Something Like Happy

by Eva Woods

  Mystified, Annie hovered near her seat. Polly squeezed Annie’s shoulder and whispered, “Come on. It’s not so scary.”

  Easy for her to say. Didn’t she see not everyone could leap at life, grab it with both hands, be forced into meetings with old friends they hadn’t spoken to in two years, made to dance in fountains and go for dinner with new people and admit they knew nothing about art or music or clothes?

  Everyone was smiling at Annie. As if she was the poor relation they had to make a fuss of. Suze said, “So, Annie, I hear you’ve adopted Poll’s dog?”

  “Well, I’m just sort of looking after him for now.” Meaning she was the one with the chewed shoes and no sleep and puddles of wee everywhere.

  “George could help you with that,” Valerie said, setting down a basket of homemade focaccia. “He loves animals.”

  George and Polly exchanged glances. Annie stared angrily at her slate place mat. She didn’t understand what was going on.

  Then things got a hundred times worse as there was a noise in the hallway like horses in a cavalry charge, and a wailing like a banshee, and Annie felt her chest close up in fear. Children. There were children here. Why had no one warned her? Two tiny blonde things erupted into the room, one in a pink dress and one in a Breton top and jeans. “Mummy, Harry did a poo in the loo!”

  “Mummy, Lola hurted me. Put her on the naughty step!”

  Annie watched, rooted in horror, as they threw themselves at Milly, one around each leg. Milly laughed helplessly. “Darlings, say hello to Annie.”

  They turned their little faces to her, curious, as if they might come over. Annie couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Their snub noses, their curling blond hair, the little shoes. How old were they? Three, four? Twins. She couldn’t bear it. “I...”

  Luckily, Polly must have understood. “Annie and I are just popping out for a moment. Er, secret hospital chat.” And she propelled her out the patio doors into the quiet cool of the garden.

  * * *

  “Sorry, I just—it was a bit overwhelming, everyone at once.” Annie was desperately trying to get ahold of herself.

  “Don’t blame you.” Polly groaned, slumping on a patio seat. “They’re exhausting, those kids. I don’t know how Mill does it. I’m going to have to lie down for a week once they’ve gone home.”

  “Mmm.” Annie sat down beside her, wiping the seat first with her sleeve.

  “I mean, maybe it’s for the best I never had any kids myself. Imagine how much harder it would be now, with all this.”

  “Did you want to?”

  “I don’t know. I always assumed I would. I mean, you do, don’t you?”

  “Mmm.”

  “But I kept putting it off. Told myself I’d try at thirty-three, or thirty-four, or thirty-five. And guess what, I’m out of time. That adorable little baby in the cheesecloth blanket, that’s never going to exist. I leave nothing behind me.”

  A pause. Annie by now knew better than to say she was sorry. Polly hated that.

  “But maybe it’s for the best,” Polly repeated. “All that screaming and not being able to go to the loo on your own, and look, chocolate smeared on your vintage Chanel.” She held up the arm of her jacket. “At least I got to do things. Travel, and work, and...you know. And Milly changed so much—it was as if the life was sucked out of her. She used to be so fun—last one in the bar, always up on the news of the day—and now she sometimes doesn’t even know what day it is. Of course, neither do I, but that’s because my brain is being eaten by a tumor. Maybe that’s what motherhood is. A tumor.”

  Annie gritted her teeth. “Some people would quite like the chance to have that tumor. I’m sure Milly’s happy.”

  “I don’t know. Would you be happy covered in baby sick and having to watch Peppa Pig ten times in a row?”

  “I was,” she snarled, instantly regretting it.

  In the darkening garden, Polly was watching her. “I wondered when you were going to tell me.”

  “I wasn’t. Necessarily.”

  “Thought not.”

  More silence. Inside, the rise and fall of children’s voices. She’d never got to hear Jacob speak, but he used to babble, a rise of clear joyful sounds, like bubbles going up.

  Polly waited. “I guess this is something to do with Mike and Jane?”

  “Sort of.”

