Chapter Forty-Two
A week later, Anika is on the train into work for the first day of her new job, the sky outside the window mottled with dull white clouds.
She scrolls her streaming app trying to choose an album to listen to, frowning at her own indecision.
In the meantime, the silence in Anika’s ears feels deafening.
Without Cam’s show to listen to in the morning, she’s felt slightly adrift.
His schedule for the press tour in Europe was pulled forward, and a couple of days after the incident with Kwesi he had to head off for his business trip.
His show is being covered by another of the station’s DJs, but Anika misses Cam too much to tune in.
Things have been a little awkward between them since the unreturned ‘I love you’.
Some part of her wished they could have combined a holiday with his tour, but it seemed too soon to insinuate that.
There would be time for a perfect getaway once any hiccups between them were ironed out with the help of the diary.
Giving up trying to decide what to listen to, Anika selects one of the app’s playlists and smiles as Ari Lennox begins to sing about her new apartment.
She settles back to stare out of the train window, pushing thoughts of Cam aside in anticipation of the day ahead.
This is where she was always meant to be – hurtling towards a future that’s everything she’s dreamt of.
Everything else will come right – she’s certain of it.
A teenage schoolgirl with cornrows and an oversized blazer takes the seat beside Anika as the train reaches the next stop.
She glances over at the girl, dark skin shining, braces, a light smattering of acne on the forehead.
It’s like looking at herself from years earlier – the girl from the first four-and-a-half years of the diary’s pages, the ones that she wrote as a teen.
Anika only has a few months’ worth of space left to fill in there now.
So far, projecting her life a day ahead at a time has got her a new look, a new job, a new man and a new outlook on her life.
I need to remember that, she reiterates to herself. It’s working.
Just as the thought crosses her mind, the opening chords of a Sade song start to play in her headphones and Anika’s jaw tenses.
The band immediately reminds her of Kwesi.
The image of her brother’s eyes on her as he sang …
the feel of his embrace afterwards … the chaotic tumble of his friend crashing to the ground – it all assails her.
Especially the crushing look of disappointment on Kwesi’s face.
She does her best to try to push the memory away as the passing buildings grow gradually into skyscrapers, the train heading all too rapidly towards her office.
She has no idea how to get Kwesi’s forgiveness.
It’s another issue for another diary page.
Raising her phone to skip ahead on the playlist, Anika clocks a missed call sitting at the bottom of her screen – the hospital again.
This time she’s ready for it, though. As soon as she gets off the train, Anika is going to arrange whatever appointment they’re so eager for her to have and be done with doctors once and for all.
In fact . . . Anika remembers another idea she wants to include.
As the train pauses at a red signal just before pulling into the final station, she takes the opportunity to get out the diary and jot down that she’ll be successful planning for her celebratory dinner: the chef, the location, the budget …
She’s going to make sure it coincides with Cam returning from his trip and it’ll give something for her friends and her mum to officially mark Anika 2.
0. Then she’ll tackle the stuff with Kwesi, and all will be well.
For now, Anika’s focus is on starting her new job. She has, of course, written a glowingly positive plan for the day ahead. Her eyes skim down the entry and she nods to herself. Ideas were flowing … No awkward conversations … Already feeling settled …
As Anika disembarks the train with the stream of other commuters, she remembers her planned phone call and stops the playlist to redial the number.
‘Hello, Colorectal Department. How can I help?’
She sucks in a breath and explains that she’s had a few messages about an appointment. The receptionist transfers her to Dr Elachy’s personal assistant.
‘Ah, hi there, Ms Lapo – thank you for getting back to us. The doctor’s been keen to try to schedule your follow-up PET-CT scan,’ the woman says. ‘It’s usually routine.’
A frown furrows Anika’s brow. ‘Scan?’
‘Yes, to check how things are looking now you’re past surgery. But I think there had also been some blood results that were a bit—’
‘No, that was all sorted,’ Anika says confidently.
‘Right.’ The woman sounds unsure. ‘Well, obviously Dr Elachy can talk to you a bit more about everything, but first let’s get you booked in for the scan, eh?’
It’s routine. It’s routine. It’s routine.
Anika latches onto those words as she arranges the appointment.
She is going to make this scan as mundane as possible with a flick of her pen.
Soon she’ll have only the knowledge of her mortality, not the fear.
Anika strides towards her office building, her frown turning to a look of determination.
Later that evening, Anika watches the water swirl down her bathroom sink after washing her face and patting it dry with a clean towel.
Day one of her new job down, and everything went to plan – after being introduced to everyone, she started creating some online-exclusive playlists and got a tacit ‘yes’ on the spot from her boss for a podcast idea she pitched about the music that accompanies friendships.
