Jenny Downham: Before I Die aka Now is Good

‘It’s my body. I can do what I like!’

‘So you don’t care about your body now?’

‘No, I’m sick of it! I’m sick of doctors and needles and blood tests and transfusions. I’m sick of being stuck in a bed day after day while the rest of you get on with your lives. I hate it! I hate all of you! Adam’s gone for a university interview, did you know that? He’s going to be here for years doing whatever he likes and I’m going to be under the ground in a couple of weeks!’

Dad starts to cry. He sinks onto the bed and puts his head in his hands and just weeps. I don’t know what to do. Why is he weaker than me? I sit next to him and touch his knee. ‘I’m not going back to the hospital, Dad.’

He wipes his nose on his shirt sleeve and looks at me. He looks like Cal. ‘You’ve really had enough?’

‘I’ve really had enough.’

I put my arm round him and he leans his head on my shoulder. I stroke his hair. It’s as if we’re floating about on a boat. There’s even a breeze from the open window. We sit for ages.

‘You never know, maybe I won’t die if I’m at home.’

‘It’d be lovely if you didn’t.’

‘I’ll do my A-levels instead. Then I’ll go to university.’

He sighs, stretches himself out on the bed and closes his eyes. ‘That’s a good idea.’

‘I’ll get a job, and maybe one day I’ll have children – Chester, Merlin and Daisy.’

Dad opens one eye briefly. ‘God help them!’

‘You’ll be a grandad. We’ll visit you loads. For years and years we’ll visit, until you’re ninety.’

‘And then what? You’ll stop coming?’

‘No, then you’ll die. Before me. The way it’s supposed to be.’

He doesn’t say anything. Where the dark filters through the window and shadow touches his arm, he seems to vanish.

‘You won’t live in this house any more, but somewhere smaller near the sea. I’ve got keys because I visit you so often, and one day I let myself in as usual, but the curtains aren’t open and the post is on the mat. I go up to the bedroom to see where you are. I’m so relieved to see you lying peacefully in bed that I laugh out loud. But when I pull the curtains, I notice your lips are blue. I touch your cheek and it’s cold. Your hand’s cold as well. I say your name over and over, but you can’t hear me and you don’t open your eyes.’

Dad sits up. He’s crying again. I hold him close and pat his back.

‘Sorry. Am I freaking you out?’

‘No, no.’ He pulls away, sweeps a hand across his eyes. ‘I better go and clear up outside before it gets dark. Will you be all right if I go and do that?’

‘Sure.’

I watch him from the window. It’s raining hard now and he’s put his wellies on and an anorak. He gets a broom and the wheelbarrow from the shed. He puts on gardening gloves. He picks up the telly. He sweeps up the broken glass. He gets a cardboard box and piles all the books in it. He even picks up the pages that lie shivering against the fence.

Cal turns up in his school uniform with his rucksack and bike. He looks sane and healthy. Dad goes over and hugs him.

Cal dumps his bike and joins in the clearing up. He looks like a treasure hunter, holding each ring up to the sky. He finds the silver necklace I got for my last birthday, my amberlite bracelet. Then he finds ridiculous things – a snail, a feather, a particular stone. He finds a muddy puddle and stamps in it. It makes Dad laugh. He leans on his broom and laughs out loud. Cal laughs too.

Rain batters softly at the window, washing them both transparent.

‘So, were you ever going to tell me?’

Adam regards me grimly from his perch on the edge of the chair. ‘It was difficult.’

‘That’s a no then.’

He shrugs. ‘I tried a couple of times. It just felt so unfair, like how come I get to have a life?’

I sit forwards in the bed. ‘Don’t you dare feel sorry for yourself because you get to stay behind!’

‘I’m not.’

‘Because, if you want to die too, then here’s a plan. We go out on the bike. You take a hairpin bend really fast just as a juggernaut’s coming the other way, and we’ll die together – loads of blood, joint funeral, our bones entwined for eternity. How about that?’

He looks so horrified it makes me laugh. He grins back at me, relieved. It’s like breaking through fog, as if the sun comes out in the room.

‘Let’s just forget about it, Adam. It was bad timing, that’s all.’

‘You threw everything out the window!’

‘Not just because of you.’

He leans his head back against the chair and closes his eyes. ‘No.’

Dad told him I’m finished with the hospital. Everyone knows. Philippa’s coming in the morning to discuss options, although I don’t think there’ll be much to discuss. Today’s transfusion is already wearing out.

‘What was it like at university anyway?’

He shrugs. ‘It was big, lots of buildings. I got a bit lost.’

But he glows with the future. I can see it in his eyes. He got on a train and he went to Nottingham. He’ll go to so many places without me.

‘Did you meet any girls?’

‘No!’

‘Isn’t that why people go to university?’

He gets up from the chair and sits on the edge of the bed. He looks at me very seriously. ‘I’m going because my life was crap until I met you. I’m going because I don’t want to be here when you’re not, still living with my mum and nothing being any different. I wouldn’t even be thinking about going if it hadn’t been for you.’

‘I bet you forget me by the end of the first term.’

‘I bet I won’t.’

‘It’s practically the law.’

‘Stop it! Do I have to do something outrageous to make you believe me?’

‘Yes.’

He grins. ‘What do you suggest?’

‘Keep your promise.’

He reaches over to lift the duvet, but I stop him. ‘Turn the light off first.’

‘Why? I want to see you.’

‘I’m a pile of bones. Please.’

He sighs, switches off the main light and sits back on the bed. I think I’ve scared him because he doesn’t try to get in, but strokes me through the duvet – the length of my leg from thigh to ankle, the length of my other leg. His hands are sure. I feel like I’m an instrument being tuned up.

‘I could spend hours on every bit of you,’ he says. Then he laughs, as if it wasn’t cool to say that. ‘You really are gorgeous.’

Beneath his hands. Because his fingers give my body dimension.

‘Is this OK, me stroking you like this?’

When I nod, he slides off the bed, kneels on the rug and holds my feet between both his hands, warming me through my socks.

He massages them for so long I nearly fall asleep, but I wake up when he pulls off my socks, lifts both feet to his mouth and kisses them. He swims his tongue around each toe. He scrapes his teeth along the soles. He licks the run of my heels.

I thought my body wouldn’t feel heat again, not the kind of urgent heat I’ve felt with him before. I’m amazed as it comes surging back. He feels it too, I know. He pulls off his T-shirt and kicks off his boots. Our eyes lock as he unbuckles his jeans.

He’s astonishingly beautiful – the way his hair is short now, shorter than mine, the arc of his back as he pulls off his jeans, his muscles firm from gardening.

‘Get in,’ I tell him.

The room is warm, the radiators piping hot, but still I shiver as he lifts the duvet and climbs in beside me. He’s careful not to put weight on me. He leans up on one elbow to kiss me very gently on the mouth.

‘Don’t be afraid of me, Adam.’

‘I’m not.’

But it’s my tongue that finds his. It’s me that moves his hand to my breast and encourages him to undo my buttons.