The Last Laugh

by Tracy Bloom

  ‘Shall we move inside?’ asks Mark, seeing me glance over at the smokers.

  ‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘I’m fine. No pudding for me though.’

  ‘Not even share mine?’

  I shake my head, trying not to let the tears break through again. I’ve never wanted to share a pudding more in my life. Sharing a pudding now would mean everything. It’s ours, it’s what we did. We shared warm chocolate fudge cake with cream in that beer garden from 1996 to 1998. I’d watch as Mark would carefully divide it down the middle to make sure it was fair. He’d always ask which half I wanted. I loved him for that. I loved that he cared that I got a fair portion and he didn’t just assume because he was the man that he should have more. I’d give anything to watch him do that now. A symbol of love and care and affection if ever I saw one. You don’t share chocolate fudge cake like that with a casual mistress, I was certain of it.

  But my insides can no more ingest another morsel than I can pole vault over the width of the river.

  ‘I’ve eaten too much already,’ I tell him sadly.

  ‘You’re not still on a diet, are you?’ he asks.

  I don’t quite know how to take this. His voice hints at criticism. Like that would be a bad thing. Implying I was either too thin or that my diets never worked anyway so why was I bothering. But as far as he was concerned this diet had magically worked. I’d lost twenty pounds and it was visible surely. Though he’d never acknowledged it.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ I ask.

  ‘Well, it’s just, well, you’re starting to look a bit too thin, that’s all.’

  I nod. How many times have I dreamed of someone saying that to me? Being accused of being too thin is like being told you’ve won too many Oscars in my book. Magical, magical words if ever they come your way. If only I didn’t have to get cancer to hear them.

  And if only they had been preceded by a compliment. It would have been nice to hear Mark tell me at some point in the last few weeks, when I hit the sweet spot, that I looked fabulous, instead of waiting until I was in the too-thin phase to remark on my weight loss.

  ‘I’ll take that as a compliment,’ I say sarcastically.

  ‘No, no,’ he flaps. ‘You look great. You just don’t need to lose any more, that’s all.’

  Again, music to my ears in different circumstances. The battle is over. I am at one with the size of my body for the first… and the very last time.

  ‘Do you like my hair?’ I pluck up the courage to ask him. He’s not mentioned it once and I suspect it’s because he hates it.

  ‘Of course,’ he nods.

  ‘Remind you of someone?’ I ask.

  He nods, smiling.

  ‘Ginger Spice?’ I say.

  ‘No,’ he replies. ‘It reminds me of you,’ he says quietly.

  He holds my gaze for a fraction of a second too long, as though he’s about to say something else. But then he changes his mind and picks up his glass to take a large swig.

  I take a deep breath and look around me. Most people have now retreated inside. There’s just two other tables aside from ours left. A group of five lads in their twenties, on the way to getting hammered, sit to our right. The conversation ebbs and flows and bursts into raucous laughter every minute or so. There’ll be much texting about sore heads and paracetamol tomorrow as they battle through a work day with a hangover in the way only someone in their twenties can get away with.

  Then there’s a couple with a baby in a pushchair fast asleep. They’re enjoying grown-up conversation perhaps for the first time in weeks. The man reaches over and tucks the blanket closer around the baby, then smiles in relief at the woman as he pours her another glass of wine. Happiness and contentment surrounds us.

  I look back at Mark.

  ‘Go on then,’ I say. ‘I’ll share a fudge cake with you.’

  I smile. He hesitates – he’d wanted cheesecake.

  ‘Good call,’ he nods and gets up to go to the bar and order one portion and two spoons.

  Twenty-Seven

  Somewhere around three o’clock in the morning I decide I’d better have this going-away party soon.

  Two reasons.

  As I’d looked at my husband as he carefully divided the chocolate fudge cake, I realised I couldn’t hold off not telling him about my illness much longer. You see, going back to 1996 just might be making me fall in love with him all over again.

  Despite everything.

  Despite the affair.

