The Girl Who Cried Wolf(11)
I had no idea what he was talking about. I vaguely remembered that I was in hospital, that something was very wrong, but I could not string anything together to make sense.
I tried to bring this man into focus. No hair. No eyebrows. He looked like he was very unfortunate indeed. I recognised my illness in his drawn and weary features, but there was something strange about the way he was making me feel as I stared harder. He was coming closer, sitting down beside me. Why was he straightening my blankets?
Cancer leaves a recognisable imprint, but it had failed to steal the sparkle from his eyes. He had intense grey-blue eyes in a handsome face with a chiselled jawline Michelangelo may have masterminded. The way he was looking at me was making me nervous. My head ached and I felt weak and wretched. But here was this stranger making me flustered under the cold cotton sheets. ‘Michael.’
‘I’m here.’
My hands flew to my head and I realised I was not wearing my head scarf.
‘Get out of here!’
It came out louder than I intended and he looked taken aback.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’ He started to back away, but before he left he turned for a second and said, ‘I know how this feels.’
I think I fell asleep again. I couldn’t remember what it was like to control when and how I sleep. Something so simple that people take for granted and there I was, one minute thinking and talking, the next fast asleep.
As I opened my eyes it had become dark outside once more and I actually felt (just a tiny bit) better. I felt rested and although my head was still tender and sore, it was not the same pain that made me want to jump from a twelfth-storey window. The painkillers dolefully handed out that morning had offered a welcome reprieve.
In the absence of pain, my first thought was of Michael. God, I’d been rude. Maybe it would have been nice to talk to him for a while.
I realized I had never spoken to another young person who’d had chemo or cancer. Only elderly people, where although it was still cruel and unjust that they were being slowly taken by an illness, people would at least be able to say, ‘Well, he had a good innings,’ or ‘He didn’t want to fight any more, he lived a long and happy life, that’s all that mattered.’ Their funerals would be celebrations of a life filled with love and family, who would tell funny stories of the good old days with a drink in their hand and a tear in their eye.
No one would say that for the young victims. We were meant to be just getting started; we should have had our whole lives ahead of us. No cares in the world until at least our mid-thirties, when we might consider coming home at a reasonable hour, contemplate the thought of marrying the person we share a flat with, hear the tick of the biological clock (or at the very least, get a dog).
It seemed suddenly important that I speak to Michael and apologise. I might have been too self-absorbed to stop myself being incredibly rude to a stranger, but not all strangers have mesmerizingly intense eyes, and no one has ever unnerved me so pleasantly before.
I got up, without too much difficulty I was delighted to realise, and headed for the bathroom to splash water over my face. I got the fright of my life seeing Gollum staring back at me. (Since Dr Braby had made me over I’d asked Isabel to replace the mirror.)
Undeterred, I reached for the Ted Baker bag and repeated her magic as best as I could. I even applied some lip gloss and by the time I fastened the headscarf the way she taught me, I felt a little like Anna again.
A clean pair of white linen pyjamas plus a baby blue ballet cardigan and I was ready to try and make a new friend. I was so used to trailing up and down the corridor with a drip stand attached to me it felt strange to be leaving it behind. But there it was, redundant and lonely in the corner of the room.
I did not have to look very far for Michael because he was sitting on the bed in the side room opposite mine. He was wearing a beige cowboy hat and playing a guitar. Perhaps I was still dreaming.
***
I tap quietly on the door. ‘Hello?’
He looks up at me and before he looks quickly away again, I catch it in his eyes. He is pleased to see me.
‘Hi.’ He shrugs casually.
‘I wanted to say I’m sorry for shouting. I’m not quite myself these days. Well, I can be a bit moody but honestly, I don’t normally bite strangers’ heads off like that. But you said you know what it feels like so I just thought …’ I feel I’m rambling and my voice starts to trail off. I don’t have a blonde mane to flick flirtatiously over my shoulder as I usually would and I feel somewhat at a loss. ‘So … sorry,’ I turn to go but his voice stops me.
‘It’s OK, I do know. I’ve heard you yelling at most of your visitors these last few weeks. I should’ve been more prepared.’
I look at him, horrified, until he starts smiling. I reach out my hand to him.
‘I’m Anna.’
‘Michael.’
He tries to shake my outstretched hand but his IV won’t pull that far. I step awkwardly round his things and find myself plonked in his visitors’ chair – How forward. We finally shake hands.
We talk for a little while. I find out he likes country music, that he had been born in America and now runs an American-style riding centre north of Northampton with his father. He likes everything to do with being outdoors and has a dog called Lincoln. (I naturally wonder if he has a thirty-something wife.) I tell him I like dogs and horses, which is true, but I neglect to mention the fact I hate doing anything with my spare time other than lazing around with Jules watching trashy television shows. We had barely left the house at weekends since she’d had Sky installed, unless a Saturday night out beckoned and we recorded everything for a further laze fest on the Sunday.