“That’s good. I think George is around somewhere. I’m sure he’d like to see you.” Annie just nodded. George clearly hadn’t had “the talk” with his mother yet.
Polly said cheerfully, “Did you bring me more of those anticancer herbs, Ma? Because I have to tell you, they taste like horse pee.”
“Er, Polly, darling, you have a visitor.” Valerie was wearing an ankle-length cardigan today, her makeup fresh and her hair shining, but she looked exhausted all the same. This was taking its toll on everyone.
“Who’s that, then? Milly? I told her, no more cancer videos for a while. Positive things only. The fundraising site’s doing fine on its own—twenty thousand uniques yesterday!”
“It’s not Milly. Er. I think...I think you should be on your own for this, darling.”
Annie got the hint. She started packing up the vanity case. “I should go, anyway.”
Polly’s hand snaked out and grabbed her arm. “Don’t go. You just got here. Unless it’s Ryan Gosling visiting, in which case, Annie, don’t let the door hit you on the arse as you go.”
Valerie was twisting her hands together. She sighed, then stepped back, holding the door open. She spoke to whoever was outside. “Go in. I’m not getting involved.” She was replaced in the doorway by someone Annie had never seen before. A man, in a suit that was obviously expensive—none of your polyester here. Polished shoes. Red tie. Tall, handsome in a catalog-model kind of way, with short dark hair. Big arms and chest. A gym-goer.
Polly was staring at him. Her hand was still clenched on Annie’s arm, and the color was draining from her face, leaving the makeup on top like a gross joke. “Fuck.”
“Hi,” said the man. His voice was croaky. “Are you...? Christ...you look... I’d no idea.”
“I’m fine. I’m totally fine. What the hell are you doing here?”
“What am I... Christ. Have you any idea how worried I’ve been? I didn’t even know you were alive until I saw your bloody fundraising site!”
Annie tried to bolt for the door but Polly hung on to her for dear life. “Don’t go.”
The man moved closer. “Poll. Please talk to me. Please. You can’t just drop a bombshell like that and take off.”
“I can do anything I want, I have cancer,” she said in a strangled voice.
The anger between them seemed to erupt then, like someone throwing a grenade and running off. “Cancer. It’s not the cancer, it’s you. You always did exactly what you wanted. Painting the house. Going on holiday with your mates. What about me? What about what I wanted?”
Annie’s head swiveled between them. Who was this? What was going on?
“I don’t care what you want!” Polly barked it out, as if she was using up the rest of her voice and strength. “Just get out of here! You’ve got no right! You didn’t want me, so you don’t get to stand at my bedside when I’m dying. I have other people for that.”
“What, some weirdo you’ve only just met!” Annie blinked. That was a bit harsh.
“Annie’s my friend, and she’s been here for me, unlike some people—”
“Oh, like you gave me a choice!”
“Close the door, Annie,” Polly said shakily.
“Er, wh-what?” Annie stammered.
“Shut the door on him. Kick him out. I haven’t got the strength to do it myself but I can’t listen to this.”
Right. So she would just kick out the six-foot-tall, gym-honed man who was glaring at her like she was something nasty on the pavement. “Um, I’m sorry. Polly isn’t supposed to get tired out, so if you could just—”
“Who the hell even are you? What gives you the right?” He turned to Polly. “Look, please, I really need to talk to you. You can’t just send me away.”
“I can,” she said in a small voice.
Annie lifted her chin. “She wants me here. And she doesn’t want you. So...” She held the door open for him. “Like she said, don’t let it hit you on the arse as you go.”
He went, slamming it hard behind him. Annie sagged. She’d really done it. “God. What was all that about?”
Polly was gray-faced, panting for breath. “Thank you. You were...amazing.”
“Are you okay?”
She nodded as a storm of coughing shook her frail shoulders. “I bet he’s never been thrown out of anywhere in his life.”
“And...are you going to tell me who he is?”
Polly sighed, and lay back on the pillows, closing her green sparkly eyelids. “Urgh. That is...” She broke off to cough again.
“Tell me, Polly. It’s not fair otherwise. Oh, God. He’s not a doctor or something, is he? I haven’t just kicked out the chair of the hospital or something? Tell me.”
“All right! God, let me draw breath. That, Annie...that was Tom. My husband.” And her face crumpled in on itself, and Annie realized that Polly was crying.
*
“Okay,” Polly said when she could talk without wheezing or sobbing. “I’m going to tell you what happened. But only because you told me all your stuff, and we have no secrets now.”
“We have some secrets.”
“Well, whatever. But I need to say it all the way through without you interrupting, okay? Even to say, ‘God, that’s so awful,’ or, ‘Poor you,’ or anything like that. It’s just what happened. It’s not a tragedy, or an epic story, or even important. It’s just what happened to me.” Her breath hitched. “Because I can’t do this. I can’t spend any more of my life crying about it. I don’t have time.”
“Right,” said Annie. “I won’t say a word. Er. After this.”
*
She sat quiet on the orange plastic chair, while Polly heaved herself up on the pillows. “Okay. Chapter one. I got my cancer diagnosis like most people do, kind of out of the blue. Busy life. Couldn’t possibly happen to me. I was—well, you see what Suze and that lot are like. She has an app to rotate her pants drawer and Milly schedules in sex with her husband six months in advance. I was like that. Up early, kale smoothie, Blackberry on the commute, press press press, angle angle angle. PRing the hell out of things. Yoga. Meditation. Weekends in Cornwall and Val-d’Isère. Out at plays, exhibitions, the latest restaurant where you get your food in a minihammock or something. That was my life. And I had the husband to go with it. Handsome, rich—stockbroker in the city, of course. Some might even say I married my dad—a man who’d always work even more than I did. We were headed down a one-way freeway that led to one or possibly two overscheduled children, a holiday house in Devon and me going freelance while he raked in his bonuses.”
Annie nodded, trying to follow. Polly was gasping for air. Her hands were clenched in the blankets. “And then suddenly I was sick. I was at home after the results, getting myself in character—brave cancer sufferer, noble expression, that sort of thing. In total denial, of course. Can you blame me? And then, well—my life fell to pieces. I could almost hear the sound of it, you know? Shattering around my ears.”
“I know. What happened?”
“I’ll tell you.”