  Sharing cake with him has reignited nostalgia for our early passion I had not anticipated. I know he’s sleeping with someone else, I know he’s an utter bastard, but in 1996 he rocked my world. He was my world. I loved him with all my heart. Time and tiredness have eroded it to virtually nothing until tonight, as we’d sat like the courting couple we once were, sharing cake.

  He felt it too, I think. There was a flicker of recognition in his eyes of times gone by as the plate had arrived, along with two spoons nestled together in a single napkin. We’d eaten and then left as I began to shiver in the fading light.

  We’d hardly spoken on the way home. No need. Both lost in our own thoughts as to why the evening felt significant. I’d felt an enormous desire at that very point to share with him what was really going on. To come clean. Suddenly it felt like he could be the one I would lean on. Suddenly it seemed possible. I only stopped myself because of the simple selfish desire to carry on feeling like this. Warm and loved. I hadn’t felt like this in a very long time and couldn’t bear to give it up for just mere pity. The declaration of my illness would poison these feelings soon enough. It felt good, so good. Just a little bit longer.

  The second reason is because I’m finding it harder to hide my pain, despite the best efforts of the handful of tablets I’m taking daily. I’m rolling around on the floor in agony in the middle of the night, my stomach protesting and waves of nausea washing over me. I know I won’t be able to hide how much pain I’m in much longer. Soon the cancer will demand I show my hand and so it’s time to act fast and get on with the things I need to do before my life changes forever.

  * * *

  I stuff an A4 printed sheet into Maureen’s hand the following afternoon. I’d spent an hour trying to blow-dry my hair back into Geri style but it wasn’t having any of it. I wasn’t looking my best.

  ‘Nice of you to make the effort,’ says Maureen, reaching for her glasses then peering down at the piece of paper I’d given her.

  ‘Turns out this look is quite high-maintenance,’ I reply. ‘I’ve booked in to have a blow-dry with Dominic tomorrow.’

  ‘Mmm,’ she nods, still looking down. ‘Twenty-first of July?’ she exclaims, her head flicking up.

  ‘I think I need to get on with it,’ I reply.

  She nods her agreement, seeming to understand. ‘But to organise a party in two weeks?’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘But seize the day, eh?’ I smile weakly. ‘Pointless hanging around.’

  She looks me up and down then turns back to the draft invite I’ve given her.

  ‘There’s one problem,’ I declare. ‘Well, two actually.’

  ‘I think you mean several.’

  ‘Actually I do.’

  ‘Venue.’

  ‘First problem,’ I nod.

  Lying on the bathroom floor at three in the morning, the revelation that I needed to have my going-away party soon had both soothed and then terrified me. I so wanted and needed to do this and yet I had no idea how.

  ‘Here, you have it here,’ says Maureen, glancing around her room.

  ‘Are you out of your mind?’

  ‘Not in here exactly. Not in my room. I mean, out there in the grounds – it’s perfect.’

  ‘You must be insane.’

  ‘Any better ideas?’

  I’d wracked my brains. I wanted to be outside. I wanted everyone to feel the sunshine on their backs. It had to be outside but our garden, well, it wasn’t big enough. It had been our compromise when we bought the
house. For some reason five bedrooms seemed more important than a garden you could swing a cat in. Most brand new estate developers clearly thought so too, given the paltry postage stamps most new-builds were offered with these days.

  ‘Sandra will never allow it,’ I say. ‘Why would she?’

  ‘So don’t tell her. She’s no idea what’s going on in here at the best of times. We could build a crack den on the back lawn and she wouldn’t notice.’

  ‘You been watching Breaking Bad again?’

  ‘Don’t tell me what happens,’ she says, covering her ears with her hands. ‘I’m only on episode twelve, series two.’

  ‘I can’t have a party here without permission. I’d get the sack,’ I say.

  As soon as I say this we exchange a look. A look that says getting the sack is the least of your problems when you know you’re dying anyway.

