A to Z of You and Me (22 page)

And I'm still here. I look at him, and…are there tears?

No, still.

“I know, man,” he says. “I know.”

“Just—”

“I know.”

“River Severn.”

Silence—save the endlessly exhaling air conditioning.

“You what, fella?” His voice, dry in the silence.

I open my eyes wide. Look at him. Look at him hard. Does he remember? Does he remember everything I remember?

His gray face holds still, rough and unshaven, shapeless hair encroaching on every side.

“Hephzibah?” I say.

His addled eyes grow clear, sharp. I'm reading him, reading. Willing him to remember what he said to me.

“Hep-hep-hooray?” I say, urging, urging him to recall.

The clearness freezes in his eyes. A memory registers. He
must
remember. Wheelbarrow me up to Hephzibah's Rock…a couple of spins around, hammer-style…fling me down into the Severn…

“You got me?” I say.

“Ah, no, man.” He's looking at me. Scanning.

“You said.”

Still scanning. He's afraid.

“Don't ask me, man.”

“Please. Mal.”

“It's not fair to ask anyone that.”

It isn't. It isn't fair.

I sigh deeply—deeper than I can—and cough. Crumble into what coughing I can manage.

My clamoring thoughts sink, defeated, to the back of my head. All I want now, all I need, is to be with you. I close my eyes and dump my head back into my pillow.

Listen to the silence.

“Come on, fella,” says Mal's voice, renewed with brightness. “I can make you comfortable anyway. Is…is this the same blanket? Is this Mia's blanket?” Slight waver in his voice. “It's no good folded up by your feet, is it?”

I sense him lean across me to gather it up.

“Here you go, man. Let's get you settled, yeah?”

Subtle shift of cool air.

“Shall we take this off?” I open my eyes and lift my head and allow him to prise the oxygen mask from my face. He hangs it carefully on the top of the canister beside me. Cool, dry air on my nose and mouth, the clammy shape of the mask subsiding.

“Close your eyes, man, yeah?” he whispers. “Close your eyes.”

I look at him: fix my gaze onto his eyes. Another tear drops from his eye as he leans over me. I feel it land on my cheek.

He looks at me, and I look at him. I can see it in his eyes. I can see what he's asking me.

“Close your eyes.”

I close my eyes now; close them.

The sight of his face, the twisting branches of the tree in the daylight, cropped by the window beyond, all remain, fading on my vision.

Luminous eyelids darken now.

His hand now cupped on the back of my cranium, holding my head in his palm.

Palm of calm.

Faint familiar scent—vetiver. Still detectable, after all these years.

You.

Soft wool on my face. Alpaca and merino. So thick and heavy, pushed, pushed by Mal, tight, tight. Tight enough. Just right.

Consistent stitches.

Strong sense of you.

Dry that tear.

My hand now reanimated. He's holding it. Gently, gently. Warm hand cradling mine, mine I'd forgotten. Mine so cool.

“That's better, yeah?”

Stronger now, the scent.

Pushed, tighter.

Strong sense of you.

That's it, that's what I can do: deep inhalation.

Draw deep.

Sleep down deep with you.

1. Why do you think Ivo chose to address his stories directly to Mia, referring to her as “You”?

2. How did your perception of Ivo change throughout the book? As the picture of his lifestyle, choices, and friendships came into focus, did you grow to like or dislike him more?

3. What do you think appeals to Mia about Ivo?

4. What could Ivo have done to salvage his relationship with Mia? Would it have changed anything, or would the outcome of the book still have been the same?

5. Mia and Mal are arguably the two most important people in Ivo's life, but between them, they have a complicated relationship. Why do you believe their interactions are so difficult?

6. Who is to blame for Mia's death?

7. What do you think happens to Mal after we leave him?

8.
The A to Z of You and Me
jumps back and forth in time through Ivo's life. In your opinion, did that help to paint a fuller picture of him, or did you wish the book had followed a more linear structure?

