘Plainsong’ by the Cure. ‘Live Like You Were Dying’ by Tim McGraw. ‘All the Trees of the Field Will Clap Their Hands’ by Sufjan Stevens. There may not be time for all of them, but make sure you play the last one. Zoey helped me choose them and she’s got them all on her iPod (it’s got speakers if you need to borrow it).

Afterwards, go to a pub for lunch. I’ve got ?260 in my savings account and I really want you to use it for that. Really, I mean it – lunch is on me. Make sure you have pudding – sticky toffee, chocolate fudge cake, ice-cream sundae, something really bad for you. Get drunk too if you like (but don’t scare Cal). Spend all the money.

And after that, when days have gone by, keep an eye out for me. I might write on the steam in the mirror when you’re having a bath, or play with the leaves on the apple tree when you’re out in the garden. I might slip into a dream.

Visit my grave when you can, but don’t kick yourself if you can’t, or if you move house and it’s suddenly too far away. It looks pretty there in the summer (check out the website). You could bring a picnic and sit with me. I’d like that.

OK. That’s it.

I love you.

Tessa xxx

Thirty-eight

‘I’m going to be the only kid at school with a dead sister.’

‘It’ll be cool. You’ll get out of homework for ages, and all the girls will fancy you.’

Cal thinks about this. ‘Will I still be a brother?’

‘Of course.’

‘But you won’t know about it.’

‘I bloody will.’

‘Are you going to haunt me?’

‘You want me to?’

He smiles nervously. ‘I might be scared.’

‘I won’t then.’

He can’t keep still, is pacing the carpet between my bed and the wardrobe. Something has shifted between us since the hospital. Our jokes aren’t as easy.

‘Throw the telly out the window if you want, Cal. It made me feel better.’

‘I don’t want to.’

‘Show me a magic trick then.’

He runs off to get his stuff, comes back wearing his special jacket, the black one with the hidden pockets.

‘Watch very carefully.’

He ties two silk handkerchiefs together at one corner and pushes them into his fist. He opens his hand finger by finger. It’s empty.

‘How did you do that?’

He shakes his head, taps his nose with his wand. ‘Magicians never give their secrets away.’