  ‘Why don’t we say it’s my party then?’ says Maureen. ‘She’ll have to agree to that. And it will be a Saturday so she won’t be here anyway – she never shows her face on a Saturday. About time the grounds got used for some fun rather than for us crocks hobbling round and talking to the damn roses.’

  I sit down heavily on Maureen’s bed.

  ‘A party at an old people’s home,’ I say, screwing my nose up. ‘It’s not really what I had in mind, to be honest.’

  ‘Well, come on then. Where were you thinking of?’

  I look at her blankly and shrug.

  ‘That’s settled then. Shady Grove it is. Think of it as one of those mob flash things.’

  ‘Flash mob?’

  ‘That’s what I said. Only it will be a flash party, a really flash party.’ She collapses in peals of laughter at her own wit. ‘So who are you thinking of inviting?’

  ‘Second problem.’ I sigh.

  ‘Well, you will need to invite everyone here of course.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You can’t have a party here and not invite the residents. What you going to do with them, lock them in their rooms?’

  ‘Ideally,’ I mutter under my breath.

  ‘Come on, they won’t be any trouble. Well, Sheila might, but as long as you keep her off the booze she’ll be fine. We’ll just sit them round tables at the back. You won’t know they’re there. So who else?’

  I cough. This is where I decide that this whole going-away party might be a terrible idea. A non-starter if ever there was one.

  ‘I want to see my old friends again. All my old tour rep mates from Greece. That’s who I really want to be there. I want that party. I want the people who came to my birthday party on the beach in 1996.’

  ‘The ones you’ve lost touch with.’

  I nod.

  ‘And you mock my Christmas card list.’

  I nod. Who knew that as I watched my life flash before my eyes that the one thing I would regret would be not having a Christmas card list? Maureen holds my gaze in a look that says she totally believes that her generation is far superior to mine by mere fact of its ability to keep an up-to-date Christmas card list. I bow my head in shame.

  ‘Well, surely we can track them down on the internet,’ she says when she has made me squirm long enough. ‘You must be able to find at least some of them.’

  Indeed, I’ve already looked. Four in the morning saw me at the kitchen table typing names and locations that might somehow narrow down the billions of people now caught up in cyberspace. I’d found a few. The men were easier than the women. Marriage can wipe a woman’s previous identity out, making it virtually impossible to track anyone down unless you were around at the time of the nuptials.

  But Dave Brownsord, the epic DJ at my party, popped up soon enough, and by scrolling through his Facebook friends I eventually found Kev and Ian and of course their big mate Sean. I of course knew that if I found Sean I’d probably find my old mate Karen. She had the biggest crush on him when we were in Greece. So much so that Sean walked all over her. Got her to do all his dirty work. She was the one who sat up every Sunday night and went through his expenses for him, counted up how many receipts he’d written for trips and called the coach company to confirm his transport. She even went to meet the planes he was meant to on a Sunday morning if he was too hungover. She was like his personal PA, taking all the pain of being a rep out of his hands and smoothing it over.

  Sean was the only reason why we ever fell out. Like the time when I found her in the all-night launderette doing his washing whilst he was out on the town showing some female holidaymakers how to have a good time. She never knew where she was with him. He dangled her on a piece of string and would occasionally rein her in and feed her a morsel of how being his girlfriend would feel like. He’d take her out for a flash meal or hire a boat for an afternoon’s sailing and a picnic on some remote beach. He’d feed her just enough to keep her slaving away whilst I would try and convince her that a picnic once a month wasn’t enough to reward her for the hours she spent playing nursemaid.

  I totally blame Sean for why Karen and I lost touch. When I called our apartment a couple of weeks after I’d fled for England it was Sean who picked up the phone and not Karen. When I enquired he’d said she was out buying them dinner. Then he’d informed me he’d moved into the apartment that Karen and I had previously shared. How convenient, I thought, for him to be actually living with his maid rather than two blocks away. I said I looked forward to receiving a cheque for the advance rent I’d paid at the beginning of the season. He put the phone down.

