hands, its logo clearly visible.
‘You might be wondering: why isn’t she at work?’
Her daughter ignores the bag.
‘What?’
‘I’ve just been to the chemist’s.’
‘And?’
‘It’s the doctor. He said it.’ She lets the bag drop.
‘What did the doctor say?’
‘That I need to tell people.’
‘What, Mum?’
‘That I might die. But we don’t know when, you know. It might be months.’
‘Die?’
‘Of cancer.’
‘Cancer?’
‘It’s an umbrella term for a lot of different illnesses actually. It just sounds so horrible.’
‘What have you got then?’
‘Oh, it’s all a bit technical.’
‘Huh?’
‘It started in my kidneys but…’
‘How long?’
‘Must have been years ago.’
‘No. How long have you known?’
Elisabeth thinks of the hairdresser, the first person she told. She goes every other month and her new appointment is for next week, in which case it has to be more than…
‘How long, Mum?’
‘We’ll get drenched if we keep on standing here like this.’
‘How long?’
‘I’m working it out.’
‘Days? Weeks?’
‘I’m counting.’
‘Months?’
‘Well, not months.’
‘Christ.’ Her daughter looks angry.
‘I shouldn’t have told you, should I?’
‘But… are they treating you?’
‘Not at the moment, no.’
‘Are they going to treat you?’
‘If they can think of something.’
‘And can they?’
‘Not at the moment.’
‘… and so?’
‘Sorry,’ Elisabeth says, ‘I shouldn’t have told you like this. We’re getting soaked.’ The bag is now hidden behind her back.
‘So you… might… but not definitely?’
‘You’re not likely to live a long time with something like this.’
‘Not likely?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Christ.’
‘We’ll call each other. Let’s call. Yes? We’ll call?’
And then Elisabeth crosses back over the Overtoom as quickly as she can. She slips and falls on the first tramline, but scrambles up again. As fast as she wanted to get to her daughter, this is how fast, no, faster, she wants to get away from her. The trams ring their bells and Elisabeth remembers the way her daughter had painted her room.
‘I just start to paint when I feel like it,’ she had explained, ‘I don’t put on old clothes, I don’t tape up anything, because if I think about all the preparation, I stop wanting to do it. I just start, and then it takes me just as long to clean up the mess and get all the paint spots off as the painting itself.’
This was exactly what Elisabeth had just done. She had just started, at the wrong time, at the wrong place, in the wrong clothes. She had done it all in one go and now she would have to clean up the mess and hope that the result was better than before she’d started the job.
She walks to the tram stop without looking back and thinks about her hairdresser; her conversations with him never go wrong. Words exchanged between her and the hairdresser tinkle like loose change: short, quick melodies.
‘The trouble I’ve been having…’
‘Go on.’
‘The pain in my back, you know…’
‘Yes, you said.’
‘Turned out to be cancer.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘Riddled with it.’
‘Aw, honey.’
‘I saw it with my own eyes. On the scans.’
‘And now?’
‘Now they’re seeing if they can stop it.’
‘And can they?’
‘They’re seeing.’
‘They’re seeing.’
‘Yes.’
‘You poor thing.’
‘Don’t tell the girl. You know – that you knew first.’
‘She doesn’t know yet?’
‘I don’t see her that often.’
‘No, right.’
‘No more than you do.’
‘She needs another colouring appointment.’
‘She dyes it?’
‘Highlights.’
There aren’t any inappropriate words at the hairdresser’s. As he dries her hair, they speak loudly. She can shout out words above the racket that would need to be whispered in other places.
Then the hairdresser hollers, ‘That woman upstairs isn’t doing too well!’
Elisabeth asks, ‘What’s the matter with her?’
The hairdresser says, ‘Stroke, I think.’
Elisabeth:
