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‘Now they think it might be something called AMS.’
‘Atypical Myoendocal disease.’ Her eyes had beamed at me. ‘Same as me, then. Welcome to the club! We’re very unique, you know. We’re less than one in five million.’
‘I feel honoured,’ I’d muttered under my breath.
‘You should feel honoured,’ she’d laughed, and I remember her blue eyes had been warm and bright with humour. ‘It means you now get the best consultant on the block; the gorgeous Doctor Ganz.’
‘Uh-huh.’ I’d already met him. He seemed kind. I didn’t think there was any danger I would be falling in love with him, though.
‘Just remember that I saw him first,’ she added, but there was a more important possibility rearing itself in my mind just at that moment.
‘Does it mean, if it’s atypical MS, that there’s any chance we could get better?’
That was the one and only time I ever saw a shadow cross Miriam’s face.
‘You don’t get better from this, Shelley,’ she told me. ‘It’s atypical, because it actually…’ she hesitated, ‘look, I guess I’d better let them explain it all to you when you go in. They’ll put it so much better than I ever could. Have you had an MRI done yet?’
‘That thing where you go in the tunnel and they look to see if there’s any nerve damage?’ I’d nodded but she didn’t say any more and I’d guessed, correctly, that she’d just been trying to distract me. Miriam was the one good thing to have come out of all of this. She was the best friend I ever had. She really was one in five million.
But the thing is, it was like she was a friend travelling the same road as me, only she happened to be further up ahead than I was. Every time she got a new symptom, I knew it would be only a matter of maybe six months to a year and then I would get it too. She never had any pain until the end, and neither have I had any yet. Nor do I want to. Dr Ganz kept saying to me that these things were all very individual. Nobody could predict how it would go. Not enough people had been studied to make any hard and fast conclusions. The only hard and fast conclusion that I know of is that the condition is, in the end, fatal. Miriam came to the end of her road. It’s a year later for me. I don’t need anybody to spell out what that means. I guess the thing I detest most about my situation is the inevitability of it. I’m like a fish caught in a net. There is no way out. Apart from the way I have thought up.
Which brings me back to my plan. At least this way I will be drawing my own last breath. And the air I draw will be warm and sweet and full of birdsong and the gentle crash of the waves on the shores of Summer Bay.
I can’t do it by myself. It’s not something I can do alone, and I don’t really want to be alone at the end. Now all I have to do is persuade someone to help me do it.
4 Shelley (#ulink_b03c89ac-3ab8-5bce-b904-8ca1775d07aa)
SugarShuli has come on MSN just now. She must be having a day off again. Like me, she doesn’t see much point in going to school but her reasons are different to mine. Her parents are bringing a boy over from Pakistan for her and she’s supposed to marry him just as soon as she’s legally allowed.
SugarShuli says: I’m off sick. How are you?
ShelleyPixie says: Okay. What’s up?
SugarShuli says: Nothing really. Just didn’t see much point in going in. What are you doing?
ShelleyPixie says: Right now, talking to you. I’m waiting for Krok to come online so if I go quiet…
SugarShuli says: Krok your bf?
ShelleyPixie says: Sort of. Online thing.
I haven’t actually met Krok of course, not in the flesh, but he’s sent me a picture of him and his mates when they were doing a gig in a pub in Hammersmith. Krok plays the bass but what he really wants to do is produce music. When he grows up, he says. He’s nineteen now, so I’m not sure when that will be.
Krok has got this dream: he’s going to set up his own recording studios one day and bring on a load of new young bands playing real music—real musicians, he says, not just pretty people prancing and miming. He says most real musicians are ugly. He isn’t. He has longish hair and the deepest blue eyes. Irish eyes, he tells me. He’s got a cheeky smile.
SugarShuli says: You two going to meet?
She means him, I suppose. Are we going to meet? I wish, I only wish I could. Don’t know how it would happen, though. I also worry that he might be put right off me if we ever did. It’s better this way. On the other hand, Daniel might be right with his list of resolutions. We don’t get forever. And I’m getting a lot less of forever than most people count on. I keep thinking that if there are things I want to do then I’d better get on and do them.
