Chapter 71
Andrea: Z is for Zapplebums
‘Hello Rosehip, hello Popcorn! I hope you are both splendid today – although perhaps, like myself, you’re feeling a little blue. We have reached Z, and we are at the end of our last adventure together.
‘This will be my last recording for you, and I’ve decided on the good old-fashioned tape recorder again.
I have one more video to make, so I’m saving all of my screen presence for that – it will be an important event, and I don’t want to fluff my lines.
Because while it is the end of the A–Z for me, it will be the beginning for you – and I’m planning on giving the performance of my life.
‘I have no idea where you are, right now, or what you are doing, or how you’re feeling. This whole project has been created in a vacuum – for all I know, as I record this, you could have given up by now. Or not even started.
‘All those envelopes could have remained unopened, and you might never have even seen that photo of me with Elvis … I like to think you did. I have to think so. I have to cling to my belief that you’re still here, still trucking as they say, still listening.
‘I have to believe that this has all made a difference. That your future will be healthier because of it. That all my wishes and all my prayers have been answered, and that you two are together again. The not-knowing is killing me – or is that the cancer, ha ha! Sorry, gallows humour … anyway. I have to accept that I will never know what effect all of this has had on you – it’s like the ultimate cliff-hanger. At least for me.
‘I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves, or at the very least not murdered each other.
For me, it’s been quite the mission – an A–Z of all my dreams. I realise that some of it may have been odd, or upsetting, or downright bewildering at times, but it wasn’t just about healing your relationship, girls. It was about me, saying goodbye.
‘We all know that we won’t live forever. We all know that the time will come when we leave our loved ones, and look back on our lives knowing that the end is nigh. That there will be no more chances, no more choices, no more anything.
‘But knowing it in theory and facing up to it in reality – knowing that life is finite, and every minute you have left is being measured out like grains of sand in a giant egg timer – is very different. At the start of this, I had no idea how much time I had left, and whether I’d even get to the end of it.
If fate hadn’t been kind, I could have left you hanging at H, I suppose!
‘Lewis thinks, and he is usually right, that I am simply too stubborn to let go until all of this is complete. Until I feel as if I’ve done the best I can – and perhaps that is the case.
I’m certainly relieved, in a way, to get to Z – even if it is the end.
I don’t have too much left in the tank, truth be told.
‘It’s all very strange, isn’t it? It is to me, at least. Lewis, at my insistence, has gone home for the night, and I am lying here, in my hospital bed, recording my voice for my daughters to listen to after I’m dead.
It really doesn’t get much stranger than that – knowing that everything I leave behind, all of these messages and videos and letters, will be all that’s left of me.
‘It’s more than most people get, but I know that for you, it will never be enough – no matter how many questions I have answered, how many thoughts I have provoked, none of this will ever be enough.
It’s simply not the same as having me around, is it?
Believe me girls, if I could pull off that particular miracle, I would.
‘I’ve done the next best thing with all of this, and I’ve done it with so much love.
It’s been tricky at times, and I’m finding, as I lie here, alone, that this is one of the trickiest of all.
Because it’s my final chance – my final attempt to leave you stronger than I found you.
I can hear the nurses chattering outside, and I can imagine Lewis getting home and pouring himself a big glass of port, and I can imagine you two, going about your normal lives with no idea of what is about to happen to you.
The shock of the phone call I know you’ll be getting before very long now.
‘I can imagine all of that, but I can’t quite imagine how all of this will finish – for any of us. I’ve started a story that I will never be able to quite end. Will you two become sisters again? Does Heaven exist, and if so will I be heading that way? And how will Lewis cope without me?
‘I’ve suggested a lot of answers throughout this A–Z, but these last few have got the better of me. I suppose I will simply never know – unless the answer to the Heaven question is “yes”, of course!
‘I’m wittering on, I know – but I find that I am so reluctant to press that big “stop” button.
It feels ominous somehow, glaring at me in the half-light – like if I press stop on the recording, I’ll be pressing stop on my life.
Pressing stop on my contact with you two.
Letting go – and I really, really don’t want to let go.
I want to hold you both so close to me, snuggle you up in my arms and kiss your faces and keep you safe.
‘I know you’re grown women, but in my mind, you’re still my babies. My darling little girls. You’re my whole life – and I so want to protect you from what is to come.
‘I can’t do that, sadly. Nor can I come up with a truly satisfying Z to end all of this with.
It’s really very annoying that after all this effort, the last letter of the damned alphabet is such an awkward one.
Lewis left me a very handy dictionary for inspiration, and I did come up with some great finds – for example, did you know that “zwitterion” is a real word?
No? Me neither! It sounds wonderfully exotic, but is actually something to do with ions and chemistry. Frightfully dull.
‘And did you know that in India and Iran, the part of a house set aside for women is called the zenana? Or that a ziggurat is a type of tower? That a fence of thorns is known in Sudan as a zareba? I’m not quite sure how useful any of this is to me now, but I suppose it’s never too late to learn.
‘Anyway, I suppose all I really need to tell you is that I love you both in a zillion different ways.
I love you so much, in fact, that it surpasses all known language, and, I think, needs a brand-new word.
I have decided that word will be “zapplebums”.
The definition of “zapplebums”, in case you were wondering, would look like this in the dictionary: zapplebums: adjective – word used to describe the ultimate in love, adoration and pride.
‘That, my darlings, is the way I feel about you two. Feel free to alert the nice people at the Oxford English Dictionary.
‘And now, I fear, I must finally press “stop”. I can only hope that it isn’t too literal.
I shall end with something I also plan to start with, if the God of Tape Recorders allows me one more day.
I shall end by asking you both to always remember this one simple thing: I love you, and I know that you love me.
‘So for now, darlings – my gorgeous, grubby angels – goodbye. My love for you is zapplebums.’