TAKE AWAY

Visiting day, the curtains have been opened, the untouched takeaway removed, and the evil commode wheeled from my room.

Mum is talking in the hall: you’ll have to be quieter today. She’s struggling and noise is really bothering her but seeing you will cheer her up. Go on now, she won’t bite.

Yasmine and Sarah come into my room.

Heh, Hannah, look what we’ve got you!

A huge card. I raise my head off the pillows.

Three Labrador puppies on the cover. They open it up: Ta-da!

Wince.

Sorry, too loud? Everyone’s signed it this time. Even Michelle Mayes.

Grimace.

They laugh.

Bubble writing, kisses, love hearts, smileys. Too much. I can’t keep my head up anymore. Back I go. Eyes shut. Tight as I can.

We’ll read it for you.

Taking turns. Yasmine first: Laura says hang in there, babes, we all love you.

And Jane says we misssssss you. One, two, three . . .that’s seven s’s.

She must really miss you! says Yasmine.

Gemma says you’re the best and I hate what’s happening to you, continues Sarah.

That makes me want to cry.

But when I open my eyes, it’s Yasmine who’s crying.

I rest my palm on her cheek.

Don’t, Yas, it’s all right.

No, it isn’t, she says, kissing me, holding me close.

Sarah stares at us. She looks sad and unsure what to do, so she reads on: Mrs Fox says I loved teaching you . . .

Swot! Yasmine whispers in my ear.

And can’t wait to teach you again. Keep strong and we’ll undoubtedly see you soon. Shall I carry on?

I shake my head and mouth thank you.

Undoubtedly: what a stupid word, says Yasmine.

Can we do anything for you? asks Sarah.

I shake my head and close my eyes again.

They find a way to get into my bed. One lying on either side. We hold hands and I don’t want to let go. I like their heat. The smell of their sunny outside skin. As I feel myself go under, I hear Yasmine singing – sail here, let me hold you – and when I surface, they’re gone.

I press the buzzer and Mum rushes in like a dog is chasing her.

Weeks later, and Robert Smith is singing ‘Close to Me’ on the cassette player by my bed. I’ve always loved that song but today it hurts; everything from tip to toe tingling, aching, as if my body is riddled with some ancient plague coursing poison through my veins. I slide myself off the bed and onto the commode. A sick geriatric trickle when I’m fifteen, and in my prime apparently. I must have been an evil witch in my previous life!

Only those kinds of thoughts are supposed to be banned from my psyche since Katherine the counsellor has been visiting me:

Keep in the moment, no blaming, and look forward rather than back without putting any pressure on yourself, tiny steps at a time.

She doesn’t know about the stumbling witch-like steps to hell, might save that for another session.

The witchy nightmare started over a year ago when I was diagnosed with glandular fever. I was off school for six weeks. When I returned, I was greeted with a mixture of envy and sympathy, and perhaps – though I may have been exaggerating it in my head – suspicion.

Envy came from glandular fever’s reputation as the kissing disease.

So, who have you been snogging?

Did you go further?

Bet she did.

Was it worth it to get ill?

Yasmine stepped in: She was kissing me, and it’s none of your business if we went further. And, of course, it was worth it, eh, Hannah?

Suspicion came from me looking too well for someone who was off school for so long.

My brother had glandular fever and he was only off for a week!

He didn’t have glandular fever then, said Yasmine.

Maybe you were kissing him, Hannah, said Michelle Mayes.

Some of the girls – not all – laughed.

Anyway, suspicion was something I’d need to get used to, as a month later I felt even worse and was diagnosed with M.E.

A few friends have stayed loyal, but it’s hard when the Daily Mail keeps labelling M.E. ‘yuppie flu’, a ‘malingerer’s disease’ reserved for ‘spoilt middle-class hypochondriacs.’

My new loveable trait is to wake with pools of dribble on my pillowcase, a kind of paralysis of my tongue and bottom lip, as if I’ve had a minor stroke, so now when I speak, I’m like a drunk, gurning, slurring my words.

It’s inexplicable, not mentioned in any textbook, not visible in any test but it is happening – at least I think it is – this illness can play tricks with you. There’s so much disbelief that even I’m beginning to question what’s real and what isn’t.

