Before I Die (9 page)

‘Is it supposed to hurt your neck?’

Adam shakes his head.

‘It feels as if my windpipe’s shrinking.’

‘It’ll stop.’ But a flicker of fear crosses his face.

Zoey glares at him. ‘Did you give us too much?’

‘No! It’ll be all right – she just needs some air.’

But doubt has crept into his voice. I bet he’s thinking the same as me – that I’m different, that my body reacts differently, that maybe this was a mistake.

‘Come on, let’s get you outside.’

I stand up and he leads me down the hallway to the front door.

‘Wait on the step – I’ll get you a coat.’

The front of the house is in shadow. I stand on the step, trying to breathe deeply, trying not to panic. At the bottom of the step is a path leading to the front driveway and Adam’s mum’s car. On either side of the path is grass. For some reason the grass seems different today. It’s not just the colour, but the shortness of it, stubbled like a shaved head. As I look, it becomes increasingly obvious that both step and path are safe places to be, but that the grass is malevolent.

I hold onto the doorknocker to make sure I don’t slip down. As I clench it, I notice that the front door has a hole in it that looks like an eye. All the wood in the door leads to this hole in spirals and knots, so it seems as if the door is sliding into itself, gathering and coming back round again. It’s a slow and subtle movement. I watch it for ages. Then I put my eye to the hole, but it’s cloudy in there, so I step back inside the hallway and close the door, and look through the hole from the other direction. The world is very different from in here, the driveway elongated into a thread.

‘How’s your throat?’ Adam asks as he reappears in the hallway and hands me a coat.

‘Have you ever looked through here?’

‘Your pupils are huge!’ he says. ‘We should go out now. Put the coat on.’

It’s a parka with fur round the hood. Adam does the zip up for me. I feel like an Inuit child.

‘Where’s your friend?’

For a minute I don’t know who he’s talking about; then I remember Zoey and my heart floods with warmth.

‘Zoey! Zoey!’ I call. ‘Come and see this.’

She’s smiling as she comes along the hallway, her eyes deep and dark as winter.

‘Your eyes!’ I tell her.

She looks at me in wonder. ‘Yours too!’

We peer at each other until our noses touch.

‘There’s a rug in the kitchen,’ she whispers, ‘that’s got a whole world in it.’

‘It’s the same with the door. Things change shape if you look through it.’

‘Show me.’

‘Excuse me,’ Adam says. ‘I don’t want to spoil the moment, but does anyone fancy a ride?’

He gets car keys from his pocket and shows them to us. They’re amazing.

He brushes Zoey away from the door and we step outside. He points the keys at the car and it beeps in recognition. I tread very cautiously down the step and along the path, warn Zoey to do the same, but she doesn’t hear me. She dances across the grass and seems to be fine, so maybe things are different for her.

I get in the front of the car next to Adam; Zoey sits in the back.

We wait for a minute, then Adam says, ‘Well, what do you think?’

But I’m not telling him any of that.

I notice how careful he is as he reaches for the steering wheel, as if tempting some rare animal to feed from his hand.

He says, ‘I love this car.’

I know what he means. Being in here is like sitting inside a fine watch.

‘It was my dad’s. My mum doesn’t like me driving it.’

‘Perhaps we should just stay here then!’ Zoey calls from the back. ‘Won’t that be fun!’

Adam turns round to look at her. He speaks very slowly. ‘I’m going to take you somewhere,’ he says. ‘I’m just saying she won’t be very happy about it.’

Zoey flings herself down across the back seat and shakes her head at the roof in disbelief.

‘Watch out with your shoes!’ he yells.

She sits up again very quickly and thrusts a finger at him.

‘Look at you!’ she says. ‘You look like a dog that’s about to shit itself somewhere it shouldn’t!’

‘Shut up,’ he says, and it’s completely shocking to me, because I didn’t know that voice was in him.

Zoey sinks back away from him. ‘Just drive the car, man,’ she mutters.

I don’t even realize he’s started the engine. It’s so quiet and expensive in here, you can’t hear it at all. But as we glide down the driveway and out of the gate, the houses and gardens in our street slide by, and I’m glad. This trip will open doors for me. My dad says musicians write all their best songs when they’re high. I’m going to discover something amazing. I know I will. I’ll bring it back with me too. Like the Holy Grail.

