by Eva Woods
She didn’t understand what that woman in that play had been on about. Sometimes, you could hold it together in front of everyone you knew, but it was the kindness of strangers that cut you right to the bone.
DAY 60
Take some downtime
Costas did not come back for several days. So, alone, Annie’s first day went like this:
11:00 a.m.–1:38 p.m.—lying in bed staring at the damp patch on the ceiling, replaying the conversation with Polly.
1:38–2:07 p.m.—replaying the conversation with Dr. Max. Bashing her head into the pillows, groaning loudly.
2:07–3:45 p.m.—thinking about going to shops for food. Not actually going.
3:45–3:59 p.m.—rooting about in the kitchen cupboards, tearing off bits of bread and shoving them into her mouth, wolfing down an entire bag of Costas’s pistachios. Throwing the shells all over floor. Crying more because he’d probably move out soon and she’d always been mean to him.
4:00–6:00 p.m.—crying, lying on the cold kitchen floor. Finding one of Buster’s disgusting chewed-up dog toys, sticky with drool, and crying because she’d always been mean to him, too.
6:00–8:45 p.m.—running a bath in an effort to cheer up but lying there crying some more until the water went cold. Rummaging in the dirty fridge, past moldy peppers, for a bottle of rosé wine. Drinking the lot lying in tepid bathwater, weeping.
8:45 p.m.–3:00 a.m.—watching old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy, crying afresh any time something sad happened (approximately every three minutes).
DAY 61
Start a new healthy habit
The next day: same except for one quick trip to the corner shop—the horrible estate one where the milk was always out of date—for rosé wine, crisps and Ben and Jerry’s. Wishing Costas had left Buster with her so she could at least have something to cuddle. She’d gladly have cleaned up his wee if it meant a bit of nonjudgmental company. Thinking about calling Polly, clearing the air, then remembering her words—wasting your life, feeling sorry for yourself—and realizing she couldn’t face it.
DAY 62
Shop local
“Sorry, love. Ain’t got none left. You ’ad the last tub yesterday.”
“What?” Annie looked around the grimy shop in a panic, past the trashy magazines and off-the-back-of-a-truck beer. “You must have something. Chunky Monkey? Phish Food?”
“Ain’t got no Ben and Jerry’s left, told you. Could do you a Carte D’Or?”
“What flavor?” Annie’s voice wavered.
He peered into his freezer. “Vanilla?”
She bit her lip hard to keep from crying in the middle of the shop. On her way out—ice cream–less, because she still had some pride—she caught sight of herself in the security monitor. Crazy, unbrushed hair, with what looked like a pistachio shell caught in it. Greasy, open-pored skin. Mad, swollen eyes. She’d have crossed the road to avoid herself. She went home, and got back into bed, where she stared at her phone for almost an hour without doing anything. Polly wouldn’t want to speak to her, anyway. She’d have called if she did. Wasting your life. Feeling sorry for yourself. Who would want to be friends with someone like that?
DAY 63
Learn a new skill
“It will be fun!” Costas pleaded. He’d finally come back, staggering under the weight of shortbread and haggis (apparently he now loved it) and tartan throw pillows. Buster leaped and pawed at Annie’s legs, and she was so grateful he was pleased to see her she almost cried. Even though Buster would be pleased to see a cardboard box. “Come on, Annie. You have not left the flat in all this time?”
“I have,” she muttered. “I’ve been seeing friends...local friends. I don’t need Polly. Um, is she okay?”
He shrugged. “Same, I think.”
“Did she say whether she might... Whatever. I don’t care.”
He gave her a pitying look. “Please, I would like for you to come with me tonight.”
“It sounds horrific. Isn’t it full of hipsters?”
“What is hipsters?”
“You know. Trendy middle-class types with beards and checked shirts?”
His eyes lit up. “You have been!”
“No, no, I... Never mind. But seriously. I don’t want to go to ukulele class. I can’t even play the recorder. That’s a sort of flute, by the way.”
“It’s fun! We learn tunes, and we play along, and we sing, and it’s nice. Nice people. Nice pub. Nice music. Nice glass of wine.”
She glared at him. “Stop enabling me. I can’t go out. I haven’t even showered in three days.”
“No kidding,” Costas said, wrinkling his nose. He’d been spending too much time with George. “Come on, come on. One hour only. I will buy you much wine, I promise.”
“Oh, all right, then,” she said sulkily, but only because she’d run out of biscuits and couldn’t face another trip to the shop after her ice cream meltdown. “It better be a really big glass.”
Half an hour later they were leaving the house, Annie blinking in the fresh air like a newborn baby. Costas, with his ability to dress for the occasion, was wearing a jumper with penguins on it. Annie was back in her standard: black, and more black. At least she was clean, though. “I don’t even have a ukulele,” she tried.
“They give. Come on! Small-guitar time!”
She felt her old familiar nervousness as they climbed the stairs in the pub—the sweat on her top lip and the feeling her head was too heavy, like she couldn’t look up. She’d have run away at the door but Costas pushed in, waving at the crowd of people gathered in a semicircle, all holding ukuleles. Ironic jumpers were much in evidence. “Hi, hi!” Costas found them two seats. “My friend Annie, everybody.”
