Forever Phoenix Read online

  We join forces, trudging up the hill with our sledges before whooshing down again. We keep going until our toes are like blocks of ice and our fingers are numb and Jake’s little sisters are tired and hungry.

  ‘Hot chocolates at the Leaping Llama, anyone?’ Jake suggests, and the very idea of it sends the two girls into meltdown. ‘We need to thaw out, right?’

  The pavements are slippery as we drag the sledges back to Greystones. We meet the postman, running late and struggling, what with the Christmas mail and the slushy pavements.

  ‘Want us to take it?’ I offer.

  ‘Great – it’d save me going up to the house. Just cards today …’

  He hands over a bundle of cards and I shove them into my coat pocket for later. Pie dives down from the oak tree to greet us as we leave the sleds inside the gates, hidden behind the snow-topped shubbery, but the snow seems to have put him in a strange mood and he’s keen to stay at Greystones, so we head off to the Leaping Llama without him. Well, not everybody wants a magpie in their cafe on a snow-day afternoon.

  Hot chocolate revives us all, and then Jake gets a flurry of texts from Sasha and decides to take the girls over to her place for cheese on toast, a Disney DVD and some nail-painting. ‘Mum, Sheddie and the others are still in Brum,’ he tells me. ‘They won’t be back for a few hours yet. Were any of those cards for us?’

  I pull out the bundle of post and peel off a couple addressed to Jake’s family. As I hand them over, I see an envelope addressed to Grandma Lou and me, written in black fountain pen in a small, neat script. My heart twists. Why is Mum sending a card? Why not just bring it when she comes for Christmas? I don’t want to know. I stuff the bundle of post back in my pocket and use the long teaspoon to deposit a blob of cream on Lee’s nose.

  We talk all afternoon. Lee looks at me with bright hazel eyes as if he can see into my soul, and I don’t care any more if this ends in tears because right now it feels like heaven. We share a bag of chips and do a snowy tour of Millford, calling in at the garage where Lee’s dad works for a mug of tea so strong you could stand your spoon up in it. We go back to the park and make an igloo, then snow angels, then warm up again by taking cover in the park bandstand and making up new dance routines until we’re breathless.

  It’s almost five by the time we get back to Greystones. Fresh snow is falling now, and what’s already on the ground has frozen to an ice-rink shine, but I’m still wearing Grandma Lou’s wellies and I manage to keep the two of us upright.

  The minute we step through the gates, I know something is wrong. Pie swoops on me with a piercing ‘Crak, crak, craaak!’ and instead of perching on my shoulder he flaps and circles and screeches.

  ‘What’s that in his beak?’ Lee asks. ‘It looks like mistletoe. Weird. Where did he get that from?’

  I’m running then, following Pie as he swoops along the driveway and veers off to one side towards the apple trees. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I spot the stepladder propped up beneath the furthest tree, make out the mound of cut holly branches in the wheelbarrow at its foot.

  Beyond the stepladder is the crumpled body of my grandmother. Her eyes are closed, her skin pale as the moon, a sparkle of freshly fallen snow glinting on her brow.

  19

  Mistletoe

  I’m on my knees in the snow, my arms round Grandma Lou, my hot tear-stained cheek pressed against her cold marble one. A terrible fear is unfurling in my gut, a fear that I have lost the only family member who ever really loved and understood me. ‘Please, please, please stay with me,’ I whisper into her hair.

  Behind me, Pie is stalking up and down in the snow, squawking wildly, and Lee is calling 999. I can hear him describing the scene, his voice steady and calm. He drops to his knees beside me and picks up my grandmother’s wrist.

  ‘Yes, there’s a pulse,’ he says into his mobile. ‘It’s faint, but it’s there. She’s in her seventies, I think … Yes, yes, a fall. She was on a stepladder. Yes, in the snow. No, we don’t know how long she’s been lying here …’

  ‘She’s so cold!’ I wail. ‘So cold!’

  I pull off the borrowed scarf and ease it under her head, drape my duffel coat over her. I’m shivering now, my teeth chattering with the cold and the shock. Lee is wriggling out of his jacket, unwinding his own scarf, still on the phone.

  ‘No, no, we won’t move her … How long will that take? Because she looks really bad, and it’s snowing again. Please hurry!’

