REMAIN THE SAME
-x-
What Remains
-x-
'You can't just sit here in the dark forever, you know.'
'I'm game if you are.'
'But you've got lots to do, Lynda. It's not like you to just sit around and mope…'
'Office is shut. There's no paper to write. What am I supposed to do?'
'There's got to be something you can do… Come on. Get up! Keep yourself busy. Get on with it!'
Lynda didn't reply.
'Are you listening to me, Lynda?'
Lynda didn't budge. She just stayed seated on the side of her bed and allowed full, heavy tears to roll down her face and drip from her chin.
'Shut up, Kenny.'
-x-
Julie blew her nose delicately. She had promised herself that she wouldn't start crying again until this job was done, but… God… she'd never heard Frazz sound so devastated before. And Tiddler hadn't even been able to come to the phone, she'd had to give the entire message through the teenager's Mum. The closer to the late Kenny Phillips the staff she had to speak to were, the harder ringing around became. No wonder Lynda couldn't face it. Poor Lynda. Julie only had one call left to make, and she knew this one would be really tough. She held her breath as she dialled the number and exhaled in relief when a female voice answered.
'Hello Liz.'
'Hi Julie.' The Scot sounded terribly tired. 'How are you holding up?'
Julie tried to speak, but her words caught in the back of her throat and came out in an incoherent squeak.
'It's OK,' sighed Lizzie, 'you have a good cry now. It's OK.'
Ignoring Liz's advice, Julie forced the sob back inside, dabbing at her eyes. 'How's… how's he…?'
There was a pause on the other end of the phone. 'He's had better weekends,' conceded Liz, eventually. 'Needless to say, neither of us'll be in for a while.'
'No,' sighed Julie. 'We've, um… we've decided in his absence to close down for a week. So many of us at UpStart were close friends of Kenny's, it didn't feel right, and with our Editor, FD and two top journalists still in quarantine anyway… it just felt like the best thing to do. It'll cost us, but…'
'I'm sure he'll understand,' Liz soothed.
'Shall I let the Sales Team know?' volunteered Julie.
'You've done enough, Hen,' Liz replied. 'He's got their numbers, I'll ring around in a bit. You take a break.'
Julie nodded sadly at the phone receiver, but couldn't bring herself to put it down and face the silence of her flat. 'I…' she started. 'I don't want to…'
'Don't want to be alone?' interjected Lizzie. 'Join the club. We've got badges.' There was another pause. 'So this Kenny was quite a guy, eh? Must've been, to be missed so badly.'
Julie fought another short battle against a deluge of tears, and lost this time. 'He was… It's not fair… You fall out of touch with a friend and it doesn't hit you what a great guy he was until he's taken away from you…'
'You can come over if you like, you know,' Liz replied, 'he's not showing any signs of developing the Big M, it should be safe.'
'I don't think he'd be all that pleased to see me…'
'You used to be good mates with Colin, didn't you?'
Julie sniffed. 'That was a long time ago…'
'Like you said,' answered Liz, 'you fall out of touch with a friend, and so on and so forth. Come over. Just for a cuppa. Don't worry, he won't hit on you, if he knows what's good for him.'
Julie wiped her eyes and cracked a smile for the first time that day. 'You know what? I think I will.'
'See you in a bit, then.'
Lizzie gently put the phone back in its cradle and turned to the unwashed, unshaven, red eyed man lying on the sofa.
'Hear that, Sir?' Liz crouched down in front of her boyfriend. Colin didn't move a muscle – didn't even focus on her, but stayed staring dully out into the middle distance. 'We're going to be having company. Bit of tea and cake, how does that sound, eh?' She tried to take his hand, but his palm fell slack in hers. 'Think you can see yourself to getting up for that? Maybe clean yourself up a little bit? Will you eat? Have something to drink?' She sat back. 'Do you want your pills?'
Colin still didn't look at her, but shook his head, slightly.
'Colin, please. There's grief, and there's… Sickness. The pills are there for when you get like this.'
Colin opened his mouth and spoke, very slowly, very very quietly.
'One of my only friends died two days ago. How should I feel?'
Liz sighed, relieved at hearing his voice for the first time in nearly 24 hours. 'Well, OK. It's perfectly natural for you to feel like shit. But you shouldn't be making yourself ill like this.'
Colin didn't respond.
'Come on,' added Liz with a false cheer, 'I bet even Lynda hasn't let herself get this bad.'
-x-
'Lynda?'
'Lynda?'
'Lynda.'
'Lynda. Lynda?'
Lynda curled herself into a tight ball on the bed, freezing at Spike's touch.
'Go away,' she breathed.
'Lynda, please.'
She felt his hand move from her shoulder and run through her hair.
'Please. Let me in.'
