Something Like Happy

by Eva Woods

  “Well, okay. I won’t be long.”

  Annie went into the bathroom—rusty mirror, moldering shower curtain—and wondered if she’d gone mad. There was a strange woman in her house and she was just letting it happen. A woman she knew nothing about, who could be crazy, and quite likely was, judging by her clothes. Maybe that was why they’d met in the neurological department. Maybe she’d had a blow to the head and it had turned her into a person with no boundaries, who came to your flat and read your depressing private pamphlets.

  Annie had the world’s quickest wash, what her mum would have called a lick and a polish. For many months after her life fell apart, the shower used to be the place she cried, her fist stuffed in her mouth to muffle the sound. But there was no time for that today, so she threw on a near-identical outfit to the one she’d worn yesterday. No point in looking nice. Not for a place where people were either dying, or wished they were.

  On her way out—no makeup, wet hair bundled up—she heard voices from the living room. Her heart sank. He must be on a short shift today.

  “Annie!” Polly beamed at her as she went in. “I was just meeting your lovely friend here!”

  “Hiya, Annie!” Costas waved. Costas was Greek, gorgeous and had abs you could crack eggs on. He was also twenty-two, had turned Annie’s spare room into a festering rubbish dump and hilariously enough worked in Costa Coffee. At least, he thought it was hilarious.

  “He’s my flatmate. I need to go now.”

  “In a minute. Costas brought back some pastries!”

  “Boss says I should take away. Still good, though!” He was holding open a brown paper bag full of croissants and Danish pastries. He smiled at Polly. “You come to Costa sometime, I make you special Greek coffee. Strong enough to blow off your head!”

  Suddenly Annie was angry. How dare this woman come here and lift the lid on Annie’s life, the sordid flat, the unwashed dishes? “I’m going now,” she said. “Costas, could you wash up your pans? You left green stuff all over the baking dish last night.”

  “Spanakopita—needs to soak.”

  “Oh, I love spanakopita!” cried Polly. “I backpacked in Greece when I was eighteen. Kyria!”

  “Kyria!” Costas gave her a thumbs-up, and his widest white grin. He was always smiling. It was very wearing. “Very good, Polly.”

  Annie put her coat on, as passive-aggressively as she could. “I’ll be late.”

  “Oh! Right, let’s split. Lovely to meet you, Costas-Annie’s-friend.”

  “He’s my flatmate,” she said, opening the door crossly. She wasn’t entirely sure why.

  * * *

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the bus will now stop to change drivers. It will take, er...we don’t know.”

  The bus filled with a gust of sighs. “I’ll definitely be late now,” Annie muttered to herself.

  “Bloody wasters,” grumbled an elderly man behind her who was wearing a hairy suit that smelled strongly of damp. “Two pound a journey for this. Lining their pockets, they are.”

  Polly said, “Well, it gives us a chance to look around.” Annie and the man exchanged a quick incredulous glance. The view out the window was of a large Tesco and a patch of waste ground with a burned-out car on it. “Or chat,” Polly went on. “Where are you off to, sir?”

  “Funeral,” he grunted, leaning on his stick.

  “I’m sorry. Friend of yours?”

  Annie shrank into her seat. A man in paint-stained jeans was already rolling his eyes. What if people thought she was with the woman who talked on the bus? The most dangerous London pest, worse that urban foxes or Japanese knotweed.

  “Me old mucker Jimmy. Had good innings, though. Fighter pilot in the Blitz, he was.”

  “Oh, how fascinating. How did you meet?”

  A woman in a headscarf removed one earbud and tutted loudly. Annie cringed.

  “Grew up on the same street. Old Bermondsey. He was RAF, I was navy. I could tell you a thing or two, love.” He gave an emphysemic chuckle. Annie picked up an abandoned Metro and began to ostentatiously read about gangland stabbings, as the old man droned on.

  “And then Jimmy, he ’id in the wardrobe till ’er ’usband nodded off, then he nipped out the window...”

  “This is so sad,” Annie said pointedly, waving the paper. “Three stabbings this month alone.”