  I tuck Lee’s jacket over her legs. One of her clogs is several feet away, beneath the wheelbarrow. ‘Why was she wearing clogs to climb a ladder anyway?’ I whisper, and then I realize that she gave me her wellies to wear because they wouldn’t slip in the snow. This is all my fault. ‘Oh God … I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Why didn’t I cut the greenery for her? She does everything for me!’

  ‘Hush, Phoenix, it’s not your fault,’ Lee says.

  ‘Don’t leave me,’ I whisper against her cold cheek once more. ‘I need you. I’m sorry! Please stay!’

  Pie screeches again and flies up into the apple tree. A sweep of lights appears at the end of the drive, and a vehicle bumps along towards us. It’s not the ambulance, not yet, but Sheddie’s van is a welcome sight. Lee runs up the drive to flag it down and moments later Sheddie and the others are there, and blankets are brought and Willow checks Grandma Lou’s pulse again and strokes her hair, and Laurel makes hot sweet tea for the rest of us, and then finally, finally, the ambulance arrives.

  I kiss my grandmother’s icy cheek, but it’s only when the paramedics lift her on to the stretcher and into the ambulance that I see her bony fingers are still clutching a bunch of freshly clipped mistletoe.

  If you ever have to go to A&E, try not to go in the middle of a snowstorm, four days before Christmas. It’s not a lot of fun. I travel in the ambulance with Grandma Lou, the paramedic telling me not to worry, that she’s in good hands, that we did the right thing by trying to warm her up and not moving her.

  ‘There could be broken bones and concussion, but hypothermia is the main concern for now,’ he says.

  ‘Hypothermia?’

  ‘It’s when the body temperature falls to a dangerously low level,’ he explains. ‘It’s especially serious in the very young and the very old, and it can progress quickly. Your gran has lost consciousness and her pulse is very weak … We need to warm her up and get her breathing and her heartbeat back on an even keel.’

  ‘I’m scared,’ I whisper.

  The paramedic squeezes my hand. ‘Chin up, my friend,’ he says. ‘I’m willing to bet your gran is one tough cookie. One of those independent types, am I right?’

  ‘You could say that …’

  ‘What was she doing up the ladder in the middle of a snowstorm?’

  ‘I don’t think it was snowing at that point, but … well, she was cutting mistletoe,’ I say, holding up the bunch that I took from her ice-cold fingers.

  The paramedic sighs. ‘Bless her. If we can get her better, I’ll give her a Christmas kiss myself!’

  Sheddie and Lee follow behind us in the van, and once Grandma Lou has been triaged and moved to a ward, they sit with me in the waiting area as the doctors prepare to treat her with warm intravenous fluids and humidified oxygen. Nobody here laughs about getting gran better. Their faces are serious, sad.

  ‘Are you the next of kin?’ one nurse asks. ‘There are no other relatives?’

  Abruptly my brain shifts into gear and I explain that my mum is the next of kin, but that she lives miles away in Scotland and has no idea that anything has happened.

  The nurse puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. ‘I’d call her, pet. I’d call her right now. She needs to be here.’

  I’m in shock, I know. I am colder than the snow, frozen inside, but I know that it’s not good when someone tells you that the next of kin needs to be here. It’s not good at all. There is no phone signal inside the hospital, so Lee takes me outside and we stand together in the swirling
snow as I punch the numbers into my phone.

  ‘Mum? Mum? It’s me, Phoenix!’ I say. ‘Something terrible’s happened!’

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, what have you done now?’ she asks, and tears well in my eyes and spill down my cheeks and I don’t even care. ‘Phoenix? Tell me!’

  ‘It’s nothing I’ve done,’ I whisper. ‘Or maybe it is. I should have cut the holly and mistletoe, and I shouldn’t have taken her wellies, and I knew she didn’t like the stepladder, but Sheddie was out all day and I didn’t know that till later –’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Mum demands, a note of alarm in her voice now. ‘What exactly has happened, Phoenix?’

  ‘It’s Grandma Lou,’ I say. ‘She was cutting mistletoe and she was wearing clogs and the stepladder was wobbly, and she must have fallen and we don’t know how long she was lying there.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? Where were you, Phoenix?’

  ‘I was out with a friend. We’d been sledging … it was a date.’

  ‘It’s snowing down there?’ Mum says slowly. ‘My mother fell off a ladder and lay there in the snow? What are you saying, Phoenix? Is she all right?’

