Something Like Happy

by Eva Woods

  “I...” Was he going to kiss her? Surely not. He was Polly’s doctor, and the show was about to start any minute, and no one had kissed her in years, and why would he fancy her, anyway? But he wasn’t pulling away.

  The moment continued. Annie held his gaze. Thought of Mike, and Jane. Her heart still felt like a raw piece of meat. What if she kissed him and fell in love with him and got hurt again? She wasn’t sure she could stand it. But shouldn’t she take a risk? He was just so nice. He smelled of soap, and coffee. His arms were so solid around her.

  “Annie!” Damn it. Polly was standing behind them, frowning. “What are you doing?”

  Annie stiffened and pushed at his chest. Dr. Max stepped away, clearing his throat. “Annie wasn’t feeling well. Just a bit of nerves, I think.”

  “We’re ready to start now.”

  She pulled herself together. “Great, great. I’ll just...”

  “Um, I better...” Dr. Max began to shuffle away.

  “Okay...” She watched him walk away.

  “Are you ready?” Polly was still frowning.

  “Sorry. Yes, yes, I am. Let’s do this.”

  * * *

  Afterward, Annie could only remember the night as a blur. Sequins, lights, laughter and sighs from the audience, applause. The sound of tapping feet on the stage of the lecture theater, which normally only showed slides about disease. A place full of death, death and more death, and they’d filled it with life, loud and bright and shimmering. At least on the stage. Behind it things were a little more fraught, everyone losing their costumes and makeup and cues and dance partners. Annie raced around with her clipboard, barely seeing any of it. By the end she was doused in sweat, sure that she had a damp oval on her back, and her feet were aching. She could hear the final applause now, as George stood making a speech. He’d been onstage the whole night, smiling, entertaining, totally in control. You’d never have known he was the same man weeping in the loos. It was so easy to put on an act, Annie realized. She wondered what would happen now. Would he ditch Caleb, as Polly wanted? Or keep going back for more? She knew it wasn’t as simple as leaving the minute someone hurt you.

  She stopped to listen for a moment.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, nurses and doctors, parents, patients. Tonight, we’ve done something wonderful. With online donations, we’ve raised an incredible sixty thousand pounds.” There were gasps. Annie’s mouth fell open—how could it be so much?

  The lecture screen behind George flickered into life, and Annie saw a fundraising page, the target exceeded hundreds of times over.

  George was saying, “To explain why this money is needed, I’d like to introduce possibly the most annoying patient in the history of this hospital—my sister, Polly.”

  Thunderous applause. Annie’s head swiveled, and then she saw Polly come onstage from the other wing. She was moving slowly, as if her back hurt, but she was waving and smiling. Annie saw Milly and Suze standing up in the front row, ready to film the whole speech and put it online.

  “Hi!” said Polly. Annie could hear her voice was cracked, her throat dry. “I won’t keep you, as I’m sure you all need to get home.” Meaning, Polly needed to get home. “A few months ago I was diagnosed, right in this hospital, with a brain tumor.” More murmurs of sympathy. She barreled through—that would have annoyed her, Annie was sure. “I know, I know, that sounds awful—and I guess it is—but I can honestly say I’m not brave, I’m not a noble cancer sufferer. The people who are brave and noble are in this room—and also not in this room because they’re still working, changing IVs and updating charts and bringing people drinks and cleaning operating theaters.” Polly looked around at the audience, the staff members crowding into the wings and the aisles of the theater, and she was smiling, despite her exhaustion. “When I imagined where I might die, it wasn’t in Lewisham. It would have been on a tropical island somewhere, maybe in a tragic speedboat accident at the age of ninety.” Laughter. “But now that it’s happening, I feel truly lucky. If I have to die, I can think of no better place to do it than here, with these people taking care of me.”

  Annie’s hand went up, shaky, to wipe her face. Was Dr. Max here? She hoped he was hearing this. But probably he was off twiddling with someone’s skull or fighting with the vending machine or drinking one of his horrible triple espressos. She hoped he wouldn’t be angry with her after that weird moment. Maybe he hadn’t been about to kiss her, anyway. Why would he, when the hospital was full of pretty women who all thought he was God’s gift to neurology? It was all so unsettling.

