Bachelor Boys (26 page)

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Authors: Kate Saunders

BOOK: Bachelor Boys
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“You're too good for her. She doesn't deserve you.”
Fritz put his arms around me. He stared down at me for what seemed ages. Tears slid down his cheeks.
He said, “She's asked to go into the hospice.”
It was extraordinary how quickly the world could darken and freeze around us. I whispered, “Why? Is she feeling worse?”
“I don't think so. This is just the way she wants to do it. She insists that we mustn't make a fuss.”
“Well, we won't,” I said, as staunchly as I could. “And it will be easier, Fritz. You and Ben won't have to worry that she's not getting the right care. And you won't need me so much.”
He unwound his arms, but kept hold of my hand. “No, you're wrong,” he said. “I can't go into the twilight zone without you, Cassie. I'm going to need you even more.”
T
he world was contracting around us, until it was no bigger than a walnut shell and contained nothing but Phoebe. Two days after the wedding, she moved into the hospice. I'm not sure how this made me feel. I know I was afraid, but I didn't think about the future. It seemed irrelevant while Phoebe was still so very present among us. My life fell into a new routine, and I thought and behaved as if it would last indefinitely.
I would leave the office a little earlier than usual and take the tube up to Belsize Park. There was a flower stall outside the station. I often bought something I knew Phoebe would like—velvety red roses, chrysanthemums with big russet heads, lilies of the valley that filled a whole room with their soapy scent. I walked up Haverstock Hill, marveling at the ordinary evenings ahead of everyone else in the hurrying crowds. I didn't envy them, exactly. I think I felt slightly afraid of them and their glorious ignorance of life's fragility.
The hospice was a large modern building on a quiet street. Inside, there were smiles and silences, and an atmosphere of drugged calm. The nurses and doctors here were in the business of easing people through their last breaths, ensuring that their eyes closed on this world gently, and without pain. They were, I suppose, midwives in reverse.
Phoebe was in a small single room, which overlooked a car park and a row of back gardens. Plastic tubes snaked out of her shrunken body. She was very weak. Her soft voice had worn to a whisper. If I found her alone, she would be lying with her eyes half closed, in a sleep that was like a trance. And I would murmur her name as if calling her back. Whenever
she slept, she traveled a little further. Returning became more of a struggle. But the old Phoebe still smiled out of her eyes at me when she woke. She was still interested in the coarse bustle of the mortal world, and wanted to know about my concerns. Phoebe herself was my only concern, but I gamely fed her snippets of gossip from work, and friendly messages from Betsy.
I didn't often find Phoebe alone. One of the boys was usually with her. Annabel and Ben had returned from Scotland after a couple of days, so that Ben could sit beside her. He and Fritz took turns to stay the night. A steady stream of friends called, bringing such bales of flowers that we were constantly fretting over what to do with them all. There was a kind of elation in the room with her, not unlike hope, though it was hope's exact opposite. We none of us found it difficult to be cheerful.
On two occasions, Betsy came with me after work. She didn't say much, but sat beside Phoebe's bed, knitting briskly, smiling in a motherly way when anyone turned toward her.
At the end of her last visit, she kissed Phoebe, and said, “I owe you a debt of gratitude. If you hadn't put marriage into Cassie's head, she'd never have introduced my Jonah to Hazel.” (Completely illogical, but it's the thought that counts.)
One afternoon, I was touched to find Matthew and Honor in Phoebe's room. Honor was embarrassed to see me, but the whole episode of the oral sex was ancient history now. Phoebe was highly pleased to see them both, and that was what mattered. If she'd been stronger, she would have laughed. As it was, her eyes were laughing. This made me feel terrifically fond of both Matthew and Honor.
Outside the room I kissed them warmly. “Thanks so much for coming. Phoebe loved seeing you.”
Matthew said, “I loved knowing her. And this must be very—” He broke off, to sift his brain for the right word. “
Tough
for you. Are you okay?”
The expression in his eyes was genuinely tender. I felt the familiar, painful stab of tears in my throat. “Oh, I'm fine.”
