"Ghent, June 2006" "Round your arm." "Look at Mummy." "It'll feel a bit tight." "Keep still, sweetie." "Don't cry." "All done." "All done." "Don't do that." "It's all done now." "Right." "The doctor will see you now." "And I'll stay with this little lady." " Be good, eh?" "Hello, little lady." "What's this?" " My rucksack." "No, it's a giant ladybird." " It's a rucksack!" "A giant ladybird!" "Hello, doctor." " Come in." "Can you watch on your own for a moment?" "Mummy and Daddy are just popping out." "There's a good girl." "Can we agree on one thing?" "We do our crying at home." "When we're in here we're positive, OK?" "OK." "Come on." "Look at her." "She's fine." " Yeah..." "Isn't she?" "We're going to shoot it dead tomorrow." "What are we going to do?" " Shoot the cancer dead." "Yes!" " Yes!" "Bump heads!" "Go to sleep now, you silly sausage." " That'll do." "7 years previously" "Does all that belong to you?" " Yes." "Wow!" "Very nice!" " But it needs a lot of work done to it." "Still..." " So for now I sleep... there." "In that caravan?" "You're a real cowboy after all!" " I do my best." "Is that horse yours too?" " Yes, that's Earl." "Chickens!" "Is he bad-tempered?" " No, he's very sweet-natured." "J.D. Crowe and The New South." "Then the Tony Rice Unit." "Manzanita is definitely my favourite CD ever." "He used to have a fantastic voice." "But he lost It." "It's such a shame." "I don't know how." "Following an illness or something." "Or a bit too much whisky!" "Why do you play the banjo?" "I'm too stupid to play the guitar and too dumb to play the mandolin." "No, no." "I used to be a punk rocker and a banjo sort of snarls, which reminds me of punk rock." "I love it." "How come you've got so many tattoos?" "Elise?" "Hi, cowboy." "Seeing as you don't want a tattoo..." "Do you like it?" "Yes." "Good afternoon." " Shhh, shhh." "Here we are with lunch." "She's just fallen asleep." " The hospital has its set times." "Maybelle is ill!" " Sweetheart..." "Ill!" " Sweetheart..." "You could say something too, Didier." " Say what?" "Eh?" "What?" "Sorry." "Sorry." "Hey, Maybelle." "Sorry, sweetie." "Mummy shouldn't shout like that, eh?" "Sorry." "Sorry." " It's alright." "Now we're going to do our best to sit very still." "You'll feel a little prick." "Well done." "OK, ready?" "That hurt." "You knew, eh?" "Who gave it to me?" " Your mummy." "Before that it belonged to my mummy's mummy." "And before that to my mummy's mummy's mummy." "And now I'm giving it to you." "Because I'm your mummy." "And when you're grown up, you can give it to your little girl." "But until then I want you to hold on tightly to it when you feel sad, or when you're scared or when you feel lonely." "Then close your eyes and think of something nice." "Shall we give it a try?" "Dirt-poor fortune-hunters from all over the world were there on the Appalachians, on that slate that was bloody difficult to mine." "The Spaniard had a guitar, the Italian a mandolin, the Jew a violin and the African a banjar, from which the banjo is descended." "To combat the hunger and the misery, they started singing songs about their dreams of a promised land, often about their fear of dying, their hope for a better life in the hereafter and their sorrow, their hard life." "Didier?" "Didier?" "Elise, can you come and help me, sweetheart?" "Where are you?" "Didier?" "What?" "What's the matter?" "Are you alright, sweetheart?" "I'm pregnant." "Three months." "What?" "Maybe I don't want that." "How did that happen?" "How come?" "I..." "I've never been regular." "What do you think?" "That I knew?" "That I've tricked you into this?" "Maybe I don't want to make decisions about someone else's life." "I didn't know." "D'you expect us to carry on living in that caravan with a baby?" "Hello, Maybelle." " Hello, doctor." "I love your face." "You can go home tomorrow." " Yes!" "Great, eh?" "But you have to come back in a few weeks." "Like I told you, eh?" " Yes." "Then we can see if Captain