Before I Die aka Now is Good

‘Do it again.’

Instead, he shuffles and spreads a pack of cards. ‘Choose one, look at it, don’t tell me what it is.’

I choose the queen of spades, and then replace her in the pack. Cal spreads the cards again, face-up this time. But she’s gone.

‘You’re good, Cal!’

He slumps down on the bed. ‘Not good enough. I wish I could do something bigger, something scary.’

‘You can saw me in half if you like.’

He grins, but almost immediately starts to cry, silently at first, and then great gulping sobs. As far as I know this is only the second time he’s ever cried, so maybe he needs to. We both act as if he can’t help it, like it’s a nosebleed that has nothing to do with how he might be feeling. I pull him close and hold him. He sobs into my shoulder, his tears melt through my pyjamas. I want to lick them. His real, real tears.

‘I love you, Cal.’

It’s easy. Even though it makes him cry ten times harder, I’m really glad I dared.

Number thirteen, to hold my brother as dusk settles on the window ledge.

Adam climbs into bed. He pulls the duvet right up under his chin, as if he’s cold or as if he’s afraid that the ceiling might fall on his head.

He says, ‘Tomorrow your dad’s going to buy a camp bed and put it on the floor down there for me.’

‘Aren’t you going to sleep with me any more?’

‘You might not want it, Tess. You might not want to be held.’

‘What if I do?’

‘Well, then I’ll hold you.’

But he’s terrified. I see it in his eyes.

‘It’s all right, I let you off.’

‘Shush.’

‘No, really. I free you.’

‘I don’t want to be free.’ He leans across and kisses me. ‘Wake me up if you need me.’

He falls asleep quickly. I lie awake and listen to lights being switched off all over the town. Whispered goodnights. The drowsy creak of bedsprings.

I find Adam’s hand and hold it tight.

I’m glad that night porters and nurses and long-distance lorry drivers exist. It comforts me to know that in other countries with different time zones, women are washing clothes in rivers and children are filing to school. Somewhere in the world right now, a boy is listening to the merry chink of a goat’s bell as he walks up a mountain. I’m very glad about that.

Thirty-nine

Zoey’s sewing. I didn’t know she could. A lemon-coloured baby suit is draped across her knees. She threads the needle, one eye shut, pulls the thread through and rolls a knot between licked fingers. Who taught her that? For minutes I watch her, and she sews as if this is how it’s always been. Her blonde hair is piled high, her neck at a tender angle. She bites her bottom lip in concentration.

‘Live,’ I tell her. ‘You will live, won’t you?’

She looks up suddenly, sucks bright blood from her finger. ‘Shit!’ she says. ‘I didn’t know you were awake.’

It makes me chuckle. ‘You’re blooming.’

‘I’m fat!’ She heaves herself upright in the chair and thrusts her belly at me to prove it. ‘I’m as big as a bear.’

I’d love to be that baby deep inside her. To be small and healthy.

Instructions for Zoey

Don’t tell your daughter the planet is rotting. Show her lovely things. Be a giant for her, even though your parents couldn’t do it for you. Don’t ever get involved with any boy who doesn’t love you.

‘When the baby’s born, do you think you’ll miss the life you had before?’

Zoey looks at me very solemnly. ‘You should get dressed. It’s not good for you to sit around in your pyjamas all day.’

I lean back on the pillows and look at the corners of the room. When I was a kid, I always wanted to live on the ceiling – it looked so clean and uncluttered, like the top of a cake. Now it just reminds me of bed sheets.

‘I feel like I’ve let you down. I won’t be able to babysit or anything.’

Zoey says, ‘It’s really nice outside. Shall I ask Adam or your dad to carry you out?’

Birds joust on the lawn. Ragged clouds fringe a blue sky. This sun lounger is warm, as if it’s been absorbing sunlight for hours.

Zoey’s reading a magazine. Adam’s stroking my feet through my socks.

‘Listen to this,’ Zoey says. ‘This won the funniest joke of the year competition.’

Number fourteen, a joke.

‘A man goes to the doctor’s and says, “I’ve got a strawberry stuck up my bottom.” “Oh,” says the doctor, “I’ve got some cream for that.” ’

I laugh a lot. I’m a laughing skeleton. To hear us – Adam, Zoey and me – is like being offered a window to climb through. Anything could happen next.

Zoey shoves her baby into my arms. ‘Her name’s Lauren.’

She’s fat and sticky and drooling milk. She smells good. She waves her arms at me, snatching at air. Her little fingers with their half-moon nails pluck at my nose.

‘Hello, Lauren.’

I tell her how big and clever she is. I say all the silly things I imagine babies like to hear. And she looks back at me with fathomless eyes and gives a great big yawn. I can see right inside her little pink mouth.

‘She likes you,’ Zoey says. ‘She knows who you are.’

I put Lauren Tessa Walker at my shoulder and swim my hand in circles over her back. I listen to her heart. She sounds careful, determined. She is ferociously warm.

Under the apple tree, shadows dance. Sunlight sifts through the branches. A lawnmower drones far away. Zoey’s still reading her magazine, slaps it down when she sees I’m awake.

‘You’ve been asleep for ages,’ she tells me.

‘I dreamed Lauren was born.’

‘Was she gorgeous?’

‘Of course.’

Adam looks up and smiles at me. ‘Hey,’ he says.

Dad walks down the path filming us with his video camera.

‘Stop it,’ I tell him. ‘It’s morbid.’

He takes the camera back into the house, comes out with the recycling box and puts it by the gate. He dead- heads flowers.

‘Come and sit with us, Dad.’

But he can’t keep still. He goes back inside, returns with a bowl of grapes, an assortment of chocolate, glasses of juice.