  “See? I knew there was more. Annie, you really are trying to knock me off the winner’s podium for ‘most pathetic story.’”

  Annie breathed hard. “So you know about the divorce and my mum being sick and my friend running off with my husband. Would a dash of infertility help?”

  “Always.”

  “I had three miscarriages before Jacob. One at three weeks—ruined the carpet. Blood everywhere. In my hair, in the bed, all over Mike’s pajamas. One at ten—they found out at my dating scan, and I had to have a D and C. And the last at five months. You have to give birth when it’s that far along. It was awful.”

  Polly left a moment of silence. “Then you stopped trying?”

  Annie shook her head. She picked at her tights with shaking hands. “Um, Mike wanted to stop. But I...I couldn’t. So I tried again. Pretended to be on the pill. He was furious. But then it seemed to work. Jacob was born full-term. Healthy.”

  “Lovely name,” said Polly.

  “Yeah. I always liked it. Then he—” She hitched in her breath. After all this time, the story still felt like a stone in her throat. “One morning Mike went to get him up. He’d slept through the night, we thought. I was happy! I thought things would be better from then. He didn’t sleep well—we were all knackered. And I had this one moment of being happy—there was sun coming in the curtains, and I thought...I thought how good my life was. But when Mike went in, Jacob was—he was cold. Mike didn’t want me to see but I—I pushed into the room, and he—he was already blue and he... We called an ambulance but he. Was gone. He was gone. Cot death, they said. Just one of those things.” Though she’d torn herself apart looking for reasons. Had he been too cold? Too warm? Had he caught something and she’d just not noticed? She took another breath. “I went to pieces. It was like... I didn’t know who I was anymore. I didn’t know if I’d survive. I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat. I used to just lie on the floor of his room all night and howl, like a dog. I didn’t wash. I didn’t change my clothes for two months. And Jane—well. She was my best friend. She was around all the time. Comforting me. Helping. Except she couldn’t even reach me, no one could, so she comforted Mike instead, and then after a while he said he was sorry and it was an accident but they were really in love. I guess because she still got dressed and didn’t cry all the time or refuse to throw away old cot sheets because they were all she had left of her baby.” Annie breathed again. She’d said it. She’d said it and nothing had broken. The voices went on inside: Lola asking for some cake. The bird in the tree kept singing. The noise of the boats on the river kept hooting, mournful, like whale song.

  After a while Polly fumbled for Annie’s hand, and slapped it gently, as if handing her an invisible object. “Here.”

  “What’s that?” Annie said shakily.

  “My cancer card. You get to win for a while.”

  “I do?”

  “Shit, of course you do, Annie. That’s—I don’t even know what to say.”

  “That’s a first.”

  “I know. Better send out the press release.” They both laughed for a moment, shaky with tears. “Annie. I’m so—my God. And I brought you here, with the kids—I didn’t know, I swear. I knew there was something but not this. Christ.”

  “Don’t say you’re sorry. Let’s have a pact, okay? We’re not sorry unless it was our fault.” Annie squinted at her. “So, this was your life before? Everyone talking about, I don’t know, quinoa and the Human Rights Act and arr
anging weekends in Norfolk cottages?”

  “I guess it was. We must seem like a right bunch of pretentious twats.”

  “No. It’s just—we’d have had nothing in common, if we’d met before all this.”

  Polly didn’t lie. “Maybe not, no. But here we are, and I’m not sure I can get through this without you, so you’re stuck with me now, Annie Hebden. Only person who’s ever beaten me in a sob-story competition. Damn you.”

  “Damn you back,” said Annie. She reached for Polly’s cold hand, and squeezed it, and they sat there in the dark for a while, watching the lights of the boats, and the city around them with seven million hearts beating on and on.

  DAY 25

  Share something

  “Annie! Back again? You could skip a day, you know. No one would think any less of you, and your mum...well, you know. She might not realize.” Dr. Max was once again at the vending machine, a Twix in each hand.

  “I know. I’m meeting a friend, in fact.” The word sounded strange in her mouth. It was a long time since she’d said it. “Is that your lunch?”

