“Don’t let that dog down—I’ve just cleaned all this,” she warned. Annie’s usual beige-ish bedspread was lying in a heap on the floor, and she was putting on a new one, turquoise with pink flowers.
“He will not eat things. He’s a good dog, aren’t you, baby? Yes, you are. Yes, you are! So, Annie, why do you clean?”
“Oh, I just thought it was time for a change. Make things nicer.” She’d slept in those bedclothes since she moved in here, broke and possessionless. She’d left all her nice things behind, turned her back on her old life, bought the cheapest sheets she could find, scratchy and uncomfortable, and hadn’t washed them quite as often as she should have.
Costas gave her a thumbs-up. “Good for you, Annie. I go out now.”
He was dressed in a tight silver T-shirt and she smiled at him indulgently. “You have fun.” Maybe she should buy some sheets for him, too. After all, it wasn’t very nice in the little box room he called home. As she plumped and smoothed and admired her new bed, she thought about what he’d said. If, in some parallel and very unlikely universe, someone did happen to see her bedroom, it would at least now not entirely embarrass her.
She bent down to open the lowest drawer in her cabinet, looking for a pillowcase. Something rustled. Tissue paper. And too late Annie remembered what she’d hidden away in there, her most precious treasure.
It was the only thing of Jacob’s she’d saved. The rest had been clothes bought from shops, that anyone could have, but this little cream cardigan had been made by her mother, knitting solidly in front of the TV for two months. The buttons were shaped like lambs’ faces. Annie pressed it to her face and breathed. Out of it fell a small plastic hoop, with the name Jacob Matthew Hebden printed on it. His hospital ID.
And she was back there. In her old bed, early in the morning. Mike bringing Jacob to her for a feed, his small body sliding in between them. The baby they’d made. A miracle. Usually when she thought about that time, it was blackened with the anger she felt. But Mike, too, had lost all that. Even if he had Jane now, Annie was not so blinded by rage she didn’t realize it could never make up for what had happened. Nothing could. Mike was the only person who could really understand how it felt for her to hold this little cardigan and remember the baby who was no longer inside it. And maybe, after all, that counted for something.
Annie sighed to herself. Bloody Polly. Try as she might, it was very hard to stay immune from that irritating positivity of hers.
DAY 28
Forgive someone
“I think I’ve changed my mind. Can we turn back?”
“Come on. You know the saying ‘bitterness is like drinking poison and expecting someone else to die.’ And you, my dear Annie, have drunk a whole gallon of it.”
Annie scowled. She liked her poison. It was like strong coffee, dark and stimulating and keeping her going. But here she was, all the same, sitting in the Volvo Polly had borrowed from Milly. “How come we aren’t forgiving someone for you, then, if it’s so important? I bet you have someone you’re angry with.”
Polly screwed her face up. “I’m not quite ready yet.”
“I’m not ready, either.”
“You’ve had longer. And trust me, mine is an utter, utter bastard.”
“You were the one saying we have to forgive people, let go of the poison and so on.” Annie looked at her. “Is it Tom that you won’t forgive?” she risked. “Not that you’ve actually told me who Tom is.”
Polly made another face. “I’m not ready, I said. Anyway. It’s you today. Then I’ll think about me. Come on, it’s the perfect time for it. You’ve seen your old friends, they said Jane feels awful—it’s fate.”
“It’s not fate, it’s you meddling. I wouldn’t even have seen Zarah if you hadn’t set it up.”
“You’d have run into her sometime.”
Annie sighed. Useless to protest. “Fine. But I’m only going to talk to them. I can’t forgive them. Not yet.” Not ever, probably.
After a moment, Polly said, “Tom really is a massive bastard. Trust me.”
“I’ll have to take your word for it.” Annie didn’t like to pry, but did Polly not trust her enough to share her secrets? She knew all of Annie’s. It seemed a little unfair, cancer card or no cancer card. “You can definitely drive, yes?” she said suspiciously as Polly ground the gears.
“’Course I can! Now, which way am I going?”
“Right, then next left. Look where you’re—Christ!” She winced as Polly lurched into the next lane. “Then go straight on.” She remembered the directions to the house so well she could have walked there with her eyes shut: 175 Floral Lane, Ladywell. Even the address sounded auspicious, she used to think. Because this had been her house once. It was destined to be hers when Mike had phoned in excitement, saying he’d found the perfect place, and they’d gone after work to see it, their hands sweaty in each other’s as they viewed the black-and-white hall tiles, the clutches of daffodils in the back garden—Annie’s favorite. She’d even tried to call it Daffodil Cottage for a while, but Mike thought it was daft and the postman could never find it. It had been hers when they’d found a chesterfield sofa in an antiques shop and when they’d sanded down the wooden floors with a big noisy machine they’d hired, so powerful it pulled Annie off her feet. And it had been hers when she brought Jacob home from the hospital, his rose-petal face peeking out from his bassinet.
But now it wasn’t hers; it was Jane’s. Jane and Mike. “What if they’re not home?”
Polly swung the car around the corner, almost knocking down a lamppost. “It’s Sunday, of course they’ll be home. They’ll be doing flat-pack furniture and Jamie Oliver recipes, like all suburban couples.”
“Thanks for reminding me. And watch the road! Jesus!” A small terrier narrowly avoided death under the wheels. “When exactly did you get your license?”
“Years and years ago. Relax, would you? I have cancer, car accidents hold no fear for me.”
“But I don’t!”
“Now who’s rubbing things in? Look, you’ll just say hello, and that you wanted to speak to them because it’s been a long time and you’re sorry you fell out and you think it’s time you all healed and let go of the past. Then you hug.”
“I am not saying that. They’ll think I’ve joined a cult or something.” Which she had, in a way, she thought, reflecting on the last few weeks. The cult of Polly. “Anyway, I’m not sorry we fell out. It was entirely their fault.”
“Annieeeee—this isn’t in the spirit of reconciliation, is it? You must have done something you regret.”
Annie thought of the long angry emails she’d sent them both, when she’d drunk too much wine, saying how much she hated them and hoped they’d catch ebola. “Um, I don’t know.”