Siobhan's Sporking: Billy and Me, Chapter 23

I take it back, what I said in chapter 22. Some of it. Chapter 23 makes me feel better about a couple of things, though it really raises more questions than it answers. And it definitely pisses me off.

I shall stop being so obscure and mythical and actually explain myself.

Chapter 23 starts with Sophie trying to read in the living room. We don’t find out what book, but ... this is the first time I’ve seen her reference reading since like, chapter four, and her lack of concentration that’s meant to signal her scattered thoughts just makes me think ‘eh, it’s not like you really read anyway’. Because she’s reading to stop herself from staring at the wall, but she’s re-reading the same words and half of them aren’t making any sense and all the letters are turning into squiggles and she sounds dyslexic.

The doorbell goes before too much reading angst (because chuh, like she’s going to be a reader who reads!) and we get a big paragraph on how even though Sophie is in sweats, she’s taking care of herself. This sounds vaguely familiar to me.

'You know what I don't get?' Stacey said as Skylar got a small brush and dipped it into the dye. 'You'd think to look at her she doesn't give a shit but she's washed her hair.'
'Yeah, I did wonder if she showered, but I couldn't smell anything bad.' Skylar agreed. They're talking about me. God, I'm covering up, not sitting in a pit of filth.
'I am here.' I reminded them.
'And that's progress.' Stacey agreed, taking it the wrong way. As in, 'I'm here to change my ways', not what I meant which was 'I can hear you bitching about me, I'm sat between the two of you, remember?'

Oh, yeah, that’s why that sounds familiar. Emo!Lambrini meets Stacey and Skylar. Anyway, so the paragraph about Sophie bothering to shower before putting on her chavsuit is apparently relevant so we know that whoever she opens the door to won’t get a faceful of BO and morning breath.

Sophie finally opens the door, and there’s a man in his late thirties with a permatan standing there. Sophie instantly knows him, which is great but she doesn’t share this with us. They talk awkwardly for a while, and then we finally hear that this is Molly’s son. And then Sophie tells us she’s never met him. Sophie’s got Mary Sue Knows-It-All disease. They spew some redundant pleasantries at each other for half a page so that this looks like it’s actually novel length, and the son, Peter, mentions that he flew over from Australia just in time to see his mother before she died of cancer.

I hope my son loves me that much when he’s an adult.

I’m skipping most of the conversation, it’s so mundane. It’s meant to be this big scene of this woman’s actual child and her pseudo-child talking about how wonderful she was and how hurt they are by their loss and how they can’t get over the fact that she’s gone – in fact, the words ‘Molly has died’ make zero sense – but it just sounds like gossip over a cup of tea and a few biscuits. They’re even fricking drinking tea, and they’re just talking about how they found out she had cancer. No wondering why Molly kept it to herself, even beyond the point where she could be saved. I’m pretty damn curious about why she would.

And I’m going to throw this out there, in my story – in the third instalment, the one I’ve written for NaNo – I have a character with breast cancer. Spoiler alert, but she’s going to survive. Because even when odds are shitty, people can still survive. Because, in my experience, if you have something to live for, to fight for, you can overcome those odds. So fuck you, Sophie May. And fuck you too, Giovanna, for not doing any fucking research into something where the information is widely available. For not looking up the treatments, or applying any knowledge to the scene. Like, the character in my story with cancer? She’s also pregnant. It took me five minutes to find out that a lumpectomy is a possibility for pregnant women with cancer in the second trimester – which is where my character is – as it’s not as invasive as chemo and will protect the foetus. It took me two more minutes to look at the chances for someone her age to get cancer – 1 in 50 – and her chances of survival (80%). Fuck you Giovanna. Just … fuck you. Fuck you for making cancer seem as important to these characters as a cold, but as destructive and fast acting as AIDS.

What does Sophie think of the gravity of the situation?

Poor Molly, I think. I wonder what was going through her mind over those last few months. Did she really think she would be saving us from heartache by keeping the truth from us? Preferring us to find out when she was on the verge of dying, rather than when we could be there for her and comfort her? Or could she really not bear the thought of being the one who had to be looked after for once? She must have suffered from horrendous pains for months and simply ploughed on regardless.

That entire paragraph? That’s all Sophie thinks about the entire situation. It’s so disjointed, and if you read the words carefully enough, it’s all about Sophie, not Molly. It’s about Sophie’s peace of mind and her placations to bestow on Molly. I almost don’t blame Molly for not telling her, there’s nothing worse than sympathy in a shitty situation unless it’s forced sympathy in a shitty situation. It’s not about Molly being sick, or being scared of her future, or her running from the treatment because she’s so scared of chemo and therefore shortening her life span. It’s about Sophie’s heartache, because that’s the first thing mentioned. Molly’s pain is the afterthought.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Sophie May is a bitch and I hate her. Self-absorbed protagonists are not the way forward unless their epiphany at the climax is how other people matter, or how their own self worth is either their greatest gift or their worst attribute.

But Giovanna’s on her own planet, because while Sophie and Peter are having this cosy little chat, Peter basically says he’s sorting his mother’s legal shit out and vamoosing. He’s not even mentioned her fucking funeral! Just selling her house and sorting the shop out. Just the stuff Molly can give him.

I hope Noah’s taking notes for when I croak it. For real I mean, and not just hanging in the balance before his first birthday (you cannot begin to understand the contempt I have for this particular story thread) I would hate to see him suffer through the agony of losing his mother without considering the shit I could give him. I will also point out, neither Sophie nor Peter are crying, or showing any emotion. It’s strictly dialogue, and Sophie’s inner monologue.

Anyway, back on point, it turns out the Molly has left Sophie the café. Teashop. Whatever the fuck it is these days. Sophie’s gobsmacked, so in shock, but I’m like, of course Molly left you the teashopcafeshitpit, because you’re Sophie, and you get whatever the fuck you want even when you treat people like shit. She starts telling Peter it can’t be right, it must be his, it’s his inheritance! Fuck you again, Sophie, if it’s in the woman’s Will, it’s legally yours and he probably doesn’t want the might of Billy buskin suing his ass for taking your teashop away from you. Plus, I’m hoping with Molly’s shitty business practices, it turns out the teashop is in a world of debt that now goes in Sophie’s name and Peter’s dodging a bullet. Peter gives some big speech about being Australian now and having no use for a teashop that old ladies live in, and really, the smell of lavender and piss? My paraphrase there, but seriously, he waxes lyrical about why he doesn’t want it, and why Sophie has to have it, and he manages to put down the place while bigging it up for Sophie. That’s some skill, and that’s what drives me crazy about this book. Every now and then, there are glimpses at Giovanna having some real talent, but always in negative traits, and never for very long.

We then … ugh … it’s so contrived. We then see Peter hand Sophie a note from a dying Molly.

Who doesn’t love a stereotypical scene? Sophie doesn’t read it right then (no, you have to angst and then read it alone for impact as you clutch the note to your chest and sob your feels out) but asks when Molly wrote it. Five minutes ago, Sophie, you braindead harpy.

The end of this section, I can’t even. This is from the mouth of a man who has just lost his mother. His MOTHER. Let that sink in for a second. Then read.

“It’s a bit eerie, really, getting a letter from a dead person,” says Peter, before inhaling deeply and standing up, clapping his hands on his sides awkwardly. “Right, I’d better be going.”

I should leave it alone, because you probably share my disgust, but no. It’s a bit eerie. IT’S A BIT EERIE? Who … who says that? About their MOTHER writing to what is to him, essentially, a STRANGER, on her deathbed. It’s not even computing. I just … I can’t … there’s too much headrage!