I open the window and hang out, my arms as well, the whole top half of me dangling. Zoey does the same in the back. Air rushes at me. I feel so awake. I see things I’ve never seen before, my fingers drawing in other lives – the pretty girl gazing at her boyfriend and wanting so much from him. The man at the bus stop raking his hair, each flake of skin shimmering as it falls to the ground, leaving pieces of himself all over this earth. The baby crying up at him, understanding the brevity and hopelessness of it all.

‘Look, Zoey,’ I say.

I point to a house with its door open, a glimpse of hallway, a mother kissing her daughter. The girl hesitates on the doorstep. I know you, I think. Don’t be afraid.

Zoey has pulled herself almost out of the car by heaving on the roof. Her feet are on the back seat, and her face has appeared alongside my window. She looks like a mermaid on the prow of a ship.

‘Get back in the bloody car!’ Adam shouts. ‘And get your feet off the bloody seat!’

She sinks back inside, hooting with laughter.

They call this stretch of road Mugger Mile. My dad’s always reading bits out of the local paper about it. It’s a place of random acts of violence, of poverty and despair. But as we pick up speed and other lives whip by, I see how beautiful the people are. I will die first, I know, but they’ll all join me one by one.

We cut through the back streets. The plan, Adam says, is to go to the woods. There’s a café and a park and no one will know us.

‘You can go crazy there and not be recognized,’ he says. ‘It’s not too far either, so we’ll be back in time for tea.’

‘Are you insane?’ Zoey yells from the back. ‘You sound like Enid Blyton! I want everyone to know I’m high and I don’t want any bloody tea!’

She heaves herself out of the window again, blowing kisses at every passing stranger. She looks like Rapunzel escaping, her hair snapping in the wind. But then Adam slams on the brakes and Zoey bangs her head hard against the roof.

‘Jesus!’ she screams. ‘You did that on purpose!’

She slumps down in the back seat, rubbing her head and moaning softly.

‘Sorry,’ Adam says. ‘We need petrol.’

‘Wanker,’ she says.

He gets out of the car, walks round the back to the nozzles and pumps. Zoey appears to be suddenly asleep, slumped in the back sucking her thumb. Maybe she’s got a concussion.

‘You OK?’ I ask.

‘He’s after you!’ she hisses. ‘He’s trying to get rid of me so he can have you all to himself. You mustn’t let him!’

‘I don’t think that’s true.’

‘Like you’d notice!’

She stuffs her thumb back in her mouth and turns her head from me. I leave her to it, get out of the car and walk over to speak to the man at the window. He has a scar like a silver river running from his hairline all the way down his forehead to the bridge of his nose. He looks like my dead uncle Bill.

He leans forward over his little desk. ‘Number?’ he says.

‘Eight.’

He looks confused. ‘No, not eight.’

‘OK, I’ll be three.’

‘Where’s your car?’

‘Over there.’

‘The Jag?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I don’t know its name.’

‘Jesus Christ!’

The glass between us warps to accommodate his anger. I back away in amazement and awe.

‘I think he’s a magician,’ I tell Adam as he approaches from behind and puts his hand on my shoulder.

‘I think you’re right,’ he whispers. ‘Best get back in the car.’

Later, I wake up in a wood. The car has stopped and Adam isn’t there. Zoey is asleep, spread out on the back seat like a child. Through the car window, the light filtering through the trees is ghostly and thin. I can’t tell if it’s day or night. I feel very peaceful as I open the door and step outside.

There are plenty of trees, all different kinds, deciduous and evergreen. It’s so cold it must be Scotland.

I walk about for a bit, touching the bark, greeting the leaves. I realize that I’m hungry, really, dangerously hungry. If a bear turns up, I’ll wrestle it to the ground and bite off its head. Maybe I should build a fire. I’ll lay traps and dig holes and the next animal that comes by will end up on a spit. I’ll make a shelter with sticks and leaves, and live here for ever. There are no microwaves or pesticides. No fluorescent pyjamas or clocks that glow in the dark. No TV, nothing made of plastic. No hairspray or hair dye or cigarettes. The petrochemical factory is far away. In this wood I’m safe. I laugh quietly to myself. I can’t believe I didn’t think of this before. This is the secret I came for.

Then I see Adam. He seems smaller and suddenly far away.

‘I’ve discovered something!’ I yell.

‘What are you doing?’ His voice is tiny and perfect.

