Miss You (2 page)

Doll finally revealed what was on her mind. ‘Do you think we’ll still be friends?’

‘What do you mean?’ I pretended not to know what she was asking.

‘When you’re at university with people who know about books and history and stuff . . .’

‘Don’t be daft,’ I said confidently, but the treacherous thought had already crossed my mind that next year I would probably be holidaying with people who would want to look at
the small collection of painted Greek vases in the site museum, or enjoy comparing the work of Michelangelo and Donatello, and the other Ninja Turtles (as Doll referred to them).

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

There was a little twist of excitement and fear in my tummy whenever I allowed myself to think about the future.

Back in Florence, we made a small detour for another ice cream. Doll couldn’t resist the chocolate again, this time with melon, and I selected pear which tasted like the essence of a
hundred perfectly ripe Williams, with raspberry, as sharp and sweet as a childhood memory of summer.

The Ponte Vecchio was a little quieter than it had been at the start of the day, allowing us to look in the windows of the tiny jewellery shops. When Doll spotted a silver charm bracelet that
was much cheaper than the rest of the merchandise, we ducked through the door and squeezed inside.

The proprietor held up the delicate chain with miniature replicas of the Duomo, the Ponte Vecchio, a Chianti bottle and Michelangelo’s
David
.

‘Is for child,’ he said.

‘Why don’t I buy it for Hope?’ Doll said, eager to find a reason to spend the rest of her money.

We were probably imagining, as we watched the man arrange the bracelet on tissue in a small cardboard box stamped with gold fleurs-de-lys, that this would be something my sister would keep
safely in a special place and that, from time to time, we would all unwrap it together and gaze upon it reverently, like a precious heirloom.

Outside, the light had deserted the ancient buildings and the noise of the city had softened. The mellow jazz riff of a busker’s clarinet wafted on the balmy air. At the centre of the
bridge, we waited for a gap in the crowd so we could take photos of each other against the fading golden sky. It was weird to think of all the mantelpieces we would appear on in the background to
other people’s photos, from Tokyo to Tennessee.

‘I’ve got two shots left,’ Doll announced.

Scanning the crowd, my eyes settled on a face that was somehow familiar, but which I only managed to place when he frowned with confusion as I smiled at him. It was the boy I’d seen in San
Miniato al Monte that morning. There was a reddish tinge to his hair in the last rays of sunshine, and he was now wearing a khaki polo shirt and chinos, and standing awkwardly beside a middle-aged
couple who looked like they might be his parents.

I held the camera out to him. ‘Would you mind?’

The perplexed look made me wonder if he was English, then, his pale, freckly complexion flushing with embarrassment, he said, ‘Not at all!’ in a voice Mum would have called
‘nicely spoken’.

‘Say cheese!’

‘
Formaggio!
’ Doll and I chorused.

In the photo, our eyes are closed, laughing at our own joke.

With a six-berth couchette to ourselves, we lay on the bottom bunks, passing a bottle of red wine between us and going over our memories of the holiday as the train trundled
through the night. For me, it was views and sights.

‘Remember the flowers on the Spanish Steps?’

‘Flowers?’

‘Were you even on the same holiday?’

For Doll, it was men.

‘Remember that waiter’s face in Piazza Navona when I said I liked eating fish?’

We now understood that the phrase had another meaning in Italian.

‘Best meal?’ said Doll.

‘Prosciutto and peaches from the street market in Bologna. You?’

‘That oniony anchovy pizza thing in Nice was delish . . .’

‘
Pissaladière,
’ I said.

‘Behave!’

‘Best day?’

‘Capri,’ said Doll. ‘You?’

‘I think today.’

‘Best . . . ?’

Doll drifted off, but I couldn’t sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes, I found myself in the little room I had reserved in the university halls of residence which, until now, I hadn’t
allowed my imagination to inhabit, excitedly placing my possessions on the shelves, my duvet cover on the bed, and Blu-Tacking up my new poster of Botticelli’s
Primavera
which was
rolling gently from side to side on the luggage rack above me. Which floor would I be on? Would I have a view over rooftops towards the Telecom Tower, like the one they’d shown us on Open
Day? Or would I be on the street side of the building, with the tops of red double-decker buses crawling past my window and sudden shrieks of police sirens that made it feel like being in a
movie?

