The Baking Life of Amelie Day (6 page)

‘Hi, Mr R,’ I say, flicking the glossy pages of a BBC food magazine. ‘How’s it hanging?’

Mum sighs.

‘Not a great question to ask a doctor,’ says Mr Rogers. ‘I’m likely to give you a long, medical and potentially boring answer.’

I smile. I like Mr Rogers and his weird sense of humour. Somehow he always manages to make me feel like Amelie-The-Person rather than just Amelie-The-Patient.

‘Your Mum tells me you want to go to London,’ he says. ‘Some big competition, I hear. That does sound very exciting.’

‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘but has she also told you she’s not allowing me to go?’

Mum flushes pale pink when I say that. Her face clashes with her red jacket. I think of the pink slices from a tub of Neapolitan ice cream and the red of the strawberry sauce I like to pour over them.

‘I was just about to get round to that,’ she says, all defensive and huffy. ‘Mr Rogers is a very busy man.’

He perches on the edge of the bed where I’m lying.

‘Not too busy to discuss your health,’ he says. ‘So I take it you still want to go to London?’

I put down the magazines with a sigh. I’ve just found a glorious twist on a traditional baked cheesecake recipe which involves major use of chocolate.

‘Of course I do,’ I say. ‘It’s only like the biggest baking competition in the country. And I don’t see why I can’t still go, so long as I’m careful and look after myself.’

Mum stands up and folds her arm. She looks tired, wary and wired up all at the same time.

‘I’m getting a bit fed up of this stuck record,’ she says in a voice I hardly ever hear. ‘I’ve told you you’re not going, and that’s that. Don’t try to swing me by dragging Mr Rogers into it all.’

Mr Rogers stands up and clears his throat.

‘It’s your annual review next week, isn’t it?’ he says. ‘Perhaps if I might suggest, Mrs Day, we could make a final decision based upon the results of that?’

Mum flushes again. I can tell that she’s angry that Mr Rogers hasn’t entirely backed her up.

‘Oh, alright,’ she says. ‘But I can’t see Amelie being much better than she is now and right now she is in no fit state to go anywhere. I’ll be at the coffee machine.’

She goes out of the room and lets the door bang behind her.

Mr Rogers and I regard one another for a moment. He has kind eyes – dark like chocolate raisins and with a sort of glint behind them. I try to picture what his kids are like and reckon that he’s a good father.

‘I only want to get on with my life,’ I say in a whisper. ‘That’s all.’

Mr Rogers nods and puts his hand on my shoulder for a moment. The brief gesture causes tears to well up in my eyes.

‘I’ll leave you in the capable hands of Sister,’ he says. The nurse is unhooking the flush from my portacath. ‘Don’t worry. I’m sure we can sort something out.’

My heart lifts a little.

‘Oh, here,’ I call after his retreating back. ‘I made you something.’

Mr Rogers comes back and peels back the lid of the box I’m holding out.

‘I did them all on a medical theme,’ I say, shy.

He bursts out laughing. I’ve been practising biscuits for the competition. Inside are some iced golden syrup cookies with little piped pictures on top. I’ve done a pair of lungs on one, a heart on another and a selection of pills, beds, syringes and stethoscopes on the rest. It took me half the night to perfect the drawings and I did them in a dark green colour in the same shade as Mr Roger’s operating overalls.

‘You are something else, Amelie,’ he says, wiping his eyes. ‘I can’t eat these. They’re too good. But of course, I will.’

Then he leaves me, still laughing to himself. I let the nurse clean me up and prepare me for going home.

***

Dad calls round to see me after I get home from hospital.

I’m in the kitchen making mini carrot cakes with buttercream frosting. I’ve cut some carrot shapes out of my leftover fondant icing and coloured them orange and I’m just sticking these on top of the finished cakes. There’s a pile of homework upstairs with my name on it, but after a day spent in the hot, disinfectant-smelling air of the hospital, I fancied letting my creative vision run riot so I’ve ditched the idea of doing maths until later.

‘There,’ I say, standing back to admire my handiwork. The little square cakes stand to attention in neat lines on the rack, each one covered in fluffy buttercream which I’ve run a fork through to make peaks that look a bit like snowdrifts.

‘Oh yes!’ says Dad, heading towards the rack with a purposeful look in his eye. ‘I reckon you need a second opinion on those from your Chief Taster.’

I sigh.

‘Harry is Chief Taster,’ I say. ‘You can be Back-up Taster, if you like.’

Dad frowns.

‘I’ve been relegated to the sidelines,’ he says. ‘Wow. And I’m your favourite Dad and all that.’

I let him pick out a cake and bite into the rich sponge.

‘Good?’ I say. ‘I added some lemon juice just to make it a bit different.’

‘Mm,’ says Dad with his cheeks bulging. ‘Excellent. And I would love to see what you can do with a courgette.’

I smile and click the kettle on. Mum comes downstairs and gives Dad a peck on the cheek.

‘Thought I heard you,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you come outside and admire my petunias?’

‘Oh, right,’ says Dad. ‘How much more excitement can one man take?’

He winks at me and then heads off outside with Mum and they walk around our back courtyard garden, staring into pots and tubs and chatting avidly all the time.

I make the tea and bang on the window and they wave but don’t come in.

I’m about to bang again and then I realise what they’re doing. Why Dad has come over, in fact. They’re discussing the London question. They’re talking about me.

For a moment I feel a surge of anger. Then I bite it down again. I know it’s only because they care. But if they’re discussing something about my future, then really I should be out there taking part in the discussion with them.

