Dandelion Clocks (11 page)

I run across the room and she meets me halfway, scooping me up in a big hug that I never want to end.

‘It's OK, Livvy, it's OK,' she whispers. ‘I'm here now, you can let it all go.'

I realize that I'm crying and that now I've started I might actually not ever stop. But I have to stop because I have to say the words – even though I know that once I've said them they can never be unsaid. I pull back from her and look her squarely in the eye.

‘It's not OK, Aunt Leah. It's never going to be OK again. Don't you understand?'

She doesn't break my eye contact but reaches out her hand and holds on to my arm, as if she understands that all of a sudden, I feel like I'm a kite that might just disappear on a strong gust of air if somebody doesn't tether me to them.

‘Do you know?' I ask her, suddenly scared that she might not and that I might be called upon to be brave for her. She nods slightly but stays quiet, and I know she realizes that I need to speak the words myself.

‘I only knew for sure just now,' I tell her. ‘How did I not know before?'

‘Maybe you weren't ready to know before,' she says, still looking at me.

‘I'm not ready to know
now
,' I wail. ‘I don't want to know. I shouldn't have to know something like this.'

I can't look at her any more and she pulls me back into her arms, holding me tightly against her.

‘Make it go away – make it be all right.' I'm hoping that maybe Leah can think of the answer – something that'll fix this.

‘I can't, Livvy,' Leah says.

‘So it's really going to happen then?' I ask, feeling the last, tiny burst of hope explode in my stomach.

‘Yes,' she says, and the hope is extinguished, leaving only the empty hole.

‘My mum is really going to die,' I whisper.

‘Yes, my darling girl, she is,' Leah whispers back.

I stand in our kitchen for a long time and it gets so I'm not sure whether I'm holding on to Leah or she's holding on to me. My legs start to hurt and my eyes are sore, and I know that I need to move but I'm scared to let go in case the whole world has shattered into tiny pieces while I was crying. Leah makes the decision for me, moving me towards the table and guiding me into a chair.

‘What your mum always recommends in times of need is a big slab of chocolate,' she says, and heads towards the kitchen cupboards. ‘I've lost count of the number of times she's listened to me and sorted me out and put the world to rights over a decent chunk of rich, dark chocolate.' I can hear a catch in her voice and I look up anxiously to see if she's crying, but she looks across at me and gives a reassuring smile.

‘Why aren't you crying?' I ask her, sniffing loudly. I know that, despite Mum's accounts in her diaries of Leah when they were children, they're really close now, always nattering on the phone to each other and arranging weekends away.

‘I've done a whole heap of crying – and I'll do a whole heap more, I know, but right now, I'm all cried out,' she says, handing me a box of tissues. ‘Besides, I haven't come here to cry, have I? I've come to look after my naughty, skiving niece!'

That gets me thinking, which seems to help stem the tears a little. This is a good thing because my crying seems to have taken on a life of its own and I really wouldn't mind a few minutes off, just to think about something else. My head is throbbing and my eyes are stinging – even my nose feels sore and I'm not sure why that is.

‘Why
are
you here? I thought you were meant to be coming at the weekend? It's only Monday.'

‘I'm quite aware of what day it is, young lady. As my boss will be when I phone him up later. And as for
why
I'm here – I told you, to make sure you're OK.' She passes me a cup of tea and sits down opposite.

‘But I'm supposed to be in school,' I say, confused now.

‘Exactly! Fancy bunking off on a Monday – even I used to wait until Friday afternoon. And your mum never skived a single day. You'll be in so much trouble when she walks through that door, I can tell you
that
for nothing!' Leah actually
looks like she's enjoying herself for a minute, and despite everything, I can't help grinning.

‘But how did you know I wasn't in school?' I ask her. ‘I thought you had a proper job – or are my parents employing you to spy on me?'

‘Hahaha – or should that be LOL? I had no idea that you weren't where you were supposed to be – until I had a phone call from your father at ten past nine this morning, asking me to hotfoot it over here and keep an eye on you.'

‘Dad?'

‘Yes.'

‘Dad rang you?'

‘Yes, Liv.'

‘To say I was skiving?'

‘Crikey – you catch on quick, don't you?'

‘He
knew
I was here? How?'

