Before You Say Goodbye

Chapter 7

The New York apartment Ben and Emma rented from their friend was huge, but it was still an apartment. Unlike the first night, when Bowie had been carried to bed by his brothers in a deep slumber and barely moved until the following morning — it seemed now that Autumn and Bowie could not keep their hands off each other. She felt as though everyone could hear absolutely everything they got up to.

Adamant Bowie should be close to his family in case his health deteriorated suddenly, Autumn struggled through silent sex every night, working hard in the daylight hours to honour the promise she had made to herself. She would not take Bowie from his family. She insisted he be with them while they prepared to move, refusing to allow him time on his own with her aside from in the evenings, when she reasoned he would ordinarily be in bed anyway. He complained, of course, and she felt guilty, but she remained determined she would not get in the way of their time together. Autumn could tell his mother and father were grateful, but it was torturous for her, too. She wanted him all to herself more than anything.

“You realise he just sleeps all day anyway.” Bluebell was teasing her over lunch in Manhattan one Friday. “He’s exhausted from whatever it is he’s doing with you all night.”

“Sorry.” Autumn grimaced. She felt the need to defend herself. They also talked, often into the early hours. Autumn wanted to know everything there was to know about Bowie and there was so much to take in. They’d talked about silly things, the background stuff it took some couples years to mention, like whether their grandparents had fought in the war, and the names of the children who’d bullied them when they were young. She’d told him her biggest fear was failure and he’d admitted his was death. Bowie had told her he didn’t believe in an afterlife and he had accepted he would ‘just be . . . gone’. They’d talked about how unfair it all was. He’d told her he was jealous of everyone who would survive him. He couldn’t quite believe that the world would just carry on without him, as though he had never existed. Their conversations were important to her and Autumn was unhappy that his family might think all they did when they were alone was have sex.

“Stop overthinking it!” Bluebell said. “We don’t give a shit about what you do. As long as he’s happy, we’re happy. And my God, is he happy!”

Autumn was happy, too. Bowie personified everything she loved about people, from his sincere desire to help others, to his ability to make people laugh, to the unashamed love he had for his parents and siblings.

“My family loves you, Autumn. We like having you around, so please don’t feel as though you can’t be with us whenever you want to be. Bring your work over here. Stay with us and eat breakfast. Move the fuck in, if you want to. No one will mind. You want to be with Bowie, so be with Bowie .”

Autumn felt herself relax a little. Bluebell was right. Before she could concur, her friend launched into a dramatic rant about Marley’s friend, the trumpet player she was sleeping with whenever she felt like it.

“So, Adam and I! He found out I slept with someone else and now he’s refusing to talk to me. He says it’s over. It’s handy, really, because we’re going back to England anyway and I absolutely cannot stand goodbyes, but I felt a little bit sad when he said it. He’s good in bed. I wouldn’t have minded an angry shag or two more before we went home. Never mind.”

That afternoon, Autumn dutifully followed her friend through the bustling, busy streets of a city so big it still overwhelmed her. They found Emma and Maddie at home with Bowie, who was asleep on the sofa. His mother pulled Autumn into a hug.

“I’m glad she’s made you see sense,” she said, with real warmth.

“She always does,” Autumn said.

Bowie opened his eyes at the sound of her voice.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“Hello.” She gestured for him to move over so she could sit beside him. He settled his head on her lap. She stroked his hair back from his face, working really hard to keep concern from creeping across her expression. He looked pale. Autumn could barely believe there had ever been a time when she’d not known that Bowie was ill. He had hidden it well early on, but he wasn’t so good at it anymore. Bowie was in almost constant pain. He’d confided in her that he strongly suspected his lymphoma had spread to his bones. He had chronic pain in his back, pelvis and legs, but he was most worried about headaches he’d been experiencing and an infrequent pain in his skull. Bowie’s biggest fear was skull metastasis. He was afraid of the confusion, seizures and personality changes that sometimes came with it. He was scared of the impact it might have on his sight and the feeling in his face and what that might mean for his quality of life. He didn’t want to tell his family of his concerns because he knew they were already terrified, but he found it very difficult to hide it when he was worried, so instead he’d become visibly withdrawn, curling up on the sofa under a blanket and pretending to be asleep. But these were the good days, he’d say. She would soon see the bad, he promised, because they never stayed away for long.

