Chapter 20
TWENTY
ANNA
When Laurel came into my kitchen, carrying the tray I’d specifically asked her to leave upstairs, I was standing in the open doorway to the garden, my vape in my hand.
The smell of it mingled with the scent of the honeysuckle that was blooming around the doorway.
The robin I’d been watching hop along the fence, watched also by Augustus, took flight when it heard the rattle of the tray on the counter, and my brief moment of peace was over.
‘Anna.’ I heard her tip the half-eaten breakfast into the food-waste caddy and start running hot water over the plates. ‘I wondered if you’ve got a moment? Gray ate a bit; he’s asleep now.’
I tucked the vape into my jeans pocket and pulled the back door shut as I turned around.
‘Yes?’ Offer her a coffee? Don’t offer her a coffee. But I couldn’t help myself. ‘Would you like a drink? A coffee, I mean. It’s a bit early for an actual drink.’
‘Just a glass of water would be lovely, thank you,’ she said guardedly, folding her arms across her chest. ‘I’m on shift at one.’
As if she’d thought I was serious about having an actual drink. Or known I was serious. Or was so virtuous that even the mildly stimulating effects of caffeine were too daring for her to contemplate before work.
I poured two glasses of water from the fridge and handed one to her. There was no homemade shortbread to offer this time, only a single scone left from the batch Orla had brought round the previous day.
‘Thank you,’ she said again, smiling and perching on a stool by the island.
I watched her. Her hands were folded in front of her, the nails short and unpainted, the skin dry. She sipped her water, then wiped away the ring of condensation it had left with her sleeve. Make yourself at home, I thought bitterly. Any friend of Gray’s is a friend of mine. Not.
We looked at each other, both of us silent for a moment.
Not for the first time, I allowed myself to wonder, What did he – does he – see in her?
If she’d been twenty years younger than me it would have all made more sense.
If she’d been some glamour-puss with nail extensions and hair extensions and no doubt a full Hollywood wax, I’d have kind of got it.
But she wasn’t. She was just an average-looking woman, with her layered shoulder-length brown hair and the scattering of freckles across her cheeks.
Only her figure was exceptional: the tiny waist, long, muscular legs and round, tight buttocks that girls a few years older than Lulu put in serious gym time to achieve.
Gray had never particularly liked slim women, though. I remembered when I’d been heavily pregnant with Barney, hot and clumsy as a beached whale, him grabbing me from behind, his hands reaching for my breasts, murmuring, ‘Look at you. You’re a goddess,’ before sweeping me off to bed.
‘Anna,’ she began. ‘I… I hope you don’t think I’m speaking out of turn here. I know how difficult it is for you having me come here, and I’m sorry. I know how tough all this is for you.’
I watched her, almost enjoying her discomfort. Then she seemed to gather herself, calling on some resource of inner poise or training or sheer bloody-mindedness.
‘I’m not a palliative care specialist,’ she went on. ‘I work in A if she had, it would have been running all down her face.
‘Okay,’ she said, straightening her shoulders. ‘I understand. I won’t mention it again.’
But I wasn’t finished. ‘You think you know him, don’t you?
You think, after – what? A year? – you know him well enough to make decisions about what’s best for him and our family.
Well, you don’t. You don’t have a clue about Gray.
I’ve known that man for twenty years, warts and all. You think he loves you, don’t you?’
‘I…’ she stammered. ‘Anna, he’s never said he doesn’t love you. Not even once.’
‘That’s because he doesn’t know what love is,’ I spat. ‘Doesn’t have a clue. Love him all you want, you’ll only get your heart broken same as I have.’
Two bright spots of colour appeared in her cheeks, and I could see she was angry now, as well as blindsided by my sudden attack. But somehow she still managed to keep her voice calm.
‘We’re both going to get our hearts broken,’ she said. ‘You and me. There’s no getting away from that.’
Her words silenced me because there was no hiding from the truth in them. She was right – there was no point in squabbling over a dying man like a pair of hyenas at a kill. It was ugly – it was shameful. It was futile.
‘I think you should go now.’ I was trembling, but the worst of my rage had passed. I felt like I too might start to cry. I wanted my vape. I wanted that drink.
‘I was going to come again the day after tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Is that still…’
‘Come,’ I spat. ‘I can’t stop you, can I? I can’t refuse to give my dying husband what he wants.’
‘Thank you, Anna,’ she said, almost humbly.
Then she turned and left.
I can’t refuse to give my dying husband what he wants. I couldn’t, and therefore I knew I would speak to Gray and find out whether he had changed his mind. And I was fairly certain that the move to a hospice would take place.
Already, I was regretting what I had said to Laurel – feeling that I had failed Gray, been disloyal to him, slagged him off when he couldn’t defend himself.
And in spite of what I’d said to her, I knew that if she was able to feel, after his death, that her love for him had been true and pure when mine hadn’t, she would have won.