‘You need to knockthaton the head immediately. So, this hamster. What made Brendan think it was a good idea?’
‘Oh, Jacob’s been banging on forever about wanting a pet. Brendan took him for a Happy Meal on Saturday and I think he had a rush of blood to the head. He’d said he was taking him for a new toy. I was expecting some Lego.’
‘Well, that’s typical. He gets to look like Santa Claus, while you’re left to pick up shit after a rodent.’
‘If you’re attempting to wind me up about this, you’re succeeding,’ I tell her.
‘Good. Did you point out to him that he should’ve consulted you in the first place?’
‘Of course. His response was: “At least it’s not a puppy”.’
‘Personally, I’d tell him to take it back,’ she says.
‘I don’t think it’s like returning a pair of chinos to TK Maxx. Anyway, Jacob loves the thing, so I’m just getting on with it. To be fair, I’ve never seen him so happy. He’s christened it Alan.’
‘Rose Riley?’
The nurse who calls her name is cheerful, with grey hair and large hips that would make her look like someone’s nana if it weren’t for a small tattoo on the inside of her wrist.
‘How are we today, darling? Let’s get you started, shall we?’
Rose is here for radiotherapy, which she’s been having every day for the last week and a half. The treatment doesn’t take long – she was gone less than thirty minutes last time – and as I wait in the hospital café for her, I find myself trying to work out how many years we’ve known each other. The answer turns out to be 25. Which is ridiculous . . . especially because, in my head, I’m still only 25 years old.
Time does a weird thing as you get older. When I was a teenager, there were a handful of middle-aged women that I admired: an inspiring history teacher, Alexis Carrington fromDynastyand a rebellious aunt who’d travelled around the Greek islands on a motorbike with a handsome hippie who looked like Jesus. But I never quite pictured being in my forties myself. I knew on a theoretical level that one day it would happen but it felt so far removed from reality that I couldn’t get my head around it.
I’m 47 now, which should have been enough time to get used to it. Yet, my outlook remains suspended around the time Oasis were in the charts and Tony Blair was running the country – even if the same can’t be said for my pelvic floor. It was back in the heady 1990s that Rose and I shared a house with two other BBC trainees and a landlord who – judging by how high he kept the heating on – must, with hindsight, have been running a cannabis farm in his loft.
Even then we looked like physical opposites. I’m five foot five, average build, with blue-grey eyes, full lips and thick, brown hair that has been every style and shade under the sun over the years, but now sits just below my shoulders. Rose inherited her pale skin, fine features and long, red hair from her mother, butgets her height from her dad’s side. She’s a full five inches taller than me, with slender hips and a narrow waist, which means she never faces the constant battle I have to find jeans that fit.
I don’t know if I’m too old to have a ‘best friend’ now. The phrase feels better suited to little girls in playgrounds. But there’s no question that I love her. She’s the sister I never had; the wife I would have married had I not had the misfortune of being heterosexual. She’s my wing woman both in lifeandin work. For near enough the last decade we’ve both been employed by the rapidly growing UK outpost of MotionMax+, a streaming service with more than 76 million subscribers worldwide.
Throughout the whirlwind of the last couple of months – Rose’s diagnosis, then lumpectomy – she has remained resolutely positive. But as we head downstairs after her treatment session, it’s clear just how much the radiotherapy has wiped her out. She has 10 more days of this – and she already looks broken.
‘Silly question, but how are you?’ I ask. ‘Under the circumstances, I mean.’
‘Under those, I’m positively tickety-boo. Eurgh . . . sorry. I’m just exhausted. And my skin feels hideous. I was warned it might burn where I’d been treated but it’s gone all the way up to my neck,’ she winces, reaching up to the angry-looking patch.
‘Oh Rose . . . do you want to go for a coffee before I take you home?’ I ask.
‘I haven’t got the energy to even lift a cup right now. Is that all right?’
‘Course it is,’ I say, gently.
It’s just as we’re heading across the huge hospital concourse that she says something I’d been expecting long before now.
‘I think I’m going to have to take up that offer of more time off work, aren’t I?’ she sighs.
‘Personally, I think that would be the wisest option.’
‘I’d just really wanted to try to keep some normality in the midst of this shit show,’ she says. ‘Does that make sense?’
‘It does but some things are more important, Rose. Getting better, for one thing.’
‘The timing’s awful . . .’
‘Oh seriously, who cares?’ I protest.
‘Icare.’
