Jane

Old writing no.1: 10 March 2011

And suddenly, before you know it, winter is on its way out, heralded by the arrival of my favourite flower – the daffodil. Every year it seems to come earlier and earlier. But there is something about the lure of the daffodil bunches, sat simply in their buckets at the end of the supermarket counters, devoid of any extra fanfare save the elastic band securing them, that is impossible to resist.

The daffodil holds a special place in my heart. It takes me back to a time during my childhood where I seemed to be endlessly ruddy cheeked and engaged in the latest activity designed by Nanny to keep us busy. This usually involved some form of bracing walk and the mass collection of natural material. Spring was the season for such occasions. We had a somewhat abnormally large home and an amazing array of flowers to choose from in the area which we called, “the water garden.” And in springtime, our garden became covered in a blanket of different types of daffodils.

There was the usual canary yellow standard trumpet daffodil:

as well as the daintier pale flower with his bright red face:

But then we also had white versions:

and even green ones too:

There was something pleasingly simple about being set loose amongst the field of colour and being told to go and pick as many white ones, or mini ones or green ones that we could find. Armed with baskets, me and my brother would compete against each other to see who could collect more. I think I always won – even at at a young age the urge to compete was fairly solidly implanted.

But now daffodils mean something quite different altogether. They have become somewhat muddled with another great beautiful yellow specimen – the sunflower.

How, or why this happened, I am not quite sure. It’s true that the sunflower also featured in my childhood, being the flower that your school gives you for the project of “who can grow the tallest and brightest version”? But, sunflowers, like the daffodil, stayed with me well beyond my childhood years. The main reason for this was that they happened to be the favourite flower of one of my best friends. This was fitting really, as Jane was like a sunflower – she was bright, bold, beautiful and attracted everyone to her just the way sunflowers find light.

Jane befriended me at a time when I was utterly lost and mired in self doubt and solitude. We met on the first day of a new job in Borders; accidentally thrown together in the team assigned to the Children’s Book section. It was clear to me fairly quickly that she was stratospheres beyond me in social skill. There was no reason at all for her to even pay me the slightest bit of attention. She could (and later did) become friends with practically every single bookseller working there. But, it was me that she singled out. She persevered past my agonised stuttering, awkward silences and (later on), enforced absences. She took me out for cocktails, laughed at my jokes and bought me stupid presents. She drunk Red Bull and Vodka and ate too many kebabs. She sung Beyonce’s Crazy in Love constantly and did the stupid dance with such abandon. And she would turn up at my door when I failed to respond to her messages, because she wanted to make sure I was alright. She would invite herself in and stay to keep me company until I was laughing and smiling again so much that I never wanted her to leave.

And then suddenly one day, I found myself on the end of a conversation that began with the words, “Jane’s dead.” The shock of those words hit me like a bus. I remained dazed by these words for weeks. I did know, of course, that Jane wasn’t just the sunny yellow flower I initially thought her to be. She was, in fact, struggling with her own battles that were not a million miles away from my own. She later told me that this was what had drawn her to me in the first place – that she could sense that we both shared a common sadness. We had both come to Borders as a last chance really – Jane to defeat her crippling anxiety and me to try and kick start my way back into a halting university career, featuring many pauses and false starts.

But Jane was stronger than me. She hid her sadness behind such a wall of smiling, humour and intelligence that you sometimes forgot how vulnerable she really was. I was away in Canada when it happened. I returned to silence, and unsure why Jane really liked me in the first place, decided that I must have done something wrong, which was why every time I phoned her, the message went to answer phone. I wish that had been the real reason. For if it were, Jane would still be here. She wouldn’t have managed to escape from the hospital, where she voluntarily took herself for protection. She wouldn’t have found herself in the chemist, buying paracetamol and then later in the off licence, buying vodka. She wouldn’t have sat down in Christ’s Pieces beneath a tree while people walked past her, ignoring her tears, her drinking and her body slumped against a tree.

I still miss Jane terribly. I don’t know how to rationalise what happened to her. I know it wasn’t really her. It was the terror of panic, and the withdrawal from her meds and the failure of the people entrusted with her care to offer her basic protection against these factors.

And now that I am so far away from the place that connected me to her, every year when the daffodils appear again I buy some for Jane. Their yellow simplicity reminds me of the joy she brought me. And that makes me grateful, for despite the sadness, more than anything, I feel lucky to have known her for the short time I did.