The pillowcase is wet. Maybe I emptied my glass onto it in the night?

No, my glass is full. I’m a glass full kind of girl, surely.

As my symptoms worsen, Mum and Dad become desperate. They take me to A&E.

A doctor examines me. Makes me stand until my legs start to buckle. Then he drops his pen and asks me to pick it up from the floor. I say I’ll fall if I do.

No, you won’t, he says.

And like a good dog at Crufts, I perform the trick on all fours and hand it up to him.

Now I’d like you to get up too.

I can’t.

I’m waiting.

Dad goes to help me.

Stay!

Good dog Dad does as he’s told.

I’ve got all day, so take your time.

I think it’s hatred that makes me somehow force myself off the floor.

Hey presto, he says.

I’m shaking and want to cry, but not in front of him.

You’re being a prick! Dad tells him.

Wow, that makes me proud.

Maybe so. But I’m asking myself if you really want your daughter to be well? Maybe you should be asking yourselves that too?

Is that it? says Mum. You’re not going to do anything for her?

M.E. is not a recognised illness, there’s nothing physically wrong with her. Now, if you want me to call someone from the adolescent psych team to come down, I’d be more than happy to do that.

Come on, Hannah, says Dad, helping me on with my coat and into my wheelchair.

She doesn’t need the chair either. I’ll be recommending a follow up from social services in my report, just so you know.

Dad pushes the chair quickly away, a back wheel bouncing over the doctor’s shoes as we leave.

Loving faces congregate around my open coffin. The wake has started. Crap music like a dirge is playing but the dancing is manic. Robert Smith is standing to the side like an exotic wallflower with his big hair, blood red lipstick and heavy clown mascara. He leans over my cask and uses his ring finger – a twisting coral viper – to smudge black eye shadow onto my eyelids. His breath is patchouli and Bovril crisps and when we kiss, I think I’m in heaven. Then the front doorbell rings, and seconds later Dad is knocking on my door.

 Sorry, Hannah, the Assessment Team are here.

I thought they were coming next Wednesday.

I hear him tell them: you’ll have to wait while she gets herself ready.

A woman’s voice: Hannah can get herself ready then? Dress herself?

I don’t know if she’s getting dressed. I didn’t say that. She just needs some time.

A man’s voice – two of them then? Or maybe more? An army? – It’s okay, we’re here to help, not catch anyone out.

Sarah visits without Yasmine later in the day. I don’t mention the assessment and tell her instead about my Robert Smith dream.

I like him too, she says, and then pauses. I can tell she’s not sure whether to continue: Adam (that’s her brother) says that girls who like Robert Smith don’t really like boys at all. It’s a sign.

Of what?

I’m only saying what Adam says.

Okay, so ask your Nazi brother Adam if he’d be happier if I fancied Frank Bruno?

Hannah, stop, I wish I hadn’t said anything.

Me too.

Shall I go

If you want to.

I’d rather stay.

Okay, I’d rather you stay, too.

Okay?

Okay!

We don’t speak for a bit. Then I break the silence.

Have you seen Yasmine?

None of us has seen her in ages.

She can get reclusive sometimes.

She hasn’t told you, has she?

Told me what?

That’s she’s been seeing someone.

No, she did!

Okay, I thought maybe –

She’s told me all about her.

Hannah, she hasn’t told you, it’s not a ‘her’; she’s seeing a boy from another school. They met at a party. He’s called Spike.

Ouch!

Hannah, come on.

The name is funny, that’s all. She ought to watch where she sits.

Hannah, it’s okay to be upset.

I’m not upset and stop saying my name: Hannah, Hannah? Hannah!

I know you.

You know my name.

Hannah, please.

You should go, Sarah.

I close my eyes and feign a coma, and eventually she gets the message.

At the door before she leaves, she says, I know you’re not actually sleeping.

Yes, I am, I say quietly enough so even I can barely hear.

That day wiped me out for weeks and I disappeared into a fug – ‘brain fog’ which the M.E. handbook describes just doesn’t cut it – a dirty toxic pea-soup fug. I slept, dribbled, and dreamt I was lying on my back, unable to move off a cold ocean bed, life shimmering above the surface of the water.

Yasmine kept ringing, and I pretended to be asleep each time there was a knock on my door to ask if I was well enough to speak to her.

