Dandelion Clocks (10 page)

Wow. I cannot imagine Mum behaving like that at all. She never seems to care what other people think. In fact, she's always telling me that the most important thing is to do what
you
want to do, not what other people are doing. And she might be quite embarrassing sometimes but she's never unkind. I'm not sure how I feel about her doing that to Beth – she sounds a bit like one of the mean girls at my school and I bet there's no way that they'll grow up to be as nice and fabulous as my mum.

I'm a bit worried about reading the rest and think that I'll put the diary back in the box. But then I remember that it was Mum who told me to read this bit, so I should probably trust her – and I don't want to disturb her by waking her up right now to check it's OK. I turn the page and continue reading, keeping my fingers crossed that my mum wasn't her school's version of Moronic Louise.

11 January 1989

I have lost my best friend. I don't know what to do. I tried ringing her up but her mum answered the phone and said that she was sorry, but Beth didn't want to speak to me.

Mum came upstairs a while ago and asked me what was wrong. I've been too ashamed to tell her what has happened, but it felt good to finally talk about it. She listened to me and then said that life isn't about friends who are nice to your face. It's about friends who are nice behind your back. I cried quite a lot when she said that, but I think I know what to do now.

12 January 1989

Went over to Beth's house after school. Nobody answered the door, but I could see the curtains move in Beth's room so I kept knocking and yelling up at her window. I said that I wasn't going to leave until she talked to me.

I sat on her front step for what felt like hours, but was probably about ten minutes, and then her mum walked up the drive. She asked why I was sitting on her step. I told her that I was really sorry and that I needed to tell Beth properly. She said she'd see what she could do and went inside.
I sat there for another ten minutes, and then the front door opened and Beth came out with two mugs of hot chocolate.

We sat next to each other for a bit and then I told her how sorry I was and what a terrible friend I'd been and how, if she forgave me, I'd never, ever behave like that again. She told me to shut up and drink my hot chocolate. We gave each other a hug and I told her what my mum had said and promised that from now on, I would be the sort of friend who was always nice behind her back and that I'd always defend her and be here for her.

We both cried a bit and laughed a bit, and then Beth said that HER mum always quotes some Sicilian proverb about how only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty. And that I had hot chocolate smeared all around my mouth.

I close Mum's diary with a sigh of relief – my mum was nothing like Louise. She's never told me all that about Beth before, though, and she and Beth are still good friends to this day, so she must have done something right. I think over what
their
mums told them about friendship, and why Mum told me to read this today, and I know that
I have not been a true friend to Alice. Sure, I'm mad at her, but I didn't actually give her the chance to tell me what had happened and that isn't very fair.

The phone starts ringing and straight away I know it's her. She's about the only person that rings our house – Isaac hasn't got any friends and Mum and Dad get most of their phone calls on their mobiles. I've been on at them for ages to let me have a mobile but they've always got an excuse. First I was too young, then they said it'd cost too much – Mum even tried telling me that it could give me brain damage. I tried to tell her that being the only person in my whole, entire school without a mobile phone was definitely damaging my health, but she wasn't convinced. Anyway, Alice and I have never let an argument carry on to the next day and I know that Alice won't be able to relax until she's spoken to me. I want to talk with her too – but I still feel like making her wait a bit longer. After all, she knows how I feel about Ben.

‘Liv!' Isaac shouts up the stairs. He's just started answering the phone and takes the whole procedure extremely seriously. ‘Alice is on the phone. She wants to talk to you.'

‘Tell her I'm out!' I yell back.

‘But you're not out. You're in. I can hear you,' calls Isaac. I sigh deeply. Not only do I now have to talk to Alice; she'll have heard all of that little exchange cos there is no way that Isaac will have used the mute button.

I stomp down the stairs and Isaac hands me the phone, but not before saying, ‘I
knew
you were in!' in a triumphant manner. I take a deep breath.

‘Hi,' I say, as frostily as I can.

‘Liv, please just listen to me and don't hang up!' Alice jabbers in a garbled rush. Hang up on her? When have I ever hung up on her? The girl's been watching way too much television. ‘I'm really sorry, Liv. I really don't want to lose you as my best friend.'

‘So –
are
you going out with Ben?' I ask her.

‘No!' Alice sounds shocked.

‘But you didn't wait for me this morning and you walked into school with him?'

‘Well, yes – but it wasn't like that, Liv.'

‘What was it like then?' I say, still feeling hurt. I know I was horrible to Alice in class but she hasn't exactly acted like my best friend. ‘Did you just end up ditching me for him by mistake?'

