Before I die Jenny Downham

Sixteen 
He s uglier than I remember. It s as if he warmed up in my memory. I 
don t know why that should be. I think how Zoey would snort with derision 
if she knew I d come knocking on his door, and that thought makes me 
want to never let her know. She says ugly people give her a headache. 
You re avoiding me, I tell him. 
He looks surprised for a second, but covers it up pretty quick. ve 
been busy.
Is that right?
Yeah.
So it s not because you think I m contagious? Most people start acting 
as if they can catch cancer from me in the end, or as if I ve done something 
to deserve it.
He looks alarmed. No, no! I don t think that.
Good. So when are we going out on your bike then?
He shuffles his feet on the step and looks embarrassed. I haven t 
actually got a full licence. You re not supposed to take passengers without 
it.
I can think of a million reasons why going on the back of Adam s bike 
might be a bad idea. Because we might crash. Because it might not be as 
good as I hope. Because what will I tell Zoey? Because it s what I really 
want to do more than anything. But I m not going to let the lack of a full 
licence be one of them. 
Have you got a spare helmet? I ask him. 

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103
That slow smile again. I love that smile! Did I think he was ugly just 
now? No, his face is transformed. 
In the shed. I ve got a spare jacket too.
I can t help smiling back. I feel brave and certain. Come on then. 
Before it rains.
He shuts the door behind him. It s not going to rain.
We go round the side of the house and get the stuff from the shed. 
But just as he helps me zip into the jacket, just as he tells me his bike is 
capable of ninety miles per hour and the wind will be cold, the back door 
opens and a woman steps into the garden. She s wearing a dressing gown 
and slippers. 
Adam says, Go back inside, Mum, you ll get cold.
But she keeps walking down the path towards us. She has the saddest 
face I ve ever seen, like she drowned once and the tide left its mark there. 
Where are you going? she says, and she doesn t look at me at all. 
You didn t say you were going anywhere.
I won t be long.
She makes a funny little sound in the back of her throat. Adam looks 
up sharply. Don t, Mum, he says. Go and have your bath and get dressed. 
ll be back before you know it.
She nods forlornly, begins to walk up the path, then stops as if she 
remembered something, and turns and looks at me for the first time, a 
stranger in her garden. 
Who are you? she says. 
I live next door. I came to see Adam.

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104
The sadness in her eyes deepens. Yes, that s what I thought.
Adam goes over to her and grips her gently by the elbows. Come on,
he says. You should go back inside.
She allows herself to be helped up the path and walked to the back 
door. She goes up the step and then she turns and looks at me again. She 
doesn t say anything, and neither do I. We just look at each other, and then 
she goes through the door and into her kitchen. I wonder what happens 
then, what they say to each other. 
Is she OK? I ask as Adam walks back out into the garden. 
Let s get out of here, he says. 
It s not what I imagined, not like cycling fast downhill, or even sticking 
your head out of a car window on the motorway. It s more elemental, like 
being on a beach in the winter when the wind howls in off the sea. The 
helmets have plastic visors. I ve got mine down, but Adam s got his up; he 
did it very deliberately. 
He said, I like to feel the wind in my eyes.
He told me to lean when we go round corners. He told me that since it 
was my first time he wouldn t go top speed. But that could mean anything. 
Even at half speed, we might take off. We might fly. 
We leave the streets and lampposts and houses. We leave the shops 
and the industrial estate and the wood yard, and we go beyond some kind 
of boundary where things belong to the town and are understood. Trees, 
fields, space appears. I shelter behind the curve of his back, and I close my 
eyes and wonder where he s taking me. I imagine horses in the engine, 
their manes flying, their breath steaming, their nostrils flaring as they 
gallop. I heard a story once about some nymph, snatched by a god and 
taken somewhere dark and dangerous on the back of a chariot. 

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105
Where we end up is somewhere I didn t expect – a muddy car park off 
the dual carriageway. There are two large trucks parked here, a couple of 
cars and a hotdog stand. 
Adam turns off the ignition, kicks the stand down with his foot and 
takes off his helmet. 
You should get off first, he says. 
I nod, can barely speak, left my breath behind on the road 
somewhere. My knees are shaking and it takes a lot of effort to swing my 
leg over the bike and stand up. The earth feels very still. One of the lorry 
drivers winks at me out of his cab window. He holds a steaming cup of tea 
in one hand. Over at the hotdog stand, a girl with her hair in a ponytail 
passes a bag of chips across the counter to a man with a dog. I m different 
from them all. It s as if we flew here and everyone else is completely 
ordinary. 
Adam says, This isn t the place. Let s get something to eat, then I ll 
show you.
He seems to understand that I can t quite talk yet and doesn t wait for 
an answer. I walk slowly after him, listen to him order two hotdogs with 
onion rings. How did he know that would be my idea of a perfect lunch? 
We stand and eat. We share a Coke. It seems astonishing to me that 
m here, that the world opened up from the back of a bike, that the sky 
looked like silk, that I saw the afternoon arrive, not white, not grey, not 
quite silver, but a combination of all three. Finally, when I ve thrown my 
wrapper in the bin and finished the Coke, Adam says, Ready?
And I follow him through a gate at the back of the hotdog stand, 
across a ditch and into a thin little wood. A mud path threads through and 
out to the other side, where space opens up. I hadn t realized how high we 

