Page 36 of All the Things We Never Knew

‘The penultimate time. And before that…’

‘The Premier Inn. Scene of our most passionate moments.’

He smiled and ate half another toast finger. ‘Shame I left it so late to level up the romance.’

‘You didn’t.’ I leaned forward from my perch on the bed so our knees were touching. ‘It all felt pretty damn romantic to me. Even the Premier Inn.’

‘Even the time in my car by the McDonald’s Drive-Through in Barking?’

‘Especially that,’ I teased. ‘I’ll never feel the same way about a Philly Cheese Stack again.’

He laughed, pushing the tray away. ‘I’m done here. Eat some orange, if you can, so Anna won’t feel hurt.’

I put the tray back on the bed and took a piece, holding my hand under my chin to catch the juice as I bit into it.

Gray said, ‘Laurel.’

I reached for his hand and held it, feeling the stickiness transfer from my fingers to his, waiting for him to say what he needed to say.

‘That’s not going to happen now. You and me having a final shag. Is it?’

‘I don’t think so.’

He nodded. ‘I think it’s time for me to move to a hospice, don’t you?’

I took a breath, trying to steady myself and find the right words. ‘It’s time whenever you want it to be. Or not at all, if you’d rather stay here.’

‘The kids are struggling.’ He spoke as if it was an effort to admit it. ‘I see Lulu’s face when she walks in here to see me, and it kills me. I hear Barney stop outside the door and not come in, because he can’t face seeing me. And it’s too much for Anna. She thinks she’s coping but she’s breaking. I can tell. She’s only holding it together for them.’

I could tell too. ‘There’s more help available if you need it. She can speak to the district nurse. There’s Hospice at Home, or even just a respite stay.’

‘Except it wouldn’t be a respite, would it?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know, Gray. Prognostics is tricky, your oncologist will have told you that. No one knows.’

‘Could be weeks, could be days,’ he said.

‘I’d be surprised if it was days,’ I said gently. ‘But…’

‘Not months, either.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not months.’

‘Then it’s time,’ he said. ‘Best to get it done when… Before there’s some kind of crisis. I don’t want the kids…’

He stopped, pressing a hand over his eyes.

‘I get it,’ I said. ‘This’ll be their home for a while yet.’

‘That’s right. I want Lulu to bring a boyfriend home from uni for Christmas and not have to be like, “And this here’s the room where Dad carked it.” I don’t want Barney having nightmares. I want this house to be somewhere they’ll always remember feeling safe.’

‘You must do whatever feels right. It’s totally, one hundred per cent your decision.’

‘I don’t want…’ He paused, taking a breath that I could hear was unsteady. ‘I don’t want it to hurt, Laurel. I’m fucking terrified of that. It’s bad already, sometimes, but what happens later, if I can’t tell people it’s hurting?’

God. I’d given this reassurance to many people before – the families of patients, mostly, occasionally friends whose loved ones were dying and thought that I was somehow the fount of all knowledge on the subject. But giving it to Gray was harder than almost anything I’d ever done before.

‘Palliative care is really good.’ I hated the way those words sounded – bland and professional, with nothing of the sick, churning sadness I was feeling inside. ‘You’ll have all the pain relief you need.’