“Do call, any time,” Honor said. “I'm—I'm not at the old number any more. I've moved in with Matthew.”
Poor thing, her huge gray eyes were radiant with happiness, pleading for
my approval. I was fond of her, and I couldn't help being pleased that she had found her true love. And I didn't want him, did I? I kissed her again, to show that there were no hard feelings, and promised to go to dinner with them. Fritz made moose faces at me for the rest of the day.
Far more surprisingly, my mother called, to announce that she and George would be visiting the following day. I can't explain why I was surprised. There wasn't an ounce of sentimentality in Ruth, and I suppose I didn't expect her to want a formal good-bye. But of course, I realized suddenly, she wanted Phoebe to meet George. She needed Phoebe to see the story's happy end.
I took yet another afternoon off work, to meet them at the station. Ruth kissed me firmly, holding my face between her hands.
She said, “This is very hard for you.”
Her sympathy was not the demonstrative sort, but I felt its strength and depth. I felt that she knew a lot about death. I felt she was reminding me that she belonged to me. I'd been dreading her visit, and in the end found it sustaining. I took them both out for an early supper before their train back to the coast, and what had started as a chore turned into a pleasure (I date my respect and liking for George back to that supper).
Ruth said, “I hope you'll come to me for Christmas. If you're there, I'll have an excuse to do it properly.”
I hadn't thought about Christmas. It was Phoebe's time of year. The sound of the word flashed a series of archetypal images through my head, all centered around Phoebe—kissing Jimmy under the mistletoe in the hall, hanging up a stocking for me over the fireplace, making the whole house smell of warm gingerbread and spices. Surely the world would end before Christmas could happen without Phoebe. I pushed the whole idea away.
“You mustn't stay here,” Ruth said. “It's never good to spend these festivals alone after a bereavement. You'll be too sad.”
Possibly—but we were not sad now. There was to be no more sadness at the end of Phoebe's life than there had been at its beginning. We were all determined to inhabit every second as fully as possible while the circle was closing. The old friends kept on coming. The boys handed round cups of tea and glasses of champagne, as if hosting a cocktail party. I couldn't sleep, and took to making biscuits in the middle of the night,
while listening to the World Service. I pressed these upon Phoebe's visitors, and left them out in the communal kitchen for the friends and relations of the other patients. I made those bloody biscuits as if the hospice depended on them. I had to be doing something, to keep my thoughts on small things—flour, cocoa powder, sultanas. If I absolutely refused to contemplate the future, I was almost happy.
I could see now that it had been right to bring Phoebe here. She was more comfortable than she had been at home. The everyday cares of the household fell away from her. She had stopped living in real time, and existed in a kind of remote bubble of serenity, halfway between the two worlds. The breathless atmosphere among us, as if waiting for a birth, quickly overwhelmed my life. I felt I had been living in this routine forever.
One particularly happy afternoon, we were all gathered in Phoebe's room—Ben, Fritz, Annabel and me. Phoebe smiled on her bank of pillows. She didn't really want to join in our conversation. Sensing that she liked listening to us, we talked among ourselves, looking at her often, to show that we were including her.
Annabel had brought a photograph of her most recent scan. It looked like a satellite picture of the weather.
Ben tenderly pointed out two fuzzy blobs. “Aren't they sweet?”
Annabel crunched one of my biscuits and reached out for another one. “I can't believe how much they're making me eat. I'm never not hungry.”
“That's a good sign, darling,” Phoebe whispered. “I like to see you eating.”
Annabel giggled. She pulled up her baggy shirt to show the gaping zip of her jeans, insecurely held together with Ben's tie. “It's a good thing Ben likes fat girls.”
“I don't,” Ben corrected her. “I like
you
. Fat or thin.”
He snatched her hand and kissed it. The two of them were still high on their honeymoon bliss. I know Phoebe loved to observe it. She could see that Annabel would protect her boy from the worst of the coming sorrow. I knew that Fritz was also aware of this. It was family policy to protect Ben, officially the Sensitive One. Fritz didn't have any such insulation himself, but he didn't act as if he needed it—I might as well have dreamed the tears. He was tough and cheerful. He ransacked his old medical textbooks,
so that he could assault nurses and doctors with his professional knowledge and make sure Phoebe got the very best of everything. He was her voice and her armor, and her joy.