Eventually I tell Mum: Inform Yasmine that my fever’s spiked. That I feel like I’ve been spiked.

Spiked?

Mum, repeat back to me what I said to you.

‘You’ve been spiked, that your fever’s spiked.’ It’s an odd way of describing it, that’s all.

Mum, that’s what I want you to say!

She goes off to relay the message and comes back a minute later.

Well, I told her exactly like you asked me to. And she said, ‘tell her the spike will soon be over’. I’m not sure what’s going on but is there something you’re not telling me? Are you and Yasmine okay?

Never better.

And I disappear again, this time feeling a trickle of warmth seeping onto the ocean bed.

I hear Mum on the surface above, edgy and desperate: Hannah, please let’s try a takeaway tonight, we all need cheering up!

A letter arrives the next day. Mum and Dad open my curtains a crack and sit on the end of my bed to share its contents. Mum starts:

Hannah, they’re recommending an exercise programme; gradual exercises building up over time. They also want you to take a higher dose of the anti-depressants.

The ones I stopped taking because they were turning me into a zombie?

Dad continues and Mum takes my hand – teamwork – we’re on your side, love.

Then Mum takes on the baton: Hannah, we know the anti-depressants didn’t agree with you and that exercise could make you worse.

I feel a ‘but’ coming on.

Well, yes, they’re worried that you’re becoming underweight. We explained that you need to be on a low sugar, toxin free diet and that you find it hard to eat big meals, but –

I told you a ‘but’ was coming.

I’m afraid there are a few ‘buts’, love, says Dad.

Mum takes a deep breath: they want you to stop the painkillers.

No, no, they can’t make me!

Maybe we could cut the dose a little? she suggests.

Ok, God, you’re with them!

Hannah, I’m not but we have to try something. If they won’t prescribe any more, they’d last twice as long if we cut them in half.

Get out of my room!

Hannah!

I summon all my energy and scream.

Dad tries to hug me, and I scream louder.

Come on, he says to Mum and takes her by the crook of the arm and leads her away.

We love you, Hannah, and we’ll check on you later, he says at my door.

Mum returns a moment later, pulls the curtains closed and legs it out of the room.

I consider my options, evaluating the impact of reducing the painkillers first: the DFF118’s that have helped when nothing else has. If they make me give them up, then I might as well be dead.

Mum and Dad have left their letter, by mistake (I think), on my bed.

We are concerned for the welfare of your daughter, Hannah, and are seeking to work together with all the family to ensure her wellbeing. Your signed agreement for the rehabilitation programme as outlined will ensure clarity regarding expectations – expectations? – In rare cases, if a minor’s – so, that’s what I am – condition is deemed to have significantly worsened, and they are assessed to be in danger, either from themselves – grammar! – or as a result of actions by legal guardians entrusted with their care; or in situations where a contract is broken, where support and co-operation is not forthcoming for any prescribed programme – yawn! – steps may be legally taken to remove the minor – from the mine? – and place them under the care of the local authority – Nazis!

I know it’s not going to go well but I call Mum and Dad back and tell them that I’ll start reducing the painkillers tomorrow. But I won’t take the anti-depressants again, let alone increase the dose. As I see it, I’m not really depressed for any other reason than my life is extremely depressing, but I may start to jiggle my toes – one at a time – if it’ll help.

I may even consider the threatened takeaways if they’ll add a few pounds and help keep me home.

Things have become diabolical. Mum and Dad have started leaving me a half dose of the painkillers – less than a third of a bottle left – by my bed each morning. We’re nervous, listening for the phone and doorbell, waiting for the authorities to take their next step.

Hope it doesn’t end up like Waco, Dad.

That’s not funny, Hannah.

But I have my own plans for Armageddon and don’t always take the painkillers, secreting a small stockpile over the week in my bedside drawer, just in case.

The pain becomes literally unbearable, and sometimes I feel like my body is so inflamed and out of control that I might spontaneously combust.

We haven’t got as far as tackling food concerns yet. Mum and Dad know not to push things too far. But we’ve started the exercise regime, and from my bed I raise and lower my arms, sometimes more than once, and even lift my head off the pillow now and again. Farcically, I feel worse each time but carry on so we can tick at least one of the boxes. Not so much tiny steps as microscopic ones.

