Sometimes the genie shouldn’t be let out of the bottle, the three wishes shouldn’t be used up. There are some things that are so powerful, so uncontrollable, that mere humans shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near them.
This was how Izzy felt on Thursday morning. Her gift was her curse. It had never brought her or others happiness. It created only misery. If there was a surgical procedure that could remove it, she would gladly go under the knife.
And the funny thing was that she had only ever tried to use her insight for good. Okay, not so funny. More ironic. Like helping an old lady across the road, who then beats you up because she didn’t want to go there. It stops being funny when you lose count of the times you’ve ended up with those bruises.
Izzy longed to be normal. And yet she didn’t even know what it was like to be normal. How sweet it must be to live in such blessed ignorance, to move among others without being bombarded by their emotions, battered by their deceits.
‘Are you okay?’
This from Abel, staring with concern at her over the top of his spectacles.
She knew she should shrug off her mood. Paste on a smile and say she’d just been lost in thought. But the shroud she wore was too heavy, and she was too tired. She didn’t have the energy to concoct the lies that jumped so readily to the lips of others.234
‘Actually,’ she said. ‘I’m pretty down today.’
‘Are you thinking about Melissa?’
It was a good question, and in truth the answer was no. Melissa was dead. Izzy was the only one who knew that for certain, and so her thoughts had broadened. But at the same time, and to her shame, she realised that her spinning plates of thoughts had been entirely about herself. She had been absorbed in self-pity, that most destructive of sins.
‘I’m thinking about lots of things. Sometimes the world doesn’t seem very fair.’
‘It isn’t fair.’ He got up and came towards her. With a sweep of his arm he gestured towards his packed shelves. ‘You know why people like books?’
It seemed such a non-sequitur, and with no succinct answer – a whole dissertation would be required to do it justice. And so she stared at him blankly.
‘Because books are the only place in which one can find a fair and just world. Not every book, I admit; just go to our friend Will Shakespeare if you want a story where everyone dies. But if you want the detective to catch the criminal, the pauper to marry the prince, the loser to win, the sad person to find happiness, you can find all that in books. People need these views of the world. They need to be told that the good will be rewarded and the bad will be punished. Books give them that when the real world lets them down.’
‘I want life to be like it is in those books,’ she said. ‘It hurts too much.’
Abel looked at her for a while, and then he said, ‘Wait here.’
He disappeared into the back room, and was gone for several minutes. In that time, no customer came or went, as if they knew better than to disturb this moment.
When Abel returned, he was carrying two mugs.235
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘The cure for all sadness.’
He set a mug down in front of her, and she took in all its colours and its perfume and its sweetness.
‘Hot chocolate,’ she said. ‘With whipped cream and marshmallows!’
‘Guaranteed comfort in a mug.’
‘I’ve never seen you drink this. Where have you been hiding it?’
‘I don’t have it very often.’ He patted his paunch. ‘At my age I have to be careful. But today I had to buy it. Today is special.’
‘Why? Why is it special?’
‘Today is the anniversary of the death of my Zara. Whenever either of us were sad, we would make hot chocolate just like this. It always made things better. This is the first time I have made it for anyone else.’
‘Oh, Abel.’ She threw his arms around him.
‘You’re beginning to make a habit of this,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure Zara won’t mind.’
‘You’re making me cry.’
He pushed her gently away. ‘Stop it or you’ll shrink my cardigan.’ He paused. ‘I couldn’t stop my Zara dying. Nothing worked, not even prayer. Sometimes we have to accept that there are things we cannot change.’
‘That’s what I’m finding difficult. There’s something I’ve tried to fix, but I haven’t been able to do it.’
‘Did you try your hardest?’
‘Yes. I think so.’
‘Then that’s all that matters. Now drink.’
Izzy picked up the mug, and her lips fought through the fluffy marshmallows and cloud of whipped cream to get to the shock of the sweet heat below.
‘Nice?’ Abel asked.236
‘Wonderful.’
‘Feel better?’
‘A little.’
He laughed. ‘Sometimes it takes a while. I’ll tell you what: why don’t I give you the afternoon off?’
‘Oh, Abel, you don’t need to do that. I can’t leave you here to cope by yourself.’
He nodded to the emptiness around them. ‘Dealing with all these customers, you mean? I think I’ll manage. And I think you have better places to be. Someone to share your troubles with.’
Izzy thought about Andy. Tonight would be her last late shift. Knocking off early would mean being able to see Andy properly before her own work began. They could talk. She so needed to talk.
‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re a very wise man, Abel?’
‘Frequently.’ He pointed heavenward. ‘Just don’t tell Zara. She thinks I’m a schmuck.’
* * *
She drove home as though the weight lifted from her enabled her little car to breeze through town. Josh was right: she needed to step down from her self-appointed role as righter of wrongs; she wasn’t suited to it. Abel was also correct: she needed to stop beating herself up, accept what she couldn’t change, and get on with her life. Everyone else was right, she was wrong, and that was just how it was, next patient please.
Andy would be up and about now, with several hours to go before her evening shift. Izzy planned to use that time to confess everything, to clean the slate. She was going to tell Andy how stupid she’d been, how obsessed, but it was all at an end now, and all she wanted to do was spend every minute she could with the 237love of her life. She knew Andy would forgive her, because that was the sort of person she was. She’d call Izzy a complete dickhead and a few other choice phrases, but it would all be good.
She could hear Andy’s music even before she came through the front door. ‘The Imperial March’ from Star Wars. It felt ominous.
Just bad timing, Izzy told herself. The next track will be from Frozen or Mary Poppins or whatever.
She called out to Andy, but could hear nothing over the music. She turned it down, went back out to the hall, called again. Still no reply, but she could hear noises coming from the bedroom.
Something was wrong.
Izzy moved cautiously down the hallway.
‘Andy? You there?’
Nothing.
If that’s Andy, Izzy thought, then why isn’t she answering? And if it’s not Andy …
She was beginning to wish she’d picked up a knife from the kitchen.
She reached the bedroom door, pushed it open, stepped inside …
Andy didn’t even look up. She was busy packing a bag. She was also busy radiating a force that rivalled anything Darth Vader could produce. A force driven by anger and hurt.
‘Andy? What are you doing?’
‘What does it look like I’m doing?’
‘Why are you packing?’
‘Because I won’t be coming back here after my shift tonight. I’m taking my car – which, by the way, is full of twigs and leaves and shit, and I’d quite like to know why – and then I’m driving straight to my mum’s house.’
‘I can explain about the car. I needed—’
‘Izzy, this isn’t about the car. It’s about you and me and what I thought was a relationship built on trust.’238
Izzy stared as Andy stuffed a sweater unceremoniously into her bag. She could feel the raw emotion, but had no idea what lay behind it.
‘Andy, I don’t know what’s going on here. Have I done something wrong?’
‘It’s what you haven’t done. Christ, Izzy, I always thought we told each other everything.’
‘We do. And I’ve been wanting to talk to you properly for ages, but we’ve hardly seen each other. It’s okay now, though, because I’m over the Kenneth Plumley thing. That’s all in the past now, and I thought we could—’
‘What are you talking about? This isn’t about Kenneth fucking Plumley. Just for once, can you stop making things about you and concentrate instead on us?’
‘I am. I do. I just … I don’t know what I’ve done to upset you like this.’
‘Well, why don’t you just read my mind, like you do with Kenneth Plumley?’
It was a cutting remark, and Izzy sensed the regret as soon as it left Andy’s mouth.
‘Andy, please. Whatever it is, tell me and I’ll do my best to fix it.’
‘You can’t fix this one. Nobody can fix this.’ She grabbed a top from a hanger in the wardrobe and made a hash of folding it up.
‘That’s going to come out creased. Do you want me to help?’
Andy suddenly stopped packing and lowered her head. Izzy knew there were tears.
‘You knew,’ Andy said. ‘You’ve known all along.’
‘What about?’
Andy raised her head, aimed glistening, accusing eyes. ‘About my mum.’
Izzy had trouble getting her jaw to work. ‘Andy, I …’
‘You knew, and you kept it from me.’239
‘I wasn’t sure. I—’
‘You were sure. When it comes to people you know, you’re always sure.’
‘I don’t know your mother all that well.’
Andy shook her head. ‘Don’t bullshit me. You know her well enough. Better than that Percy and Ethel couple.’
‘Who?’
‘The old couple. In the bookshop. The other day.’
‘Ronald and Edith.’
‘Whatever. A couple of brief chats with them and you were able to come up with a complete medical diagnosis. What’s so different about my mother?’
‘It … it wasn’t a diagnosis. I just knew Ronald was lying about his health.’
‘And my mum?’
