The Brilliant Light of Amber Sunrise (4 page)

Mum hadn't wanted to phone anybody but she did text Chris at some point, though she must have only asked him over for the Chinese takeout because when he arrived it was like nothing was different, which I suppose nothing really was except that it had now been given a name.

“Evening, loved ones,” he said, slumping down straightaway on the couch and knocking me out of the way. “There were two people arrested on the Metro for heavy petting. How bad is that?” he said, using my fork to pile some leftover noodles onto a plate. “It was like a porno. The woman . . . and I
use the term loosely . . . she had her leg up like this,” he said, chewing a prawn cracker as he reclined on the sofa. “And the bloke was . . . well . . . you could only really describe it as
rutting
.”

Mum didn't say anything. She just put the cork back into her bottle of wine in an act of unusual restraint. The wheels on our recycling bin would practically buckle beneath the weight of all her empties. After a talk on addiction at school I once did a ten-question quiz on her, pretending it was for homework. The outcome was that she might have been a functioning alcoholic. When I told her this she laughed and said no one had dared accuse her of being functioning before.

Denial is the first of addiction's five stages. The lady who gave the talk at school said so.

“Still rocking the heroin chic vibe, I see?” Chris said to me, and punched my arm playfully. I smiled but didn't say anything. I had lost over twenty-eight pounds and the bags under my eyes had grown six shades darker in hue. I'd measured them against the diagram on the whitening toothpaste box, roughly equating the brown shades there to the purple-green that had started to spread around my eyes.

“What's wrong? Has someone died?” Chris asked.

“Jesus,”
Mum said, getting up and going into the kitchen with her hand over her mouth.

“What?” Chris said as she left. “What?” he said again,
this time to me. “That was a prime opening anecdote. Funny, topical . . . it had everything going for it. I'm wasted on this family,” he said, and turned on the TV.

“I think you should follow Mum.” I nodded toward the kitchen, looking dead mournful. I thought it was a really blunt, poignant thing to say, and Chris would simply know from it that something bad had happened. But the dumb home videos they aired on
You've Been Framed
destroyed the mood I'd intended to set and Chris just shook his head, giving a big, elaborate moan before pushing a spring roll, whole, into his mouth.

“This better be worth it,” he said, and left me on my own.

One of the first things we learn is that people die. Then we start to learn why. Old age is the starting point. It's more or less palatable, something everybody can just about stomach; the Soup of the Day to mortality's grand buffet. People have long and happy lives, we are taught. Then they get tired. Then they just stop, fall asleep, forever. It's why grandparents are so useful. For most people our first death is one we always knew was coming. The one we'd been prepared for from day one.

Then we learn more. Guns. War. Disease.

Cancer.

The big words. The bad words. The words that never end well.

And now I was one of them. And for a moment on the sofa suddenly that was all I was. The sound of the TV fell away as I stared down at my own body. The body that had never cooperated. The hair that never stayed molded into the shape I wanted. The spots that appeared out of nowhere. The small mound of belly that stuck out over the waist of my jeans like I was constantly recovering from Christmas dinner. And those stupid, soft patches of fuzz that sprouted on my face but never fused into the sophisticated five o'clock shadow that I needed to wear so that everybody would know I was a tortured poet.

Then, to top it all off, my body had borne its own would-be killer, and if I died now it would be all that anybody remembered about me. It would be my death that mattered. Not my life. It would be that word. The word that was bigger than me and stronger than me and more famous than I ever would be.

For a second the weight of it seemed so huge that I had to concentrate hard to catch my breath.

Then there were the other, strange things I felt. Excited, a bit. That things were going to change, to become different and focused. And on me, which was a plus. It was like the time Granddad died (which was bad) but I got my first-ever suit, which everyone agreed I wore exceptionally well (which was good.) It was sort of like yin and yang, where every white bit has a corresponding black bit, and the black bit has a white bit.

Nothing's ever all bad if you think hard enough about it.

