A few days before school was due to restart, Sonja came round at her normal time. We went through our routine. I made a pot of tea, while the nurse chatted to Gran about how she was feeling and checked her out physically. It was one of Gran’s good days. In fact, she was in really good form. I had the feeling the pain had retreated into whatever cave it lived in. It would come roaring out again, of course, probably with renewed energy and a greater appetite, but for now it appeared to be sleeping.

I took the tea in after about twenty minutes. Gran hadn’t been drinking it for the last few days, which spoke volumes, but I thought she’d probably be able to get some down today. I was right. They sat close together and Gran was almost smiling. That was good. I thought she’d given that up, like the tea.

‘Mrs McKellon . . .’ said Sonja.

‘You can call me Sophia,’ said Gran. ‘I think you’ve earned the right after all this time.’

‘Sophia?’

‘Like Sophia Loren.’ Gran took another sip from her cup. ‘What an actress. What a beauty. I used to be a looker in my day, you know.’

‘I can well believe it,’ said Sonja.

Gran put her cup down. Her hand trembled and a small amount spilled out of the saucer and onto the table.

‘We only allow honesty in this household,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that right, Grace?’

I took a sip of water.

‘That’s a lie, Gran,’ I said.

She laughed. ‘Anyway, I smell bullshit.’

Sonja put her cup down.

‘In my job, Sophia,’ she said, ‘I don’t have the luxury of lying. It doesn’t fool anyone and my patients deserve better. So, yes, I can see that in the past you would have been a stunner. I imagine you had men falling over themselves to woo you.’

‘To get into my knickers, more like,’ said Gran. ‘I had to fight them off with a big stick.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Of course, if they were really gorgeous I’d lose the stick.’

She went back into her mind, living in her past for a few minutes. Then she gave a shudder and picked up her cup again.

‘Tell me, Sonja,’ she said. ‘What’s the procedure with assisted dying?’

I jolted so hard I spilled my water. Sonja just took a sip of her tea.

‘Voluntary assisted dying is legal in this state,’ she replied. I couldn’t believe how matter-of-fact she was. ‘But applicants have to meet certain eligibility requirements.’

‘Like what?’ said Gran.

‘Terminal illness, obviously . . .’

‘Check.’

‘Residential status for at least a year.’

‘Check.’

‘Be over the age of eighteen.’

‘Ah. You’ve got me on that one.’

Sonja put her cup down. ‘I don’t have all of the information to hand, Sophia, but I can find out for you. However . . .’

Gran held up a hand.

‘No “howevers”,’ she said. ‘If I was a cat or a golden retriever I’d be down the vet and given a lethal injection, no questions asked. Hell, if I was a cat or a golden retriever in the best of health that no one wanted anymore, there wouldn’t be any questions asked. A needle, an eftpos machine and a how-do-you-want-me-to-dispose-of-the-body?’

‘But you’re a human being, Gran,’ I said. ‘There have to be “howevers”.’

‘Says someone with their whole life ahead of them,’ Gran replied. ‘Says someone who isn’t in constant pain. What does it matter if I have six months or six days?’

‘It’s six months of living,’ I said.

‘No,’ said Gran. She was quite calm. I probably would’ve felt better if she was angry. ‘That’s not living, Grace. I’m not living. Ask someone on death row with six months until their execution. And at least they’d have hope of a pardon.’

Sonja got to her feet.

‘I’ll drop in tomorrow, Sophia,’ she said. ‘And I’ll have the information you need. But think clearly about this.’ This time she held up a hand as Gran’s mouth opened. ‘It’s my job to ask you to think clearly, to consider that you still have quality of life, that your pain appears to be bearable for the time being and that decisions like this can’t be made on the spur of the moment. I’m not talking down to you and I’m not trying to talk you out of anything. I’m simply asking you to think.’

‘What else do I have to think about?’ Gran asked. But then she nodded.

I saw the nurse out and we paused on the front step. I took a deep breath.

‘How many people have had . . . what’s it called? Euthanasia in this state?’ I asked.

‘I’m not sure about numbers,’ said Sonja. ‘VAD – voluntary assisted dying – is still fairly new. But I do know the state has to run a fine line between killing someone just because they don’t want to live anymore and respecting the wishes of a terminally ill person who deserves, ultimately, to have control over their own destiny.’ She put a hand on my shoulder. Normally I’d shy away, but I didn’t this time. ‘It’s relatively early days, Grace. She might not always feel this way. Sometimes the dying find a renewed joy in life at the end, a determination to live each moment. Maybe your grandmother will be like that.’

I nodded, but I didn’t think it would happen. Today Gran was feeling the best she had in a long time. I couldn’t imagine that she would find any renewed joy in life when the monster came out of its pit again, claws and teeth bared. As it would.

Uncle Mike came by the following day, so I took the opportunity to get some fresh air. It was a strange feeling being beneath the open sky for a protracted period of time. I went to the park and sat on a bench, watching the ducks swim aimlessly around the central lake. What went through a duck’s mind? Did it wake up (do ducks even sleep?) and think to itself, What shall I do today? Hey, I know. I’ll swim aimlessly through the central lake in the park. That’ll make a change. I wished I had brought some bread. That would’ve broken up their routine.

