‘In here,’ Gabriel calls, as I enter the house. Our bedroom is the first right off the corridor as soon as you step into the house, Ava’s is on the left, both look out over the tiny front garden, which is paved, with no planting, overlooking a busy main road. I wonder if Richard could get his hands on the front garden, start bringing it to life. The bedroom door is wide open and Gabriel is lying on our bed.
‘Why are you in here?’
‘The TV’s too loud,’ he says. ‘I brought my music in here but I’ve nowhere to put it with all the clothes and shoes, and make-up and perfume, and bras and tampons that have moved in.’ He pretends to cry. ‘It’s like I don’t know who I am any more.’
‘Poor Gabriel,’ I laugh, climbing onto the bed and on top of him.
‘I’ll get over it,’ he says, kissing me. ‘How did it go with the therapist? I’d say it’s like quicksand in there. Did she get stuck?’ He screws my temple with his finger and whispers in my ear. ‘Maria, are you in there? Should I send for help?’
I roll off him. ‘She’s not on board.’
‘That’s OK, you can try something else,’ he says optimistically. ‘Contact cancer charities. Tell them you’ve got a beneficial service to offer.’
‘Yeah,’ I agree, flatly. ‘Or I could just not do it. I don’t need to do it.’
‘Holly, snap out of it. You didn’t need that therapist to get started, you don’t need her now to continue. You know, at times like this I think it would be helpful for you to stop and close your eyes and think …’ He squeezes his eyes shut, with a smile threatening to form on his lips, ‘… What would Gerry do?’
I laugh.
‘I do it sometimes,’ he says, a mocking tone. ‘You should try it.’ He closes his eyes, and whispers, ‘What would Gerry do? What would Gerry do?’ All of a sudden his eyes fly open.
‘Well? Did it work?’ I chuckle, needing his good humour.
‘Yes, thank you,’ he says, saluting the sky. ‘He says he’d do …’ He flips me onto my back and lands on top of me. ‘This.’
I yelp out of fright and dissolve into laughter. I smile and run my fingers across his face. ‘You should always just do what Gabriel would do. That’s what I want.’
‘Yeah?’
I examine him. Though he’d been speaking in a playful tone, perhaps Ginika had been right about Gabriel’s jealousy of Gerry.
‘You’re not competing against him,’ I say.
‘I was, but you can never win against a ghost,’ he says. ‘So he and I had a chat, and I told him that, with all due respect, he and I have a common goal, i.e. loving you, so he needs to take a step back and trust me. Too many chefs and all that.’
‘That sounds a bit weird. But lovely.’
He laughs, and kisses me gently.
‘Gross,’ Ava says, and we stop kissing immediately and look to the door to find her watching us, her face all twisted in disgust. She closes our door, and the TV gets louder in the other room.
Gabriel rolls off me and pretends to cry again.
The meeting with Maria Costas was important. I went there looking for new members of the PS, I Love You Club but I left with a larger idea, a broader perspective of how I should be approaching this. She was right: I need to set boundaries for myself, so that I don’t allow every single person’s story to live in my heart and affect my life. I can’t have every member in my home three times a week, and I can’t spend full days traipsing across the city on treasure hunts. I can’t miss Sunday roasts and I can’t take time off work. The year of the meltdown, as Ciara calls it, is over.
I stand in the Magpie stockroom. One wall has floor-to-ceiling shelving, full to the brim, there’s a rail of clothes waiting to be washed, steamed and ironed. A basket of clothes and a box of items we won’t sell and will instead send to charities. There’s a washing machine, a tumble dryer, a steam iron. It’s the busy but organised control room of the shop, but if I just … I pull a chair across the floor to the back of the room, facing the door. I sit down and imagine a desk before me, with a chair facing me. I imagine a couch, perhaps by the washing machine and tumble dryer. I close my eyes. Imagine.
There’s a rap on the door and I open my eyes. Fazeel steps in with his mat rolled up under his arm.
‘It’s noon,’ he says, with a smile.
I grin and jump up from my chair. ‘Volunteers! Yes! That’s it!’ I go to him and hug him.
‘My, my, you are happy today,’ he says, laughing, hugging me back.
‘Ciara!’ I yell. ‘Ciara, where are you?’ I enter the shop.
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she says. She’s lying on her back beneath a mannequin, head hidden under the skirt.
Mathew is sitting on a stool, arms folded, watching her.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask.
‘Her leg fell off,’ Ciara responds, voice muffled.
‘Is it wrong that I’m turned on by this?’ Mathew asks.
I laugh. ‘Ciara, get up, get up, I have news. I have an idea!’
‘So,’ I say excitedly to my family, who are seated around my parents’ dining table tucking into their Sunday roast. Gabriel and Ava have joined us this week and Ava hasn’t stopped laughing at Declan and Jack’s childish antics, which they’ve played up for her. ‘I’m going to turn the Magpie stockroom into a PS, I Love You office.’
‘Yes!’ Ciara says in a celebratory high-pitched tone, fist-punching the air. ‘Though perhaps not the entire stockroom!’ she adds in an equally celebratory tone, smile frozen on her face.
‘I’ll meet people there. Clients.’
‘Yes!’
‘Then, because there’s only one of me and hopefully there’ll be lots of people who require my services, I will employ volunteers to help me carry out the physical tasks, and there we have the all-new PS, I Love You Club!’
‘Yes!’ Ciara squeals, clapping her hands excitedly.
