Page 11 of I Would Die for You

The music stops and the play button pops back up when the cassette reaches the end of the reel. Cassie hits rewind and listens to the reassuring shrill of the tape as it backtracks to the beginning of her favorite song. She’s done it so many times now that she can stop it almost to the second.

The line “Just give me one more night, to hold you how you need to be held” keeps coming back to haunt her, the words of a number-one pop song taking on a whole new meaning now that her mother’s future seems to be hanging in the balance.

Gigi had only been ill for eight weeks; or at least, that’s when the cancer decided to rear its ugly face publicly. Before that, it had been silently ravaging her body, its deadly cells wrapping themselves around her organs, strangling them with their far-reaching tentacles as she slept, utterly oblivious to the fact her body was turning on itself. She’d since said that it felt like the ultimate betrayal; Gigi looked after herself as well as she looked after her girls, ensuring they ate well, exercised regularly, and stayed hydrated. It was a lifestyle that she was likely predisposed to as a dancer, and one that Cassie had often pushed back against. But she’s now of an age when she’s beginning to appreciate that if she’d been allowed to frequent the McDonald’s in town as much as she’d wanted to, she’d most likely not be the healthy teenager she is today. Though that theory rather lost its value in the face of her mother’s diagnosis.

“We need to talk to you,” her father John had said when she’d returned from school on that Wednesday afternoon two months ago.

Cassie had immediately known that something was wrong—she’d never seen her father cry before and she assumed something had happened to one of her grandparents. She was mentally prepared for that—after all, it was the natural order of life. But then, as he struggled to find the right words, she had the absurd thought that perhaps something was wrong withhim. He didn’t share Gigi’s conviction that “an apple a day kept the doctor away,” favoring a diet more weighted with fatty foods and alcohol, so itwaspossible, but still so far of left field that it was almost inconceivable. Though what wasentirelyunimaginable was that it had anything to do with her mother. Not only because Gigi was seemingly utterly invincible, but she had sat there, staring straight ahead, with a fixed expression of utter defiance.

It’s still there today, though you have to look past the pain that’s etched in the deeply furrowed grooves in her brow to see it.

“How are you feeling?” Cassie asks now, as she peers around her parents’ bedroom door, pleased to see her mother awake.

“Good,” says Gigi, attempting to pull herself up against the pillows.

Cassie knows the lie is for her benefit. “Here, let me get you comfortable,” she says, unable to comprehend how her mother’s arms have become so bony that they can no longer support her frail body.

Eight weeks. How had it caused so much damage and devastation in such a short space of time? And how had Cassie not noticed its evil path before it had done its worst?

She’d spent every night since lying in bed, willing with all her might to be transported back to a time before her mother’s body had stopped being like everybody else’s. If Cassie had her time again, would she be able to pinpoint the exact moment that had happened?

It wasn’t before their day out in town at the beginning of the year—she was sure of that. She would have seen it in the photos of her mother moonwalking across the zebra crossing outside the famous Abbey Road studios. She would have noticed it as Gigi led the five-hundred-strong fan chorus of Secret Oktober’s new singleas they stood in line for six hours outside Wembley Arena waiting for their concert tickets to go on sale.

No, there was nothing to suggest that anything was wrong as they’d sung, danced, and laughed their way around the capital on what Gigi had called a pilgrimage—a homage to their idols. But maybe her mother had known something she didn’t. Maybe she already knew what was going on, hence insisting on the mother–daughter bonding trip.

“Did you see them?” Gigi croaks, grimacing as she falls back onto the pillows Cassie has fluffed up.

“Mum, you’re not going to believe it,” she says, sitting down on the edge of the bed, careful not to disturb any tubes.

Gigi smiles as Cassie recounts what happened, her sharp cheekbones rising up to meet her hooded eyes.

“You’re clearly a far better groupie than I ever was,” she says, wheezing as she laughs.

Cassie giggles, remembering how her mum had spent the night at the airport to welcome the Beatles home from America. She’d stolen money from her grandmother’s purse and bunked off school, only to see the very top of Paul McCartney’s head among a sea of policemen’s helmets. Well, at least she thought it was Paul, but it was difficult to be sure from her position behind a wire fence at the far end of the runway.

When Gigi’s father had found out, he’d given her three lashings with a wooden ruler. It’s not lost on Cassie that her own father would probably do the same to her if he knew where she’d been yesterday. But the high she’d felt when Ben had looked at her was worth the risk.

“They’re onSaturday Superstorethis morning,” says Gigi, wincing as she attempts to reach for a glass of water on her bedside table.

Cassie hurriedly picks it up and holds it to her mother’s dry and cracked lips. “Oh, are they?” she says, in faux surprise. “I’d better stick a tape in and record it then.”

“Oh, have you got to go to work?”

Cassie hesitates, wondering what the harm would be in telling her mum the truth—she’s sure she wouldn’t disapprove. In fact, she’d positively encourage her rebelliousness—and remind her that you only live once. But to save her mother from having to cover for her with her father, she lies. “Yeah, I start in an hour,” she says. But Gigi is already asleep, her body drained from the energy it had taken to smile.

Cassie bends down to kiss her. She hates saying goodbye, especially when her mum’s eyes are closed, and she can’t help but turn an ear to her mouth, willing herself to hear the breath that, up until now, she’d taken for granted.

A hundred or so girls are already congregating outside the entrance of the BBC Television Center on Wood Lane, and Cassie can’t help but feel perturbed that Amelia’s not the only one who has inside information.

“Hey, over here!” her new friend calls out. Dressed in a frilly pirate shirt and red leather trousers tied around the waist with a long white sash, she seemingly worships at the altar of the New Romantic revolution that Secret Oktober spearheaded two years ago. But whereas they, and everyone else, have moved on to shoulder-padded linen suits, she is still happily ensconced in dandy heaven. “You’ve just missed them,” she says.

“Shit!”

Cassie hasn’t come all this way, risking her part-time job and the wrath of her father, for nothing.

“It’s OK,” says Amelia, as if reading her mind. “If you don’t get to see them on their way out, we’ll definitely catch them at the airport.”

“Airport?” questions Cassie.

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