From a dead person … first off, Molly was alive when she wrote that note, it’s not Supernatural, we don’t communicate with the deceased in this canon. Second of all, I will repeat – that’s his MOTHER. His mother has just died from a combination of cancer and stubbornness and he’s so emotionally disconnected that he can make a statement like that, in that intonation. I want to tear my hair out. Okay, so he’s been living in Australia, as far away as you can possibly get, but … no, fuck you! My uncle lives in Australia and when my granddad died in a car accident 17 years ago, he was devastated that he couldn’t afford the airfare to pay his respects. The only consolation he had was that because of the time my grandfather was killed, it was deemed appropriate that he was the first next-of-kin contacted, despite my mum being the eldest sibling and the closest living relative. That was his token shitty prize. And we probably sent a bunch of betting shop pens to him at some point (long story, but my uncle and grandfather have similar senses of humour, and my granddad had this thing about them … someone always got them as a present, wrapped in about thirty layers, it was a gesture to that effect) because he couldn’t attend the meetings about the Will. I was there when we stripped out his flat, and nothing is more freaky that being eleven, knowing your grandfather was killed, and sitting there out of the way as your parents and other relatives strip his house of possessions so someone else can move in, and everyone can have some token of the man they all loved in some way. I think I curled up in his favourite chair for the entire day with a stack of library books, some tictacs and a drink, and we had hotdogs for lunch because I couldn’t be in my granddad’s flat and not eat hotdogs. That was the tradition. I got ignored pretty much the whole day, and I kept out of the way of the adults who were reminiscing over everything and would chew me out if I interfered. I remember a lot of emotion around the time, and it’s still something my mother gets upset over.

I will give you some contrast. I used to cry for fear my grandmother was going to die, my stepdad’s mother (she’s still mine). It went on for years, she was so frail, and in hospital a lot, and then when she did pass … no tears. I’d grieved while she was alive. Don’t get me wrong, it still took days to sink in, but I was relieved she was no longer in pain. I was happy that she would be with her husband again, who had died two years before her. But it was my sister who watched her house get stripped down, my sister who watched what I had with my other grandfather. And I still paid my respects in the best way I could. She was the woman who supported my decision to go for the 11+ exam, who taught me piano and built my respect for people’s histories. She was a fascinating woman and I still miss her.

And actually, I know it’s not the same parallel at all, but my cat is 19 years old now, a tortoiseshell (they live longer than most cats, so 19 isn’t so OMG as you might think) and she’s frail, and has arthritis, and keeps having fits where she loses control of everything. If you’ve ever seen a cat thrashing about, peeing itself and clawing at the floor … you can start to imagine how it feels, I guess, to not be able to comfort her, to not be able to communicate on the right level. We keep taking her to the vets, asking for them to help ease her pain, but they won’t consider it, much. The last time we went, they gave us some sedatives, but those sedatives are going to kill her. So my family’s bordering on a huge ethical question now of keeping her alive and suffering or drugging her into a final sleep. I want her to not feel pain any more, but I don’t think my dad’s ready to let her go. I can’t imagine not having her around, and she’s had a tough life – she got tortured by some boys in our old neighbourhood when she was pretty young – and I hate the idea that her final few days are going to be as painful as the time with those boys.

I can’t understand the flippancy in regards to your own mother’s passing. Especially as his body language is to clap his hands on his legs awkwardly. What is that? He’s awkward? He should be! I’d be so freaking uncomfortable if I saw two people who had recently lost someone supposedly dear to them just sitting having a chat and a cup of tea! And that parting shot ‘I’d better be going’ – what is that?

I’m rewriting this paragraph.

“I can understand how it may be difficult to read,’ Peter choked out, his eyes brimming with tears. I wondered if he was keeping them back to be stoic, to be manful, or whether he felt that letting them fall would mean he would be as broken as I had been recently, and wouldn’t be able to function through the grief. It wasn’t my place to find out. “But it was Mum’s last wishes, and I want them to come true.” He glanced at his watch, taking a moment, I guessed, to focus properly on the clockface. “I’d better be going now, I have her funeral to arrange.” And he left the room with his shoulders sagging, arms hanging limply by his sides. He looked defeated, and I could only begin to touch on the grief he must be going through. Yes, I had lost my friend, and greatest supporter, but at least I still had my mother.

Two more points to bring up, which dawned on me as I wrote that:

-She was more upset that Billy was set-up to look like he was cheating, and her ending their relationship than she was about her best friend dying of cancer, going through a devastating illness alone.

-Her father died. Her father died the way my granddad did. And she never, not once, tries to sympathise with Peter, to let him know she’s been through losing a parent and knows how painful it is because she and her mother are only just now letting it go!

Giovanna should not have written this storyline. Not at all.

Once Peter has left, I pick up the envelope and take it upstairs, retreating back to the safe haven of those four pink walls once again. Sitting at the bottom of my bed, I stare at it in my hands for a few moments, trying to brace myself for what it contains, before turning it over and opening it.