ShelleyPixie says: Yep. Sometime soon. I’m going to meet him.
SugarShuli says: I’ll be meeting Jallal soon too.
Surinda—that’s her real name—takes all this marrying Jallal business in her stride. She doesn’t seem to mind. It’s all part of her expectations, she tells me. She says it’s much harder for those people who have to go out and find someone and decide who to marry all for themselves. Hmm…
ShelleyPixie says: Good looking?
SugarShuli says: I haven’t seen a picture yet. He comes from a good family and I am assured they have money. That’s what counts, isn’t it?
ShelleyPixie says: Christ.
SugarShuli says: You know how it is.
Hang on a minute, I think Krok has just logged on so she’ll have to shut up for a bit. Krok is more important. I haven’t spoken to him since last Thursday. He’s got a busy schedule at the moment.
Krok says: Hey Pixie.
ShelleyPixie says: Hey Krok. How’s it going? Been missing you.
Krok says: Sorry, Pixie mine. Been following up on your advice so don’t be cross.
ShelleyPixie says: How so?
Krok says: I’ve been trying to get some funds together. My mate Bruno and me, we’re going in for that quiz show you were telling me about.
ShelleyPixie says: You never!
Krok says: We are. Don’t know if we’ll get selected but we’ve been short-listed down to the final fifty so keep everything crossed for us!
ShelleyPixie says: You’re going to be on Beat the Bank! OMG!
Krok says: Well, maybe. We’ll find out in a couple of days. Just wanted to let you know, sweetheart. It was U gave me the idea. What if I win the million pounds? What then?
ShelleyPixie says: You’ll make your dream come true. Yay!
Krok says: Send me a pic.
ShelleyPixie says: I haven’t got any recent ones.
Krok says: Send me one anyway.
ShelleyPixie says: I’ll see.
Krok says: Are you afraid I won’t like what I see?
ShelleyPixie says: No. I’m not that ugly.
Krok says: You have a heart of gold, Pixie. How could you ever be ugly? Marry me?
ShelleyPixie says: Only if you win the million. LOL.
He’s joking, by the way. He knows I’m on this time-limit thing. He knows I’m not going to last all that long. I told him about all that at the beginning. He’s gone quiet now. He’s probably talking to three girls at once. He’s asking them all to marry him. Guys who look like him don’t lack for girlfriends. Oh well. Where’s SugarShuli?
ShelleyPixie says: Still there?
SugarShuli says: Still here. Where’d you go?
ShelleyPixie says: Krok just came on. You wont believe it. He’s been chosen as a finalist on Beat the Bank.
Surinda watches this every Saturday evening. It’s what brought us together in the first place. She’s hooked on it, like me.
SugarShuli says: He never is!
ShelleyPixie says: It’s true.
SugarShuli says: When will he know? OMG. Could he get us tickets to be in the audience do you think?
That’s a thought that hadn’t occurred to me.
ShelleyPixie says: Might do. If he gets in. Would you even be allowed to come? Don’t know if Mum would take us. Actually I don’t even want my mum to take us. Mum always has to be in on everything. I want to do this without her. Maybe Surinda could help me?
SugarShuli says: I’ll tell my parents it’s a school project. I’ll come if your mum can take us.
ShelleyPixie says: No, Mum can’t do it. Can yours? What about we two go alone?
Krok’s back.
Krok says: Sorry, Pixie. Phone call interrupted there. I’m supposed to be working at the moment too.
ShelleyPixie says: Who wants to hire DVDs at this time in the morning?
Krok says: You’d be surprised. Never mind the shop, though, Pix. I’ve got a stint at the recording studio this afternoon.
ShelleyPixie says: Cool. Hope they give you a job.
Krok says: It’s all good experience. They like me helping out. Maybe they’ll hire me eventually!
ShelleyPixie says: They should.
SugarShuli says: Hey, Krok, I’m Surinda.
Hell, where did SHE come from?
ShelleyPixie says: Private conversation, SugarShuli.
I’m going to kill her.
SugarShuli says: Sorry. Good luck with the Beat the Bank thing, man.