  Then she realized everyone was staring her way. She shrank back into the shadows. Polly beckoned to her. “So, as I was saying, the whole credit for dreaming up this amazing night goes to one person. Everyone, please thank my friend Annie.”

  Oh, God. She had to go onstage. Oh, Lord. And she was sweaty and her hair was all sticking up. She shuffled forward, blinded by the lights. An impression of hundreds of faces watching her. Everyone was clapping. Polly was pushing her to the microphone. Oh, God. She had to say something. She could feel all the sweat up and down her back. “Er, hi.” This was being filmed. Argh! “It’s not really down to me—it’s everyone who took part, who spread the word, who donated to the online fundraising, who bought tickets...uhhh. But I just want to say that Polly was right. Even in my lifetime of being reasonably healthy, this hospital has so far helped me have a baby, then sent an ambulance to try and save him when he died.” She was aware of George’s sharp double take. He hadn’t known. “It’s also helped my mother when she can’t remember who or where she is. And it’s helping my friend Polly. So, I just want to say...we will probably all need a hospital at some point in our lives. If you haven’t yet, you will, one day. So please support them. All of them. Please don’t let them be destroyed. Just—please. We can’t live without them. Quite literally.” She stepped back, shaking with adrenaline. She’d said too much. She’d gone political.

  Someone was coming onstage, taking the microphone from her, gently, murmuring over the storm of clapping. Clapping who? It must be her. They were clapping her. “Well said,” murmured Dr. Max. He’d smartened himself up a little since earlier, in a new shirt and tie, and he’d dampened down his wild springy hair. “So unless you want to say more—and I think that was perfect—do you mind?”

  She stepped back. Perfect. He’d said it was perfect. Dr. Max cleared his throat. “Hello, everyone. I’m the chief neurosurgeon here. What Annie just said—it’s why we all go to work every day. We don’t go for the money or the prestige—although it’s fun when people try to sue you...” Nervous laughter. “But I promised I wouldn’t rant. And as I’ve just lost a bet, I’m now going to sing you a song.”

  And Dr. Max began to sing, his voice low and rich. She couldn’t place the song for a moment. Something about stumbling and a cup of ambition and... Oh, God. He was singing Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.” A joke, a private joke. Singing it slow and mournful, almost like a ballad, then speeding up until people were on their feet, stamping and cheering and singing along, until his voice was drowned out. Then, just when she thought it couldn’t get any more surreal, a piper came onstage, in full Highland dress, blowing into a set of bagpipes, playing the bass line. Annie recognized one of the nurses from Intensive Care. More clapping. More singing. Annie was looking at Polly, almost strangled with laughter, feeling lifted up by it—the joy of the moment, the silliness, the kindness, the relief—and Polly was smiling back.

  Then a look crossed her face. Later Annie would think it was as if a shadow had swept past her friend. A shadow in a long black cloak. Polly’s face seemed to fall in on itself, and Annie was already racing across the stage, as the final applause died down and Dr. Max was thanking everyone. She was already running as Polly’s legs crumpled, and so she was there to catch her friend as she fell to the ground, unconscious.

  DAY 38

/>   Visit a sick person

  “How is she?”

  George just shook his head. He looked as if he hadn’t slept all night; when Polly collapsed they’d sent everyone home from the concert, saying she needed to rest, but Annie hadn’t slept, either, for worry, and had taken the first bus back in the morning.

  She looked at the giant stuffed bear she’d brought, feeling stupid. She’d tried to avoid the “get well soon” stuff, as surely Polly was not going to get well at all. “Have they said anything?”

  “Not a word. Dr. Max is avoiding me. And Mum and Dad...” He sighed deeply. “They’re driving me completely mad. Come in, will you? They might stop if you’re there.”

