by Eva Woods
Annie stared. An expanse of dimpled bottoms, stomachs that curved out and luscious white thighs. Polly was right. They did look like her. Minus the limp hair the color of blah. “So, this was considered beautiful then?”
“They thought being skinny meant you were poor. Or sick.” Polly waved a hand at her own spare frame. “I mean, not to skinny-shame anyone, either. I just wanted you to see that what we think of as hot now totally wasn’t hot in the Renaissance. Ideals of beauty change all the time.”
“I’m in the wrong era, then,” said Annie. She couldn’t stop staring at the pearly tones of the skin. Nothing fake-tanned here, just pinks and creams and ivories. The folds of flesh were glorious, plump living bodies that you could just tell had been fed on honey and cream and sides of venison. The way the women held themselves, proud and coquettish and ravishing.
“This is my favorite,” Polly said, pulling her in front of another nude, this one of a reclining woman seen from the back, staring into a hand mirror and out at the viewer. “The Rokeby Venus. I just love that pink she’s lying on. I tried to get that exact shade for my bridesmaids’ dresses, but I didn’t know what to call it.”
Annie’s head swiveled around in surprise. This was the first she’d heard of Polly being married. Ask her. Ask her more. But she chickened out again, afraid to spoil Polly’s sparkling mood.
Polly was still looking at the painting, as if she was trying to remember every inch of it. “You know what I wish? I wish I’d come here once a week and just looked at this. Because I don’t think I could ever get sick of it, but instead I just looked at lots of stupid things—work colleagues I hated and the inside of dirty trains and stupid internet stories about which celebrity got fat. Always rushing around to meetings and worrying about getting the mascara account and whether I should take up Pilates. I wasted all that time, Annie.”
Annie didn’t know what to say to that. “I bet you’ve seen some beautiful things, too.”
“Oh, I have.” She sighed. “Sunsets over the Grand Canyon and the Taj Mahal and the Alps in the snow and so on. But it wasn’t enough. How could it ever be enough? I want to see everything. I never want to stop looking.”
Afraid Polly might cry, Annie put her hand gently on her friend’s arm. She didn’t say, It’s okay, because it wasn’t. “We’re here now, though,” she said. “We can look at it now.”
Polly took a deep breath, and smiled. “You’re right. We’re here, looking at it. It will be here long after both of us are gone, still hot as hell. Right, Annie. I think what we need now is the most essential part of all museum visits—gift shop, then cake.”
* * *
On the way out, Polly stopped on the steps, causing a pileup of Chinese tourists behind her. “What?” Annie felt a dart of worry. Was she going to be sick again, or climb a high building, or take her clothes off? Apparently any or all of those things could happen at any time.
But Polly was smiling. “You ever see that film La Dolce Vita?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Annie’s mum’s favorite film. A dream of handsome Italian men, and gelato in sunny squares. A world away from her mother’s actual life. “Why?”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Um, probably not?”
Polly pointed. “Fountains! Dancing in!”
“Are you crazy? Imagine how dirty that water must be.”
Polly was already walking, calling back over her shoulder. “Oh, no, I could get sick! What might happen then? Come on, Annie. Life isn’t about avoiding the storm—it’s about learning to dance in the rain. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
It was lost, terminally lost. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d ever had it. “Polly!” She was moving toward the fountains with their icy gushing water, the smell of a public swimming pool. Annie dashed after her. Polly’d reached the edge now, and was pulling off her coat.
Annie panicked. “I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to do this.”
Polly rolled her eyes. “Good. I hope I get arrested. That’s something else I never did.”
“But—”
“Come on, Annie! Have you ever danced in a fountain before?”
Of course she hadn’t. The only ones she’d ever come across were ill-fated urban art projects full of cigarette butts. “Oh, God.”
Polly was barefoot now, her toes thin, her nails painted silver. Her legs were bruised, sticklike. But she was laughing, plunging in. “Christ, it’s freezing! Come in!”
Annie couldn’t think of anything worse than getting into a cold dirty fountain. What if she caught polio? Was that still around?
A rectangular man in a yellow tabard was approaching, talking into a radio. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to get out.”
Polly was holding up her skirt, splashing about. “Why?”
He seemed thrown. “Um, health and safety.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I’m dying, you see. I’ll sign something if you want.”
He looked at Annie, who shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, she’s really sick, and—”
“You’ll have to get her out or I’ll arrest her.”
“Are you actually a police officer?”
“Well, not exactly, but I know some.”
Annie had a feeling that right this moment was a very important turning point for her. She could stand back and let him stop Polly, who after all only wanted to paddle in a public fountain before she died, or she could...
“What are you doing?” the man said, looking panicked. “Stop that—stop it, ma’am!”
Annie was pulling off her boots, and then, shuffling around under her skirt, her frumpy woolen tights. Then she, too, was plunging over the edge, wincing at the cold. “Jesus!”
Polly laughed, clapping her hands. “Go, Annie, go, Annie!” People were starting to take pictures, nudge each other. Annie cringed. Polly took her hands. “Can I have this dance, Ms. Hebden?”
