Turning the corner into the ward, Gregory comes into view, towering over a group of deliriously happy children. He’s wearing the fluffy, ginger head of a lion, his hands curled into stiff paws and held up to the sides of his mane.
Laughter unwittingly bellows from the depths of me. A beautiful little girl of maybe five or six with the largest, most dazzling blue eyes I’ve ever seen, slowly raises a frail finger from where she stands in front of Gregory and points over his shoulder in the direction of Sandy and me. As the lion slowly turns, lowering his hands one at a time, to see Sandy and me, our laughter becomes uncontrollable. Sandy leans on me for support.
Tears of sheer joy stream down my face as I hold my aching ribs in place.
‘Sandy, Scarlett, come and meet my friends,’ Gregory says.
He waves us over and relieves himself of the lion head, then whispers something to the little girl with sparkling eyes who nods exuberantly and flashes Gregory a toothy grin.
‘Thiiiiis is Isabella,’ he says, his voice straining slightly as he lifts her onto his knee.
‘Hi,’ I say, reaching out my hand to take hers, mesmerised by the innocence of her smile.
Gregory moves Isabella’s hand up and down and left and right as we try to make our hands meet for a shake. It makes Isabella chuckle, the most delightful sound.
‘Isabella is one of my faaavourite reasons to visit the hospital,’ Gregory declares, receiving a hug from the girl in return.
‘I have cancer,’ Isabella tells me in the same way she might tell me what she ate for her last meal or what time she got up in the morning.
I notice for the first time the dark clouds beneath her beautiful eyes. Her head is bald and her body under her rainbow-covered hospital gown is pale and boney.
I swallow the enormous lump of reality that has formed in my throat. ‘I’m very sorry to hear that, Isabella.’
‘It’s okay, Gregory says it means I get to have more fun than lots of people because I get to play with my friends every day,’ she says, very matter of fact.
‘Well, I guess that’s true.’
‘Scarlett?’ she sings. ‘Are you Gregory’s girlfriend?’
‘Oh, I, erm, well?—’
I cower under the weight of the enormous question from this little girl who’s less than half my height.
‘I don’t mind if you are,’ she continues. ‘He can just have two girlfriends.’
I chuckle. ‘Can he indeed?’
Gregory pulls his arm tighter around Isabella’s waist and offers her the most adorable smile. He looks me in the eye, tying my insides into knots then takes my hand and presses the base to his lips. ‘I’d like two girlfriends.’
‘Why do you keep looking at me like that?’ Gregory asks as we drive away from Borough Market.
Through my smirk, I ask as innocently as possible, ‘Looking at you like what?’
Glancing in my direction before checking his blind spot to change lanes, he raises one brow to me.
‘Okay, okay, it’s just, I would never have expected a man who drives a car like this…’ I gesture towards the magnificently complex dashboard and immaculate, black, leather interior. ‘What kind of car is this anyway?’
‘A Maserati GranTurismo.’
‘Right. I wouldn’t expect a man who drives a Maserati Gran Turismo, who smells divine, dresses like he just stepped off the front page of Forbes and who’s frankly more arrogant and aggressive than a wild cat at work, to be so… so…’ I shake my head, struggling to articulate how I feel, ‘…wonderful and caring.’
‘You don’t know me as well as you might like to think, Scarlett.’
I want to know him. Everything there is to know. Though something tells me Gregory doesn’t share easily.
‘Those kids did nothing to deserve the hand they’ve been dealt in life. They’re just kids: pure, innocent. They’ve been born into a certain life, scarred by disease. I like to see that they can still laugh. I want to help them remember the good things they have, the reason they fight to stay alive.’ His words are sombre, betraying his confident exterior. What are you hiding beneath your skin, Mr Ryans? ‘Children shouldn’t have to deal with what’s dark in the world.’
‘Are we still talking about the children in the hospital?’ I ask warily.
