Jenny Downham Before I Die

Sixteen

He’s uglier than I remember. It’s as if he warmed up in my memory. I don’t know why that should be. I think how Zoey would snort with derision if she knew I’d come knocking on his door, and that thought makes me want to never let her know. She says ugly people give her a headache.

‘You’re avoiding me,’ I tell him.

He looks surprised for a second, but covers it up pretty quick. ‘I’ve been busy.’

‘Is that right?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So it’s not because you think I’m contagious? Most people start acting as if they can catch cancer from me in the end, or as if I’ve done something to deserve it.’

He looks alarmed. ‘No, no! I don’t think that.’

‘Good. So when are we going out on your bike then?’

He shuffles his feet on the step and looks embarrassed. ‘I haven’t actually got a full licence. You’re not supposed to take passengers without it.’

I can think of a million reasons why going on the back of Adam’s bike might be a bad idea. Because we might crash. Because it might not be as good as I hope. Because what will I tell Zoey? Because it’s what I really want to do more than anything. But I’m not going to let the lack of a full licence be one of them.

‘Have you got a spare helmet?’ I ask him.

That slow smile again. I love that smile! Did I think he was ugly just now? No, his face is transformed.

‘In the shed. I’ve got a spare jacket too.’

I can’t help smiling back. I feel brave and certain. ‘Come on then. Before it rains.’

He shuts the door behind him. ‘It’s not going to rain.’

We go round the side of the house and get the stuff from the shed. But just as he helps me zip into the jacket, just as he tells me his bike is capable of ninety miles per hour and the wind will be cold, the back door opens and a woman steps into the garden. She’s wearing a dressing gown and slippers.

Adam says, ‘Go back inside, Mum, you’ll get cold.’

But she keeps walking down the path towards us. She has the saddest face I’ve ever seen, like she drowned once and the tide left its mark there.

‘Where are you going?’ she says, and she doesn’t look at me at all. ‘You didn’t say you were going anywhere.’

‘I won’t be long.’

She makes a funny little sound in the back of her throat. Adam looks up sharply. ‘Don’t, Mum,’ he says. ‘Go and have your bath and get dressed. I’ll be back before you know it.’

She nods forlornly, begins to walk up the path, then stops as if she remembered something, and turns and looks at me for the first time, a stranger in her garden.

‘Who are you?’ she says.

‘I live next door. I came to see Adam.’

The sadness in her eyes deepens. ‘Yes, that’s what I thought.’

Adam goes over to her and grips her gently by the elbows. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘You should go back inside.’

She allows herself to be helped up the path and walked to the back door. She goes up the step and then she turns and looks at me again. She doesn’t say anything, and neither do I. We just look at each other, and then she goes through the door and into her kitchen. I wonder what happens then, what they say to each other.