Spike curled up next to her and tried to put an arm around her, but she moved away.
'Oh, come on, Lynda. You know me and Spike were good mates too. Don't you think this has hit him hard as well? Why are you taking it out on him?'
'I need some space,' she sighed.
She felt Spike roll over to the other side of the bed. 'OK. You know where I am if you wanna talk about it.'
'I don't want to talk about it.'
Spike got up. 'I'd quite like to.'
'Lynda Day! Do you want me to get angry again? Because I will get angry. Oh, I can get angry…'
Lynda bit her lip. 'I killed him, Spike.'
'What?'
'What?' Spike sat down next to her again. 'No! How could you have possibly killed him?'
'He was sick, he needed help. And I tried to take him to the seaside! If I'd got him to the Hospital earlier…'
'There were five people in that car, Lynda.' Spike laid a hand gently on her turned shoulder. 'None of us worked out that Kenny's headache meant he was really sick 'til it was too late, including Kenny.'
'I should have known!' Lynda exclaimed. 'I'm supposed to be this big, clever news editor and I can't even work out that my best friend's dying in the back seat of my bloody car…'
'You've gotta stop blaming yourself for things you had no control over, Lynda.'
'He's right, you know. This is David Jefford all over again.'
Lynda sniffed. 'It is Jefford all over again.'
'No, Lynda…'
'I didn't listen. He tried to tell me, but I didn't listen. I just wanted things my own way, and now a boy's dead. Again.'
Spike tried stroking her hair soothingly, but Lynda was already shaking with tears.
'It's all the same,' she announced, her voice quiet and tight, 'it's still the same as it always was. I can't change. I thought I could, but I can't, and it took Kenny away from me. Who's it going to take away from me next, Spike?'
'Listen to me. This wasn't your fault. Kenny didn't die as a punishment to you.'
'What am I going to do, Spike? What am I going to do? How can I change? I want to change!'
'Stop talking like this,' Spike told her. 'You don't need to change. You didn't kill Kenny. The world killed Kenny. It's the world that needs to change, if it's the sorta world that could take a perfectly sweet, healthy guy and let a nasty little disease collect in him like that and just wipe him out before anybody could…'
Lynda sighed, allowing Spike's words to wash over her. She knew he was in earnest, of course, but they felt hollow to her. It was her fault.
'It wasn't. You just want it to be.'
It took a moment for her to focus on Kenny, watching her from his corner by the wardrobe.
'You want it to be your fault because you think it would be easier to change yourself than it would be to change the rest of the world.'
Kenny pulled up a chair and sat down a few feet away from her, and for a heartbeat they were back in the old office, at their adjoining desks.
'But does that sound like Lynda Day to you?' Kenny continued. 'Because the Lynda Day I know wouldn't just lie in bed and whimper about this. The Lynda Day I know wouldn't turn in on herself like this. The Lynda Day I know would face the world and scream and shout until she got her way.'
'But I'm not going to get my way on this,' she told him in her head.
'Of course you are!'
'But you're dead.'
'That's no excuse to become all defeatist.'
'I can't bring you back, Kenny.'
'I'm here, aren't I?'
'No you're not. Not really. You're just a memory. It's not Kenny Phillips I'm talking to right now, it's myself.'
Kenny nodded, sagely. 'It's the first sign of madness, you know. The little blue pixie that lives in my pocket told me.'
Lynda giggled.
'Second sign is laughing at your own jokes.'
Lynda smiled, fondly. 'I miss you.'
'I know you do.'
'What am I supposed to do, Kenny?'
There was a long silence. Lynda looked up at Spike. He'd stopped talking. He didn't seem to be waiting for a response from Lynda, which was a good thing, since she hadn't taken in a word he'd said. Instead, he was leaning against the wall, gazing sadly into space.
'Change the world.'
'What?'
'Change the world. Save lives. Destroy the thing that killed me.'
'You don't ask much, do you, Kenny Phillips?'
'I think I'm still due a favour or two. Go on, change the world for me.'
'Who do you think I am – Mother Theresa?'
'No. Better than that. You're Lynda Day.'
'Flattery will get you nowhere, Kenny, dead or not…'
'You're still going to do it, though. Aren't you?'
Lynda said nothing. Kenny beamed.
'Well, this is something – you taking orders from me! Listen, while the opportunity's there, I've got another favour to ask…'
'Don't push your luck.'
'It's just this.'
Kenny leaned in to her.
'Enjoy the people that you care about while you can. We're all of us mortal – what happened to me's proof enough of that. Never let yourself sit at another deathbed wishing you'd said the things that you were always too Lynda to say. And you know exactly where you can start.'
Spike turned to her. 'What?'
She shook her head, suddenly aware that she'd been staring at him. 'You know when we first met?' she asked him. 'That thing you said about the dragon?'
