“Okay, I know that. I know you would …” she mutters, her fingers screwing up into tight fists in front of her, as though she’s trying to keep herself calm, desperately trying to avoid using the L-word. “I know that, but I still don’t want to move away. I’ll be better. I won’t go out as much. I’ll … I don’t know, I’ll stop puking on the living room floor. I’ll work harder. I’ll start smoking menthol … whatever you like. But not that – I won’t go and live in the 1950s, all right?”
I bite back a bout of inappropriate laughter at that little speech. She’ll start smoking menthol? To hijack a phrase I’m told is popular with the kids these days, WTF? Or even WTF-ing-F? How bad have things become, that Martha sees swapping one cancer stick for another as a sign of commitment to a new lifestyle?
I suppose it is, at least, a step in the right direction. The only problem is, I’m determined that we’ll be taking a lot more steps in another direction – all the way to Dorset. I’ve been pondering it all morning, and it’s doable. Kate, straight after her diagnosis – well, straight after the bit that involved us and a bottle of Grey Goose – had gone in to see her bank manager and her solicitor.
She wasn’t by any means wealthy, but she had a proper job – head of English at a high school – which came with a pension, and when she’d bought the house she’d done uncharacteristically grown-up stuff like take out shedloads of life assurance. Money, for the time being, wasn’t an issue. The mortgage was sorted, there was a lump sum for Martha when she was older, and there was a chunk set aside for the next two years while Martha was still living at home with me.
After taking advice from the legal people, she’d structured things so that I managed the cash until Martha was either 18 or 21, at my discretion.
That in itself had made us both laugh, unlikely as it seems. We’d sat on the sofa, telling each other it wouldn’t come to that, that the treatment would work, that she’d carry on as a boob-less wonder and we’d all be together until we were ancient, smelly old crones.
But if it didn’t … then Martha’s financial future was going to depend on ‘my discretion.’
“I know it’s just a legal phrase,” Kate had said, grinning at me despite the grimness of the situation, “but really? You’re an absolute nutter, Zoe. Remember that time you spent a whole week’s worth of wages on tickets to see Fun Lovin’ Criminals? Or the time you got a taxi all the way back from London because the woman sitting next to you on the train was eating a pickled egg?”
“Well, you must admit that Scooby Snacks was a classic of our time … and I swear to God, if you’d smelled those pickled eggs, you’d have done the same …”
“Okay. But what about when you were 19, and you decided you were going to hitch-hike round the UK trying out all the Little Chefs because you liked those cherry pancakes so much?”
“That one was a bit weird. I think I only made it as far as Bath. But … yeah. I am a nutter, you’re right. Are you sure about this? About me, and Martha, and … my discretion?”
She’d reached out and held my hand, squeezing my fingers as though I was the one who needed reassuring, and said: “100%. I’d trust you with my life – and I trust you with Martha’s.”
Remembering that now, as I look at Martha – the child who has selflessly just offered to start smoking menthol to placate me – I wonder if Kate hadn’t been a bit of a nutter herself. Or whether she saw something in me that I couldn’t quite see in myself.
“I think,” I say to Martha, who’d helpfully taken the first mug of coffee out of my hands and started drinking it herself, “that you need to stop smoking completely. You’re 16. You probably don’t have a raging case of the black lung just yet, so quit while you’re ahead. And as to Dorset … well, don’t throw one of your diva fits, sweetie, but you’re not doing so well, are you?”
Martha opens her mouth to argue with me – in fact it’s usually the only thing she open her mouth for these days, other than to insert a menthol, presumably – but I hold up one hand to stop her.
“Nope! Not listening! I’m not having an argument with someone whose face I pulled out of their own vomit last night, all right? You’re not doing so well, and that’s that. Neither am I. I think we need to make some changes. We need a new world order, because this one sucks.”
I’m saved from the oncoming tirade by a knock on the door. We both stare at each other, momentarily taken aback, before we hear a familiar voice: “Coo-ee! It’s only me!”
For once in complete agreement, Martha and I do a neatly choreographed eye-roll, and sigh in mutual exasperation.
“It’s Sunday, isn’t it?” I say, glancing at my watch and seeing that it is dead on noon. Our common nemesis is nothing if not punctual.
“Yeah. Shit. We forgot. How does Sunday keep happening so often?” she replies, looking genuinely confused.
“I don’t know … it’s like we’re trapped in some kind of hell dimension, doomed to eternal knocks on the door and ‘coo-ees’, and …”
“And the next line – any minute now …”
We both pause, our heads on one side like curious budgerigars, and grin as we wait for the inevitable.
“It’s only me!” shouts Barbara again, and I can just picture her on the doorstep, faffing with her scarf and checking her cameo brooch and sniffing the air like she’s a bloodhound on the track of moral iniquity. “Don’t like to intrude,” she trills, “but I’ll just use my key …”
Martha stares at me. I stare back.
“She’s lying,” says Martha, swigging down the last of the coffee. “She loves intruding. You should get the locks changed.”
She strides off to go and get properly dressed, and I attempt to smooth my crazy curls down into something less likely to make Barbara make the sign of the cross when she sees me.
It’s Sunday. Again. Which means that Martha gets the unrivalled joy of lunch with her grandparents – and I get a few more hours to plan our escape to the West Country.
By the time Martha comes home, I have e-mailed the landlady of The Rockery, checked out the courses at the college, and looked for dogs at the nearest rescue centre. I’ve made notes, and looked at our finances, and pondered the idea of renting out my flat to make it all stretch a little further.
I mean, it’s not like I need my flat any more. It’s across the road, the bottom half of a sandstone terrace, and is now more of a museum to my previous existence than a functioning residence. It’s full of books and clothes I’ll never wear again and cheap hippy jewellery I used to think made me look super-cool at festivals. I don’t need it any more – technically at least.
And yet for some reason, I’ve kept it – probably because in the same way that Martha needs that ‘I’m 16, you can’t make me’ reassurance, I also need my ‘I can run away if it all gets too much’ reassurance.
It has happened a few times – I’ve made the desperate dash over there, winding my way through the recycling bins and neighbourhood cats to let myself in. To lie on my own bed, in my own territory. In the end, I decide against it – I’ll keep the flat, and instead I’ll use my life savings. I’ve got an ISA – which Kate made me take out – that contains the less than impressive lump sum of just under £5,000. But I don’t need much, and that’ll keep me going for a few months at least, allow me to pay my way instead of just using Kate’s money.
There’s a lot to sort out, and I’ll have to think about