  Annie followed him into the private room, registering that Polly lay there—that frail body disappearing beneath sheets and hospital gown—hooked up to the machines. Heart monitor. Breathing mask. IV. Annie had been in the hospital enough times to know that the more tubes you had, the worse things were for you.

  Valerie and Roger sat either side of her, arguing in stiff quiet voices. “I told you we shouldn’t let her gad about the place. She’s sick, Valerie!”

  “It’s what she wanted. And she was so well.”

  “She wasn’t well at all! Why can’t you just face things? Polly’s dying, George is...how he is, and—”

  “He’s just confused, Roger! He doesn’t know what he wants! And you’re one to talk. I was so ashamed last night—having to call a taxi to get here because you weren’t fit to drive and—”

  “Annie’s here,” George said loudly.

  They both stuck on fake smiles. “Oh, how nice. Come in, dear.”

  Annie stood in the door. “I don’t want to intrude. I just needed to see how she was.”

  Valerie’s eyes were bright were tears, her voice strained. “She had some kind of crash last night, but we don’t know if it’s...if it’s temporary or not. We’re still hopeful, of course! She’s probably just tired.” Roger tutted.

  The door opened and Dr. Max came in, brisk and rumpled. Had he been home at all? Annie doubted it. “Hi, everyone.” His eyes flicked over her, and the teddy bear she was holding.

  “I’ll go,” she said hastily. “Give you some privacy.” After last night, she didn’t know what to say to him.

  George grabbed her arm, squeezing subtly. “I think Polly would want you here, Annie.”

  Reluctantly, she stayed. Dr. Max cleared his throat, arranging X-ray films on the wall holder. “Right. This is a scan of her lungs. You see that white bit?”

  Annie knew by now what white bits meant. They meant not good. They meant oh, shit. They meant Polly was getting worse.

  “A tumor,” George said in a small voice.

  “Aye. A secondary, on the lung. It explains the breathlessness and back pain she’s been trying to hide for weeks now.” He glanced at Annie and she felt a stab of guilt, thinking of Polly up that ladder.

  Valerie’s voice was wobbly. “Can we...is there anything...?”

  “Radiotherapy should shrink it. Reduce the pain a bit, let her breathe. But it’ll take its toll. She’s so weak.”

  In the spaces between the words, in the silence of the four of them—five if you counted Polly, out of it on the bed—Annie understood what he was saying. It had started. The beginning of the end. She had to do something—move, speak. “I...” Everyone turned to look at her. She fumbled the teddy into Dr. Max’s arms. “I shouldn’t be here. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” She pushed the door open and ran out into the corridor. This place. Full of death and terrible news and just endless bad things, going on and on. When would there be good news? When would something normal happen to her, like falling in love or going on holiday or taking up Zumba?

  “Annie, wait!” She turned to see Dr. Max padding after her, with his long loping stride. He was still holding the teddy in his hands, as if he didn’t know what to do with it.

  “I can’t be there, I can’t, it’s not fair, she’s so young and so alive and it’s not fair. Dr. Max, why can’t you do something? Why can’t you fix her?” She swallowed down hysterical tears. “I’m sorry. Shit. I’m sorry.”

  Gently, he said, “Okay, only dogs can hear you now.”

  “I’m s-sorry.”

  “Look, I wish I could do something. I’ve thrown everything I have at this bastard tumor. Chemo. Radio. Surgery. Drugs. And it just keeps coming back. I’ve done everything.”

  “I know you have. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I said that. And I’m sorry...” She wanted to say she was sorry about last night, but was she? She felt so confused.

  “Och, everyone says it at some point. But we’re not magic, Annie. We’re just people.”

  She wiped a hand over her face. “This...this is it, isn’t it?”

  “Not quite.” His voice was kind. “But...yes. It’s the start of it.”

  “Oh.”

  “It was always terminal, Annie. There was no cure. Maybe in a few years, if trials go well, we might have something more to throw at cases like this. But there was never any chance for Polly.”

  It was happening. It was happening. Polly was going to die. “Will she...is this all, then?”

