“Oh dear,” he says. “Are you normally a lights-out kind of girl?”
“Yeah,” I say with a giggle. “Probably.”
He grapples for my cast-off beret, then places it over my face. “Happier now?”
After days and nights of lonely introspection, this intimate stranger makes me smile. He lifts off the beret and plants a kiss on each eyelid with his soft lips. We lie under the heavy autumnal branches, smiling up at the light that shimmies through the leaves.
I reflect on what’s happened, amazed to feel this comfortable. It was as if we were entirely private, not giving a thought to the prospect of passersby. Passersby! It would have been so possible. But nothing would have stopped us. Not even the threat of arrest.
I shiver.
“Cold?” he says.
“A little bit exposed, if I’m honest.”
He pulls his coat across me.
Our feather mattress is now restored to a lumpen mass of jumbled clothing and gritty soil, my feather pillow once again his arm. I feel the need to make myself decent and fumble for my knickers. He follows my lead, wriggles into the pants that are cuffing his ankles, pulling up his trousers.
“I think I’m wearing half the heath,” he says.
“I’m wearing the other half.” I laugh, inelegantly flicking away some grit.
He jostles inside his coat pockets, pulls out a squished packet of Marlboros, fishes out a cigarette with his mouth, then shakes out a Bic lighter. He makes me cup my hands around his, as he flicks the flint, the flame resisting before finally responding and he lights the cigarette, drawing in deeply, his cheekbones sharp and defined, shaded by morning stubble.
He passes the cigarette to me and I take it as though it’s the most normal thing I’ve ever done, trying hard not to make an idiot of myself, sucking on the filter determined to keep the damn thing alight.
He scoffs. “You’ve never smoked, have you?”
“You can tell?”
“It was a tough call.”
I laugh. “Sounds stupid now, but I was always terrified it might kill me.” I look at the cigarette, take another drag, and, as if to affirm his statement, the smoke hits the back of my throat and I break into a seizing cough.
“Breathe.”
“I’m trying to.”
He turns toward me, his face suddenly serious.
“Are you laughing or crying or choking?” he says.
“I’m not sure,” I splutter, sitting up, as the pounding of a pair of joggers resounds in the distance. It silences me.
“Pinch me,” I say. “Did we really do that?”
He reaches toward me and sweeps a strand of hair away from my forehead, his fingers floating across the curve of my cheek.
“We really did,” he says. “And it was very beautiful.”
I feel myself blush. “Yes, it was.”
“And I’m so sorry about your news. Truly I am.”
“Oh, don’t be. You’ve made my day. And every day counts.”
“You shouldn’t count them,” he says with a somber shake of his tousled hair. “You should live them.” He retrieves the cigarette from my amateur grasp, relights it, inhaling deeply with an air of exotic insolence, then hands it back to me as if to give me a second chance.
“I think I’ll pass.”
He raises his eyebrows in a smile and lies back, cigarette clamped between his lips, looking up between the thick branches at the hints of clear blue sky. “At least you can do all those things now,” he says.
“How do you mean?”
He pauses. “You know. All the things you thought might kill you.”
Suddenly all I can think of is the letters; the brave, honest, foolhardy words out there, possibly held in the hands of their intended, and I shudder. He draws me back to lie down with him, tucking me into the warm curve of his body.
“For a start, you can become an eighty-a-day smoker,” he says with a smile, smoke dancing from his mouth. “I envy you that.” He looks back at me, the cigarette stuck in natural balance to his lower lip. “Hmmm. I guess that’s more my thing.”
“You should be banned!” I say.
“I should?”
“Yes! Because you make it look attractive. They should only allow people like me to smoke in public. I would be the best warning label ever. ‘Jesus, how off-putting is she? And she stinks.’”
He gives a deep appreciative laugh, like I’m the funniest person in the world. I don’t care if he’s faking.
“Do I stink?” he says.
“I like your stink.”
He snorts. “I should give up.”
