Keeley had Eurostar tickets for her and Rach, dated tomorrow, paid for by Silvie Durand. She had told her parents her decision and afterwards she had watched her mum eat wild blueberry jam straight from the jar with a dessert spoon. Her dad had comforted Lizzie and said all the good and positive things to ease his wife’s concerns but Keeley knew it was also to reassure her that she was doing the right thing. She still wasn’t completely positive she was, but she really felt that not taking the opportunity would be much worse. Not accepting would have meant a lifetime of wondering ‘what if’. This was a once only opportunity to find out exactly who her donor was and maybe feel a little more at peace with what had happened that one night.
She paused outside Erica’s room and felt inside her bag for the turkey-flavoured crisps she’d bought plus the framed Nick Jonas photo. She was hoping it was going to soften the blow of her leaving for a while. She also prayed it would give Erica a small boost to keep her spirits up. The very last thing she wanted to happen was for her leaving for France to be a cue for Erica to give up. Keeley swallowed. She didn’t want to think about the possibility that when she got back Erica might be gone…
Positivity. Seasonal cheer. She couldn’t let any other thoughts appear on her face or manifest in her disposition. It was all about Erica today. She knocked on the door and got ready for all the sass and shade. She waited a beat for a response but, when one wasn’t forthcoming, she opened the door and stepped into the room.
Breath left her, almost audibly so, and Keeley was caught both trying to retract it and put a smile on her face at the same time. The mixed motion didn’t work and she coughed, almost choking on the dryness of her mouth. Erica looked terrible. Her Caribbean colouring was significantly depleted, her deep dark-brown eyes a lot more sunken into their sockets. Her eyes were barely open at all. Was she sleeping? Had the nurses upped her pain relief making her slip in and out of consciousness? No one had said anything when she had checked in at the desk. Then Erica turned her head, just a little, as if acknowledging Keeley was there.
‘Are… you sitting down… or what?’ It was pure Erica just on a much lesser level.
‘Yes,’ Keeley said quickly, stepping forward. She slipped the crisps back into her bag. She wasn’t sure something so sharp and spiky was quite the right food source for someone in Erica’s condition. ‘And I have a surprise.’ She brandished the photo of Nick Jonas in the glitzy frame Rach had given her. Rach had actually given her a pack of five that Adie was selling at the discount shop and Keeley hadn’t had the energy to refuse the bulk buy.
‘Sweet,’ Erica mouthed, drawing fragile fingers up to clutch the picture, a small smile on her lips. ‘Man, he looks hot in that photo.’
‘Shall I put it on your dresser?’ Keeley offered, about to take the frame back.
‘Not until I’ve held him a bit longer and… you know… imagined all the dirty.’
Keeley smiled as she remembered a similar interaction with Bea over Timothée Chalamet. They had planned to watch Little Women together. ‘How are you today?’ She settled into the chair.
‘Still dying,’ Erica replied.
‘Still living actually,’ Keeley reminded, upbeat.
‘If living is puking into a cardboard bowl, sucking water off a lollipop sponge and talking to a shitty painting of a poodle.’
‘See!’ Keeley announced. ‘I’ve cheered you up already.’
‘I’ve called the big one Henry by the way,’ Erica announced, taking a long slow breath as if summoning up stores of strength from a back-up life generator.
‘Who?’ Keeley asked.
‘The big shitty dog in the painting! Keep with it!’
‘Oh,’ Keeley replied, looking to the awful picture. Perhaps she should take it down and put the Nick Jonas one there instead. Except Erica seemed to be hugging that one to her like it might be the man himself…
‘Thought it might as well have a name seeing as it’s the only thing that listens to me when you’re not around.’
Keeley felt a prick of guilt in her chest like someone had stabbed her with an extra sharp and spiky bough of a spruce tree. And here she was about to tell Erica she wouldn’t be coming to visit for a while. The train ticket was currently open-ended and Silvie had booked a room at a hotel called Perfect Paris near the Eiffel Tower. It sounded so quintessentially French that Keeley had allowed herself to get a little excited for the holiday element of the trip. It was a country she’d never visited before and she was going with her best friend.
‘The fat nurse came in this morning to wash me,’ Erica carried on, trying to sit up a little, but flailing. Keeley leaned in to help her, supporting her shoulders and adjusting her pillows. ‘She smells so bad, man. Even I can smell her!’
‘Oh, well…’ What did you say to that?
‘I told her,’ Erica carried on. ‘I said “has anyone introduced you to Lynx Africa? Because it ain’t just for men, it’s for man-sized issues in the armpit region no matter what your gender and you… you are holding on to the perspiration problems of all the continents”.’
‘You didn’t!’ Keeley remarked, suppressing a laugh.
‘Just because the nearly-dead might stink a bit, doesn’t mean everyone here should let their standards slip, man. Before all this I never left my flat without Lynx under my pits and large-arse spray of eau-de-toilette.’
