Bert, a big man in his late sixties, oxygen being fed to him through a nasal cannula, goes next. ‘Too handsome for my own good,’ he says, winking.
Paul and Joy chuckle, Ginika rolls her eyes, the teenager caught amongst the bad dad jokes. I’d been right about the girl in the shop, I’m not paranoid after all. I smile politely.
‘Lungs. Emphysema,’ Bert corrects himself, laughing at his joke.
Paul next. He’s younger than Bert and Joy, closer to my age. Handsome, deceivingly healthy-looking, and the second mystery person to have visited the shop, and turned away by Ciara. ‘A brain tumour.’
Young man, handsome man, brain tumour. Just like Gerry. It’s too close. I should leave, but when’s a good time to get up and leave when a young man is telling you about his cancer?
‘But my situation is a little different to the others,’ he adds. ‘I’m in remission.’
A slight weight lifts. ‘That’s great news.’
‘Yes,’ he says, not at all appearing like it’s great news. ‘This is my second time, in remission, it’s quite regular for brain tumours to recur. I wasn’t ready to go the first time round. If it recurs again, I want to be prepared for my family.’
I nod. My chest tightens a bit more; even in remission he is preparing for his death, in fear of the tumour recurring. ‘My husband had primary brain cancer,’ I feel the need to add, by way of conversation, but as soon as the words have left my mouth I realise it’s not a great talking point. We all know my husband died.
I came here to put an end to this before my involvement began, but as soon as I walked in the door and saw the group, I felt the hourglass had been flipped. Now that the grains of sand are falling, I wonder if perhaps my being here this once will be all I need to do. I can ease my guilt, try to be of help, then go back to my life. It will only take an hour.
I look to the teenager beside me, Ginika. Perhaps this visit will end their stalking of me. It will have to, because I will tell them in no uncertain terms to stop. Her baby, Jewel, is contently sitting on her lap, playing with the bangles around Ginika’s wrist. Feeling the attention on her, Ginika speaks without lifting her gaze from the floor.
‘Cervical cancer,’ she says, firmly, her back teeth pushed together as she forces the words out. She’s angry.
OK. OK. Tell them, get it over with. Tell them you don’t want to be here, that you can’t help them. A silence falls.
‘As you can see we’re all in various stages of our illnesses,’ Joy, the voice of the group says. ‘MS isn’t a terminal illness but a life-long condition and lately my symptoms are advancing. Angela seemed to be responding well to treatment but then declined rapidly. Paul is in a great place, physically, but … none of us really know – we’re all up and down, aren’t we,’ she says, looking around her comrades. ‘I think I can speak for us all when I say I don’t know how much quality time we have left. Still, we’re here, and that’s the main thing.’
They all nod to that, apart from Ginika, for whom being here now is not the main thing.
‘Some of us have ideas for our letters, others don’t. We would appreciate your insight.’
This is my window to extract myself. They are human, they will understand, and even if they don’t, what is it to me if they don’t care about my mental stability; I must put myself first. I sit forward. ‘I need to explain—’
‘I have my idea,’ Bert leaps in. He’s breathless as he speaks, though this doesn’t seem to limit the amount of words he uses. ‘It’s a treasure trail for my wife Rita, and I could do with your help to place clues all around the country.’
‘Around the country?’
‘It’s like a pub quiz. For example, question one: where did Brian Boru lose his life in his final battle? And so Rita goes to Clontarf and I’ll have the next clue waiting for her there.’ A fit of coughing takes over.
I blink. Not quite what I’d expected to hear.
‘I think you’re being a cheapskate,’ Paul teases. ‘You should send Rita to Lanzarote like Gerry did for Holly.’
‘Get away out of that,’ Bert snorts, and folds his arms high on his chest and looks to me. ‘Why did he send you there?’
‘It was their honeymoon destination,’ Paul answers on my behalf.
‘Ooh yes!’ Joy closes her eyes dreamily. ‘And that’s where you saw the dolphins, isn’t it?’
My head is spinning as they speak about my experience as though it was an episode of some TV reality show. Watercooler chat.
‘He left the tickets with the travel agent for her to collect,’ Ginika tells Bert.
‘Ah yes,’ he says, remembering.
‘What was the connection to the dolphins? I don’t think you said in the podcast,’ Paul asks, reaching for a chocolate biscuit. Their eyes are on me and I feel peculiar, hearing them speak about Gerry’s letters like this. I know I spoke about them briefly with Ciara, in a small shop in front of thirty people, but somehow I forgot about the fact it could go further, downloadable onto devices, to be listened to in people’s homes like entertainment. The way they are so casually discussing one of the biggest, deepest, darkest moments of my life, makes me feel far away, like I’m having an out-of-body experience.
I look from one to the other, trying to keep up with the speed of their conversation. Questions fly at me as if I’m a contestant on a quiz show, under a timer. I want to answer them, but I can’t think fast enough. My life can’t be summed up in rapid one-word answers, it requires context, scene-setting, explanations and emotional responses, not quick-fire rounds. To hear them speak of the process of writing and leaving these letters in such a cavalier way feels surreal and makes my blood boil. I want to shake them all and tell them to listen to themselves.
‘The letter I really want to know about is the one with the sunflower seeds. Is that really your favourite flower?’ Joy asks. ‘Did Gerry ask you to plant the seeds? I quite like that. I’d like to ask Joe to plant a tree or something, in my name, and then they’d look at it every day and they’d think of—’
‘How many years you’ve been gone,’ I interrupt, without thinking. My voice is sharper than I intend.
‘Oh,’ she says, surprised, then disappointed. ‘I wasn’t thinking of it like that. Just something for them to remember me by.’ She looks to the club for backup.
‘But they will remember you. They’ll remember you every second of every day. They won’t be able to stop remembering you. Everything they say, everything they smell, taste, hear, absolutely everything in their lives is linked to you. In a way, you will haunt them. You will be constantly in their thoughts even when they don’t want you there, because they’ll need you gone so that they can get through, and then there are days when they’ll need you there in order for them to get through. Sometimes they’d do anything to not think of you. They won’t need extra plants and trees to see you, they won’t need a quiz to remember you by. Do you understand?’
Joy nods quickly and I realise I’ve raised my voice. I’ve sounded angry when I haven’t meant to. I check myself, reign myself in. I’m surprised by my reaction, by the harshness of my tone.