Minus Me (5 page)

‘You’ve cheated death once, so there’s absolutely no reason to give up hope,’ says the doctor, walking towards the door. ‘Thank you for coming, Linda. I look forward to seeing you again.’

And suddenly they’re back on the ward. Linda is lying in bed, pretending to be asleep. She doesn’t want to look at her mother, who is standing by the window with that over-optimistic smile on her face. Nor can she bear to look at her father, who is incapable of disguising his fear. His hands are constantly moving, as though they want to grab hold of something. But there is nothing to grab hold of now; they have been given absolutely no hope. Just a mangled heart in a brown envelope.

‘Look! Do you see that black cat?’ says Linda’s mother.

‘Where?’ says her father.

‘There. Isn’t it the same one that we saw back at home?’

‘Oh, Ellen, the town’s full of black cats.’

‘But it can’t be a coincidence.’

‘I’d say that’s exactly what it is,’ he answers. ‘A coincidence.’

Chapter 9

With plaits dangling from under a woolly hat like two bits of rope, the girl runs towards the crossing. She shouts something and waves to some girls on the other side of the street. The girls turn and wave back. She runs out into the road without looking. There’s a screeching of brakes. The body of the girl lies crushed on the asphalt.

‘Wakey-wakey, Linda. It’s your turn.’ Maria shakes her gently by the arm.

‘Ah, yes,’ says Linda, screwing up her eyes and shaking her head to chase away the awful daydreams that keep coming back. Children she imagines mown down by buses, trailers, trains or charging bulls. All the dead children who are her only hope, she thinks, with a metallic taste in her mouth.

She opens her eyes, throws the dice and moves one of her Ludo counters.

‘What were you thinking about just now?’ Maria asks.

Linda refuses to answer, but hands the dice to Maria.

Maria throws and moves a counter.

‘What are you thinking about?’ Linda asks.

Angrily she grabs Maria’s counter and moves it back to where it was, then takes another of Maria’s counters and moves it so it knocks three of her own off the board.

‘What’s happening?’ says Maria.

‘Can’t you see?’ says Linda. ‘You’re winning and I’m losing.’

‘I meant with you?’

‘Please, can’t we just play this game?’

‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. I don’t want you to die. You’re not allowed to die.’

Linda wishes Maria wouldn’t keep whinging on; it’s like a rodent gnawing at her stomach. As if whining will help. It just makes things worse. It makes her feel like it’s her fault she’s lying in a hospital bed. It makes her feel that she should have done something differently. But things are as they are. Linda wants to scream and chuck the dice and all the counters into Maria’s face. But she doesn’t. She picks up the dice calmly and passes them to Maria, who weighs them in her hand, then suddenly puts them down and gets up from her chair.

‘Now what’s the matter?’ says Linda, sighing.

‘I just need the toilet,’ says Maria, unable to hide the tears in her voice. ‘Anyway, it’s your go.’

‘Could you bring me some water?’ asks Linda, taking a glass from the bedside table and giving it to her friend.

‘Sure. Do you need anything else?’

‘Yes . . . stop letting me win at Ludo.’

Maria takes the glass and goes. Linda sits there in her bed. She starts to tidy the game away. One of the counters falls to the floor and rolls under the bed. Linda swings her feet out onto the floor, but tries to get up too quickly. The world starts to spin. And as she hits the floor she is sucked back into another room and another time. A time when she and Maria could just have fun together. A time when Maria didn’t cheat so Linda would win at Ludo or whisper tearfully that Linda mustn’t die. A time that seems so far away now, even though it’s been only a week.

Linda remembers lying on her bed with Maria, their feet resting up against the wall.

‘I’ve decided to start wearing make-up,’ says Maria, looking at her friend.

‘Why?’ says Linda, turning to face her.

‘Because I’m nearly thirteen! We’re going to be teenagers soon. Think of all the experiences we’ll have!’

‘Like what?’

‘Kissing boys!’