There was also the thought of school. I'd already been told I'd have to miss quite a lot. The doctors had talked about treatment and staying on a special ward and weeks and months and other timescales, which didn't seem to mean anything to me. I didn't like the idea of falling behind in lessons. But on the other hand, the idea of having to resit a whole year did hold a certain appeal. To my future classmates in I would have the wit and wisdom of a village elder or veteran rock star. Girls would flock and boys would flash green with envy. I could hold court and wow them all with tales of my experiences.

I might even consider affecting a cravat.

By the time they came back in, it was like they'd switched bodies. Mum was worryingly upbeat and Chris looked like he'd signed up for Disneyland and got a trip to the dentist.

He sat down next to me and didn't say a word. Didn't speak. Didn't blink.

“God, this is ridiculous,” Mum said bouncily. “Come on, let's put a DVD on. Francis love, you pick something,” she continued, popping the cork on her bottle and pouring herself a small glass.

“I don't mind . . .”

“Anything you like, really.”

“I don't. Well, maybe Chris . . .”

“Just pick a bloody DVD, Francis.”

I took the first thing that caught my eye and pressed play.

Everyone sat back and we watched the film. Only no one really watched; we just had an excuse not to look at one another for one hour and twenty-nine minutes precisely, after which I said good night and went to bed.

That night I lay in bed and tried to pinpoint exactly how I felt. I wasn't sure, so I tried crying, but that didn't work out too well either. I even tried having a deep thought about it all, about what it meant and why and how, only there didn't seem to be anything to think. It just was.

The one thing I did wish was that I had someone to tell, to have a big, heartbreaking scene with, where my quiet bravery would be expressed through their tears and hysterics. In truth there was no one. There was Grandma, I suppose, but she was even tougher than Mum and only cried once at Granddad's funeral, and that was when she realized she'd forgotten the corned beef pie for the wake. And there was Jacob, but he wouldn't get upset because he was emotionally stunted, due to the lack of a positive male role model since his dad had been arrested for embezzlement.

My lack of friends had never bothered me before. I'd had other things to occupy my time, like Chris and books and music and plans for the future. It used to worry Mum, though. Once she had me tested for autism, but the tests
proved futile. She had asked me why I didn't have any friends except for that idiot with the lank hair (meaning Jacob). I said it was because my real friends would come later. She asked me why I didn't at least try in the meantime, and I told her that I didn't like meeting new people as the ones I did meet I generally didn't like.

I tried to sleep but couldn't and kept tossing and turning, so went back downstairs for a drink. Mum never cried in front of us. Or she never had before. Even with Emma, and when Dad left, if things got too much for her she'd go upstairs and turn on the TV in her room, then come back downstairs five minutes later with red eyes and a fixed grin. She was crying that night, though, crying hard and breathlessly, like she'd been waiting her whole life to cry that way. Chris was holding her tightly to him, as if trying to squeeze her into silence. He looked determined, like he was hatching a plan.

I thought about going inside but didn't know what to say. I felt oddly guilty, so snuck back upstairs before they saw me, and went to bed.

CHAPTER THREE

When I used
to learn
big words, I would use them over and over again until eventually they lost their splendor, like a rare coin thumbed so many times it begins to tarnish. I once filled out a feedback form using the word “superfluous” on six occasions in the Further Comments box, a box that amounted to three dotted lines.

When I realized that “embellish” was the fancy way of saying “exaggerate,” that was all anyone seemed to do for a while. At Christmas I proudly told Grandma that Mum and I planned on embellishing the tree on the fifteenth and had selected a palette of red and gold embellishments from a store that year, and that her embellishment of the cake had been dead resplendent (another quality find that month).

It was different when I started learning swear words, particularly when I realized what they meant. I would keep each one secret, like the last bar of chocolate on a doomed voyage, and then when no one else was around I would let it dance and melt on my tongue over and over again. Only
this particular routine was cut short when Mrs. Lyle from number forty-two went blackberry picking one day and overheard me muttering a refrain of “wanker . . . wanker . . . wanker . . . wanker.” She wrote Mum a letter informing her, and posited undiagnosed Tourette's. I was grounded for a week and had the TV taken out of my room.

