Annie just shook her head. “Still here. For now.” There was nothing else to say. One day at a time.
Annie passed Dr. Max most days in the hospital, buying quadruple espressos in the café, checking charts, feeling pulses, asking patients to follow his fingers with their eyes, peering at scans, shaving in the loos, eating Twixes, sitting on gurneys reading medical books or Jilly Cooper. There was, she felt, a lot that needed to be said between them—enough to fill one of those massive books he read—but for now she could only see a few paces in front of her, like walking in fog at night. She could only get up, and shower, and change, and try to take care of Polly and her mother.
Then there was the day Polly sweet-talked the man who ran the hospital radio—“DJ Snazzy Steve”—into playing “Is This the Way to Amarillo,” and made everyone in the ward—staff, visitors and any patient well enough—do a conga up and down the corridor, weaving in and out of rooms until they got a visit from the bemused security staff, who Polly then somehow inveigled into joining the end of the conga.
And there was the day she ordered pizza for everyone in the hospital, delivering it to their beds in a Santa costume even though it was May, George wheeling her chair and dressed as an elf.
And there were visits. From Dion, who’d been discharged, and came gaunt and elegant in a pale gray suit and carrying a polished cane. From Polly’s stylist friend Sandy, fashionable and almost as thin as Polly; she smuggled in Amaretto in a hip flask and told scurrilous tales from the catwalk. From friends old and new and real and fake and crying and laughing and stoic and selfish, and the whole thing went by, because that’s the thing about time. It always goes. It always runs out, eventually.
DAY 81
Make your peace
“I don’t understand,” said Tom. “Why are you here?”
Annie tried to be understanding. It was, as she knew, quite disconcerting to have a strange woman turn up on your doorstep. “Polly sent me. She’s ready to talk to you now.”
Tom was wearing a navy toweling dressing gown, although it was 10:00 a.m. on a weekday. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, either, and he scratched at his beard as he stood there. “But...last time she sent me packing.”
“I know. She wasn’t ready. She is now.”
“I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m—look, does it matter? I’m her friend. I haven’t known her long, sure, but... I’m her friend. And I really think you should come with me now. Trust me. You’ll regret it otherwise.”
He looked back into the hall. “I’m not dressed. I—well. I took a bit of time off work. They sent me home actually. After what happened at the hospital, last time. I wasn’t myself. There was...a bit of scene. I smashed something.”
“You did? What?”
“A coffee cup. And, er, a photocopier. I was a bit...frustrated.”
Annie knew that feeling. “Is she here—Fleur, was that her name?”
He shook his head. “She—she moved out. I was too much of a mess, she said.”
Annie sighed. So many casualties in this ongoing war. “Why don’t you have a quick shower and get dressed, and come with me. Polly’s really sick, Tom. This is it.”
She watched the news hit him, percolating down like milk into coffee. “Oh. I thought somehow—shit. I’m not ready.”
“I don’t think anyone is. But it will happen. Soon. So come with me, and make amends with her. It’s the least you can do.”
*
Annie waited in the kitchen while he showered. It was messy, with dirty plates stacked around the sink and takeaway pizza boxes piled by the bin, but she could see how nice it had been before all this. The floor was tiled in gleaming marble, the furniture carefully chosen antiques. One wall was covered in pictures of Polly and Tom’s life, in a variety of shabby-chic frames. With her parents, with George. She recognized Milly and Suze in another shot, wearing bridesmaid dresses. No chiffon and puffed sleeves here, just sheer slips of red silk. In the center was Polly, in her wedding dress. She looked so beautiful Annie could hardly take it in. Like a film star, her hair in a messy braid studded with daisies, the lace dress clinging to the curve of her hips. It was hard to believe this was the same woman in that hospital bed, shrunk down to the size of a small child, bald and pale and covered in a scaly rash. Annie swallowed down a lump. She’d been right—Polly had had the perfect life, before the cancer, at least on the outside. But all the same it wasn’t perfect. Not at all.
“That was our wedding day.” Tom was in the doorway, smelling of lime and dressed in gray jeans and a thick navy jumper. Catalog man again. The perfect husband, too.
Annie didn’t know what to say. “It looks lovely.”
He rubbed his eyes. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I know. But it is. Let’s go.”
*
“Are you staying?” Tom hovered in the doorway of Polly’s hospital room, looking supremely uncomfortable. She hadn’t opened her eyes when they went in. Her breathing was slow and noisy, the machines beeping and humming around her.
Annie said, “I’m sorry. She asked me to—she’s struggling to talk these days, with the ventilator, but she’s told me what to say. I know it’s hard.”
He looked wretched. “But I...we need to say things. Private things.”
Annie could tell Polly was awake. There was something subtle about the way she held her eyes. You’d have to spend a lot of time with her to notice, and Annie had barely left the hospital in the last two days. Polly took a deep breath in, coughing out into her ventilation mask. “Tom,” she said, muffled. The plastic steamed up.
“Hey. Are you...?” He trailed off. “Jesus, Poll. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I’d no idea it would be this fast. I thought they’d fix you, see, and...”
Polly squeezed Annie’s hand, the faintest pressure, like the pulse of her veins. Annie said, “She doesn’t want you to apologize. She knows she should have told you what was happening and she’s sorry for that.”
Tom just stared. “Can they not do something? Why don’t they do something?”
“They’ve tried everything,” Annie said gently, aware that she was echoing Dr. Max’s words. “Radio, chemo, surgery. It’s aggressive and growing and they can’t hold it back anymore. She has a secondary tumor in her lungs that’s pressing on her spine. She can’t walk and her speech and sight are going. She’s in a lot of pain.”
“I’m so sorry,” he said again. His face was shiny with tears.
Polly removed her mask, her frail body racked by a spasm of coughing. “F-Fleur...”
“She’s not there. I’m so sorry I moved her into the house. I don’t know what I was—but she’s gone.”
Polly tapped Annie’s arm. “I know. Shh,” said Annie. “Tom, she wants to know if you’re happy with Fleur? Or if you were at least?”
“Um, I guess, but I didn’t—”
“L-love?” Polly got out.
“Did you love her? Did she love you? She wants to hear the truth, Tom.”