She knew he didn’t like to talk about it if he could help it, so Autumn had been doing her own research about lymphoma, often on her phone while he was sleeping beside her, as well as asking his family for more information about his personal journey whenever she could. When he’d first revealed his diagnosis to her, he’d told her many people lived to normal life expectancy with low-grade non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and her Google searching confirmed this. Some people went into remission and never needed treatment ever again. He had been extremely unlucky, and that was why he was so concerned about bone metastasis, which was extremely rare. She learned lymphoma was one of the most common cancer types for teens and people in their early twenties. The first sign of Bowie’s cancer had been a painless swollen lymph node in his neck. The doctors had dismissed his symptoms for months. By the time he’d been diagnosed, the cancer had spread and he’d need a combination of treatments to save his life. Since then, Bowie’s cancer had returned a further three times. Since some treatments couldn’t be recycled because they’d stop working and potentially permanently damage the body, there had been periods when Bowie had been living with the knowledge his cancer was spreading for several months at a time, waiting until he could no longer manage the pain and discomfort to begin a new course of treatment. That, he said, was incredibly difficult to navigate. He worried during those times he was leaving it too late, but he was also gravely concerned about requesting treatment too early, which could mean it didn’t work properly and then it could never be used again. When the cancer had returned the third time when Bowie was in his late twenties, it had presented as a large tumour in his spleen, which is where the scar on his stomach had come from. The last time, he’d suspected it had returned in his abdomen because he’d lost his appetite. He’d been sent for a PET scan, where he’d been injected with a radioactive liquid that was absorbed by the lymphoma and, though he and his oncologist had already prophesied he was very sick, they had both been surprised by just how far the cancer had spread. That had led to the discovery some of his cancer had transformed into high grade lymphoma, and Bowie’s decision to stop treatment. They could work to prolong his life, but his chance of survival was incredibly slim. He was tired. He didn’t want to do it anymore.

She’d gathered quite a lot of information in dribs and drabs given the Whittles hardly ever talked about it. That being said, everything they did was done with the end of Bowie’s life in mind. Maddie had given up work to spend more time with the family, Pip was studying from home and Marley spent every single moment he could with his twin.

After Autumn had succumbed to his pleas for her to accompany them to England, Marley had hugged Autumn so hard and for so long that she’d wondered if he’d been crying. When he’d eventually pulled away, he’d turned away from her with unnatural speed, before she’d seen any hint of a tear. She’d followed him warily into the lounge and found him perfectly composed and addressing his family.

“Autumn’s coming back to England with us.” He’d poured himself another drink.

Autumn was worried about the family’s reaction, but it soon became clear that Marley’s suggestion was a collective one. There was a sudden and unmistakable sense of relief in the room.

“Bowie isn’t going to like this,” Maddie warned.

“Well, Bowie doesn’t always know what’s best for himself,” Ben said. Bluebell objected.

“He does, it’s just that he’d rather we did whatever is best for everybody else.”

Bluebell hit the nail on the head, Autumn realised. Bowie was selfless. He put the well-being of those he cared for above his own needs, often at his own expense, and she realised it was very likely he wanted to stay in New York only because she did.

Once his anger about Marley’s ambush of Autumn subsided, Bowie conceded that he did long for his family home in Hertfordshire, but he didn’t want her to feel bullied into joining them. Bowie didn’t know all the details of her miserable upbringing in England, but did know about her desperation to get away. She never spoke about her family and he was sensitive enough to know something wasn’t right about her life back home, so never asked her to go with them.

Autumn thought long and hard about what she should do about her apartment in New York. In the end, she decided to continue paying rent, telling herself she could move back there when this was all over. She never let herself dwell on what that would mean for Bowie. The more time she spent with him, the more difficult it became for her to imagine a time when he wouldn’t be there, so her forethought went only as far as keeping her home options open.

A few days before she was due to leave, Autumn returned to her apartment to pack. She visited Walter one last time, promising she’d be back. As sorry as he was to see her leave, he was happy she would be settling down with the nice young man he had given a pen to, despite the tragedy of his situation.

“Will you be coming home after he dies?” he asked, rather bluntly. The question took Autumn’s breath away, but she nodded, unable to speak.

“Good. It’s been nice having someone so lovely living upstairs. Will you call me every week from England while you’re gone?”

Nodding again, Autumn pulled Walter into a hug.

“Don’t worry about your rent, girl. You go focus on that young man of yours. I don’t need money, not really. Now, you listen to me. I want you to know how grateful I am for the kindness you’ve shown me since you got here. I’m going to hold this place for you, but don’t you rush. Take your time. Don’t protest. Just promise me you’ll take care of yourself?”

