Becky Bananas (17 page)

I don’t know who would help her if I was not here. She would have to manage on her own.

Danny is too young. He wouldn’t be any good.

So nothing must happen to me or Mum won’t ever be able to learn her lines!

Sarah told me a joke once. Something about seaweed.

Why is the sea wet? – Because the seaweed.

I think that was how it went. I can’t really remember.

It was something like that.

Perhaps I am not a very jokey kind of person. Just a weedy wimpy sort of person who isn’t very brave.

You'd only been out of hospital for a few months
when you were told that you had to go back
in again.

M
um cried when Dr Stanhope said I had come out of remission. She tried not to show it, but I knew she’d been crying because her eyes were all red and swimmy. So I knew that he had told her something bad.

Mum said that I was a little bit anaemic, “Just a little bit”, and that Dr Stanhope wanted me to go back into hospital for some more treatment. I said, “Why do I have to go back into hospital for it?” Mum said, “Well, it’s easier for them to keep an eye on you if you are in hospital. But I’m sure it won’t be for very long.”

I knew she wasn’t telling me the truth. I knew that I had stopped being in remission. I do think it would be better if they didn’t try to protect you. We can always tell.

When Dr Stanhope came to see me, I said, “Will you have to give me more chemo?” and he said, “I’m sorry, Becky, but I’m afraid we will.” I said, “Is that
because I’m not in remission any more?” and he said, “Yes, but let’s hope it’s just a hiccup.”

When he said that I hiccuped, because that is the sort of thing they like you to do. They like you to be bright and sparky and have a sense of humour.

Dr Stanhope was pleased when I hiccuped. He laughed and said, “That’s the spirit!”

Another time I said to him that someone had told me if you came out of remission before five years, it meant you probably wouldn’t ever be cured. I didn’t say it meant you would probably die, because I am not brave enough.

Dr Stanhope said, “It doesn’t necessarily mean that at all. But it does mean it’s more difficult. It does mean that you have to be extra specially brave and put up with another lot of treatment.”

Zoë had to put up with another lot of treatment. So did Bryony, in my story that I wrote. And she grew up and danced in
Swan Lake
!

I know that Mum doesn’t expect me to grow up. Nobody expects me to. Not even Dr Stanhope.

I suppose I don’t, really. Deep inside myself. I know that what Zoë told me is true because Zoë is the one person who always tells the truth.

If Zoë were here I could talk about it with her. I
can’t talk about it with Mum, it upsets her too much. She tells me not to be morbid. She says, “Oh, Becky, darling! Don’t be so morbid!”

I don’t think it’s being morbid. And I don’t think it’s being negative, either, which is another thing Mum accuses me of. She says, “You must think positively, sweetheart! Otherwise you’re not giving yourself a chance.”

I don’t see that it’s being negative to wonder what is in store for you. I think it is simply facing up to things.

I’ve been thinking just lately about what Gran said. Gran said that when you die you meet all the people that have gone before. But wouldn’t this make it terribly crowded? In heaven, or wherever it is that you go?

I tried asking Uncle Eddy about it. He is the only person I can really talk to, now that Zoë is not here. I said, “If everyone that’s died is going to be up there, won’t it be a bit like Oxford Street at Christmastime?”

I went to Oxford Street last Christmas with Ana-Maria to see the lights.

There were so many people you could hardly move.

Uncle Eddy said, “It will only be like Oxford Street if that is how you would like it to be. Is that how you would like it to be?” I said, “No, it isn’t! I’d hate it! Everyone pushing and shoving.”

So then Uncle Eddy said, “In that case, think how you would like it to be, and that is how it will be.”

I have been thinking and thinking. All I can think of is that I want Gran and Kitty to be there.

And maybe some of the really great dancers that I have seen pictures of. Margot Fonteyn and Rudolf Nureyev and Anna Pavlova.

It would be brilliant if I could get to meet them! But mostly I just want Gran and Kitty.

I knew when Uncle Eddy came back from Africa specially to be with me that I was more ill than Mum let on. Poor Mum! She can’t face up to it.

I can! I think.

Sometimes I can. Other times it just doesn’t seem real, the thought of life going on without me.

Well, but it is not going to! Not yet. I am not ready to leave yet. I am going to go on
fighting.

I was ever so pleased when Uncle Eddy came back. It was a truly golden moment when I saw him walking into the ward. I love him so much! And we have been able to have long, long talks like I can’t do with Mum.

We chat for ages together! About all sorts of things. There’s nothing I can’t talk to Uncle Eddy about. Like for instance one time I asked him whether he really
thinks there are lots and lots of people waiting for us when we die. If I’d tried asking Mum she’d have said, “Oh, darling! Don’t be morbid. What’s all this talk of dying?”

Uncle Eddy never tells me that I’m morbid. He understands that there are things I need to know. He said, “For sure! Lots and lots. No one will ever have to be lonely.”

I said, “But do people wait? Do they wait for people?”

Like Granddad, for example. Granddad has been dead for a really long time. Longer than I have been alive. Suppose he got tired of waiting for Gran and found someone else?

Uncle Eddy said that he wouldn’t have got tired. He said, “Time is different there. There is no time. Time stands still … for ever and ever. To Granddad it will have seemed like no more than a few seconds have passed.”

So then I asked him something else that had been bothering me. Granddad was only fifty when he died, but Gran was quite old. How would Granddad have felt about his wife being an old person? How would Gran have felt about it? Would she mind him seeing her with grey hair and wrinkles while he was still
young? Wouldn’t it have upset them both?

Uncle Eddy said, “No way!” He said that things like age simply wouldn’t matter any more. He said, “If it was Gran’s dream to be young again, and to meet Granddad when he was young, then that is what she will have done.”

He said, “We will all find whatever we want to find, and be just as we want to be. I promise you.”

I said, “Are you absolutely sure?” Uncle Eddy said, “I’m absolutely positive.”

So then I said, “But how can you
know?
How can anybody
know?”
and he said, “Trust me! I know.”

I do trust Uncle Eddy. But I still can’t help being anxious. I don’t want to go there if I can’t be with Gran and Kitty!

Another thing Gran said was that dying was worse for the people that are left behind than for the people it happens to. I suppose this is because of time in heaven standing still while time on earth just creeps. Like for Granddad it would only have seemed a few seconds while for Gran it was years and years.

Perhaps it is a sort of comfort to think that people who have died are not being lonely and missing you. If I die it will only be seconds before I see Mum and Danny and Uncle Eddy again.

But I am not going to die! I don’t want to! I want to dance Odette and go to Wonderland!

It’s Danny I feel sorriest for. He is the one I worry about. I know that Mum will be sad and cry but she is always so busy with her television work and Uncle Eddy has his filming but Danny is only just a little boy. He won’t understand! He won’t know about time seeming like seconds. He won’t know that there are people up there waiting for you.

Danny is going to miss me more than anyone. He’ll be all on his own with Ana-Maria. And if she goes back to Spain he will have to get used to someone else and he is so shy, he hates having to meet new people.

I think Mum ought to have another baby to keep him company. I wouldn’t mind her having another one. But first she will have to get married again and I don’t know who she could marry. She hasn’t even got a man friend at the moment. But it isn’t fair to leave Danny on his own! He needs someone to look after him.