Ava laughs.
‘Hold on a minute,’ Mathew interrupts Ciara’s celebration. ‘You were dead against this at the start of the year, why are you now all, “Yes”’ He imitates her high-pitched tone.
‘Because,’ she says, widening her eyes at everyone as if I can’t see or hear her, ‘because nobody wanted her to do it last time and she did it anyway, and had a psychological crisis, so let’s support her.’
‘Ah, come on, so you don’t think it’s a good idea?’ I ask.
‘It’s wonderful,’ Mum says.
‘Good for you!’ Dad says, mouth filled with potato.
‘I’d like to volunteer,’ Ava says suddenly, and Gabriel looks at her in surprise. ‘Well, you said I needed a job. This sounds cool.’
‘But I can’t pay you, sweetie,’ I say sadly, so honoured she’d offer.
‘You can pay her if you get funds,’ Richard says. ‘If you register the PS, I Love You Club as a foundation or charity, then you can fundraise for the resources you need. You should also gather a team, for example, an accountant, a business adviser to help with the paperwork and legal obligations. Everybody would have to give their time on a voluntary basis.’
‘Really? You really think I should?’ I look around the table at them all.
‘I could do the bookkeeping for you,’ Richard offers. Before he began his landscaping business, he was an accountant.
‘I would love to help with fundraising,’ Abbey says.
‘I say a raise of hands for yes,’ Ciara declares.
They all raise their hands. All apart from Gabriel.
‘It’s a big undertaking,’ he says.
‘She can do it, Dad,’ Ava says, nudging him.
‘Yeah, Dad,’ Jack says, imitating Ava.
‘Yeah, Dad,’ the rest of them say in unison, and crack up laughing.
As the conversation turns into the usual noisy brawl, Gabriel wraps his arm around my shoulder and leans close. ‘I know you can,’ he whispers, and kisses me gently.
Excitement builds inside me. All this time I was thinking of it as a club, but it could be more. With enough support, we could help more people. I could dedicate more time to the people who need me to properly observe their life and help construct and distribute their letters. The PS, I Love You Club could become a nationwide foundation or a charity, helping those who are terminally ill finally reclaim their goodbyes. And all because of Gerry.
My phone rings; I don’t recognise the number. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi, is that Holly Kennedy?’ a young male voice asks.
‘Yes. This is Holly.’
‘Uh, I got your number from, er, Maria. Maria Costas? She told me about your club.’
‘Yes, this is the PS, I Love You Club,’ I say, standing up to leave as everyone hushes around the table.
‘Ssh,’ Jack starts, childishly, to Declan.
‘Ssh,’ Declan replies.
‘Ssh,’ Mathew continues it, nudging Ciara, who’s not saying anything at all.
I press a finger into my ear and leave the room.
When I end the call, I see Gabriel standing at the door, watching me.
‘I have a client,’ I say happily, then wipe the smile off my face, uncertain that my happiness is fair to Philip’s predicament. ‘But don’t say anything, you know what they’re like.’
‘I won’t,’ he whispers conspiratorially.
As soon as we walk back to the dinner table, he grabs my hand and lifts it high in the air. ‘She has a client!’
They roar in celebration.
‘Hello, Holly,’ Maria Costas says, greeting me at the main door of St Mary’s hospice. ‘Thanks for coming at such short notice.’
‘No problem, I’m glad Philip called.’
‘He told me he wanted to leave something behind for his friends but couldn’t think what. That’s when I told him about you and the club. I wasn’t sure if you were going to continue it, after our chat.’
‘You gave me a lot to think about after we talked, but it was always about growing it, not ending it. Since we last met I’ve been implementing plans to develop the PS, I Love You Club, with more of a structure, and a team. If you have time after this, we can talk about it?’
‘I’d like that.’ We stop walking. ‘This is Philip’s room.’
‘Tell me about him.’
‘He’s seventeen, he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, which is a type of bone cancer. He’s been through a lot, he’s had limb salvage surgery to replace his left femur, he’s had three cycles of chemo, but the cancer is aggressive.’
We enter Philip’s room and he looks younger than seventeen. He’s tall and broad but shrunken in his own body, his skin has a yellowish tinge. His brown eyes are deep, large in his shrunken sockets.
‘Hey, Philip,’ Maria says coolly, going to him with a hand held up for a high five.
‘Hey, Maria, the Greek goddess.’
Maria laughs. ‘I’m a Cypriot, actually, and no royal blood in my veins, unless you count my granddad’s home-grown olive oil. I brought a present for you. Holly, this is Philip. Philip, this is Holly.’
‘I prefer a boom,’ I say, holding my fist out.
‘Oh, she’s a boom-type girl,’ Maria says, smiling as Philip and I tap fists.
I sit beside him and notice the inside of his locker is covered in photos of friends. Boys his age, groups of them messing, laughing, posing, in rugby gear, a rugby team. A group holding a trophy. I recognise Philip instantly, a broad, muscular young teenager before the cancer took hold.
After spending an hour brainstorming with Philip, we part and Maria and I leave him alone. ‘Well?’ I ask, feeling that I was auditioning in there for her.
‘For your club to work, you’d need a therapist who can have the psychological needs of your clients in mind, particularly one who understands the natural course and treatment of the illness, and has a flexible approach in accordance with the medical status of the patient.’
‘Where could I find one of those?’ I muse.
She looks in the window at Philip and takes a moment. ‘I’m in,’ she says.