‘I remember,’ Keeley said. ‘But… what was it called again?’
‘Bronze Goddess. Like me.’
‘Do you have it now?’ Keeley asked. ‘I could get it out and we could spray some on your blankets.’
Erica shook her head, vigorously at first, and then less so, as if the exertion had suddenly got the better of her. ‘I can’t… it doesn’t… it doesn’t smell the same anymore.’
Keeley swallowed a lump in her throat. ‘I’m sorry.’ She knew a little of what it was like to have that aroma familiarity begin to slowly fade away. Her impaired sense of smell was another thing she had had to adapt to since the transplant.
There was no easy way to tell Erica she was leaving, but delaying the news wasn’t going to make it any better. She needed to say something right now.
‘Erica…’ Keeley began.
Erica turned her head, those large eyes surveying her now. ‘That’s your serious and concerned voice. What’s going on, man? The last time you had that voice was when you were softening me up because they said I was too wobbly to take showers anymore.’
Keeley remembered. She also knew how much Erica loved to shower. Erica had said the joy was the combination of searing hot water, her favourite lemon shower gel and the chance to sing at the top of her voice. Bathrooms had acoustics to rival the best concert halls according to Erica. Keeley took a breath. ‘I’m going away for a bit. To Paris.’ She didn’t want to stop talking. She wanted to get it all out before Erica had any chance to react. She would deal with any fallout when she was finished. ‘The mother of my kidney donor contacted me and she’s offered me the chance to go to Paris and meet her. I didn’t want to say no. I thought it was the right thing to do to go and see her. To maybe find out a bit about who my donor was.’ She checked Erica’s expression, but her friend wasn’t giving anything at all away. ‘I’ll be away a week or so. But I’ll be back before Christmas and I’ll… send you some postcards and I’ll FaceTime.’
‘Paris,’ Erica finally said, the word hanging a moment too long on her dry, cracked lips. ‘The home of the Eiffel Tower… and cheese… and all the good coffee.’
‘Yes,’ Keeley said. And Erica was never going to experience it. She felt terrible. ‘I’m sorry I’m going now. I replied to Madame Durand and then it all happened so quickly and Rach had to make sure her clients were introduced to Jamie and I had to shift a few things around with my schedule and… we both had to shunt Mr Peterson on to Oz and—’
‘Stop,’ Erica begged. ‘You’ve got “Desperate not to piss off the girl on her death bed” written all over your face.’
‘Well,’ Keeley began sadly, ‘I am… desperate not to piss off my friend.’
‘The clues were right there,’ Erica said with a sniff. ‘Girl. Death bed. It’s not like I’m gonna come back and haunt you.’ She managed a smile. ‘Or am I?’
Keeley took Erica’s fragile hand in hers then, not worried for showing sentimentality Erica usually shied away from. ‘You are going to be strong,’ she said firmly. ‘You are not going to go anywhere until I’m back here holding your hand again. You and… Nick Jonas and Henry… you’re going to find the strength to hang on and I’m going to keep you posted on every single thing I get up to in France.’ She gave Erica’s hand a gentle squeeze. ‘OK?’
‘Whatever,’ Erica answered with a sigh.
‘Don’t make me call the smelly nurse back in here,’ Keeley warned. She watched Erica’s lips turn into a small grin.
‘Take me with you,’ Erica ordered.
‘What? I…’ Was she serious? Erica couldn’t get out of bed anymore. She didn’t really think she could manage travel, did she? And it wasn’t as if she really could.
‘Not like that, man!’ she said with a bit more fierceness than she had shown earlier. ‘I mean… do it for me too. Your trip. Imagine I’m there with you, inhaling all the coffee and trying all the perfumes and eating all the cheese. Even though neither of us can smell anything.’
‘I will,’ Keeley said positively. ‘I absolutely will.’ She’d try to go a little easy on the cheese…
‘OK then,’ Erica replied, eyes brightening considerably. ‘I’ll hang on to Nick Jonas and ugly poodles, craving turkey dinners, while you hang out with all the hot French dudes and suckle souffle.’
Keeley laughed. ‘Suckle souffle?’
‘I’m glad you questioned that rather than the French dudes. I want action on this trip of yours. One of us has to be getting some.’
Keeley let go of Erica’s hand and picked her handbag up off the floor. ‘I got you something else. I don’t know whether you’ll be able to eat them but…’ She produced the packet of turkey crisps.
Erica’s eyes lit up and there really was a visible injection of vigour about her now. ‘Open them up. Now. If I can’t manage to swallow I’ll just enjoying the licking.’ She grinned. ‘But, you know, in France, you make sure you swallow. I mean it. All in, remember? Every time.’
‘I promise,’ Keeley answered. ‘All in. Every time.’