When they told me I had cancer, the word held a new quality. It felt charged, all potential, guaranteed to cause a reaction. But it was never the same reaction twice, which was a problem. So, for a while, I stopped saying it. I kept it to myself, like a new haircut or a daring pair of sneakers, until I felt comfortable letting it loose on the world at large. The word seemed wrong and awkward in my mouth, like the gum-shield I'd once been given as a precursor to the dreaded braces. I would sit on my bed and practice saying it, feeling it catch and snag in my throat, trying to find the right pitch and tone. Painful at first, then becoming easier, more natural, like a splinter making its way from a freshly bathed finger.

Of course, it didn't stay secret for long.

Jacob was quiet when I told him.

“The bad kind or the good kind?” he asked. I didn't entirely know how to respond to this. I knew there were bad and good bacteria, but wasn't aware of the type of cancer that came with benefits. “No,” he said, trying to explain
himself. “It's just my mum had a cell or something removed once that was a bit suspicious, but she only needed the afternoon off work so it was fine.”

I had deduced that it would take more than an afternoon and a Band-Aid to make me better, so eventually settled on the most accurate answer I could come up with.

“Medium, I suppose.”

We settled, eventually, on simply not acknowledging it at all in conversation, unless as a matter of complete medical emergency, which suited me down to the ground.

Not everyone was quite so lax about the situation.

People started taking notice of me where they never had before. Teachers began marking me up on homework even I knew was below par. I was usually a steady B. Not because I was naturally mediocre, but rather, I suspect, due to the fact that my intelligence was raw and untamed, like an artist's or a libertine's. My mind went beyond easy classification; try and pin it down to a standard category and it bucked and writhed, never quite as apparent in black and white as it was in my mind. Also I did a lot of my homework in front of the TV or on the Metro, so my handwriting was sometimes quite hard to read. Either way, my marks were solidly average. After the diagnosis you'd have thought I was one of those pale kids you see on the news who get high marks in every exam they take three years early, only I was achieving such greatness without
the inevitable early-­twenties breakdown. I didn't mind all that much. I just smiled weakly and whooped inside, each free mark another step to the university of my choice.

Other kids also started to behave strangely to me. No one made eye contact, no one spoke. It was as if for the first time in my life people knew who I was, and chose to demonstrate as much by ignoring me as elaborately as ­possible.

One Wednesday afternoon I was sitting in English Lit when Miss Cartwright came bustling into the classroom and had a word with Mr. Bryers.

“Francis Wootton, collect your things. You're being picked up,” he said from the front of the class. I was disappointed because it was getting to the good bit of
Romeo and Juliet
, but I dutifully did as instructed and left with Miss Cartwright.

“It's your appointment,” she said ominously, like we were in some alternate universe where everyone spoke in code.

I told her I didn't have an appointment and she shook her head sadly as she hurried me along the corridor.

“He said you'd say that. That you'd have your days mixed up.”

“He?”

“Never mind, sweetheart. Oh, love, you really are all to hell, aren't you?” she said, turning the corner into the
library where the secretaries sorted the attendance roster. “Off you go, sweetheart. We've told your teachers for this afternoon.”

“But I don't have an appointment. . . .”

Miss Cartwright shook her head and dabbed her nose with a handkerchief.

“So brave,” she said, scurrying back behind the counter.

Outside I couldn't see anyone and still didn't entirely know what was going on.

“All right, feller?” Chris said eventually, getting out of a car I hadn't seen before.

I could see Fiona waving at me from inside.

“What's happening?” I asked.

“Thought we'd have some time together. Nothing heavy. Just a bit of extracurricular bonding.”

I shrugged and got into the car.

Chris had borrowed it from a friend at work by saying that his little brother was at death's door with cancer (!), but he said it wasn't tempting fate because he knew I'd be fine. He drove like he always does, zigzagging in and out of lanes and leaving a choir of angry toots in his wake.

“We just thought we might as well have some fun,” Fiona explained.