Chemo won the fight." "Thank you, doctor." "What are you?" " A tiger." "A tiger." "And what is Mummy?" " A butterfly." "What do tigers do?" "What's that?" "Can you hear what I can hear?" "There's someone in our house." "Do you dare go and take a look?" "Cos I don't." "Go and see." "Are you going to go and see?" "Well?" "Can you see anything?" "Funny, aren't they?" "I'm so pleased you're back." " Welcome home." "That's beautiful!" "Do you like it?" " Yes." "Go on." " What?" "Carry on." "Hey, darling." " Yeah?" "How about building a veranda onto the front of the house?" "A what?" "A veranda?" "There's nothing more useless than a veranda." "You never sit in it." "You bought some steak tartare." "But it'd be great, wouldn't it?" " A veranda is great." "Oh, come on, sweetheart." "In summer you go outside when it's hot and in winter you stay indoors by the stove." "But we live in Belgium, where it's a bit too cold to sit outside and a bit too hot to stay indoors." "You really bought some steak tartare?" "That's not steak tartare!" " It's vegetarian." "Nice, isn't it?" "Bloody hell!" "Come on!" "I don't like sitting in the wind and neither does our baby." "So it's decided, you need a veranda." "OK, you'll get your veranda but this is the last time you use that argument." "Thanks." " What?" "It's only a veranda." "Well?" "Do you know what it is yet?" " A baby, I reckon." "But I can't be sure." "With Didier being such a stallion, it could be a foal." "Shit." "It's coming." "My water has broken." "Keep calm." "Sit down." " No." "Keep calm, keep calm." "Elise has had the baby." "It's a girl." "Yes, it's really..." "Maybelle." "Maybelle." "Yes, like Maybelle Carter." "You know nothing about names!" "No, no." "Hands down." "What's that?" "What?" "That's not a veranda, sweetheart." " No..." "No, it's a 'terranda'." "The perfect combination of a terrace and a veranda." "It's lovely." "It's wonderful." "Thank you." "Go on." "Go on." "That's it!" "Go on." "That's it!" "Look." "Oh, watch out..." "It is the worst terrorist attack ever experienced by the United States..." "Look, look." "Happy New Year!" "Are you going to become a cowgirl too?" " Yes." "Daddy!" "Put that down, Maybelle." "Give it to me, sweetie." "Don't cry." "Give it to me, sweetie." "Why is the birdie dead, Daddy?" "Well, sweetie..." "the birdie flew into the glass..." "Birds don't know what glass is." "They think that if they can see through it, they can fly through it." "Not very clever of them, eh?" "Where does the birdie go when it's dead?" "We..." "We just have to throw it away now." "Eh, Maybelle?" "We mustn't put it on the compost heap." "It's like a chicken, it's got bones in it." "We'll throw it in the dustbin." "Come on." "No, Daddy." "It's dirty, darling." "Give it to me, sweetie." "I'll throw it away for you, OK?" "Do you want to throw it away?" "Give it to me." "Come on." "Come on." "Give it to me." "Give it to me." "No!" "Maybelle!" "The chemo isn't working." "Her bone marrow is producing abnormal white blood cells again." "Which isn't very good news, of course." "But, as we've already discussed, we're not giving up yet." "We will simply move on to the next stage in the treatment, a stem cell transplant." "First, we will destroy her own bone marrow with more chemo and radiotherapy, then we will replace it with new stem cells from a donor." "A donor who is as close to Maybelle as possible." "Unfortunately, parents can't be considered as donors." "How did it go?" "It was a difficult afternoon." " How come?" "Just after you'd gone she was doing some drawing outside and another bird flew into our terranda." "I came out and she was standing there crying, with a dead bird in her hands." "That wouldn't happen with a veranda." " It'd happen even more!" "Stupid birds!" "You'd think that it would eventually be written in their genes." "That it'd become a sort of instinct passed on from mummy bird to chick, that when they see a frame they realize it's dangerous to try