‘Yeah, but you started kissing them when you were four. And you and Markus are always kissing and cuddling.’

‘But when you’re a teenager you kiss more passionately, out of love and things.’

‘Oh, Maria!’ Linda rolls her eyes. She can’t see why everything should change just because you’re thirteen. It’s only a number!

‘Well?’ says Maria, rolling onto her side to face Linda. Maria looks so happy. And so pretty, too. Perfect Maria. She won’t have any problems being a teenager. She probably won’t even get spots.

‘You’re completely boy-mad,’ says Linda.

‘You bet! And we’ve got to go to parties.’

‘The world’s coolest parties,’ says Linda, getting drawn into her friend’s excitement despite herself.

‘And slow dance.’

‘And get periods,’ says Linda, mostly because she knows that Maria hates blood so much it makes her faint.

‘Linda!’

‘Okay, then. Go on language exchanges.’

‘Go on holiday without our parents.’

‘Go to college in America,’ suggests Linda.

‘I’ll be a cheerleader!’ says Maria, waving her arms.

‘And I can be President!’

‘No, you can’t.’

‘I can!’

‘Say something sensible.’

‘I’m not sure if I really want to be a teenager!’ Linda admits, biting her nails. ‘It all seems so – I don’t know – so difficult.’

Maria suddenly sits up on the bed, looking extremely serious, and takes Linda’s hands in hers.

‘There is one very, very important thing, Linda.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You have got to stop biting your nails,’ says Maria, keeping a straight face for a second before bursting into laughter, throwing herself over Linda and tickling her. Linda tickles Maria back, and they roll onto the floor howling with laughter and gasping for breath. The door opens and Linda’s mother peeps in.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

‘We’re talking very seriously about the future,’ Linda replies.

Her mother just shakes her head, before closing the door and leaving the girls to themselves again.

‘Linda?’ says Maria, taking her hand. ‘We’ve got to make a list.’

‘What sort of list?’ wonders Linda.

‘A list of all the things we’ve got to do when we’re thirteen,’ answers Maria.

Chapter 10

Maria comes back into the hospital room. Linda hears the glass of water tumble onto the floor, and feels a splash of water on her cheek. She can’t be bothered to open her eyes. She just wants to go on sleeping here on the floor.

‘Linda! Linda! Wake up!’

Maria crouches down next to her and pulls her up onto her lap. Linda opens her eyes.

‘Hi.’

Maria hugs her in reply.

‘Your mascara’s running,’ says Linda, looking up at her friend.

‘I don’t want you to die,’ says Maria, hugging Linda even tighter.

‘Do you remember that list we wrote?’

Linda lifts a hand and wipes away the mascara from under Maria’s eyes with the sleeve of her nightdress.

‘What list?’

‘The list of all the things we were going to do when we were thirteen,’ answers Linda.

‘What about it?’

‘It just popped into my head.’

‘Oh?’

‘If I die, will you promise to complete it?’

‘But you’re not going to die!’ Maria shouts. Linda is suddenly aware of how hard her friend is squeezing her. And she can smell that she is wearing perfume. Maria smells of flowers in a garden in July.

‘Will you promise?’ says Linda.

‘We’re going to do everything on that list together.’

‘I don’t think so,’ says Linda, closing her eyes.

Maria hugs her again, but Linda keeps her eyes closed.

‘If you leave me, that list won’t mean a thing.’

Linda doesn’t answer, but she opens her eyes and lets Maria help her get back onto her feet and into bed. Linda lies under the duvet. She folds her hands over her chest, and shuts her eyes again. Then she says, quite matter-of-factly, she doesn’t want carnations at her funeral.

‘I hate carnations,’ she says.

‘I hate you talking about dying.’

‘But I’m going to die, so we might as well talk about it. Will you sing for me, at the funeral?’ asks Linda.

‘Linda, I’ll go if you don’t shut up,’ says Maria, stepping back from the bed.

