It is the most unfair thing I have ever heard of in not just the whole world, but the whole world and all the surrounding planets, Jennifer says.
She has been reading about people who burst into flames. The whole book is about people who suddenly burn to death there and then in their living rooms or wherever for no reason. Sometimes their legs and arms survive them and someone comes home and finds them in a pile on the carpet, nothing left of the main parts of their bodies but little heaps of ash.
Jennifer is near tears.
What if Rick was just playing football and kicking the ball and just as he was about to kick in a goal, just, out of nowhere—? Or Nor was doing modern dance like normal at the class on a Wednesday and then right in front of the big mirror, she—? What if Dad was fishing and he just, you know,—?
Well, then, the river would be the best place for him, May says. And it’s not often you’ll catch me saying that.
She puts down the iron and lifts Jennifer, who is clammy with anger, on to her knee on one of the kitchen stools.
But what if one day I came home from school, Jennifer is saying, and I went to make you a cup of tea, and then when I got through with the cup of tea, there was just a, a pile of ash on the chair, and there on the floor were your legs, and there on the arms of the chair were your arms?
Right. If this actually ever happens, May says, are you listening? These are my instructions. You are to just put the mug of tea in one of my hands there on the side of that chair regardless, have you got that? Because I’ll be wanting that tea.
Jennifer nearly laughs. She is almost persuaded. Then she goes limp again on May’s lap.
The water inside the iron on the ironing board makes a small impatient noise.
Jennifer, there is no way in a million you’re going to burst into flames, May says.
It’s not me I’m worried about, Jennifer says.
You’ve not to think about such things, May says. If you thought about such things you’d go mad. And the worst thing about worries is, they’re contagious.
How are they contagious? Jennifer says.
What I mean is, if you worry, May says, then I have to worry too.
Jennifer looks desolate. She climbs off May’s knee and goes and stands by the sink.
In the future, she says, I will keep my worries in the confines of my own head.
God and all the angels only know where she got that from. She is quite a child for the saying of things strangely. It’s my life too, you know, is what she said in the middle of an argument they were having about breakfast cereal, and that was when she was barely four years old. May had had to turn round, turn away, so her child wouldn’t see her laughing. And another time, last year, she’d just turned seven. What if, when we’re praying like to St. Anthony about things being lost, what if the being who hears us and sees us and helps us isn’t St. Anthony at all but is Rascal the dog? Recently too she’s started refusing to take her mother’s hand if they’re crossing a road.
May pats her knee. Jennifer gives in, comes back and climbs back up. But her head is hot under May’s chin, too heavy against her chest. The weight of her is sullen, maybe settling in for the afternoon if May’s not careful.
The iron sighs on the ironing board again.
Could be quite good, mind you. If you burst into flames, May says.
Good? — if—? Jennifer says lifting her head.
Especially if you were on horseback, May says. You on that Shetland pony, what’s its name, going over the jumps. You’ll be all lit up like a bonfire on horseback at the Summer Fête at the Park.
Ha! Jennifer says.
Instead of the Hoop of Fire, May says, the police dogs would be wanting to jump through you.
Actually, Jennifer says, something like that would be pretty groovy.
She sits forward. But then she drops her head again.
What now? May says.
Because what if I was doing the jumping at the Fête and I looked up at the seats in the spectator stand for you to see me doing it, Jennifer says muffled against her cardigan.
Uh huh? May says.
And there was no you there, Jennifer says.
May nods.
Tell you what, she says with her mouth against the parting of her girl’s hair. If I spontaneously combust I’ll send my arms and legs by themselves to the park to watch you do it.
Finally she has made Jennifer laugh.
They’ll need a seat each, mind, so that makes four seats. And you can pay out of your pocket money. That’s only fair, May says.
Jennifer is laughing out loud now.
And I’m only letting you go to that Fête in the first place if you’ll hold my hand when we cross the road, May says. And my other hand. And my arm. And my other arm. And my leg. And my other leg.
When Jennifer is properly helpless with laughter May shifts her legs like you do when you’re playing the horsey game with a very small child, the bit where they think they’re going to fall but know all the same that you’ve got them safe.
She catches her youngest at exactly the moment of letting her go.)
May Young eyed the strange girl there in the chair. The nails of both her hands were purple with varnish and far too long for properness. She was pressing the little buttons in the thing in her hand. It was as if the whole world was in thrall to the things. They all had them, used them as readily, as meekly, as May was supposed to take the stuff off the medicine cabinet. They swallowed it, hook and line. It was all supposed to be about how fast things were; they were always on about how fast you could get a message or how fast you could get to speak to someone or get the news or do this or that or get whatever it was they all got on it. And at the same time it was like they were all on drugs, cumbersome like cattle, heads down, not seeing where they were going.
The girl thumbed and fingered away at her own world in her hand like it didn’t matter that she was in May’s hospital room, or in anyone’s hospital room, on earth, in heaven, wherever. It didn’t matter where in or out of the world she was.
Maybe she was on a, what was it, scheme, a school scheme, the things they make them do instead of schoolwork, to visit people in hospital, to go and be visitors for people who got no other visitors.
But May had plenty of visitors. She’d no need for a girl on a school scheme. They were always endlessly coming, May’s visitors, and standing about round the bed. She’d no need for strangers to do it too.
Maybe she was a friend of Patrick’s girls and was doing a good turn for the Girl Guides, visiting an old person and getting a badge.
Maybe it was like when they came round singing to people in the hospital, like with the Christmas carols. Not just Christmas neither, because it was weeks after Christmas now and they’d been round again, they were round not that long ago singing their jolly song, on and on it went, interminable, about I am Jesus and they crucified me, and then they hung me up on a tree, all the details of the blood and the nails. It was January, nowhere near Easter. There was no excuse for it.
She lifted her hand and made to wave the girl away.
I’m not needing visitors, she said with her hand. You’re free to go.
The girl in the chair saw May’s hand move. She looked up from the thing she was holding in her own hand. She reached up to an ear and took the thing in her ear out.
Woke up, then, the girl said.
The girl spoke loudly and clearly.
May glared at her. She leaned forward. She wasn’t some old lady who was always asleep with her mouth open, some old lady who couldn’t hear.