Autumn tried, through tears of appreciation, to give him money to cover the rent on her apartment for the next six months, but he refused her. She clutched it to her heavy heart and assured him she could afford to pay what she owed, but he wouldn’t hear of it. His compassion overwhelmed her and Autumn cried so violently into her cardigan sleeve on her way back to the Whittles’ place that the taxi driver cautiously asked her if she was OK.

“I’m fine,” she said through sobs, knowing she sounded ridiculous. How could someone so hysterically sad be fine?

“Is there anyone waiting inside for you?” he asked, pulling up onto the kerb. Autumn smiled weakly, nodding a yes.

“And they’re people who will understand,” she added with glee. That was the part she was trying hard to remember. She was doing this for her best friend, for the man she was falling in love with, and for their family, who were showing her what real compassion looked like.

“Good for you,” said the driver, with an awkward little nod of his head.

Autumn wailed her way through the lobby, where she ran into Marley and Pip. They were dressed up for a night out.

“Autumn, what the fuck?” Pip pulled her into his arms.

She laughed pathetically, trying to explain as they guided her upstairs to the apartment, listening all the way. She told them how sad she was for Walter and how guilty she felt for leaving him, how mad it made her that she felt relieved this would only be for a few months, and how unfair it was that she could somehow feel so happy and yet so sad all at the same time. Marley carried the bags she had brought with her and Pip never took his arm from around her shoulders. Whatever they had been going out to do, they abandoned their plans for her. Although she felt a little bit ridiculous, Autumn was strangely relieved they had witnessed a dramatic reaction like this from her now. She tended to do this when something upset her, so it wouldn’t be the last time they were privy to it. Better to get it out of the way. Still, she said sorry after almost every sentence, while Pip sat patiently beside her, holding her hand and brushing away her apologies. “Say sorry again, Autumn,” Marley said, handing her a cup of tea and playfully shaking his head. “How dare you be so kind and attached to the old man who lives next door. The audacity! Disgusting behaviour.”

She laughed at his teasing, feeling, for the first time in her life, proud of her sensitivity and pleased someone had interpreted it as kind.

“You’re just like Bowie, you know,” Pip said. “He does this, too. Feels guilty about things that aren’t his responsibility to sort out.”

She’d asked them not to tell their brother but they had, of course. Later, Bowie told her he was proud of her for caring so deeply, but reminded her Walter had been OK before she’d arrived and would be OK again when she was gone. She knew he was right, but that didn’t make it any easier. Walter had come to rely on her for company and now she was leaving him all alone.

She returned to give Walter one last hug the day before her flight, suddenly concerned he might pass away before she saw him again. She promised herself that no matter what happened, she would never forget him.

She never did.

* * *

The Whittle family home was built in ageing grey stone and centred in a garden that wrapped all the way around it. It took a full five minutes to walk from the end of the driveway to the porch. A forest ran along one side of the property. She’d never seen privilege like it in real life before and it made her a little uncomfortable.

Ben, Emma and Bluebell waited for Autumn at the airport for three hours after their own flight had landed and watched her with an element of pride as her jet-lagged brain tried to absorb the grandeur of her new home from the back seat of their four-wheel drive. Autumn, eager to please, ‘ooh-ed’ and ‘aah-ed’ in the right places. Bluebell, who knew Autumn would feel uncomfortable about the number of times she’d condemned wealthy people out loud, sat silently beside her, restraining a small smirk at the edge of her lips.

As they clambered out of the car, Emma told Autumn that they kept three sheep, Dolly, Nellie and Jessica, as well as four feisty chickens called Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha. The animals had been under the care of a neighbour whilst they’d been away.

“Stupid names,” Emma muttered. “You know, Autumn, I didn’t realise for a long time that the kids named my chickens after TV characters.”

“What did you want us to name them, Mum? Breast? Or Nugget? Or Thigh? Or . . .” Bluebell paused, deep in thought. “I can’t think of a fourth.”

“Thank God.” Emma winced.

“Feet?” Autumn suggested helpfully. “People eat chicken feet, don’t they?”

“Good shout,” Bluebell said. “Or skin, because people eat that.”

“Kiev,” Autumn added.

“Girls,” Ben said warningly.

Autumn and Bluebell giggled.

“I was thinking something more like Lady Featherington or Henny Penny. Henrietta or something like that.”

