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.