‘You can sing that one – “My Heart Will Go On”. You know – from that film we saw about the boat that was meant to be unsinkable, but sank anyway,’ says Linda, opening her eyes and looking over at Maria, who has turned away and is muttering the word ‘Titanic’ to herself.

‘The Titanic, yes. What happened to that glass of water?’

‘I dropped it on the floor.’

‘That was clumsy,’ says Linda, propping herself up on the bed and catching sight of the glass. ‘But it’s not broken.’

Maria grabs the glass agitatedly, and heads for the bathroom. Linda can’t take Maria’s fear any more. Her own fear is enough – or is it perhaps anger that she feels the most? Or powerlessness? She doesn’t quite know what she feels, but whatever it is, it’s exhausting. Linda pretends to be asleep when Maria comes back. She hears her put the glass on the bedside table, and then feels a hand on her cheek. ‘I promise to sing at your wedding, on your eightieth birthday, or when you win a prize because you’ve saved the world or just because you’re amazing. But I’m not singing at your funeral, because you’re not going to die yet.’

Linda doesn’t answer, though the word ‘whatever’ floats around in her head.

Maria has stopped stroking her cheek, but Linda can still feel her hand there. She wishes she could open her eyes, smile, and tell her friend that it isn’t happening. That she’s not going to die. That there’s still hope. But she doesn’t even believe it herself.

Maria takes her hand away. Linda hears her pick up her jacket and bag from the chair. She half-opens one eye and sees her friend take something out of her bag. It’s a medal. Maria ended up with silver in the diving competition. Maria turns and Linda quickly closes her eyes again. She hears Maria put the medal down on the bedside table before heading out of the room. As the door clicks closed, Linda stares after her and says: ‘I love you.’ Then she turns her head to the window and looks out. It’s snowing outside. It always does in February. After all, you don’t get spring in February, as her mother always says. Strange that she should think about that now.

Chapter 11

It’s their weekly tutor-group period. All the desks are pushed against the walls and the pupils have put their chairs in a semicircle in the centre of the room. The teacher has moved her chair in front of her desk and is sitting with her legs crossed. They’ve been discussing a class trip they’re planning to go on in May. Linda hasn’t said a word. She has nothing to contribute to the discussion. The class trip will go without me, she thinks. Linda hadn’t known any of the answers in Maths this morning. But that had suddenly been totally fine. And the teacher hadn’t made plans for her to catch up with the work she’d missed in hospital. It was as though her Maths teacher had already subtracted her from the future.

‘So, are we all agreed then, class? We’ll sell cookies, not hotdogs, to raise money for the trip,’ says the teacher, uncrossing her legs. She puts her hands on her knees and gets up. ‘And you should all calculate the number of boxes of cookies you think you can sell.’

‘Minus me,’ says Linda.

It just pops out of her mouth, and she looks about her, as though she’s as confused as anyone else in the room about where the words came from.

‘Well . . . hm,’ says the teacher, with an awkward little laugh. ‘It’s a long time until May, and I’ve talked to your parents, Linda. And, well, perhaps you’d like to say something to the class? I mean about why you’ve been away for a week?’

The teacher sits back down. One foot tucked behind the other. Does she need the toilet? thinks Linda. Or is that how adults always sit if they’re pretending to be laid-back, when they’re really shit-scared? Linda takes out the brown envelope. She’s had it tucked under her chair, waiting for the moment when she says – she’s not really sure what. Maria suddenly lets out a sob. Linda takes the X-ray out of the envelope, and entwines her feet in the same toilet-needy way as the teacher.

‘This is how my heart looks,’ begins Linda, gazing out over the class. She feels her mouth go dry and the sweat dripping. For some reason she is only sweating under her left armpit. The body’s a weird thing, she thinks, realizing that she’s smiling.

‘Wow!’ says Henrik, the number-one class idiot.

‘Twat,’ hisses Oscar, then flashes a smile at Linda.