Chapter 26
A bump – followed by a polite ripple of applause for the pilot – jolted me out of what was probably the longest stretch of uninterrupted sleep I’d had in a week.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Heathrow Airport where the local time is eight ten a.m.,’ a nasally, male voice announced over the aircraft speaker.
Somehow, I’d slept through the entire flight home, my head resting on Mum’s shoulder, hers on Anneka’s, and Anneka’s against the inside of the plane, like three human dominoes that had toppled at the very first hint of a nudge.
‘Please remain in your seats until we’ve come to a complete stop and the seatbelt sign is no longer illuminated. And, finally, let me be the first person to wish you a very merry Christmas!’
A few people chirped ‘merry Christmas!’ in reply, while a few naysayers groaned. Mum was one of them, even though she’d yet to fully wake up.
‘Happy twenty-fifth, Mum,’ I said to her, as she rubbed her eyes and stretched, not unlike the small child who was sitting across the aisle from us with his parents. ‘Here’s your next dose.’
I took one of her hands and placed two black capsules into her palm, closing her fingers around them and squeezing. She grunted, but – for a brief moment – she clutched my thumb as I withdrew my hand, and squeezed it back.
‘I’ll be turning into a lump of coal with all this charcoal in my system,’ she said, as if the thumb-squeeze hadn’t happened at all. She swallowed the pills down with a gulp of water from one of those tiny bottles they give you on aeroplanes.
I smiled sleepily at Mum, reaching over her and shaking Anneka’s arm gently.
‘We’ve landed, Anneka,’ I said softly.
She scrunched up her face and squinted as she came to. ‘Ah, fuck, I slept through all the free food and drinks?’
‘I mean, technically speaking it’s not free because…’
Anneka glared at me with a glint in her sleepy eyes.
‘Yes, you missed all the free stuff.’
Anneka stretched herself awake while the aircraft taxied towards the gate.
‘Are you doing okay?’ she asked, once her body had shrunk back to its unstretched form.
I smiled, lips pressed together tightly. ‘Yeah, I’m okay.’
Ethan had sent me a ‘fly safe’ message just before we’d taken off, and I’d replied with a bland thumbs-up emoji in lieu of all the heart emoji variations my soul had wanted to send. Apparently, I’d regressed to the emotional maturity of a tweenage girl.
As the aeroplane engines faded to nothing, Anneka reached over Mum, who was focused on stuffing all the airline-branded eye masks, headphones and socks the three of us had been given at the start of the flight into her hand luggage, and squeezed my shoulder.
‘Good things are ahead for you, Flora. I can feel it,’ Anneka said.
I sighed. ‘If you say so.’
But, just like last night, I couldn’t bring myself to believe her.
It felt as if everything that had happened this week – and everything I’d learned, experienced and become – would be instantly sucked into the past the moment I stepped off the plane, and the relative drabness of my life before New York would envelop me once more.
I guess it’s better to have loved and lost than…
My thoughts froze at the unconscious appearance of the word ‘love’, and I physically shook myself out of my head and back into my body, unfastening my seatbelt the moment we were permitted to do so, jiggling every muscle awake to gear myself up for the final part of the journey.
Nearly home now, Flora. Alone time awaits.
We left Mum snoozing in the car while Anneka helped me upstairs with my luggage. As soon as I stepped through the apartment door, Jason leaped onto my shoulders from the breakfast bar, as if he’d been waiting there for this very moment all week.
‘Jay-Jay!’ I cried, removing the living, orange scarf from around my neck and tumbling onto the sofa with him for a purry snuggle.
‘I’m, umm, just going to see if Marcie’s in. To… get your spare key back, of course.’
‘Of course, of course,’ I said, with an eyeroll. ‘Hey, Anneka,’ I called, as she was halfway down the stairs.
‘Yeah?’ she said, pausing her descent.
‘Do you and Mum want to… stay for a bit? I thought we could watch Home Alone 2?’
Anneka’s entire face broke out in a grin. ‘Flora Bell, I think that might be the best idea you’ve ever had. I’ll send Mum up.’
It was mid-afternoon on Christmas Day and I was struggling to stay awake. Mum and Anneka had stayed for the duration of the film, but Mum’s tiredness and wish to curl up in her own bed had eventually motivated them to head home.
