‘Good riddance.’
‘Listen, Shamz, I’m at King’s College Hospital …’
She hears the sound on the other end of the line quieten a bit and she pictures Shameeka sitting up. ‘What? Are you OK?’
‘Er … well. I’m not sure to be honest, babe. They called me in because there was something weird with my blood test from the weekend and now they’re saying there’s some kind of …’ She draws in a breath and exhales the words. ‘Blockage in my abdomen. A mass, and that it could cause some kind ofperforation that could be bad.’ As she says it, the concept already feels inevitable and familiar.
‘Amass? Aperforation? What does that mean?’
‘I don’t exactly know yet. But they want to keep me in overnight and give me some antibiotics or something.’ Anika takes a breath, feeling suddenly woozy, and remembers again how little she’s had to eat. ‘Um … but listen, can you bring me some bits? Toothbrush, headscarf, something to change into … Oh, and a phone charger, and—’
‘Course, course.’ Shameeka’s quiet for a moment. ‘OK. Yeah. D’s already in bed and Maia’s home, so I’ll come straight over there. I’ve got you.’ Anika exhales in relief, mainly that her edges won’t frizz. And for more. She closes her eyes for a second, but then opens them quickly when Shamz asks cautiously, ‘Erm … Neeks, have you called your mum?’
It never even occurred to her. ‘Nah. But it’s fine. I will, but for now I’ll … I’ll just … It’s fine,’ Anika says. She needs a minute to get her head around all this. She can’t quite deal with Nella right now.
She quickly finishes the call as she hears the nurse calling her name exasperatedly.
‘Here,’ Anika calls weakly and the nurse comes around the corner to where she’s now leaning against the wall, a fine film of sweat prickling her upper lip. ‘Erm, my friend is gonna bring some stuff for me,’ Anika mumbles, pressing her eyelids together to clear her vision as she looks at the tall blonde woman in dark blue scrubs.
‘OK, darling. For now, let’s just get you upstairs, eh? Can you walk?’
‘Yeah?’ Anika replies, wondering why she’d even ask. She draws in a breath and pushes away from the wall, stumbling a little until the nurse takes her elbow.
‘Right …’
Anika is only vaguely aware of being lowered into a wheelchair that has appeared. Then what seems like moments later, she’s being wheeled into a lift while the nurses chatter at her, and more needles and drips are shoved into her arm …
The world moves gradually back into focus. Anika realises she must have fallen asleep. She notices a darkened room around her and looks down to see she’s wearing a thin, white, cotton hospital gown. She vaguely remembers changing into it. Looking around the room, she sees her handbag on a bedside cabinet and, with some effort, she hoists it over onto the bed. Her phone is on two per cent and she wonders vaguely if Shamz has made it there yet. It’s not as late as she thought, but Anika is still exhausted. She’s strangely relieved to find the old diary still in her bag and opens it again. She finds herself flicking forward to those last words, written late on the night of her seventeenth birthday.
I wish I could just skip ahead, far far ahead, and pretend as if none of this miserable stuff ever happened.
The blankness of the pages after that seems apt. Anika wishes the same now.
Suddenly, she latches on to something about the day she stopped using the diary, on her birthday. Or rather, that night …
There wassomethinggood there, if only for a brief, bittersweet shimmer of time. Her mind clings to that memory, raising an unexpected smile on Anika’s face even with the news she’s been given this afternoon still hanging like an unresolved chord.
It’s complicated, and sad and scary – but that night when she turned seventeen was one that showed Anika it’s possible to make a connection in the strangest of places and with the most unexpected of people. The type of connection she’s craved ever since.
Chapter Three
That Night
Saturday 4th July 2009
The door was flimsy. Whatever it was made of couldn’t withstand the bass, so it rattled with each pulse and Anika’s nerves jangled in time with the music. Someone had decided they needed to mount a tribute to Michael Jackson on the stereo, even though most of her classmates had probably only really paid attention to his music in the last week or so since he died. ‘Remember the Time’? Probably not. She recalled another of the worn vinyls her father had given her years ago, a copy ofOff the Wall, and sighed.
She kept thinking she could hear someone knocking and Anika worried that they’d think this was a loo, like she had. Then they’d wonder why she’d been in there so long … The embarrassment of that would just have to stack on top of the mountains of cringe already piled up around her. She leant her back against the door to stop its rattle, avoiding her eyes in the mirror opposite her above the small sink next to the washing machine and trying not to think about needing the loo, which she hadn’t before she’d gone in there pretending that she did. The lack of a queue leading up to the door should have been her first clue, but what did she know? She’d never been to a house party. She hadn’t wanted to admit that to Zaya, though, obviously – who was one of the only people at her new school who was vaguely nice to her. The tone of Zaya’s suggestion during doublemaths that afternoon that Anika should come to the shindig had sounded genuine, but it turned out the invite to Ali’s party had been shared on Facebook and was a free-for-all for their whole year group anyway. Still, Zaya had broken into a warm grin and pulled Anika into a boyish bear-hug when she’d run into her at the party earlier. But her classmate had soon been wrapped up in other interactions and there was no denying the surprised, ‘Oh,’ before she’d said hello. In her head, Anika had thought,I’m as surprised as you, mate. Mainly, she’d just wanted to get out of her own house.
After all, it was her birthday.
Just over a week ago, Anika’s mother had looked out of the living-room window and nodded over the road towards Kwame and Zaya as the siblings stepped out of their front gate and, with matched, bobbing strides, walked off towards the junction. Their frames were similar and Zaya’s chin-length locs versus her brother’s short, tight fade were sometimes the only thing that seemed to separate their appearance. Well, that and the undeniably ample bosom Zaya kept restrained in a sports bra under her school shirt. As friendly as Zaya had been in the week since Anika had started at the new school, it was Kwame to whom she felt drawn like a magnet. She had already clocked what time the two of them left in the mornings and calculated how to linger the exact number of paces behind them on the other side of the road so that she could stare at him but not be noticed.
‘I spoke to the mum,’ Nella had said. ‘Ghanaian family. She says they’re your age. That girl tan lek boy, though.’ She smiled but shook her head somewhat disapprovingly. ‘They are twins, apparently.’
She’d said it as if their presence had escaped Anika’s attention this whole time. Her mother was sipping tea from her vintage Princess of Wales mug as she spoke, hair still nestled in herpurple silk scarf and thepowof her curves accentuated in the coordinating belted silk robe she still wore even with no husband around now.Good riddance.
‘Aren’t you going to be late?’ Nella asked.