First off – called it. Alone, trying to build up the grief. But my rant has totally stopped that from happening (or, if I gave you feels like I did myself, then maybe you can feel the feels Giovanna wanted you to feel?) and second off – what is the start of that sentence? Once is a word that implies past tense, but has is present, and the tense that Giovanna has selected. She could have boosted her word count and made that thing make sense by writing ‘I walk with Peter to the door, and wave him off miserably, then pick up the envelope and take it upstairs.’ And then we get some continuity, and remove that need for a break.

Now I’m wondering how much her editor edited.

The note is just everything written before, basically. It’s a chance to say Sophie’s so special and wonderful and we all love Sophie! Bite me. I hate the tone of the thing. Wanna read how it starts?

I’m writing this not knowing how long I have left … How’s that for dramatic? I was hoping to see you one last time, but it seems time isn’t on our side.

Um. So, if you’re on your deathbed, it’s totally okay to play up to the dramatic. I wish I’d known this five years ago, so I could have said something really offensive, and not just blabbed at my doctor how Scrubs had covered my illness and the patient with it died. Although, that was kinda tactless of me.

I’m going to skip most of the letter, except one section to highlight my previous point about the letter contents. She even hangs a lampshade on it:

So, the purpose of this letter? It is to tell you how much I love you, and how our time together has given me some of my fondest memories. You are a breathtaking young woman and watching you blossom and grow into such a wonderful human being has been one of the highlights of my life. I say that with absolute sincerity and hope that one day you’ll believe in yourself as much as I believe in you. You deserve to have so much happiness.

Now, I know this is meant to be a poignant moment between two women, across the great divide, but to me it just smacks as a plot contrivance to big up Sophie. Let me rephrase – Molly died in order for someone to big up how wonderful Sophie is, regardless of what has just happened, because Giovanna has gotten sick of writing so much emo. Molly died so Giovanna could fap over her stand-in. Molly essentially, died for nothing. I mean, what does it add to the plot, really? It gives her a reason to stick around, to not continue progressing through her life, to avoid the subject of Billy. Since the story is called Billy and Me, it does not compute for this writer. It’s so freaking messy. This story isn’t the story that’s been sold.

Oh, actually, there’s another part of the letter I’m going to stick in (sorry, it’s been a month since I read, I thought it was later in the chapter that this came up!) because it’s what I referred to at the beginning of this chapter.

Billy came to see me today. What a fool he has been. I have no doubt that he loves you as much as I do. What you must remember is that love, as powerful as it may be, is never simple or straightforward.

She bangs on about Billy some more, and how he and Sophie are meant to be, but I call time out. Billy went to see her. And how did he know she was in the hospice? How did he find out? Have they been calling? What has he done to be branded a fool? his job? Getting set up in a completely OOC plot contrivance? Was he the reason the press was there, really, when Sophie made her way to the hospice?

Sophie does question that section, not as in depth as I just did (There’s one thing that niggles at my brain and irritates me, though, and that is – when did Billy go to see Molly? How did he know that she was ill? Had he known she was ill before I did?) ugh, her BFF was sick, but how dare she tell Billy first! Maybe, when you wouldn’t pick the fuck up on her, she called Billy, thinking you were together, and told him then, and that’s when he started calling you repetitively? Which I think is what happened, which makes Sophie a bigger bitch. No, wait, you want even bigger bitch? Next paragraph!

It feels strange to know that he would have driven out all this way and not even attempted to come and see me. Not that I would’ve wanted to see him obviously – I’d told him to give me space – but I’d have thought he would have tried, given the circumstances.

Oh, I’m sorry he tried calling you and texting you to let you know without the embarrassment of seeing him face-to-face and you blanked him, even if you could have found out earlier. I’m sorry he respected your wishes and did as you asked because you have him so whipped.

She texts him, finally, but it only asks how he knew about Molly. He texts back a couple of minutes later, babbling on and letting me think he really feels the pain of Molly’s death too:

Hello! You OK? It’s so good to hear from you, Sophie. Molly called here. I thought she was about to give me a bollocking, but it turned out she was looking for you. I could tell something wasn’t right, in the end she told me where she was and I drove over. She agreed to let me call your Mum when I was there. Are you OK?

