“Thought not.”
More silence. Inside, the rise and fall of children’s voices. She’d never got to hear Jacob speak, but he used to babble, a rise of clear joyful sounds, like bubbles going up.
Polly waited. “I guess this is something to do with Mike and Jane?”
“Sort of.”
“See? I knew there was more. Annie, you really are trying to knock me off the winner’s podium for ‘most pathetic story.’”
Annie breathed hard. “So you know about the divorce and my mum being sick and my friend running off with my husband. Would a dash of infertility help?”
“Always.”
“I had three miscarriages before Jacob. One at three weeks—ruined the carpet. Blood everywhere. In my hair, in the bed, all over Mike’s pajamas. One at ten—they found out at my dating scan, and I had to have a D and C. And the last at five months. You have to give birth when it’s that far along. It was awful.”
Polly left a moment of silence. “Then you stopped trying?”
Annie shook her head. She picked at her tights with shaking hands. “Um, Mike wanted to stop. But I...I couldn’t. So I tried again. Pretended to be on the pill. He was furious. But then it seemed to work. Jacob was born full-term. Healthy.”
“Lovely name,” said Polly.
“Yeah. I always liked it. Then he—” She hitched in her breath. After all this time, the story still felt like a stone in her throat. “One morning Mike went to get him up. He’d slept through the night, we thought. I was happy! I thought things would be better from then. He didn’t sleep well—we were all knackered. And I had this one moment of being happy—there was sun coming in the curtains, and I thought...I thought how good my life was. But when Mike went in, Jacob was—he was cold. Mike didn’t want me to see but I—I pushed into the room, and he—he was already blue and he... We called an ambulance but he. Was gone. He was gone. Cot death, they said. Just one of those things.” Though she’d torn herself apart looking for reasons. Had he been too cold? Too warm? Had he caught something and she’d just not noticed? She took another breath. “I went to pieces. It was like... I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know if I’d survive. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. I used to just lie on the floor of his room all night and howl, like a dog. I didn’t wash. I didn’t change my clothes for two months. And Jane—well. She was my best friend. She was around all the time. Comforting me. Helping. Except she couldn’t even reach me, no one could, so she comforted Mike instead, and then after a while he said he was sorry and it was an accident but they were really in love. I guess because she still got dressed and didn’t cry all the time or refuse to throw away old cot sheets because they were all she had left of her baby.” Annie breathed again. She’d said it. She’d said it and nothing had broken. The voices went on inside: Lola asking for some cake. The bird in the tree kept singing. The noise of the boats on the river kept hooting, mournful, like whale song.
After a while Polly fumbled for Annie’s hand, and slapped it gently, as if handing her an invisible object. “Here.”
“What’s that?” Annie said shakily.
“My cancer card. You get to win for a while.”
“I do?”
“Shit, of course you do, Annie. That’s—I don’t even know what to say.”
“That’s a first.”
“I know. Better send out the press release.” They both laughed for a moment, shaky with tears. “Annie. I’m so—my God. And I brought you here, with the kids—I didn’t know, I swear. I knew there was something but not this. Christ.”
“Don’t say you’re sorry. Let’s have a pact, okay? We’re not sorry unless it was our fault.” Annie squinted at her. “So, this was your life before? Everyone talking about, I don’t know, quinoa and the Human Rights Act and arranging weekends in Norfolk cottages?”
“I guess it was. We must seem like a right bunch of pretentious twats.”
“No. It’s just—we’d have had nothing in common, if we’d met before all this.”
Polly didn’t lie. “Maybe not, no. But here we are, and I’m not sure I can get through this without you, so you’re stuck with me now, Annie Hebden. Only person who’s ever beaten me in a sob-story competition. Damn you.”
“Damn you back,” said Annie. She reached for Polly’s cold hand, and squeezed it, and they sat there in the dark for a while, watching the lights of the boats, and the city around them with seven million hearts beating on and on.
DAY 25
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“Annie! Back again? You could skip a day, you know. No one would think any less of you, and your mum...well, you know. She might not realize.” Dr. Max was once again at the vending machine, a Twix in each hand.
“I know. I’m meeting a friend, in fact.” The word sounded strange in her mouth. It was a long time since she’d said it. “Is that your lunch?”
He brightened. “Machine gave me two by mistake! Karma for all my hard-earned cash that’s been swallowed up by that minion of Satan.” He looked at her. “Oh, would you like the spare one?”
“Don’t you want it?”
He patted his stomach. “I’m living off sugar as it is. Can’t remember the last time I had a meal on a plate. You know it’s not—”
“Not a nine-to-five job, I know. Would you...?” Annie realized she’d almost asked him around for dinner. “Um, well, in that case, sure, I’ll take the Twix. I’ll save it for after my lunch.”
“Lunch,” he said nostalgically. “I used to eat that. It’s jerk day in the canteen. Of course, it’s always jerk day when you work in a hospital. If it’s not the management, it’s the patients wanting your life’s blood.”
“You take their blood all the time,” Annie pointed out.
He’d unwrapped his Twix and was already through one bar of it. “Metaphorical blood, Annie. I swear this hospital is killing me. There’s a queue of ten people just waiting to get their heads scanned so I can tell them they have cancer. It’s not right.”
“Is there anything we could do? You know, a fundraising event or something. Dr. Quarani’s running the London Marathon.” She’d seen him on her way in, doing laps of the hospital, his face set and grim. “I thought you were, too?”
“I just wanted to get fit,” he said defensively. “I don’t believe in fundraising for public services. The government would love that, making us raise all our own cash from bloody jumble sales. They need to fund the NHS properly from taxes, not sell it off to their fat-cat mates in private health care. It’s a disgrace, Annie, that’s what it is. Anyway, see you, got to go look into someone’s brain now.” He’d sounded furious, but he waved jauntily as he left. She couldn’t figure him out.
*