Jenny Downham Before I Die

Thirty-nine

Zoey’s sewing. I didn’t know she could. A lemon-coloured baby suit is draped across her knees. She threads the needle, one eye shut, pulls the thread through and rolls a knot between licked fingers. Who taught her that? For minutes I watch her, and she sews as if this is how it’s always been. Her blonde hair is piled high, her neck at a tender angle. She bites her bottom lip in concentration.

‘Live,’ I tell her. ‘You will live, won’t you?’

She looks up suddenly, sucks bright blood from her finger. ‘Shit!’ she says. ‘I didn’t know you were awake.’

It makes me chuckle. ‘You’re blooming.’

‘I’m fat!’ She heaves herself upright in the chair and thrusts her belly at me to prove it. ‘I’m as big as a bear.’

I’d love to be that baby deep inside her. To be small and healthy.

Instructions for Zoey

Don’t tell your daughter the planet is rotting. Show her lovely things. Be a giant for her, even though your parents couldn’t do it for you. Don’t ever get involved with any boy who doesn’t love you.

‘When the baby’s born, do you think you’ll miss the life you had before?’

Zoey looks at me very solemnly. ‘You should get dressed. It’s not good for you to sit around in your pyjamas all day.’

I lean back on the pillows and look at the corners of the room. When I was a kid, I always wanted to live on the ceiling – it looked so clean and uncluttered, like the top of a cake. Now it just reminds me of bed sheets.

‘I feel like I’ve let you down. I won’t be able to babysit or anything.’

Zoey says, ‘It’s really nice outside. Shall I ask Adam or your dad to carry you out?’

Birds joust on the lawn. Ragged clouds fringe a blue sky. This sun lounger is warm, as if it’s been absorbing sunlight for hours.

Zoey’s reading a magazine. Adam’s stroking my feet through my socks.

‘Listen to this,’ Zoey says. ‘This won the funniest joke of the year competition.’

Number fourteen, a joke.

‘A man goes to the doctor’s and says, “I’ve got a strawberry stuck up my bottom.” “Oh,” says the doctor, “I’ve got some cream for that.” ’

I laugh a lot. I’m a laughing skeleton. To hear us – Adam, Zoey and me – is like being offered a window to climb through. Anything could happen next.

Zoey shoves her baby into my arms. ‘Her name’s Lauren.’

She’s fat and sticky and drooling milk. She smells good. She waves her arms at me, snatching at air. Her little fingers with their half-moon nails pluck at my nose.

‘Hello, Lauren.’

I tell her how big and clever she is. I say all the silly things I imagine babies like to hear. And she looks back at me with fathomless eyes and gives a great big yawn. I can see right inside her little pink mouth.

‘She likes you,’ Zoey says. ‘She knows who you are.’

I put Lauren Tessa Walker at my shoulder and swim my hand in circles over her back. I listen to her heart. She sounds careful, determined. She is ferociously warm.

Under the apple tree, shadows dance. Sunlight sifts through the branches. A lawnmower drones far away. Zoey’s still reading her magazine, slaps it down when she sees I’m awake.

‘You’ve been asleep for ages,’ she tells me.

‘I dreamed Lauren was born.’

‘Was she gorgeous?’

‘Of course.’

Adam looks up and smiles at me. ‘Hey,’ he says.

Dad walks down the path filming us with his video camera.

‘Stop it,’ I tell him. ‘It’s morbid.’

He takes the camera back into the house, comes out with the recycling box and puts it by the gate. He dead-heads flowers.

‘Come and sit with us, Dad.’

But he can’t keep still. He goes back inside, returns with a bowl of grapes, an assortment of chocolate, glasses of juice.

‘Anyone want a sandwich?’

Zoey shakes her head. ‘I’m all right with these Maltesers thanks.’

I like the way her mouth puckers as she sucks them.

Keep-death-away spells.

Ask your best friend to read out the juicy bits from her magazine – the fashion, the gossip. Encourage her to sit close enough for you to touch her tummy, the amazing expanse of it. And when she has to go home, take a deep breath and tell her you love her. Because it’s true. And when she leans over and whispers it back, hold onto her tight, because these are not words you would normally share.

Make your brother sit with you when he gets back from school and go through every detail of his day, every lesson, every conversation, even what he had for dinner, until he’s so bored he begs to be allowed to run off and play football with his friends in the park.

Watch your mum kick off her shoes and massage her feet because her new job in the bookshop means she has to stand up all day and be polite to strangers. Laugh when she gives your dad a book because she gets a discount and can afford to be generous.

Watch your dad kiss her cheek. Notice them smile. Know that whatever happens, they are your parents.

Listen to your neighbour pruning her roses as shadows lengthen across the lawn. She’s humming some old song and you’re under a blanket with your boyfriend. Tell him you’re proud of him, because he made that garden grow and encouraged his mother to care about it.

Study the moon. It’s close and has a pink flare around it. Your boyfriend tells you it’s an optical illusion, that it only seems big because of its angle to the earth.

Measure yourself against it.

And, at night, when you’re carried back upstairs and another day is over, refuse to let your boyfriend sleep in the camp bed. Tell him you want to be held and don’t be afraid that he might not want to, because if he says he will, then he loves you and that’s all that matters. Wrap your legs with his. Listen to him sleep, his gentle breathing.

And when you hear a sound, like the flapping of a kite getting closer, like the sails of a windmill slowly turning, say, ‘Not yet, not yet.’

Keep breathing. Just keep doing it. It’s easy. In and out.