DAY 41
Go outside
“Where are you taking me?” Polly said sulkily. “I’m not allowed to leave this prison.”
“Dr. Max said you can go outside for half an hour.” George was pushing her in a wheelchair, Annie following behind laden with bags.
“I don’t want to go outside. We’re in Lewisham, it’s horrible.”
“Just come. You might be surprised.”
They pushed her out the back of the hospital, past the maternity wing and outpatients and over a small bridge, where suddenly they were confronted with a small river and a wide-open field. “What is this place?”
“Ladywell Fields,” said Annie. “I used to come here a lot. It’s beautiful.” It was near where she and Mike had lived, and had been one of Jacob’s favorite places. Even though they knew he wasn’t old enough to have favorites, not really.
“Hmph. Well, you’ve changed your tune, Little Miss Sunshine.”
George and Annie exchanged glances. This was going to be harder than they’d thought. “Come on,” said George, easing Polly out of her wheelchair. “Put your arms around my neck. Bit harder.”
Her arms hung limp, with barely the strength to hold on. “I used to carry you when you were a baby,” she said. “And now you have to lift me. I dropped you on your head once actually. Probably explains a lot.”
Once they’d spread out the picnic rug Annie had brought, they arranged the food on it. “Look,” coaxed George. “Your favorite, Roquefort. And there’s olives, and ham, and all kinds of picnic swag.”
“I can’t eat that, duh. I’m on high-level infection control.” She sat hunched in her cardigan, smearing sanitizing gel onto her hands. “It’s like I’m pregnant, only I’m not and I never will be now. I’m pregnant with a big old tumor instead.”
“Listen, P...” George began. “I know this is a setback—”
“I’m dying. That is kind of a big setback, yeah.”
“Nothing’s changed,” Annie said quietly. “You told me when we met you were terminal.”
Polly stared down at the rug, with its cheery shades of pink and blue. It was sunny outside, and nearby some children waded in the river, shrieking as the mud squelched between their toes. It was a happy scene. Wrong somehow. “I know. It’s like...I knew it in my head, but not inside me. Not really. I thought I’d just get through these hundred days and then think about the rest after that, and then maybe by then there’d be some new treatment or something. But it’s too late. I’m out of time.”
“It’s not over yet,” George said. “Dr. Max said—”
“Dr. Max. What’s the use of him? What has he actually been able to do for me? Two months ago I was totally fine and now look at me. I can hardly even pee by myself.” She screwed her face up tight, as if she was trying not to cry. “What do I do? What do I do now?”
“You keep going,” said Annie. “What else can you do?”
“But what’s the point? I have so little time.”
“You said you wanted to help people. You’ve already helped me, Poll. You can do more. Milly said the social media stuff’s really taking off, loads of people commenting, and—”
“Social media. What does that matter? I’ll never meet any of those people. They don’t care if I live or die.”
Annie held up her phone. “Scroll. Go on.”
She watched Polly read the screen. “These are all donations?”
“Yep. A hundred yesterday alone. And look, they’ve all put comments, too. People do care, Poll. Even if it’s just an illusion that they know you. You’re making a difference to them. Look, they’ve started posting their own happy-days things.”
George stretched back. “Someone chose ‘cleaning the bath’ as one, can you believe it? These people need you, P. Show them how to actually have fun.”
“We need you,” said Annie. “Have you seen what I’m wearing today?”
“Yes,” Polly said grudgingly. “Did you get lost on your way to an ABBA tribute concert? I mean, really, Annie—fringes?”
A brief flare of herself, back from under the suffocating fug of despair. Dr. Max was right. It wasn’t over yet.
“All right,” Polly said after a while. “I’ll try. I don’t know if I can but I’ll try. If you do something for me in return, George.”
“I’m not doing that dancing thing again. Not without class-A drugs.”
“It’s not that. I want you to stand up to Mum. Tell her once and for all that you’re gay, and as such you and Annie won’t be getting it together anytime soon.”
“She thinks that?” Annie felt herself blush.
George sighed. “She keeps dropping hints about how well we get on. It’s just—I mean, she knows it, really. I’ve tried to tell her. But she doesn’t want to know. She still thinks I’ll meet the right girl and settle down, buy a house in Surrey, get a BMW.”
Annie looked between them. “But...your parents are so cool. They can’t have an issue with gay people, surely?”
George said, “Oh, Mum’s just...she thinks she’s so liberal, but really she wants everything to be picture-perfect. This wonderful happy family, complete with cute grandkids. Before Poll was sick, the pressure was off me to reproduce, but now...”
“Now I won’t be giving her any,” Polly supplied. “It’s down to Georgie here. She’s not homophobic, not really. George being gay just doesn’t fit into her dream family.”
“Nor does me being a failed actor.” His smile twisted.
“My God, your family’s good at denial,” Annie murmured.
“Well, she’s about to lose a child, so that should put paid to it,” said Polly. A short silence. “Please will you just stand up to her, Georgie? Life’s too short to lie. I would know.”
“Okay, then. In the same vein, are you ever going to call Tom?”
She scowled. “George, don’t.”
“He deserves to know.”
“He doesn’t deserve anything. Come on, take me back in.”
Annie knew better by now than to ask who Tom was. Besides, she already had a pretty good idea.
On their way back in, they saw a lone figure in Lycra jogging around the hospital buildings. “Dr. Quarani!” Polly shouted. “Dr. Quarani!” Except her voice came out as a croak, and he didn’t hear, and soon he was gone, leaving only dust at his heels.