“Mum, Marley wanted to name one Hennifer Aniston and you were having none of it,” Bluebell said.

“Oh, because that’s stupid.” Emma sighed. She wanted them to think she was irritated, but Autumn could tell she was actually mildly amused.

The house was gothically beautiful. Its tall, wooden front door was rusting at the hinges and its stonework chipped and crumbling, but it was still breathtaking. Exhausted, they took their time climbing the steps up to the door, dragging their luggage behind them.

“Listen to that.” Emma held her hands out to quiet their heavy breathing. Bluebell and Autumn stood still, looking at each other. Autumn held her breath.

“Nature’s silence.” Emma sighed happily. Bluebell rolled her eyes.

Prompted by Emma, Autumn made an effort to take in her new surroundings while they waited for Ben to open the door. It had been months since her ears had been free from the sound of wheels whirring and horns blaring. Here, there was no shouting, no buzz of electricity, no unnatural noise. Autumn let herself breathe in tranquillity. She had never been anywhere like this her whole life. It was far from the town she had grown up in, and even further from New York.

The door opened into a double-height living room, with three large sofas and two squashy armchairs arranged around a television sitting on a coffee table upon an enormous, patterned rug. Off to the left was an open-plan kitchen, and a wide staircase to the right led to a second floor, with a mezzanine level that looked down into the lounge. There were framed photographs on every wall, mostly of the children all together, many of them wearing various costumes. Autumn could not tell the difference between Bowie and Marley when they were young. Emma explained that the family had been appearing in amateur dramatics productions since they’d been old enough to walk. She had many more pictures of them performing and she would show her later, she promised. Bowie and Marley, who had taken a taxi straight home from the airport so that Bowie could rest, groaned in unison from the sofa. Emma laughed, leading Autumn through the living room and into a bedroom on the ground floor. It ran almost the entire length of the house.

“This used to be a dining room but we turned it into a bedroom for the twins because they used to stay up all night laughing together,” Emma said.

Ben laughed. “They still do that now! Looking back, Autumn saw Marley nudge Bowie affectionately, and the twins grinned at each other.

“True,” Emma said. “Anyway, we moved them down here, out of the way, so they don’t disturb anyone.”

The room had soft green walls and wooden floors, white linen, several ornate, expensive-looking lamps, and blankets and cushions that complemented the décor. There were two double beds with matching nightstands, a dressing table, and a desk sitting between two floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out across the garden at the back of the house. Autumn felt as though she was in a hotel. She turned on the spot, trying to take everything in. When she arrived back at her starting position, Marley was standing before her, holding the luggage she’d abandoned in the living room.

“I’m going to bunk in with Pip.” He set Autumn’s cases down in the middle of the floor.

Autumn protested. “You don’t have to do that.”

“As if I want to be in here with you two lovebirds,” he said jokingly.

“I meant . . .”

“I know what you meant.” He batted her comment away, checking to make sure they weren’t being listened to before he continued. “It’s fine, Autumn. Stop being so nice all the time. Settle in. This is your home now.”

She appreciated the sentiment because she was feeling really nervous and was touched he had noticed. She thanked him with a smile and he nodded reassuringly at her, his eyes crinkling at the corners under the weight of genuine warmth.

Her developing friendship with Marley had taken her by surprise. Bluebell had not been lying when she’d told her Bowie would need a lot of sleep and, so, in her final days in New York, Autumn had spent a lot of her time sitting and writing with Marley. He wrote songs while she wrote notes for her new project. He hadn’t been anything like she had expected. He had seemed cocky and arrogant that first night in the theatre — aloof and dismissive — but that wasn’t how Autumn saw him now. He was open, attentive and empathetic. He cared about things the way Bowie did but, unlike his brother, stopped just short of allowing his heart to rule his head. He was incredibly intelligent, quick-witted and opinionated. She felt comfortable around him, which was just as well, because he wanted to be with Bowie all the time . Autumn didn’t mind — the twins were the same, yet different. She enjoyed being with them, both individually and together. They brought out the best in each other and it was entertaining to be around them.

Marley broke their moment to take the duvet and pillows from one of the beds.

“Really, Marley,” she said. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said, heading for the door. He kicked Bowie playfully, joking as he passed. “I’ll think of some way for you two to repay me. It’ll probably be washing-up. Or laundry.”

Bowie. They had only been apart a matter of hours, but Autumn had missed him terribly.

“Where’s my girl?” he called to her.