  He brightened. “Machine gave me two by mistake! Karma for all my hard-earned cash that’s been swallowed up by that minion of Satan.” He looked at her. “Oh, would you like the spare one?”

  “Don’t you want it?”

  He patted his stomach. “I’m living off sugar as it is. Can’t remember the last time I had a meal on a plate. You know it’s not—”

  “Not a nine-to-five job, I know. Would you...?” Annie realized she’d almost asked him around for dinner. “Um, well, in that case, sure, I’ll take the Twix. I’ll save it for after my lunch.”

  “Lunch,” he said nostalgically. “I used to eat that. It’s jerk day in the canteen. Of course, it’s always jerk day when you work in a hospital. If it’s not the management, it’s the patients wanting your life’s blood.”

  “You take their blood all the time,” Annie pointed out.

  He’d unwrapped his Twix and was already through one bar of it. “Metaphorical blood, Annie. I swear this hospital is killing me. There’s a queue of ten people just waiting to get their heads scanned so I can tell them they have cancer. It’s not right.”

  “Is there anything we could do? You know, a fundraising event or something. Dr. Quarani’s running the London Marathon.” She’d seen him on her way in, doing laps of the hospital, his face set and grim. “I thought you were, too?”

  “I just wanted to get fit,” he said defensively. “I don’t believe in fundraising for public services. The government would love that, making us raise all our own cash from bloody jumble sales. They need to fund the NHS properly from taxes, not sell it off to their fat-cat mates in private health care. It’s a disgrace, Annie, that’s what it is. Anyway, see you, got to go look into someone’s brain now.” He’d sounded furious, but he waved jauntily as he left. She couldn’t figure him out.

  * * *

  The canteen was busy with doctors and families, and it took her a while to spot Zarah. Today she wore a blue scarf with butterflies, edged in blue sequins. Annie wished she’d suggested meeting somewhere they wouldn’t be seen by one of Polly’s many spies. But Zarah only got a short break and since Annie was there every day, anyway, it made sense. “Hi.”

  Zarah wasn’t alone at the table, and for a moment Annie thought they’d have to share it with a random, but then she saw who it was. Zarah caught her look. “I hope you don’t mind, Annie. I just think the three of us need to talk. This has gone on long enough.”

  “Agreed,” said the other woman at the table, tall and striking in a red bodycon dress, her hair in a shiny weave. “Hi, Annie.”

  Annie swallowed. “Hi, Miriam.”

  Miriam met her eyes, frank and honest, just as Annie remembered. Too honest sometimes. It was why they hadn’t spoken in so long. “Are you well? Zar said your mum was poorly?”

  “Yeah, she’s...” Annie couldn’t bear to explain. “She’s in the inpatients’ ward. How’s...Jasmine?”

  Miriam looked surprised for a moment, as if she hadn’t expected Annie to remember her daughter’s name. But of course Annie remembered. She knew everything about Jasmine, another child that had been lost to her, but this time through her own fault. “She’s fine.”

  “I’m so sorry about...everything.”

  “You mean her birthday?”

  Annie nodded, staring at the greasy tabletop. “I shouldn’t have even been there. I wasn’t up to it. I just didn’t want to...let you down.” And so she’d made herself go, and the sight of all those one-year-olds smeared in cake had made her flee, weeping, and when Miriam had come after her, Annie had pushed her away, physically pushed her, and slammed her car door, pulling off and leaving Mike on the pavement, staring after her. Annie had often wondered if he would have left her if it hadn’t been for the scene she caused that day. If that was the moment he decided to cut his losses and run, untether himself from the weeping mess of a person she’d become.

  Miriam sighed. “Annie, the party doesn’t matter. Jas won’t even remember. But you just cut us off completely. All of us, not just Jane.”

  At the sound of the name Annie’s teeth clenched. “I take it you’re all still friends.”

