Before I die Jenny Downham

Forty-two 
All qualities are the same – the light through the curtains, the faraway 
hum of traffic, the boiler rush of water. It could be groundhog day, except 
that my body is more tired, my skin more transparent. I am less than 
yesterday. 
And 
Adam is in the camp bed. 
I try to sit up, but can t quite muster the energy. Why did you sleep 
down there?
He touches my hand. You were in pain in the night.
He opens the curtains just like he did yesterday. He stands at the 
window looking out. Beyond him, the sky is pale and watery. 
we made love twenty-seven times and we shared a bed for sixty-two 
nights and that s a lot of love 
Breakfast? he says. 
I don t want to be dead. 
I haven t been loved this way for long enough. 

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Forty-three 
My mum was in labour for fourteen hours with me. It was the hottest 
May on record. So hot I didn t wear any clothes for the first two weeks of 
my life. 
I used to lay you on my tummy and we d sleep for hours, she says. 
It was too hot to do anything but sleep.
Like charades, this going over of memories. 
I used to take you on the bus to meet Dad in his lunch break and 
you d sit on my lap and stare at people. You had such an intense look about 
you. Everyone used to comment on it.
The light is very bright. A great slab of it falls through the window and 
lands on the bed. I can rest my hand in sunshine without even moving. 
Do you remember when we went to Cromer and you lost your charm 
bracelet on the beach?
She s brought photos, holds them up one by one. 
A green and white afternoon threading daisies. 
The chalk light of winter at the city farm. 
Yellow leaves, muddy boots and a proud black bucket. 
What did you catch, do you remember?
Philippa said my hearing would be the last thing to go, but she didn t 
say I d see colours when people talk. 
Whole sentences arc across the room like rainbows. 

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I get confused. I m at the bedside and Mum s dying instead of me. I 
pull back the sheets to look at her and she s naked, a wrinkled old woman 
with grey pubic hair. 
I weep for a dog, hit by a car and buried. We never had a dog. This is 
not my memory. 
m Mum on a pony trotting across town to visit Dad. He lives on a 
council estate, and me and the pony get into the lift and go up to the eighth 
floor. The pony s hooves clatter metallically. It makes me laugh. 
m twelve. I get home from school and Mum s on the doorstep. She 
has her coat on and a suitcase at her feet. She gives me an envelope. Give 
this to your dad when he gets home.
She kisses me goodbye. I watch her until she reaches the horizon, and 
at the top of the hill, like a puff of smoke, she disappears. 

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