She managed a grimacing smile, eyes fixed on the opposite wall. Someone put a ukulele into her hands, and sheet music in front of her.
“Nice easy one to start,” said the teacher, a man with a beard that stretched past his nipples. Annie wondered what Polly would have to say about that. Then she remembered they weren’t speaking, and clutched the stupid little instrument closer. She tried to make out the notes on the illustration. Of course the song was “Over the Rainbow.” Gah. There were no happy little bluebirds or troubles melting like lemon drops in Annie’s world. She felt like the Wicked Witch of the West.
* * *
“So? You like small-guitar night?”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Annie admitted. For a while she’d been absorbed in plucking the right notes, and she’d almost forgotten everything that was going on. “Do you go there a lot?”
“When I don’t have work or gym or basketball practice or dressmaking class,” he said cheerfully. “So much to do in London.”
“Do you like it here?” She’d never thought to ask him before.
“Sometimes, when I first come, it was lonely. I miss my sisters and Mama and Greek food. But there are many good cafés here in Lewisham, and many fun things to do! Also, is better for being gay. Everyone is not so prejudiced.” Annie couldn’t imagine how it was, to move to a different country when you were only twenty-two, knowing nobody and with a sketchy grasp of the language. And look at him. He knew more people and did more things than her, who’d lived in the same postcode all her life. She had to do better. She would do better.
“Do you, uh, do you want to get a pizza or something?” she asked carefully. “We could take it home, watch a film?” All that time living together, she’d done her best to keep walls between them. Not just physical but social, too, emailing him instead of knocking on his door, refusing to watch TV with him or go for a drink or eat his cooking. And now she realized he was one of the best friends she had.
Costas lit up, like a small child. “I want the pepperoni on mine, please. And please can we watch the Dirt
y Dancing?”
DAY 64
Put yourself out there
“Come on, Buster. Please. Do your wees! Please!”
Buster wagged his tail obligingly, but then wandered off to sniff an abandoned chip wrapper. Annie shivered—she’d thrown a coat over her pajamas to take him downstairs, but it was 3:00 a.m. and freezing. The straggly patch of grass between tower blocks wasn’t inviting by day, and by night it was downright terrifying. “Come on, please. I’m begging you. I’ll give you a dog treat. Two dog treats.”
Buster came over and licked the side of her foot. Annie sighed. “Right, fine, let’s go inside.” She carried him into the lift and back into the warm flat, gratefully shutting the door behind her. Costas was out on the graveyard shift, getting ready to make coffee for commuters. What a crap job. At least Annie, being now unemployed, could devote herself full-time to lying in bed feeling miserable.
She switched the kettle on for tea, knowing she’d struggle to get back to sleep, and pulled her laptop onto her knee. She clicked on Polly’s Facebook page, feeling vaguely ashamed, but there were no updates since their Scottish trip. She should call. She knew that. You couldn’t just fall out with a friend who had maybe only weeks to live. But every time she picked up her phone, she remembered what Polly had said, and she chickened out. She didn’t think she could bear it if she reached out and Polly wouldn’t speak to her.
Instead, she clicked on a jobs website, knowing she should really do something about that. Many of the finance officer jobs were in charities, she noticed, scrolling down. Badly paid, but at least you’d feel you were doing something. And she had to start thinking about the future. After Polly. It was impossible to imagine. But life would still go on. And she had to be part of it. As Buster padded over and climbed into the crook of her arm, Annie went through the different charities, starting to think about maybe planning some kind of future for herself, until the soft snores of the little dog filled the room.
DAY 65
Visit the library
Annie pushed open the door, breathing in the smell of old books. The library was full of people sheltering from the rain outside, cold and gritty. Funny, she hadn’t been in for so long, not since she was at school. She used to go with her mum every Saturday morning, choosing books in companionable hush, then going for a milky coffee and a bun and looking at what they’d picked. Her mother loved Mills & Boon, Catherine Cookson, gory true crime, family sagas and anything that was chunky and comforting. It had been several years now since she was able to follow a book, but Annie had the vague idea she might find her some knitting patterns. Her eye was caught by a New Additions stand with a book on it called Learning the Ukulele. Costas would like that. She picked it up. Then she saw it: the section labeled Gardening. Five whole shelves on planting, bedding, pruning and garden design. All the things Annie had once loved to read about. She’d always felt having a garden was a sign of truly being grown up. Literally putting down roots, in a place where she planned to stay forever. Where Jacob and his brother or sister would play among the plants she nurtured. And now none of that would happen—Mike would probably put in decking so he could invite his insurance-salesman buddies around for barbecues. That life would not be Annie’s. She had no garden now, no soil to stand on and call her own.
But all the same, she had windowsills. She had indoor pots, which she’d never got around to filling. She picked up a book called Window Box Gardening and hurried to the reception desk, almost furtively.
On her way out, her tote bag stuffed with reading material, she noticed a sign in the entryway. Guerrilla Gardeners: Improving the Urban Landscape. Annie stared at it for a long time, and then quickly took out her phone and snapped a picture of the flyer.