The air in the compartment grew chilly as the train started its climb through the Alps. I covered Doll with her fleece. She murmured her thanks but did not wake, and I was glad because it felt
special to have private time to myself, just me and my plans, travelling from one stage of my life to the next.

I must have fallen asleep in the small hours. I awoke with the rattle of a breakfast trolley. Doll was staring dismally at viscous raindrops chasing each other down the window as the train sped
across the flat fields of Northern France.

‘I’d forgotten about weather,’ she said, handing me a plastic cup of sour coffee and a cellophane-wrapped croissant.

It wasn’t that I was expecting bunting, or neighbours lining the street to welcome me back, but as I walked up Conifer Road after leaving Doll outside her house on
Laburnum Drive, I couldn’t help feeling disappointed that everything was exactly the same. Our council estate was built in the late sixties. It was probably the height of modernity then with
its regular rectangular houses half pale brick, half white render, and communal lawns instead of front gardens. All the streets were named after trees, but apart from a few spindly flowering
cherries, nobody had bothered to plant any. Some of the right-to-buy households had added a glazed porch at the front, or a UPVC conservatory to the through-room downstairs, but the houses all
still looked like the little boxes in that song. With a month’s distance, it was clear to me that I had outgrown the place.

Mum only had a rough idea of when I’d be getting back, but I was still slightly surprised that she and Hope were not positioned by the window or even sitting on the front lawn, waiting for
me. It was a lovely evening. Maybe Mum had filled the paddling pool in the back garden? Perhaps there was too much splashing for them to hear the bell?

Eventually, a small, familiar shape appeared on the other side of the frosted glass.

‘Who’s there?’ Hope called.

‘It’s me!’

‘It’s me!’ she shouted.

It was never quite clear whether Hope was playing games or being pedantic.

‘It’s Tree!’ I said. ‘Come on, Hope, open the door!’

‘It’s Tree!’

I could tell Mum was responding from somewhere in the house but I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

Hope knelt down to speak through the letter box at the bottom of the front door. ‘I get chair from kitchen.’

‘Use the one in the hall,’ I instructed through the letter box.

‘Mum said kitchen!’

‘OK, OK . . .’

Why didn’t Mum come down herself? I was suddenly weary and irritable.

Eventually, Hope managed to open the door.

‘Where is Mum?’ I asked. The house was slightly chilly inside and there was no warm smell of dinner on the air.

‘Just getting up,’ said Hope.

‘Is she poorly?’

‘Just tired.’

‘Dad not home yet?’

‘Pub, I ’spect,’ said Hope.

I manoeuvred my rucksack off my back, then Mum was at the top of the stairs, but instead of rushing down delighted to see me, she picked her way carefully, holding the banister. I put it down to
the slippers she had on under the washed-out pink tracksuit she wore for her aerobics class. She seemed distant, almost cross, and wouldn’t catch my eye as she filled a kettle at the
sink.

I looked at my watch. It was after eight o’clock. I’d forgotten it stayed lighter in the evenings in England. I started to think I should have found a phone box and rung home after
getting off the ferry, but that didn’t seem a serious enough offence for Mum to give me the silent treatment.

I noticed Mum’s hair was unbrushed at the back. She had been in bed when I arrived. Just tired, Hope had said. She’d had four weeks of coping on her own.

‘I can do that,’ I offered, taking the kettle from her.

I felt the first whisper of alarm when I noticed the collection of dirty mugs in the kitchen sink. Mum must really be exhausted, because she always kept the place spotless.

‘Where’s Dad?’ I asked.

‘Down the pub, I expect,’ said Mum.

‘Why don’t you go back upstairs and I’ll bring you a cup?’

To my surprise, because nothing was ever too much trouble for Mum, she said, ‘All right,’ then added, as if she’d only just remembered I’d been away, ‘How was your
holiday?’

‘Great! It was great!’

My face was aching with smiling at her and not getting anything back.

‘The journey?’

‘Fine!’

She was already on her way back upstairs.