After twenty minutes I wandered round to the adjoining skate park. A few teenagers sat around vaping while others did tricks on their skateboards. They weren’t very good. So I showed them some of my magic tricks. A couple were impressed, but most looked at me with suspicion and refused to give any reaction. No problem. They had baseball caps on backwards which, in my book, meant their opinions were not worth having.

I even replied to one of Simon’s texts, agreeing to meet him the next day to do another TikTok video. It would get me out of the house and its atmosphere of death.

As soon as I got back to Gran’s, Uncle Mike took off. That was okay. I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with him right then. Gran was dozing in her chair and that was okay too. I wasn’t in the mood for dealing with her either. Turns out that, despite not being in the mood, I had to deal with something because Nurse Sonja rang me and asked if she could come round. I wanted to say no, but that wasn’t really an option, especially as she said it was about Gran’s request for voluntary assisted dying. She had information and time was running out.

She turned up half an hour later, just as Gran was waking and demanding a cup of tea.

‘Hello, Sophia,’ she said. ‘How are you?’

‘I’m identifying as Elizabeth today,’ said Gran.

‘Just ignore her,’ I suggested.

‘Difficult,’ Sonja pointed out. Which was true. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘how are you feeling?’

‘About the same as I was feeling when you came by yesterday,’ said Gran. ‘Tired. And in pain.’

‘I have some information about your request for voluntary assisted dying,’ said Sonja.

‘You’d better sit down and give it to me then,’ said Gran.

So she did. She told Gran that she qualified on all fronts. That she had an advanced disease that would likely cause her death within six months, that Gran was indeed over eighteen years of age, despite appearances, and that she had been resident in the state for the last year and was an Australian citizen. It was also clear that her disease was causing and would continue to cause unacceptable suffering.

‘Which, frankly, is stating the obvious,’ said Gran. ‘All boxes ticked. Give me the needle.’

‘It’s not quite that straightforward,’ said Sonja.

Gran sighed. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘There’ll be paperwork and reviews and more paperwork and probably then more reviews and it will get caught up in endless red tape and when I’m finally given the all-clear I’ll have been dead for a year. That’s the way government works, isn’t it?’ She pointed out the window. ‘Dear God,’ she continued. ‘It took a year to get permission from the council to build a wall at the front of my house.’

‘It could be available in ten days,’ said Sonja.

That stopped Gran. It stopped me too.

The nurse took a sheaf of papers from her bag. She glanced through them, but then put them on her lap.

‘A person seeking voluntary assisted dying,’ she said, ‘must communicate three separate requests to their doctor, one of which must be in writing. Then two doctors must agree that the person meets the conditions for VAD.’

‘I’ve made one request to you already,’ said Gran.

‘But I’m a nurse, not a medical practitioner,’ said Sonja. ‘So I’ve arranged for Dr Gardner to come to see you tomorrow. He’s the palliative care specialist you saw at the meeting just before you were discharged from hospital. One condition of VAD is that the doctors involved must have completed an approved training course for voluntary assisted dying. Dr Gardner has done that. I have been in contact with your GP, Dr D’Ath, and he also is eligible, so I think he would be a good second doctor in this case.’

For once Gran and I had nothing to say. We listened as Sonja told us a few more important details. The doctors had to be convinced that the wish to die was the patient’s own and that no pressure had been exerted by anyone else. It was also vital that each doctor explained in detail to the patient the full nature of their disease, the treatment and the palliative care options. This last wouldn’t take long, said Sonja, since Gran was already in the final stage of care. They would also stress that Gran could change her mind at any time. Once the two doctors were in agreement and the process had been followed, a doctor could prescribe life-ending drugs that the patient could take at a time of her choosing.

‘An injection?’ asked Gran.

‘Normally tablets,’ said Sonja. ‘You could take them yourself or, if you wish, a doctor could administer them for you. If you do it yourself, you would also have to appoint someone who would be required to return any unused drugs.’ She glanced in my direction. ‘That would be an adult, Grace, so not you.’ I nodded.

‘Ten days?’ said Gran.

‘That’s the minimum time, and it would start from tomorrow when you see Dr Gardner again.’

There was more, but I didn’t listen too closely. I couldn’t listen. There was a roaring in my head and for a moment I thought I might pass out. Ten days? Two hundred and forty hours. About fourteen thousand minutes. I couldn’t do the exact sum in my head, but that didn’t matter. It was a wisp of time, the merest breath before the last breath.

After Sonja had gone, I read to Gran from the same book we’d started. She seemed calm as the words drifted. I had no idea what I was reading. I don’t think Gran was paying attention either. But it passed the time.

I remember thinking at one point that passing time was taking me towards a pain I couldn’t quite understand but that, for Gran, it took her towards release. If there was comfort in that thought, it didn’t touch me.