Growing up on an inner-city housing estate, I always longed to live by the coast where I could walk by the sea, bake my own bread and grow my own vegetables and maybe have my own ducks in a pond in the garden. One day, I’d hoped to live a totally self-sustainable life, and I could read books and listen to loud music and no one would tell me not to because no one would be close enough to hear. That was my plan for my future, but my future isn’t happening now, is it? It’s too late. I have left it too late thinking I had all the time in the world. Christ.
It hurts my head to reflect too much, but I guess I’m going to have to get used to recalling my past as my days here come to an end. I remember telling Birgit, my Danish one-time travel companion, about my ten-year life plan and how she encouraged me to follow my dreams to travel the world.
‘Always stop and savour the simple things,’ was her advice back then, and even though I didn’t ever get to be that globetrotter (unless you count package holidays to Spain or an annual weekend camping at Pontins), I have always remembered her words and promised myself that one day I would do just that. I would slow down and be present, I’d take in and appreciate everything I had instead of always looking out for tomorrow … but I don’t have too many tomorrows left now, do I?
It is July, my favourite time of year; when daisies bow and sway in what looks like a yellow and white sea below me, and the tree I carved my name in when I was a teenager is just in the distance, looking a bit more solemn despite its summer bloom. Maybe it knows what’s going on today too. Maybe everyone knew this was going to happen. Everyone that is, apart from me.
I pick at my nails, my weak, brittle nails that haven’t seen a good manicure in months and then I close my eyes and breathe. Sometimes it’s good to just breathe.
My mind races and I battle with my thoughts, trying desperately not to think of all the things I am going to really miss when I go. I count the months forward in my head. Michael couldn’t give me a specific timeframe on my life but I know in my heart that at a big stretch I’ll make Christmas. I’d give anything to see a white Christmas this year and, just one more time, to sit around the tree with my family and snuggle up with them as the snow falls, in front of a blazing fire.
I hold my head in my hands and try to fight off the wave of panic and breathlessness that I know is just around the corner. Rosie. What the hell is going to happen to my beautiful, innocent Rosie who has no idea what is going on and what life has laid out in front of her? And then the guilt … my God, the guilt for the life I brought her into; no father in her life, and now I am set to leave her all by herself with absolutely no one to call her own. Yes, she has my sister and her grandparents, and Dan for what it’s worth, but it’s not the same.
Who will take her to the cinema like I do, where we stuff our faces with nachos and popcorn and fizzy drinks and then complain about feeling sick all the way home? Who will know that when she gets a headache, it’s a sign of her time of the month and to get her a hot water bottle for her stomach cramps? Who will know that if you blend the vegetables in homemade soup she will eat it and love it with no idea that it’s laced with more greens and garlic than she could ever turn her nose up at? Who will drive her to her latest boyband’s gigs and wait for her as she tries to get a selfie with them afterwards and then who will mop up her tears when she is broken-hearted because they didn’t have time to stop to say hello? Who will hug her and wipe away very different tears when she has her heart broken for the first time in real life?
My phone bleeps for the third time since I got here, disturbing my train of thought, and I give in and read my messages despite my need to switch off and absorb what I have just been told.
‘I still love you, today and every day,’ says the first one, sent earlier this morning and I bite my lip, knowing that it’s from Dan. De’s changed his number because of our ‘break’ but despite our agreement of no contact until I’m ready, or until he does what he needs to do, he can’t resist sending a message – so I have his number just in case I need him. Despite his troubles I sometimes think I don’t deserve him. I never did.
‘Are you okay? Please text me Juliette,’ is the next one, from my sister Helen who is undoubtedly sick with worry as she waits on me to give her news. She wanted to come with me to the hospital but I wouldn’t hear of it. Michael was right when he said I was stubborn but I can’t face breaking any more hearts just yet. I want her to stay ignorant for as long as possible, even if that’s just for another hour or so.
‘Hope you enjoyed your pamper day, Mum!’ says the last one and on reading this I burst into tears. I had genuinely forgotten it was my birthday today.
Rosie has been planning something, I just know she has. I didn’t have the heart to tell her not to bother, that all this turning forty nonsense wasn’t really on my mind. This time last year I had so many plans for how I would celebrate this milestone and I suppose I still should. I’m still here, aren’t I? I’m not dead yet.
I’d better get home.
I pretend that I had no idea there would be any big fuss and smile through my touched up lipstick when I am met with a small, but perfectly formed, surprise gathering in my kitchen.
The duck egg blue cupboards and the fridge which is covered in pictures, drawings and memories from Rosie’s playgroup days through to her secondary school life, now greet me like a warm hug. It’s so good to be home.
‘You little rascal!’ I say to my teenage daughter. ‘How on earth did you do this without me knowing?’
To be fair, she has done a pretty good job as I take in the banners and the show stopping cake. Wow. I guess this really is quite a surprise.
‘Aunty Helen helped me,’ says Rosie and I hug her close again, closing my eyes and praying for the tears to stay put. When I open my eyes I see my sister staring at me, that old familiar look of fear bursting from her soul. I can’t react. Not now.
The party consists of my sister, her three boys and my daughter. I want to ask where my mother is but my sister beats me to it with an explanation.
‘Mum couldn’t face it,’ she whispers to me as soon as the kids are distracted with phones and other gadgets. ‘She has a migraine and has gone to bed. She’s crippled with worry, Jules.’
I shake my head.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I tell Helen. ‘I’ll call her later. It’s probably for the best that she rests. The less fuss we have today, the better.’
My sister gulps back her biggest fears when I say that.
‘So, what’s on the menu?’ I ask, sniffing the air. ‘Don’t tell me? Is it Helen’s famous fish pie?’
‘You got it in one!’ says my oldest nephew George as the children now wrestle for seats around my kitchen table, eyeing up the cake that sits as its centrepiece. It has my name on it and a big ‘40’ candle. Shit, this is too much.
‘I hope you’re hungry, Mum,’ says Rosie with wide eyes. ‘This is just the beginning of the celebrations. We have your favourite sweets for after and prosecco and chilli crisps and I even made Aunty Helen get ice cream though we already have cake – but my teacher told me that life begins at forty so we’ve pulled out all the stops. This is going to be your best birthday ever and you deserve it after all you’ve been through with that horrible chemo.’
Ouch.
‘It’s not every day you turn forty,’ says Helen, still trying to catch my eye but I just can’t look at her. I keep smiling and wowing and making other over-exaggerated sounds of enthusiasm to my daughter and my three young nephews but I know that Helen can see straight through me. I dare not catch her eye.
She just nods and stares as I touch my synthetic wig and when the kids have settled in front of a movie later and I break the news to her, she slowly shakes her head in disbelief and shock.
‘There has to be