“Don't tell Mum, though,” Chris said as he swerved past a truck.

“Where are we going?”

“Tyne and Wear is our oyster,” said my brother, and put on a CD.

The drive was the second best bit of the day. None of us knew where we were going. We had no plan. No final destination in mind. We just drove faster and faster until we arrived. And when we did, all I could think about was how much fun it had been getting there.

“Your uniform's looking especially avant-garde today,” said Fiona as we pulled into the parking space at the beach.

“Thanks. The trousers are actually skinny jeans—look!” I held up my thigh to show her the discreet denim, which was forbidden at school. The jeans weren't actually supposed to be skinny. That was just a lucky coincidence. None of my clothes fit properly because I was too scared to try anything on. I once got stuck in a pair of pants in Topman and started hyperventilating. Mum must have heard me panting and groaning and assumed I was doing something ungodly, because she threw the dressing room curtains open with a mortified look in her eyes and then burst into hysterics when she saw me struggling. She had never been very good in a crisis and provided little in the way of emotional stability. It was a wonder I turned out as stoical as I did. Things took an even worse turn when she started trying to yank them off my calves. The salesgirls just stood in the corner asking if we needed any help and Mum made a joke about them
having to fetch the Jaws of Life, which was a) not funny, and b) inappropriate given my shortness of breath at the time. I could easily have blacked out through stress.

The memory of it still haunted me; the upshot being I had clothes that either hung loose and baggy around me or were so skintight I could barely move. The jeans fell into the latter category.

“. . . and I put black suspenders on underneath my blazer.” I dipped my shoulder to provide supporting evidence. “It's a nod to Patti Smith on the cover of
Horses
. No one got it, though. I don't think the rest of my class are too well versed in seventies counterculture.”

“More's the pity,” she said, and put her arm around me. “Do you know something, Francis?” She took a long sip of soda and continued, “Years from now there are going to be women crying at their bachelorette parties, telling their friends that you were the best they ever had.”

“Not at the rate I'm going,” I said flatly.

It was true. I'd only ever kissed two girls, and one of them was my second cousin for a dare when I was six. The other was Paula Amstel, who wore a corrective shoe and couldn't say her Rs properly.

“Oh, Francis, it'll happen,” Fiona assured me.

“Do you think the Make a Wish Foundation could sort something out . . . you know, all things considered?” I asked, only half seriously.

Chris laughed from the front of the car and impressively managed to span three parking spaces before stopping the engine.

“I'll get a ticket, Don Juan,” he said, still chuckling, and slammed the door behind him.

When he was gone Fiona gave me a funny look. Not embarrassed, the way everyone at school had started to look, or pitying, like the teachers did. She looked like she was on a mission and determined to succeed.

“Francis,” she said, glancing through the back window like she was scared someone might be spying on us, “I'm going to do something now and I need you to know it's an act of humanitarian goodwill, okay?”

I nodded.

“I mean it! I don't want to be put on some register.”

“Okay.”

She sighed again and sat up straight in her seat.

“You can look but you can't touch, deal?”

“Deal,” I said.

Before I knew it she had lifted her sweater up and pulled down her bra.

I sat there, stunned.

I can categorically confirm that they were even better than Juliet's.

“There,” said Fiona, pulling her top down. “And if anyone asks, you can say we did tops and fingers. I'll back
you up that far. Beyond that you're on your own.”

I nodded even though I wasn't entirely sure what she meant. I wasn't very good at sex, even in theory. This was probably down to the fact that I had no real friends except for Jacob, and his track record with the opposite sex was as lousy as mine. Sex education was a joke because they only ever put on scratchy videos of women in labor and cartoons of men in white shorts swimming toward giant orbs. And even though she'd tried, Mum's attempt at The Talk hadn't been entirely illuminating. She just sat on my bed one day, stroking the sheets absentmindedly, and eventually asked if I knew that people got off with one another. When I told her I did, she looked relieved and said, “Good. Well, if you need any gaps filling in, then we've got broadband and I never check the history. . . .” Then left to make tea.