by Eva Woods
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.”
He nodded. A sob tore out of him.
“Then Polly wants you to get back with her, and be happy. Because you and she weren’t happy, not really, and she’s run out of time, but you haven’t. And life is too short for any of us not to be happy.” Annie glanced at Polly, who nodded faintly. She was getting it right. “So, go home and call her and be together. And if you want to come to the funeral you’ll be welcome, she promises. You can even bring Fleur.” Polly had insisted she add the last bit, though Annie winced for Tom. From the look on his face, you would have thought something was pressing on his spine.
“But I can’t... How can she just...? Jesus, Polly! This can’t be it! You’re my wife!”
She tapped Annie, who said, “That’s okay. Consider yourself divorced, Tom, but without all the paperwork. I’m sorry, she made me promise I’d say all this.” Polly glared at her, which was hard to do when you’d no strength left in your face. “She doesn’t mean to be cruel. She just thinks we’re all wasting our lives, being unhappy, when we could be happy. I know it’s not as simple as that, but there you go.”
Polly tapped Annie’s hand again, imperious, and shut her eyes. Her breathing was labored. “She’s tired now. I think that’s all she needed to say.”
Tom pushed past Annie, grabbing Polly’s thin hand, pressing it to his face. Polly tensed for a moment, then let him gather her into his arms, and her own feeble ones went around him as he rocked her, choking out sobs. Annie quickly left the room, hearing the quieter sound of Polly’s crying mingle with his. Weak, worn-out sorrow. The tears of someone who’d almost cried themselves out. That had been her, once. Would Tom ever be able to forgive himself? Would it spoil any future happiness he had, knowing what he’d done to Polly? Annie realized she had to make herself truly forgive Mike and Jane, once and for all. For herself more than anyone.
Soon Tom was back in the corridor, the one that was the color of pain, openmouthed, shoulders heaving. “Is there really...there’s nothing they can do?”
“No. We have to let her go now.”
He slumped against the wall, still giving out loud heaving sobs, as if he was about to be sick. “There’s a chair behind you,” Annie pointed. “Sit down a minute.”
He did, crashing into it as if his legs had given way. He wept into his cupped hands for a few moments, then lifted his wet face. “You must think I’m awful. Cheating on my sick wife.”
“You didn’t know she was sick.”
“It’s just... I did love her once. I think. I can’t remember. Isn’t that awful, that I can’t remember if we were happy? We were sort of—we had a good life. Nice house. Holidays and that. I thought we were happy. Both of us working all the time, seeing each other when she was off to yoga and I was back from golf, on our Blackberries in bed, working till three in the morning. Then one day I met Fleur—and I realized we weren’t happy, not at all. We were just like strangers, living together in a show home.”
“Do you miss her, this Fleur?” Annie was picturing a twentysomething in spandex.
“So much. I cried the other day when one of her gym socks turned up in the wash.”
“There you go, then. Go get her. And, Tom—I know you’ll probably feel really shit about this—Polly dying and you cheating on her and everything—but it’s just bad luck. She really meant what she said. All of us—me most of all—have to let her go, and then we have to do something even harder.”
“What’s that?” He was wiping his face, trying to tidy himself up. She imagined a man like Tom hadn’t cried in about thirty years.
“Live our lives. Try to be happy. That’s all.” As Annie walked away she could hear his ragged sobs follow her all the way down the corridor.
DAY 82
Write your own obituary
“No, no, no, no, absolutely no way.”
“But...why?” wheezed Polly.
“For God’s sake, Polly. I don’t want to write a eulogy for you when you’re still alive!”
She was sitting up in the bed, her bald head covered by one of her wigs, a short pink one. Aside from her thinness, she looked all right. Was this the “last good day” that they talked about in cancer lore? “Why not? This way I’ll get to...hear it.”
“Because it’s—it’s mawkish, and it’s attention-seeking, and God, it’s like real-life Instagram or something.”
Polly was calm. “I just want to know...what people thought of me, before I die. What’s the good of saying nice things once I’m...gone? Why don’t we tell people we love them while they can still...hear? You do realize I’m...dying, yes?”
Annie tutted. “How can you say that? Everything we’ve done, all of us, for months now, it’s been about you dying. You’re so busy dying you forget that we’re all living still.”
Polly tried to roll her eyes. “If anyone forgot they were living it was you, Little Miss...Boxsets and No Chill.”
Annie hated it when Polly was right. “Fine, then. You’ll only get your way on this, like you do on everything. What do you want?”
Polly smiled. “I want a...mock funeral. I guess in the chapel here, since I can’t really...go out. But zhuzz it up a bit, will you? You know, flowers and candles and...stuff. It’s so...depressing in there. Ask Sandy. She has...a degree in interior design. Also don’t let anyone wear...black. Especially not you. It’s so depressing. I want color, color...and more color.”
“Anything else?”
“List of all the music I want.” She tapped a leather-bound notebook on the bedside table. “For God’s sake...don’t let my mother play ‘The Wind Beneath My Wings’ or anything...cheesy like that. Mum will probably want...a vicar. She’s secretly a real...traditionalist. But I want my mate Ziggy to officiate, as well. He’s a...humanitarian Zoroastrian and lives in a tree. She’ll hate that. Tell her it’s what...I want.”
“But you’ll be there, won’t you? You can tell her yourself?”
Polly waved a hand. “Sure. Next, food—not from the canteen. It’s too...hideous. Ask Tom for the company who
did our...wedding. Tell them...no gherkins under any circumstances.”
Annie made a note on her phone. “This is going to be the weirdest event ever.”
“Classic Polly, am I...right?”
“You can’t say that about yourself. It just makes you sound totally narcissistic.”
“Why change the habits of a lifetime...darling?” She stretched out her feet under the blankets. “I could use a...pedicure. Can you see if anyone will come to the hospital? Not someone who does people’s awful...corns. One who knows about gel nails. I want them to really...pop.”
Annie wrote, Popping toenails. “What am I, your PA?”
“Do you have...anything else to do?”
“No, since someone got me fired.”
“What do you think I should...wear? Do you wear black to your own funeral?”
“You can wear whatever you like. You will, anyway.”
“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.”
“Think that’s all you’re gonna get at the moment. Sorry, babe.”
“Don’t you...‘babe’ me, Annie Hebden.”
“Oh, stop moaning and get out of those gross PJs and into your frock. He’ll be here soon.”
Polly seemed to consider it for a moment, chewing her lip. Then she held her arms up. “Bollocks, I suppose it is my...last chance. Help me, will you? I’m afraid you’re on...pants-pulling-up duty.”
* * *
“You look beautiful.”
“Thanks. Beautiful in a...dying-of-cancer way, I assume.”
“Nah. All the models look like they’re dying, anyway. You’d fit right in.”
Polly looked at herself in the small mirror of the bathroom, twisting and turning. It was the first time Annie had seen her standing up for weeks. The dress was made of heavy red silk, with a boat neck and tight sleeves to the elbows. It swelled out at the hips, hiding her thin legs and ribs, giving her pale face warmth. Annie handed her a lipstick. “Here. Red, to match.”
“Thanks.” She slicked it on her dry lips, still staring at herself. “I look... God, Annie. I look...normal. I look like me. Me after a month-long...juice cleanse.”
“You’ll knock him dead.”
Polly narrowed her eyes. “Ha-ha.”
“Sorry. Omigod, he’s coming!” Annie peered out the glass panel in the door. “It’s him!”
“Jeez, Annie, I’m not going to...prom.” But it felt that way. Polly clutched her hands, grinning widely. “I’m going on a...date! In the romantic hospital!”
“Shh. Okay, are you ready?”