When I took the tea up, my parents’ bedroom door was open and I caught a glimpse of Mum’s reflection in the dressing-table mirror before I entered the room. You know how sometimes
you see people differently when they’re not aware you’re looking at them? She was lying with her eyes closed, as if some vital essence had drained from her, leaving her insubstantial,
like an echo of herself. For a couple of seconds I stared, and then she stirred, suddenly noticing me standing there.

Her eyes, bright with anxiety, locked on mine, telegraphing,
Don’t ask in front of Hope.
Then, seeing I was alone, closed again, relieved.

‘Let’s sit you up,’ I said.

She leaned against me as I plumped up the pillows behind her, and her body felt light and fragile. Half an hour before, I’d been walking up the Crescent, hating how familiar and ordinary
it was, and now everything was shifting around me like an earthquake and I desperately wanted it to go back to normal.

‘I’m poorly, Tess,’ she said, in answer to the question I was too scared to ask.

I waited for her to say, ‘It’s OK, though, because . . .’ But she didn’t.

‘What sort of poorly?’ I asked, giddy with panic.

Mum was diagnosed with breast cancer when she was pregnant with Hope. She hadn’t had the chemo until after Hope was born, but she’d recovered. She’d had to go regularly for a
check-up but the last one, just a few months ago, had been clear.

‘I’ve got cancer of the ovary and it’s spread to my liver,’ she said. ‘I should have gone to the doctor before, but I thought it was a bit of
indigestion.’

Downstairs, Hope was singing a familiar tune, but I couldn’t work out what it was.

My brain was trying to picture Mum before I left. A bit tired, perhaps, and worried, I’d thought because of my exams. She was always there for me: in the kitchen at breakfast time, keeping
Hope quiet as I raced through my notes; and when I came home, with a cup of tea and a listening ear if I wanted to talk, or if I didn’t, just pottering around washing up or chopping
vegetables, a quietly supportive presence.

How could I have been so selfish that I didn’t notice? How could I have even gone on holiday?

‘There was nothing you could do,’ Mum said, reading my thoughts.

‘But you were fine at your last scan!’

‘That was in my breast.’

‘And they don’t check the rest of you?’

Mum put a finger to her lips.

Hope was on her way upstairs. The nursery rhyme was ‘Goosey Goosey Gander’, except she was singing ‘Juicy Juicy Gander’.

‘Upstairs, downstairs, in my lady chamber . . .’

We forced ourselves to smile as she came into the room.

‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

‘OK!’ I jumped up from the bed. ‘I’ll make your tea.’

If I’d needed further evidence how bad things were, it was the empty fridge. Although there was never a lot of money in our family, there was always food. I felt suddenly angry with my
father. In our house the division of labour was very traditional: Dad was the breadwinner, Mum was the homemaker, but surely he could have stirred himself in these circumstances? I pictured him in
the pub milking the self-pity, with his mates buying him pints. Dad was always moaning about the hand life had dealt him.

I found a can of Heinz spaghetti in the cupboard and put a slice of bread in the toaster.

Hope was staring at me, but my mind was so full with trying to take it all in, I couldn’t think of anything to say to her.

The spaghetti began to bubble on the stove.

I slopped it onto the piece of toast, recalling the bowl of perfectly al-dente pasta we’d eaten in Fiesole the day before, with a sauce that tasted of a thousand tomatoes in one spoonful,
and Florence in the distance, the backdrop to a Leonardo painting, so far away now, it felt like another life.

The dictionary confirmed that ‘plangent’ means resonant and mournful. It comes from the Latin
plangere
: to beat the breast in grief.

I took up distance running after my brother died because it was an acceptable way of being alone. Other people’s concern was almost the most difficult thing to deal with.
If I said I was OK, they looked at me as if I was in denial; if I admitted I was finding things pretty difficult, there was no way for them to make it better. When I said I was training for a
charity half-marathon to raise money for people with sports injuries, people nodded, satisfied, because Ross had been killed in a skiing accident, so it made sense.

At optimum speed, the rhythmic pounding of shoe on road delivered a kind of oblivion that had become addictive. It was what made me get out of bed every morning, even on holiday, although in
Florence, the uneven cobbles and sudden, astonishing encounters with beauty, made it difficult to maintain a pace that made me forget where or who I was.