Phoebe said, “Cassie hasn't heard your news.”
I looked at Fritz. “News?”
He smiled at me. “She means my fantastic new job.”
I knew, because I was the one Fritz confided in, that the money situation was dreadful. His West End run had finished, and he desperately needed some kind of income to service the huge family debt.
“Congratulations,” I said lightly. “What is it—the dog food commercial or the year in
The Mousetrap
?”
“Even better. My dear old agent found me a sudden vacancy in a pantomime.”
“Seriously?”
Phoebe's eyes were candles of pride. “Isn't it wonderful? I do so wish I could see him. You know how I love a pantomime.”
I did indeed. When we were little, Phoebe had taken us to a pantomime every Christmas. We'd enjoyed the shows, but the real pleasure had been watching Phoebe's passionate involvement. She would cry, “Oh no he doesn't!” and “Behind you!” with her whole heart. She would boo and hiss the villain with real indignation.
But it seemed, to say the least, an odd career move for Fritz.
He raised his eyebrows at me, as a warning not to communicate any doubts to Phoebe. “I need your mother's phone number,” he said.
“Ruth's?”
“The panto's in her town. Phoebe said she might take me as a lodger.”
The idea of this was simply too bizarre to take in properly—Fritz in a pantomime! Lodging with Ruth! “I suppose she might.” My thoughts were racing. This could mean that Fritz and I would spend Christmas under the same roof. My whole body went hot, with mingled desire and embarrassment.
“He's playing Wishee-Washee,” Phoebe whispered.
“It's
Aladdin
, then,” I said. “Your favorite.”
She smiled approval. “Good girl. I've trained you well.”
“I'm not following,” Annabel complained. “Who's Wishee-Washee?”
“Wishee-Washee is Aladdin's less sexy brother,” Fritz said. “Rather like poor Ben here.”
“Fuck off,” Ben said serenely. He laid his head down on the bed, beside Phoebe's hand.
Slowly, Phoebe raised her shaking hand to stroke his hair. “Tell Cassie who's playing the Widow Twanky.”
Fritz grinned at me. “Len Batty.”
“What—as in ‘Ay-up Mother?'”
“The same.”
Despite the absurdity of Fritz appearing in a seaside panto, I was rather impressed. This was
the
Len Batty, the northern comic who had been a television fixture since the year dot. “Ay-up Mother” was his rallying call and catchphrase, and I should think even the Queen knew it. For the first time in his dismal acting career, Fritz would be playing alongside a legend. No wonder Phoebe was thrilled. I had a suspicion that he was partly doing it to please her, never mind the money. She would never see his Wishee-Washee, but this didn't seem to bother her. The whole world of the Christmas pantomime belonged to the happy dream of the past. Jimmy had loved pantos too. He had once (the boys and I nearly died of shame) performed the Chicken Dance onstage with Danny La Rue. You can just imagine the merriment that ensued when Mr. La Rue found out what Jimmy did for a living.
“I think it's fab,” Annabel said. “At long last Fritz is in something that isn't either very weird or very boring. I don't have to live in dread of seeing it.”
We all—including Phoebe—laughed at this.
“I think we should celebrate,” I said. “I happen to have a bottle of champagne in the fridge. Why don't I open it?”
We drank a lot of champagne at the hospice. This was not, however, because we were foolishly extravagant. We'd found that Phoebe still enjoyed tasting a few drops of the stuff. I was going bankrupt buying it, and I didn't care.
“I'll come with you,” Fritz said.
I had left my bottle of Oddbins Special Offer Premier Cru in the fridge of the communal kitchen at the end of Phoebe's corridor. In this kitchen we would often meet other watchers from other rooms, headed for
the same shipwreck. We passed each other around the kettle, exchanging pale smiles like dazed spirits newly arrived in the underworld.
Today, however, the kitchen was empty. Fritz began to search the cupboards for wine glasses.
“This job,” I said. “Is it for real?”

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