Nice essay Billy. Couple of points:

-Sophie is a bitch. I called it again. It’s boring for a reader to be able to guess your plotlines, Giovanna. No one has yet guessed my big one, at least, not to my face, and no one ever sees the end of book one coming. Fuck you.

-So Billy let her family know. Billy’s doing all this and you’re still playing high and mighty? The fuck do you think you are?

-Are you OK twice? What is this, Smooth Criminal? Or a set up for another Mcfly song? (And, oh! Just tell yourself, I’ll be okay)

I’ll say it again.

Billy keeps texting, despite not getting a reply, explaining why he didn’t come see her, and I think it’s reasonable – couldn’t get away from work for long, she wouldn’t have wanted him to anyway. And then he asks where Molly is.

You read that correctly. She’s been dead for a couple of days at this point – sorry, it was stated at the beginning of the chapter – and Billy doesn’t know. Billy worked hard to give Sophie the chance to see her one last time, to do it all behind the scenes so Sophie didn’t have to face him if she didn’t want to, and he’s excluded from the club that gets to know. Could Giovanna make her characters even more heinous? Sophie texts back a really clinical message saying Molly died in her sleep. And Billy’s response?

Oh, Soph, I’m so sorry to hear that. Are you OK?

The sweetness of the sentiment and the fact that someone actually gives a shit that Molly has passed is completely marred by him asking, once again, if she’s okay. I mean, I get that he’s concerned for her, and more so on learning that her best friend just expired, but it just smacks of SophieCentral, and only her emotions matter. It wouldn’t, if we hadn’t been bombarded with superficial Sophie feels this entire time, and that’s a shame because I think that’s a really sweet moment. Sophie’s bland in her response, and Billy warms my heart again. Lookit:

Not really. It’s such a shock. I can’t believe she’s gone.

I know. It’s awful. Helps to put things into perspective though, doesn’t it …? Oh, Sophie, I wish I could 

hug you. I miss you so much. Can I see you.

Loljokes, I actually think Billy’s turned into a girl. What guy says that?

Sophie pretends she has feelings for a bit, and then finally texts back No. I think that’s in response to him asking to see her after her rambling, but … he posed two questions. Does that cover both in a blanket answer? Is she intoning that Molly’s death has done nothing to alter her perspective on the intricacies of life?

Words mean things. Use them to remove ambiguity. Then publish.

Billy begs her to see him, and says he has much to share. And this whole Molly episode has made such an impact … no, seriously, her response must have been a blanket term for both questions, because she refuses to see him and find out what must be important for him to share. She did that and almost lost her chance to pay her last respects to Molly, so I’m glad she’s learnt the lesson.

There’s a section break for Sophie to go down and sit on the stairs, waiting for her mother who was apparently out. As soon as she walks through the door, Sophie demands to know when she spoke to Billy.

Hold up, so she learns Billy found out about Molly when she was blanking them both and worked his ass off to make sure she knew and the best route he could think of was to contact her mother and provide for her in the only avenue left available to him and she listens to that and takes away ‘my mother dared to pick up the phone to Billy’?

Am I still the only one thinking Sophie May is a bitch?

Sophie’s mum is on the ball:

“Come on, that really doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is that we found out about Molly before it was too late.”

So Sophie pouts, even as her mother says that no one knew, and people assumed she was stressed or something. There’s some guff about Molly knowing before Sophie left for London, and she didn’t want to hold Sophie back any more and Sophie wouldn’t leave if she’d known. I think it’s meant to be sweet, but I am so passed caring about these people now. There’s more guff about how Molly covered up the fact she wasn’t working in the shop anymore and people thought she was in Australia. Obviously, not the same people. I have to state this, because it’s really not clear in the text.

There’s more blabbing, and the phone rings, and it turns out to be Billy, not taking the hint that Sophie is devoid of feeling anything real, but it leads up to a great scene I am definitely skipping on Sophie refusing to talk and her mother doing her dirty work for her. And then the chapter ends and I remind myself that there’s 9% left of the book and no reason for me to stab myself in the eye with a blunt pencil.