DAY 66
Say sorry
“Annie. Annie!”
“Ugh?” She came awake slowly, realizing that Costas was standing over her. In her bedroom. “What are you doing in here?”
“I am sorry!” He backed off, hands up. “You would not wake up when I knocked. Sorry, Annie. But you have to get up now.”
She yawned widely. “No, I don’t. I got fired, thanks to Polly, so I may as well have a lie-in.”
“Annie, Polly is sick. Very sick. Yesterday, she have...” He shook his hands, trying to think of the word. “She got bad. Very bad.”
Annie was bolt upright in a second. “Her lungs?”
“No, no, her head. George says her head tumor is back. Bigger.”
Shit. It had grown. Annie threw back the covers, momentarily ashamed that Costas could see the tea stains on her pajamas. “How bad?”
“Annie, she cannot see. She wake up and she can’t see at all. Please, you have to come now.” He was opening her drawers, finding jeans and a clean jumper. “Wear this.”
“Okay. I’ll come right now. Shit.”
He held the clothes out to her. “Maybe you have shower first?”
* * *
An hour later, all the crisp fragments washed from her hair and clothes, Annie was scurrying down the neurology corridor after Costas. The walls seemed to be tilting and swaying. This couldn’t be it. She’d just had a fight with Polly—you didn’t have fights with people who were about to die. It had only been two months, not three. There was still time. There had to be time.
At the door of Polly’s room, Dr. Max was standing with a chart in his hands and a grim expression. Annie did her best to push away the thoughts of what she’d said to him in Scotland. Idiot. “How is she?”
“Stable. For now.” He didn’t smile. “This is it, Annie.”
“Oh, no. Please, no.”
“I’m sorry. The tumor’s grown again, and it’s pressing on her eyes. I’ve put in a shunt and drained some fluid, so she might get a bit of vision back, but it’s a temporary fix.” She recognized the voice he was doing—soothing, but honest. The bad-news-for-relatives voice. Her stomach fell.
“Oh, God. Can you not—”
“No.” He put the chart back in its holder by the door. “Believe me, Annie. I’ve done everything I can. There’s nothing else to try.”
Beside Annie, Costas was crying. “How long, Dr. Max?”
“I can’t say for sure. A week or two, maybe.”
“But it’s only day sixty-six. She didn’t get all her days!” Annie said stupidly.
“I know.” Dr. Max looked exhausted. “I’m sorry. You can go in if you want. She’ll be coming around soon. But the surgery was fairly brutal, I’ll warn you. She won’t look...like she did.”
How could that be? Annie had only seen her a week ago. She wanted to kick herself. How selfish was she, wallowing in her flat during what might be Polly’s last days? Why had she let it go this far? Why hadn’t she battered Polly’s door down, forced her to be friends again? She put her hand to the door, then took it away, frightened by what might be on the other side. Dr. Max nodded. Go on. She pushed it open.
* * *
Polly was tiny in the bed, her head shaved all over, a livid red mark on one side with scabbing-over stitches. Annie’s hand flew to her mouth. Costas went white beside her and he began backtracking. “Annie, I go... I find George. He text me he’s in the canteen. Sorry. I leave you.”
Annie stared at her friend, horrified. Her beanie hat was too big for her, falling down over her shrunken face. Her hands were like claws, bristling with tubes, purple with old and new bruises. “What did they do to you?” Annie murmured. She laid her hand gently on the bed, which was piled with extra blankets despite the heat of the room.
“I’m not...dead...yet,” Polly wheezed without opening her eyes. “Annie, is that...you? I’d know that smell of crisps and...desperation anywhere.”
Annie sniffed. “Hey, Baldy.”
“Like it? It’s very...‘retro Sinead O’Connor.’ Everyone says the...nineties a
re back in style.” She opened her eyes, wincing as if the light hurt her. “I can’t really see. Come over.”
She beckoned. Annie sat in the orange chair, leaning on the bed. “Sorry, I didn’t have time to get you anything. Costas made it sound like you were at death’s door, so I just came.”
Polly coughed, making her tubes rattle. “I told him to. Knew...you’d be wallowing around in your flat.”
“Well done, Sherlock Baldy. So you’re not at death’s door?”
“Maybe...on its garden path.” She groped for Annie’s hand. Her skin was icy cold. “Annie. I think this is it.”
A lump rose in her throat, choking her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, come on, no sorry. Remember the pact. But it is a...shame. I didn’t get to do all the...days.”
Tears pricked Annie’s eyes. “It’s okay. We had a lot. I wouldn’t have had any of them without you. Poll—I’m so... God. I can’t believe I said all those things to you. You’re sick, and there was me shouting at you, making a fuss. I’m a terrible person.”
Polly waved her other hand. “Fuggedaboudit, as they say in...New York. I was out of line. I’m sorry, too. I just get so angry, you see, watching people...waste the time they have, when I don’t have any. I really am...sorry about your dad. And your job! What was I...thinking? I’m a terrible person. Christ, will you be okay?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t have rich parents to fall back on, see.” Annie sighed. “Listen. I know why I’ve been sort of hostile to you at times.”