to fly through it." "But innumerable generations of birds obviously need to fly into that window before it starts to get through to them." "Bye." " Bye." "You should try explaining to a child how come the bird isn't moving anymore." "It's difficult." " I know." "You want to say people have come up with all kinds of ways of dealing with it." "That some people believe the bird has a soul that doesn't die and goes up to heaven." "That it'll see it's mummy and daddy again there and will fly around forever in a place where the sun always shines and there aren't any windows." "That other people believe the bird is a martyr in the fight against windows." "And after his death he'll be given lots of female birds that have never mated and he can do what he wants with them." "But Daddy doesn't believe in any of that." "Daddy thinks that... that everything just dies and stays dead." "But..." "But you can't say that." " No, you can't say that, Didier." "Her natural resistance will be destroyed completely first and she'll be very weak." "Which is why we're putting her in a sterile, pressurized room." "The new blood cells may attack her body." "That doesn't happen with identical stem cells but you only find those in the case of identical twins or cloned embryos." "Unfortunately, science hasn't got that far yet." "Her chances are very good." "She has a very good chance of being completely cured." "Don't lose heart." "Thank you." "Daddy?" " Yes?" "That birdie has become a star now." "OK, sweetie." "If you want to believe that that birdie is a star now, then it is." "I'll tell you what, choose one." "That one." "That one?" "That big shiny one up there?" "That one?" "OK." "Bye-bye, birdie." " Bye-bye, birdie." "I love you." " I love you too." "Clever girl." "And that, that's blood." "The stem cells are In there." "Stem cells are little soldiers who will march down that tube into your blood." "And those little soldiers mean business." "Understand?" "Eh?" "They are going to cure you." "Hey." " Hello." "We're allowed to go home." " Are you?" "Milan's levels are perfect" " Great!" "Congratulations." "Is it a plane?" "Is it a bird?" "No, it's not." " Maybelle..." "It's Mega Mindu." " It's too early." "Get some more sleep." "You're far too lively for me." " Is it a plane?" "Is It a bird?" "No, it's not." " How about getting some more sleep?" "No, I'm 6, I was allowed to wake you up early." "Oh yes, of course, it's your birthday." "No, don't tickle me!" "Don't!" "Don't, don't tickle me!" " Happy birthday!" "6 years old!" "Happy birthday, sweetie." " Happy birthday." "You look..." "You look lovely." "In your pink costume." "How about getting some more sleep?" " No." "Yes." "Come on." "Right, have you almost finished?" "Come on, sweetie." "Rinse your mouth." "That's it." "Come on, put your shoes on." "Come on, sweetie, get a move on." "Now what?" "Get the other one." "Come on." " I'm tired, Mummy." "So am I, sweetie." "We're all tired." "But we have to get a move on, eh?" "Kiss." " The bus is there." "Come on." "Coat." " You're bleeding round your teeth." "How often have I told you not to scrub so hard with your toothbrush?" "Rucksack." " Right." "Let her go now." " Alright." "Didier?" " Yes?" "Just one." "I'll open the door in a minute." " Yeah, yeah." "She's got more bruises on her arms." " I know, I saw them." "Hi." "Hi." "Here." "Thanks." "Shall I light the stove?" "No." "No, it's OK." "Sweetheart..." "Can we go and see my mum Sunday?" "Yes..." "I think so." "It's..." "It's Mother's Day on Sunday." "She'll be pleased to see you." "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "You're going to pull through, sweetheart." "Goddammit!" "Her heart has stopped." "Stop the ambulance." "What the fuck is happening now?" "Adrenalin, OK?" " What's happening?" "What's happening?" " We're losing her." "You're not losing her." "D'you hear me?" "You're not!" "Don't let her go!" "D'you hear me?" "Don't let her go." " Move back and calm down, please."