Chapter 12
TWELVE
ANNA
The day Gray finished at work felt like a particularly grim landmark, but the days that followed were grimmer still.
He came home late on the Friday night, as if it had been just another late one at the pub with his team – someone leaving, someone’s birthday, someone having won an award for something.
Except in this case it was someone being about to die.
I couldn’t imagine what Carl and Catriona and the others had been thinking, but presumably it had been something along the lines of giving Flick London’s founder a decent send-off, honouring the Gray they’d worked with for a decade and a half, the Gray who’d always been up for a party, the Gray who’d celebrated every engagement, every promotion, every achievement.
I suppose Gray had wanted that too, or at least pretended to want it.
But when he arrived home shortly after eleven that evening, he was ghostly pale and exhausted.
He threw off his clothes on the bedroom floor and went into the bathroom, and I heard him throwing up, the groans interspersed with retching.
I tapped on the door and went in without waiting for him to answer, wrapped in my dressing gown, trembling with worry.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked stupidly. ‘Do you need anything?’
He was hugging the toilet, naked. I was horrified to see the knobbly rope of his spine, the separate arc of each rib.
‘Do I look like I’m fucking okay?’ he responded. ‘I’ve got terminal cancer, Anna.’
I flinched, feeling blood rush to my face as if he’d slapped me.
‘I’m sorry. That was daft of me. Can I get you a glass of water?’
‘You can fuck off and leave me alone.’
I stepped out of the room and closed the door, clinging on to the handle for a moment as if I might fall. In twenty years, he’d never said that to me and I’d never said it to him. Even during our worst rows, there had always been underlying affection and respect, not that cold, dismissive rage.
I got the glass of water anyway and left it by his side of the bed, along with the box of tablets I retrieved from his jeans pocket.
There was a fresh indent in the leather of his belt where he’d had to tighten it to a new notch, I noticed, unthreading it and dropping his clothes in the laundry hamper.
I didn’t say anything more to him. I knew that if I tried to speak I’d burst into tears, or the hurt and anger that were never far from the surface would erupt, breaking through my sadness and leaving me feeling worse than ever.
Don’t talk to me like that, ever again, I imagined myself scolding. But if I said it, I’d have to acknowledge that there’d be a point, not long in the future, when he’d never talk to me at all, ever again.
Then I went to bed in the spare room, dragging mismatched covers on to the duvet and pillows, leaving the door open a crack and listening with dread for further sounds from him.
I was trembling with fury and hurt, a pressure cooker of feelings that I couldn’t let out.
Was that how he felt about me – that cold contempt?
Had he felt that way for a long time? Would he feel that way forever, now?
I was relieved to be away from him, on my own in the other room. But I knew that it wouldn’t be long until he was no longer there at all, and I hated myself for my relief.
After a while, I heard the toilet flush, water running in the sink and the buzz of his toothbrush, followed by the tread of his feet on the landing. I heard him hesitate when he stepped into our bedroom, but he didn’t come and find me, although he must have known where I was.
He got into bed, alone, and that was where he stayed for most of the weekend, emerging only to go to the bathroom.
I offered him breakfast on Saturday morning, but he said he wasn’t hungry.
Desperate to maintain some sort of normality for the children, I took Lulu to meet her friends in the park, where they’d all taken to wobbling around the basketball courts on roller skates.
I took Barney to football. I went to the supermarket and bought the ingredients for a lasagne.
While I was there, Gray texted me, just four words.
Can you get jelly?
Jelly? What the hell?
I hurried to the unfamiliar aisle where the instant puddings lived, which I hadn’t visited since long-ago preschool birthday parties, and stared blankly at the packs of Angel Delight, Dream Topping and custard powder before picking up half-a-dozen packs of jelly crystals in all the available flavours.
When the lemon jelly had eventually set, I took the bowl up to the bedroom with a spoon.
Gray was asleep, Augustus curled up in the crook of his knees. I stood over him, not knowing what to do. He’d asked for jelly, and I’d provided jelly. But maybe he needed sleep more.
I didn’t know, I realised. I didn’t have the faintest clue how to do any of this.
I reached out and touched his shoulder. ‘Gray?’
He mumbled, then turned over and opened his eyes.
‘I brought you jelly,’ I said. ‘Shall I open the curtains?’
He struggled upright, sending the cat jumping to the floor with an affronted yowl.
‘Yes, please,’ he said. ‘Thanks, Anna.’