Perhaps some of the rockier areas of her life were more on her mind than she intended with that idea, thinking about the tension lingering between her and Tina and Shameeka, and the fact she hasn’t seen Wendy for a few weeks, too.
Catching her own eye in the mirror after she hangs up her towel, Anika wonders if she’s looking a bit less glowing than she has been lately.
She leans closer to the glass to examine her under-eye circles.
Just an iffy night’s sleep yesterday. She adds better sleep to the mental list of notes for the diary’s pages tonight.
‘It’s all fine,’ she repeats to her reflection, nodding before opening the mirrored cabinet to pull out her serum, moisturiser and eye cream.
As she smooths night cream onto her face and neck, Anika inhales the soothing lavender scent and fails not to think of Cam.
Missing him was the main reason her sleep was disturbed last night.
He sent her a dreamy voice note first thing this morning because his body clock seems set to ‘early’ even while he’s away on the press tour.
‘Good morning, beautiful. Just wanted to tell you I miss you.’ He sounded like it was the first thing he thought to do when he opened his eyes, voice still croaky with sleep.
Anika massages her temples, where she can still feel the press of his lips when he kissed her goodbye before he headed to the airport.
He thought she was sleeping soundly. Cam has done and said everything except return those three little words left floating between them.
She heads to the beckoning comfort of her bed.
Climbing under her duvet and grabbing the diary from her bedside table, Anika turns the page in readiness for tomorrow, realising as she writes in the date that it will be the start of a new month: Wednesday 1 September.
The summer is basically over. And what a summer it’s been.
After thirty years, it turns out it only took one season to become the woman I’ve always wanted to be.
One summer, and the threat of it being her last.
It’s not death itself she fears – it’s the notion of getting life wrong. Of squandering it. What if she never realised that the things she thought she couldn’t have were so close at hand, only one day out of reach? A day she could write into being …
Her pen finds the page.
I hold death in my pocket. I can take it out, look at it, know it’s there and turn away from it.
Just as she begins to write more, Anika’s phone vibrates on the mattress springs – but to her surprise, the screen illuminates not with Cam’s name as she excitedly imagined, but with her mother’s.
‘Hello?’ Anika answers, her voice laced with concern.
‘Hello, darling.’
‘Hi, Mum. Is everything OK?’ Glancing at the alarm clock, she sees it’s just after 9.
45 p.m. – early for Anika to be in bed, but late for Nella to be calling.
Anika can hear her mother emit the harrumph that implies she’s lowering herself down onto a sofa or chair, and then the slurp of her sipping what is undoubtedly a mug of her evening drink of choice, Horlicks.
‘Yes, of course. I can’t call my daughter?’ Rolling her eyes, Anika sits up more in the bed, relaxing a little. ‘I just wanted to hear about your new job,’ Nella continues. ‘It was your first day today, not so?’
‘Oh. Yeah, it was.’ Anika can’t help feeling surprised that her mother remembered. ‘It was good. Went really well, thanks.’
‘And the people are nice? You must remember to keep good time and make sure your boss knows how valuable you are.’ Anika wince-smiles at the sound of slurping that punctuates her mother’s advice.
‘Yep, they’re all really nice.’
‘So, when am I going to see you, eh?’
Anika draws in a breath, realising this is good timing. ‘Soon – I was going to say, I’m arranging a celebration dinner. Like a sit-down thing.’
‘Ah! You’re cooking?’
‘Try not to sound so incredulous, Mum! But, no, I’m not cooking.
’ Her mother gives an exaggerated sigh of relief, then they both chuckle.
‘There’s this chef who does private parties with, like, high-end interpretations of Salone food?
You might have heard of her, Stacey Bankole-Smith, she’s half-Sierra Leonean, and—’
‘Enh heh, I know her mother. We were at school together. That one, she was always in our business …’ Anika waits for her mother to complete her reminiscences about the chef’s mother.
‘So you are paying for this girl to make this dinner?’ Nella asks finally.
Anika is about to purse her lips when her mum continues. ‘I can see if I can help, eh?’
Anika knows, with some guilt and a lot of relief, that her mum means financially.
The diary coming through again. Her plans for the party are going even more smoothly than she projected.
‘Thanks a lot, Mum. That would be great. I … I just want to celebrate how far I’ve come.
It’s been a tough time, but I’m proud of myself, I guess. ’
‘No guessing.’ Her mother’s voice grows softer. ‘I am proud of you, too.’ And yet hearing the sentiment echoed back at her gives Anika pause.
No. Focus on tomorrow and the next day and the next.
She won’t look back.