The Brilliant Light of Amber Sunrise (5 page)

The three of us walked along the promenade for a while and chatted about music and films. Chris kept stopping to text me the names of bands he said I should listen to and fall in love with, and Fiona kept linking my arm each time we passed groups of kids skipping school, making it look like she was my girlfriend.

About half an hour later we passed an ice-cream van, which looked sad and lonely in the winter sun, and Fiona dashed across for some emergency supplies. I hung around
to wait for her but Chris said she'd catch up and led me to a seat overlooking the water.

We sat quietly together for a while. Fiona had the knack of luring into conversation just about anyone she talked to. Even Grandma would talk to her for hours despite the fact that Fiona had tattoos and often wore clothes that exposed her navel. But something told me that this was more ­choreographed than her usual social detours.

Chris and I sat and watched two gulls fighting over a greasy sheet of newspaper, and I closed my eyes as the damp sea fog passed across my face. My brother didn't speak, just prodded the toe of his Converse into a puddle on the ground.

“Chris,” I said eventually, worrying about how long Fiona would be able to tolerate the conversation of the ice-cream man, “do you want to have a poignant conversation?”

He laughed and shrugged, kicking a cigarette butt from the puddle so that it slid off the edge of the promenade.

“Dunno. Do you?”

“Not really. Can't things just be normal?”

“Not really,” he said, and laughed again, only more sadly this time. “I'm so sorry, Frankie,” he continued, rubbing a hand across his mouth.

“There's nothing for you to be sorry about. It just is, I suppose. Besides, they're going to do loads to get rid of it.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “It'll be over before you know
it. And I'll feel like a boob about busting you out of school and forcing you into a Deep and Meaningful.”

“Probably. I'm glad you got me out of school, though. I'd forgotten my copy of
Birdsong
.”

“Are you scared?” he asked.

“Not really. I know the bits I need by rote.”

Chris bumped his shoulder against mine. He had gone to the trouble of securing an automobile, so the least I could do was meet him halfway on the big emotional scene he'd obviously envisioned.

“I suppose so,” I said after a while. “It just feels so big. Too big. It's like . . . remember that summer when Mum had the swimming pool built in the back garden without measuring it properly first?” I asked, and Chris laughed at the memory of one of her more obscure tangents. “And how, until she got the builders to take it out again, we had to walk around it with our backs against the fence just to get our bikes out of the shed? It's like that. Like suddenly it's right there, with no planning, no warning. And you can't
not
notice it. It's in the middle of everything, and it's ruining everything, but nobody knows how to get around it. I think I just want someone to tell us how to make it work, you know, how to make it fit in with everything else. Because it doesn't feel like there's enough room for it. I've got exams to think about for a start.”

Chris laughed and put his arm around me.

“What we need is an idiot's guide to leukemia. Maybe the bookstore will have something in.”

I felt all the hairs on my arms stand up. I did not like Chris saying the word. No matter how gentle they made their voices or how low they forced their tone, other ­people saying it made it sound like an accusation.

“Yeah, exactly,” I said after a while. “That'd make everything fine, if we just knew how it was all going to pan out. A timescale. That's what we need. Maybe a wall chart, like my study timetable.”

We both laughed, and Chris pulled his arm tighter around me.

“There isn't anything I wouldn't do to swap places with you, Frankie.”

“I know.”

“There isn't anything I won't do to make it easier for you.”

“I don't think there's anything you can do.”

“I know,” he said. “But I'll try.”

We were quiet again and eventually I told him that there was one thing he could help me with.

“And I need you to answer me honestly.”

“I will.”

“I just need to know. I mean, I probably do already know, but I just need you to explain exactly. . . .”

“What?”

“I mean, obviously I
know
, but just, if you could tell me for definite. . . .”

“What is it, Frankie?” he said, looking impatient. “Just say.”

“Well, I suppose, what I mean is . . . what exactly do people mean by tops and fingers?”

We got french fries because the smell from the shop made our mouths water, and then didn't eat them because they seemed so much more exciting in theory than in practice. We just sat in a bus stop because it had started to drizzle, warming our hands on the soggy newspaper, and chatted about all kinds of unimportant things, as if nothing was different, just like it was any other day when Chris and Fiona had kidnapped me from school. At one point I thought I saw Mum's car and started to have difficulty breathing when I thought my cover might be blown, but Fiona said cancer was like a dozen get-out-of-jail-free cards: No one was going to get me on anything behavioral for some time to come. Not even Mum.

They dropped me at the far end of the street so as not to arouse suspicion, and then ruined the whole operation by tooting six loud bursts of the horn as they drove away. I panicked and threw myself into Mrs. Jackson's shrubs. Truancy can result in a fine, which Mum could probably afford but which would also besmirch the otherwise immaculate permanent record I needed for applying to university.

When I got in, the house was quiet. Usually Mum had on music or the TV. Sometimes both. She was not like me. I needed an almost Zen-like state of calm when I did homework, and my desk had to be organized in a way that meant everything was both symmetrical and ordered by size. Mum's desk usually looked like a bomb had gone off, and her paperwork was always dog-eared and with coffee stains. It was a wonder she'd come as far as she had in life. To me, presentation was key. That was why I even had her iron my boxer shorts.

