It was a Thursday night in spring and Sean was sprawled on the sofa. He did a great sprawl. All his limbs went in different directions, and he managed to take up the entire space.
He was good at talking, so we rubbed along well when it was just the two of us. He talked, and I listened. And sometimes I talked too, and when I did he listened.
We were waiting for Mum to come back from yoga. Sean was sprawling and chatting, and I was making dinner. It was just pasta and tomato sauce, but I was doing the tomato sauce properly, following a recipe from a massive Italian cookery book, and it was taking ages. Right now I was cooking onions in butter and also waiting for the skins to start peeling off some tomatoes that I’d put into a bowl of boiling water.
It was strange how normal things felt. Here we were, five months from the end of human life on Earth, and I was making pasta sauce. Mum had given up on church, and moved on to Buddhism and hot yoga, which felt much more like her. She meditated for ages every day, and went out to classes every morning and evening. She was still nominally running her proofreading business, but she had scaled it right back, because what was the point?
‘Smells incredible,’ Sean said. He had wiry black hair and a beard. ‘I’m so hungry. Would we have any crisps?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘You’ll spoil your appetite.’ There was no way he was eating crisps when I was cooking a sauce from a book.
‘Fine. So.’ He paused, then spoke fast. ‘Look – can I run something by you, Libs?’ he said. ‘This is a bit out there, but what isn’t, you know? Your mum and I were thinking how awesome it would be to get away for the summer. Particularly, you know, under the present circumstances.’
‘Going away in the summer is not out there,’ I said. ‘People have summer holidays. It’s literally called “the summer holidays”.’
I was having daily WhatsApp conversations with Natasha now. She had drawn me out of myself, and I could say anything I wanted to her. She made me feel different. Better. A bit more confident. That was why I was being sassy.
‘All right, Mrs Smart-Arse,’ he said, looking a bit surprised because sassy wasn’t the usual Libby way. ‘I mean, properly away. Not ten days in Alicante. Not dashing off to find meaning in an Indian temple, even though your mother would do that at the drop of a hat. More like … six weeks? How long are your college holidays? Fancy spending them somewhere hot? Everyone else is going mad this summer. Why shouldn’t we?’
I fished the tomatoes out of the hot water with a big metal spoon, and put them into the bowl of iced water next to it.
‘Say more,’ I said. I thought: Natasha would like this.
‘Oh good! I was testing the water.’
I tested my own water. It was cold but bearable, and I reached in and started pulling the skins off the tomatoes.
‘I just asked for more info.’
‘You’re sixteen, Libs. Seventeen next month. You might have hated the idea of going away for the whole summer. You know? You’d maybe want to spend the time with friends. I wasn’t sure if there might be another play? And your dad will want to see you, and there are the little kiddies. You know. You’re old enough to want to do your own thing. Oh shit. I’m talking you out of it already.’
‘Somewhere hot, though,’ I said. ‘And if there’s going to be a play, it’ll be in September. The college is doing an end-times festival.’
‘So,’ he said. ‘You might be up for it?’
‘I might.’
‘Your mother would mainly be doing yoga or praying, or whatever, in the sunshine.’
I grinned. ‘Yeah, I can live with that.’
‘Great! If you’re on board, I’ll do a bit of research. I know we could probably let the house out for the summer. But really who cares about that? You know, I’m inclined to say fuck it. Let’s just go. Because I’m desperate to get away from here, and so is your mother, but neither of us wants to go without you.’
I looked at his face. ‘You don’t want to come back.’ I could see that I was right. ‘You want to go somewhere hot, and stay there till the seventeenth of September. Don’t you? Even though you officially think it’s all a hoax.’
He shrugged. ‘I do think that. It’s the only way I can do this, but it’s hard not to get swept up in the excitement. The unusual excitement of imminent extinction. You’re right, I’d like to go away and stay away, but I know life doesn’t work like that. We’ll come home for the end. We’d never make you choose between being with your mum or your dad and the kids.’
I nodded. I tried to recalibrate the summer in my head. A hot place, with books and nice food, sounded better than mooching around the park fighting the panic, watching everyone else heading off for their wild adventures. Hiding away somewhere idyllic would be the best way of passing my last summer. Maybe we could get trains all the way to Asia.