“Oh, God, Polly, I really can’t—”
“Come on! The idea is to dance in fountains, not just wade around in them.” She yelled to the crowd. “Play us a song and we’ll do a turn for you!”
“Oh, God, no, don’t...”
Someone’s phone started playing a tinny version of “New York, New York.” “It’s the wrong city!” shouted Annie.
“Never mind. Come on.” Polly had her arm around Annie, high-kicking. Annie joined in halfheartedly, spraying no-doubt-infected water all over her skirt. There was a plop, and someone else slipped over the wall—a group of foreign-exchange students, jeans rolled up the knees, laughing and swearing in Spanish. Then parents started lifting in their kids, and the air filled with splashing and shouting and screaming. The song swelled to its end, people now singing along—“New York, New Yoooooorkkk!”
Polly bowed, breathless with laughter. “Oh, my God. That was hilarious.” People were dispersing, clapping and laughing, the moment gone. A mere minute, two minutes, where Londoners had connected instead of going on their way. It had felt like an eternity to Annie.
Polly was still gasping for breath. “Are you okay?” Annie said, worried.
She coughed, nodding. “It was worth it. That was brilliant.”
“Well, why don’t we get you inside into the warm? Tea and cake?”
She coughed again. “Tea and cake...sounds...amazing.”
* * *
“Are your feet dry now?”
Polly held up one bony foot, which was plastered over in paper towels. “I look like I’m peeling.”
“Just let me know if you get too cold. Dr. Max said you had to be careful.”
“I’m fine! Cheers.” Polly raised her teacup. “You know, I wish I’d eaten cake every day of my life, too. All those salads and goji berries I choked down, and I’m going to die at thirty-five, anyway. What a
waste, Annie. I swear those uneaten cakes are going to haunt me. From now on, at least two cakes a day. Working on my Boucher bottom.”
Annie nibbled on a fondant fancy, iced in a silken pale pink that was almost too pretty too eat. “I’m the one who doesn’t even know if she’s been to the National Gallery before or not,” she said. “What was I doing with my life? I can’t remember the last time I even did something like this, just had tea with someone.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Where are your friends, Annie?”
She blinked. Polly’s frankness took some getting used to. “I used to have some. From school, you know. But I guess I sort of let them drift.” When everything burned to the ground with Jane, her other friendships had been sucked into the fire, too. At the time, she hadn’t cared. It was like mourning a village when a city had been flattened. But she felt the loss now: every Saturday she stayed in alone, every time she thought about taking a holiday and balked because she didn’t want to be that solo traveler on the Sad Single Women’s painting trip. “Anyway, what about yours?” she countered. “I’ve not met any of your friends yet, either.” Maybe Polly was ashamed of her.
“Well. To be honest, I’ve sort of been avoiding them.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because when I look at them I see how much I must have changed. And they treat me differently—like I’ll break or something. I sort of wish they’d take me aside and tell me my outfit doesn’t match or something, like they would have before. It just feels a bit...awkward.”
“I’ve been avoiding my friends, too,” Annie admitted. “For a long time now.” So long she doubted they were even friends anymore.
“You’ve got time.” Polly closed her eyes briefly in bliss as she swallowed a pistachio-green macaroon. “That’s what this is all about, you see. I don’t have much time left, so I want other people to do the things I didn’t manage. Stare at art. Eat cakes. Oh, and this.” She reached into her bag—which was sewn all over in little mirrors—and pushed a ticket over the table.
Annie read it. “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. What’s that?”
“Only a concert of the most amazing piece of music ever. Something for our ears as well as our eyes. Can you come?”
“Oh, I don’t know...”
“Cancer card,” Polly mumbled around a bite of Victoria sponge. “Please. I really love it, and this might be my last chance to hear it.”
“Oh, all right, then. But you have to let me pay you back. Honestly, I feel bad.” She thought of George’s complaints about freeloaders.
But Polly just pulled a face. “Annie, I can’t take this money with me when I go. I may as well use it to have a nice time with my friends, don’t you think?”
Friends. All the while Annie had been thinking of lost ones, and now she’d found one instead. She’d thought this would never happen again—how would she make more friends at thirty-five?—but it seemed it had, in the unlikely setting of the Lewisham Hospital Neurology Department. “All right, then,” she said shyly. “But you have to let me do some things myself, too, okay? I can’t just keep tagging along on your happy days.”
A bright smile lit Polly’s face, and Annie suddenly realized she’d played right into her annoying life-changing hands. “Maybe you could start by looking up an old friend. After all, I won’t be around forever.”
But Annie didn’t want to talk about that now. She wanted to stay in this moment—happy, relaxed, feeling like a real friend sat across the table from her. A real friend who wasn’t already half-gone from her. “I’ll think about it,” she said.
DAY 17
Listen to music
“I didn’t know it would be this dressy. Why didn’t you tell me it’d be dressy?” The Royal Festival Hall was full of older couples in tuxedos and floor-length frocks, quaffing white wine and chatting loudly about Mahler. Annie had rocked up in her usual black slacks and a jumper, and was now feeling woefully underdressed. They’d also had to talk their way in, since Polly had forgotten to bring the tickets. Her cancer card (and her Visa card) had been pressed into service, however, and the situation was saved, salved with a few tears. Annie had hung back, embarrassed, and ashamed of being embarrassed. Now they were late, and people were staring as they pushed their way into the row.