I cry a lot and get easily angry. Dad christens me Linda after the girl actress in the Exorcist.

Don’t call her that, Mum says, and he whispers, okay Ellen, (after the actress playing her mother in the film) so only I can hear him.

Mostly I’m left alone, festering, and raging in spurts in my head, my body hurting all over as if I’m being continuously tortured.

A pincer movement is coming together. The next day, I receive a note from Katherine, my counsellor. She normally visits the house but now she’d like to see me at the surgery. She knows how difficult this will be for me, as I haven’t left the house in months. So, why is she asking me now?

Mum comes into my room with a new sheepskin cover for my wheelchair.

You’ll need this, it’s bitter out there.

I’m not bitter!

It’s a nice one; you’ll feel more comfortable.

Whoopee.

Hannah, please, I know it’s hard for you, but Katherine may be able to help.

Well, she’s not helping by making me come to the surgery.

I know, I’m not sure why –

Maybe it’s a trap, and the social services will be hiding behind a door, waiting to take me away?

No, I don’t think so.

You don’t seem to care.

And Mum suddenly starts crying, and says, I do care, of course I care, I just don’t know what’s best anymore.

Stop crying, Mum, it’s me who’s ill.

And you don’t think that affects me or your father?

God, I know it does.

Shall I help you get dressed?

Yes, please!

I’ll get a brush; your hair is like a bird’s nest.

Charming.

You have lovely hair, Hannah, you’re lucky.

No-one has called me lucky in a long time.

Sorry –

No, I like it, don’t stop.

Dad wheels me into the surgery and parks me in the waiting room. The dragon at reception has a form waiting. As Dad fills it in, she glares at me, a mixture of disdain and disapproval, and I think about sticking out my tongue, but I don’t want to appear crazy to the other waiting patients.

A half-dead old man stares at me, shakes his head, and mouths ‘sorry’.

Katherine’s room is surprisingly bare. I’d fantasised a leather Freud couch, Persian rugs and portraits of crazed patients from an asylum along the wall. Instead, there are two red plastic chairs in the centre of the room, a stack of files and a small picture of two young children on her desk.

This is a borrowed room; sorry it’s so austere.

Yours? I ask, pointing at the picture.

Yes, I bring it with me everywhere. Hopefully it helps soften things.

How old are they?

Six and seven. Now, how are you?

What are their names?

Hannah, how are you?

I didn’t know you had children.

Hannah?

I feel terrible. The doctors have put me on an exercise regime and cut my painkillers.

Is it helping?

I said I feel terrible, didn’t I?

You seem angry.

Do I?

How are you feeling?

Like shit.

I never normally swear with Katherine, but she looks calm in response, gives nothing away.

What does ‘shit’ mean for you? she asks.

I laugh. Sorry, it sounds funny the way you say it.

That’s okay. How is the new dose of anti-depressants suiting you?

You know about that?

Are they helping?

Are you sharing information with the doctors?

No, everything we say in here stays between us.

I don’t believe you.

Hannah, I’m telling you the truth.

Do you know how difficult it was for me to get out of bed and come here?

Yes, I do, and I’m very pleased that you came.

Pleased? It sounds like you’re thanking me for coming to your seventh birthday party.

I know it was a big effort.

Do you believe I’m ill?

Of course, I know how terrible you feel.

That sounds ambiguous to me. Do you believe I’m physically ill or do you think it’s somehow all in my mind?

Hannah, this isn’t helping.

You won’t answer?

It’s what you think that matters. Not me.

And I scream as loud as I can and won’t stop.

Dad comes panicking into the room.

As he wheels me out, still screaming, Katherine’s features give nothing away, until she swallows and her neck bulges.

Dad wheels me through the waiting room and everyone stares. The sympathetic old man is tutting now, and I daren’t even glance towards the reception desk.

The ‘counselling debacle’ (Dad’s phrase for it) wiped me out and shredded my tonsils. Now I can’t scream even if I want to, and my voice has become evil and gravelly just like the girl in The Exorcist.

From now on I’ll only be prepared to feel worse after doing something I actually want to do. Like . . .God, I can’t even think what that might be anymore.