‘You could… come with us?’ Anneka had asked, tentatively, as they’d pulled on their coats and shoes.
‘Thanks, but I should probably give the cat some attention.’
‘Haha, fair enough. Well, see you next year!’
And then, at last, I was by myself.
I spent the next couple of hours unpacking and doing a couple of loads of washing, while the BBC One Christmas Day schedule played in the background.
Once I hung the final load out to dry, I video-called Laurie to wish them all a happy Christmas, although I could barely make sense of what was going on over there through the relentless sound of… cymbals?
‘Ben’s parents bought the twins a drumkit, Flor. Not even a toy one!’
We made plans to meet up in two days’ time, as far away from percussion as possible.
Until then, it was – at last – just me, the sofa, the cinematic comforts of New York and my heated blanket.
So why did I feel so antsy?
The obvious answer was that I was missing Ethan like hell.
He hadn’t replied to my bland emoticon, nor did I expect him to.
But there was something else that was gnawing away at me more deeply than romantic heartache.
As I looked around the room and took in the peace and quiet – and endless damp clothes – it dawned on me what it was: I was missing the company of Mum and Anneka.
Over the last few days, something fundamental had shifted in our knotty dynamic. For the first time in my life, I could see them clearly – and they, too, could see me. And, even more significantly, I was starting to allow myself to think about how close I’d come to losing Mum this year.
The bombshell of her cancer diagnosis weighed more heavily on me the more I thought about it, even though the prognosis looked positive. But there was another feeling that was pressing down on me even more weightily:
Anneka dealt with it all by herself.
As Mum had said in that New York hospital, Anneka had wanted to tell me what was happening at the time, but Mum had told her to stay quiet, forcing Anneka to bear the burden alone.
And then I remembered what Anneka had said during our argument outside the department store, about how, from the age of just fifteen, she’d effectively been my co-parent.
I thought back to my childhood, and the role Anneka had played in it.
How her bed had been the one I’d crawl into after having a bad dream.
She must have been exhausted.
How she’d walked me to school pretty much every morning while Mum slept in after working late shifts at the local pub.
And putting her theatre school dreams on hold.
How Mum and Anneka had dropped me off at university that day I’d met Will, and how she’d hugged me extra tightly before saying goodbye.
And here’s me thinking they were pleased to see the back of me.
Never once had Anneka complained or said ‘no’ to me or made me feel as if I was having a negative impact on her life.
Sure, Jennifer Bell might be my biological mother, but both she and Anneka Bell were my mums. They’d raised me together, the best way they could – a pale and peculiar child who’d appeared in their lives out of nowhere.
And, despite our many differences, they’d done a bloody brilliant job.
Why the hell hadn’t I seen it like this before?
I bolted into my room and opened my wardrobe, standing on tiptoes to reach the uppermost shelf.
My fingers eventually found what they’d been grasping for, and I crawled under the covers of my bed with the photo album.
I prised it open, the plastic-coated pages crackling thanks to the many years they’d been sealed shut.
I didn’t have many photos of my childhood, but the ones I did have were in this single album, which had ended up in my possession a few years ago when Mum and Anneka had been in the midst of a Marie Kondo decluttering phase.
Much to Anneka’s dismay, Mum had handed the album to her, telling her it didn’t ‘spark joy’.
No wonder, really, since it documented a period in Mum’s life that was probably the most painful for her.
Anneka, in turn, had passed it to me to take care of so it didn’t accidentally end up in one of the local charity shops.
Tucked up in bed while the Strictly Come Dancing theme tune drifted in from the living room, I thumbed through the pages, noticing for the first time that Anneka herself was hardly in any of the photos.
She must’ve been the one taking them. Mum was in a few images but, in most cases, one of her hands was always partially raised in front of her face, as if she didn’t want the moment – and whatever she was feeling – captured.
I, however, was in every single photo. And, without exception, I was grinning widely, my eyes burning with adoration for the girl behind the lens – my magical big sister.
I threw back the covers and returned to the living room, picking up my phone from the coffee table and calling Anneka.
‘To what do I owe this pleasure,’ she mumbled, obviously half asleep.
‘Anneka! You’re meant to try and stay awake to stave off the jetlag.’
