‘There’s no point because I know what’s wrong with me. My doctors know what’s wrong with me.’
Amy felt the temperature in the room drop.
‘What is it?’ she said, her voice almost a whisper.
Georgia waved a pale hand, as if it was nothing of concern.
‘I was having headaches, the odd fall, so I had all the tests. In the end, they found something. It’s being managed.’
‘What’s being managed?’ Amy hardly dared to breathe.
Georgia fell silent, as if she didn’t want to say the words.
‘You’re going to be okay, aren’t you?’ asked Amy, rooted to the floor.
‘Well, they can’t operate, too far gone apparently.’
‘What does that mean?’ asked Amy, her voice shaking in panic.
‘I means I’m going to die,’ said Georgia, quite simply. ‘It happens to us all, doesn’t it? For me it will just be sooner rather than later. That’s why I had to go to New York.’
‘Your bucket list,’ said Amy in a voice so soft she could barely hear it herself.
‘It was the only thing left in my life I had to do.’
At least it wasn’t raining. Amy squinted up at the grey sky, searching the building across the road. There. The socks were still hanging on the balcony. Counting the windows across and the floors down, she worked out the number of Will’s flat and walked to the entrance. Ah, she thought. The names were on the buzzers anyway.
She pressed the button next to ‘Hamilton, W.’ and was rewarded by a familiar baritone.
‘It’s Amy,’ she said. ‘From the coffee shop.’
‘If this is about the socks, I was just about to bring them in.’
‘Just let me in, okay?’ she said crisply.
Compared to the grand chandelier and staircase of Georgia’s entrance hall, the communal area for Will’s building was small and gloomy. She took the two flights of stairs to where Will was waiting on the landing and handed him a fistful of envelopes she’d grabbed down in the hallway.
‘Your post,’ she said, making for the open door of his apartment.
‘Come in,’ said Will sarcastically under his breath.
Inside, a narrow corridor led to a small, crowded living room. It was untidy, of course – this was a man who left his washing out for a whole season – but the few pieces of furniture in the room – a sofa, coffee table covered with heavyweight magazines, and a heaving bookcase – were smart and tasteful. There were framed film posters on the walls: bold technicolour prints of Billy Wilder classics – Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and Sunset Boulevard. It was not a room that was ever going to appear in an interiors magazine, but it was a space that hummed with the personality of its owner.
‘I like those movies too,’ said Amy, suddenly feeling nervous. After all, she had barged into his inner sanctum without an invitation – very unladylike behaviour, she recognised, by any standard – and now she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to deal with all the issues her morning at Georgia’s place had thrown up.
‘I was just over at Georgia’s, Will,’ she said, realising that now she was here, she could hardly back out again. ‘She’s not well. She had a fall when I was there, and it meant I found out a whole heap of stuff I’m not even sure you know about.’
‘What?’ he said, looking alarmed. ‘What kind of fall? Is she all right?’
‘She’s dying, Will,’ she said, feeling her hands begin to shake.
Will looked at her incredulously as Amy told him what had happened at the apartment. When she had finished, he sank into a chair and ran his fingers through his dark hair.
‘Shit,’ he repeated again and again, then looked up at Amy. ‘How long has she got?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Are we talking months? Years?’ he said impatiently.