She smiles at me. ‘He saw you throwing yourself over the garden wall. Actually, he heard what he described as “a terrible racket” in the alley and went upstairs to see if he could catch sight of whoever was dragging his bin down the path. Imagine his surprise when your sweet little head popped up over the wall!'

I gawp at her, speechless.

‘He kept watching to make sure you survived the landing and saw you go into the studio. He said you'd had a difficult start to the day and figured that you could do with a day off.'

I still can't say anything. I am silenced by the knowledge that my dad knew where I was the whole time – and left me alone to sort stuff out without telling me off for skiving.

‘One last thing, Liv?' says Leah.

‘Yes?' I mumble.

‘He asked me to tell you not to bother applying for any jobs at MI5 – he says stealth-like actions are not your forte!' Leah tries to keep a straight face but fails. She starts laughing and I join in. The weird thing about laughing, though, is that it uses exactly the same parts of your body that you use when you cry, so we both stop quite quickly in case the crying takes over again.

‘I was coming over tonight or tomorrow anyway,' she says, serious again now. ‘Your dad could do with the help and I need to get to grips with how you guys do things around here. Don't want to go upsetting Isaac by giving him the wrong spoon!'

We smile at each other, but are back in the real
world again now. The real world, where Leah coming to stay at the weekend could be too late. Where tomorrow might belong to a different life – a life that I wish, with every bit of me, was not going to be mine.

Mum has gone.

The house feels totally different and not really like our house at all. Dad keeps saying that she's only on the other side of town and we can visit her every day after school if we want to – but even he can't pretend that it's the same.

We've come to see her today. Dad has been before but it's the first time Isaac and I have been here, and as soon as Dad stops the car I know that it's going to be awful. I hang back, pretending I've lost something down the back of the car seat and hoping that Dad will just take Isaac in without me.

No such luck.

‘Come on, Liv,' he says, a bit impatiently.

I am totally not in the mood for him to have a go at me right now so I stay where I am.

‘Liv,' he says again, with a warning in his voice.
He's been a total grouch the last few days and majorly bossy. I can tell he's not going to let me stay behind so I drag myself out of the car, as slowly as I dare – I want him to know that this is not OK with me but I don't really want to start an argument.

‘What's the big rush anyway?' I grumble. ‘It's not like she's going anywhere.' I can hear my voice sounding even grumpier than Dad's. I'm actually not in a bad mood but I am feeling a bit scared.

‘Mum's been waiting for us, Liv – she wants to hear all about your day,' says Dad as he locks the door and puts a hand on my shoulder, propelling me along the path after Isaac.

And straight away I feel horrid and guilty. I raise my eyes and take a proper look at the building in front of us. It looks like the sort of house that a really posh family would live in – I can imagine it at Christmas, all lit up with lamps in every window and a couple of expensive cars on the driveway. I bet there's a massive hallway where they'd put a gigantic Christmas tree, covered in candles and silver tinsel – totally the opposite of our Christmas tree that is usually leaning over to one side and dripping with multicoloured fairy lights and about
a million tacky decorations, made by me and Isaac when we were little. Mum is utterly incapable of throwing anything like that away, so every year our poor tree spends the Christmas holidays smothered with cardboard angels and sheep made out of empty loo-roll tubes. Dad always says it looks like a car crash of a Christmas tree, but Mum just laughs and tells him not to be such a Scrooge.

I look around as we walk up the path. Everything is very neat and tidy. It doesn't look like any children ever play in this garden, which is a shame, cos I can see an excellent tree for climbing and a little stream and a huge weeping willow with branches that reach right down to the ground – I bet there's room for a little secret den inside there. It's the sort of place where I could take hundreds of photographs, but I haven't felt like using my camera since my birthday. Nothing seems important enough any more for me to record it. I used to think that the whole world was full of amazing things that could leap out at me and take me by surprise – wonderful moments that I'd want to remember forever. Now I hate surprises and instead of wondering ‘why' when I stop to take a photo, I just wonder ‘why bother?' It's not as if you can take a photograph with you when you go.

‘Liv?' says Dad, and I realize that he's been talking to me. ‘Come on, let's go and find Mum's room. I know she's desperate to see you.'

