Cassette #11
Hello Sean.
It’s eleven o’clock on Friday morning and I’ve just seen the oncologist. He gave me the results of yesterday’s CAT scan and the results aren’t great, I’m afraid. I’m a bit in shock, I think, and trying to take my mind off it by doing another one of these tapes.
That crazily expensive drug I’ve been on, the gem-city-din or whatever it’s called, the one which has been making me so ill that I can’t walk, hasn’t been working at all, it turns out. The doc wants to schedule a meeting with both of us to discuss what he called “remaining options” but to be honest, I’m not hopeful. I don’t think that any of the remaining options are going to be much fun.
The good news is that they stopped giving me that rubbish immediately, so I should be able to come home for the weekend. I think that I’ll leave it until Monday morning to tell you the bad news. I’ll have to make something up, I suppose. I’m desperate for a normal weekend with you, that’s the thing. I’m desperate for a weekend where we can talk about something other than my desire to vomit or the survival rates of different types of cancers.
Anyway, I had a little cry after he told me, but I’m all right again now. I’m ready to talk about the next photo. This little project is really helping me get through all of this.
It’s funny, because I realised that these tapes are turning into a whole different thing.
At the beginning, I just wanted to tell you some things you didn’t know about me, I just wanted to share some secrets. But it’s becoming more like the complete story of us. It’s becoming more and more like that novel I always said I’d write. Perhaps you can get it typed up and publish it one day. Anyway, I hope you’re not bored yet. You were, after all, there for most of this.
I had thought there would be more photos like this one. There were so many parties, after all. But I suppose we were too busy getting drunk to take pictures.
I think the only reason we have a picture of this one is because Theresa was going through her photography phase. She had set up a darkroom in our dusty cellar with an enlarger and everything. This black and white one will definitely be one of hers. I may even have helped develop it.
I don’t think her photography thing lasted for more than six months, but it was fun for a while. All of her mates from the photography society used to traipse through the house, and they were all pretty nice people. They all used to fawn over April, I remember. We had lots of black and white photos of her at one stage, but they all seem to have vanished. Perhaps they’re in that other box in the loft.
We were the strangest students, weren’t we? Especially me, of course, because I wasn’t a student at all. We were a married couple with a toddler, and yet you were also a budding architect. And even if I spent my days looking after April, I felt like a student as well. A student of life, perhaps.
I’ve always thought that at least half of what you learn through being at college is life stuff, rather than the proper stuff you learn in lessons. It’s why I was so determined that April should go to college. It was learning how to live in a shared house and arguing until three in the morning about washing up and God and politics, and electricity bills that made us who we ended up being. Learning to love and have friendships and let go of them when people got to the ends of their courses, too. And the incredible thing for me was that I got to participate in all of that by proxy. So despite being basically a chavvy bird from a council estate, I still got to do the whole student thing. I got exposed to feminism and socialism and Buddhism, and a hundred different isms. And I made some really great friends.
And when we weren’t putting the world to rights, we were partying. We never needed much of an excuse, did we? A few bottles of home-brew and a record player and we were away. That’s me in the photo as I’m sure you realised. I had just smoked my second ever joint, but hadn’t thrown up yet.
I’m not sure that you’ll remember this, but you found me out in the garden, being sick, and I lied and said I’d just had too much to drink. But it was Alistair’s joint that had pushed me over the edge. That’s when I decided that joints really weren’t for me.
I owned up to you the next morning, and you said you’d tried it too and had also been sick. Neither of us really liked smoking grass, which was probably a blessing. The people who did like the stuff were the ones who got kicked off their courses. It isn’t, I don’t think, the most motivational drug!
I can’t remember who was babysitting April that night, but it wasn’t us and it wasn’t Alistair, and it can’t have been Theresa either if she took the photo. I expect it must have been Annie or Steve, or Green Donna. Actually, Donna wasn’t green yet, was she? She was still plain old Donna back then. The Green thing came later.
But even before Donna moved in, we never had any shortage of babysitters, did we? Everyone loved April. I don’t think many kids out there have had quite so much love thrown at them.
• • •
It is Saturday morning and Sean is busy vacuuming the lounge. Because of the noise of the Dyson, he fails to hear the doorbell and visibly jumps when he turns to face the lounge window. Maggie, beyond the pane, is jumping up and down waving her arms.
Sean kicks the off button on the vacuum cleaner and strides to the front door.
“Finally!” Maggie says. “I’ve been jumping up and down like a loon out here. Plus, it’s freezing.”
She kisses Sean on the cheek and steps past him into the hallway.
“It is cold,” Sean says, peering out into the crisp, sunny day.
“It’s air coming down from Iceland or something,” Maggie says, stepping into the lounge.
Sean closes the front door and follows her. He’s glad of the visit but simultaneously regretful for his vacuuming. It had taken him so long to pluck up the courage that he wonders if he’ll ever manage to get motivated again. “A man with a Hoover,” Maggie says.
“A Dyson,” Sean corrects. “And I’ve always done the hoovering. Even when Catherine was around, it was always my job.”
Maggie stares into his eyes for a moment and smiles vaguely. Sean can sense that she is noticing his newfound ability to mention Catherine without his voice becoming brittle. “Good,” she says, then, “I suppose it should be Dysoning, really. Not Hoovering. But it doesn’t have the same ring to it, does it?”
