our notes, if you will,’ Bert says, saluting me. ‘As we head off to war.’
This is not what I’d planned. I had convinced myself that I could sit with them for an hour, hear their ideas for their letters, guide them, and then extract myself from their lives. I don’t want to be invested. If Gerry had had someone helping him with his letters, I would have besieged them with questions. I would have wanted to know more and more, pressing them for every last detail of his secret moments away from me. I’d practically invited the travel guide, Barbara, to my house on Christmas Day for drinks, trying to make her a part of my life, before I realised the imposition I was putting on her. She couldn’t provide me with any more information, I was squeezing her dry of what had been a short experience, pleading with her to share it with me over and over again.
And here they are, making plans for me to be their gatekeeper after their deaths, these strangers. They’ll be gone, and the advice I give them will affect their loved ones forever more. I should leave immediately, before I get too involved, before it’s too late. I should stick to the plan. I came here to tell them ‘no’.
‘Oh, would you look at that,’ Joy says, pouring the last of the tea into her cup, and filling it so that tea spills out over the rim and pools on her saucer. ‘We’re out of tea. Holly, would you mind?’
Taking the teapot in a dazed state, I step over the dog and leave the room. As I’m standing waiting for the kettle to boil, trying to figure out how to escape this nightmare, feeling trapped and panicked, I hear a door off the kitchen opening, a man coming inside and wiping his feet on the mat. He steps into the kitchen as I ready myself for our greeting.
‘Oh,’ the man says. ‘Hello. You must be with the book club.’
I pause. ‘Yes, yes, the book club,’ I reply, putting the kettle down and wiping my wet hands on my jeans.
‘I’m Joe – Joy’s husband.’
‘I’m Holly.’
He shakes my hand, studies me. ‘You look … well … Holly.’
‘I am very well,’ I laugh, and it’s a split second later that I catch his meaning. He may not know the real reason behind the supposed book club, but he has figured out that its members are not at all well.
‘Good to hear it.’
‘I was about to leave, actually,’ I say. ‘Just topping up the tea before I go. I’m late, for an appointment. I’ve cancelled it twice before and really can’t again, or I’ll never get another one,’ I blather on.
‘Well, off you go, can’t have you missing it again. I’ll make the tea.’
‘Thank you.’ I hand him the teapot. ‘Do you mind giving them my apologies that I had to leave?’
‘Not at all,’ he says.
I back away in the direction of the front door. I can easily make my escape. But something about his movements stops me and I watch him.
He opens a cupboard and then another. Scratches his head. ‘Tea, you say?’ he says, pulling open a drawer. He scratches his head. ‘I’m not sure …’ he mumbles as he searches.
I step back closer to him, reach to the cupboard above the kettle and open the door, revealing the box of tea. ‘Here it is.’
‘Ah,’ he says, sliding closed the bottom drawer containing pots and pans. ‘That’s where that is. Joy always makes the tea. They’ll probably want the sugar bowl too.’ He starts opening more cupboards. He looks back at me. ‘Off you go now, don’t want you missing that appointment.’
I open the cupboard again. It’s beside the tea. ‘Found it.’
He turns suddenly and knocks over a vase of flowers. I hurry to help him and mop up the water with a dishcloth. When I’ve finished, the dishcloth is unusable. ‘Where’s your washing machine?’
‘Oh, I’d say that it’s …’ he looks around again.
I open the wooden cupboard beside the dishwasher and find the washing machine.
‘There it is,’ he says. ‘You know your way around here better than I do. Truth be told, it’s Joy that does everything in here,’ he admits guiltily as if I couldn’t have guessed. ‘Always said I’d be lost without her.’ It feels like something he’s always said, and now it has real meaning. Life without Joy, as he knows her, is nearing. It’s real.
‘How is she doing?’ I ask. ‘She seems very positive.’
‘Joy is always upbeat, to others anyway, but it’s got harder for her. She went through a period where nothing changed, she didn’t worsen. We thought that was it, but then it advanced – and it’s when it advances that the body declines.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say softly. ‘For you both.’
He purses his lips and nods. ‘But I do know where the milk is,’ he says, perking up and pulling open a door.
A broom falls out.
We both start laughing.
‘You’d best be off to your appointment,’ he says again. ‘I know how they can be. Waiting list after waiting list, life is one big waiting room.’
‘It’s OK.’ I pick the broom up from the floor, the desire to run gone. I sigh to myself. ‘It can wait.’
When I return to the group with the replenished tea, Bert has faded. Whatever burst of energy his medication gave him for the hour has worn off, leaving him exhausted. As if anticipating this, his carer has arrived to collect him.
‘Why don’t we talk about this in detail the next time we meet,’ Bert taps his nose in a secretive but terribly obvious manner, and jerks his head towards the sound of his carer speaking with Joe in the hallway. His chin wobbles as he moves. ‘And not in my house, because Rita will be suspicious.’
‘Here,’ Joy says. ‘We can all meet here again.’
‘That’s unfair on you, Joy,’ Paul says.
‘I can take over from where Angela left off. I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ she says firmly, and it’s clear, at least to me, that it suits Joy in more ways than one to remain in her home.
‘Good for me,’ Bert says. ‘How about two days from now, same time? If we meet tomorrow, Rita will be jealous of Joy.’ He chuckles and winks. ‘Will you come back to us, Holly?’
Everyone looks at me again.
I should not get involved in this club. I do not want to get involved in this club. It can’t be healthy.
But everyone is looking at me, hopeful and expectant. Ginika’s baby Jewel lets out a sound, as if she’s joining in, trying to convince me along with the group. She makes happy bubbling sounds. She is six months old, she could be a one-year-old when her mother dies.
I look around at them all, this motley crew. Bert is struggling to breathe, Joy is barely holding herself together. I’ve been here before, I know how short six months can be, how quickly everything can change, how health
