The door banged—“Don’t bring the bloody house down!” he shouted—and Polly came in with a paper cup.
“Whoops!” She spilled some, licking her hand. “Here, drink this.” Annie peered into the cup. It looked disgusting, like soapy dishwater. Suddenly it was overwhelming: the tiny dark room and the strange woman with the tumor, and her own mother in the ward nearby, with her brain also dying inside her. Annie stood up, her head swimming.
“I’m sorry... I’m really sorry, but I can’t do this. I’m sorry you’re ill, Polly. I really am. But I need to go.” And she rushed out, slopping the tea onto the floor as she went.
DAY 3
Make time for breakfast
“Morning, Annie Hebden!”
Annie had never been a morning person, not even when Jacob would wake her in the early hours, and she’d hold his warm body next to hers, feeling his soft breath on her neck. Lately, she wasn’t a night person, either. There was sometimes a window around 4:00 p.m., after many cups of bitter coffee from the manky not-washed-since-2011 machine in the office, when she didn’t feel entirely horrendous. But 6:00 a.m.—that was pushing it for anyone, surely. She padded across her living room to the front door, which Polly was hammering on. “Is it morning? It’s pitch-black.”
“It’s lovely out.” Polly didn’t sound remotely tired.
“It’s not. It’s 6:00 a.m. on a Wednesday in March.” And why was Polly at her door so early? Why was she at her door at all?
“Well, okay, but it’ll be lovely soon, and I have coffee and croissants, so let me in!”
Two mornings in a row of being woken up by Polly, even though Annie had run out on her the day before. For a moment she thought about pretending the door had become stuck in a freak locking accident. Then she sighed and opened it. She didn’t bother with the chain this time. Twenty-four hours and she’d learned Polly could not be kept out.
Polly was wide-awake, today wearing jeans and a T-shirt that said Yes We Can. On her feet were cherry-red cowboy boots. “How do I look?” She shook her head from side to side. “Hannah Montana dying of cancer?” With her short fair curls tied back, a large bald patch was visible from chemo, the skin mottled red.
Annie said, “Ha.” She hadn’t got used to Polly’s cancer jokes. She hadn’t even got used to the cancer.
Polly held up a tray of paper cups. “Coffee! Do you have some nice cups? It’s a shame to drink from plastic lids.”
“I’ll do it. You should sit down.”
“I’m not dying right this second, Annie. Cups?”
Annie gestured at the kitchen as she sank into her nasty faux-leather sofa with the rip in the side. “Do you ever sleep?”
“Oh, I don’t have time for that. I have three months to live!” That phrase had surely never been said so cheerfully. “Or so Dr. McGrumpy tells me. That’s what I call him.”
“Yes, he did seem...grouchy.”
Polly inspected, and discarded, a mug with Cartman from South Park on it. A gift from Annie’s work Secret Santa, despite the fact she had never watched an episode of South Park or expressed the slightest interest in it in her life. “Bless him. He’s your traditional grumpy Jesus-complex-but-can’t-save-everyone doctor, but he’s the best there is.” Polly’s voice echoed from the cupboard. “Honestly, Annie, we need to talk about your crockery choices.”
It seemed that in Polly’s world, the cups were a problem, but the cancer was just a fact of life. Finally, she found some old floral-print ones that had been a wedding present to Annie’s mum and dad. “Ooh, vintage?”
“No, just really old and crap.” Annie gave a yawn. “I need to go to work today. They would only give me so many days off for Mum.”
“That’s why I’m here early. So we can make a plan.”
“What plan?” Annie didn’t have the strength for anything today.
“I’ll explain. Here we are.” She’d poured the coffee into the dinky little cups, and arranged the croissants on a flowery plate, showering flakes onto the floor, which Annie saw was already sprinkled with dust and toast crumbs. She was really letting things slide. Costas had grown up with seven sisters, and before moving to England had barely had to boil water for himself, so housework wasn’t his strong point. “So,” Polly said, settling herself. She’d taken out a notebook, a hot-pink one with silver edges. “As you know, I have three months to live. So obviously, when I found this out, it was a bit of a shock. You know the drill, crying on the bathroom floor, desperate denial, staying in bed for a week...”
Annie did know the drill. She’d practically written it.
“But I realized, eventually, I’d been given an amazing opportunity. I don’t have to bother with any of that rubbish we spend our time on—bills, pensions, going to the gym. My life, or what’s left of it, is now intensely concentrated, thanks to good old Bob the tumor. And I plan to make the absolute most of it.”
Annie reached for a croissant. “Don’t tell me you’ve made a bucket list.”
“It is the standard ‘three months to live’ behavior. But no, it’s a bit more complicated than that. I don’t want to just tick stuff off. Swim with dolphins, check. Go to the Grand Canyon, check. I mean, I’ve done all those things, obviously.”
“Obviously,” muttered Annie, mouth full of pastry.
“I don’t want to just...go through the motions of dying. I want to really try and change things. I have to make some kind of mark, you see, before I disappear forever. I want to show it’s possible to be happy and enjoy life, even if things seem awful. Did you know that, after a few years, lottery winners go back to the exact same levels of happiness as before they won? And people in serious accidents do, too, once they’ve adjusted to their changed lives? Happiness is a state of mind, Annie.”
Annie gritted her teeth again. The things that had happened to her weren’t a state of mind; they were very real. “So what’s the plan?”
“Have you heard of the Hundred Happy Days project? One of those viral internet thingies?”
“No.” Old Annie would have liked such things, posted them on Facebook, shared inspirational quotes. New Annie was scornful of projects and plans and lists. It all meant nothing when your life had truly come crashing down around your ears.
“It’s simple, really. You’re just meant to do one thing every day that makes you happy. Could be little things. Could be big. In fact, we’re doing one right now.”
“We are?” Annie looked around doubtfully at her shabby living room.
“Breakfast on nice plates. Seeing the dawn in with a friend.” Polly raised a cup to the reddening sky out the window, and Annie thought, Friend? Was it as easy at that? And how could something so small make any difference at all? “Now, I reckon if I’m lucky—lucky in the ‘I have cancer’ sense—I’ve got another hundred days left in me, so I’m going to do the project. And I want your help.”