“Yeah,” I say, then grimace. “Oh God, I sound like such an awful prude, don’t I?”
He points at the lack of bedroom walls and grins. “Nah. You’re no prude.”
“Oh, I am,” I say. “You have no idea how brave this is. I’ve never done anything like this before. Let alone no protection.” The thought just dawns on me but who needs protection now?
“It’s not exactly a habit of mine, either,” he says.
“But you don’t strike me as the conventional type. Unlike me. All my life I’ve stuck to the safe path. You’ve taken me off it and I needed to do that. To see how it feels.” I turn over onto my stomach, prop myself up on my elbows and gaze across at him. “And you’ve made me realize something.”
He props himself up next to me, an elbow nudging against mine.
“I have?”
“Yes . . . Telling you I’m dying has freed me up to live.”
He lets out a mournful sigh and crushes the cigarette stub into the grass. “You’re welcome,” he says.
We stand up and he asks for my number, but I tell him he doesn’t need to be polite.
“I’m not being polite. I’d like to see you again,” he protests, fighting to brush the wet grass and mud flakes off his crumpled trousers.
“What’s the point?”
“Come on,” he insists. “See me again. We can do other things. Art galleries. Cinema. Pub darts. Speed dating as if there’s no tomorrow, pun intended. Cram in whatever we can whenever we can! Or, we can just, you know . . .” He gives a cheeky grin, tilts his head to one side. “. . . fuck!”
I laugh, shocked by his easy candor. I like this man. I’m tempted.
“Come on,” he says. “What are you doing otherwise? Twiddling your thumbs? Counting the days?”
This is agony. I long to have someone to hold and reassure me during the dark lonely hours but somehow I don’t feel that’s what he’s looking for. Besides, why would he want to get involved with a woman who won’t be around much past this season? “No,” I say. “Let’s leave it here. Why spoil the moment?”
“I was hoping to improve on it. A mattress and clean sheets for a start. Sounds appealing, no?”
I smile. It is appealing. It really is. But I’m doing him a favor, sparing him from something he really doesn’t want to be a party to. “It does. But this was special. It’s how I’d prefer to remember it.”
He shrugs. “Your call,” he says, peering at me as though he can see my quandary. “Sure I can’t persuade you?”
I shake my head. “Certain.” I have never been less certain.
We hug each other like the friends we might have been. “Don’t be too good,” he says. “You can let yourself off the hook sometimes, you know.”
“I’ll try my best.” God, he’s perceptive. Damn him . . .
I pick up my beret and start to walk away, clutching it to my chest, as though the imprint of his hand might stay with me forever. I feel bereft, which is crazy, because I’ve known him less than an hour.
Is this what my life is going to be like now?
Full of loss and good-byes?
I think he’s watching me —you know how sometimes you feel it
—but I resist the urge to turn round in case I’m wrong. I want to suppose he’s holding on to the very last glimpse of me, the way I’m holding on to the final traces of him. Most of all, I want to believe I’ve left him with a lasting impression because that’s all I have left to give.
* * *
—
I check my face in the lift mirror on my way up to my office, having showered and changed and made sure all the grass and grit is out of my hair.. Does it show? Will colleagues look at me and sense something’s different? Or am I just being ridiculous? After all, if they can’t spot that I’m ill, how will they spot that I did something totally out of character? Maybe the smirk on my face is a giveaway. Stupid. Forget it. Yet, I feel there is a change—a new glimmer of defiance about me. Yes, I’m dying. Yes, it’s terrible. But I’m not going to let it cower me. I feel good about writing those letters. I am going to let myself off the hook.
I turn events around in my head. I had sex with a stranger practically in plain sight. Me! The most law-abiding citizen ever! We could have been arrested, for heaven’s sake. We got away with it. We were lucky. And I feel different. No longer in denial. Not angry or scared. Empowered.