  I’d tried a couple more times and eventually got through to Karen, at which point I lambasted her about allowing Sean to move in and take advantage of her and my pre-paid rent. She told me she was very happy. I put the phone down this time. We never spoke again.

  And there she is nestled amongst Sean’s two hundred and twenty-two Facebook friends. Karen Smith, as she is now called, beaming out at me. How was I ever going to find a Karen Smith? Thank goodness for Sean Hounslow is all I can say.

  The assessment of how the last twenty years had gone according to Facebook for Karen looked pretty good at first glance. She was clearly married, hence the new surname, and there was a daughter who seemed to be at university. But, on closer scrutiny of the very few photos hobnobbing about her page, there was also another child. A much younger one. Maybe seven or eight? What was that all about? Two marriages perhaps? But Karen didn’t strike me as the sort. She was always so very loyal. Two marriages and kids by two different fathers was not her style. I struggled to find any pictures of men who looked like husband material, and then I spotted it. My heart sank for her because it was as clear as day what had happened. So clear I bet I could have predicted it way back in 1996.

  The older girl was called Sienna Hounslow. So she’d married him. She’d married Sean and then clearly he’d done the dirty on her as he was always going to, leaving her to be a single mother until she presumably met Mr Smith, the father of Evie, the younger child. Of course that’s what had happened. Sean followed the easy life for so long and then skedaddled the minute he found a fresh bit of skirt willing to do his bidding. Utterly fucking predictable. I felt sad. I felt bad. I wished I’d been there for her. Maybe I could have stopped her marrying him. At the very least maybe I could have held her hand when he walked away whilst I bit my lip and stopped myself saying, ‘I told you so.’

  ‘I’ve tracked some of them down,’ I tell Maureen.

  ‘So have you been in touch?’

  ‘I’ve sent them all messages. But that was only a few hours ago and I’ve heard nothing since. They won’t be able to come, will they? Not with this short notice and me contacting them out of the blue. I haven’t seen them all for twenty years.’

  The message to Karen had been the hardest. What do you say to someone who has turned out to be your best friend of all time? The person you shared everything with at a time in your life when you absolutely needed to share everything. When you were facing the baffling arena of trying to find your future through the medium of work and men. Wh
en you were constantly trying to navigate your way through opportunity after opportunity, trying so desperately hard to make the right choices. Well, that was your constant challenge anyway, until every so often you could say, fuck it, fuck it all, it’s time for play, and you would let go and hang the consequences. That’s your twenties, a desperate attempt to grow into your future whilst every so often getting childishly drunk on your youth.

  In twenty years I’d never managed to replace Karen, despite a constant search for someone to step into her shoes. Maybe it’s not possible. Maybe the person you share that growing-up time with can never be replaced. The person who held your hand as you faced your first foray into the adult world. The person who held your hand as you pogoed around the kitchen at two in the morning, high on gin and your discovery you were both totally into the same boy-band. The person who held your hand when she got her first promotion and you didn’t and said it wouldn’t change anything. The person who held your hand and laughed until she cried at the state of the one-night stand you’d brought home and made you realise you were worth so much more than that. The person you were silly and serious with during the time in your life when you can get away with both. Before any real responsibility, whilst you were working out what kind of responsibility you wanted.

  Maybe you cannot replace the person you live through that part of your life with. There’s an understanding of the real you. The you without the husband or the kids or the career that’s either taken off or not. The you that you have defined before your choices of husband and family start to define you. Before success or failure, smugness or resentment has managed to weave its way into your personality. The you before the passing of time got hold of you and shook you until maybe you don’t even recognise yourself.

  I’d sent Karen my phone number. Said I’d love to catch up. Said I was trying to organise a get-together and would love it if she could come. Said I was trying to get hold of some sumo suits for old times’ sake. I thought that might make her smile. Give her a happy memory to banish the achingly long silence that has existed between us. All I could do was wait and see if she could put the passage of time behind her and pick up the phone.