DAY 81
Make your peace
“I don’t understand,” said Tom. “Why are you here?”
Annie tried to be understanding. It was, as she knew, quite disconcerting to have a strange woman turn up on your doorstep. “Polly sent me. She’s ready to talk to you now.”
Tom was wearing a navy toweling dressing gown, although it was 10:00 a.m. on a weekday. He hadn’t shaved in a few days, either, and he scratched at his beard as he stood there. “But...last time she sent me packing.”
“I know. She wasn’t ready. She is now.”
“I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m—look, does it matter? I’m her friend. I haven’t known her long, sure, but... I’m her friend. And I really think you should come with me now. Trust me. You’ll regret it otherwise.”
He looked back into the hall. “I’m not dressed. I—well. I took a bit of time off work. They sent me home actually. After what happened at the hospital, last time. I wasn’t myself. There was...a bit of scene. I smashed something.”
“You did? What?”
“A coffee cup. And, er, a photocopier. I was a bit...frustrated.”
Annie knew that feeling. “Is she here—Fleur, was that her name?”
He shook his head. “She—she moved out. I was too much of a mess, she said.”
Annie sighed. So many casualties in this ongoing war. “Why don’t you have a quick shower and get dressed, and come with me. Polly’s really sick, Tom. This is it.”
She watched the news hit him, percolating down like milk into coffee. “Oh. I thought somehow—shit. I’m not ready.”
“I don’t think anyone is. But it will happen. Soon. So come with me, and make amends with her. It’s the least you can do.”
* * *
Annie waited in the kitchen while he showered. It was messy, with dirty plates stacked around the sink and takeaway pizza boxes piled by the bin, but she could see how nice it had been before all this. The floor was tiled in gleaming marble, the furniture carefully chosen antiques. One wall was covered in pictures of Polly and Tom’s life, in a variety of shabby-chic frames. With her parents, with George. She recognized Milly and Suze in another shot, wearing bridesmaid dresses. No chiffon and puffed sleeves here, just sheer slips of red silk. In the center was Polly, in her wedding dress. She looked so beautiful Annie could hardly take it in. Like a film star, her hair in a messy braid studded with daisies, the lace dress clinging to the curve of her hips. It was hard to believe this was the same woman in that hospital bed, shrunk down to the size of a small child, bald and pale and covered in a scaly rash. Annie swallowed down a lump. She’d been right—Polly had had the perfect life, before the cancer, at least on the outside. But all the same it wasn’t perfect. Not at all.
“That was our wedding day.” Tom was in the doorway, smelling of lime and dressed in gray jeans and a thick navy jumper. Catalog man again. The perfect husband, too.
Annie didn’t know what to say. “It looks lovely.”
He rubbed his eyes. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I know. But it is. Let’s go.”
* * *
“Are you staying?” Tom hovered in the doorway of Polly’s hospital room, looking supremely uncomfortable. She hadn’t opened her eyes when they went in. Her breathing was slow and noisy, the machines beeping and humming around her.
Annie said, “I’m sorry. She asked me to—she’s struggling to talk these days, with the ventilator, but she’s told me what to say. I know it’s hard.”
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.