Izzy hesitated. ‘All right. Look, I knew she wasn’t being wholly truthful about her reflux, but she—’
‘No buts. You knew. You knew, and you kept it from me.’ Andy opened one of her drawers and started manically pulling things out of it and dropping them on the floor like they never should have been there in the first place.
‘Wait a minute. Who was it who said I should let Ronald and Edith live their life the way they want to live it? Who was it who said Ronald had every right to tell a few white lies so that his wife wouldn’t fall apart? Oh, that’s right, it was you.’
‘That’s different.’
‘How is it different? Because this time it affects you?’
‘Yes! Because I’m not going to fall apart. I’m a paramedic, for Christ’s sake. I have some medical training. I can’t fix my mother, but I can at least give her advice and make sure she gets the help she needs. And I could have done that a lot sooner if you hadn’t kept the truth from me.’240
Izzy watched Andy continue to turn the bedroom into a dumping ground. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘That brown leather belt for my jeans.’
Izzy pointed to the bag. ‘It’s there. You already packed it.’
Andy checked, clucked in irritation, and then zipped up the bag.
‘What’s she got?’ Izzy asked. ‘Your mum.’
‘Cancer. Stage four. It’s everywhere. Inoperable now.’
Izzy thought she detected a slight emphasis on the word ‘now’, as though there was a suggestion that earlier action on her part might have saved a life.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I was—’
‘I can’t believe I was taken in by her. Acid reflux, my arse! I’ve spent years seeing through the stories given me by drug addicts and stab victims, and I couldn’t even tell when my own mother was hiding the biggest secret imaginable. You, on the other hand …’
She let it lie there, but Izzy could feel the anger bubbling under the surface.
‘Andy, I’m really sorry. I don’t know what else you want me to say. I was trying to respect her wishes. You don’t understand how difficult these things are for me – when to say something and when to let people hold on to their privacy.’
Andy picked up the bag. ‘That’s just it, isn’t it? You still haven’t learned. Izzy, you have an amazing gift. You can see things that nobody else can. You have to stop pretending it doesn’t exist and start putting it to good use. Sometimes that’s going to mean making tough decisions, but you need to have the guts to do what feels right.’
Andy started towards the door.
‘When will you be back?’ Izzy asked.
‘I don’t know. My dad hasn’t taken the news very well; he’s worse than useless at the moment. My mum needs me around for a few days. I’ll ring you.’
And then she went. Not even a kiss or a hug. She was just gone.241
In a daze, Izzy wandered back to the living room and turned off the music. The place dropped into an eerie silence.
She realised it was their first real row. Like most couples, they’d had disagreements aplenty, but nothing on this scale. She felt torn and battered.
She thought about the charges Andy had levelled at her, and at first she thought they were totally unwarranted. She hadn’t done anything maliciously; she had merely allowed someone to hold on to what was theirs. What right did Izzy have to shatter confidentiality without any attempt at consultation? Wasn’t that as bad as delving into someone’s diary or reading their love letters or listening in on their phone calls and then revealing all their secrets to the world? How the hell could Andy expect her to justify such a grubby intrusion?
But then the precision of Andy’s comments punctured her indignation, and regrets began to flow.
It was different from Ronald and Edith, wasn’t it? The two cases weren’t the same at all. For one thing, Ronald had made it crystal clear that he didn’t want his dear wife to be crushed by the knowledge of his imminent demise, whereas Andy’s mum had made no such request. Izzy had made assumptions on her behalf, when it was perfectly possible that, on the inside, and despite her cover-up, Andy’s mother was crying out for someone to offer her a helping hand.
And for another thing, Andy wasn’t Edith. She wasn’t fragile. As she had pointed out, she was a medically trained professional who might just have something useful to contribute to the well-being of her own parent.
So why hadn’t Izzy seen that? Why had it fallen to her distraught partner to highlight these things when she should have been able to see them for herself? Why had she not foreseen the drama that would naturally have flowed from her rash decision-making?242
Well, that brought her to the bigger issue.
She was immature.
Too many of the issues that life threw her way were too big for her to handle. And so she ran away. She buried her head in the sand. She knew all this. Knew exactly why she always dressed in black and worked in a bookshop and didn’t socialise.
She was afraid.
And it was all because of her gift. She had allowed her superpower to make her less powerful than everybody else.
Use the force wisely, Andy had joked. But there was a serious message there, hammered home in the argument they’d just had. Izzy wasn’t like most other people, and what she needed to do was embrace that rather than try to pretend she was ‘normal’.
She needed to grow up.