Page 108 of While I’m Still Here

Bea closes her eyes. “Oh, excellent. Everyone's here.”

Danny looks at Colin. “You know Bin Man?”

“I know of Marcus.”

“Right.”

Danny looks at me. “Still waiting on Bin Man.”

“Marcus Bennett.”

Understanding flickers across his face. “Oh.”

I don't particularly like the emphasis. Bea points at me. “Marcus, this is Colin.”

Colin offers his hand. I shift the incinerator awkwardly and shake it.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

Then Bea points at Danny. “And that's Danny.”

Danny offers his hand too. “Workplace bad influence.”

“Cancer support group,” I reply.

Bea is staring at the incinerator. Not glancing at it. Not looking between me and it in mild confusion. She’s staring at the galvanised metal bin in my hands as though I've arrived at her house carrying a human organ. “Wait.” Her eyes slowly lift to mine. “You bought me a bin to burn my bras?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

It seemed considerably more straightforward when I bought it.

Standing in the garden centre this afternoon after shopping with Bea, staring at various sizes of metal incinerators while an elderly man beside me debated compost bins with his wife, the logic had been impeccable. Bea didn't want to give her bras away. She didn't want them waiting in her wardrobe after surgery. She'd joked about burning them, and I'd remembered the first time I'd cleared clothes from my own wardrobe after treatment and discovered how absurdly painful ordinary objects could become.

So I bought her somewhere to set hers on fire.

Perfectly reasonable.

Except now Colin is standing just behind her shoulder, Danny beside him, and I suddenly feel strangely self-conscious about the entire thing. They know Bea in ways I don't. Colin has more than two decades of history with her. Danny knew her before cancer turned her life into appointments, scars and conversations about drains. They've both slept with her. Loved her. Made memories with versions of Bea I will never meet.

I've known her for a matter of weeks, and I'm standing on her doorstep holding garden equipment. Bea is still waiting for an answer. There is probably a sensible explanation available. Something about giving her control over what happens to the bras. Something about rituals and goodbyes and the fact that sometimes destroying something deliberately feels better than allowing cancer to quietly make it obsolete.

Unfortunately, what comes out of my mouth is, “I'm just a guy, standing in front of a girl, holding a galvanised metal incinerator, asking her to let me burn her bras.”

Silence.

Complete fucking silence.

Bea stares at me, and I immediately regret every film I've ever watched. I also regret ever being born and learning how to talk. Behind her, Danny slowly turns his head towards Colin. “Did Marcus Bennett just fucking Notting Hill her with a bin?”

Colin's lips press together, but I can see the smile he's attempting to suppress. “I think he did.”

“I panicked,” I say, because apparently humiliation can always be made worse by explanation.

Bea blinks. “You panicked into Hugh Grant?”