“True. Right, ring up Sandy. Tell her I want a once-in-a-deathtime outfit. Like...the best dress she can imagine me ever wearing. At least I’m skinny enough to...pull it off right now.”
Annie made notes. It was easier to just go along with it. “Pedicure, clothes, food, music, decor. What else?”
“I want a slideshow of my life. Get me some numbers for...video people. And I want everyone to say something about me. Like a toast at a...wedding, only I won’t have to share it with anyone else.”
“Have you always been this narcissistic? Were you just holding it in for years?”
“I believe my imminent death has reduced my stores of...giving-a-fuckness.” Polly looked at her dried and cracked feet again and sighed. “You know what I really wish I could do?”
“Hot-air ballooning over the Sahara? See a performance of Les Mis done by cats?”
“I wish I could go on a...date. That’s silly, isn’t it? I just haven’t been on one since Tom, and I’ve forgotten what it was like. If I’ll be all...glammed up, I wish I could go out somewhere...nice. With a man. But who would take me? I can’t even leave this...stupid hospital.”
Annie made some more notes. “Well, you never know, Poll. If you’ve taught me one thing, it’s that everything’s possible.”
She nodded. “Maybe I can go on...Tinder and see if there’s anyone else in the hospital who’s dying and wants a last-minute date. It might appeal to all those...commitmentphobes out there.”
“Sure,” Annie said, turning an idea over in her mind.
Polly leaned back and closed her eyes. “So what are you going to say in my...eulogy?”
“Oh, that you were power-crazed and got me fired from my job and made me dance in a freezing dirty fountain and fall down a mountain a hundred times.”
“You’re...welcome.”
Annie paused, rolling the pen in her fingers. It was a sparkly one, same as Polly had given to her all those weeks ago, to brighten her dull desk. “Polly...I’ve been meaning to ask. Why did you do all this for me? I mean, I’m horrible. I’m grouchy, and scared all the time, and I’m mean.”
Polly laughed, a rasp in her dry throat. “When I saw you in the hospital that day, way back, you looked so...miserable, so broken, I thought to myself, Here’s someone who sees it like it is. Who knows that life is...truly shit and it all comes down to dying in small, crappy rooms all alone. I didn’t want...platitudes. My friends—they’re great, but they’re always so positive. They’d have liked all my Facebook posts, and never talked to me honestly about the fact I was...dying, and they’d have taken selfies at my funeral and put up sad-faced emojis and somehow it wouldn’t have sunk in. Even Milly and Suze, they didn’t really want to hear anything...negative. They’d have wanted to look for a meaning in it. Even my parents. They were so scared, they couldn’t face it. They mean well, but I needed...reality, I guess. To try and be positive while facing the truth. You see, I wasn’t like this before. I was the same as you—spent all my time in the office, grumbled about the...commute, barely spoke to my husband or family, angsted about how many likes I had on...Instagram and what kind of face cream I should be buying. All that...rubbish. But you—I thought if you could start being happy, after all you’d been through, then it would be real. I’d know it was really possible to change things. To actually become...happy.”
“So what, I’m like your legacy or something?”
“To start with, maybe. And then, well, you know, you kind of started to grow on me. Betty...Buzzkill. I mean...it’s so weird. I won’t even be able to call or email you from...wherever I go. How will I tell you what to...do? Find out if you ever got it on with McGrumpy? Or just ask you how you are?”
Annie looked at Polly, whose eyes were still closed. She’d gone pale again, the color of the pillow. It was all too easy to imagine what she’d look like with those eyes closed forever. “Poll, did I ever thank you?”
“Nope. I’d...remember that.”
“Well, thank you.”
“Even for getting you...fired?”
“Hmm.”
“You’ll be...fine, Annie. There’s so many things you can do for a job, so many places you can go. Trust me, when you’re lying where I am—and you will be, one day—you’ll be...glad of it.”
“I know,” Annie said quietly. “I know. Thank you, Polly.”
Her thin hand came out from the covers and caught Annie’s. “Thank you, Annie Hebden-Clarke. I don’t think I could have...done this without you. I’d have been a...screaming wreck otherwise. You showed me that when something is really shit, it’s okay to be sad. It’s not a disease you have to cure. You can just...be sad.”
“Well, you were a screaming wreck, some of the time.”
Polly laughed, very softly, and after a few minutes her breathing grew flat and regular again. Annie held her hand for a few more moments, then gently detangled herself and slipped out.
DAY 83
Go on a first date
“Hey, look at those toes!”
“Good, right?” Polly wiggled her feet, the nails of which were now painted bright tangerine. “Popping all over the...show.” She waved her fingers, which were each done in a different shade of neon. Lime, sherbet, acid lemon. “I’m gonna be the most on-trend...corpse in the mortuary.”
Annie winced. She wished Polly wouldn’t say these things, but she knew she had no right to feel upset. Polly couldn’t be expected to spare other people’s feelings, when she was the one dying. “How are you?”
“Good. I feel good. Got my hair done, got my threads. I’m ready to...rock.” She did look better—her wig was styled to look like her own hair, the blond curls baby-fine and shiny. Makeup gave her some color, and she was smiling. “Sandy sent over the most...amazing dress. Shame I have to wait for the fake funeral to wear it.”
Annie checked the clock—almost time. “Well, maybe you don’t have to.”
“What?” Polly was wrinkling her nose over her dinner tray, which held a bowl of tinned vegetable soup and some slices of white bread. “Dear God, what is this? I seriously doubt it’s made in a...NutriBullet.”
“Don’t eat that. You’re going out tonight. Well, not out out. Out of this room, at least. They wouldn’t let us take you out of the hospital, sorry.”
“Us? What’s going on?” Polly set down the spoon with a rattle.
Here goes. This could all backfire so easily. “Well, when you said you wanted to go on one last date, I...arranged it for you.”
“What? Who...with?”
“Who do you think? Your hospital crush.”
“Not... Oh, Annie. For Christ’s...sake. I made a total fool of myself flirting with him. He wasn’t interested.”
“Well, he is now.” At least she hoped so. She still couldn’t believe George had got him to say yes. He was so professional, so reserved.
Polly tried to fold her arms, but they were too weak. “This isn’t fair, ambushing me...like this.”
“Oh, as opposed to when you got me fired? Or told Dr. Max I fancied him—”
“—which you do—”
“—or made me pose naked or any of the other hundreds of daft things you’ve had me do? You owe me, Polly Leonard.”
“Hmph. I don’t want some manky...pity date.”