Page 82 of The Edge of Always

Chapter Nineteen

So, my suspicions were right – Emmett is rich.

‘Fuck me,’ I say. He’s in a hotel on a wide boulevard. He has a doorman. Poor guy is standing there, sweating in a long coat and hat. The reception looks to be carved entirely from marble, and while my case looked enormous in my tiny room, it seems positively minuscule in Emmett’s cavernous hotel suite.

‘It’s a bit over the top,’ he says.

‘A bit? It’s like a palace. Did you have a rich uncle we didn’t know about? Did he die and leave you everything?’

Emmett at least has the decency to look embarrassed. He mumbles something about investments and won’t meet my eye. But this isn’t normal, is it? For people without generational wealth? For people who work in the charity sector, even doctors?

I’m acting as if I’ve never so much as seen a hotel room before. I’m throwing open cupboards, peering out the window at the street below. It doesn’t feel real.

Emmett has his list of Earl’s paintings out again. There’s a neat tick next to The Weight of Light and Longing for Human Connection.

But we still have Montmartre in Motion, The Juxtaposition of Life and Death and The Rubicon, the mystery painting of the blue door.

‘Which ones did you want to go to today?’ I ask Emmett, running my fingers across all surfaces and thinking that this quest still feels as flimsy as fuck.

‘I thought we could take a turn around the neighbourhood, since Montmartre is close by, and then maybe go to the spa. We still have tomorrow for the graveyard and it’ll give the Deathers a chance to figure out where the blue door is. If they manage it.’

I’ve never been to a spa. They’ve always seemed a bit pink and fluffy for my tastes. But this hotel is all rich darkness, so maybe the spa will be the same.

Emmett’s still standing by the door, watching me. He’s so still, it’s unnerving.

My phone buzzes, the medicine alarm.

‘Sounds great,’ I tell him, walking around the bed to get my case. This could so easily be a ‘just one bed’ thing, but the just one bed is massive – it’s like a small country. Plus there’s a couch that’s bigger than my bed at home.

‘I’ll just wheel my case into the bathroom and then we can go walk, then spa. I’ll need to buy a bikini to wear in there.’

‘I’m sure we’ll find something.’

‘Great. Great.’ I don’t know if I’m mentally prepared to see Emmett, my friend in the spa. Hopefully they’ll give him a massive robe to wear – a head to toe one that covers everything.

But my chest is feeling increasingly tight. Like there’s an elastic band around it. I’m half out of breath and it’s not even thoughts of Emmett in swimming shorts that’s doing it. Everyone assumes that you feel heart failure in your heart, but it’s not that. It’s your lungs that mostly give up the ghost.

In the bathroom, I open my case, organise my pills for the rest of the day, and then bury the bottles under a chaotic mountain of stuff.

When I come out of the bathroom, I can, weirdly, hear myself. I think that I’ve gone mad for a second, and let’s be honest, Paris would be an excellent place to go mad, but my voice is coming from Emmett’s phone.

‘In this episode of the Art of Dying, we’ll be looking at Neoclassicist Jacques-Louis David. This guy was a true Deather in his day. Heavily involved in the French Revolution, David painted the well-known ‘Death of Marat’, so it’s no real surprise that…’

Emmett is pressing at his phone, frantic.

‘Sorry,’ he says, as my voice cuts off finally. ‘It was an accident.’

‘You accidentally searched my blog and played an old video?’ I’m standing in the doorway of the bathroom still.

‘Something like that. You sounded great. I love that you’re doing this.’

I shake my head. I want to be annoyed, but there’s no fight, no nothing left. ‘Just leave it, Emmett. Please.’

He puts his phone in his jacket pocket and holds his hands up.

‘Okay, it’s away. I won’t listen again.’

I let out a breath. I don’t talk about the fact that I’m dying in every episode, rarely in fact. But one glance at the comments will show it. There’s always some argument about the fact that since I could get a transplant, I’m not technically dying. And then the Deathers who like to philosophise about whether we’re all dying. I have a Buddhist follower who’s been telling us quite a lot about anicca, the idea that life is impermanent. So yes, I might not talk about my death all the time, because who wants to do that? But it’s just overwhelmingly death-centric.