Before I Die aka Now is Good

Nineteen

There’s a dead bird on the lawn, its legs thin as cocktail sticks. I’m sitting in the deck chair under the apple tree watching it.

‘It definitely moved,’ I tell Cal.

He stops juggling and comes over to look. ‘Maggots,’ he says. ‘It can get so hot inside a dead body that the ones in the middle have to move to the edges to cool down.’

‘How the hell do you know that?’

He shrugs. ‘Internet.’

He nudges the bird with his shoe until its stomach splits. Hundreds of maggots spill onto the grass and writhe there, stunned by sunlight.

‘See?’ Cal says, and he squats down and pokes at them with a stick. ‘A dead body is its own eco-system. Under certain conditions it only takes nine days for a human to rot down to the bones.’ He looks at me thoughtfully. ‘That won’t happen to you though.’

‘No?’

‘It’s more when people are murdered and left outside.’

‘What will happen to me, Cal?’

I have a feeling that whatever he says will be right, like he’s some grand magician touched by cosmic truth. But he only shrugs and says, ‘I’ll find out and let you know.’

He goes off to the shed to get a spade. ‘Guard the bird,’ he says.

Its feathers ruffle in the breeze. It’s very beautiful, black with a sheen of blue, like oil on the sea. The maggots are rather beautiful too. They panic on the grass; searching for the bird, for each other.

And that’s when Adam walks across the lawn.

‘Hi,’ he says. ‘How are you?’

I sit up in my deckchair. ‘Did you just climb over the fence?’

He shakes his head. ‘It’s broken down the bottom.’

He’s wearing jeans, boots, a leather jacket. He’s got something behind his back. ‘Here,’ he says. He holds out a bunch of wild green leaves to me. Amongst them are bright orange flowers. They look like lanterns or baby pumpkins.

‘For me?’

‘For you.’

My heart hurts. ‘I’m trying not to acquire new things.’

He frowns. ‘Perhaps living things don’t count.’

‘I think they might count more.’

He sits down on the grass next to my chair and puts the flowers between us. The ground is wet. It will seep into him. It will make him cold. I don’t tell him this. I don’t tell him about the maggots either. I want them to creep into his pockets.

Cal comes back with a gardening trowel.

‘You planting something?’ Adam asks him.

‘Dead bird,’ he says, and he points to the place where it lies.

Adam leans over. ‘That’s a rook. Did your cat get it?’

‘Don’t know. I’m going to bury it though.’

Cal walks over to the back fence, finds a spot in the flowerbed and starts to dig. The earth is wet as cake mix. Where the spade meets little stones, it sounds like shoes on gravel.

Adam plucks bits of grass and sieves them between his fingers. ‘I’m sorry about what I said the other day.’

‘It’s OK.’

‘It didn’t come out right.’

‘Really, it’s OK. We don’t have to talk about it.’

He nods very seriously, still threading grass, still not looking at me. ‘You are worth bothering with.’

‘I am?’

‘Yeah.’

‘So you want to be friends?’

He looks up. ‘If you do.’

‘And you’re sure there’s a point to it?’

I enjoy watching him blush, the confusion in his eyes. Maybe Dad’s right and I’m turning to anger.

‘I think there’s a point,’ he says.

‘Then you’re forgiven.’

I hold my hand out and we shake on it. His hand is warm.

Cal comes over, smeared in dirt, spade in hand. He looks like a demented boy undertaker. ‘The grave’s ready,’ he says.

Adam helps him roll the rook onto the spade. It’s stiff and looks heavy. Its injury is obvious – a red gash at the back of its neck. Its head lolls drunkenly as they carry it between them over to the hole. Cal talks to it as they walk. ‘Poor bird,’ he says. ‘Come on, time to rest.’

I wrap my blanket round my shoulders and follow them across the grass to watch them tip it in. One eye shines up at us. It looks peaceful, even grateful. Its feathers are darker now.

‘Should we say something?’ Cal asks.

‘Goodbye, bird?’ I suggest.

He nods. ‘Goodbye, bird. Thank you for coming. And good luck.’

He scoops mud over it, but leaves the head uncovered, as if the bird might like to take a last look around. ‘What about the maggots?’ he says.

‘What about them?’

‘Won’t they suffocate?’

‘Leave an air hole,’ I tell him.

He seems happy with this suggestion, crumbles earth over the bird’s head and pats it down. He makes a hole for the maggots with a stick.

‘Get some stones, Tess, then we can decorate it.’

I do as I’m told and wander off to look. Adam stays with Cal. He tells him that rooks are very sociable, that this rook will have many friends, and they’ll be grateful to Cal for burying it with so much care.

I think he’s trying to impress me.

These two white stones are almost perfectly round. Here is a snail’s shell, a red leaf. A soft grey feather. I hold them in my hand. They’re so lovely that I have to lean against the shed and close my eyes.

It’s a mistake. It’s like falling into darkness.

There’s earth on my head. I’m cold. Worms burrow. Termites and woodlice come.

I try and focus on good things, but it’s so hard to scramble out. I open my eyes to the rough fingers of the apple tree. A spider’s web quivering silver. My warm hands clutching the stones.

But all that is warm will go cold. My ears will fall off and my eyes will melt. My mouth will be clamped shut. My lips will turn to glue.

Adam appears. ‘You all right?’ he says.

I concentrate on breathing. In. Out. But breathing brings the opposite when you become aware of it. My lungs will dry up like paper fans. Out. Out.

He touches my shoulder. ‘Tessa?’

No taste or smell or touch or sound. Nothing to look at. Total emptiness for ever.

Cal runs up. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘You look weird.’

‘I got dizzy bending down.’

‘Shall I get Dad?’

‘No.’

‘Are you sure?

‘Finish the grave, Cal. I’ll be OK.’

I give him the things I collected and he runs off. Adam stays. A blackbird flies low over the fence. The sky is griddled pink and grey. Breathe. In. In.

Adam says, ‘What is it?’

How can I tell him?

He reaches out and touches my back with the flat of his hand. I don’t know what this means. His hand is firm, moving in gentle circles. We agreed to be friends. Is this what friends do?

His heat comes through the weave of the blanket, through my coat, my jumper, my T-shirt. Through to my skin. It hurts so much that thoughts are difficult to find. My body becomes all sensation.

‘Stop it.’

‘What?’

I shrug him off. ‘Can’t you just go away?’

There’s a moment. It has a sound in it, as if something very small got broken.

‘You want me to go?’

‘Yes. And don’t come back.’

He walks across the grass. He says goodbye to Cal and goes back through the broken bit of fence. Except for the flowers by the chair, it’s as if he’s never been here at all. I pick them up. Their orange heads nod at me as I give them to Cal.

‘These are for the bird.’

‘Cool!’

He lays them on the damp earth and we stand together looking down at the grave.