  “Have a bit of hope, Annie. Just a wee tiny bit. We might get her out for one last hurrah. You’ll see.” He hesitated for a moment, and she wanted to throw herself into his arms. She was desperate for someone to hold her, hug her close. Who else was there? Even her own mother didn’t know who she was.

  But he hesitated, and so did she, and then he said, “I better go.”

  So she leaned against the wall and cried. For Polly, for herself, for Jacob and her mum, but mostly because hope, when you let it take root in you, was such a hardy little bugger.

  DAY 39

  Hope

  “But just read the studies, please!”

  Dr. Max’s voice was calm. “I have read them, Polly. It’s my job to keep up with the research.”

  “Well, then! The stem cell treatment’s shown good results.”

  “In a very limited trial. For one type of cancer, which you don’t have. And two patients died from it. They’re a long way off an available treatment. Two years at least. I’m sorry. You don’t have that kind of time.”

  “But... I’ll sign something! I’ll agree to have it early, before it’s ready. I can be the tester!” Her voice cracked. Annie couldn’t bear it. She got up to leave from her post outside Polly’s room, but blundered into George, arriving with a bag of snacks from Waitrose. Annie knew Polly wouldn’t be able to eat any of it, but they kept trying to bring her things, tempt her appetite back.

  “What’s the matter?” he whispered, seeing her face.

  “I—” she waved at the door “—can’t stop listening. Sorry. It’s awful.”

  “...can’t let you do that. The ethics board would never pass it.”

  “Well, then, I’ll go somewhere else. I bet someone in the States offers it, or somewhere else, or—”

  “Polly.” It was as stern as she’d ever heard Dr. Max be. George’s eyes were wide-open, listening in. “Please try to understand. It may be that some hospital somewhere would give you this stem cell treatment, in return for thousands and thousands of pounds of your money. There is no evidence it would even work, and in my opinion you’re not well enough to travel overseas. You’d need a letter from me, which I wouldn’t give.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it would kill you.”

  “I’m dying, anyway, for fuck’s sake! Why won’t you give me a chance?”

  “I have done. I’ve given you every chance there is. This treatment—if it even becomes that—is too far off for you. There’s nothing else we can do, Polly. I’m so sorry.”

  The sound of sobbing. “I just want more time. Please. Just a bit more time.”

&
nbsp; “I... Christ, Polly. I’m sorry.”

  Annie and George jumped as Dr. Max opened the door, trying to look nonchalant. “So, yeah, it’s burrito day in the canteen,” George babbled.

  Dr. Max raised a bushy eyebrow. “I guess you two heard all that.”

  “Mmmaybe.”

  “Please try to talk her out of this. Has she been holding out hope all this time? That there’s a magic last-minute cure we’re going to find?”

  Annie thought of the research papers Polly had been reading, her mother’s insistence on acupuncture and herbs and creative visualizations. “I think she’s sort of been...in denial. She couldn’t take it in.” She could see it now. Polly cheerfully reciting the words: I’m dying. I have three months to live. Like someone acting a part, not really believing it.

  “Jesus. So that’s why she handled it so well. Listen, both of you. If I believed there was anything more to do, I would do it. But there is no cure. There is no miracle. The sooner she accepts that, the better.”

  George was shaking. “I think we all thought... I think we all believed there was something...” From inside the room was the sound of frenzied sobbing. Polly, positive, upbeat Polly, had finally broken. “There’s really nothing?”

  “Nothing,” Dr. Max said firmly. “I’m sorry, I have to go check on another patient. I’ll see you later.” He went stomping off.

  George bit his lip. “Jesus, Annie. What do I do? What do I tell my parents? Mum’s in total denial.”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

  He was still shaking. “Oh, God. What will I say to Poll? How can I even talk to her, now that we know—what will I say to her?”

  “Um...” Annie’s head was reeling. “Maybe lead with that thing about burrito day?”

  He looked at her, shocked, and then burst out laughing. Half sobs, half laughs. What they’d all been doing a lot of recently. “Oh, God. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. She’s dying, Annie. She really is dying.”