  “Bunch of ’oodlums,” said the old man. “Jimmy and me were the terror of the streets but we never did no stabbings. A punch in the face—now, that’s civilized. Gentlemanly.”

  Annie closed her eyes: she could not endure another second of this. Luckily, the bus started to move, and Mate-of-Jimmy’s got off at the next stop, seizing Polly’s hand and planting a wet kiss on it. “Nice speaking to you, young lady.”

  “I’ve got some hand sanitizer,” offered Annie.

  Polly laughed. “He’ll probably outlive me.”

  Annie raised her paper again. Everyone else on the bus had headphones in, like decent people. Only Polly insisted on staring around her, waving at babies and dogs, making eye contact all over the show. If she carried on like that, there was a good chance they’d be arrested by the London Transport Police and not even make the hospital.

  * * *

  But they did make it. The homeless man was still sitting by the bus shelter, and Annie wondered if he’d been there all night. His head was bowed. Polly hunkered down to him, as Annie cringed again and stared off into the distance. “Hello. What’s your name? I’m Polly.”

  He glanced up slowly, clearing his throat. His voice was like sandpaper. “Jonny.”

  “Is there anything I can bring you when I come out? Hot drink?”

  Annie was blushing on Polly’s behalf. Wasn’t it patronizing, to offer a hot drink instead of cash? He looked surprised. “A coffee would be nice. Anything hot, really.”

  “Sugar?”

  “Eh, two, please. Cheers.”

  “See you a bit later, then. I’ve got to go in there now.”

  “Oh. Good luck.”

  Annie was already walking off, deathly embarrassed. Once inside, she did her best to shake Polly off. “I’m going this way, so—”

  “Me, too. Good old Neurology.” Polly tucked her fur-clad arm through Annie’s. “It’s the best department. I mean, it’s your brain. Everything you are is in there. Much better than stupid hearts or legs, or the worst, dermatology.”

  “Yeah,” Annie said with heavy sarcasm. “It’s great when your brain starts turning to mush in your head.” They’d stopped outside the inpatient ward. “Well, I need to go in there.”

  “Okay.” Polly didn’t move.

  “I mean, only one person’s allowed at a time. So I better just...” Why wouldn’t she go? If she didn’t leave soon, then she might see—

  “Hello. Hello!”

  Annie flinched at the high, nervous voice of the woman tottering toward them in a hospital gown. She was pointing a bony finger at Annie. “You. Miss. Are you the nurse?”

  “So sad,” murmured Polly. “Can we help you, madam?”

  Annie tried to block Polly off. “I don’t think we should—”

  “I’m looking for the nurse.” The woman was barely sixty, but looked eighty. Her face was sunken, her hair gray, and under her hospital gown her legs were bruised and wasted, one wrapped in a bandage. “I need—oh, I don’t know what I need!”

  “I’m sure it’ll come to you. Shall we go into the ward?” Polly was taking her arm, which was mottled with scars that never seemed to heal.

  “I don’t think you should do that.” Annie wanted to scream.

  “Oh, come on, Annie, she needs help.”

  “Just leave it, will you?” snapped Annie. “Go to your own bloody appointment!”

  The woman was staring at her. “You. I k
now you, don’t I? Are you the nurse?”

  “I, uh...” Annie’s voice was dead in her throat. Polly was staring, too, her forehead wrinkled. “No, I’m—”

  At that point a harassed-looking nurse dashed out from the ward. “Maureen! Come on, back to bed now. You can’t walk on that leg.”

  But she wouldn’t leave. She was still staring at Annie. “I know you. I know you!”

  Too late to pretend. “Yes. It’s me, Mum. It’s Annie. I was just coming to see you.”

  Charity—one of the nicer nurses, even if she did insist on praying over the patients—gave Annie a sympathetic look. “Come on now, Maureen. Your daughter will be in to see you soon.”

  As the ward doors swung shut, Polly looked at Annie. “That’s why you were here? You’re not sick yourself?”