I don’t answer, because it’s obvious and I don’t want him to look stupid. Why else would I be up here collecting twigs, leaves and so on?

‘Get down!’ he yells.

But the tree wraps its arms about me and begs me not to. I try to explain this to Adam, but I’m not sure he hears me. He’s taking off his coat. He starts to climb.

‘You need to get down!’ he shouts. He looks very religious coming up through the branches, higher and higher, like a sweet monk come to save me. ‘Your dad’s going to kill me if you break anything. Please, Tessa, come down now.’

He’s close, his face reduced to just the light behind his eyes. I bend down to lick the coldness from him. His skin is salty.

‘Please,’ he says.

It doesn’t hurt at all. We sail down together, catching great armfuls of air. At the bottom we sit in a nest of leaves and Adam holds me like a baby.

‘What were you doing?’ he says. ‘What the hell were you doing up there?’

‘Collecting materials for a shelter.’

‘I think your friend was right. I really wish I hadn’t given you so much.’

But he hasn’t given me anything. Apart from his name and the dirt under his fingernails, I barely know him at all. I wonder if I should trust him with my secret.

‘I’m going to tell you something,’ I say. ‘And you have to promise not to tell anyone. OK?’

He nods, though he looks uncertain. I sit up next to him and make sure he’s looking at me before I begin. Colours and lights blaze across him. He’s so luminous I can see his bones, and the world behind his eyes.

‘I’m not sick any more.’ I’m so excited it’s difficult to speak. ‘I need to stay here in this wood. I need to keep away from the modern world and all its gadgets and then I won’t be sick. You can stay with me if you want. We’ll build things, shelters and traps. We’ll grow vegetables.’

Adam’s eyes are full of tears. Looking at him cry is like being pulled from a mountain.

‘Tessa,’ he says.

Above his shoulder there’s a hole in the sky, and through it, a satellite’s static chatter makes my teeth tremble. Then it disappears and there’s only yawning emptiness.

I put my finger on his lips. ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘Don’t say anything.’

Fifteen

‘I’m on line,’ Dad says, pointing at his laptop. ‘Do you want to do your restless pacing somewhere else?’

The light from the computer flickers in his glasses. I sit down on the chair opposite him.

‘That’s annoying as well,’ he says, without looking up.

‘Me sitting here?’

‘No.’

‘Me tapping the table?’

‘Listen,’ he says, ‘there’s a doctor here who’s developed a system called bone breathing. Ever heard of that?’

‘No.’

‘You have to imagine your breath as a warm colour, then breathe in through the left foot, up the leg to the hip and then out the same way. Seven times, then the right leg the same. Want to give it a try?’

‘No.’

He takes off his glasses and looks at me. ‘It’s stopped raining. Why don’t you take a blanket and sit in the garden? I’ll let you know when the nurse gets here.’

‘I don’t want to.’

He sighs, puts his glasses back on and goes back to his laptop. I hate him. I know he watches me leave. I hear his small sigh of relief.

All the bedroom doors are shut, so it’s gloomy in the hallway. I go up the stairs on all fours, sit at the top and look down. The gloom has movement to it. Maybe I’m beginning to see things other people can’t. Like atoms. I bump down on my bum and crawl back up again, enjoying the squash of carpet beneath my knees. There are thirteen stairs. Every time I count them it’s the same.

I curl up at the foot of the stairs. This is where the cat sits when she wants to trip people over. I’ve always wanted to be a cat. Warm and domesticated when you want to be, wild when you don’t.

The doorbell rings. I curl myself tighter.

Dad comes out to the hallway. ‘Tessa!’ he says. ‘For Christ’s sake!’

Today’s nurse is new. She’s wearing a tartan skirt and is stout as a ship. Dad looks disappointed.

‘This is Tessa,’ he says, and points at me where I lie on the carpet.

The nurse looks shocked. ‘Did she fall?’

‘No, she’s refused to leave the house for nearly two weeks, and it’s sending her crazy.’

She comes over and looks down at me. Her breasts are huge and wobble as she holds out her hand to pull me up. Her hand’s as big as a tennis racket. ‘I’m Philippa,’ she says, as if that explains anything.

She leads me into the lounge and helps me to a seat, lowers herself squarely down opposite me.

‘So,’ she says, ‘not feeling too good today?’

‘Would you be?’

Dad shoots me a warning glance. I don’t care.