6BIRDY
Six months earlier
I leave the hospital in a trance, still trying to process what the doctor said. Death is just a fact of life, but it still manages to take so many people by surprise. Including me. The diagnosis doesn’t feel real, perhaps because I don’t want it to be. London, which is always loud, is too loud all of a sudden. There is too much noise, too many people, and they are all behaving as though the world didn’t just end. I retreat inside myself, switch to autopilot, pull on my helmet, and start the red Vespa. I shouldn’t really drive the scooter—not when I’m feeling like this—but where I need to go isn’t far. I concentrate hard on the road ahead, the traffic, the tourists, the people. Time stretches and contracts into something I can no longer tell, and it feels disorientating when, what feels like only a few seconds later, I arrive at Cecil Court, the little lane in Soho where I live. This place has been home for over a decade and home is where I know I need to be.
Cecil Court is Diagon Alley for bookshops. The tiny, pedestrian street, hidden away but only a stone’s throw from Leicester Square, with its quirky Victorian buildings and old-fashioned gas lamps, is home to a collection of beautiful independent bookshops. One of them is dedicated to all thingsAlice’s Adventures in Wonderlandand I live in the flat above it. The bookshop is closed now. They all are. And this is normally my favorite part of the day, coming home to a street filled with books, perhaps because I like reading stories that have happier endings than my own.
I take out my key for the flat I call home, slot it in the lock, and give an audible sigh of relief when I step over the threshold and close the door behind me. The relief doesn’t last. Having longed for silence and sanctuary from the noise of real life, the place is too quiet. Something is wrong. Someone is missing.
“Where are you?” I say, removing my shoes.
He does this when I go out for too long.
He does not like to be left alone.
Today should have been a day off together, but instead I was at the hospital. Not that he knows that. Nobody does. I take off my jacket, hang it by the door, then I walk farther into the flat, appreciating the soft rugs and parquet floor and bookcases filled with all the stories I have collected and hidden inside over the years. My own story is less inspiring. If I were to read the manuscript of my life there are so many scenes I would want to delete. But maybe I’m too hard on myself. We all forget our lines from time to time, and sometimes the best and only option is to improvise.
I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror above the fireplace before I collapse into my favorite armchair with a book. I look too thin. Too pale. Too weak. Like someone who might be—
I don’t know how or why I keep forgetting.
It’s as though my mind is determined to delete the diagnosis.
I need to eat something, that will make me feel better. Unlike the fact he still isn’t speaking to me, which makes me feel overwhelmingly sad.
“Please don’t sulk. I’ve had a horrible day and I need someone to be nice to me,” I say, getting up and walking into the kitchen, but he isn’t there either. “I know you’re here somewhere,” I call out, not in the mood to play games.
It’s true. I can smell him. And then I hear him.
The creaking floorboards in this place give everyone away.
The sound of quiet steps starts in the bedroom then continues down the hallway until he is standing right in front of me. Looking very sad and sorry for himself, as though he is the one who just got told he has less time than he thought.
“I’m sorry I was gone so long,” I tell him. “Do you want some dinner?”
And then Sunday’s eyes light up and he wags his tail and I am forgiven.
Sunday was just a puppy when we met. I found him crying and shivering in a shoebox outside the bookshop one morning. Abandoned, as though he had been put out with the trash. I carried him up to the flat just to get him warm, with the intention of taking him to a vet or an animal shelter. As much as I have always loved dogs, having a Siberian husky when you live in a little London flat and have a busy job is not ideal, and I knew that the tiny puppy would one day be the size of a wolf. So I did take him to a vet, but I didn’t leave him there. Couldn’t. I got him checked out and then I adopted him. Love is the only thing that is real in this world and you know when you’ve met your soulmate.
I don’t know what I’d do without him.
I don’t know what he’ll do without me, and the thought of there not being anyone to take care of him and love him the way he deserves after I am gone dismantles me. My legs seem to give way and I fold down onto the kitchen floor and I let myself cry. I’m too young to die. I’m not ready. But life is an unreliable waitress. Sometimes you order ice cream and instead life serves you a triple-decker shit sandwich with a side order of completely fucked.
Sunday knows me better than anyone and he knows when something is wrong. He comes to rest his head on my lap and I stroke his soft fur until I start to feel like myself again. Pull together what is left of me. I need to be strong for everything that I need to do next,but it can all wait until tomorrow. Today is the last day I can afford to let myself carry on as normal, then I’ll need to see her. Even if it’s the hardest thing I’ll ever do and despite all the years I have avoided it. Sunday barks, snapping me out of my melancholy state.
“Yes, I know you want dinner,” I tell him. “Come on then, let’s see what we’ve got.” We both peer around the fridge door when I open it. There isn’t a lot to see. The cupboards are equally bare. So I open a cutlery drawer containing just one knife, one fork, and one spoon. I take them out and set a tray, adding the only plate I own. I’ve never felt it necessary to buy more—there is only one of me and I never have guests.
“Takeaway it is. Cheeseburger and fries for me and chicken nuggets for you?”
Sunday barks and wags his tail.
An hour later, we are sitting side by side on the sofa after a satisfying feast. We’re about to watchThe Shining—my favorite film—when there is a knock on the door. I pause the film just as Jack Nicholson’s car is driving along a winding road through the forest. I am especially fond of the music at the start—an adaptation of a medieval hymn for the dead called “Day of Wrath”—so interrupting it rather spoils the mood and puts me in a worse one.
“Who the fuck is that?” I say beneath my breath, hitting pause on the remote.
Nobody should be knocking on my door at this time of night.
I haven’t invited anyone. Not tonight. Not ever.