Tinny pellet sounds tap-tap against my bedroom window, as if rice is being tossed at the pane. It comes in waves. Eventually, I turn on my bedside light, crawl out of bed and open the curtains a little. The moon is full, and someone is standing in our back garden. Yasmine! She gestures for me to open the window. When I do, she talks loud enough – but not shouting in case she wakes anyone – so I can hear:

Why won’t you speak to me when I ring up?

I shrug my shoulders.

Still cross with me?

Go away!

No, I don’t think I will. And what’s with the voice?

How’s Spike?

She laughs and comes closer to stand directly under the window, so it’s less of a strain for my voice: De-spiked. Didn’t Sarah tell you?

No, I haven’t seen her for ages.

Can I come and see you soon?

I shake my head.

I promise I won’t tire you out.

Maybe, but I need to go back to bed now.

Your new voice is sexy by the way, she says and blows a kiss up to me.

My performance at the surgery has had repercussions. Another letter from the medical team arrives – this time with a starker warning about non-co-operation – along with one from Social Services, who announce that they’ll be visiting us next week ‘as a matter of urgency’.

They’re closing in, aren’t they, Dad?

We’ll be okay. You, Mum and I know what’s best for you; we just need them to understand too.

You know you can make a bomb out of fertilizer, Dad.

I’ve told you before, Hannah, that kind of joke isn’t funny.

Or we could drink lemonade laced with strychnine?

Like Jonestown, you mean? For your information, they drank Kool-Aid and added cyanide, not strychnine.

You’ve been thinking about it then?

And Dad gives me an unusually stern look, so I know not to continue.

Part of my parents’ response to crises is to take back control, and they persuade me to go to my first M.E. group meeting.

Mum dresses me up in my Top Shop jean skirt – once a favourite, now way too big for me – and a new mohair jumper – way too prickly. She even plasters on some bronze foundation and persuades me to apply a film of red lipstick.

There, you look lovely, Hannah.

It’s not a dating agency, Mum.

No, but you might meet someone nice.

She hands me a mirror: God, I look ridiculous.

Just rub a little of the foundation off.

Can you dampen a flannel for me, then?

She comes back with one and I rub the makeup away.

There you go, they get me warts and all, or not at all.

In the mirror, a pale ghost of a girl with sunken eyes and red scratched cheeks stares at me.

Well, maybe I could use a little on the cheeks then, but not like I’m auditioning to join the circus.

Circus is about right though when Dad wheels me into a church hall. It’s done out like a Women’s Guild fete, bunting, preserves and Tupperware on picnic tables, a flattering soft-focus portrait of the Queen above the stage. Grown-ups in a variety of M&S leisurewear are congregated at the back, and a circle of wheelchairs positioned at the front. I hear someone sobbing as a man drones on from the stage, something about care packages and benefits. Our arrival has been noticed and a vicious looking old bag in a tweed skirt comes to greet us – her name badge telling us she’s ‘Doreen’.

This must be your little Hannah, she says, looking at Dad.

You can talk to her, she understands everything, Dad tells her.

She bends down close to my face and smiles: Now, dear, we’re going to get your father to park you by a lovely girl called Susan, though she likes to be called Suzie. She’s a little older than you and isn’t feeling well, either.

Thank you, Doreen, I say.

My use of her name wrong-foots her, and she eyes me with a look that labels me ‘Trouble’.

I click my fingers. Off we go, James, I tell Dad, and he pushes my wheelchair next to Suzie’s.

Ooh, she has the funky sheepskin cover too, I mutter under my breath.

I’ll wait at the back, says Dad, and he applies the brake on my wheelchair.

I’m glad he did that; I might have got out onto the motorway and made my escape.

I’m Suzie, the girl says, and parents always do that, it helps them feel that they’re protecting us.

I like the way you’re thinking.

And I heard what you said about my ‘funky’ seat cover.

Oh.

It’s okay; I hate mine too.

I like her already.

How long have you been ill? I ask her.

Five years.

Oh, I’ve only been ill a year.

I wouldn’t say ‘only’.

Is this your first meeting too, Suzie?

No, I come every month unless I’m having a bad relapse. My parents insist and Doreen is my grandmother.

She seems nice.

She isn’t.

Is it helpful coming though?

No, I hate every minute.