I put the three mugs on a tray and add three of my mini carrot cakes and I head out the back. Mum and Dad have stopped looking at plants. Mum is now facing Dad with her hands on her hips which can’t be a good thing, as that’s the position she adopts when she’s telling me off about something. Dad is staring at his feet and shuffling them about which is also not good.

I sigh and offer the tray.

‘I know you’re talking about me,’ I say. ‘Which is why I’ve come out here. Plus I can’t actually lip-read through the window which is kind of annoying.’

Dad smiles when I say this. Mum doesn’t.

‘Sometimes your father and I need to talk about stuff in private,’ she says. ‘You could have given us another minute, surely?’

I look at Dad. He shrugs and reaches for a mug of tea.

‘Your mother’s in charge here,’ he says. ‘What she says, goes.’

He says this in a mechanical way, like he’s rehearsed it. I look at him more closely. He doesn’t look very pleased. I’m not sure whether he’s annoyed with Mum or with me for coming outside and interrupting.

‘Dad,’ I say. ‘What do YOU think about me going to London? Honestly?’

Dad glances at Mum. She gives him an imploring sort of look, like she’s trying to affect what he’s about to say, but Dad sits down on the edge of a tub full of pink begonias and takes a gulp of his tea.

‘Honestly?’ he says. ‘I think it’s a cracking idea.’

‘John!’ says my mother in a shocked tone of voice. ‘I thought we just agreed?’

Dad rubs his eyes and blinks.

‘I didn’t agree anything,’ he says. ‘You told me not to say something, but Mel has asked me a direct question and I’m going to give her a direct answer.’

I look at my Dad with new eyes full of respect, love and a bit of fear. Does he know that disagreeing with Mum can be like throwing a lit match into a room full of petrol? Oh yeah – he does. That’s why they got divorced.

‘Oh, Gordon Bennett,’ says Mum. She often mentions Gordon. Neither of us has ever worked out exactly who he is. ‘Thanks a bunch. You’ve just made my next few weeks a hell of a lot harder.’

She looks really upset, like she’s going to cry. I get up and offer her the cake plate.

‘Cake is not the answer to everything,’ she snaps. Then she looks at the tiny orange carrots with their green stems and relents. ‘Oh go on then – just one.’

She eats it with an angry look on her face.

‘For what it’s worth,’ says Dad. ‘I happen to think that Mel doing this competition is a fantastic idea. Our beautiful, talented and creative daughter has been offered an exciting opportunity which she’d be a fool to pass up on. Surely this is what her life should be like? Shouldn’t we be supporting this? Don’t you remember what the counsellor at the CF centre said?’

I remember full well what the counsellor said, because I was there too and it was the first thing that anybody at the centre had ever said to me that made perfect, total sense.

The counsellor said that, now I was in my teens, Mum ought to stop acting so much like ‘the CF Police.’ They meant that she was trying too hard to control what I did because she was so anxious about my health. The counsellor reckoned that stopping me doing things I really wanted to do was having a far worse effect on me than just skipping a treatment or forgetting to take a pill.

Mum gets a folding chair out of the shed and sits down with a sigh.

‘Of course I remember,’ she says. ‘I love the fact that Amelie has got through to the quarter-finals. I’m as excited by that bit as you are, John. But the fact remains that a week in Central London is going to be detrimental to her overall health. And isn’t THAT our main concern? Damn, this carrot cake is good!’

I allow myself a small, victorious smile at that.

Mum locks eyes with my dad and they have a kind of stare-off, like the black cat and the Siamese who are always passing through our garden in a flurry of teeth, eyes, yowls and spits.

In the end Dad gets up and puts his cup and plate back on the tray.

‘I don’t think we’re going to agree, are we?’ he says. ‘You’re more concerned with her physical health and I’m concerned with the mental. How do we meet in the middle?’

Mum shakes her head.

‘We don’t,’ she says in a tired voice. ‘I’m the one who lives with her. So I will make the decision. OK?’

Dad nods, but his face looks sad. It mirrors my own. I can see my fabulous baking opportunity slipping even further into the great mixing bowl of life, to be lost in a mess of eggs, flour and butter.

He gets up and walks back over to the cobbles and out of the garden gate towards his car.

‘See you, kiddo,’ he says, blowing me a kiss.

He blows one to Mum, as well but she pretends not to see.

Wow. Parents can be so stressful. I feel worn out from witnessing their conversation and I have to have another fortifying carrot cake and cup of tea.

‘I guess that’s it then,’ I say to Mum as we tidy up in the kitchen. ‘I should forget about going to London.’

My voice must sound sad because Mum comes over and gives me a hug.

‘I don’t think you can go, love,’ she says. ‘But if you like, we’ll get your annual review over with and make a final decision. OK?’

That’s definitely progress. I give her a hug back and offer to cook supper which for me is like the biggest treat out there.

‘Can I invite Harry over for dinner?’ I say.

Mum smiles.

‘OK,’ she says.

I watch her back disappearing upstairs and I realise that she’s still got no intention of letting me go to London. The annual review is hardly ever good news. My lung function is always less good than the year before. I can feel it. I get more out of breath than I used to and my coughing has taken on a new and deadly rattle. I’m dreading the bit where the doctors work out my BMI too. That stands for ‘Body Mass Index’ and it works out whether I’m the right weight for my height. I’ve never once been the right amount and the nutritionist always tells me that I need to pack in more calories.

I sink down onto the stairs and bury my face in my arms.

I’ve got to get to London.

I’ve just got to.

The rest of my life depends on it.

Golden Syrup Cookies