We walk up the steps and in through the open front door. The massive hall is just as I imagined it. But there's no Christmas tree, and even though I knew that there wouldn't be – it's only April, for goodness' sake – I can't help feeling a little disappointed.

Dad leads us up the stairs. He's been to visit Mum every day so he knows where we need to go, and I'm glad that he seems confident because I'm feeling really nervous.

I've missed Mum so much since we found out that she was ill. It's weird, but I started missing her when she was still in the house – it felt like she wasn't really there the way that she used to be. And then, last week, everything went downhill. Mum couldn't really get out of bed, and when I went in to say ‘hello' to her after school each afternoon she was either asleep or lying very still, and wouldn't say very much. She didn't smell right either – not like Mum. I was too scared to ask her why. I thought she might not have noticed and I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Sometimes she wanted me to lie down next to her and have a
hug, but I didn't really want to cos she didn't feel like Mum and the odd smell thing totally bothered me – I don't know why. It just felt like cuddling a stranger.

Dad took the week off work and spent the whole time racing around – trying to get Mum to eat, carrying her to the bathroom or talking on the phone to the doctors at the hospital. Leah was in charge of looking after me and Isaac, which meant that I spent the whole week trying to avoid Isaac meltdowns. It was hard work cos even though he loves Leah, he didn't like the fact that everything was different, and Dad was too busy with Mum to help Isaac understand what was going on. I did my best but I didn't really know what to tell him either, so we just kind of muddled through.

Last Thursday I woke up in the middle of the night and thought I'd check on Mum after I'd been to the loo. But before I could open her bedroom door I heard the sound of crying. And it wasn't Mum doing the crying. I don't think I've ever heard my dad cry before and I hope I never, ever hear that again. I wanted to run back to bed and pretend that I hadn't heard, but for some reason my feet wouldn't move so I had to stay, with my head resting on the door, listening. I think
I cried a bit too, but I'm not sure if I was crying for me, Mum or Dad.

On Friday morning Dad told us that he was taking Mum to stay here, in St Mary's Hospice. He said they could make her more comfortable than he could at home. I've heard that word a lot this week and it always makes me want to laugh. Slippers are comfortable; our old sofa is comfortable, but I could never describe my mum as ‘comfortable'. She's always too busy and energetic and exciting to be a word like that. She'd be pretty narked off if she thought someone was calling her ‘comfortable' – she hates lame words like ‘nice' and ‘lovely' and ‘pretty', and I know for a fact that she'd say ‘comfortable' is definitely a lame word.

We're standing outside a closed door now and I know that this must be Mum's room. My heart starts beating faster and I can feel my armpits starting to prickle with sweat. What if she doesn't look like Mum any more? Just how ill is she right now? Or even worse, is she going to be in pain? The idea of my mum hurting is more than I can begin to deal with and I take a step backwards – they can't actually
make
me go in, can they? I'm thinking that the little secret den under the
weeping willow tree would be a pretty good place to hide, and I picture myself curled up on the ground watching the sunlight coming through gaps in the leaves, and the damp, fresh smell of the earth, and nobody in the world knowing where I am or asking me to do something that I cannot possibly do.

But then Dad is opening the door.

‘Just act normally, Liv,' he says, then disappears inside, and I have no choice but to dumbly follow him and Isaac – all the time wishing that I was a stronger person, with enough strength to turn round and run away.

I'm surprised when I step inside the room. It's bigger than I expected and the late afternoon sun is streaming through a huge window that overlooks the front drive and the car park. There are two beds and there, sitting in front of the window on a chair, is Mum. I realize she must have been watching out for us and I hope she couldn't tell that I didn't want to get out of the car.

Dad has rushed over to Mum and is hugging her and whispering in her ear. I can't hear what he says but a big smile spreads across her face. Isaac has been hanging back, looking worried, but when Dad pulls away, Isaac walks carefully across the room
and gives Mum a gentle pat on the arm. She stretches her arm round him and rubs the small of his back and Isaac relaxes a bit, sitting down on the edge of Mum's bed and turning his iPod on. He's in his own world now, where he doesn't have to think about what we're doing here.