She marched from the bedroom and cast herself into his arms.

* * *

“Imagine if I’d told you three weeks ago this is where you’d be right now,” Bowie murmured later that night. The house was colder in the evening. They’d made love and then he’d wrapped himself around her to keep her warm. She wanted another blanket, but Autumn couldn’t face the cold wooden floors beneath her feet. Concerned for his wellbeing, she had swaddled the spare one they had around Bowie, but she knew he would try to give it back to her if he felt her shiver. Emma and Ben did everything they could to keep the house warm, but Bowie’s father had warned her that the heat seeped through the old stone like water through a sieve.

“I wouldn’t have imagined I’d be back in England, let alone here, in this beautiful house, with my best friend and her big brother. It’s wild,” she said. She shuffled unconsciously closer still and he held her tighter to him.

“Cold?” he asked. She nodded. “I have a way to warm you up,” he said. He hooked his leg over hers and turned her to face him, kissing her neck suggestively.

“Bowie . . .” There was an edge of warning in her tone.

“Rule Number Two.”

“I think you need to take it a little easier than that.”

He rolled insistently on top of her in reply. She was powerless to resist this man. She let him kiss her, but her mind was elsewhere.

“I’m scared, Bowie,” she whispered. He’d been doubled up and crying out because of pain in his back for hours and had confessed he was having heart palpitations all evening. In the kitchen over coffee, while Emma and Ben combed the house for painkillers, Maddie had told Autumn that Bowie’s lymphoma caused him anaemia, which meant his body had to work harder than was typical to get oxygen, and that’s where she suspected his heart palpitations came from. The consequences of this anaemia were likely to get worse and lead to further complications. Still, ever grateful and optimistic, Bowie had told Autumn he could handle anything this disease threw at him as long as it didn’t attack his central nervous system.

He persisted now. “Rule Number Two.”

She sighed. “I’m not treating you as though you’re dying.”

“Yes, you are. If I weren’t dying, you’d let me do what we both want me to do.”

He kissed her deeply and she responded with great enthusiasm this time. Bowie moved his mouth to her breast and she found herself unable to focus on her argument.

“Those rules are stupid,” she said breathlessly. She felt his smile against her skin, wrapped his hair around her hands and marvelled at how obsessed she had become with him. He was much more than a lover. He was an addiction.

And that, though glorious, was the foundation of all of her fears.

* * *

They slept well afterwards, despite the cold, but Bowie was not done with having her to himself. He promised her he felt well enough to take her out for the day. Though Autumn was frightened he might be overdoing it, he whined until she gave in. When Emma and Ben tried to object, he beat them down with whinging, too. They were persuaded by the revelation that he was craving pizza. It was so rare for Bowie to fancy anything to eat because the side effects of his medication left him feeling nauseous all the time. Emma was on a one-woman mission to force-feed him at every available opportunity and she was thrilled to hear that he might entertain the idea of eating willingly.

They decided to go to the cinema first. They were jet-lagged and tired, but the atmosphere between them was joyous and playful. At the sweet stand, they stuffed the largest paper bag they could find with more gelatine-free fizzy cola bottles, sherbet lemons, gummy lips and mini gems than was sensible, taking it in turns to hold the seams together, and guessing, with giddiness, how much their haul would cost while they waited in line. The man behind the counter found their folly amusing, telling them, with a grin, that they owed him sixty-two pounds for the sweets and the tickets. It felt so good to be one half of the cute couple people laughed at.

“How long is this going to take us to eat?” she asked, confident that she could polish it all off, with his help, within a couple of days.

“That depends,” he said. “Are we getting popcorn or no?”

“Obviously.”

“Two hours then,” he said. She laughed and he smiled.

The movie was rubbish, but it had never really been about seeing a great film. Autumn leaned as far across her seat as she could, resting her head on his shoulder and wedging the armrest so painfully between her ribcage and armpit she knew that she’d be left with a bruise. She didn’t care. Bowie fed her a mixture of sweets and popcorn, and they sat happily together in the semi-darkness for two hours, just like a normal couple would. It was almost as though one of them was not dying. Autumn managed not to think about it. She thought about her work, her parents, his parents, about how his hand felt in hers, how long and slender his fingers were, everything except how crap the movie was and how soon days like this would be impossible.

As they left, Bowie rubbed his hands together.

“Pizza, then?” he said.

“I thought you were making that up so Emma would let you come,” Autumn said.

“I was. But now I want pizza.”