‘Liv – that's what I wanted to talk to you about! I was waiting and waiting for you this morning
and you didn't turn up. Ben was just walking past on the way to school, so we ended up walking in together cos I thought you must be off, ill. Then just as we got into school Louise and her cronies saw us and started saying “Ooh, new boyfriend, Alice?”, and I was really embarrassed and Ben looked utterly horrified and ran off and – well, you know the rest!'

‘So you weren't going out with him yesterday?'

‘No!'

‘And you didn't plan to leave me to walk to school on my own this morning?'

‘Definitely not!'

‘And you're not actually going out with him now?'

‘No,' says Alice in a bored voice.

‘And you didn't tell Moronic Louise something before you told me?'

‘Liv!' Alice actually sounds quite fed up now. ‘What do you take me for? I would never tell her anything. I wouldn't tell her the time – so how on earth could you think that I would tell her anything of actual importance?'

‘Sorry,' I mutter.

‘Not that there was anything to tell, you do understand,' demands Alice.

‘Yeah – I get that now,' I say, trying to sound as apologetic as possible.

‘But when, or if, I ever have any important information of any kind, I can promise you that you'll be the first to find out. OK?'

‘OK,' I say.

‘And I would never, ever,
ever
go out with a boy that you like cos that would be all kinds of wrong.'

‘I know. Me neither,' I whisper, feeling a bit ashamed.

There's a pause and then Alice starts laughing. ‘What a rubbish day! Can it be over now?'

‘It really can,' I tell her. ‘In fact – that's it. All done. I'm going straight upstairs to put my pyjamas on.'

‘Me too!' she says. ‘Then I'm going to curl up on the sofa and watch –'

‘
The Simpsons!
' I interrupt.

‘Of course!' Alice says.

‘See you tomorrow then,' I say, smiling down the phone.

‘Usual place?'

‘Usual place,' I agree.

‘Bye then – and Liv?'

‘Yeah?'

‘Put a new battery in your alarm clock, OK?'

‘Deal,' I say. ‘Bye, Alice!'

When I put the phone down and turn round, I see that Mum is standing in the kitchen doorway. I grin at her.

‘All sorted?' she asks me.

‘Yes,' I tell her. ‘I shouldn't have been so quick to get mad with Alice. I kind of leapt to the wrong conclusion, but we're OK now.'

‘She's a good friend,' says Mum.

‘The best,' I agree, taking her arm and leading her back to the sofa. ‘She'd definitely tell me if my face was dirty!'

Mum smiles at me. ‘Ahh – so the diaries
have
been a bit useful!'

‘I'm never going to be mean to Alice ever again. It just made me feel horrible and look stupid,' I say. ‘I want me and Alice to be friends for as long as you and Beth have been friends.'

I tuck Mum back in and try to make her cosy. She's been getting really cold the last few days, and no matter how many blankets we pile on her, she still shivers and shakes. I can feel that her hot water bottle has cooled down so I pick it up and go into the kitchen.

‘I hope you'll get to have a longer friendship with Alice than I have with Beth,' I hear her say
quietly. ‘A friendship that lasts a proper lifetime, not just half of one.'

I don't think I'm supposed to have heard that so I don't reply, but I realize that today, I've almost enjoyed having something else to think about. I wonder if I'd have got so mad at Alice if Mum wasn't – well, doing what she's doing. I think that I wouldn't have been so upset, that's for sure.

And I realize that I am going to need Alice more than I've ever needed her before and that maybe it's time to tell her what's happening in my house.

I walk into the kitchen to see Dad and Isaac updating the wall planner on the wall. Like the one in his bedroom, it shows Isaac all the things that will be happening this week so that he can be prepared. Unlike the one in his bedroom, this wall planner charts all of Mum's hospital appointments so that Isaac knows when she won't be at home. And so that he can start to understand that she's really, truly ill.

Ever since that horrible evening when Mum and Dad told us that Mum was properly ill I've been waiting for Isaac to have a total meltdown, but it hasn't happened. I asked Dad about it the other day and he said that he doesn't think Isaac is letting the information through – that it's a bit like him closing a gate in his mind to stop him from thinking about things that will upset him.

Lucky Isaac
, I said. I wish I didn't have to think about it either.

Since I said this, Dad has been working really hard to keep telling Isaac about how Mum is doing and what each appointment is for. I think he's worried that Isaac will lose it for good if he doesn't start talking about it with us soon.

I grab some cornflakes and take a look at the new schedule. Mum is going to be pretty busy this week – she has hospital appointments almost every day.

‘Can you make sure that you're home on time after school today?' Dad asks me, washing a couple of apples and putting them in our lunchboxes. ‘I need to drive Mum back from seeing the doctor and we'll be a bit late.'

‘Sure,' I say. Isaac's special school is quite a few miles away so he has to have a taxi there and back – which is a good thing because it means that he's never the first person home at the end of the day. ‘How's Mum feeling today?'

