DAY 16
Take in some culture
“I love this,” Polly said, bouncing up the steps of the museum. Today she wore a lemon-yellow summer dress, in honor of the sun that was bathing London, turning the Thames to a slick of silver. Because it was March, she wore it with purple tights, green snakeskin stilettos and a vintage coat with a fur collar. People gazed at her wherever she went, and no surprise, because she spoke at stadium volume at all times. “I did my degree in art history. What did you do, Annie?”
“Nothing,” Annie said, whispering to compensate for Polly’s loudness. “I went straight into work.” There hadn’t been much money about, and her mother had convinced her she’d be better off getting a job, some security in life. Don’t wish for the moon, Annie. Sometimes she wondered if there was another Annie out there in a different world who’d sat in libraries and discussed literature and politics while wearing knitted scarves, kicked up autumn leaves under the spokes of a bike.
“I guess it was kind of a joke degree, mine. I just looked at beautiful things all day. I have this theory that if you only look at nice things, and smell nice things, and hear nice things, you’ll always think good thoughts and be happy.”
Annie was doubtful. It wasn’t possible to only surround yourself with nice things. There would always be grimy buses, and the shriek of a pneumatic drill like the one digging up Trafalgar Square outside, and there would always be death. It was impossible to make death lovely. “How much will it cost—the gallery?” Her monthly budget wouldn’t last long if she kept going along with Polly’s schemes. She’d had to take the afternoon off work for this, and Sharon’s eyebrows had plenty to say about that.
“It’s free! Haven’t you ever been before?”
“I can’t remember.” In the old days, she and the girls—Jane, Miriam, Zarah; the fantastic foursome as Jane tried to get them calling themselves—used to come into town every Saturday. An exhibition, or some shopping, or a meal out. Since they were no longer speaking, Annie had let the habit lapse. She felt vaguely ashamed. Here she was, with so much culture on her doorstep, and all she ever did was watch TV.
Polly seized her arm again, dragging her in. “Come on, I promised I’d show you some nudey ladies.”
Annie trailed behind Polly, cringing wildly as she shouted, “And here’s Degas, such an old perv, but look at these lovely redheads. I wish I’d been a redhead, don’t you? I feel I just would have had more adventures that way. Look at the beautiful way he drew their backs—so vulnerable. And look, Rubens—that’s what I wanted to show you.”
Annie stared. An expanse of dimpled bottoms, stomachs that curved out and luscious white thighs. Polly was right. They did look like her. Minus the limp hair the color of blah. “So, this was considered beautiful then?”
“They thought being skinny meant you were poor. Or sick.” Polly waved a hand at her own spare frame. “I mean, not to skinny-shame anyone, either. I just wanted you to see that what we think of as hot now totally wasn’t hot in the Renaissance. Ideals of beauty change all the time.”
“I’m in the wrong era, then,” said Annie. She couldn’t stop staring at the pearly tones of the skin. Nothing fake-tanned here, just pinks and creams and ivories. The folds of flesh were glorious, plump living bodies that you could just tell had been fed on honey and cream and sides of venison. The way the women held themselves, proud and coquettish and ravishing.
“This is my favorite,” Polly said, pulling her in front of another nude, this one of a reclining woman seen from the back, staring into a hand mirror and out at the viewer. “The Rokeby Venus. I just love that pink she’s lying on. I tried to get that exact shade for my bridesmaids’ dresses, but I didn’t know what to call it.”
Annie’s head swiveled around in surprise. This was the first she’d heard of Polly being married. Ask her. Ask her more. But she chickened out again, afraid to spoil Polly’s sparkling mood.
Polly was still looking at the painting, as if she was trying to remember every inch of it. “You know what I wish? I wish I’d come here once a week and just looked at this. Because I don’t think I could ever get sick of it, but instead I just looked at lots of stupid things—work colleagues I hated and the inside of dirty trains and stupid internet stories about which celebrity got fat. Always rushing around to meetings and worrying about getting the mascara account and whether I should take up Pilates. I wasted all that time, Annie.”
Annie didn’t know what to say to that. “I bet you’ve seen some beautiful things, too.”