She clutched her stomach, full to the brim with sugar and popcorn.

“I can’t eat another thing, Bowie—”

“You promised me pizza!” He pouted, folding his arms petulantly across his chest. Autumn laughed, her stomach fluttering at the sight of him. She could hardly believe if she’d come across Bowie for the first time in any other situation than the circumstances in which they’d met, she’d have almost certainly looked straight through him. Now that she knew him, his wide blue eyes and floppy blonde hair made her heart melt. She loved his height and his trademark awkwardness and his ridiculously large feet. She relished the fact his nose was too big for his face. She liked his lips, the little freckle on his cheek, and even how pasty his skin was. Occasionally, Autumn thought back to the other men she’d slept with and those she hadn’t deemed attractive enough to even consider. How many of them could she have learned to love in the way she loved Bowie if she’d only gotten to know them? Maybe none of them. The storyteller inside her liked to believe what she had with Bowie was special, although she also knew that that was probably naive.

When Bowie’s pizza came, Autumn found she couldn’t help herself. Eating was becoming ever easier for her now that she was happy. Being around Bowie and his family was doing her good, she knew. Autumn felt strange admitting that to herself, she was here because Bowie was ill, after all. But it was true. The simplicity of their family life calmed her nerves and helped her focus on small joys in a way she never had before. Glimmers, Bluebell called them. Little things that made her smile or gave her peace. The more she did that, the less she felt she needed to control things, including what she ate. She took her time chewing her way through a slice. Bowie ploughed through the rest like a lion on a carcass. It was good to see him enjoying his food.

“Are you ever going to tell me about your family?” he asked her, with no warning. Autumn looked down at the table, shaking her head. “Why not?”

She knew he wasn’t trying to make her feel as though she was obliged to talk, but his request still made her bristle. Bowie’s family were completely in love with each other. She wasn’t quite sure he knew how rare that was. Like most people, he was a reflection of his parents: he was liberal and open-minded, non-violent and loving. For him to even begin to understand her family, Autumn would need to reveal a side of herself she wasn’t very proud of. She would never take any man she met to her hometown. She didn’t want to talk about her parents and sibling at all. She was ashamed of who they were and of who she had been, and had worked hard over the years to erase the girl she had been in her past.

“I don’t want to,” she said. She knew this would be explanation enough. Bowie would never force her to talk about anything she was uncomfortable discussing.

“Will you be going to visit them?” he asked. She wished he would leave it alone.

“No.” She shook her head.

“Do they even know that you’re home?”

“No.”

Nodding and eyeing her cautiously, he threw her a dopey smile. She forgave him his curiosity and he changed the subject.

* * *

There wasn’t much else to do in a provincial town on a Wednesday night, but Bowie and Autumn were not ready to go home to everyone else. They wished they’d gone to London straight from the cinema, but Bowie was too tired now for a big night out. In the end they found a bar nearby. Autumn bought a bottle of wine and a packet of cigarettes, and they sat outside beside a fire pit.

“This is all Marley’s fault.” Bowie watched her light up.

“No, it isn’t.” She shook her head, making sure to blow her smoke away from him. “I’ve always smoked socially.”

“I’d say that what you two are doing at the moment is more than social smoking,” he said. He was right, she conceded. She and Marley had smoked their way through hundreds of cigarettes since that night on the balcony. She hardly thought about smoking when he wasn’t there, but when he offered her one she was powerless to resist. He was a bad influence, but she wasn’t about to admit that to Bowie. He, understandably, wanted them both to quit.

“I’ll stop soon,” she said.

“Life is too fragile, too short, to mess about with this shit,” he said, pointedly tapping the packet.

Autumn flicked her cigarette snippily. “He says, though he’s no longer accepting treatment that could extend his life.”

“Please don’t,” he warned her. His voice was soft, but his expression was stern. Autumn sighed. She’d never once yet suggested he deviate from his chosen course of action, but the more she got to know him the harder she found it to accept he no longer wanted to fight.

He swallowed hard. “Maddie is the best person to speak to about this. She’s a great believer in letting people do what they want. We had a whole conversation once about suicide and she basically believes that if someone really wants to kill themselves, they should be allowed to.”

Autumn raised her eyebrows.

“I mean, within certain limits, obviously. But, basically, her reasoning is that those who are crying for help should be signposted to the right support, but someone who really wants to end it should have the freedom to choose for themselves. Even helped, in some situations.”