Hang on a minute! What am I thinking? I can’t go round having sex with strangers simply because I have an incurable illness. And yet . . . it was liberating. I’m glad I acted on impulse because, in the moment, it felt right.
I can’t tell anyone. Not Pattie. Not even Olivia. If I share it, it might lose its heady magic. I want to keep it to myself like a piece of buried treasure. I’ve proven I can be wild and fearless, but only I need know.
I hang my coat up on the stand and sit down at my desk, pull my phone out of my bag, and check the screen. Nothing. Not a missed call. Not one response from any of them. Not even my sister.
What would Isabelle make of what I’d done? Her “goody-two-shoes” (her words), conformist sibling. Would I tell her? Probably not. But I’d quite like to, if only to prove a point.
They say the younger child is meant to be the more dynamic, less insecure one, but I maintain the younger child merely inhabits the space left by the older one and Isabelle grabbed all the best bits. Extraordinarily pretty, all she had to do was smile and whatever she wanted was hers. Four years my senior, she seemed so sophisticated, so in charge. In our household, Isabelle was not only granted special privileges but any transgressions were conveniently overlooked. If Isabelle got a bad school report (frequent), it didn’t seem to matter, but if I dared bring one home that was anything less than perfect, there was hell to pay. “Isabelle has the looks but Jennifer has the brains” was said so regularly, it was as though it was intended to bring comfort. It certainly did to my sister who would go all coy, enjoying the pronouncement, while I would swallow it like a disgusting medicine that was good for me.
Don’t get me wrong, my parents weren’t divisive tyrants. I’m sure they saw it as heaping appropriate praise on our individual strengths, doing their best to encourage us like all other parents. But they weren’t like other parents—not the liberal, Hampstead types anyway. They were deeply traditional, clinging to their own wartime upbringing for guidance. The progressive thinking hewn from the swinging sixties bore no truck in our house. My father was a city solicitor. His name came after the ampersand in the firm’s title and from the day she left Pitman’s college my mother became his secretary. When they married, she thought she was the luckiest woman from the Home Counties. She deferred to him on everything, and my father duly rewarded her with a strict weekly allowance that she never exceeded. Knowing the challenges of rationing, even when it was long over and those little blue books torn up and discarded, my mother and father remained most comfortable living frugally. They were only extravagant in their love. They were each other’s world and they put each other first.
Then came my sister. Then me. There was a definite pecking order, but for us it was normal. Any mention of favoritism was derided as ridiculous. Our family was run on harmony and respect. Thus they imprinted their disciplined beliefs into our DNA and I, being suggestible, followed their every rule. My sister, on the other hand, did not.
Isabelle was the canny one, always quick to spot an opportunity. Noting my conscientiousness, she decided I would make an excellent slave and I willingly obliged. It was not an entirely altruistic decision because being her slave allowed me to be around her friends as long as I fetched and carried and did their bidding. I was so in awe, I would happily have done whatever was necessary to remain in their company.
“Brush our hair!” they would say and I would dutifully go round the circle with the Mason Pearson brush, being as gentle or as firm as instructed. “Go get some biscuits from the kitchen.” “Bring up the bottle of squash and a jug of water.” “Bring up some cans of fizzy drink.”
Our mother was complicit in my slavery, preparing the tray while I would to and fro, up and down our narrow Victorian staircase, juggling their requests, tongue clamped between my teeth, desperate not to fall or to spill anything on to the light beige wool carpet and incur her wrath.
“Now go and get some more!” Isabelle would instruct and off I’d trot.
I was never allowed to sit among them or partake of any of the goodies I laid at their feet. Emily, back then my closest friend both in proximity and heart, would join me in my corner and we’d sit, holding hands, gazing with adoration at the sophistication that was my sister and her friends.
When Isabelle became a teenager, our parents in their evenhanded wisdom decided it was time our rooms were redecorated. My mother brought home a book of Laura Ashley wallpapers she’d gotten on loan, which, judging from the look on Isabelle’s face, was the most exciting book she had ever seen.