“Oh, I have.” She sighed. “Sunsets over the Grand Canyon and the Taj Mahal and the Alps in the snow and so on. But it wasn’t enough. How could it ever be enough? I want to see everything. I never want to stop looking.”
Afraid Polly might cry, Annie put her hand gently on her friend’s arm. She didn’t say, It’s okay, because it wasn’t. “We’re here now, though,” she said. “We can look at it now.”
Polly took a deep breath, and smiled. “You’re right. We’re here, looking at it. It will be here long after both of us are gone, still hot as hell. Right, Annie. I think what we need now is the most essential part of all museum visits—gift shop, then cake.”
* * *
On the way out, Polly stopped on the steps, causing a pileup of Chinese tourists behind her. “What?” Annie felt a dart of worry. Was she going to be sick again, or climb a high building, or take her clothes off? Apparently any or all of those things could happen at any time.
But Polly was smiling. “You ever see that film La Dolce Vita?”
“Oh. Yeah.” Annie’s mum’s favorite film. A dream of handsome Italian men, and gelato in sunny squares. A world away from her mother’s actual life. “Why?”
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Um, probably not?”
Polly pointed. “Fountains! Dancing in!”
“Are you crazy? Imagine how dirty that water must be.”
Polly was already walking, calling back over her shoulder. “Oh, no, I could get sick! What might happen then? Come on, Annie. Life isn’t about avoiding the storm—it’s about learning to dance in the rain. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
It was lost, terminally lost. In fact, she wasn’t sure she’d ever had it. “Polly!” She was moving toward the fountains with their icy gushing water, the smell of a public swimming pool. Annie dashed after her. Polly’d reached the edge now, and was pulling off her coat.
Annie panicked. “I’m pretty sure you’re not allowed to do this.”
Polly rolled her eyes. “Good. I hope I get arrested. That’s something else I never did.”
“But—”
“Come on, Annie! Have you ever danced in a fountain before?”
Of course she hadn’t. The only ones she’d ever come across were ill-fated urban art projects full of cigarette butts. “Oh, God.”
Polly was barefoot now, her toes thin, her nails painted silver. Her legs were bruised, sticklike. But she was laughing, plunging in. “Christ, it’s freezing! Come in!”
Annie couldn’t think of anything worse than getting into a cold dirty fountain. What if she caught polio? Was that still around?
A rectangular man in a yellow tabard was approaching, talking into a radio. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to get out.”
Polly was holding up her skirt, splashing about. “Why?”
He seemed thrown. “Um, health and safety.”
“Oh, it’s okay. I’m dying, you see. I’ll sign something if you want.”
He looked at Annie, who shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, she’s really sick, and—”
“You’ll have to get her out or I’ll arrest her.”
“Are you actually a police officer?”
“Well, not exactly, but I know some.”
Annie had a feeling that right this moment was a very important turning point for her. She could stand back and let him stop Polly, who after all only wanted to paddle in a public fountain before she died, or she could...
“What are you doing?” the man said, looking panicked. “Stop that—stop it, ma’am!”
Annie was pulling off her boots, and then, shuffling around under her skirt, her frumpy woolen tights. Then she, too, was plunging over the edge, wincing at the cold. “Jesus!”
Polly laughed, clapping her hands. “Go, Annie, go, Annie!” People were starting to take pictures, nudge each other. Annie cringed. Polly took her hands. “Can I have this dance, Ms. Hebden?”
“Oh, God, Polly, I really can’t—”
“Come on! The idea is to dance in fountains, not just wade around in them.” She yelled to the crowd. “Play us a song and we’ll do a turn for you!”
“Oh, God, no, don’t...”
Someone’s phone started playing a tinny version of “New York, New York.” “It’s the wrong city!” shouted Annie.
“Never mind. Come on.” Polly had her arm around Annie, high-kicking. Annie joined in halfheartedly, spraying no-doubt-infected water all over her skirt. There was a plop, and someone else slipped over the wall—a group of foreign-exchange students, jeans rolled up the knees, laughing and swearing in Spanish. Then parents started lifting in their kids, and the air filled with splashing and shouting and screaming. The song swelled to its end, people now singing along—“New York, New Yoooooorkkk!”