I would be happy to go away with Mum and Sean for the entire summer, no matter what was going to happen in September. It would save me from spending every day staring at the outside of Zoe’s house, and from being used as free childcare by Dad and Anneka while they quietly did some mild things from their ‘bucket list’ (the phrase ‘bucket list’ was one of my least favourite things about this whole situation).
‘What about your work?’ I tasted the sauce and added a lot more salt and pepper, then picked some basil from the little plant and started chopping it.
‘Well, Amy can just move her office elsewhere, as long as we have Wi-Fi and a phone reception. And if we’re in a close time zone, I can work from home too. We’re portable. And also, who really cares about work any more? Not me.’
‘Nice.’ I carried on cooking. ‘Not Asia then?’
‘We were thinking southern Europe? Spain? Good to keep your Spanish up, isn’t it? You might need it. In fact, you’ll definitely need it. You know: in the future.’
When Mum came back from yoga my head was full of Spanish sun. Sean handed her a glass of wine and I served up the pasta. The tomato sauce had taken ages and it did actually taste better than one from a jar, just.
I was about to turn seventeen, and here I was: pleased with myself for cooking pasta for my parents. Eight weeks ago I’d managed to stand up and act in a Shakespeare play, but now I was like an eleven-year-old who has just done food tech at school for the first time, presenting my offering to the family. I was racked by insecurity and self-loathing. It broke over me like a wave. I would be a loser from now until the end of the world.
My breathing went weird. I gasped and shook. I sat down. I closed my eyes and tried to hide it. It hadn’t happened yet. The air was still there. I could breathe it. I took a deep breath in, and then forced it out again. I stayed very, very still.
I told myself to get a grip. We are privileged to witness the biggest thing that any human has ever seen. There might be life beyond death; Natasha had opened my eyes to that possibility. I had no idea what would happen after September the seventeenth.
I need to live while I still can.
It was Thursday night, and I knew that half of my year were at a house party, because even the sensible people had been subscribing to Sean’s ‘who cares?’ attitude. It was impossible to care about getting enough sleep on a school night as the weeks went relentlessly on.
I should have been there too. I knew that Zoe was going. Perhaps I ought to try it. Because if I spent all my time with my parents, making dinner, being domestic and helpful, going away for the whole summer, then that would be my life.
I managed to take a deep breath. I forced a smile. Natasha had pretended she wasn’t shy until it became her truth.
When I looked up Mum was staring at me.
‘OK, darling?’ she said.
I nodded. ‘Fine.’
‘She’s up for the idea,’ Sean said as we all started to eat. The fact that Mum knew what he was talking about made me see that they’d been working on this potential plan without me, and I was surprised that I hadn’t picked up on it before. Perhaps I had, though: maybe this was the thing Mum did in secret on her laptop.
‘Oh, wonderful!’ said Mum. ‘Well, let’s get to work sorting something out in that case. How fabulous!’
‘Are we going to Spain?’
‘France or Spain,’ Mum said. ‘But yeah. Spain would be good, wouldn’t it, for you? Also, as long as you’re not by the coast there are amazing places to rent cheaply. So many people are taking their big trips now. There are thousands of houses available. This summer is going to be crazy. I mean, it’s going to be hot, particularly somewhere like Spain, but I can live with that.’
‘Right. I mean, yes. That sounds good. Not by the coast?’
I wasn’t really concentrating. Mainly I was swamped by the fact that I needed to live while I still could. I needed to be more like Natasha, because I had nothing to lose.
I was going to die in September.
I was going to die.
In September.
I left them having another glass of wine and picking at the leftovers, and went upstairs, where I punched the wall so hard that it hurt my knuckles. I was going to die in September. There would be nothing of me left. It would be as if I had never existed. Normally you could say people lived on in other people’s memories of them, but this time we would all be completely dead because none of us would be here to remember anyone at all.
I sat at my computer and opened the WhatsApp web page.
Hey Natasha.
How are you? Here’s my news for today: I HATE MYSELF. I am useless and stupid. What’s the point? What is even the POINT in being here when I can’t speak to anyone, can’t hang out with friends, don’t even have any friends except Max, and we’re only friends by default because we’re both weird?
I mean, I have YOU, but you live in my computer and my phone. I can talk to you because I can’t see you. You’re the best.
Everyone from school is at Vikram’s party right now. I could be there too but I’m not because I’m at home. I want to go, but I can’t. I have this huge barrier inside me and I just can’t get past it.