The Laura Ashley tome was placed in front of us as we sat side by side at the old pine kitchen table. To add to the sense of treat, we were given a bag of Maltesers to share and invited to choose the design we most wanted.
“You can have them,” said Isabelle, pushing the Maltesers at me. “No one will care if you get fat and spotty.” The bag remained untouched but oh so longed for.
Maybe to compensate for this mean-spirited gibe, she grudgingly said I could have first choice, which was so out of character in its generosity, I swiftly settled on a lovely blue-and-yellow floral before she had a chance to change her mind.
“That’s so babyish,” she pronounced. “You should have this!” She pointed to a burgundy-and-muddy-green irregular stripe, which I didn’t particularly care for but since I imagined her taste to be better than mine, I told our mother that was the one I wanted.
Finally, when our rooms were redecorated, mine looked dull and sensible and Isabelle’s was bright and exciting . . . with blue and yellow flowers.
“I wanted that one,” I wailed. “Why did Isabelle get it?”
“I got you precisely the paper you chose,” said Mother innocently.
“Isabelle chose it for me. I wanted the flowers, but she said they were babyish.”
“Oh, don’t whine, Jennifer!” she said. “Your room looks perfectly lovely. It reflects your personality. I think Isabelle made the right choice for you. She’s got a good eye.”
I wanted to punch that good eye.
“Isabelle . . .” I said, tentatively to her reflection in the mirror as she sat at her dressing table, preening. “Maybe . . . possibly . . . do you think we should swap rooms?”
“Jennifer,” she sniped. “Maybe . . . possibly . . . you should have been born first!”
So I went and slumped on the floor in my bedroom, staring at my burgundy and muddy-green stripes, wondering what they said about my personality.
Emily assured me that my room looked wonderful. “Stunning. So smart,” she said, although I could see when we peeked into Isabelle’s she was totally blown away.
“What are you two idiots staring at?” said Isabelle.
“Your room is so pretty,”
Emily told her.
“I know,” she said. “Now piss off.”
Isabelle’s innate skills were soon transferred to the boys who pursued her. She could twist them round her little finger, be as beastly to them as she wanted and they responded by being adoring. We all worshipped her, no matter what; she had the power to make us run around her and be grateful.
And then came my turn. Neil Abernathy. My first love. For me, Neil was “the one” and to mess with a popular adage, “it is a truth universally acknowledged that your first love is always the most significant.”
We met at university. He was in the same halls, his room a bit farther down the corridor from mine. I noticed him straightaway because of his hair. While most of the male students proudly cultivated Patrick Swayze mullets or ugly gelled quiffs, Neil had long glossy hair, which swung in curtains above his shoulders. I thought he was insanely handsome. Sadly, he never noticed me.
Until, one day, near the end of second term, I was dragged by a friend to a students’ union meeting where Neil was speaking. Afterward, he came over and chatted with me and I was so flattered, I signed up there and then to be a member of the Labor Party even though I had never given politics a second thought—it was a subject far too dirty ever to be discussed at home.
After attending several political meetings, I got what I wanted. Neil and I became lovers. Soon we were a couple. He made me feel glamorous and rebellious, and I knew this was the man I wanted to be with for the rest of my life.
In the Easter break of my final year I brought Neil home, braving my parents’ disapproval yet secretly craving it. Naturally, we were not allowed to share my bedroom so Isabelle happily went to stay with her friend Miranda and Neil got to stay in her blue-and-yellow floral boudoir.
“I’m not sleeping here,” he says, flopping back against her mound of plumped-up chintz cushions, kicking off his trainers, and patting the bed for me to join him. “Come the midnight hour, I’ll be with you.”
“You have to sleep here,” I told him, sitting half on, half off the edge of the mattress, already uneasy at his suggestion. “My parents will throw me out if they ever discover you sneaking into my room.”
Death and Other Happy Endings Page 5