9. How does Ivo's humor and attitude change as the book progresses? Does the seriousness of his situation reflect back in the body parts and stories he chooses?

10. To what extent do you blame Ivo for the situation he is in?

11. Was there a story in the A to Z game that resonated more strongly with you than others? If so, why was it particularly affecting?

12. Ivo's death doesn't come as a surprise, as the novel revolves around his stay in hospice. How did your general expectation of the ending affect your experience of the book?

13. If you had to pick a letter of the alphabet and tell a story of your life, what would it be?

14. In your last days on earth, what would you choose to remember?

15. “Love ends at death. Does it?” Discuss what you think
and how Ivo, Mia, or other characters throughout the book support your opinion.

What was your inspiration for writing
The A to Z of You and Me
?

Its structure is really a series of answers to a series of questions. I began with the tiniest thought, that it was interesting that a great deal of mathematics is contained simply within one's fingers. Ten fingers point the way to a decimal system and a whole way of thinking. You have digits and points. Beyond that, drinks can be measured in fingers, horses can be measured in hands, and so on.

It was a natural development to wonder how interesting it might be to have a whole anatomical dictionary made up of such anecdotes, which might then combine into a coherent story of someone's life. The shape of the life would necessarily be dictated by the stories.

Questions arose that I needed to answer:

• Why would my character be dividing himself up like this? It's a game. He's creating little biographies for each part.

• Why would he be playing this game? He's trying to calm his fretful mind.

• Why would he be trying to calm his fretful mind? He's dying.

• Why is he dying?

“Why,” I asked a doctor friend of mine, “is he dying?”

“Well, if he's lucid enough to tell tales right up to the end, and is not too sedated or confused, it sounds like he might have a kidney problem. Often, you get quite young people with kidney failure because they haven't managed their diabetes well.”

So, I had my character. He has Type 1 diabetes, which is not his fault, at an age when all he wants to do is go out with his friends and have a good time. He finds managing his condition almost impossible, as his friends are not capable of providing the support he needs.

This basic structure of the story emerged from an entirely mechanical process. I like that any other author would answer these basic questions differently and end up with another book altogether.

There comes a time, however, when one needs to release the original concept to allow the idea to support itself. When I began to improvise around the body part ideas, I found that other, freer, more spontaneous ideas began to flood the book, gave it heart and warmth, and indeed began to force the main plot to account for itself. That's where Sheila, Amber, and Old Faithful come in.

Although Ivo's situation isn't ordinary, his emotions and yearnings are universal. How do you hope your readers relate, and what questions should they ask themselves?

Certainly, Ivo isn't blameless in his choices, but who among us has not acted in a self-destructive way and simply gotten away with it?
Tonight, I'm going to eat that whole tub of ice cream, drink that whole bottle of whiskey, blow all my savings in a casino, buy that expensive gadget I can't afford.
The most excessive of us might be branded as lovable rogues. If you've ever tried to maintain a diet through January, you'll have some idea of how hard Ivo's diet “for life” might be, especially without the support of the people around him.

Personally, I think Ivo is a good guy. He's kind and thoughtful, but unfortunate and misguided. His aspirations are certainly to better himself.

So I guess I'm hoping readers will look at Ivo's situation and question precisely how much he is in control of it, and how likely it was he would have been able to meet his aspirations with the resources at his disposal.

What research did you do to add depth to Ivo's sickness and his experience in hospice?

Given that Ivo's “narrative condition,” if you will, had been diagnosed by a doctor from the very beginning, I needed to shore that up with research about how he would be feeling. I kept checking with a renal consultant about what would be happening to Ivo physically—the assault on his dignity, his state of mind, what the doctors around him would be thinking, and so on.

I have a couple of friends who are managing diabetes, and they were good enough to show me their everyday routine, what was involved in injecting insulin and whatnot. I cannot convince them that the book is not some incredibly unsubtle and doomy hint to them to stay on a healthy track.

Much of the stuff that happens with Sheila and Amber and Old Faithful came from my observations of life and death in St. Catherine's Hospice in Preston, UK—a place of many heightened emotions, including love and laughter.