“What situations?” Autumn asked, wishing, instantly, that she hadn’t.

“Mine, I guess,” Bowie said.

Autumn considered his words before responding.

“I support euthanasia for the terminally ill, but what about people with manic depression? I don’t think you can ever really know that someone wouldn’t recover with the right support.”

“I’d like the opportunity to decide when I’ve had enough. I hate begging people to kill me. It’s very undignified.”

She winced. She’d spent a lot of time dreading the day Bowie might ask her to do the unthinkable, ever since Emma had mentioned it on the night she’d met his family for the first time. She’d found out later that had happened because Bowie had been experiencing extremely bad bone pain for several days and — in an exhausted, confused and dehydrated state — had convinced himself cancer had spread to his brain and had panicked. He seemed to sense her concern.

“If I asked her to, I know Maddie would help me,” he said.

Autumn reeled. “She could get in serious trouble for that.”

“I’d have to be one hundred percent sure that wouldn’t happen before I’d allow it,” he said.

Autumn didn’t have to ask about expensive clinics in Switzerland. The Whittles would never give him their blessing to go and he would never cause them the pain that would come with sneaking away, or put them through the inevitable desperation they would feel to chase and stop him.

“What about Marley?” Autumn asked, instead. “Will Maddie help him kill himself when you’re gone?”

Bowie dragged sadly from his cigarette and sighed. Despite lengthy conversations about trivial things and existential matters, she and Bowie had never spoken about Marley’s intention to take his own life. The entire family seemed to think ignoring the issue was the best way to deal with it. Autumn felt like someone should be talking to Marley about it, but every time she mentioned it to any of the others they politely shrugged her off, and she didn’t feel she knew Marley well enough to broach the topic directly with him herself.

“Probably. I don’t know. I think these things are easy to say but, when it comes to it, I think it would be harder than she imagines. Helping me is different. I’m dying anyway. But Marley . . .”

Autumn was irritated by his flippancy. She wanted him to be distraught. She cut him off. “Marley will get over you,” she said.

Bowie shook his head.

“He will , Bowie. Things won’t ever be the same for him, I know. But given the right time and the right support, Marley will get through it.”

“ I would never, ever get over it, if Marley died. Never. I can’t imagine my life without him. There is no life without him.”

“You would,” Autumn said insistently. He stared at her.

“Marley is more than just my brother and my best friend, he’s the other half of me. Long before I was diagnosed with cancer, when we were kids, we used to talk about what we would do if anything happened to either of us all the time, because we were absolutely terrified about one of us dying and leaving the other. We’ve never wanted to live without each other.”

“But he has so much to live for.”

“It doesn’t matter what he has.” Bowie shook his head. “You know how much I love the rest of my family, but how I feel about them doesn’t even come close to how I feel about Marley. I would sacrifice any one of them to protect my brother. That might be an ugly thing to say, but it’s true. I can’t explain it. I could cope with anything, absolutely anything life has to throw at me, but not losing Marley.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Autumn shook her head, exasperated. “I don’t know how you can . . .”

“You don’t know because you’re not us.” She was stung by his suddenly harsh tone, but he did have a point. She had no real right to tell him what he and Marley could and couldn’t cope with. She watched his face flood with remorse. “I’m sorry.” He sighed.

“It’s all right,” she said.

“No, it’s not.” He shook his head. “The others don’t bother anymore because they already know all of this, but you don’t. How could you? You’re brand new here. It feels like I’ve known you so long that I forget that sometimes.”

She knew he was trying to end the conversation. She knew he expected her to stop. But she couldn’t. Words were Autumn’s way of working out the world and she needed to know more.

“What if Bluebell told you she was going to kill herself when you were gone?” she asked.

“I’d get on my knees and beg her not to do it.”

“Have you done the same to Marley?”

“It’s different,” he said. “He’d call me a hypocrite. And he’d be right.”

It was so tragic Autumn could hardly stand it. The more time they’d spent together writing, smoking and talking, the fonder she was becoming of Marley. He was talented, funny and sweet. She felt desperate to stop all of this from happening, but she didn’t know what she could do except hope against hope that when it came to it, Marley would discover — as she had once for herself — thinking about and acting on that feeling of hopelessness were two entirely different matters.