Polly bowed, breathless with laughter. “Oh, my God. That was hilarious.” People were dispersing, clapping and laughing, the moment gone. A mere minute, two minutes, where Londoners had connected instead of going on their way. It had felt like an eternity to Annie.
Polly was still gasping for breath. “Are you okay?” Annie said, worried.
She coughed, nodding. “It was worth it. That was brilliant.”
“Well, why don’t we get you inside into the warm? Tea and cake?”
She coughed again. “Tea and cake...sounds...amazing.”
* * *
“Are your feet dry now?”
Polly held up one bony foot, which was plastered over in paper towels. “I look like I’m peeling.”
“Just let me know if you get too cold. Dr. Max said you had to be careful.”
“I’m fine! Cheers.” Polly raised her teacup. “You know, I wish I’d eaten cake every day of my life, too. All those salads and goji berries I choked down, and I’m going to die at thirty-five, anyway. What a waste, Annie. I swear those uneaten cakes are going to haunt me. From now on, at least two cakes a day. Working on my Boucher bottom.”
Annie nibbled on a fondant fancy, iced in a silken pale pink that was almost too pretty too eat. “I’m the one who doesn’t even know if she’s been to the National Gallery before or not,” she said. “What was I doing with my life? I can’t remember the last time I even did something like this, just had tea with someone.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that. Where are your friends, Annie?”
She blinked. Polly’s frankness took some getting used to. “I used to have some. From school, you know. But I guess I sort of let them drift.” When everything burned to the ground with Jane, her other friendships had been sucked into the fire, too. At the time, she hadn’t cared. It was like mourning a village when a city had been flattened. But she felt the loss now: every Saturday she stayed in alone, every time she thought about taking a holiday and balked because she didn’t want to be that solo traveler on the Sad Single Women’s painting trip. “Anyway, what about yours?” she countered. “I’ve not met any of your friends yet, either.” Maybe Polly was ashamed of her.
“Well. To be honest, I’ve sort of been avoiding them.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because when I look at them I see how much I must have changed. And they treat me differently—like I’ll break or something. I sort of wish they’d take me aside and tell me my outfit doesn’t match or something, like they would have before. It just feels a bit...awkward.”
“I’ve been avoiding my friends, too,” Annie admitted. “For a long time now.” So long she doubted they were even friends anymore.
“You’ve got time.” Polly closed her eyes briefly in bliss as she swallowed a pistachio-green macaroon. “That’s what this is all about, you see. I don’t have much time left, so I want other people to do the things I didn’t manage. Stare at art. Eat cakes. Oh, and this.” She reached into her bag—which was sewn all over in little mirrors—and pushed a ticket over the table.
Annie read it. “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. What’s that?”
“Only a concert of the most amazing piece of music ever. Something for our ears as well as our eyes. Can you come?”
“Oh, I don’t know...”
“Cancer card,” Polly mumbled around a bite of Victoria sponge. “Please. I really love it, and this might be my last chance to hear it.”
“Oh, all right, then. But you have to let me pay you back. Honestly, I feel bad.” She thought of George’s complaints about freeloaders.
But Polly just pulled a face. “Annie, I can’t take this money with me when I go. I may as well use it to have a nice time with my friends, don’t you think?”
Friends. All the while Annie had been thinking of lost ones, and now she’d found one instead. She’d thought this would never happen again—how would she make more friends at thirty-five?—but it seemed it had, in the unlikely setting of the Lewisham Hospital Neurology Department. “All right, then,” she said shyly. “But you have to let me do some things myself, too, okay? I can’t just keep tagging along on your happy days.”
A bright smile lit Polly’s face, and Annie suddenly realized she’d played right into her annoying life-changing hands. “Maybe you could start by looking up an old friend. After all, I won’t be around forever.”
But Annie didn’t want to talk about that now. She wanted to stay in this moment—happy, relaxed, feeling like a real friend sat across the table from her. A real friend who wasn’t already half-gone from her. “I’ll think about it,” she said.