“No one can knit nowadays. You young girls just buy all your jumpers in the shops! So expensive.”
“I can knit, Mum,” said Annie. “You taught me, remember?” Another thing they’d done on long Sundays at home—a hobby that didn’t cost much, and saved buying clothes. It wasn’t right, she thought. Her mother looked better than Polly, who just months ago had been so vibrant and colorful. It was all leached from her now, the white hospital gown, the white sheets, her pale face, her bald head. Whereas Annie’s mum had perked right up. She’d put on a little weight around the face, her leg was better and her mood was sunnier and less confused. But she still didn’t know who Annie was. Maybe she never would.
She was looking puzzled now again, as if trying to work things out. “I taught you? But when... Who are you again, dear?”
Maybe it was cruel, reminding her over and over that she wasn’t herself. “Never mind,” Annie said soothingly. “It’s good of you to show us, Maureen.”
“I taught children, you know, in a school. I wanted to train as a teacher but we weren’t made of money.”
She’d been a classroom assistant, part-time, after Annie was at secondary school. Accepting so little. A small life. Asking for nothing, getting nothing. It felt cruel, sitting with her mother, knowing that her father was dead, but she couldn’t begin to explain her visit to Scotland, or her anger that her mother had never told her he was trying to get in touch. Annie pushed it all away, and forced a smile. “Show us that again, Maureen, will you? You’re so good at it.”
DAY 69
Cut loose
“Annie!” Costas was standing outside Polly’s hospital room, flapping his hands in agitation. “Thank God you are here. We have a problem, Houston.”
“What’s the matter? Is it Polly?” Annie tried to see over his shoulder but he was blocking the way.
“Annie, I have done a bad thing.”
“I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”
He raised his arms over his head in surrender. “You look. Go and see. Is very bad.”
Inside the room, Annie could see the back of Polly’s head, poking out the window she had open. Not that it was doing any good, because the room stank of weed. George was sitting in the nearby chair with his eyes shut. Annie turned back to Costas, who had closed the door behind them, his eyes wide with fear. “You got them this?”
“A friend at work has some... I did not know they would smoke it here, Annie! We will get in big trouble!”
“Lighten up, Costas from Costa,” Polly slurred from the window. “I just wanted to get high one last time. What’s so wrong with that?”
“You’re smoking,” Annie hissed. “In a hospital! When you have a tumor in your lung! Would you come inside?”
Polly ducked her head back in, a fit of coughing racking her ribs. “It’s hardly going to give me another tumor, is it.”
“That’s not the point! Look at you. You’re freezing.” And she was, shivering and goose-bumped, her eyes bloodshot and swollen in a way Annie recognized from boys at school who used to smoke behind the bike sheds.
She chivvied Polly into bed, plucking the glowing joint from her fingers and dousing it in a glass of water. “Come on, get yourself warm. George, how you could let this happen?”
No answer. “Er, Annie,” said Costas. “He is...sleeping.”
She turned to see George slumped in the chair, apparently out cold. Costas was fanning him with his hands. “Oh, for God’s sake. Costas, go and find Dr. Max.”
“No!” wailed Polly from the bed. “He’ll shout at me!”
“With good reason. Go, Costas.”
He went. George let out a loud snuffly snore. Annie stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at the tiny figure in the bed. “This was your idea, I suppose.”
“I just wanted to do it...one last time,” wheezed Polly. “To feel alive. To feel normal. Stop being such a Betty Buzzkill, Annie.”
“Polly, I’m worried about you. Listen to your breathing.” It was rattling like a penny sucked up into the vacuum cleaner.
Polly coughed. “It doesn’t matter. I’m dying, anyway. What does it matter if I take drugs, or drink myself into a stupor, or shag everyone in the hospital? Tell me that, Annie. What difference would it actually make if I lived as hard as I could for the rest of the days I have?”
Annie tried to think of something. “Well, no one wants to die with cystitis,” she said.
Polly let out a loud sound, half sob, half laugh. Annie had heard a lot of this cry-laughing over the past few days. Then Polly was just cry-crying, her face twisted and wet. “Shit, Annie. I’ve already had my last times. To get high, to get drunk, to get laid even. I’m never going to do any of that stuff again. I’m never even going to lie in bed with anyone ever again. I’m going to die here, in this horrible hospital room with these sheets that are definitely not four-hundred-thread-count Egyptian cotton.”
Annie thought for a moment, then slipped off her Converses. “Budge over.”
“What are you doing?”
“Getting in beside you.”
“Huh. No offense but I was thinking more along the lines of Ryan Gosling.”
“Well, you’ve got me. So, tough.”
The bed was narrow, but Polly had shrunk now to the size of a child. Annie lay beside her, thinking of sleepovers with Jane and the girls as a teenager, trading secrets in the dark, giggling so hard Jane’s mum would come and bang on the door to get them to be quiet. Polly’s breathing was labored, the sheets damp from her tears.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. No harm done. Well, probably.”
“Will Dr. Max be cross?” she asked pathetically.
“Yup.”
“Maybe you can reason with him. He likes you, you know. Like, a lot.”
Annie didn’t want to think about that now. “Shh. It’s okay.” She stroked Polly’s hair, or what was left of it, off her shrunken face. She looked like an old woman, the skin stretched tight over her bones. Melting away, minute by minute.
“Annie,” Polly said in a very small voice. “You’re my best friend now, I think. Did you know that? Thank you for—thanks for being here. Will you stay?”
“Of course. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Because I need you. To get through this. I know I’ve been selfish, and awful, and... I’m sorry.”
“Shh,” she whispered again, swallowing the lump in her throat. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Even though it wasn’t.
“What the hell’s been going on?” The door flew open and Dr. Max barged in, followed by an anxious Costas. He had a crease down his cheek as if he’d fallen asleep on his desk.
“Shh.” Annie raised a finger to her lips. “She’s sleeping.” Because Polly’s breathing had calmed, and her eyes had closed. Her fists were curled under her chin like a child’s.
Dr. Max lowered his voice. “Is she really sleeping or just pretending so I don’t shout at her? Smoking weed, for God’s sake! Is she okay?” He approached to check her vitals, lifting her limp wrist to feel her pulse. Annie lowered her legs off the bed and got up.
“I am sorry,” Costas said, wringing his hands. “She is okay?”