Anika swallows, pushing a dark thought away. She flips open the diary, flicking through the pages and observing the scrawls of different inks as the years progressed. It was designed so that the user could fill in the dates themselves in the space at the top of each page: _____ _____ 20___. As a twelve-year-old, that seemed so hopeful – her teen years spanning out ahead of her. She thought things could only get better.Hah. When Anika bought the diary, she and her mum, Nella, were living with Clive – her mother’s then-husband. Anika thought being dragged to East Sussex, a place that might as well have been Timbuktu compared to south-east London, to live with some white man her mum had only known a matter of months, was the worst it could get.
Her finger pauses on an entry in the diary from March 2004.
Today an actual miracle happened. I found a record player to match my one from Dad – in a jumble sale of all places. I begged Mum for it, and she actually caved!
Anika has been DJing ever since – to her empty living room. Not so long ago she even cracked out her credit card to buy some long-coveted second-hand Technics decks and a mixer for her new place. Having her vinyl collection not crammed in piles on her bedroom floor but neatly shelved in her very own flat wasone of the highlights of the move.
She purses her lips, remembering again the record that Len lost.
She’d received it a few days after her tenth birthday – her dad was late, as usual. But she shrieked with delight when she saw him pull up in the concrete car park of the block where she and her mum lived. Just having her parents together in the same room with her felt like a treat, it happened so rarely. Nelson Lapo’s tall frame folded down into their old charity-shop sofa with a loud sigh, flipping his flat cap off his head, knees wide like a king sat in their living room. He placed a big, unwrapped cardboard box on his lap. Anika was giddy with glee when he gestured for her to open it and she saw the big, square machine with a clear plastic lid nestled over a round disc inside it, even though she had no idea what it was.
‘This, my dear,’ her dad had said, ‘is a record player.’ He pulled something out from underneath it. ‘Andthisis a record for you to play on it.’
Al Green –I’m Still in Love With You.
She’ll never forget the feel of holding the album, the suggestion of the weighted disc inside, the smell of it. It felt like a pause, full of the possibility of what was contained within. A magical object.
‘With this …’ Her father patted the box. ‘You take your time. Youreallylisten. You feel it!’
He left soon after, his leather-and-wood scent lingering like a memory. Anika played ‘Love and Happiness’ over and over again, learning how to drop the needle back into the groove in a way that would later become second nature. Her father was right. Anika never felt anything like it.
A few days later, she overheard her mother on the phone to Nelson, complaining to him in a hushed tone. ‘Just giving your old cast-offs as birthday presents? You get money for move to some big new house, but not for us? This na you own pikintoo, Nelson. We need money, too.’ Back then, Anika didn’t like to think about her dad having another family. The one he lived with.
His real one.
Anika’s phone bleeps with a group-chat message, pulling her out of the memory. She checks it even though she’s meant to be conserving battery. Shamz and Tina are exchanging memes in the group chat. She didn’t want to worry them, so Anika hasn’t yet mentioned her sojourn to the hospital. Just as she finishes typing a half-heartedly amused response, an older-looking doctor in faded wine-red scrubs enters the small room, holding a clipboard.
‘Anika Lapo?’
She stands, relieved thatsomethingis happening. ‘Yes.’ She tries to ignore the swimming in her head as she moves.
‘Ah, great, hi, Anika.’ He has a large, soft, greying moustache and a light accent that sounds like her old Egyptian neighbour’s from when they lived in East Sussex, the only other ‘ethnic’ on their road. ‘Shall we just sneak over here for a moment?’ His tone is kind and Anika suddenly feels both comforted and overwhelmed. She draws in a trembling breath and picks up her bag to follow him through to the examination area again, where he props himself against a wall, standing, but gestures to a chair. ‘If you like?’ he says. She shakes her head. Her twists brush her hot, damp back heavily and she reaches behind her neck to lift them away. ‘So, OK,’ the doctor says, scanning his notes on the clipboard. ‘Oh, I am Dr Elachy,’ he says, looking up again and smiling at Anika as he presses his other hand to his chest, the fingers still gripping a chewed pen. ‘Now, they have handed your notes over to me because we can see there is some kind of blockage, a mass, in your abdomen.’ He indicates an area on his own torso. Anika’s eyes fall on his hand then flick back up to meet his gaze.A mass. In her abdomen.‘OK. So!’ he continueschirpily. ‘We do not yet know what this is.’
She nods. The doctor’s kind hazel eyes behind his glasses are helping a little bit, as is his calm, slightly dismissive air, like he’s just told her she has a particularly puzzling hangnail. ‘Right,’ she says.
‘Good.’ He nods, like they’ve just made a pact. ‘For now, I am going to recommend some IV antibiotics for overnight in order that we can reduce the inflam—’
‘Er, hang on,’ Anika says, suddenly cottoning on. ‘Do you need me tostayhere?’
He blinks slowly. ‘Uh, yes. Yes, we will need to admit you. This is very serious, this blockage. It can cause a sudden, catastrophic perforation of the—’ He halts as Anika’s eyes widen, realising what he is about to say is far more life-and-death – one more than the other – than she ever imagined.What?She thought the biggest stress in her life right now was her ‘relationship’ ending, not her … existence. Anika’s breathing turns more ragged. Dr Elachy looks at her with concern and shakes his head. ‘Let us not worry about that at the moment, because what is most important is that you are here now, eh?’
I am here now.And yet, apparently, with the snap of some invisible fingers, she could disappear. She presses her lips together and nods mutely at the doctor, her mind scrambling. Looks like she will have to let the girls know what’s happening, because she’ll need supplies and …
How long have I been carting a MASS around in my ABDOMEN that could be CATASTROPHIC?
Anika’s thoughts dart around everything she’s been doing for weeks – months? – while all this has been happening inside her. They land on the memory of that morning, on the train platform, going to work like any other day.
It feels like a million years ago.
‘But good news,’ Dr Elachy is saying.That’s all relative.‘It lookslike we have a room for you all to yourself on the ward, OK? Rare, believe me!’ He chuckles and she actually smiles a bit, too. ‘So!’ he says again. ‘I will leave you here with my colleague, Reya – she is the chief nurse for the department – and I will see you in the morning so we can figure it out, yes? And do not worry, Anika. This is my specialty.’ He pats his stomach again and she likes the way he says the word ‘specialty’ like it has a soft ‘e’ sound before it. ‘I am a gastroenterological specialist. OK, we go and see the nurse …’
Anika follows him and Dr Elachy smacks the small admissions desk lightly with his palm as he deposits her with another nurse before strolling away. The nurse – of course – sends Anika back to the waiting room. Now seems a good time to utilise the last eighteen per cent of her phone battery, though, so instead of going straight to the little room of slow torture with plastic chairs, Anika edges into the hallway to make a call. She runs a finger absently around the corner of a poster about flu jabs as she dials, feeling strangely numb.
‘Shamz?’ she says when her friend picks up.
‘Babe! Hi!’ Anika can hear the television in the background –EastEndersalready? She really has been there a long time. ‘How you doing?’ Shameeka asks. ‘Has that twat been in touch with you today?’
‘Erm, no—’
