“Oh, all right, then,” she said sulkily, but only because she’d run out of biscuits and couldn’t face another trip to the shop after her ice cream meltdown. “It better be a really big glass.”
Half an hour later they were leaving the house, Annie blinking in the fresh air like a newborn baby. Costas, with his ability to dress for the occasion, was wearing a jumper with penguins on it. Annie was back in her standard: black, and more black. At least she was clean, though. “I don’t even have a ukulele,” she tried.
“They give. Come on! Small-guitar time!”
She felt her old familiar nervousness as they climbed the stairs in the pub—the sweat on her top lip and the feeling her head was too heavy, like she couldn’t look up. She’d have run away at the door but Costas pushed in, waving at the crowd of people gathered in a semicircle, all holding ukuleles. Ironic jumpers were much in evidence. “Hi, hi!” Costas found them two seats. “My friend Annie, everybody.”
She managed a grimacing smile, eyes fixed on the opposite wall. Someone put a ukulele into her hands, and sheet music in front of her.
“Nice easy one to start,” said the teacher, a man with a beard that stretched past his nipples. Annie wondered what Polly would have to say about that. Then she remembered they weren’t speaking, and clutched the stupid little instrument closer. She tried to make out the notes on the illustration. Of course the song was “Over the Rainbow.” Gah. There were no happy little bluebirds or troubles melting like lemon drops in Annie’s world. She felt like the Wicked Witch of the West.
*
“So? You like small-guitar night?”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Annie admitted. For a while she’d been absorbed in plucking the right notes, and she’d almost forgotten everything that was going on. “Do you go there a lot?”
“When I don’t have work or gym or basketball practice or dressmaking class,” he said cheerfully. “So much to do in London.”
“Do you like it here?” She’d never thought to ask him before.
“Sometimes, when I first come, it was lonely. I miss my sisters and Mama and Greek food. But there are many good cafés here in Lewisham, and many fun things to do! Also, is better for being gay. Everyone is not so prejudiced.” Annie couldn’t imagine how it was, to move to a different country when you were only twenty-two, knowing nobody and with a sketchy grasp of the language. And look at him. He knew more people and did more things than her, who’d lived in the same postcode all her life. She had to do better. She would do better.
“Do you, uh, do you want to get a pizza or something?” she asked carefully. “We could take it home, watch a film?” All that time living together, she’d done her best to keep walls between them. Not just physical but social, too, emailing him instead of knocking on his door, refusing to watch TV with him or go for a drink or eat his cooking. And now she realized he was one of the best friends she had.
Costas lit up, like a small child. “I want the pepperoni on mine, please. And please can we watch the Dirty Dancing?”
DAY 64
Put yourself out there
“Come on, Buster. Please. Do your wees! Please!”
Buster wagged his tail obligingly, but then wandered off to sniff an abandoned chip wrapper. Annie shivered—she’d thrown a coat over her pajamas to take him downstairs, but it was 3:00 a.m. and freezing. The straggly patch of grass between tower blocks wasn’t inviting by day, and by night it was downright terrifying. “Come on, please. I’m begging you. I’ll give you a dog treat. Two dog treats.”
Buster came over and licked the side of her foot. Annie sighed. “Right, fine, let’s go inside.” She carried him into the lift and back into the warm flat, gratefully shutting the door behind her. Costas was out on the graveyard shift, getting ready to make coffee for commuters. What a crap job. At least Annie, being now unemployed, could devote herself full-time to lying in bed feeling miserable.
She switched the kettle on for tea, knowing she’d struggle to get back to sleep, and pulled her laptop onto her knee. She clicked on Polly’s Facebook page, feeling vaguely ashamed, but there were no updates since their Scottish trip. She should call. She knew that. You couldn’t just fall out with a friend who had maybe only weeks to live. But every time she picked up her phone, she remembered what Polly had said, and she chickened out. She didn’t think she could bear it if she reached out and Polly wouldn’t speak to her.
Instead, she clicked on a jobs website, knowing she should really do something about that. Many of the finance officer jobs were in charities, she noticed, scrolling down. Badly paid, but at least you’d feel you were doing something. And she had to start thinking about the future. After Polly. It was impossible to imagine. But life would still go on. And she had to be part of it. As Buster padded over and climbed into the crook of her arm, Annie went through the different charities, starting to think about maybe planning some kind of future for herself, until the soft snores of the little dog filled the room.
DAY 65
Visit the library
Annie pushed open the door, breathing in the smell of old books. The library was full of people sheltering from the rain outside, cold and gritty. Funny, she hadn’t been in for so long, not since she was at school. She used to go with her mum every Saturday morning, choosing books in companionable hush, then going for a milky coffee and a bun and looking at what they’d picked. Her mother loved Mills & Boon, Catherine Cookson, gory true crime, family sagas and anything that was chunky and comforting. It had been several years now since she was able to follow a book, but Annie had the vague idea she might find her some knitting patterns. Her eye was caught by a New Additions stand with a book on it called Learning the Ukulele. Costas would like that. She picked it up. Then she saw it: the section labeled Gardening. Five whole shelves on planting, bedding, pruning and garden design. All the things Annie had once loved to read about. She’d always felt having a garden was a sign of truly being grown up. Literally putting down roots, in a place where she planned to stay forever. Where Jacob and his brother or sister would play among the plants she nurtured. And now none of that would happen—Mike would probably put in decking so he could invite his insurance-salesman buddies around for barbecues. That life would not be Annie’s. She had no garden now, no soil to stand on and call her own.
But all the same, she had windowsills. She had indoor pots, which she’d never got around to filling. She picked up a book called Window Box Gardening and hurried to the reception desk, almost furtively.
On her way out, her tote bag stuffed with reading material, she noticed a sign in the entryway. Guerrilla Gardeners: Improving the Urban Landscape. Annie stared at it for a long time, and then quickly took out her phone and snapped a picture of the flyer.
DAY 66
Say sorry
“Annie. Annie!”