'Sure.'
'I think I've found one. Want to help me slay it?'
Spike paused for a moment, allowing a faint smile to creep over his sombre features. 'It'd be my honour.'
'Good.' She got up off the bed. 'Are you hungry, Spike? I'm hungry.'
'I'm not surprised,' Spike told her, 'you've barely eaten in two days.'
'Make me some Reddy Brek,' Lynda ordered, 'I've got a phone call to make.'
Spike sprang to his feet. 'You want syrup or jam in that, Ma'am?'
'Syrup.' She tidied her hair away from her face, giving him a brief, sideways glance as she did. 'I do love you, you know,' she added.
Spike paused, his hand on the doorknob. He turned his grin away from her.
'I know.'
-x-
Julie dashed to answer the phone before it rang off. 'Hello?'
'Julie?' demanded Lynda's voice on the other side of the line, 'what the Hell are you doing at his house?'
'Oh,' sighed Julie, 'sharing tea and sympathy… wondering whether you can administer Jamaica Ginger Cake intravenously.'
'Oh well,' Lynda replied, 'this'll save time, I suppose. Put him on, would you? And tell him I need to speak to you again after.'
'He's not exactly talking right now…' began Julie.
'Is he sick…?'
Julie cast a worried eye over the comatose form on the sofa. 'Yes and no. Not like Kenny was…'
'Well, put me on to the great wet blanket!'
Julie shrugged and took the phone receiver over to Colin. 'It's Lynda,' she told him, tucking the receiver between his ear and the sofa cushion. It heartened her to see a slight expression of annoyance cross his face.
'Colin?' Lynda barked down the phone. 'Are you there?' She paused. 'I can hear you breathing, you know. Are you listening? Right, first of all you'd better believe the next edition's going to be a Meningitis Special. You were thinking that too, right? Right. I'll get Sarah and Julie to co ordinate it. And, obviously, all of our profits next week will go to the National Meningitis Trust. The next thing I want you to do is…'
'What?' croaked Colin.
'I want this thing to go National, Colin,' Lynda continued. 'I want you to buy us a billboard in…'
'All of our profits…?' echoed Colin.
'Yes, that's right. They fund research into treatment and vaccines.'
'What were you saying about billboards…?'
'Yes,' added Lynda, 'I want you to get us a billboard in every University town in the country.'
'We're going National?'
'The campaign! The campaign is going National!'
Colin sat up, slowly. 'We've got a campaign?'
'Meningitis killed my best friend,' Lynda explained. 'And that pissed me off. And when I get pissed off at something, it knows about it.'
'Oh.'
'All I want to do is wipe it off the face of the planet in all its many forms,' reasoned Lynda. 'Is that really too much for a girl to ask?'
'So…' Colin frowned, slowly catching up with his Editor. 'So the billboards won't be for UpStart. You want them to be about how to spot Meningitis early enough to treat, right?'
'Exactly.' Lynda paused. 'Eat some bloody Ginger Cake, would you? You must be driving poor Liz to distraction.'
Colin didn't reply. He picked a thin slice of cake off the plate next to him and munched on it slowly.
'We haven't got time to sit around and mope,' Lynda continued. 'The paper's re-opening in seven days and by then I want a complete strategy out of you.'
'This all sounds very expensive,' Colin muttered. 'I don't really think we're Charity sort of people…'
'This isn't rattling a tin outside Safeway's, Colin…'
'Good. Because I've been banned from doing that, you know.'
'…This is changing the world!' Lynda continued. 'I mean it.'
'Shouldn't we at least wait until the funeral's over?'
'No. We're doing it now.' Lynda paused. 'It's what he would have wanted.'
Colin nodded, reaching for a hot cup of tea that was suddenly by his side. 'I'll, um… I'll phone up the thingummybobs…'
'You do that.' Lynda paused again. 'Go on then, pass me over to Julie and hop to it.'
Dreamily, Colin passed the receiver back to Julie. The Blonde wandered away from him as she took the call. Liz perched on the armrest of the sofa, running her fingernails over his scalp.
'Feeling any better there, Sir?'
'Hmm.'
'What did Lynda have to say?'
'"Hop to it",' he murmured.
'Pardon?'
'Hop to…' Colin trailed off as a long sunk bubble of memory floated to the top of his brain and burst on its surface with a merry "plink". 'Oh God!'
Liz met his suddenly horrified gaze with concern. 'What is it? What's wrong?'
Colin rubbed his face in anguish. 'No, no, no…'
Kenny grinned at him from his spot by the window. 'I'm afraid so, me old mucker.'
'Oh, please, no. You can't be serious.'
Kenny's smug smile didn't waver an iota. 'Sorry, Col. But death's a Bastard. And, sometimes, so am I.'
