‘Shall we read them?’ I ask, glancing at Poppy’s single piece of paper in curiosity. I wonder if there is anything on her list, or on mine, that will damage us – that will take us back to our pre-A–Z world, when we could barely function in each other’s company. I hope not, but I don’t think we can ever be 100 per cent sure – our relationship, like all relationships I suppose, will always be a work-in-progress, and maybe that’s not a bad thing.
She nods, and we silently exchange papers. I unfold hers, and see one word staring out at me, written in bold capital letters: EVERYTHING. Well, that’s straightforward enough.
It takes Poppy a little longer, obviously, to decipher my scrawl, and plod through the pile of crumpled squares. I see her smiling at some, frowning at others, and finally, looking up to meet my eyes when she comes to the very last entry. The one I didn’t even want to write: that I never gave Poppy a second chance.
‘Well,’ she says, handing the pages back to me. ‘I don’t know what to say about stabbing Yoda in the eye, but that last one? About me? I’m well and truly ready to burn that one, Rose. Because you have given me a second chance – even if it was only because Mum made you.
‘You could have said no. You could have walked away from all this, and gone back to Liverpool, and we probably would never have seen each other again. Instead, we’re here, together. And maybe … maybe you have forgiven me?’
I suppose, at heart, that all of our mother’s frantic planning and scheming and plotting has always been leading up to this. To this one moment – to us standing here, in her garden at midnight, listening to the owl chorus and wondering what comes next. Only one letter of her A–Z might technically have been called F for Forgiveness, but the whole thing has basically been about that one issue.
Do I forgive Poppy, knowing everything I know now? Looking back on the whole affair with hindsight, understanding how she felt? After losing our mother, and getting each other through the A–Z, and taking the first tentative and terrifying steps back into each other’s lives?
‘I do forgive you, Poppy,’ I say simply. ‘Forgetting won’t be as easy, for either of us – but I do forgive you. I love you. I’ve missed you. And now … well, I can’t imagine life without you. If you can forgive me for the way I reacted, I can forgive you for what happened. D for Deal?’
She reaches out a hand, as though to shake on it, and instead pulls me in for a hug. I wrap my arms around her, and feel her snuffling away in my hair. I suspect she’s crying, and I pat her back to console her.
‘Okay – let’s do this,’ she says, when she eventually pulls away. There is a real fizz about her tonight – a sense of boundless energy. She’s practically bouncing on her bare feet as she takes the petrol can, and pours a splosh on to the barbecue.
I stand back – the splosh looked a bit on the generous side – and wait until she lights it. With a small wooshing sound, the flames leap up, dancing gold and red in the dark night sky. There is a crackling noise, and the smell of burning plastic as Tiny Tears disintegrates even further.
She looks at me, little flickering flames reflected in her wide brown eyes, and I nod.
At exactly the same moment, we both throw our Guilt Lists into the fire, where they crinkle and crumple and turn quickly into a small pile of ash.
Chapter 71
Andrea: Z is for Zapplebums
‘Hello Rosehip, hello Popcorn! I hope you are both splendid today – although perhaps, like myself, you’re feeling a little blue. We have reached Z, and we are at the end of our last adventure together.
‘This will be my last recording for you, and I’ve decided on the good old-fashioned tape recorder again. I have one more video to make, so I’m saving all of my screen presence for that – it will be an important event, and I don’t want to fluff my lines. Because while it is the end of the A–Z for me, it will be the beginning for you – and I’m planning on giving the performance of my life.
‘I have no idea where you are, right now, or what you are doing, or how you’re feeling. This whole project has been created in a vacuum – for all I know, as I record this, you could have given up by now. Or not even started.
‘All those envelopes could have remained unopened, and you might never have even seen that photo of me with Elvis … I like to think you did. Ihaveto think so. I have to cling to my belief that you’re still here, still trucking as they say, still listening.
‘I have to believe that this has all made a difference. That your future will be healthier because of it. That all my wishes and all my prayers have been answered, and that you two are together again. The not-knowing is killing me – or is that the cancer, ha ha! Sorry, gallows humour … anyway. I have to accept that I will never know what effect all of this has had on you – it’s like the ultimate cliff-hanger. At least for me.
‘I hope you’ve enjoyed yourselves, or at the very least not murdered each other. For me, it’s been quite the mission – an A–Z of all my dreams. I realise that some of it may have been odd, or upsetting, or downright bewildering at times, but it wasn’t just about healing your relationship, girls. It was about me, saying goodbye.
‘We all know that we won’t live forever. We all know that the time will come when we leave our loved ones, and look back on our lives knowing that the end is nigh. That there will be no more chances, no more choices, no more anything.
‘But knowing it in theory and facing up to it in reality – knowing that life is finite, and every minute you have left is being measured out like grains of sand in a giant egg timer – is very different. At the start of this, I had no idea how much time I had left, and whether I’d even get to the end of it. If fate hadn’t been kind, I could have left you hanging at H, I suppose!
‘Lewis thinks, and he is usually right, that I am simply too stubborn to let go until all of this is complete. Until I feel as if I’ve done the best I can – and perhaps that is the case. I’m certainly relieved, in a way, to get to Z – even if it is the end. I don’t have too much left in the tank, truth be told.
‘It’s all very strange, isn’t it? It is to me, at least. Lewis, at my insistence, has gone home for the night, and I am lying here, in my hospital bed, recording my voice for my daughters to listen to after I’m dead. It really doesn’t get much stranger than that – knowing that everything I leave behind, all of these messages and videos and letters, will be all that’s left of me.
‘It’s more than most people get, but I know that for you, it will never be enough – no matter how many questions I have answered, how many thoughts I have provoked, none of this will ever be enough. It’s simply not the same as having me around, is it? Believe me girls, if I could pull off that particular miracle, I would.
‘I’ve done the next best thing with all of this, and I’ve done it with so much love. It’s been tricky at times, and I’m finding, as I lie here, alone, that this is one of the trickiest of all. Because it’s my final chance – my final attempt to leave you stronger than I found you. I can hear the nurses chattering outside, and I can imagine Lewis getting home and pouring himself a big glass of port, and I can imagine you two, going about your normal lives with no idea of what is about to happen to you. The shock of the phone call I know you’ll be getting before very long now.
‘I can imagine all of that, but I can’t quite imagine how all of this will finish – for any of us. I’ve started a story that I will never be able to quite end. Will you two become sisters again? Does Heaven exist, and if so will I be heading that way? And howwillLewis cope without me?
‘I’ve suggested a lot of answers throughout this A–Z, but these last few have got the better of me. I suppose I will simply never know – unless the answer to the Heaven question is “yes”, of course!
‘I’m wittering on, I know – but I find that I am so reluctant to press that big “stop” button. It feels ominous somehow, glaring at me in the half-light – like if I press stop on the recording, I’ll be pressing stop on my life. Pressing stop on my contact with you two. Letting go – and I really, really don’t want to let go. I want to hold you both so close to me, snuggle you up in my arms and kiss your faces and keep you safe.
