Jenny Downham - Before I Die aka Now is Good

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

‘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.’

‘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.

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.