  “No. Mum, she—well, she has dementia. Early onset. She had a fall at the weekend, trying to get a chip pan out of the cupboard. Even though she hasn’t had a chip pan since 2007. But they’ll probably discharge her soon and then—I don’t know what then.” Annie took a deep breath.

  Polly’s expression hadn’t changed. Interest, understanding, but no pity. “I guess that explains your attitude of barely suppressed fury.”

  Something broke inside Annie. “Look. I don’t know you, and you’ve got no right to say that. My mum’s not even sixty and she has advanced dementia. Why wouldn’t I be furious? I should be furious. So why don’t you just butt out of my life, okay? What gives you the right to...to...come to my house, and interfere and...” The rest was drowned in sudden, inconvenient tears.

  Polly reacted strangely to this tirade, which left Annie gasping for breath. “Come with me,” Polly said, grasping her hand. Hers was cold, but surprisingly strong. She dragged Annie down the corridor.

  “What? No, I don’t want to—Let go of me!”

  “Come on. I want to show you something.” They’d reached a door with a sign on it that read Dr. Maximilian Fraser, MD FRS. Consultant Neurologist. Underneath it someone had Blu-Tacked up a sign in green ink: No, I Am Not a Supplies Cupboard. Polly threw open the door. “Dr. McGrumpy! It’s your favorite patient.”

  A voice from the dark said, “Come in, Polly. It’s not like I’m in the middle of a highly confidential patient review or anything.”

  “You’re eating a Crunchie and watching cat videos on YouTube,” said Polly, which was true. The room was tiny and gloomy—not much bigger than a cupboard, in fact—and one wall was covered in dark glass. Behind a computer sat a burly man in scrubs, his thick dark hair sticking up as if he’d been running his hands through it, several days’ worth of stubble on his chin.

  “What do you want now?” He had a Scottish accent. Annie saw his eyes rest on her, so she looked at her feet in their shabby black loafers.

  “I want to show the scan to my new friend Annie.”

  “Not again. Do you think I’ve nothing else to do, is that it? You think hospital funding is so luxuriant I’m basically your personal AV monkey?”

  “Come on. You know I’m your best patient.”

  “He’s my best patient. No hassle.” Annie saw he was nodding to a glass jar that held a floating human brain. “Go on, then.” He sighed. He clicked his computer and the wall screen glowed into life, revealing another brain, the ghostly image of one this time. White, spongy. One side of it was darker, tendrils of black curling through it.

  “That’s my brain,” Polly said proudly.

  “Oh,” Annie said, not sure what she was seeing.

  Polly went over and tapped the glass. “Fingerprints,” grunted the doctor. She ignored him.

  “That’s my tree. Glioblastoma—it means ‘branches,’ see.”

  Annie looked at the doctor for guidance. “No one knows what that word means, Polly,” he said.

  “Well, let me explain. That’s my brain, and this lovely treelike growth here—well, that’s my brain tumor.” Polly smiled. “I call it Bob.”

  * * *

  “Take deep breaths.”

  Annie sucked in air. She was sitting on the doctor’s wheely chair. He was kneeling in front of her, peering into her eyes. His were brown and intelligent, like a kind dog. “Can you follow this?” He held up a finger.

  “Of course I can,” she said irritably. “I’m fine. I didn’t even faint.” She didn’t understand why she’d freaked out. She barely knew Polly, brain tumor or not.

  Polly had gone to get “hot sweet tea,” as she’d brightly announced. “Isn’t that what they did in the war?”

  The doctor said, “You didn’t know, I take it. You never wondered why she’d so many appointments?”

  “We only met yesterday. And she’s acting like we’re, I don’t know, teenage pen pals.”

  “That’s Polly. It’s quite hard to avoid being friends with her.” His accent rolled hard on the r’s. He sat back on his heels.

  “So...she’s sick.”

  “Very sick.”

  “Can you...do anything?”