“Do you really think he could do it?” she asked. She had once felt exactly as Marley did now — certain she was going to take her own life, waiting for the right moment to do it. Climbing over the railings had been easy for her, but letting go and stepping out had been harder than she’d expected. Her potential non-existence had frozen her rigid. No matter how hard her frantic mind had tried to convince her that was what she’d wanted, in the end she’d found herself frightened she might slip. She’d been sober enough to realise that that must have meant she hadn’t really wanted to die. The entire episode had transformed the way Autumn felt about suicide. As far as she was concerned, someone had to be unimaginably distressed and immeasurably brave to take that step. Sure, Marley was threatening suicide, but would he actually find himself able to do it when the time came?

“I know he will,” Bowie said. “We’ve never wanted to live without each other. This is exactly what Maddie is talking about. She would argue Marley should be allowed to make his own choice when the time comes because he knows what he wants.”

“I bet your mum and dad love that,” Autumn said.

“Nobody talks about it because we know it’ll turn into a fight. Marley won’t discuss it with anyone. Sometimes he starts when he’s drunk, but Dad is pretty good at shutting him up.”

“Losing you both will destroy your family.”

“Yeah, we know that.”

“Well, can’t Marley consider how they will feel?”

It sounded selfish; she didn’t really know why. She didn’t want Marley to die. How could that be wrong? She closed her eyes and sighed. Bowie reached for her hand.

“I can’t set myself on fire to light the path for you,” he said.

It was a line from her favourite piece of poetry, a piece by a woman called Pippa Benjamin. She’d recited it to him on the evening they’d met. The context he was using wasn’t quite right — it was actually about someone taking the blame for her lover’s poor behaviour. She considered defensively telling him he’d interpreted the poem wrong, but Autumn knew what he was trying to say. Marley could not live his life for the sake of others who depended on him for their happiness. And that was the point of poetry, wasn’t it? To take the bits that had meaning for you and use them when your own words failed you.

Autumn lit another cigarette.

“That’s an odd defence for a man who’d snuff out his own life because he loves you so much,” she said. “And I think we both know Marley would do absolutely anything to make life easier for you. He dotes on you. You live for him and him for you. I’d hazard a guess he would, in fact, set himself alight to light the path if he was doing it for you, he just wouldn’t do it for anybody else.”

“The rules don’t apply when it comes to each other.”

“You’ve made surviving without each other impossible,” Autumn said.

Bowie shrugged. Autumn continued.

“He’s spent thirty-four years living for you, existing because you do. It’s up to you to convince him there’s life out there beyond the two of you growing old together. Other people to live for. Joy and happiness that exist without you. You’re the only one who can do it.”

Bowie stared at her.

“I get it now,” she said. “Nobody is talking to Marley because everyone thinks it’s pointless. You’ve convinced yourselves there’s no life unless you both have one and everyone who loves you knows it. They think Marley’s suicide is inevitable. This course of action was decided by you both when you were children who didn’t know any better and now Marley won’t listen to anyone. He thinks it’s the only way forward for him, because he can’t imagine living without you, and because you’re certain you would kill yourself if things were the other way around. But you could convince him otherwise.”

Bowie swallowed, shifting his gaze to the floor.

“You could at least try,” she said.

“I have,” he whispered, fixing his eyes on hers again. He was fighting back tears. “I promise, I have. In private, so he doesn’t feel ganged up on by everyone. He shouts me down, Autumn. He asks me what I would do and I can’t lie, not to him, he can spot it in a second, so he calls me a hypocrite. He turns on me, tells me I don’t know what he’s going through. Sometimes he cries. I can’t stand it, so I give in. He wants to know at least one person understands and how can that be anyone but me?”

She switched seats so they were sitting closer together, wrapping her arm supportively around his shoulders. Bowie closed his eyes and cried.

“I’m haunted by visions of the things he might do to himself. By the idea that he’ll be all alone, scared and unsupported. It’s there, in my head, all the time. I’m the only person who can put myself in his shoes. I’m the only person who gets it. He knows everyone else thinks he’s mad. Every time I try to argue with him about it, it pushes him further away from me and into himself. I can’t keep arguing with him, Autumn. Every time I do, I’m telling him he’s on his own.”

Bowie sobbed and Autumn held him close to her, lost in thought. She’d been forever changed by this conversation.

They really were all alone. All of them. No matter who you had around you and how much they loved you, you were battling through life by yourself, free to decide what was too much for you to live with. Or without, as the case might be. When it was your time to die, you’d be doing it on your own, whether people were sitting at your bedside holding your hand or you were alone in your flat with a noose-shaped rope.

Still, it mattered. She knew that now.