We’re going to run out of air in a few months, and I can’t get out to a stupid party.
On the other hand, Mum and Sean want us to go to Spain for the summer, so I do have the option of hanging out with my family and pretending to be five again. So that’s something (something pathetic). At least I’ll get to see a different part of the world.
What can I do? How can I be more like you? Why am I so useless? Why, why, why???
Anyway, I hope you’re having a nice Thursday.
Libby xxx
I regretted it as soon as I pressed send, but she replied straight away. So fast that it was almost instant.
Libs! Intervention! You sure you don’t want to video call? No, of course you don’t.
OK then. Here goes: GO TO THE FREAKING PARTY. You can do it. You’re going to do it. You’re going to do it because I’m telling you to do it. This is your cousin speaking. My dad is dead and you have to do this to make me happy. You can do it thusly: find something shimmery from your wardrobe. You’ll have something. Put on a bit of make-up. Brush your fabulous hair and leave it loose, maybe with a clip at the front – I think that would look nice. And go out and have a great time. You don’t even have to speak to anyone. Go with your weird Max!
Do it. Send photos. This is a direct instruction from your bereaved cousin. This is how you can make me happy.
Love you!
N xoxoxox
I laughed out loud.
Seriously?
I sent it, just that word. A minute later she replied:
TASK ONE: go to a party. Send a photo of yourself there. There must be party people in the background, and you must have a drink in your hand. Any drink you want (doesn’t have to be alcohol). Stay for at least half an hour.
Photo proof required. Time-stamped.
Without stopping to think any more about it, I took one of Anneka’s dresses from my wardrobe. I hadn’t tried it on before, but I had at least hung it up. Some part of me had decided not to take it to the charity shop.
Natasha had tapped straight into the part of me that wanted to do things. I would do it. I would do it because I couldn’t bear to disappoint her. I could not fail my first task. I knew that I wanted to report back with the photos more than I didn’t want to go.
I felt like I knew my cousin as well as I knew anyone. These were the things I knew about her now: she made money performing in some way. I wasn’t quite sure what it was except that she’d assured me she kept her clothes on; it wouldn’t have occurred to me that she didn’t until she said that. I had tried to press her on what it was that she did. Singing? Dancing? Was she a concert pianist? A tap dancer? But she always evaded my questions, and I supposed that was one of the features of our WhatsApp relationship. It was possible to ignore a question you didn’t want to answer.
It was possible for her to ignore my questions at least. It was, somehow, impossible for me to ignore hers.
Natasha had been shy, but now she wasn’t. She travelled around the States working wherever she fancied. Her mum was called Peggy and was a fortune teller (I could not begin to believe that my dad’s brother had been married to a fortune teller), and Peggy had gone ‘a bit off the rails’ since Andy died, and, I thought, was in a psychiatric hospital; I knew that Natasha popped back to Princeton to visit her regularly. Natasha lived impulsively and felt that, since we were all going to die anyway, she needed to be what she always called her ‘best self’ living her ‘best life’, and she followed her instincts as to what that involved. In other words: she was the opposite of me.
I held the dress up in front of me. It was a classic little black dress, short and covered in sequins that I was sure could be counted as ‘shimmery’. This was so different from my usual skinny jeans and hoody that it felt like a costume, and that meant that when I was wearing it I might be able to play a character, a sassy Juliet. That was a start.
I brushed my hair and clipped it back from my face with three hair grips, as Natasha had said. It didn’t look so awful. I’d had my hair as long as I could grow it for years, but I rarely wore it loose.
I owned a lot of make-up because I bought it compulsively: when I was twelve I had gone through a phase of stealing it from Boots and Superdrug and supermarkets. I was never caught, and now when I thought about the risks I’d taken it made my heart pound and my legs tremble. I had felt so bad about it ever since that I bought it legitimately all the time, almost ritualistically to make amends, even though I only ever wore it for plays. I would stand in Boots and put little lines of lipstick on the back of my hand, like other people did, and I’d pretend to assess which I liked best, and then I’d buy them all.
Now I drew a black line across the tops of my eyelids, and put on some glimmery silver eyeshadow above that. I found a dark red lipstick that I thought would do, and applied it carefully. I pulled on a pair of thick black tights but they looked awful so I went down to Mum and Sean’s room and took some of her invisible ones instead. While I was there I nicked a pair of her shoes (her feet were half a size smaller than mine, but I could live with that). They were her tango shoes, bought a few weeks ago when she and Sean thought it would be funny to go to a Latin dancing class. I liked them: they were black, with a buckle and a low heel, and they looked like going-out shoes without being ridiculous. (They’d only gone to tango twice. Apparently it was much harder than it looked and they’d felt silly.)