Grandma's shopping cart was in the hallway, so I knew she must be visiting. This usually meant good things, primarily a little pocket money and probably some sweets also. Grandma's company itself varied in quality. Sometimes she could be a real laugh. She and I were allies. When Grandma was about I was never to blame.

Other times she just made clucking sounds at everything Mum seemed to do, and Mum huffed and puffed like a teenager until she finally started yelling about stuff that happened ages ago and it all kicked off big style. The atmosphere sometimes became too much for me to take, so I removed myself to watch
The Simpsons
on the TV in the conservatory. That was my sanctuary. It was like the cluttered study of some Victorian detective. I'd had many of my most profound thoughts in here. I think it might have been because of the combination of the endless view toward the
sea and the muggy air, which lent the place the atmosphere of an opium den or Roman steam bath.

There was no sound coming from the front room until I made it inside. I saw Grandma sitting next to Mum on the sofa. She had her hand resting in Mum's lap. This was the first sign something was wrong. The TV had been muted. Another bad sign.

When I arrived inside Mum stood up and I could see that she had been crying again. I assumed that the full implication of my illness must finally have hit her and she was struggling to cope, so I moved toward her to comfort her, only she reached out and slapped me across the face. It wasn't hard. If anything, the sound was louder than the sting. But the point was made. Grandma held her hand to her mouth in shock, the way ladies of her age do. I was surprised she didn't flutter her handkerchief and slide unconscious to the floor. She was, after all, witness to the birth of abuse in the family home.

“They told me you were at the hospital,” Mum said, starting to cry. My cheek began to sting and I was cross that she was the one who was going to be getting all the sympathy. I thought about forcing myself to cry but it was no good. I could not bring myself to whore my emotions that way. So I just stood there, dumbstruck.

“You stupid, stupid boy,” Mum said, pulling me toward her. “Don't ever do that again.”

She hugged me for a moment and, though reluctant at first, I eventually relented and hugged her back. Mum heaved wet sobs onto my shoulder. I knew she'd be able to smell the sea on my clothes. I also started to panic that she'd smell ­Fiona's cigarettes on my uniform and assume I'd been smoking. If skipping three lessons warranted a facial assault, then the Lord knew what smoking might induce. It would probably be enough to inspire an entire trilogy of memoirs. Talk show hosts would end up congratulating me on my Journey.

But Mum didn't seem to notice the smoke, so I carried on hugging her. I was surprised she'd got in touch with the school in the first place, or vice versa. They'd never seemed to communicate that much in the past. One parents' evening Mum sat for forty minutes in the hallway of kindergarten before remembering I'd moved up into Elementary, then came back and blamed me for never showing her the letters I'd brought home.

I peeked over her shoulder to try and see whether or not I was in time for
The Simpsons
, but she must have misinterpreted my curiosity for affection because she started hugging me tighter, saying how sorry she was and how I was never to frighten her like that again. Grandma gave me a look and nodded, which meant she was proud of me, and suddenly I was proud of myself too. In that moment I was keeping my entire family afloat, and safe from complete emotional breakdown.

I suddenly felt quite burdened.

Dinner was a somber affair. Grandma told us stories about Granddad, which I'd heard a thousand times before but still smiled at because I liked hearing her tell them. Grandma was different when she talked about Granddad. It was as if someone jiggled her antenna and suddenly the picture became a bit clearer. Mum loved hearing about him too. They were always close. Mum had him and Grandma living with us when he had been unwell, and took loads of time off work to help out. Even Grandma said she'd made her proud, the way she had behaved.

Grandma was still there when I went to bed. When I hugged her to say good night she drew me tightly to her and gave me a surprisingly wet kiss and whispered in my ear that she loved me. I said it back, then said good night to Mum before making my way to bed.

The day's downward spiral had left me feeling low. I logged on to eBay to check my positive feedback comments in the vain hope that it might give me a confidence boost. It did, slightly, but not as much as usual. So I started searching for songs that spoke to the mood of the day. I came up with a promising opening trio: “Life on Mars” by David Bowie, “She's Leaving Home” by the Beatles, “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman.

I was starting to become engrossed in the task when I heard a knock at the bedroom door and Mum asked if she could come in.

I had to think twice before granting her access, fearing another outbreak of violence. Eventually I closed the laptop as quietly as I could and put it on the floor beside the bed, lying back as though I had just been woken up. I said that she could, but used a weak, tired voice so that she'd know to be gentle.

When she came in she started fussing about my desk, putting used tissues in the bin and pretending to be dead interested in the homework I'd left open to prove it was actually being done.

“I know you weren't asleep,” she said, sitting on my bed. “I could hear you closing the laptop.”

From downstairs I could hear the
Coronation Street
theme tune playing, which meant it was ten o'clock and Grandma was catching up with the soap opera's repeat.

“Sorry I skipped,” I said. I wasn't really sorry; I was pleased I'd had the day to myself. I wasn't even that sorry for scaring Mum anymore, not after her outburst. But I said it anyway, to try and make her feel better.