“I would love to, Annie! Thank you! Thank you so much!”
“It’s not that exciting,” she muttered, withdrawing to her room again. She’d broken the precedent of chatting to him now, so she’d have to stay in there all night unless she wanted to hear all about his mother’s ear syringing and his cousin Andre’s goat business in Faliraki. But at least she had asked, and that made her feel just marginally like a slightly nicer person. Perhaps that would do as a happy thing for today.
DAY 10
Make tea for your office
“Did you put sugar in it?” Sharon sniffed suspiciously at the cup Annie had offered her.
“Two sugars. Is that right?”
“I only have one now. I’m on a diet.”
“Right...the sheet in the kitchen still says two.”
“Fine, I suppose I’ll drink it.”
Annie didn’t rise. She passed a coffee to Syed, their hipster social media officer, who was wearing a cricket jumper and yellow cords. He removed his large headphones and she heard banging music leak out. “Wicked, thanks, Annie.” Thumbs-up.
“Green tea for you, Fee.” Annie sat the cup on the office manager’s desk, and she looked up with a start.
“Oh! Thank you.”
Fee didn’t look good, Annie realized (though she knew this thought was somewhat hypocritical). Her lips were chapped and her hands shook as she lifted the cup.
“Um, everything okay?” Annie hoped it was so they wouldn’t have to have an uncomfortable conversation about emotions. In this office it was okay to talk about TV, beverages and the failures of the IT system, and nothing much else.
“Oh! Yes, yes. All fine. Totally fine.”
Annie took a seat at her own desk, with the mug Polly had bought her. Unlike the other office ones it wasn’t yet irreparably stained with tannin. She tipped a little water onto her narcissus plant, and ran a finger along her computer stand. No dust. And although she was still stuck in the office and hating pretty much every second, she found that with a clean desk and not feeling like quite so much of an antisocial troll, she hated it just a tiny fraction less.
DAY 11
Give someone flowers
“Aren’t they pretty! Peacocks!”
“Peonies, Mum,” Annie said gently. “Do you like them?”
“They’re ever so nice, dear.” Annie felt a lump rise in her throat. Her mother had always loved flowers, scrimping to buy a bunch from the market on payday. When Annie used to bring Jacob around to visit, every Friday, she’d always taken a big bunch of flowers, too, grown in her own garden. She hadn’t done that for a long time.
Her mother spotted Dr. Quarani coming across the ward, crisp and clean in his white coat. “Look, Doctor. This nice lady has brought me some peacocks.”
He didn’t smile. “I need to take your pulse, Mrs. Clarke.”
“She seems a little better,” Annie ventured as he stood with her mother’s thin wrist in his hand. “Calmer, anyway.”
“Her mood was stabilized somewhat, yes. As I said, it’s important not to get your hopes up.”
“I won’t.” And yet despite this warning, despite herself, despite two years of misery having stamped on them in steel-capped boots, Annie could feel that her hopes were ever-so-slightly up. Like a drooping flower when you put it in water. She had to be careful with that. She knew only too well that hope was not to be trusted.
*
“Annie!” On her way out of the hospital, she turned at the sound of her name. A man’s voice.
“Oh! What are you...? Are you all right?”
It was Polly’s brother, George. Sitting in the ER holding a bandage to his face. He grimaced. “It’s nothing. Banged my head at the gym. What are you doing here?”
“I’m seeing my mum. You know, she’s been ill.” She stared at him. There was a spot of blood on his white shirt.
He stared back, coolly appraising, taking in her cheap scuffed bag, her straggling hair, the polyester slacks that were making her sweat. “Listen, Annie. My sister’s very sick.”
“I know that.”
“And she’s also kind of...magnetic. She collects people. Waifs and strays.” Annie bristled. “She was always like that, but now she’s sick it’s even worse. They sort of latch on. She thinks she may as well give away everything she has, since she has ‘three months to live.’” He scowled. “We don’t know that, okay? People live for years sometimes with cancer.”
Annie was so tired. Tired of this hospital, tired of her mother not knowing her, tired of her pokey little flat and tired of her life. “Look. I didn’t ‘latch on’ to Polly. She was the one who literally turned up on my doorstep. But she was nice to me, and she asked me to help with her happy-days project, and—well, I don’t see how I can say no. Okay?”
He nodded slowly. “Okay. I believe you.”
“I wasn’t asking if you believed me. Who would try to con a woman with cancer, for God’s sake?”
“I’d have said that, too, before all this. Honestly, Annie, we’ve had to stop her giving her money away so many times. She just doesn’t believe people lie. Even her friends—this girl she was at school with tried to get her to invest in a jewelry business, which basically doesn’t exist, and one of our cousins wants funding for a charity that is pretty much just them going on safari in Africa, and God, people really suck, you know?”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” said Annie.
“All right. Well, I’m sorry if I was a bit—”
“Rude? Unwelcoming?” She was too tired to be polite anymore.
To her surprise George smiled. “I was going for ‘icily enraged,’ like an offended Southern belle. I should have thrown a drink in your face.” He moved the bandage, gingerly. His left eye was purple with bruising.
Annie winced in sympathy. “That looks sore.”
“It’s okay. It’ll mean no auditions for a while, though. Not that I’m exactly inundated.” He glanced up at her. “Listen. Would you please not mention this to my sister? I don’t want her worried. I just had a stupid accident.”
Annie shrugged. “Sure.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry I was a twat. I’m just so angry, you know? Like all the time. I should be sad and supportive and all I can feel is totally and utterly enraged that this happened to Poll.”
“I understand,” said Annie, who knew that feeling well.
“I’m really sorry. I’ll see you for this supertacky trip up the Shard?”
“I guess so. Well, bye, then.” She stopped in the doorway. “Cucumber slices,” she called.
“What?” George had his eyes closed.
“It helps with the swelling. Freeze them, then put them on the eye. Just a tip.” Something you discovered when you spent most of your time crying.
At the bus stop, the homeless man—Jonny—was there again, reading a paperback with the cover missing. Annie waved at him, tentatively, feeling embarrassed when he smiled back. His teeth were terrible. What was the point in waving if she couldn’t do anything to help him? The bus came and she got on it, feeling vaguely that she had failed, but not quite knowing why.
DAY 12
Tidy up