Polly was wearing a dress with sprigs of cornflowers on it. “Oh, you’re fine. Who cares about all that? We’re here to listen, not look.”
“And what is it we’re hearing?” She’d planned to YouTube it beforehand, so she could at least seem knowledgeable, but Sharon had hovered by her desk all day and there hadn’t been a moment.
“My absolute favorite. Vaughan Williams. It’s so dramatic and beautiful. I guess classical music snobs would say it was a little schmaltzy, but who cares.”
There were snobs even within classical music? Annie’s exposure to live music had consisted of a trip to see Phantom of the Opera for her hen-do, and one Take That concert in the O2. As she recalled, Jane had organized both of those. As they took their seats—very near the front; how much had this cost?—she felt itchy with nerves. The mood was reverential, hushed. She opened her bottle of Diet Coke and earned herself several black looks from the old people around them as it fizzed. Chastened, she hid it under her seat and resolved to be thirsty for the rest of the show. It wasn’t like a musical. No one had drinks, or sweets, and no one was flicking through Facebook on their phones. The hush died down even more as the orchestra filed on, all in black, and took up their instruments, tuning up and settling their sheet music. They looked impossibly glamorous, intensely focused. Annie began to feel wildly nervous. What if she had to cough? She might need to cough in a really important bit. Would they lynch her?
“Here we go,” Polly whispered, even those three quiet words drawing more dark looks. Annie gripped the edge of her chair. She needed to sneeze. Oh, God, she really needed to sneeze. She crinkled up her nose as the first note sounded.
Oh, wow. It was... Annie felt herself frowning, biting her lip at the sheer power of it. The deep bass notes, the same refrain taken up by different instruments, over and over, layered with moments of silence where she felt herself shaking. The melody searing her ears, the lower notes making her stomach vibrate. She found she was gripping her seat. And the urge to sneeze was completely gone.
Twenty minutes later, a storm of clapping erupted. Annie was wiping her eyes. Polly turned to her. “Well?”
“It was good. I thought it was...good.” It was the best thing she’d ever heard in her life.
“Are you having a Pretty Woman moment? Sorry, I can’t take you anywhere in my private jet, but the upside is you don’t have to have sex with me for money.” Polly’s voice sang out as usual, and a crumbling couple behind them tutted. The orchestra were shifting into place, getting ready for the next piece, when the auditorium was suddenly filled with the unmistakable opening chords of “Like a Virgin.” Annie looked around, panicking, for the source of the noise—was it by some horrible chance her phone? No, it was Polly’s. Everyone was staring. Even the orchestra were looking down in annoyance. Slowly, calmly, Polly fished it out and pressed Cancel, but not before Annie had seen the name “Tom” flash up. She looked at Polly, wide-eyed, and Polly just laughed. “I think we’re about to get banned from the concert. Come on, let’s get a churro and walk along the South Bank passing judgment on people.” And they fought their way out, feeling the full strength of five hundred people’s disapproval, but somehow, Annie didn’t mind as much as she would have thought.
DAY 18
Make time to chat
“What’s that you’re listening to?” said Sharon, hovering by Annie’s desk.
Annie took out her headphones, hurriedly. She’d been playing the Vaughan Williams over and over, the sound of it swelling in her ears as she looked out on the grim
y strip-lit surroundings of her office. “Oh, nothing.”
“We’re not meant to have headphones in. What if I need you?”
Annie could have pointed out that Syed had his headphones in all day long, even going to the loo with them, but instead she said, “Just wave if you need me, Sharon. Or email.”
Sharon sat down again, cracking her knees. “Never used to be like that. What’s the point of being in the office if I have to email you? Antisocial, that’s what it is.” But Annie could hardly hear her, because she was drowning it out with the soar and sob of the violins, and she really didn’t care anymore.
DAY 19
Get a pet
“Look! Isn’t he adorable?”
Annie’s eyes traveled to Polly’s feet, which were clad in silver platforms, wobbly and shimmering. She seemed to be almost straining out of them, as if she was too impatient to be walking on the ground like normal people. “That’s a dog.”
“A puppy.” Polly bent down to scoop up the wriggling tangle of limbs at her feet. The puppy was a boxer, Annie thought—snub nose, dark wet eyes. Emitting a strong smell of damp fur. “His name’s Buster.”
“But where did you—?”
“Oh, I just woke up and thought, you know what I always wanted?”
“Fleas? Rabies?”
“A cute puppy. So I went and got one from a guy on Gumtree. It was that easy.”
“Um, how much did you—?”
“Oh, eight hundred or something.” Polly was blowing kisses and making silly faces at the little thing, which was letting out a high whining sound.
Eight hundred pounds. That was almost a whole month’s rent on Annie’s horrible flat. She tried not to roll her eyes. “Poll, you know you’ve brought a dog into a place full of sick people. You do realize we’re in the hospital?”