DAY 25
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“Annie! Back again? You could skip a day, you know. No one would think any less of you, and your mum...well, you know. She might not realize.” Dr. Max was once again at the vending machine, a Twix in each hand.
“I know. I’m meeting a friend, in fact.” The word sounded strange in her mouth. It was a long time since she’d said it. “Is that your lunch?”
He brightened. “Machine gave me two by mistake! Karma for all my hard-earned cash that’s been swallowed up by that minion of Satan.” He looked at her. “Oh, would you like the spare one?”
“Don’t you want it?”
He patted his stomach. “I’m living off sugar as it is. Can’t remember the last time I had a meal on a plate. You know it’s not—”
“Not a nine-to-five job, I know. Would you...?” Annie realized she’d almost asked him around for dinner. “Um, well, in that case, sure, I’ll take the Twix. I’ll save it for after my lunch.”
“Lunch,” he said nostalgically. “I used to eat that. It’s jerk day in the canteen. Of course, it’s always jerk day when you work in a hospital. If it’s not the management, it’s the patients wanting your life’s blood.”
“You take their blood all the time,” Annie pointed out.
He’d unwrapped his Twix and was already through one bar of it. “Metaphorical blood, Annie. I swear this hospital is killing me. There’s a queue of ten people just waiting to get their heads scanned so I can tell them they have cancer. It’s not right.”
“Is there anything we could do? You know, a fundraising event or something. Dr. Quarani’s running the London Marathon.” She’d seen him on her way in, doing laps of the hospital, his face set and grim. “I thought you were, too?”
“I just wanted to get fit,” he said defensively. “I don’t believe in fundraising for public services. The government would love that, making us raise all our own cash from bloody jumble sales. They need to fund the NHS properly from taxes, not sell it off to their fat-cat mates in private health care. It’s a disgrace, Annie, that’s what it is. Anyway, see you, got to go look into someone’s brain now.” He’d sounded furious, but he waved jauntily as he left. She couldn’t figure him out.
* * *
The canteen was busy with doctors and families, and it took her a while to spot Zarah. Today she wore a blue scarf with butterflies, edged in blue sequins. Annie wished she’d suggested meeting somewhere they wouldn’t be seen by one of Polly’s many spies. But Zarah only got a short break and since Annie was there every day, anyway, it made sense. “Hi.”
Zarah wasn’t alone at the table, and for a moment Annie thought they’d have to share it with a random, but then she saw who it was. Zarah caught her look. “I hope you don’t mind, Annie. I just think the three of us need to talk. This has gone on long enough.”
“Agreed,” said the other woman at the table, tall and striking in a red bodycon dress, her hair in a shiny weave. “Hi, Annie.”
Annie swallowed. “Hi, Miriam.”
Miriam met her eyes, frank and honest, just as Annie remembered. Too honest sometimes. It was why they hadn’t spoken in so long. “Are you well? Zar said your mum was poorly?”
“Yeah, she’s...” Annie couldn’t bear to explain. “She’s in the inpatients’ ward. How’s...Jasmine?”
Miriam looked surprised for a moment, as if she hadn’t expected Annie to remember her daughter’s name. But of course Annie remembered. She knew everything about Jasmine, another child that had been lost to her, but this time through her own fault. “She’s fine.”
“I’m so sorry about...everything.”
“You mean her birthday?”
Annie nodded, staring at the greasy tabletop. “I shouldn’t have even been there. I wasn’t up to it. I just didn’t want to...let you down.” And so she’d made herself go, and the sight of all those one-year-olds smeared in cake had made her flee, weeping, and when Miriam had come after her, Annie had pushed her away, physically pushed her, and slammed her car door, pulling off and leaving Mike on the pavement, staring after her. Annie had often wondered if he would have left her if it hadn’t been for the scene she caused that day. If that was the moment he decided to cut his losses and run, untether himself from the weeping mess of a person she’d become.
Miriam sighed. “Annie, the party doesn’t matter. Jas won’t even remember. But you just cut us off completely. All of us, not just Jane.”
At the sound of the name Annie’s teeth clenched. “I take it you’re all still friends.”
Zarah and Miriam exchanged looks. Zarah said, “Annie...we’re your friends, too. I missed you so much—you were always the first person I’d ring when I had a crisis. Remember? You were the only one who never panicked, who’d cheer me up if I had a terrible date or my car wouldn’t start or my parents were giving me grief. I never wanted to stop being friends. You just wouldn’t see us. You wouldn’t see anyone. And Jane...she feels terrible, really she does.”
“Not terrible enough not to do it.”
“They fell in love,” said Miriam. “I really think they did. I mean, obviously it was terrible for you. It’s not like we were on her side.”
It had felt like it, when Mike finally told her who he was leaving her for, and she’d called Zarah in total shock. When she’d told her friend what had happened, she’d heard the silence that meant everyone already knew. Annie was the last to find out. And so she’d packed her things and moved out and never spoken to any of them again, until now. What a mess it was. Everything—her child, her home, her husband, her friends—gone in one swoop.
She felt a hand on hers and looked up to see Miriam smiling at her. And the first tear splashed onto the dirty table. “S-sorry.”
Zarah said, “What happened to you was awful, An. So awful. We just wanted to be there for you. But you vanished.”
Annie shook her head, dislodging tears. “No one could help. There was no point.”
Zarah nodded. “Well, maybe now the dust has settled a little bit...maybe we can meet up again, like we used to? I mean, the three of us.” Annie felt how awkward it must have been for them, when one of their best friends went off with the other’s husband. “I wouldn’t expect you to... But she really does feel terrible, you know. Especially now that...” She fell silent. Another look between her and Miriam. “She feels terrible,” Zarah repeated.
And so she should. “I can’t forgive her. I just can’t.” Annie could hardly talk over the lump in her throat. It was too soon, too raw. Seeing the two of them brought back so many memories. Of old Annie, who had friends, who was even the sensible one. The one the rest came to when their boyfriends cheated or their bosses asked too much or they couldn’t get their cakes to rise. That Annie had died when Jacob did.
She stood up, scraping her chair back. “I have to go. Sorry. Thanks for—thanks. I’d like that, if we could meet up. Soon. I have to go.” And once again, she ran away, out in the corridor that was painted all the shades of misery there were.