‘Not so good,' says Dad. ‘She didn't really get any sleep again last night.'

I look over at him, worried. He doesn't sound his normal, cheery self this morning.

‘But the doctors will be able to help her, won't
they?' I ask. ‘Just tell them to give her something that'll help her sleep. Alice said her mum has pills to help her go to sleep all the time.'

‘Yes, well – it's not quite the same thing, I'm afraid,' says Dad, handing me my lunch.

‘But there's still hope, isn't there?' I say. ‘You said that technology is improving constantly and that it's simply a question of trying everything until something works.'

Dad doesn't say anything, just looks at me and runs his fingers through his hair. ‘Dad? You
said
that, remember?'

‘I remember, Liv. The thing is – your mum's tried nearly everything now.'

I take a huge breath of relief. ‘Well, there you go then!
Nearly
everything isn't everything, is it? Make sure they do
everything
they can, Dad – you have to!'

‘I will, Liv. And your mum's determined to fight this thing – and you know what she's like when she sets her mind to something.'

I love Dad for trying to lighten the mood, but I can feel that something has changed. My heart starts to race and my armpits feel prickly with sweat.

‘Dad?' I ask him, but I can't finish my sentence.
I don't even know what the rest of the sentence might be, just that it's so bad I can't find the words to say it or even think it.

Dad moves round the kitchen table and squeezes my shoulder. ‘We need to sit down, Liv – have a chat.'

‘No!' I say, the word coming out louder than I expected. ‘It's fine, Dad – really. You don't need to worry – I'll be here for Isaac after school.'

My gaze falls again on the wall planner with Mum's hospital appointments crowding out the rest of the month. Dad follows my eyes to see where I'm looking and squeezes my shoulder again.

‘We'll talk when I get back later,' he tells me. He tries to smile at me but while his mouth turns up at each corner, his eyes don't seem to get the message, and when I leave the kitchen he is still standing there, looking at the wall planner with his pretend, everything's-going-to-be-OK Dad smile on his face. I can feel that I need to make doubly certain that I am here when Isaac gets home from school. And I can feel that it is time to stop acting like a little girl and take some responsibility.

The first thing that I do with my newfound mature and responsible self is to bunk off school. It is so
ludicrously easy to do that I can't believe I haven't ever done it before. I say goodbye to Mum and Dad and walk down to our corner where Alice is waiting for me. I'm going to tell her my plan and ask her to cover for me at school. To be honest, I think she'll agree to just about anything I ask her right now. I told her about Mum the other day – she cried for ages. All this week she's made sure that Moronic Louise doesn't get anywhere near me – and school's been a little bit easier now that she knows. We haven't actually talked about it since, but it feels a bit like I've got some back-up now.

‘Hey, Liv.' Alice is already waiting at the corner, waving at me. I walk towards her and when I reach her I drop my bag on the pavement and lean back against the wall. Alice looks at me in surprise but doesn't say a word, just drops her own bag and leans back next to me, one foot resting on the wall behind us.

‘I can't go to school,' I tell her.

‘Why? What's happened?' Alice is panicking and her voice comes out all high and breathless. ‘Liv? Has your mum –'

‘No!' I say, wrapping my arms across my body and shivering a little. ‘Nothing's changed.'

‘Thank God for that.' Alice slumps a little and I can tell how scared she is. ‘I thought –'

‘I know,' I tell her and we stand in silence for a minute, watching the cars go past.

‘Life is so totally rubbish,' Alice says eventually. ‘I never knew it could be this unfair. I just can't stop thinking about your mum. Why can't you go to school?'

‘It's wasting time,' I say. I'm not sure how else to tell her what I'm feeling, but I just know there are far more important things to do today than go to school.

‘Are you going to stay at home with your mum?' asks Alice, and I know that she wants to understand; that she's trying to make sense of what is happening. I don't have the energy to explain that Mum will be at the hospital most of today and that I feel like I'm missing something. I can't put into words how it felt when Dad said we needed to ‘have a talk'.

‘Yes,' I tell her. It seems easier somehow, and I'm not completely sure myself why I know that I have to stay at home today.

‘OK,' says Alice. ‘Give your mum a big hug from me. Tell her my mum said to just ask if she
needs anything. Tell her –' But her voice chokes up and she stops talking, rubbing at her eyes and trying to hide the tears that are welling up inside them.

‘I'll tell her. Cover for me at school?'

Alice nods and gives me a hug, and then runs down the road while I go the other way and nip down the alleyway that is at the back of our garden. Normally I'll do anything to avoid this alley. Nothing bad has ever happened there as far as I know, but it makes me think about death and dog poo – not my favourite subjects. I know that Mum and Dad are meant to be leaving quite early so I hang around at the end of the alley for a bit, enjoying the early morning sun, until I reckon they'll have gone and then I leave the sunshine and head down the shadowy pathway.