If you had to pick a letter in the A to Z game and tell a story about that body part, what tale would you tell?

I already did. It's in the book.

As a debut author, what was the most surprising discovery you found on your journey to becoming published?

The most surprising thing was that I was able to interest previously uninterested friends simply by telling them the concept of the book (“a character reveals the story of his misspent youth by recounting little tales about each part of his body”) before I'd even written a word of it. I was accustomed to friends switching off if I started talking about writing, so it was surprising that they were still engaged when I'd finished talking. All I had to do was preserve and nurture that little spark of interest while I wrote it.

What does your writing space look like?

The A to Z of You and Me
had a real hodgepodge of writing spaces, though almost all of them were beds. My bed in Shropshire. A friend's futon in Walthamstow, London. A cheap hotel room in Stevenage. I would stay over with my brother in Northampton each week and would write in a child-size bed with a Power Rangers cover and Bratz curtains while my nephew and niece camped out in the garden.

Which authors inspire you? Why?

I'm not a flag-bearer for any particular author (although I do have a master's in Samuel Beckett studies, which is more of a certificate than a flag). So much of it has depended on where I was as a reader and what I'd already encountered. I think it was pure luck whether I encountered the writer I needed at a given time.

Roddy Doyle's
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
achieved the sleight of hand of appearing to get inside my head and talk in my voice (a common response to this book, I've subsequently heard), and Doyle is altogether humane, which appeals. Kurt Vonnegut's humaneness too. Beckett's appalled amusement hit me at exactly the right time and absolutely feeds my need for core rhythms in expression.

I'm drawn to warmth, and when I really needed some warmth and brightness and positivity, I happened to read Maya Angelou; she's really stayed with me. For some reason, I always feel a great urge to write when I watch anything by TV writer Dennis Potter; his 1980s Singing Detective series is unsurpassed in the size of splash it made in my writing development.

I'm always drawn to complex ideas approached with a youthful enthusiasm: Douglas Adams, certainly. And Caitlin Moran feels very good at this on a social/cultural level.

If there's one thing you'd like readers to take away from
The A to Z of You and Me
, what would it be?

I don't know if I could say that. I think it's much more about readers bringing a part of themselves to it. And it depends on where they are as readers and what they've already encountered. They might find something here; they might not. Maybe the thing that leaps most
readily to mind that they could take away is that laughter and tears are incredibly closely linked. And it's possible—no, it can be extremely helpful—to laugh at how utterly hopeless a situation has become. If you don't already know that, it's very helpful to realize it.

“Team…”

Thank you first of all to my two brothers, who have put me up and put up with me; to my mum and my dad, who afforded me time and space; to my bandmates, inspirations all; and to the Jolly family of Preston, who had me over for Christmas once.

Thank you too, Catherine O'Flynn, for support, positive discouragement, and inadvertently giving me the title.

I am grateful for the advice given to me by Dr. Alice Myers, David Abdy, Sally Quigg, Ian Abdy, Shonagh Musgrave, Carolyn Willitts, Simon Wheatley, Sara Grainger, Su Portwood, Frith Tiplady, Anna Davis, Chris Wakling, and the autumn 2011 cohort of the Curtis Brown creative writing school.

I am indebted to many people for taking and making this book: Susan Armstrong, Jane Lawson, Alison Barrow, and the talented teams at Conville & Walsh and Transworld; Shana Drehs, Heather Hall, Jillian Rahn, Adrienne Krogh, Brittany Vibbert, Nicole Komasinski, and all at Sourcebooks.

I have never met John Murray, author and benevolent editor of Panurge New Writing. But I am grateful for a few typewritten notes from him back in '94 and a phone conversation in '03. It takes only a few words to change your world.

This novel has been tested on, discussed with, and occasionally bundled past the incomparably marvelous Christine Jolly. Jols, I cannot thank you enough for everything you've brought to this book. But I can try: thank you times, like,
fifty.