Bittersweet: A Memoir. Angus Kennedy
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and very happy. She went to see a doctor for a routine test, was told she had cancer, got really depressed, and soon after that passed away. I am sure the chemo and the anxiety killed her. I often think she might have lived with the cancer if she had not known she had it. Just like I lay there on death’s door but quite happy, without the thought of ever dying.
The decision to get up and live again seemed to be within me. I was drifting peacefully, waking up and not knowing where I was lying, and then the great day for my mum’s diary took place. One morning, my mother wobbled into the room, trying hard to look positive and to hide her despair while carrying the daily hopefully-this-time breakfast that she had lovingly prepared on a tray.
Each breakfast had new things to eat, laid out differently. Sometimes there were handwritten “get better” notes, or toys, or anything to help wake me up and take an interest. She was running out of ideas and I was running out of time, something of which she was acutely aware.
She must have blamed herself for ignoring the dust building up and the cold temperature of my bedroom. She would never have forgiven herself if I had left her.
But that morning, I asked for one of my favorites at the time. It was a toss-up between a Curly Wurly and a tube of Smarties.
“Mum, can I have some Smarties?”
The words took a moment or two for her to register, as my simple statement seemed to hit her like an alien magnetic force field.
She nearly dropped the whole tray of breakfast as she stood in front of me with her mouth open and a look of uncontrollable panic at the thought I might change my mind. She placed the tray on the coffee table while the dogs moved in and hugged my emaciated body so tightly my ribs nearly met from both sides. There was such a commotion. It was like she didn’t have a second to spare in case I really did change my mind, fall asleep, or succumb to some other dreadful inconvenience like dying.
She grabbed the tray and ran into the kitchen, bacon and all sorts of goodies flying off in her wake, to the complete delight of the frenzied pets, who followed the trail of descending goodies. She searched frantically for some Smarties in the kitchen drawers. I could hear her pull them so hard, I was sure they would come clean out of the cabinet.
Not finding any, my mother grabbed the keys to her brilliantly underpowered Renault 4, skipped out the door, revved the tiny 950-cc engine so much I thought the car would explode, and raced up to the corner shop on Highgate Hill. She returned with the sacred candies, tore the lid off the tube with pieces firing in all directions, handed it to me with her shaking hand, froze, and then waited in great anticipation for me to start eating them without taking her eyes off me.
Another unavoidable and almost crippling hug came my way, and then she was quickly on the phone to tell “Mother.” She always called her mum “Mother.”
“He’s eating, yes, Angus, he’s eating now,” she screamed into the phone. It was a truly great day to have one less name on Muswell Hill’s homemade death row list.
She really did love me; she did care a great deal about her kids. To this day I never blame anyone with a drinking problem. People with alcohol dependency do not love you any less, even though it seems that way. The love is always there, deep down behind all the booze and confusion.
It takes some wisdom to see through it all. Better surely to have a drug addict who loves you than a healthy parent who doesn’t. Ironically, I learned more from my mother than I would have if she had been in good health, and I can’t blame her for the way she was. You have to be very strong to deal with the forces that drive you to drink. Moreover, you can’t blame yourself for not being able to rescue anyone from it. They alone can make that final decision, just like I did, in a way, when I decided that the mini-Wonka would live on!
After my first close shave with my maker, I tried not to inhabit my body for illness anymore. It doesn’t really matter what the illness means—what matters is the meaning we give to the illness. If you survive, you learn; if you die, they learn. At last I was on the slow road to recovery. The chocolate treats that I had eaten to fatten me up before may well have saved my life. It’s difficult to finish off a candy kid.
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My mum changed a little after realizing that my immersion in dust was not of great use to me or the rest of my family. I considered my brother, James, two years older than me, the lucky one, as shortly thereafter he went to boarding school. My half sister, Helen, from my mother’s first marriage, was eleven years older than me, and it wasn’t much longer before she was off to university and I was left in the house.
However, after a short respite, the dust and mess reaccumulated, causing another looming problem. This time it was in my bedroom, where another close shave was on its way, ready to take me away in the middle of the night. It wasn’t long after the pleurisy; I was still six years old.
If you have ever woken up to flames in your bedroom, you will never forget that noise or the terrifying sight reaching to the top of your walls.
After my lung condition was diagnosed, I had been given a breathing apparatus that basically consisted of a “placed candle” under some waxy substance to keep some liquid hot and airborne, I guess to help me breathe at night. I hated it. It was the size of a small saucer and could be placed anywhere near the patient. My parents were so frightened of me contracting a lung infection again that they were adamant about this new routine. By trying to save me, they were unwittingly planning another potential casualty.
So, every night a live flame was placed on my bedroom mantelpiece, next to a few cuddly toys and old Airfix model boxes, to burn until the following morning. Above it were posters stuck on with dried Blu Tack that always came down, and around it were all sorts of other very-willing-to-ignite articles and tubes of glue. I guess it was bound to happen at some point. I’m not an expert on house fires, but it seems like in the 1970s just about anything in your bedroom could catch alight rapidly.
If you have suffered a house fire at night in your youth, you may never sleep soundly, no matter how old you become. You wake to any noise. Since the night my room caught fire, I have always been a very light sleeper.
I am not sure how I woke up. There was so much smoke, I should have been unconscious. I found myself sitting up in bed watching the magnificent display of huge orange flames burning up the curtains at the side of each window. The flames were so hot and I only had the covers to keep the heat away. Everywhere I looked it seemed there were flames licking everything, and I was having trouble staying focused as my blanket and sheets started to catch fire at the edges.
In such a situation, you might want to scream as loudly as possible, but my voice was hoarse and weak from the smoke, and I felt confused and dizzy. It was a miracle I was sitting up in bed at all.
It wasn’t long before I couldn’t really see anyway; I was short of breath and unable to move. I wanted to scream but I couldn’t. There was so little oxygen that nothing seemed to work in my body. Doesn’t anyone know I am going to die (again)? I thought. I want my dad, my mum, anyone.
In a house fire, you’re likely to pass out and suffocate long before you fry, but I was awake as the flames worked their way up the wall, sizzling the woolen blankets in search of their grandest prize of all—a human life.
The noise was terrifying. Cracking, spitting, small things in the room popping, wooden curtain poles falling off the walls: you never forget the deathly noises of being so close to a fire.
Where’s my mum? Is there no one there? Where’s my dad? Are my parents dead too? Help me, please, God, help me.
I could think but not act. I was going to pass out, be the fuel and not the victim.
My mum always slept heavily, as she was likely unconscious from the bottles of anything she had left that day. My dad was a big man with a heart of gold. Though none of us knew it, he was soon to be struggling with cancer. Was I going to be the one welcoming him to heaven first?
There was a huge crash. A wall coming down, a ceiling, I don’t know. A blast of some sort? I heard screaming, my name being called out. My bedroom door flew off its hinges,