“Not really, no,” Sean agrees. “Vacuuming, maybe?”
Maggie wrinkles her nose at the suggestion. “So in addition to Hoovering, do you make coffee?”
Sean smiles. “Sure,” he says. “Come through.”
“So how have you been?” he asks as he plugs in the kettle and pulls the cafetière from the cupboard. “I haven’t seen you for weeks.”
Maggie shrugs off her coat and hangs it over the back of a chair. “And whose fault would that be?” she asks.
“I wasn’t really thinking it was anyone’s fault,” Sean says.
“I came last weekend, actually,” Maggie says. “But you were out.”
“I was at April’s place,” Sean explains. “We went to that Brexit demo.”
“Brexit demo?” Maggie repeats.
“Well, anti-Brexit demo.”
“I didn’t know there was one, to be honest.”
“I’m not surprised,” Sean says as he spoons ground coffee into the glass jug. “It wasn’t huge. And the media pretty much ignored it.”
“I think everyone’s given up,” Maggie says. “But well done for trying.”
“I think you’re right. That’s what it felt like, anyway.”
“It’s strange,” Maggie says. “I mean, they’ve admitted that the money won’t go to the NHS. And they’ve admitted we aren’t getting some fabulous trade deal. And they’ve said that immigration won’t even go down, now, too. It’s as if everyone agrees that it’s a stupid idea, but everyone accepts that we’re going through with it anyway. It’s like a horrible toddler who has made a stupid decision but is sticking to it rather than admit the error. It all smacks of cutting off your nose to spite your face more than anything else. Cutting off your continent to spite your face, perhaps.”
“That’s exactly what’s happening,” Sean says.
“My sister’s all for it, you know?” Maggie says.
“Really?”
Maggie nods. “She lives in Ealing. They call it Little Warsaw. Not that I think that’s a recent thing. I think the Poles have been in Ealing since the war, but there’s no telling Angie that. Anyway, she’s all for Brexit if it means the poor Poles will have to bugger off.”
“They may well all bugger off,” Sean says. “But they include her doctor and her nurse and probably her plumber, too. I think she’ll miss them if they do leave.”
“That’s what I keep saying,” Maggie says. “Anyway. You went to the demo. That surprises me. But in a good way.”
“It was just something to do with April, really,” Sean says. “She’d never been to a demo before.”
“Never?”
Sean shakes his head.
“Gosh,” Maggie says. “Kids today! And how is lovely April?”
“Um, pregnant,” Sean says.
Maggie’s eyes widen. “No!”
Sean nods. “She and Ronan are moving to their own place. They’re both flat-sharing at the moment, so…”
“Of course. And does this mean there’ll be a wedding?” Maggie asks.
“Nope,” Sean says. “They don’t believe in silly old-fashioned concepts like marriage.”
“Do you mind? You sound like you do.”
“Do I?” Sean asks. “I don’t think so. Maybe. But no, I don’t think so.”
“Gosh, a baby!” Maggie says. “How exciting.”
“Yes, it’s quite a shock, really.”
“You know, I never saw April as the baby-type,” Maggie says. “I don’t know why, but I just never really imagined it.”
“That’s what Catherine said.”
A shadow crosses Maggie’s features. She sighs gently.
“Don’t say it,” Sean says.
“No,” Maggie says. “It’s just… I was only going to say that it’s a sh–”
“Don’t say it,” Sean repeats. “Please.”
“No,” Maggie says. “Of course. Sorry.”
Sean presses the plunger and then pours the coffee into two mugs which he places on the kitchen table. “Here,” he says. “So, what have you done with Dave this weekend?”
“I buried him under the patio,” Maggie says, solemnly.
“That’s the first place they’ll look.”
“Who?”
“The police.”
“Ahh. No, he’s gone back to his flat for the weekend, actually. Said he needs some ‘space’,” Maggie says. She uses two fingers to indicate the quote marks around the word space.
“Trouble in paradise?” Sean asks.
Maggie laughs sourly. “If this is paradise then give me hell any day of the week.”
“That bad, huh?”
“Oh, it’s all right, really. It’s just so much harder to fit together with someone in your fifties. We get so set in our ways, you know? I mean, when you meet someone in your teens, like you two did, well, you’re still growing, aren’t you? You automatically adjust so that you fit together. But when you’re my age, all the likes and dislikes are set in stone. That’s the trouble.”
“I can imagine it’s not easy,” Sean says. “But you’re clever enough. You’ll make it work.”
Maggie sighs again, more deeply this time. She looks out at the garden. “So, I’m assuming that if it was you who used to do the hoovering, then the gardening was Catherine’s responsibility. Am I right?”
Sean follows her gaze. “Oh. Yes. It’s looking bad, huh?”
“You need to at least mow the lawn,” Maggie says. “Because soon it’ll be too long to mow, and then you’ll be stuck.”
“Yes,” Sean says unenthusiastically. “Yeah, I know.”
“I could give you a hand. Tomorrow, maybe.”
“Tomorrow?” Sean says, frowning. “Isn’t it supposed to be raining tomorrow?”
“Nope,” Maggie says. “Sunny all day. So, what do you say? I’ll bring my secateurs. It’ll do me good… take my mind off things.”
Sean shrugs. “Sure,” he says. “Why not? If you’re sure. But tomorrow afternoon, maybe?” He wants to reserve the morning for his next dose of Catherine.