“Going up high has always inspired people,” Polly declared. “Look at Wordsworth. Coleridge. They used to wander in the Lake District, high on nature, spitting out poetry.”
“High on opium more like,” said George. “Is there any of that up here?”
The lift stopped, and they got out into a wide expanse of glass, filled with people milling around. Annie blinked as light flooded her eyes, London spread out beneath them. Like a Lego town, with green patches and boxes of buildings and houses and little cars meandering along. A real-life Monopoly board.
Polly had barged her way to the concession stand. “No opium, but pink champagne all around!”
George tutted. “Cheap pink fizz? Are you serious?”
But Polly was already carrying a tray of four glasses. “Shut up, George. You’re the most god-awful snob, you know. I remember when your favorite food was spaghetti hoops. Just drink it.”
“As long as no one finds out,” he said. “Is Costas even old enough to drink?”
“I am twenty-two,” Costas said reproachfully. “Thank you, Polly. This is very kind of you. Thank you for the pink champagne and the trip in the big lift and the view of your lovely city.”
“You’re very welcome,” she replied, once again patting him. “It’s nice to be here with someone who isn’t a snobby misery-guts, frankly.”
“Pink fizz up the Shard,” muttered George, who was nonetheless tossing his back. “What next? You want to go around M&M’S World wearing a Union Jack hat?”
“There is a world of M&M’S?” Costas took a sip and sneezed.
Polly ruffled his hair. “Adorable.”
Annie reached for her drink, tentatively. It was a plastic flute, filled with bubbling liquid, the color of old pinky-gold. She’d seen a dress that shade once, in a ball gown shop, when shopping for her school prom. It was expensive—a hundred pounds, nearly—but she’d saved up from her Saturday job in Boots and dropped loads of hints, and her mum had been giving her lots of coy smiles and it was her birthday coming up, so on the morning she turned eighteen Annie had rushed downstairs to find a dress bag hanging over the door. It had to be it. The dream dress, lace and silk, with a long swishy skirt and a bodice that somehow held in Annie’s wobbly bits and made her chest look like a glamour model’s.
When she’d opened it, she’d thought it was a joke. “What’s this, Mum?”
“Oh, I went to see that dress you wanted, but it was far too expensive, so I made you this one on the sewing machine. It’s exactly the same.”
It wasn’t the same at all. It was the color of gone-off salmon, and the lace wasn’t lace at all but scratchy polyester, and the bodice had boning that stuck into Annie’s ribs, and she looked like a giant blancmange in it, and in the end she’d gone home early from the prom and watched Frasier instead. Another not-so-happy memory. But now here she was, drinking champagne up the Shard. She lifted her plastic flute to Polly’s. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.” Polly took a gulp. “Dr. Max will kill me. I’m not supposed to drink before my MRIs. I spend so much time in that machine I’m thinking of having it wallpapered. Come on, let’s go up to the outside deck.”
Outside, the wind was stronger, the sun dazzling in Annie’s eyes. Deciding now was not a good time to mention her mild vertigo, she stayed as close to the wall as possible, while Polly spun off toward the railing, pointing out landmarks below. “Somerset House! The London Eye! Big Ben!”
“British Museum,” Costas said happily. “Where you are keeping all the priceless statues you stole from my country’s Parthenon and you refuse to give back!”
“I suppose it’s not so bad up here,” George said grudgingly.
Annie looked at him from the corner of her eye. “How’s your face?”
He squinted against the sun. “Fine. No harm done.”
“I’m sorry about your boyfriend.”
“What?” George scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I just meant...you were supposed to come here with him, weren’t you? Caleb?”
“Caleb and I are just friends.” The tone was light, or aiming at light, but Annie recognized the difference between pretending to be over something and really being over it. Sometimes she thought she’d never manage the latter. She let it drop.
Annie looked out as the wind blew her hair in her face. From up here, it wasn’t the London she knew, of dog poop and roadworks and damp, expensive flats. It was a shining city, full of millions of lives, every single person thinking they were the most important in the world. A city where hundreds of people slipped away every day, dying in hospitals or nursing homes or even on the street, and hundreds more arrived in maternity wards and birthing pools and sometimes accidentally on tubes. So what did it matter if, among all that, Polly was going to die, or Jacob already had? She felt the weight of it crush her, all those dreams being shattered and hearts being broken.
“I feel so small,” George said, almost to himself.
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“I mean...all these people, who don’t even know I’m alive. How the hell will I ever be an actor when there’s so many other people out there wanting the same? I may as well just give up.”
“But on the other hand,” said Annie, “at least if we really screw up our lives, probably no one will ever hear about it or care. We could just die, peacefully unknown.”
George looked at her. “I like you, Annie. You’re a good antidote to my sister’s irritating positivity. I mean, when she got cancer I was prepared for depression and crying and awfulness, but instead she’s become some kind of walking self-help bible.”
Annie didn’t quite get it. “You’re all so kind of...matter-of-fact about it.”
George shrugged. “The show must go on, right? You’re still living right up until you die.”
“I guess.”
“This is what she wants. No moping, no misery. And Mum and Dad... I don’t think they believe it’s going to happen. I can’t blame them, really. I mean, look at her. You see why we think there must be some hope?”
Annie did. Polly was smiling, happy, her face flushed with the heat of the sun and the wind on her face. Yes, she was thin, but that wasn’t unusual among London women. She didn’t look ill at all. She looked radiant.
“Come here,” Polly called, beckoning them over. The sun was piercing through the clouds, warming Annie from head to toe. “Look, there’s London Bridge. Have you any idea how many hours I’ve spent there, freezing my arse off on the platform, cursing and complaining? But look how peaceful it is from up here.”
And it was. Trains looped into the station on their interweaving tracks, like ducks gliding over the water. Tiny people, with all their tiny worries and dreams and hopes and fears. Polly said, in hushed tones, “I bet this is how God sees us.”
“God veto!” shouted George. “You don’t even believe in God, Poll, you massive hypocrite. You can’t start just because you get cancer, that’s cheating.”