I checked myself in Mum’s full-length mirror and felt sick. I was all dressed up for the end of the world, and the fact that everything I was wearing had originally been my mother’s or stepmother’s made me feel like the most pathetic human on Earth. People at college had their own clothes. They could rustle up outfits for going out. Juliet Capulet wouldn’t have borrowed clothes from her mother.
Still. I would go anyway so I could send Natasha the photos and pass the test.
I texted Max.
You going to Vikram’s party?
Obvs that’s a NO. Not fucking invited. Also, can’t imagine much worse.
The whole year is invited? We cd go.
Y tho?
Proving a point to myself. Am dressed up but can’t go alone.
There was a pause, and then he replied.
Shit. OK. Just for you. Give me 30 and I’ll come and pick you up. ’Twill be like a prom date from a US movie.
You bringing me a corsage?
If we hate it, we’ll leave.
Yes. I just want to make myself walk through the door. If we stay 10 mins, that’ll be a win. I need a photo of myself there. That’s all.
OK. Deal.
Mum had asked me a few times whether I would like to see a counsellor about my ‘social problems’, and I had said it was the very last thing in the entire world that I would ever like to do, thank you. The last time she asked I had told her that I would prefer to give a TED talk that was beamed live to every computer in the world about economic theory than speak to a counsellor about my shyness. She hadn’t asked again.
I did want to get better, of course. I longed to be someone who could speak without giving it a second thought. But I had always shrunk back from doing the things I’d need to do to get to that point. It was like saying to someone who was terrified of spiders: ‘Here – just hold this tarantula for ten minutes and you’ll be better. Look at its cute hairy legs!’ I wanted to be blasé about spiders, but not if I had to hold the tarantula to get to that point.
Now, though, things felt different. Natasha had been where I was now, and she was going to guide me through it, to hold my hand while I held the spider. I felt safer.
‘I’m going to a house party,’ I said, stepping back into the kitchen. They both looked at me as if I had said I was going to time travel to 1890 and kill baby Hitler. A mixture of I don’t think you actually are and Are you sure that’s a good idea?
‘Oh,’ said Mum.
‘Are you sure?’ said Sean.
‘Is it a good idea?’ Mum said. ‘I mean, it’s Thursday night and …’
‘New dress?’ said Sean. Mum stood up, knocked back the last bit of her wine, and went to look for her handbag. When she’d found it she took out some magic bits and pieces, wiped away my eye make-up and did it properly.
‘What if I liked it that way?’ I said.
‘You’re not going on stage,’ said Mum. ‘Trust me, that was not Thursday-night house party make-up. It was taking the lead at the Old Vic. Are you sure about the dress? I mean, it looks lovely. But it’s quite formal and it depends whether …’
‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Anneka gave it to me.’ There were tears pricking at the back of my eyes. ‘Actually, forget it. I won’t go. I can’t do this, can I? You’re right. I’m not a going-out kind of person. I’m useless.’
They performed an instant U-turn.
‘Of course you should go,’ said Sean. ‘I’d offer you a lift but I’m probably over the limit. We’ll shout you a taxi, though.’
‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘Max is coming to pick me up.’
‘Oh,’ said Mum. ‘Max, hey? Great.’
‘Stop it!’
‘Take a bottle with you,’ said Mum. ‘If it’s a house party you should take a bottle. That’s OK, isn’t it? In sixth form? Don’t get drunk. We’ve got some cheap red, haven’t we, Sean?’
‘Châteauneuf du Crap,’ said Sean, and he went and looked through the cupboard, emerging with a bottle of red wine, which he handed to me.
I hated red wine, but I took it. This felt like the worst idea Natasha had ever had. I decided that I would just go upstairs and put my pyjamas on and text Max to cancel. I’d mock up a photo for Natasha. Max would be as relieved as I was for sure, and Natasha was thousands of miles away.
I was halfway up the stairs when the doorbell rang.
And Max was standing there in a jacket, holding out a daffodil that he had plainly grabbed from someone’s garden on the way.
They were all looking at me. I walked slowly back down the stairs.