Page 131 of Still Me
I stayed in his bed in the exact position he had left me, dressed in one of his T-shirts and hugging my knees. Then I got up, dressed, and let myself out of his apartment.
—
I was still distracted when I took Margot to her morning hospital appointment, leaning my forehead against the taxi window and trying to sound like I understood what she was talking about.
“Just drop me here, dear,” said Margot as I helped her out. I let go of her arm as she reached the double doors and they slid open as if to swallow her.
This was our pattern for every appointment. I would stay outside with Dean Martin, she would make her way in slowly and I would come back in an hour, or whenever she chose to call me.
“I don’t know what’s got into you this morning. You’re all over the place. Useless.” She stood in the entrance and handed me the lead.
“Thanks, Margot.”
“Well, it’s like traveling with a halfwit. Your brain is clearly somewhere else and you’re no company at all. I’ve had to speak to you three times just to get you to do a thing for me.”
“Sorry.”
“Well, make sure you devote your full attention to Dean Martin while I’m inside. He gets very distressed when he knows he’s being ignored.” She lifted a finger. “I mean it, young lady. I’llknow.”
I was halfway to the coffee shop with the outside tables and the friendly waiter when I found I was still holding her handbag. I cursed and ran back up the street.
I raced into Reception, ignoring the pointed stares of the waiting patients, who glared at the dog, as if I had brought in a live hand grenade. “Hi! I need to give a bag—apurse—to Mrs. Margot De Witt. Can you tell me where I might find her? Please. I’m her carer.”
The woman didn’t look up from her screen. “You can’t call her?”
“She’s in her eighties. She doesn’t do cell phones. And if she did it would be in her purse. Please. She will need this. It’s got her pills and her notes and stuff.”
“She has an appointment today?”
“Eleven fifteen. Margot De Witt.” I spelled it out, just in case.
She went through the list, one extravagantly manicured finger tracing the screen. “Okay. Yeah, I got her. Oncology is down there, through the double doors on the left.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Oncology. Down this main corridor, through the double doors on the left. If she’s in with the doctor you can leave her purse with one of the nurses there. Or just leave a message with them to tell her where you’ll be waiting.”
I stared at her, waiting for her to tell me she’d made a mistake. Finally she looked up at me, her face a question, as if waiting to hear why I was still standing, stupefied, in front of her. I gathered the appointment card off the desk and turned away. “Thank you,” I said weakly, and walked Dean Martin out into the sunshine.
—
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Margot sat in the taxi, turned mulishly away from me, Dean Martin panting on her lap. “Because it’s none of your business. You would have told Vincent. And I didn’t want him to feel he has to come and see me just because of some stupid cancer.”
“What’s your prognosis?”
“None of your business.”
“How... how do you feel?”
“Exactly how I felt before you started asking all these questions.”
It all made sense now. The pills, the frequent hospital visits, the diminished appetite. The things I had thought were simply evidence of old age, of overattentive private US medical care, had all been disguising the much deeper fault line. I felt sick. “I don’t know what to say, Margot. I feel like—”
“I’m not interested in your feelings.”
“But—”