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106
were. It s amazing, the whole town down there like someone laid it at our 
feet, and us high up, looking down at it all. 
Wow! I say. I didn t know this view was here.
Yeah.
We sit together on a bench, our knees not quite touching. The 
ground s hard beneath my feet. The air s cold, smelling of frost that didn t 
quite make it, of winter to come. 
This is where I come when I need to get away, he says. I got the 
mushrooms from here.
He gets out his tobacco tin and opens it up, puts tobacco in a paper 
and rolls it. He has dirty fingernails and I shiver at the thought of those 
hands touching me. 
Here, he says. This ll warm you up.
He passes me the cigarette and I look at it while he rolls himself 
another one. It looks like a pale slim finger. He offers me a light. We don t 
say anything for ages, just blow smoke at the town below. 
He says, Anything could be happening down there, but up here you 
just wouldn t know it.
I know what he means. It could be pandemonium in all those little 
houses, everyone s dreams in a mess. But up here feels peaceful. Clean. 
m sorry, about earlier with my mum, he says. She s a bit hard to 
take sometimes.
Is she ill?
Not really.
What s up with her then?

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107
He sighs, runs a hand through his hair. My dad was killed in a road 
accident eighteen months ago.
He flicks his cigarette across the grass and we both watch the orange 
glow. It feels like minutes until it goes out. 
Do you want to talk about it?
He shrugs. There s not that much to say. My mum and dad had a 
fight, he stomped off to the pub and forgot to look when he crossed the 
road. Two hours later the police were knocking on the door.
Shit!
Ever seen a scared policeman?
No.
It s terrifying. My mum sat on the stairs and covered her ears with her 
hands, and they stood in the hallway with their hats off and their knees 
shaking. He laughs through his nose, a soft sound with no humour to it. 
They were only a bit older than me. They hadn t got a clue how to handle 
it.
That s horrible!
It didn t help. They took her to see my dad s body. She wanted to, but 
they shouldn t have let her. He was pretty mashed up.
Did you go?
I sat outside.
I understand now why Adam s different from Zoey, or any of the kids I 
knew at school. It s a wound that connects us. 
He says, I thought moving from our old house would help, but it 
hasn t really. She s still on a million tablets a day.

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108
And you look after her?
Pretty much.
What about your life?
I don t really have a choice.
He turns on the bench so that he s facing me. He looks as if he s really 
seeing me, as if he knows something about me that even I don t know. 
Are you afraid, Tessa?
No one s ever asked me that before. Not ever. I look at him to check 
he s not taking the piss or asking out of politeness, but he returns a steady 
gaze. So I tell him how I m afraid of the dark, afraid of sleeping, afraid of 
webbed fingers, of small spaces, of doors. 
It comes and goes. People think if you re sick you become fearless 
and brave, but you don t. Most of the time it s like being stalked by a 
psycho, like I might get shot any second. But sometimes I forget for hours.
What makes you forget?
People. Doing stuff. When I was with you in the wood, I forgot for a 
whole afternoon.
He nods very slowly. 
There s a silence then. Just a little one, but it has shape to it, like a 
cushion round a sharp box. 
Adam says, I like you, Tessa.
When I swallow, my throat hurts. You do?

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109
That day you came round to chuck your stuff on the fire, you said you 
wanted to get rid of all your things. You told me you watch me from your 
window. Most people don t talk that way.
Did it freak you out?
The opposite. He looks at his feet as if they ll give him a clue. I can t 
give you what you want though.
What I want?
m only just coping. If anything happened between us, it s kind of 
like, what would be the point? He shifts on the bench. This is coming out 
all wrong.
I feel strangely untouchable as I stand up. I can feel myself closing 
some kind of internal window. It s the one that controls temperature and 
feelings. I feel crisp as a winter leaf. 
ll see you around, I say. 
You re going?
Yeah, I ve got stuff to do in town. Sorry, I didn t realize what the time 
was.
You have to go right now?
m meeting friends. They ll be waiting for me.
He fumbles around on the grass for the crash helmets. Well, let me 
take you.
No, no, it s OK. I ll get one of them to pick me up. They ve all got 
cars.
He looks stunned. Ha! Good! That ll teach him to be the same as 
everyone else. I don t even bother saying goodbye. 

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110
Wait! he says. 
But I won t. I won t look back at him either. 
The path might be slippery! he shouts. It s beginning to rain.
I said it would rain. I knew it would. 
Tessa, let me give you a lift!
But if he thinks I m climbing on that bike with him, he can think again. 
I made a fatal error thinking he could save me. 

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