Still Me

‘I called Dad yesterday and he said the key thing was to look like you’re not dependent on it, right? Like – like I’m ambitious and I’m totally a company man, but equally I could move to another firm at any time because I’d be so much in demand. They have to feel a sense of threat that you might go somewhere else if they don’t give you your due, you know what I’m saying?’

‘Oh, yes.’

It was the same conversation we had had fourteen times over the past week. I wasn’t sure it even required answers on my side. He checked his reflection again, and then, apparently satisfied, walked over to the bed and leant across to run a hand down the back of my hair. ‘I’ll pick you up just before seven, okay? Make sure you’ve walked that dog so we don’t get held up. I don’t want to be late.’

‘I’ll be ready.’

‘Have a nice day. Hey, it was great what you did with the old lady’s family, you know? Really great. You did a good thing.’

He kissed me emphatically, already smiling at the thought of the day ahead, and then he was gone.

I stayed in his bed in the exact position he had left me, dressed in one of his T-shirts and hugging my knees. Then I got up, dressed and let myself out of his apartment.

I was still distracted when I took Margot to her morning hospital appointment, leaning my forehead against the taxi window and trying to sound like I understood what she was talking about.

‘Just drop me here, dear,’ said Margot, as I helped her out. I let go of her arm as she reached the double doors and they slid open as if to swallow her.

This was our pattern for every appointment. I would stay outside with Dean Martin, she would make her way in slowly and I would come back in an hour, or whenever she chose to call me.

‘I don’t know what’s got into you this morning. You’re all over the place. Useless.’ She stood in the entrance and handed me the lead.

‘Thanks, Margot.’

‘Well, it’s like travelling with a halfwit. Your brain is clearly somewhere else and you’re no company at all. Why, I’ve had to speak to you three times just to get you to do a thing for me.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Well, make sure you devote your full attention to Dean Martin while I’m inside. He gets very distressed when he knows he’s being ignored.’ She lifted a finger. ‘I mean it, young lady. I’ll know.’

I was halfway to the coffee shop with the outside tables and the friendly waiter when I found I was still holding her handbag. I cursed and ran back up the street.

I raced into Reception, ignoring the pointed stares of the waiting patients, who glared at the dog, as if I had brought in a live hand grenade. ‘Hi! I need to give a bag – a purse – to Mrs Margot De Witt. Can you tell me where I might find her? Please. I’m her carer.’

The woman didn’t look up from her screen. ‘You can’t call her?’

‘She’s in her eighties. She doesn’t do cell-phones. And if she did it would be in her purse. Please. She will need this. It’s got her pills and her notes and stuff.’

‘She has an appointment today?’

‘Eleven fifteen. Margot De Witt.’ I spelt it out, just in case.

She went through the list, one extravagantly manicured finger tracing the screen. ‘Okay. Yeah, I got her. Oncology is down there, through the double doors on the left.’

‘I’m sorry, what?’

‘Oncology. Down this main corridor, through the double doors on the left. If she’s in with the doctor you can leave her purse with one of the nurses there. Or just leave a message with them to tell her where you’ll be waiting.’

I stared at her, waiting for her to tell me she’d made a mistake. Finally she looked up at me, her face a question, as if waiting to hear why I was still standing, stupefied, in front of her. I gathered the appointment card off the desk and turned away. ‘Thank you,’ I said weakly, and walked Dean Martin out into the sunshine.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

Margot sat in the taxi, turned mulishly away from me, Dean Martin panting on her lap. ‘Because it’s none of your business. You would have told Vincent. And I didn’t want him to feel he has to come and see me just because of some stupid cancer.’

‘What’s your prognosis?’

‘None of your business.’

‘How … how do you feel?’

‘Exactly how I felt before you started asking all these questions.’

It all made sense now. The pills, the frequent hospital visits, the diminished appetite. The things I had thought were simply evidence of old age, of over-attentive private US medical care, had all been disguising the much deeper fault line. I felt sick. ‘I don’t know what to say, Margot. I feel like –’

‘I’m not interested in your feelings.’

‘But –’

‘Don’t you dare get all goopy on me now,’ she snapped. ‘What happened to that English stiff upper lip? Yours made of marshmallow?’

‘Margot –’

‘I’m not discussing it. There is nothing to discuss. If you’re going to insist on getting all wishy-washy with me you can go stay in someone else’s apartment.’

When we arrived at the Lavery, she was out of the taxi with unusual vigour. By the time I had finished paying the driver, she was already inside the lobby without me.

I wanted to talk to Josh about what had happened but when I texted him he said he was flat out and I could fill him in that evening. Nathan was busy with Mr Gopnik. Ilaria might freak out or, worse, would insist on stopping by all the time and smothering Margot with her own brand of brusque care and reheated pork casseroles. There was really nobody else I could talk to.

While Margot had her afternoon nap I moved quietly into the bathroom and, under pretext of cleaning, I opened the cabinet and looked at the shelf of drugs, noting down the names, until I found the confirmation: morphine. I looked up the other drugs in the cabinet and searched them online until I got my answers.

I felt shaken to the core. I wondered how it must feel to be looking death so squarely in the face. I wondered how long she had left. I realised that I loved the old woman, with her sharp tongue and her sharper mind, like I loved my family. And some tiny part of me, selfishly, wondered what it meant for me: I had been happy in Margot’s apartment. It might not have felt permanent, but I’d thought I might have a year or more there at least. Now I had to face the fact that I was on shifting sands again.

I had pulled myself together a little by the time the doorbell rang, promptly, at seven. I answered, and there was Josh, immaculate. Not even a hint of five o’clock shadow.

‘How?’ I said. ‘How do you look like that after a whole day at work?’

He leant forward and kissed my cheek. ‘Electric razor. And I left another suit at the dry-cleaner’s and changed at work. Didn’t want to turn up creased.’

‘But surely your boss will be in the same suit he’s been in all day.’

‘Maybe. But he’s not the one angling for a promotion. You think I look okay?’

‘Hello, Josh, dear.’ Margot walked past on her way to the kitchen.

‘Good evening, Mrs De Witt. How are you doing today?’

‘I’m still here, dear. That’s about as much as you need to know.’

‘Well, you look wonderful.’