  He stood up again, wincing. “Christ, I’m getting old. I shouldn’t really tell you. Confidentiality. But since you just saw her brain scan I guess I can take that as patient consent. Because of where Bob is, there’s a strong chance removal would damage her brain.” Annie remembered what Polly had said. About the brain being everything we are. “She’s had chemo, which bought a bit of time. We’re keeping an eye on it. Lots of MRI scans. Costing a bloody fortune. If it goes near the front cortex, well, that’s game over, and it’s very aggressive. Quite advanced already.”

  “If?”

  “When.”

  “How long?” she asked.

  He scrunched up his face. “For the record, doctors really hate that question. We’re not clairvoyants. But we’ve told her about three months.”

  Annie gaped. So little. An academic term. A financial quarter. A season of an American TV show. Imagine if that was all you had, to cram a whole life into. “Oh,” she said. In the circumstances, it was all she could think of.

  The door banged—“Don’t bring the bloody house down!” he shouted—and Polly came in with a paper cup.

  “Whoops!” She spilled some, licking her hand. “Here, drink this.” Annie peered into the cup. It looked disgusting, like soapy dishwater. Suddenly it was overwhelming: the tiny dark room and the strange woman with the tumor, and her own mother in the ward nearby, with her brain also dying inside her. Annie stood up, her head swimming.

  “I’m sorry... I’m really sorry, but I can’t do this. I’m sorry you’re ill, Polly. I really am. But I need to go.” And she rushed out, slopping the tea onto the floor as she went.

  DAY 3

  Make time for breakfast

  “Morning, Annie Hebden!”

  Annie had never been a morning person, not even when Jacob would wake her in the early hours, and she’d hold his warm body next to hers, feeling his soft breath on her neck. Lately, she wasn’t a night person, either. There was sometimes a window around 4:00 p.m., after many cups of bitter coffee from the manky not-washed-since-2011 machine in the office, when she didn’t feel entirely horrendous. But 6:00 a.m.—that was pushing it for anyone, surely. She padded across her living room to the front door, which Polly was hammering on. “Is it morning? It’s pitch-black.”

  “It’s lovely out.” Polly didn’t sound remotely tired.

  “It’s not. It’s 6:00 a.m. on a Wednesday in March.” And why was Polly at her door so early? Why was she at her door at all?

  “Well, okay, but it’ll be lovely soon, and I have coffee and croissants, so let me in!”

  Two mornings in a row of being woken up by Polly, even though Annie had run out on her the day before. For a moment she thought about pretending the door had become stuck in a freak locking accident. Then she sighed and opened it. She didn’t bother w
ith the chain this time. Twenty-four hours and she’d learned Polly could not be kept out.

  Polly was wide-awake, today wearing jeans and a T-shirt that said Yes We Can. On her feet were cherry-red cowboy boots. “How do I look?” She shook her head from side to side. “Hannah Montana dying of cancer?” With her short fair curls tied back, a large bald patch was visible from chemo, the skin mottled red.

  Annie said, “Ha.” She hadn’t got used to Polly’s cancer jokes. She hadn’t even got used to the cancer.

  Polly held up a tray of paper cups. “Coffee! Do you have some nice cups? It’s a shame to drink from plastic lids.”

  “I’ll do it. You should sit down.”

  “I’m not dying right this second, Annie. Cups?”

  Annie gestured at the kitchen as she sank into her nasty faux-leather sofa with the rip in the side. “Do you ever sleep?”

  “Oh, I don’t have time for that. I have three months to live!” That phrase had surely never been said so cheerfully. “Or so Dr. McGrumpy tells me. That’s what I call him.”

  “Yes, he did seem...grouchy.”

  Polly inspected, and discarded, a mug with Cartman from South Park on it. A gift from Annie’s work Secret Santa, despite the fact she had never watched an episode of South Park or expressed the slightest interest in it in her life. “Bless him. He’s your traditional grumpy Jesus-complex-but-can’t-save-everyone doctor, but he’s the best there is.” Polly’s voice echoed from the cupboard. “Honestly, Annie, we need to talk about your crockery choices.”

  It seemed that in Polly’s world, the cups were a problem, but the cancer was just a fact of life. Finally, she found some old floral-print ones that had been a wedding present to Annie’s mum and dad. “Ooh, vintage?”