  I stifle a sob. ‘I don’t think so,’ I say. ‘She’s unconscious. Her heartbeat and breathing are very weak. It’s hypothermia, I think … something like that. The doctors are trying to warm her up, but they said I had to ring you because you’re the next of kin, and I know I’m not supposed to call, I know you’re really busy, but I think it’s serious and I don’t know what to do … I’m sorry, Mum!’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Mum says. ‘Of course you had to call! Look – I need to be there. Are you at Millford General? Is anyone with you?’

  ‘Lee’s with me,’ I say. ‘The boy I went sledging with. And Sheddie from Greystones.’

  ‘OK,’ Mum says. ‘OK. Look, stay there. Wait. I’ll be with you as soon as I can. I’m guessing the conditions aren’t good where you are, but it’s clear up here still so I’ll come. It’s a long drive, but I’ll be as quick as I can, OK?’

  ‘I’m scared, Mum,’ I whisper.

  ‘I know,’ she says. ‘But you have to stay strong for me, Phoenix, you hear? I love you. And just in case I’m not in time … will you tell Lou I love her too?’

  ‘Yes … yes, sure I will!’

  The line goes dead, and I lose any last pretence of holding it together. The tears come again, sad ones and happy ones, tears for Grandma Lou and Mum and me, for three generations who messed things up and hurt each other without meaning to. Maybe it’s not too late to fix things?

  Lee puts his arms round me and holds me close. My mum is coming, and she loves me. I’ve waited such a very long time to hear that.

  In the end, Lee goes home to get some sleep, and Sheddie stays, the responsible adult in a moth-eaten rainbow-striped jumper and dreadlocks. We sit on the chairs with squashy plastic seats in the private room where Grandma Lou lies, wired up to monitors, drifting somewhere between life and death. Nobody tells us anything, but I’m not stupid – I know we’re only allowed to be here because things are serious, because if we go home we might come back at morning visiting time and find we’re too late.

  Even in the half-light, I can see the drip feeding into my grandmother’s hand. Her face, still that awful waxy colour, is half hidden beneath an oxygen mask. A kind nurse gives us blankets and pillows and brings us tea and biscuits. A few hours in, Sheddie wraps a blanket round himself and falls asleep, but there’s no way I can. I watch the nurses as they bustle in at regular intervals to change the drip, check the oxygen. I watch the clock as it crawls through the early hours and try not to think of Mum driving down from Scotland through the night, through ice and snow. I stare at the little bunch of mistletoe in my hands and wish I could turn the clock back and do so many things differently.

  It’s past 6 a.m. when Mum finally arrives, her face grey with worry and exhaustion. Sheddie had woken a few minutes earlier and stepped out to fetch coffee and chocolate, and I have never been happier to see Mum in my life. I step forward, wanting a hug, but this is clearly not an option. We’re a messed-up, dysfunctional family, even, it seems, at a time like this.

  ‘I should have known something like this would happen,’ Mum says, her face creased with worry. ‘Lou is so irresponsible – she always has been! Climbing a ladder on her own in the snow, in those ridiculous clogs! At her age! And you – you were out all afternoon with some boy, Phoenix! For goodness’ sake! Trouble follows you wherever you go!’

  A flame of anger sparks into life but is extinguished almost at once. What is the point of trying to argue when Grandma Lou is fighting for her life? My shoulders slump.

  The kind nurse looks on, her face unreadable, and shame burns my cheeks.

  ‘I’m afraid Louisa is not yet conscious,’ she tells Mum gently. ‘She’s stable, and her heart rate and breathing are steadier now, but we’d really like it if she regained consciousness. She’s responding to treatment, and that’s good, but progress has been slow, I’m afraid …’

  ‘But she will get better?’

  ‘Hypothermia can be a difficult one to call,’ the nurse says. ‘But, rest assured, we’re doing all we can. I’ll make sure there’s a doctor available to talk to you soon.’

  The nurse leaves us alone, and Mum seems to crumble. ‘Oh, Phoenix … I’m sorry … I’m just so wound up, so worried!’

  ‘I know … and you’re right – it is my fault,’ I tell her. ‘If I hadn’t been out. If I hadn’t borrowed her wellies. If I’d cut the greenery for her. I was too wrapped up in myself … and I think trouble really does follow me wherever I go!’

