August 6th 2008
Dear Diary
Today was weird. Like, I really don’t know how to feel about it. I might be overthinking, like always … I got the train to meet Dad on my own, even tho Mum was still all jittery about it. She’s always on at me about being careful when I go up to London now, as if we didn’t live there my whole life till she dragged me down here.
We dodged tourists through Leicester Square, and when we got to HMV it was like … just breathing in, you can feel all that music surrounding you in a space that big! I always forget. Dad’s face lights up in there, too. The minute we walked through the doors, he grinned massively at me. It sounds stupid but that’s always my favourite part when we go there – and the way I can tell that I look the same.
I can’t help wondering if he does that with Kwesi, too. I know he’s only a little kid, but it still pisses me off to think about them being together way more and stuff. I almost asked about it again today, but it was later in the restaurant and that was when Dad told me all the other shit, so it didn’t seem like a good time to bring it up. Generally, Dad always makes his eyebrows all tight when I even mention Kwesi, even tho he always says ‘your brother’, as if I actually know him. I sometimes wonder if he even talks about me with them … I just really hope he doesn’t go music shopping with Kwesi. That’s all. I want that to just be ours.
Anyway, it felt like I flicked through every single rack in the shop! By the time me and Dad met up again by the tills, I could see he had maybe three CDs in his hand and I’ve got this massive pile! I got some older albums including an Aretha Franklin one calledHey Now Hey. Dad was reeeeally pleased about that selection! (I put that one on as soon as I got home and WOW). Dad did not even flinch at how many I brought! He took all our stuff up to the counter and paid, it was amazing!
BUT, after that was when it got awkward. We went to Bella Italia or whatever it’s called, and I was joking with the waiter about how much of the garlic bread Dad’s going to eat. But when he brought it to the table Dad only picked at the bread, and then I was like ‘OK, there’sdefinitely something up’.
It feels so weird even writing it down but … Dad says he hascancer.
Well, what he actually said was, ‘They say I’m going to need some treatment,’ and then I was like, ‘What do you mean?’ And he said, ‘Well they found something,’ and he sort of waved a hand around his chest, and then he said, ‘They’ve been doing tests.’ I wasn’t sure what to say. There was ages of us just sitting in silence biting little chunks of the garlic bread. It tasted weird to me after Dad saying that. But then eventually I managed to ask him. I was like, ‘Dad, do you mean you have cancer?’ and he just shrugged. But I think that’s what it is.Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I want to ask Mum about it, but if she doesn’t know … Would Dad tell her? I don’t know. All they seem to do is argue.
The waiter brought out mains and then Dad just moved on to talking about the albums we’d bought that day. But cancer? That’s really bad. Like, I remember Toni’s aunty had breast cancer and they only gave herthree monthsto live. I’m really fucking scared. I tried to just carry on like he was, but it was hard, man. Am I going to lose my dad? I don’t know what I’ll do. All the times I’ve been pissed off with him for letting me down … Dad’s not really been around, but he’s always been there. I never imagined he wouldn’t be.
Shit. I shouldn’t think that way.
He’s going to be fine.
He’s going to be fine.
He’s going to be fine.
MY DAD IS GOING TO BE FINE.
Anika swallows, blinking back tears as she’s catapulted back to those feelings from fifteen years earlier. It’s so strange to read, knowing everything she knows now. She looks at the wordsHe’s going to be fine, angry that her old attempts at manifestation in these pages had been fruitless.
It’s different now, though. She has no doubt that it’s working. The diary has become not only a document of her life, but a way of creating it – of creating who she is, and where she wants tobe. ‘It’s different now,’ Anika repeats out loud to herself. She’s convinced of it. She just has to keep going a day at a time to build her vision for the future, writing the words and cementing it. She wished for ‘fine’ back then, and lived in the idea of everything just being ‘fine’ for so long. That wasn’t enough to save her father’s life, or to get her what she wanted out of her own.
So one thing she would no longer settle for was ‘fine’.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Thursday 16th August
A week and a half later, Anika pauses to take a sip of water as she looks at her computer screen at work, her mind drifting momentarily to the words she wrote in the diary for today.
Almost the end of my last full week in the radio-advertising doldrums, and as usual the day went off without a hitch. Annoying that I’m going to be ending on a Monday but then I’m rinsing my holiday allocation until the new job kicks off after the bank hol, so today was just another step towards the new. The vibe is already different. Things with Cam are great. We’re like a perfect fit. It’s mad how much all the things I’ve dreamt about are working out exactly as I’d planned them …
It’s true that things are going great – even though the air conditioning in the office is playing up, making the atmosphere just shy of unbearably oppressive in the late summer heat. Given that, she can understand to an extent why the large man sitting beside her seems unengaged. She’s bored listening to herself explain yet another part of her handover notes too, but it’s a bit insulting how disinterested this John guy, a temp on a fixed-term contract, seems.
‘And that’s the rate cards, OK? Then it’s best if you can try to keep the advertising accounts summaries as succinct as you can. Everyone except Steph Dawson in Finance is fine with digital, but Steph still insists on getting some hard copies of the reportsevery quarter …’
She scrolls down to the next bullet point on her list, turning to look at him pointedly. It’s not long now until her new job begins, and her eagerness has had her making lists of ideas and people to approach for her curating role when she gets home every evening – that is, on the days when she hasn’t been seeing Cam.
Lunch?
Looking down at her desk, a goofy grin spreads across her face when she sees his message illuminating her screen. It’s rapidly followed by a text from her GP surgery, reminding her that she’s due a blood test and they’ll be sending a suggested appointment. That swipes the grin away, but Anika ignores the message for now. She’s also pushed her hospital check-up on another week. They finally caught her on the phone the other day, but she’s delaying as long as she can for reasons she isn’t totally sure of.
She draws in a breath and addresses the new guy again.
‘Cool, so does that all make sense so far, John?’ she asks, and he nods, shutting the cover of his pad. It contains a total of five lines of notes. ‘Right. We’ll come back to the rest later, then.’
As he ambles away from her desk to continue with some scut-work admin, Anika picks up her phone. She grudgingly opens the message from the doctor’s clinic first, pursing her lips at the mid-morning appointment they’ve sent through. ‘Tomorrow?’ she mutters to herself, annoyed at the short notice. But she feels better as she realises that if she accepts it, it’ll likely mean she can blag a work-from-home day on a Friday.Decent.And she’ll ensure it’s all smooth and worry-free anyway. She replies to accept and then types a response to Cam’s message.
