Chapter 9 #2
“You sound weird,” Chloe says. “What’s up? Is it the guy? Because it’s too soon? Because I don’t think it is too soon and neither do you really.”
“It’s not that exactly,” I say, with a glance at John and Shelley, who’re in stasis now and not trying to hide it.
“Well, what is it?”
I leave the kitchen and go upstairs to sit on my bed.
I’m still scared that talking about it will make it more real, but I can’t resist now she’s actually asked me straight out.
“I’m having odd symptoms,” I tell her. “I keep not recognising people. Well, one person. Aileen. And then I keep thinking I know people I don’t.
And a couple of times I’ve had this weird glitch that I used to get when I was a kid, but that’s probably just because I’m back, right?
And I don’t want to think about it too much because I really hate it now.
I can’t believe I used to use it for comfort. ”
“Lindsay, tell me you don’t mean self-harm,” Chloe says.
“No!”
“Okay, and for the love of God don’t tell me if you mean self . . . woo-hoo.” She makes a whistling sound and waggles her eyebrows.
“Shut up!” I say, laughing. “It’s not that. It’s a whole pile of weird symptoms, and it’s scary.”
“Lindsay, you total slavering maniac—no offence,” she says. “It’s grief. How can you not know that? Grief can feel like arthritis. Grief can feel like an ulcer.”
“But the thing is that brain tumours can feel like anything. And so, for all I know, they can make you think you’ve met an estate agent and a nursing home manager that you don’t know from Adam.”
“Yes, I heard about them from John and Shelley. Not from you, which hurt, but I’m over it.”
“Way to miss the point, Chlo. The point is . . . Kai had cognition and memory glitches long before anything else.” Chloe says nothing. “Well, cheers for that,” I say, trying to laugh. “You’ve set my mind right to rest there. Thank you.”
“Can’t you . . . listen to a podcast or something? Try to relax?”
“You know I can’t relax listening to other people’s audio work.”
“Or, I don’t know, read a book! I know John and Shelley aren’t exactly literati but there must be an old Jilly Cooper or a Clive Cussler knocking about the yard.”
“I’ve got a book right here on my bedside table,” I tell her. “Agatha Christie.”
“Perf—”
“But the cover’s creeping me out too much to pick it up.”
Chloe lets out a huge puff of breath and she’s right. Even I think I’m whining now. So, after I put down the phone, I go down to ask if it’s okay to tie up the bathroom while I take a long, hot soak. John and Shelley are still in the kitchen.
“—north wind and the sun,” I hear John say as I push the door open.
“Aw,” I say. “That’s sweet.”
Their two faces turned towards me wear such identical frowns that for the first time I realise they’ve been married long enough to start looking like each other.
“What?” John says.
“The North Wind and the Sun,” I say. “Have you made me a surprise dead room?”
“What?” says Shelley.
“Quilts, is it? Bathmats? Egg boxes?”
They share a worried look and I snap my head to face the other way before their edges start to curl. “Sorry,” I say. “I misheard you. It’s a test text. For a sound test? It’s got all the English sounds—I thought you were talking about my business.”
“Lindsay, what the actual are you on about?” says John. “Are you okay?”
“Added two and two and got five hundred and eighty,” I say, trying to laugh. “What did you say?”
“While you were coming downstairs?” says Shelley. “We were arguing about who’s going to pick the boys up from—”
“But what were you saying?” I ask, and even to myself I don’t sound normal.
“I said, ‘They’re old enough to walk home,’ I think,” John offers.
No way. That’s nothing like what I heard. Why won’t he tell me? I turn away to the kettle, check it’s got water in and click it on. Maybe it was married-couple talk. Or maybe my ears are going the same way as my eyes and my memory.
Now shave.
It’s only when John says “Eh?” that I realise I’ve said that last bit out loud.
I have a bath, get into bed, and pick up Sleeping Murder. Whatever’s making the woman in the story think she’s going nuts, it’ll turn out to be true and then it’ll get solved. I could do with a bit of that.
But I’ve only turned one page and taken two sips of tea when I feel myself drifting down and down to where Kai is waiting.
The nightmares have let go for once and it’s one of the wonderful dreams that I yearn for every day but am lucky to stumble into once a fortnight now.
He’s in an empty house, wearing board shorts and flip-flops, his chest brown and bare, still muscled and with the tiniest embryo of a potbelly, exactly how he was right before the diagnosis.
“Is that a coyote?” he’s saying. “What is that?” He’s using his sleeve to rub a steamed-up bathroom mirror that turns into a caravan window, because this house has caravan windows and he’s got sleeves even though he’s topless.
I can’t see what he’s looking at but Peggy says, “I know what it is.” She’s trying to give me something.
It’s so small that it’s completely hidden by her hand.
“Look,” she whispers, “it says it right there. It’s a fox. ”
The phone wakes me.
“What is it now?” I say into it.
“Very rude,” Chloe says. “But I’ll press on anyway. It’s a brilliant idea.”
“Sorry,” I tell her. “I was dreaming about Kai and it was nice to see him again, even in a creepy, empty house that turned into a caravan.”
“Shit,” she says. “Sorry. But listen, if he was in a creepy, empty house . . . maybe you’ll dream about him every night after you move in.”
“Is it a creepy, empty house?”
“It’s not a caravan,” she says. “I promise you that.”
“Big whoop,” I say.
“Well, medium whoop anyway. What size of whoop is right for appreciating what I’m doing for you? You know, when you were in a really tough spot, and I bent over backwards to help you out.”
“Are you going for a Heart of Gold award?”
“Not that you have to,” Chloe says.
“Because you’re getting weird.”
“I wouldn’t want you to feel obliged.”
“Good night, Chlo.”
“As long as you’re not feeling beholden or anything.”
“Sleep tight.”
“Don’t you want to hear my brilliant idea?” She waits. “Why not put a brown paper cover on your creepy book like we did at school, if it’s bothering you so much?”
“That idea,” I tell her, “is actually not stupid.”
She pauses. “But still no thanks, eh?” And hangs up.
When the phone rings again a minute later, I say, “All right, all right! You are the best thing in my life and I would be lost without you. I love you and I will never be able to repay you for all the gifts you bring me.”
David Minto, on the other end of the phone, says, “Well, this is going better than I expected, I must say.”