Page 54 of Before You Say Goodbye

“Well, yes,” Bluebell said. “But he could live longer, if he wanted to. If we keep saving him the way we have been, who’s to say he wouldn’t have another twenty years before it actually got him? That’s what Mum and Dad struggle with. If it were me, I would want them to keep resuscitating me and treating me until they couldn’t do it anymore.”

“You don’t know that. Look at the pain he’s in, Bluebell. Not only physically, but mentally, too. We can’t know what he’s going through,” Autumn said.

“He was happy though, Autumn,” Bluebell said. “Before the heart attack. We’d never seen him so happy. He has to recover now, but he could get back to that again. You two could have more time together.”

“It’s his decision, Bluebell . . .”

“I know that,” Bluebell said. “And I’d never go against what he wants. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with him, though. And I don’t.”

There wasn’t anything Autumn could say to that. Nobody could force Bluebell to support Bowie’s decision and Autumn couldn’t criticise her so long as she was conceding to let him decide for himself. Still, she was surprised. Bowie could do nothing wrong in Bluebell’s eyes usually. Autumn had expected his sister to find it within herself to agree with him completely.

“We thought he might change his mind when he met you,” Bluebell went on. “About not having treatment. We thought you may have given him enough reason to try to go on living.”

The words stabbed at Autumn. Not only did they make her feel as though she had failed at something she’d never signed up for, they revealed a harsh truth, one that made her feel uncomfortable. Apart from their initial attempt to intervene in her relationship with Bowie when she’d first met them, the Whittles had been surprisingly and extraordinarily supportive of Autumn being in a relationship with their terminally ill son. They had accepted Autumn for everything she was and welcomed her into their family. They’d promised her a home with them for ever, if she wanted it. She’d be lying if she said she hadn’t wondered why. It all made sense to her now. They’d believed she might be Bowie’s saviour. She wondered if everything they’d ever done for her had been based on that. Sheguessed she would find out when he was gone. For now, she would continue to fight for Bowie and his rights.

“Bluebell, doesn’t that tell you all you need to know?” she said. “He’s so happy, but he still doesn’t want to live like this anymore. Imagine the pain he must be in.”

Bluebell swallowed, nodding. Autumn could tell that she’d changed Bluebell’s perspective, if only by a fraction. They held on to one another a little tighter and fell silent, their inertia driven by the weight of their bodies, the swing rocking them backwards and forwards until they’d almost fallen asleep. They rose when they grew cold and wandered dizzily, hand in hand, back to the house. All was quiet. Everyone else had gone to bed.

Autumn hugged Bluebell goodnight and opened her bedroom door, expecting to find Bowie lying anxiously awake and waiting for her. Instead, she found him sleeping in their bed beside Marley. They faced each other on top of the duvet, fully dressed and holding forearms. Sleep, it seemed, had caught them unawares. She stood in the doorway, watching them for a while. They looked so sweet together. So peaceful. Autumn hadn’t seen Bowie look so restful in the entire time she’d known him. She realised in that moment that Bowie never felt totally complete when he wasn’t with Marley. He was fidgety when his brother wasn’t there. Anxious. His sleep was frequently disturbed, something she’d put down to pain until now. They were two halves of one whole. The missing piece of each other. They were never really happy if they were without the other. A lesser partner might have been jealous, but Autumn understood. She couldn’t begin to comprehend the bond they shared, she knew that. Perhaps it was the kind of love that only came with growing in a womb together. No wonder they couldn’t see life without one another. She watched them sigh simultaneously and shuffle closer together. Her heart ached.

She thought about covering them with a blanket, but was worried Marley might wake up and feel as though he had to leave. They’d missed out on so many precious hours together these last few weeks. It was important for them to have this time together, she knew, so she tiptoed back into the hallway, closing the door softly behind her.

She knocked gently on Pip’s bedroom door and — in an attempt to avoid worrying him — entered the dark room without waiting for a response. It didn’t work. Pip jumped out of bed and bolted towards her in a panic. Autumn held her hands out to calm him.