  ‘No, Phoenix,’ Mum says. ‘That’s not true – it’s me who gets everything wrong. I’m so frightened right now. I was looking for someone to blame, but it’s not you – how could it be? None of this is your fault. Oh, Phoenix, she looks so frail!’

  I swallow back a sob and move to one side of the bed while Mum approaches the other. I am used to seeing my grandmother striding about in velvet tunics with paint-stained fingers and silk scarves in her hair – I forget that she’s in her seventies, because she certainly doesn’t act like it. I barely recognize this pale, shadow version of my gran.

  ‘I love you,’ I whisper softly. ‘Please don’t leave me!’

  Mum wipes a hand across her eyes, blinking back tears, struggling to hold herself together. ‘I love you too,’ she says, smoothing back Grandma Lou’s hair. ‘I always have and I always will. I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you – I know you always did your best for me, did what you thought was right. I’m sorry … I’m so, so sorry!’

  Mum’s head dips down towards Grandma Lou’s shoulder, her body shaking with silent sobs that break my heart.

  And then my grandmother’s eyes flutter open, and the hand without the cannula moves slowly up to hold my mother close.

  Sheddie comes in with the coffee, taking in the scene. ‘Did I miss something?’ he says.

  I tie the mistletoe on to the metal bedframe, a talisman for love and luck and hope, and watch the women I love best in the world hold each other tight.

  20

  Secrets and Lies

  Grandma Lou comes home on Christmas Eve in a borrowed wheelchair trimmed with tinsel. It turns out she has sprained her left ankle, but her body temperature, heartbeat and breathing are all back to normal. The paramedic who brought us in actually did track her down and check on her, and even gave her the promised mistletoe kiss.

  ‘That was all my Christmas presents rolled into one,’ Grandma Lou says, and Mum rolls her eyes and tells her she’s a lost cause.

  We settle in for a Greystones Christmas, just a slightly quieter one than usual because the doctor says Grandma Lou has to rest and take it easy. Clearly the doctor had no idea who she was dealing with, because Grandma Lou is back in her studio that same evening, mixing paint to finish off her painting. Mum and I adjust the easel so she can work from the wheelchair, and then we leave her to it.
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br />   I put a Christmas playlist on in the kitchen, and Mum purses her lips but doesn’t complain, even though I know she’d rather be listening to something classical. We work side by side, rolling pastry, mixing up the filling for veggie sausage rolls, talking.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ I tell her. ‘I was so scared, I thought … well, you know. The doctors seemed so worried and Grandma Lou looked so sick, and I thought it was the end, that it was my fault.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she promises. ‘My mother is a very stubborn woman – she’s been a human whirlwind for years, and she has no intention of slowing down. Perhaps now she’ll see sense.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Pigs might fly,’ Mum says. ‘She’s had a scare, though. Maybe she’ll cut back on climbing ladders in the snow while wearing velvet frocks and clogs … or maybe not. Who knows?’

  ‘Well, I’m glad you came and I’m glad you stayed,’ I say. ‘I thought you might go back for those parents who were coming to look round the school …’

  Mum is silent, and when I glance up I notice that her eyes are damp with tears. ‘Of course I came,’ she says. ‘And of course I stayed. Family comes first – or it should, Phoenix. That’s not a lesson I seem to have learned very well, I’m ashamed to say. We’re a messed-up family, much as I hate to admit it. The hurt gets passed down to the next in line like some kind of cruel pass-the-parcel game. We take off a layer of wrapping, swallow down some hurt and pass the rest along …’

  I finish rolling up the veggie sausage rolls and set them neatly on two baking trays for Mum to glaze. ‘There!’ she says, brushing the flour from her hands. ‘One job done!’

  Silence falls between us, along with about a million unanswered questions.

  ‘I know I’m not the kind of daughter you wanted,’ I say. ‘I’m going to try to be better, I promise. Did … did you and Dad regret having me? Is that why you split up?’

  Mum looks shocked. ‘Phoenix … what? No! You are totally the right kind of daughter … I’m just not very good at being a mother, I’m afraid. I’ve got so many things wrong. And your dad and I always wanted you – you’ve no idea how much. We wanted a family and we wanted it to be a happy one, but things fell apart and that was my fault. I had no idea how to be in a partnership, how to give and take. It was my fault the marriage failed, Phoenix, and you were the biggest loser. You wanted to run and climb trees and dig in the dirt, and paint and shout and sing …’