“Bosh!” Sean says, opening the cupboard to look for cookies. “No one is perfect, even Ben. For a start, his nose is too big.”
“It is not! Be serious. You have to admit, he is pretty great.”
“You do know, when people first get together, they are invariably lying to each other? They only present the good bits, the bits they think their partner will like. It takes some time to see the imperfections. The short temper, the inability to commit or,” Sean says, holding up an empty wrapper, a tantalising false hope left in the cupboard, “their selfish consumption of all the chocolate chip cookies.”
“Sorry about that,” says Jasmine, knowing she sounds completely insincere, “but my need was great. I’ll pick some up tomorrow on the way back from lectures.”
True to her word, Jasmine stops at the supermarket to stock up on cookies, oat milk, bread, instant noodles, and other essentials. With two full shopping bags, she struggles home, but as she turns into the road, she can see a figure sitting on the top step in front of the entrance door. She studies the figure as she gets closer. It’s clearly male, huddled in a padded jacket, sweatshirt hood pulled up. His head is down, facial features unclear, but he looks familiar. He looks like Petey.
She quickens her walk, bags banging uncomfortably against her legs, until she is close enough to speak.
“Petey?” she says, a little breathless as she turns off the pavement into the tiny front yard.
His head comes up. “Hi, Jasmine,” he says, like it is an everyday occurrence for him to be waiting on her doorstep over a hundred miles from his own home.
“What … How … Never mind. You’d better come in.” She looks at her old lover. He is thinner than she remembers, and paler, if that is possible given his usually milky complexion. Now that she is used to Ben’s height and build, Petey seems somehow smaller than the last time she saw him.
She squeezes past him with her bags and puts them down, while she locates her key. With the door open, she grabs her shopping and starts the climb upstairs.
“Jasmine!” Petey calls and nods to the door, his face lit up with his trademark grin. She looks, notices her keys still in the lock, and sighs. Seeing Petey again has really thrown her. “Just bring them up,” she says.
Petey extracts the keys and follows behind her. Her sense something is wrong is compounded by Petey’s silence and the fact he has not relieved her of her shopping bags. Petey always did have the manners of a man three or four times his age. She always put it down to his being the only man in a house. He’s used to looking out for occasions when his strength can help and has become good at anticipating them.
On the first landing she looks back and is surprised to see him leaning against the banister, but he says, “A bit dizzy. Shouldn’t have skipped breakfast,” and motions her onward. She starts up the next set of steps, although she has to wait for him at the top, as he has the keys to her apartment. She moves to the side so he can get past and watches his progress. He is breathing deeply as he fits the key in the lock, and Jasmine’s sense of oddness deepens.
While Jasmine sets her bags on the kitchen counter and fills the kettle for the welcoming hot drink mandated by British social etiquette, Petey collapses onto the sofa. Jasmine uses the opportunity of putting mugs, teabags, and oat milk to order her thoughts.
“How did you know where to find me?” she asks. She’s still in the flat she was in last year, but Petey was not to know that.
“Flora,” he says. “Don’t be mad at her.”
“I’m not.”
“We thought you would be home at Christmas. When you didn’t come … Anyway, Flora wanted to come, too, but she has work.”
“What about you?” Jasmine frowns. “What about your work?”
“I’m not working anymore. Laid off.” He pauses. “I’m sick, Jas. It’s bad.”
Jasmine looks at him, at the bony wrists protruding from his frayed cuffs and the pallor of his skin. He does not look well. She recalls him struggling as they climbed the stairs and she notices Petey won’t meet her eyes. He is staring at the stained carpet, not a good sign.
“How bad?” she asks.
“It’s cancer, Jas.” His voice cracks and warbles as he speaks. “They told me last week. I don’t just have a bad tumour; I have the worst. I’m not just unlucky, I’m super-unlucky.”
Jasmine drops onto the sofa beside him. She reaches for his hands but her mind automatically catalogues the feel of his thin, bony hand, and compares it with Ben’s strong, long-fingered grip. She pushes the thoughts aside to focus on the person beside her. His words are too important.
“Oh my God, Petey. Are you sure?” Jasmine feels the ridiculousness of her question the moment it has left her mouth, but she is so thrown she cannot think of anything else to say. She looks closely at Petey. He seems to have crumpled inside, but externally, he is much as he ever was. There is nothing a stranger would see and think,He’s marked for death.
“No. I’m not. I’m not really sure of anything.” He rests his head against her shoulder and they sit like that for some minutes while she tries to work her way through the turmoil in her mind. A hundred thoughts, a swirl of emotions. She tries to pick a way through. She cannot understand how she didn’t know. Something this big and she didn’t have even the slightest suspicion. Eventually, she ventures a question.
“How long have you known?”
“I saw a doctor before Christmas. She thought I needed checking and sent me for a scan. That showed a tumour. Then they did a biopsy. Last week they told me. They can’t operate because it’s enmeshed with my spinal cord – that’s the word they used: ‘enmeshed’. I had to look it up. But it means no matter what, they can’t get it all out without killing me, so it has to stay there and kill me just the same.”
Jasmine’s soul floods with guilt. She remembers the text from Flora.Shit happening. She had meant to call but she was so busy and having so much fun, and she knew Flora was probably going to lean on her to come home. So she had let the time go by and told herself Flora would be busy with her own family. Now she understands why Flora hadn’t been more precise – this wasn’t news that could be sent in a message – but Jasmine wishes that she had been.
“But surely this can’t just happen, can it? It can’t come out of nowhere? There must have been signs!”