“Autumn, what’s happened!”

“It’s OK,” she whispered, holding him by his shaking arms. “Marley’s fallen asleep in our bed with Bowie. Can I sleep in here with you?”

Pip sighed with relief, nodding. He stumbled back to bed. Autumn let him settle in, then slipped beneath Marley’s duvet and wrapped herself in it contentedly. She knew she’d fall asleep quickly for the first time in weeks. All felt right with the world again, plus it had been a while since she’d had a bed to herself and she was really comfortable. Her heart fluttered happily. She hoped they might all leave her to sleep for as long as she needed to tomorrow. She definitely had some catching up to do.

She drew in a deep breath, turning her nose to the pillow to chase the faint smell of tea tree oil, and instead catching the unmistakable scent of Marley.

She allowed it to comfort her.

Chapter 11

“I can’t believe we’re still doing this.” Three days after Autumn’s mammoth meltdown and subsequent lay-in, Marley was marching her through a cool and persistent drizzle across a neighbouring field towards a sheltered corner of evergreens. It was the second day in a row he’d dragged her out here to rehearse the stupid tribute medley they’d promised Larry Ross they would perform at his annual summer ball. Despite the promise of a storm in the air — and much to Autumn’s amusement — the chickens flapped inquisitively after them, as they had the day before. It was the only part of this fiasco she was managing to take any pleasure in.

“Bowie wants to go to the ball and we promised Larry we would do this,” Marley said. “When did you become so whiny?”

Autumn was self-aware enough to know shewasbeing whiny — she’d been this way for a while — but she couldn’t stop.

“I don’t know. Probably at some point after the love of my life had aheart attack.” Marley rolled his eyes, searching on his phone for the backing track he’d recorded.

“Oh, did Bowie, my twin brother, have a heart attack? You should have mentioned it.” It was somewhere between a joke and a goad, and it took her by surprise — he’d been entirely patient with her up until now. She was annoyed. She’d never been through anything like this before and she didn’t think she deserved Marley’s ratty remark. She told him so.

“I’m joking, Autumn, for fuck’s sake,” he said, propping his phone up on a clump of dry grass. They stopped bickering to listen to the track. It sounded higher than it had the day before. Faster? Autumn felt panic swell in her abdomen. She had no idea how she was going to do this. Marley had completely overestimated her vocal ability when he’d pulled together a selection of Bowie’s songs and woven them into amedley. She didn’t think she could manage to sing it to a standard acceptable even to her own ears, let alone the ears of two hundred strangers. Standing beside Marley and his melodic tone, Autumn knew that she sounded like a schoolgirl singing with Johnny Cash. She was beginning to hate him for making her do it. She was already embarrassed and nobody had heard her yet besides Marley.

“It’s easy, see?” he said, as they came to the end of the song.

“For you, maybe,” she retorted. “When all this is over, I’m going to ask you to write an eighty-thousand-word novel and send it to a publisher, then we’ll see what’s easy.”

* * *

“From the top!” he called out, resetting the track to the opening bars. Autumn closed her eyes and sang as best she could. There was no denying that the arrangement was beautiful. It began with some joyously upbeat lyrics about two people finding one another against all odds, moved into a piece about everything turning out fine if families stuck together through whatever they had to face, and the finale was a soulful ballad about how it felt when you had to say goodbye. It was this last song that scared Autumn the most, not just because it was difficult to sing, but also because she was worried how Bowie might react to hearing it. He was always going to be grateful, surprised and overwhelmed by their efforts, but she had grave concerns he might well become upset. These songs were written from his heart. The lyrical goodbyes in the last number were deeply distressing. The Whittle men had been raised in a way that was at odds with social norms. They were shamelessly emotional. Bowie would cry. Autumn didn’t think reducing him to tears in such a public situation for the sake of nostalgia was fair to him.

“You’re not really trying,” Marley said when they were done.

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