allowed for no argument that of course it wasn’t incurable, nipped this nonsense in the bud?). The world was slippery and incohesive enough as it was; with him disintegrating, it might fly apart into a million pieces.
I did get that I had a responsibility to at least go see him, but I couldn’t fathom how I was supposed to do it. The only possible way to get through this, on what minimal resources I had, seemed to be to pull my head deeper into my cave, slam everything shut as tightly as possible, take plenty of painkillers and refuse to even think about the whole thing until it was over.
I was still standing there with the phone in my hand when the buzzer made me shy sideways: Melissa, with a massive cardboard pizza box and a funny story about how the Italian guy in the restaurant had been in genuine pain at the thought of putting pineapple on her half. And, since I couldn’t find a way to tell her what had just happened, I laughed and put my phone away and started on my pizza.
But my appetite was gone again, and after one slice I gave up and told her. I expected shock, hugs, compassion—Oh Toby, that’s all you needed, are you OK? Instead Melissa surprised me by saying, instantly, “When are you going?”
She looked like she was ready to jump up and start packing for me. “I don’t know,” I said, shrugging and focusing on my pizza. “Maybe in a few weeks. Depends on how I’m doing.”
I thought for sure that would be the end of that, but out of the corner of my eye I could see Melissa sitting up very straight, cross-legged—we were on the sofa—pizza forgotten, one hand cupped in the other like a supplicant. She said, “You should really go. Like, right away.”
“I know that.” I almost managed to keep the flash of irritation out of my voice. “If I can go, I’ll go. Right away.”
“No. Listen.” The barely controlled urgency made me look at her. “That night, when your mother rang me—” A quick intake of breath. “It was five in the morning. I threw on clothes and got a taxi. No one knew what was going on. No one knew if you were going to—”
Her eyes were too bright, but when I reached for her she put my hands aside. “Wait. I need to finish this, and if you hug me I’ll . . . I was in the taxi and I was screaming at the driver to go faster, actually screaming at him—I was lucky he was so nice, he could easily have put me out on the side of the road, but instead he just went faster. Everything dark, and no one on the roads, and we were going so fast the wind was roaring at the windows . . . And all I could think was that I couldn’t bear it if I was too late. If you woke up and wanted me and I wasn’t there, and then . . . It was pure selfishness, I knew you probably wouldn’t even know whether I was there or not—I just couldn’t bear going through the rest of my life knowing I hadn’t been there when you needed me.”
When she blinked, a tear ran down her face. I reached out and brushed it away with my thumb. “Shh. It’s OK; I’m right here.”
This time she caught my hand and held on tight. “I know. But if you don’t go see your uncle, Toby, that’s what it’s going to be like. You’re so shaken up right now, it might not sink in till you’re feeling better, but by then it could be too late.” Squeezing my hand tighter, when I started to say something: “I know you can’t even think about what things will be like when you’re OK again. Believe me, I understand that. But I can. And I don’t want you to be left feeling that for the rest of your life.”
It went straight to my heart, her total and ludicrous faith in me, in a future where I was OK again. I had to swallow back tears too—that would be just great, the two of us sitting on the sofa bawling into our pizza, like a pair of teenage girls watching Titanic at a sleepover.
“Even if you think I’m talking rubbish, can you just trust me on this one thing? Please?”
For my sake more than hers, I couldn’t