‘Meh, I’ll survive – no dog walking booked in until the twenty-eighth. I don’t really plan to move until then, apart from taking Mum to the doc’s for a once-over.’
‘Yeah, about that – let me know if you want me to come, too.’
‘Oh! I’m sure we’ll be fine, but… thanks.’
‘So, I was wondering if you’re free on the evening of the thirty-first?’
‘Oh! Umm, a few work commitments in the morning, but after that I’m free as a bird.’
‘Great, so, uh, do you and Mum want to come round for New Year’s Eve?
I can make up Tabbi’s bed for you both and you can stay over?
She’s not due back until the second.’ I spoke quickly, my vocal cords not used to producing such a sequence of words without multiple silent rehearsals beforehand.
But the spontaneity of my suggestion felt like the most natural thing in the world, because I wanted to spend time with them.
I wanted to laugh with them and talk to them and appreciate them – to feel the unique wizardry of their energy, even though that would inevitably involve noise and frustration and mayhem.
‘Ooh, that sounds nice, Flo! It’s a yes!’
‘You don’t want to check with Mum?’
‘Well, if she’s got her own plans I can come without her, right? We’re not conjoined.’
‘Haha, yeah, of course.’ I took a deep breath. ‘I… really enjoyed our time together in New York, Anneka. Well, most of it, anyway.’
‘Yeah, me too.’
‘We should hang out more often,’ I said, fiddling with the bracelet she’d made me – I’d not removed it since she’d fastened it to my wrist back in our ridiculous hotel room.
Anneka cleared her throat in a way that almost sounded self-conscious.
‘I’d love that,’ she said eventually.
My priority for next year became immediately clear to me: be visibly there for Anneka just as much as she’d invisibly been there for me my whole life.
‘How’s Mum doing now?’ I asked.
I heard Anneka take a deep, calming breath. ‘Better, I think. I heated up a tin of Big Soup for her when we got back, and she gobbled it up before going to bed. I think she’s gonna be fine.’
‘Yeah, thanks to you.’
A pause. ‘It was just a bowl of soup, Flo.’
‘No, you nincompoop, I’m thanking you for everything – for insisting that Mum see the GP about the lump and dealing with all of that by yourself, for taking me to New York, for making my bracelet, for everything you’ve done for me, forever.
I’m so lucky to have you, Anneka – I understand that properly now. ’
‘Oh, Flora, you don’t have to say any of this. I know I said some stuff in New York, but it was just in the heat of the moment; I didn’t—’
‘Stop talking! I know I don’t have to say any of this, but I want to. I love you, okay? Just so we’re clear on that.’
‘I love you, too,’ she whispered. ‘This year has been really hard, Flo. I’ve been so scared about Mum.’
‘I know. Let’s do a better job of being there for each other, yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Right then, shall we talk about something else?’
‘Yes please.’
‘Okay… please tell me how the hell I’m going to get over Ethan.’
‘Ha, well, the first question I’d ask is whether you want to get over him?’
‘That’s irrelevant – we live on opposite sides of a massive ocean and he’s terrified of flying. I have to get over him – what I want doesn’t even come into it.’
Anneka sighed loudly.
‘Do you want real talk or platitudes?’ she finally said.
‘Real talk. I need to hear it.’
‘Right. You’re being defeatist. Sure, the circumstances with Ethan are tricky, but it’s obvious you like this guy a lot, and the feeling seems to be mutual. So why not enjoy it for what it is in this present moment, and forget about what it might or might not end up being in the future?’
‘Yeah, if he lived in Scotland instead of New-friggin’-York, I might agree with you,’ I said. ‘But I’d argue that the circumstances are beyond tricky – they’re impossible.’
‘Flora. You could literally push a few buttons on your phone here and now and see his face and talk all night. And the rest.’
‘Anneka!’
‘What?! All I’m saying is, you’re making this situation a whole lot harder than it needs to be.’
I fiddled with the mushroom charm on my bracelet, considering how to respond. ‘I wouldn’t even know what to say to him, though.’
‘You’re a bloody speechwriter, Flora! For now, why don’t you just start writing and see what comes out?’
I opened my mouth to dismiss her idea, but I found myself saying ‘hmm’ instead. As much as I hated to admit it, this might be one of the best pieces of advice she’d ever given me.