ONE DAY(40)

Dexter’s mind is not so addled that he can’t recognise a dig, but he ignores the remark and glances at the tray. A bowl of grey brown cereal dissolved in milk, the spoon by its side, unused. ‘How is she?’ he asks. Perhaps she’ll say ‘much improved’.

‘Go and find out,’ says Cassie, and he squeezes past and wonders: Why will no-one tell me how she is?

From the doorway he watches her. She is sitting in an old-fashioned wing-backed chair that has been carried out to face the view across the fields and woods, Oxford a grey hazy smudge in the distance. From this angle, her face is obscured by a large sunhat and sunglasses – the light hurts her eyes these days – but he can tell by the slender arms and the way her hand lolls on the padded arm of the chair that she has changed a great deal in the three weeks since he last came to see her. He has a sudden urge to cry. He wants to curl up like a child and feel her put her arms around him, and he also wants to run from here as fast as he can, but neither are possible, so instead he trots down the steps, an artificially buoyant jog, a chat-show host.

‘Hellooo there!’

She smiles as if smiling itself has become an effort. He stoops beneath the brim of her hat to kiss her, the skin of her cheek disconcertingly cool, taut and shiny. A headscarf is tied beneath her hat to disguise her hair loss, but he tries not to scrutinise her face too closely as he quickly reaches for a rusting metal garden chair. Noisily, he pulls it close and arranges it outwards so that they are both facing the view, but he can feel her eyes on him.

‘You’re sweating,’ she says.

‘Well it’s a hot day.’ She looks unconvinced. Not good enough. Concentrate. Remember who you’re talking to.

‘You’re soaked through’

‘It’s this shirt. Artificial fibre.’

She reaches across and touches his shirt with the back of her hand. Her nose wrinkles with distaste. ‘Where from?’

‘Prada.’

‘Expensive.’

‘Only the best,’ then keen to change the subject he retrieves the parcel from the rockery wall. ‘Present for you.’

‘How lovely.’

‘Not from me, from Emma.’

‘I can tell, from the wrapping.’ Carefully she undoes the ribbon. ‘Yours come in taped-up bin bags . . .’

‘That’s not true . . .’ he smiles, keeping things light-hearted.

‘ . . . when they come at all.’

He’s finding it harder to maintain this smile, but thankfully her eyes are on the parcel as she carefully folds the paper back, revealing a pile of paperback books: Edith Wharton, some Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald. ‘How kind of her. Will you thank her for me? Lovely Emma Morley.’ She looks at the cover of the Fitzgerald. ‘The Beautiful and Damned. It’s me and you.’

‘But which is which?’ he says without thinking, but thankfully she doesn’t seem to have heard. Instead she’s reading the back of the postcard, a black and white agit-prop collage from ’82; ‘Thatcher Out!’ She laughs. ‘Such a kind girl. So funny.’ She takes the novel and measures its thickness between finger and thumb. ‘A little optimistic maybe. You might want to push her towards short stories in future.’

Dexter smiles and sniffs obediently but he hates this type of thing, gallows humour. It’s meant to show pluck, to lift the spirits, but he finds it boring and stupid. He would prefer the unsayable to be left unsaid. ‘How is Emma anyway?’

‘Very good, I think. She’s a fully qualified teacher now. Job interview today.’

‘Now there’s a profession.’ She turns her head to look at him. ‘Weren’t you going to be a teacher once? What happened there?’

He recognises the dig. ‘Didn’t suit me.’

‘No’ is all she says. There is a silence and he feels the day slip from his control once more. Dexter had been led to believe, by TV, by films, that the only up-side of sickness was that it brought people closer, that there would be an opening-up, an effortless understanding between them. But they have always been close, always been open, and their habitual understanding has instead been replaced by bitterness, resentment, a rage on both their parts at what is happening. Meetings that should be fond and comforting descend into bickering and recrimination. Eight hours ago he was telling complete strangers his most intimate secrets, and now he can’t talk to his mother. Something isn’t right.

‘So. I saw largin’ it last week,’ she says.

‘Did you?’

She is silent, so he’s forced to add, ‘What did you think?’

‘I think you’re very good. Very natural. You look very nice on the screen. As I’ve said before, I don’t care for the programme very much.’

‘Well it’s not really meant for people like you, is it?’

She bridles at the phrase, and turns her head imperiously. ‘What do you mean, people like me?’

Flustered, he continues, ‘I mean, it’s just a silly, late-night programme, that’s all. It’s post-pub—’

‘You mean I wasn’t drunk enough to enjoy it?’

‘No—’

‘I’m not a prude either, I don’t mind vulgarity, I just don’t understand why it’s suddenly necessary to humiliate people all the time—’