Right.

What’s your name?

Hannah.

Look, Hannah, it’s all crap, and it’ll never get better. But I have a way to put an end to it.

What do you mean?

Hannah, you mustn’t tell anyone but I’m planning to kill myself.

She says it so flatly, matter-of-factly, and we don’t speak again.

I sink back into my chair as another speaker on the stage waffles on – ‘the importance of knowing your body and listening to what it’s saying’.

Mine is quietly screaming. At the tea break, I tell Dad I feel ill and need to leave.

How was Suzie? he asks in the car.

She’s nice.

Glad to hear it. The old lady said something strange about her, and Dad perfects her needling voice just right: ‘Suzie is a good girl, but she has a very vivid imagination.’

Good old Doreen.

Bit of an old bag, eh? Well, perhaps you and Suzie could meet up sometime?

Don’t think so, Dad.

Social Services were due to visit tomorrow but Mum and Dad have managed to put them off until next week. The medical assessment team have written again though, saying we must report to the surgery in a few days so they can monitor my progress with the exercise regime, weigh me, and assess the effects of the withdrawal of painkillers and higher doses of anti-depressants.

Another plan is needed and so Mum contacts an old friend who works for the local paper – The Snooper’s Gazette, Dad likes to call it.

Mum’s friend can’t cover the story – ‘conflict of interest’ apparently – so Adrian, a trainee journalist arrives the next day.

I hear Dad explaining things to him in the hall: she’s very ill but the doctors don’t seem to understand and are imposing treatments on her that could make her worse.

They’re even threatening to take her away if we don’t comply, adds Mum.

We don’t know that for sure, says Dad, but their tone is threatening. The worst thing is they don’t listen.

Can I see Anna? Adrian asks.

It’s Hannah, and yes you can but not for long.

I’ll only ask a couple of questions, and maybe take a photo or two.

Three knocks on my door. Adrian would like to interview you now, Hannah, says Mum.

If you’re up to it, Anna? Nothing quite as grand as an interview though, Adrian adds.

Come in, Adam, and my name is Hannah, which is like Anna but starting and ending with ‘h’.

He doesn’t get it.

What are your symptoms like? Is it like flu?

A bit like bad flu, I suppose.

A temperature?

No, it’s more about deep aching, muscle pain, extreme exhaustion –

You get tired then?

More than tired.

More than tired, he repeats.

Jesus, Adrian’s the type who says words as he writes them.

Do you want a photo?

It usually helps. You can take a moment to brush your hair if you like.

Thank you, but I’m fine.

Shall we put something on the –

I think ‘commode’ is the word you’re looking for. But no, it’s fine with me. Crop the photo if you must but I’d rather it stays. It’s more honest.

He takes two photos. The first is of me looking suitably sad. The second is of me sarcastically smiling after he asked me to smile, ‘because it’ll make you look prettier’.

The car crash interview was completed just in time to make Friday’s issue. First thing in the morning, Mum rushes to the newsagents for a copy. My article is on page seven, their human-interest section, next to the story of a pensioner whose had his mobility scooter jazzed up to look like a Harley Davidson motorbike. My sarcastic smile picture has been jettisoned for the sad smile picture, complete with sad commode. I look frightening, a ghostly white doll. Maybe a smile wasn’t such a bad idea?

The headline is ‘Flu Like Virus Leaves Anna, aged 15, in bed for a year’. At least he got my age right, but Adrian seems obsessed by the flu analogy and predictably also refers to M.E. as ‘yuppie flu’. He goes on to say how Mum and Dad are taking on the authorities to ‘stop any treatment’. Sounds like they want the drip taken down and my life support machine turned off. The article is a disaster, and Mum and Dad seem defeated by it. We barely speak for the rest of the day.

The paper comes out twice weekly and the next issue brings an unexpected deluge of letters in response to the article – well, three, which take up the whole of the letters section. One calls me ‘tragic’, another wonders what kind of ‘rotten parents would allow a commode so close to a child’s bed, ‘and what’s more, to allow it to be photographed so close to a child’s bed’. None of us is sure what Mister G. Wilson’s angle is here.

The last letter is the worst though. It calls my parents ‘irresponsible’ for challenging the medical professionals and goes on to say that ‘their actions are putting a child in danger, and that something should be done about it!’