The wall is quite high, so I have a bit of trouble judging which bit of the alley is next to our garden. When I think I'm close I drag a dustbin up to the wall – good job that (a) it's bin day, and (b) the bin men have already emptied the dustbins – and stand on it. Well, I say that like it's easy. Actually, it's quite difficult to stand up on a bin. They're always doing it on telly but on reflection, I think
they must film that bit with stunt doubles because it takes me
ages
to balance myself on top. And then, when I can finally see over the wall, I see that it's not even
our
garden – I'm still three doors down, about to jump into Mrs Green's immaculate flower bed. She's always been really lovely to me but even so, I don't think she'd be very happy if she spotted me trampling all over her plants.

I get down (about as easy as getting up there) and repeat the whole charade – this time in the right place. Bizarrely, clambering over the garden wall is the easy bit. I just sort of pull myself up on to my tummy and then slowly tip my whole body over. Not very elegant – no points for my dismount, but effective all the same.

I pick myself up and brush myself down, and then creep round the back of Dad's studio and let myself in with the key that he imaginatively hides under a flowerpot.

There, on my bench, are the rubbish photographs that I took on my birthday. I've gathered up photos that I took months ago with my old camera too – they're all here. I look at them now, choosing quickly and putting them into two piles. When I'm done, I sweep the second pile into a drawer and
then, taking the rest, I spread them out all over Dad's huge table.

Now I can take my time, picking up each image and looking at it properly, holding it to the light and turning it this way and that. I discard a few more pictures and I sort the rest into another two groups. When I'm done, I stand back and look.

Staring up at me from the table is Mum. Lots and lots of photographs of my mum. I gather up the first collection and flick through. In one frame she's got her arm round Dad and is laughing at something he's said. In another, Isaac is pushing her on a swing in the park and her hair is fanning out behind her and her legs are straight out in front of her, and she's smiling and smiling. A third shows her sitting at the kitchen table, glasses pushed up on her head and a frown of concentration on her face, as she writes an article that is probably due in the next day. What all of these pictures have in common is they show how Mum lives every day – like it really, really matters.

The next lot of photos are more recent. They're the photos that I took of my birthday tea and in the few weeks before my birthday, and they still show my mum – but she's not the same. She's still
laughing and hugging in these pictures but she looks
so
different. I can't believe I haven't noticed before. How come I can see it on a photo but not in real life?

I put all the pictures back on the table and spread them out again. Frantically, I start to order them chronologically, trying to remember when I took each one. When they're all lined up in order, I step back and look at the timeline I've created. I look from left to right, as my mum seems to shrink in size. The photos on the left show a mum who was easy to hug, who was never overweight but was definitely cuddly. They show a mum who was quick to get mad and quick to forgive and quick to laugh at everything life threw at her.

The photos on the right side of my timeline show a new mum. This one is thin and could do with eating some chocolate; this one wants to hug you but you worry that you might break her, she feels so brittle. This mum seems to be watching everything that goes on around her instead of joining in, and she looks like that is killing her.

I turn away from the table and stifle a sob. I do not want to cry right now. Tears would be totally pointless. How did I not notice, I rage inside my head. I thought she was getting better. I thought
this would all be over – I knew it might take a bit of time, but I thought we'd get there in the end. I've even found myself getting cross with her, wishing that she wasn't spoiling everything by being unwell.

I picture our wall planner in the kitchen and see how Mum has been visiting the hospital more and more frequently. The evidence was there, right in front of me all the time. All I had to do was look but I chose not to. Maybe I'm more like Isaac than I realized. I wonder if one day, these photographs will be the only evidence that she was ever here, that she ever actually existed.

I'm not sure how long I've been in the studio but I'm suddenly really freezing. It's weird cos it looks like it's turning into quite a nice day outside, but I'm actually shaking, I'm so cold. I think about what I should do now. I leave the studio, walk down the garden path to the back door and find the key (yet again, imaginatively placed under a flowerpot). I go inside and put the kettle on, amazed at how calm I am. I feel nothing inside, just a big, empty hole – and I hope it stays like that because the idea of feeling anything is unbearable.

Just as the kettle boils I hear the click of the front door opening and a second later, the sound of it
closing. I turn my head slowly towards the kitchen doorway. Presumably I'm going to have to explain to Dad why I'm not at school and my brain seems to have stopped working, which is a problem because I will need a good excuse in approximately two seconds.

I hear footsteps coming down the hallway and pause. I can't actually see anything because there's suddenly something wrong with my eyes – water is flowing out of them and I can't make it stop. I blink hard and rub them and when I look up, it isn't Dad standing there at all.