Before I Die aka Now is Good

Seventeen

I start with assault, shove my elbow hard into a woman’s back as I get on the bus. She spins round, crazy-eyed.

‘Ow!’ she yelps. ‘Watch where you’re going!’

‘It was him!’ I tell her, pointing to the man behind me. He doesn’t hear, is too busy carrying a screaming child and yelling into his phone to know I just slandered him. The woman sidesteps me. ‘Arsehole!’ she tells him.

He hears that.

In the commotion, I dodge the fare and find myself a seat at the back. Three crimes in under one minute. Not bad.

I rifled through the pockets of Adam’s motorbike jacket on the way down the hill, but all I found was a cigarette lighter and a bent old rollie, so I couldn’t have paid for the bus anyway. I decide to go for crime number four and light it up. An old bloke turns round and jabs a finger at me. ‘Put that out!’ he says.

‘Piss off,’ I tell him, which I believe might count as violent behaviour in a court of law.

I’m good at this. Time for a little murder now, with a round of the Dying Game.

The man three seats in front is feeding takeaway noodles to the small boy on his lap. I give myself three points for the food colouring creeping along the child’s veins.

In the opposite aisle, a woman ties a scarf about her throat. One point for the lump on her neck, raw and pink as a crab’s claw.

Another point for the bus exploding as it brakes at the lights. Two for the great globs of melting plastic from the seats splitting the air.

A counsellor I saw at the hospital said it’s not my fault. She reckoned there must be loads of sick people secretly wishing malevolence upon the healthy.

I told her my dad says cancer is a sign of treachery, since the body’s doing something without the knowledge or consent of the mind. I asked if she thought the game might be a way for my mind to get its own back.

‘Possibly,’ she said. ‘Do you play it a lot?’

The bus sweeps past the cemetery, the iron gates open. Three points for the dead slowly prising open the lids of their coffins. They want to hurt the living. They can’t stop. Their throats have turned to liquid and their fingers glint under the weak autumn sun.

Maybe that’s enough. There are too many people on the bus now. Down the aisles, they blink and shift. ‘I’m on the bus,’ they say as their mobiles chirrup. It’ll just depress me if I kill them all off.

I force myself to look out of the window. We’re in Willis Avenue already. I used to go to school along here. There’s the mini mart! I’d forgotten it even existed, though it was the first place in town to sell Slush Puppies. Zoey and me used to get one every day in the summer on the way home from school. They sell other stuff too – fresh dates and figs, halva, sesame bread and Turkish delight. I can’t believe I let the mini mart slip my mind.

Left at the video shop, and a man wearing a white apron stands in the doorway of the Barbecue Café sharpening his knife. A rack of lamb slowly rotates in the window behind him. Dinner money bought a kebab and chips there two years ago or, if you’re Zoey, it bought a kebab and chips plus a cigarette from under the counter.

I miss her. I get off the bus in the market square and phone her. She sounds like she’s underwater.

‘Are you in a swimming pool?’

‘I’m in the bath.’

‘On your own?’

‘Of course I’m on my own!’

‘You texted me that you were at college. I knew it was a lie.’

‘What do you want, Tessa?’

‘Breaking the law.’

‘What?’

‘It’s number four on my list.’

‘And how are you planning on doing that?’

Before, she’d have had an idea. But now, because of Scott, she’s lost her definition. It’s like their edges got blurred together.

‘I was thinking of killing the Prime Minister. I quite fancy starting a revolution.’

‘Funny.’

‘Or the Queen. We could get a bus to Buckingham Palace.’

Zoey sighs. She doesn’t even bother to hide it. ‘I’ve got stuff to do. I can’t be with you every day.’

‘I haven’t seen you for ten days!’ There’s a silence. It makes me want to hurt her. ‘You promised you’d do everything with me, Zoey. I’ve only done three things on the list. At this rate I’m not going to get it all done in time.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’

‘I’m at the market. Come and meet me, it’ll be fun.’

‘At the market? Is Scott there?’

‘I don’t know, I’ve only just got off the bus.’

‘I’ll meet you in twenty minutes,’ she says.

There’s sun in my teacup and it’s very easy sitting outside this café watching it shine.

‘I think you’re a vampire,’ Zoey says. ‘You’ve sucked all my energy away,’ and she pushes her plate to one side and rests her head on the table.

I like it here – the candy-striped awning above us, the view across the square to the water fountain. I like the tang of rain in the air and the row of birds lining the wall over by the dustbins.

‘What kind of birds are they?’

Zoey opens one eye to look. ‘Starlings.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just do.’

I’m not sure I believe her, but I write it down on my napkin anyway. ‘What about the clouds? Do you know what they’re called?’

She groans, shifts her head on the table.

‘Do you think stones have names, Zoey?’

‘No! Neither do raindrops, or leaves, or any of the other mad things you keep going on about.’

She makes a nest with her arms and hides her face from me completely. She’s been grouchy ever since she got here and it’s beginning to piss me off. This is supposed to be making me feel better.

Zoey shifts in her chair. ‘Aren’t you freezing?’

‘No.’

‘Can we just go and rob a bank, or whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing?’

‘Will you teach me to drive?’

‘Can’t you ask your dad?’

‘I did, but it’s not working out.’

‘It’d take a million years, Tessa! I’m probably not even allowed. I’ve only just learned myself.’

‘Since when did you care about what was allowed?’

‘Do we have to talk about this now? Come on, let’s go.’

She scrapes her chair back, but I’m not ready yet. I want to watch that black cloud drive towards the sun. I want to watch the sky turn from grey to charcoal. The wind’ll pick up and all the leaves will rip off the trees. I’ll race about catching them. I’ll make hundreds of wishes.

Three women appear, hauling buggies and children across the square towards us.

‘Quick!’ they cry. ‘In here, quick, before it rains again.’

They shiver and laugh as they squeeze past us to an empty table. ‘Who wants what?’ they cry. ‘What do we want?’ They sound just like the starlings.

Zoey stretches, blinks at the women as if wondering where they came from. They make a great fuss taking off coats and plonking babies in high chairs, wiping noses with bits of tissue and ordering juice and fruitcake.

‘My mum used to bring me to this café when she was pregnant with Cal,’ I tell Zoey. ‘She was completely addicted to milkshakes. We used to come every day until she got so fat her entire lap disappeared. I had to sit on a stool by her side to watch the telly.’

‘Oh my God!’ Zoey snarls. ‘Being with you is like being in a horror movie!’

I look at her properly for the first time. She hasn’t made any effort; is just wearing shapeless jogging pants and a sweatshirt. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her without make-up before. Her spots are really obvious.

‘Are you all right, Zoey?’

‘I’m cold.’

‘Did you think the market was on today? Were you expecting to see Scott?’

‘No!’

‘Good, because you don’t look great.’

She glares at me. ‘Shoplifting,’ she says. ‘Let’s just get it over with.’