The leader article, normally consigned to rants about dog poo not being picked up or sex classes in schools, really puts the boot in. Their headline reads: ‘How Childhoods Go Missing When Parents Stop Parenting’. None of us get past the first paragraph.

Tomorrow is my appointment at the surgery, and two days later Social Services will be arriving. I’m starting to wonder if I’ve saved enough of the painkillers to go round.

I look in the drawer, but they’re gone.

Mum!

What? What? she says rushing in.

The pills, where are they?

Hannah, it’s okay.

No!!!!

Don’t scream, please! We’ve been reading and researching on the web, and we think there’s something else you could take that will help with the pain, and it might make you feel a bit better too.

Heroin?

Not quite.

She opens her right hand to reveal a small black lump on a torn piece of tin foil.

What the hell is that?

It’s something your Dad and I used to enjoy in the old days.

You’re not serious –

Your Dad had to go to that dodgy pub behind the bus station to get this.

The old devil.

Less of ‘the old’, Dad says, coming in to join us.

I can’t smoke though.

Just this once; I know it might make you feel awful at first but the effects once they hit, might be worth it? says Mum.

Don’t knock something until you’ve tried it, Hannah, adds Dad.

It’ll be okay, we’ll take it with you, says Mum.

God, Mr G. Wilson was right when he called you ‘rotten parents’.

Mum and Dad look startled.

Too much? I ask.

Too much, they say together, and we all laugh.

Once I stop coughing, I feel like my body is muffled, wrapped up in cotton wool, and whilst I’m trying to examine and describe this feeling, I notice something else, something missing. For this moment – and I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I stop myself questioning too much and instead try and relax – I’m not in agony. Yes, my lungs hurt a little, and my body feels slow and heavy but it’s also free, free of pain. 

Mum and Dad are in my room, sitting on the end of my bed. Dad sings along to Bob Dylan’s ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, which he has blasting from the lounge.

Did I ever tell you that your Mum and I saw him, Hannah?

Only a thousand times, Dad.

Only a thousand times – God, Dad is talking so slowly – I thought I’d have told you more times than that.

You’re so stupid, Mum says ruffling his hair. They kiss and it turns into a snog.

Ooh, get a room, I shout.

They smile soppily back at me.

There’s tapping on my window, like grains of rice being tossed up against it again.

Someone must think you’re getting married, I say, getting up and pulling open the curtains.

Yasmine beams up at me from the centre of the garden and curtsies, a giant love heart of rocks from the rockery shaped around her.

I wave at her to join us.

Wow, the Marrakesh Express, she says as she enters the fog of smoke enveloping my room.

She’s soon taking a hit.

Very nice, she says. Lebanese?

Dad grins and gives the thumbs up.

Now his behaviour is way too weird to be embarrassing.

Heh, Yasmine, do you know a Mr. G. Wilson of this Parish? asks Mum, as if she’s turned into someone else.

No, I don’t think so.

Mum stifles a giggle and continues: Mr. G. Wilson has a thing about commodes in bedrooms. Maybe thinks they should be in the toilet.

Bathroom, Dad corrects and snorts.

But if it was in the toilet, I mean bathroom, then it wouldn’t be needed because you could just go the toilet.

A pause while we digest her logic.

And now we really are laughing, so hard I can barely catch my breath.

God, I’m hungry, I say.

Ah, takeaway time at last! Mum says. Curry or pizza or fish and chips?

Fish and Chips! Yasmine and I shout together.

Fish and chips it shall be, says Dad.

I’m going to pay for this but who cares, I think to myself.

Somehow, Yasmine reads my thoughts and holds me close: you’ll be fine, Hannah.

When Dad leaves to get the takeaway, Mum stays seated on the lid of the commode; eyes closed, humming the Dylan song.

Hope your Mum is not about to use that, says Yasmine, gesturing at the commode. And who is this Mr. G. Wilson anyway?

Shush, Yas, we haven’t got long left.

She climbs into bed with me, and for a moment everything feels possible.

*

Take Away was included in Issue 14 of the wonderful journal The Lonely Crowd (editor John Lavin) early in 2025. It can be ordered here.

I also read the story and talked about writing it on the Lonely Crowd website here