I pulled back the curtains, looking out at the sunny square. Vivid green buds were appearing on the chestnut trees and before long the cherries would be flowering. The sun glinted off the black-painted iron railings and I could hear a blackbird singing.
I longed to go outside and sit there, or out in our own garden. But instead I opened a window so Gray could get some fresh air.
The sunlight coming through the window made the surface of the jelly sparkle, turning it gold.
I remembered all the times I’d made it before – painstakingly filling scooped-out oranges with it for kids’ parties, layering it in trifles at Christmas, never giving it a thought because it was just jelly.
I wondered whether Gray’s mother had made it for him when he was a child when he was poorly, and whether that was why he wanted it now.
He took a spoonful, grimaced and put the spoon back in the bowl.
‘Is that okay?’ I asked. ‘I made some of the raspberry flavour as well.’
He shook his head. ‘It doesn’t taste like I remembered it.’
‘They’ve probably taken out the E numbers or something,’ I attempted to joke. ‘Where’s the fun in it now?’
But Gray didn’t laugh. He ate another microscopic spoonful, then handed the bowl back to me.
‘I’m sorry, Anna. Maybe custard?’
‘Or ice cream?’ I suggested.
‘Maybe. I’ll come downstairs in a bit. But would you mind closing that window? It’s freezing.’
It wasn’t, but I closed it anyway and then sat down on the bed.
‘Gray? Speaking of coming downstairs, I was talking to the district nurse the other day. She called just – you know. Just to see how we’re doing.’
‘Well, next time you can tell her we’re managing splendidly,’ he said bitterly.
Ignoring his harshness, I carried on. ‘She was saying they could arrange a bed for you downstairs. You might be more comfortable in… you know. A proper one.’
‘A hospital bed?’
I nodded. ‘And you’d be closer to the kitchen and stuff. You wouldn’t need to manage the stairs.’
‘And you wouldn’t have to run up and down two flights of stairs to bring me my kids’ party food.’
‘I don’t mind doing that.’
‘You might not now. But it’ll get very old, very quickly.’
‘It’s fine.’ I put my hand on his knee, feeling its boniness through the duvet. ‘I mean… you want to stay here, right? Here at home.’
‘To die peacefully in my own bed with the cat next to me, like Terry Pratchett?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
‘Living the dream,’ he said. ‘Or rather, not living it. Here’s the thing, Anna…’
‘What?’
He shook his head.
I said, ‘Gray. This is shit, right? It’s shit for everyone, but it’s most shit for you. If you want custard, I’ll get you custard. If you want me to run up the stairs five times a day, I’ll do that. If you want…’
I shrugged helplessly, unable to imagine what else he might want that I could give him.
But he told me. ‘If I want Laurel to come here and see me, you’ll be okay with that?’
I closed my eyes, staring towards the window, the brightness of the spring day creating scarlet patterns on my eyelids. Seeing red – I was literally doing that. I clenched my fists, digging my nails into my palms.
‘I see,’ Gray said. ‘You’d do anything for me, but you won’t do that.’
‘It’s my home.’ I opened my eyes again and looked at him. His face was set in the stubborn lines I knew so well, from so many arguments.
‘And my home,’ he said.
‘And the children’s.’
‘The children will be at school.’
That was true – Gray and I, together with Barney and Lulu and the school’s head of pastoral care, had agreed that it was best for them to continue with their normal routine for as long as possible.
‘You don’t have to talk to her, Anna,’ Gray went on. ‘I’m not asking you to offer her coffee and cake.’
‘Gray. You can’t ask me to do that. Seriously. What are you thinking? It’s not—’
‘Not fair? None of this is fair, Anna. You think it’s all beer and skittles for me? Or for her?’
Maybe she should have thought of that before she started fucking a married man. As soon as the words formed in my mind, I hated myself for them.
‘I can go out and meet her, for now. But I won’t always be able to.
Only until… you know.’ His voice trailed off, and he took a breath before continuing, his tone becoming less harsh and more pleading.
‘I want to see her, and she wants to see me. Please, Anna. I know it’s hard for you. Please do this one thing for me.’
I felt my shoulders slump in defeat. I couldn’t deny his request. Gray was dying and therefore he got to have what he wanted. Whatever he wanted.
I picked up the bowl of jelly from the bedside table.
‘Custard, maybe?’ I said. ‘I can go out and get some.’
He said, ‘I don’t think so. I’m going to sleep.’
‘Okay.’
‘Anna?’
In the doorway, I turned back to him.
‘Thank you. Thank you for everything.’
As I turned again to leave the room, I saw his hand reaching out for his phone.