  Zarah and Miriam exchanged looks. Zarah said, “Annie...we’re your friends, too. I missed you so much—you were always the first person I’d ring when I had a crisis. Remember? You were the only one who never panicked, who’d cheer me up if I had a terrible date or my car wouldn’t start or my parents were giving me grief. I never wanted to stop being friends. You just wouldn’t see us. You wouldn’t see anyone. And Jane...she feels terrible, really she does.”

  “Not terrible enough not to do it.”

  “They fell in love,” said Miriam. “I really think they did. I mean, obviously it was terrible for you. It’s not like we were on her side.”

  It had felt like it, when Mike finally told her who he was leaving her for, and she’d called Zarah in total shock. When she’d told her friend what had happened, she’d heard the silence that meant everyone already knew. Annie was the last to find out. And so she’d packed her things and moved out and never spoken to any of them again, until now. What a mess it was. Everything—her child, her home, her husband, her friends—gone in one swoop.

  She felt a hand on hers and looked up to see Miriam smiling at her. And the first tear splashed onto the dirty table. “S-sorry.”

  Zarah said, “What happened to you was awful, An. So awful. We just wanted to be there for you. But you vanished.”

  Annie shook her head, dislodging tears. “No one could help. There was no point.”

  Zarah nodded. “Well, maybe now the dust has settled a little bit...maybe we can meet up again, like we used to? I mean, the three of us.” Annie felt how awkward it must have been for them, when one of their best friends went off with the other’s husband. “I wouldn’t expect you to... But she really does feel terrible, you know. Especially now that...” She fell silent. Another look between her and Miriam. “She feels terrible,” Zarah repeated.

  And so she should. “I can’t forgive her. I just can’t.” Annie could hardly talk over the lump in her throat. It was too soon, too raw. Seeing the two of them brought back so many memories. Of old Annie, who had friends, who was even the sensible one. The one the rest came to when their boyfriends cheated or their bosses asked too much or they couldn’t get their cakes to rise. That Annie had died when Jacob did.

  She stood up, scraping her chair back. “I have to go. Sorry. Thanks for—thanks. I’d like that, if we could meet up. Soon. I have to go.” And once again, she ran away, out in the corridor that was painted all the shades of misery there were.

  DAY 26

  Reclaim a hobby

  “So do you come here a lot?”

  Annie shook her head
. “Sometimes I can’t face it.” What kind of person was she, that she didn’t visit her own baby’s grave? “It’s just...it’s very painful,” she said. “And I’m always worried I might bump into Mike.”

  “I get that. So where is it?” Polly turned on her heels, looking around the vast municipal graveyard. She was dressed in denim dungarees and Converses with flowers on them; she looked like she was in an Abercrombie and Fitch ad.

  “Third row on the left.” Annie knew exactly. She could have walked here in her sleep—and she did sometimes, dreaming that she stood over his grave. Looking for him. It had been two years, but there were days when she still woke up expecting to hear his cry. She should have known, on the morning when he was silent. She wasn’t sure she’d ever forgive herself for the brief relief when she thought he’d slept right through, for that moment of happiness. If only she’d checked on him sooner. If only she’d woken up earlier. Annie shut the thought down—she knew that if she carried on with it, the what-ifs would kill her. “This is it.” She felt shame roll over her. It was such a mess. Weeds were almost swamping the little gray stone that read Jacob Matthew Hebden, and the jam jar she’d last brought flowers in was tipped on its side, full of dirty green water.

  “Matthew,” Polly read. “Named after someone?”

  “Mike’s dad.”

  “Hmm. His, not yours.”

  Annie shrugged. “Why would I name my son after someone I’ve never met? At least, not that I remember.”

  Polly hunkered down on the grass. “You’ve never tried to look for him, all this time?”

  “I wouldn’t know where to start. I don’t even remember him. He left when I was a few days old.”

  “Your poor mum. That must have been tough.”

  “Yeah. He was a bit of a loser, I guess. I always felt I didn’t need that in my life. Kind of ironic, isn’t it, that my husband ended up leaving me, too. A family trait, maybe.”

  Polly tutted. “I hope you’re not expecting me to come to this pity party you’re throwing, Annie.”