Krok says: Thanks.
Krok says: Who’s that?
ShelleyPixie says: Just a friend who wants to come with me when you send me tickets to see the Beat the Bank being recorded.
Krok says: Will do. Got to go now, Pixie.
ShelleyPixie says: Speak soon?
Krok says: Very soon. Bye bye, sweetie.
He’s gone.
SugarShuli says: He’s cute, Shell.
ShelleyPixie says: You’ve been looking in my photos file?
SugarShuli says: Why not? You can look in mine.
ShelleyPixie says: You’ve got nothing in there. Not even Jallal.
SugarShuli says: Are you sure your mum can’t take us? Ask her again.
ShelleyPixie says: Yep, okay, speak later.
Silly cow. She could help me get there. We could take the train.
I shouldn’t complain I suppose. At least Surinda from my form class still keeps in contact with me, which is more than Michelle and the others have done since I stopped going to school. They say they’re really busy. I know some of them are seeing boys and the ones who aren’t are just hanging out hoping to see some boys or else they’re studying. I don’t know why I don’t want to hang out with them any more. I just don’t see the point. Sometimes I just wish I didn’t think so much. Life would be a lot easier.
If Krok sends us the tickets I think I’ll have to make an excuse. I don’t even want him to have a picture of me, much less actually see me in real life. I couldn’t cope with that. It’s not going to happen. I’m not even going to ask Mum so Surinda can forget all about that. I know what she’s like, though, she won’t let it go now.
I wish I’d never told her.
5 Rachel (#ulink_ad1e03e0-07a8-51b5-b5a9-e7c043a3b7c1)
‘Coo-eee?’ Annie-Jo’s special-edition turquoise Mazda Berkeley MXS just pulled up in the drive. I can hear her Josh and my Daniel clambering out, chasing after one another, laughing. They’ll be round the back in a minute, dark curls crashing against short blond spikes, racing up the new treehouse my old friend Sol has installed in the oak tree for Daniel.
My hands are deep in the earth. I’ve been digging a trench so I can insert a palisade of sticks like a little fort; somewhere we can put Daniel’s tortoise Hattie so she won’t be able to escape. It’s seven thirty and the last rays of the sun are beginning to slope over the rooftops, bright yellow and a bit chilly now, the sky just getting shaded in with patches of grey.
‘You’re back early?’ I scramble to my feet, wiping earthy hands behind my back before hugging my old friend. She is looking far too nice for me to get soil all over her. I take her in a little wistfully: ‘You’ve been out celebrating something today?’ She’s dressed in an elegant skirt and a soft white blouse and she looks…radiant somehow. The thought that she might be pregnant again crosses my mind. She is five years younger than me; it is still possible, after all. Her new husband Bryan has adopted her two but they don’t have any children between them. Not yet.
‘Oh no!’ she laughs dismissively ‘Just been running around town doing errands, you know the sort of thing. Nothing special. We’re going to be “lunching” next week, though. Would you like to come? Say you will. My treat.’ For a moment she smiles at me and I catch a glimpse of the old Annie-Jo; the one who would have come to visit me wearing torn jeans and a faded T-shirt with baby-food stains still on it. That Annie-Jo would have flopped down beside me on the grass and we’d have finished off Hattie’s palisade of sticks together in no time. This Annie-Jo looks like she’s just had her nails done. She isn’t going to be up for any digging.
‘See what day you’re going. I might come. I’d like to.’ I do want to have lunch with Annie-Jo, but probably not with all her new friends. We’d see. ‘I suppose we’d better get you inside then. I can’t have you out here drinking tea in your finery.’
‘Where’s that old garden bench we used to sit on?’ She looks around, frowning.
‘I threw that away two years ago, Annie-Jo!’ I laugh at her, but it surely can’t have been two years since she last came and sat out in the garden with me? When our children were little we practically used to live in this garden. Her daughter Michelle is just a month older than Shelley, and she had Josh pretty much around the same time I had Daniel. In those days Annie-Jo was a single mum, struggling on her own in a bedsit. Now she’s married to Bryan and they live in what I can only describe as a mansion in the better half of town. How times change!