Mum looks across at me. I can't take my eyes off her. She looks like Mum but I'm still not sure whether it's really OK to act as if everything's normal. I mean, this is totally
not
normal. It's nothing like normal. I really want her to cuddle me – in fact, I want it more than anything else in the world right now, but I'm so scared of getting it wrong and I just don't know what to do.

I stand there, by the door, for a few seconds that feel like a few hours, and then Mum opens her arms and nods her head at me, smiling. And just like that, I know it's OK because she's told me that it is. I run across the room and throw myself on to her lap. I haven't sat on her knee for years now and I don't want to hurt her, but I really need this; I want to feel like I used to when I was a little girl – when I thought my mum would always be there for me and would always protect me and never leave me, no matter what. Her arms tighten round me, and I rest my head on her
shoulder and breathe in deeply – and even if she doesn't smell the way she always has, she smells like my mum smells now and that's fine with me.

We sit like this for a while and I'm not sure if I'm holding on to Mum or she's holding on to me, and it doesn't really matter because while we're cuddled up together I can remember all the really good stuff.

I think of the way she tucks me into bed at night, even though I'm probably a bit old for that now. I think about how she taught me to swim, standing for hours in the freezing-cold kids' pool and not complaining every time I kicked water in her face. I remember the times we've sat round our kitchen table playing card games, she and Dad getting really competitive and laughing like crazy, and me and Isaac knowing that if we kept quiet then they'd forget it was supposed to be bedtime half an hour ago. I think how she always tells me the truth, even if it's really hard to hear. I think about how she always loves me, even when I'm in a grotty, horrible mood. She knows everything about me – all the good stuff and all the bad stuff – and she never, ever stops loving me, and I know this is what I am most scared of losing. I wonder if anyone will ever love me again the way that my
mum loves me, and I know that nobody ever can – it would be impossible. And that is so awful a thought that I have to stop thinking before I get sucked down into a place that I can't come back from.

After a while, I feel Mum shifting beneath me and I realize I'm too heavy for her. I get up and sit next to Isaac on her bed.

‘So how was school today?' asks Mum.

‘Fine,' I say. I look over at Dad in amazement – are we really going to talk about boring stuff like school, as if nothing big is happening here? Dad smiles encouragingly at me and I remember that Mum has been sitting in this room waiting for us all day. I try to make a bit more of an effort.

‘I got a detention for not doing my history homework and I came last in the cross-country run in PE.'

Dad frowns at me but Mum laughs. ‘Oh well, you can't be brilliant at everything! Get Dad to help you with your history – he's quite a mine of information when you get him started.'

‘How was your day, Rachel?' asks Dad, reaching out to take hold of one of Mum's hands.

‘Oh – you know, same old, same old!' jokes Mum, smiling a big smile that doesn't look quite
real. I feel I should be doing better at this and cast my eyes around the room, looking for something to start a conversation about.

‘Your room's nice?' I offer, hoping it's OK to talk about where we are.

‘Yes, I'm really lucky, aren't I?' says Mum, looking pleased. ‘The nurses tell me it's one of the sunnier rooms.'

‘You've got loads of space. It's much bigger than your room at home,' I tell her, feeling a bit braver. I can do this – I can sit here and just chat about nothing.

Mum smiles. ‘I've put the photo that you sent me on the noticeboard over there – can you see it?'

‘Oh!' I go a bit red. ‘It's rubbish! I'll find a better one when I get home, I promise.' I'm feeling really embarrassed and mean. Dad wanted me to choose a photograph of us all for him to bring in for Mum the other day, but I spent ages talking on the phone to Alice and then I wanted to watch TV, so I just grabbed the first one I could find and it wasn't a good choice. It was taken at some wildlife park – Isaac isn't looking at the camera, Mum looks seriously fed up and half of Dad is obscured by someone who was walking past. I look pretty good – but that's only because I quite liked the
boy that Dad asked to take our photo and I was doing my best smile. It wasn't even a particularly good day out. It poured with rain and we got lost on the way there, which meant Mum and Dad moaned at each other for about an hour and then promised (yet again) to buy each other a satnav for their next wedding anniversary. Dad didn't say a word when I gave that photo to him, though, so I thought I'd got away with it – and to be honest, I couldn't really be bothered. Now I'm wishing I'd tried harder and found Mum a photo that reminds her how happy we used to be.