The Phoenix. Тилли Бэгшоу

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      ‘Do you want to have a brain tumor, Miss Praeger?’

      Ella thought about this for a moment. On the one hand, a brain tumor was a bad thing. Brain tumors could kill you. I don’t want to die. On the other hand, a brain tumor might be an explanation for all the crazy shit going on inside her head. The headaches and vomiting were only part of it, the part Ella had told her doctors. It was the rest of it that really scared her – voices; music; high-frequency throbbing that sounded to Ella like some sort of coded transmission. That stuff had been going on for a long time. As long as Ella could remember, honestly, although in recent months it had gotten a lot worse. If I don’t have a brain tumor, I’m crazy. I must be.

      ‘Would you like to talk to someone?’ the doctor asked, his amusement shifting to concern. ‘A psychologist, perhaps? Oftentimes the sort of symptoms you describe can be brought on by stress. I could refer you to—’

      But Ella had already gone, running out of his office, never to return.

      The next day, her grandmother died. Peacefully, in her sleep.

      ‘Were you close?’

      Bob, a shy, balding, middle-aged man who worked at the coffee shop near Ella’s work and was the closest thing she had to a friend, asked when Ella told him.

      ‘She was my closest relative, yes,’ Ella responded. ‘My parents are dead.’

      ‘Sure, but I meant emotionally. Were you close to her emotionally?’

      Ella looked at him blankly. She liked Bob, but found him strange. Evidently he felt the same way about her, because when she’d suggested they sleep together months ago, he’d declined. Even though he wasn’t homosexual.

      ‘I’m married, Ella,’ he explained.

      ‘I know,’ she smiled. ‘So you like having sexual intercourse with women.’

      For some reason Bob found this funny. ‘Well, yeah …’ he laughed. ‘I do.’

      ‘I’m a woman,’ Ella pointed out, with an endearing case closed finality to her tone.

      ‘You are a woman,’ Bob agreed. ‘A very beautiful woman. And I’m flattered … I mean, I appreciate the offer. But …’

      ‘You don’t want to have intercourse with me?’

      ‘OK firstly, just a little FYI – people usually use the word “sex”. “Intercourse” kind of sounds like a biology textbook.’

      ‘Right,’ said Ella. She’d been told this before, but her grandmother had always been a stickler for proper terminology, and old habits were hard to break.

      ‘And secondly, it’s not that I don’t want to have sex with you, Ella. It’s that I’m married. My wife would not be happy at all if I did that.’

      Ella looked even more perplexed. ‘But your wife won’t know. She won’t be there with us. Will she?’

      ‘None of us will be there!’ said Bob, who seemed to have accidentally stumbled into an episode of The Twilight Zone. ‘Because you and me sleeping together is really not a great idea. Just out of interest, is this how you usually …? I mean, have you asked other guys you don’t know that well if they want to, you know …?’

      ‘Have sex with me?’ Ella offered helpfully, pleased to have remembered the phrase du jour.

      Bob nodded.

      ‘Sure,’ said Ella.

      ‘And how have they responded?’

      ‘They do want to. The married ones too. Unless they’re homosexuals.’

      ‘OK,’ said Bob, rubbing his eyes. ‘You know, you can also say “gay”.’

      Mimi would have hated that, thought Ella. Her grandmother hadn’t exactly been ‘evolved’ on LGBT rights. ‘I’m tired of hearing about their rights,’ the old woman used to say. ‘We should be talking about their wrongs!’

      ‘I’ve actually had intercourse – sex – with one hundred and fourteen people,’ Ella informed Bob matter-of-factly, and not without a touch of pride.

      His eyes widened. ‘One hundred and fourteen? Wow, that’s, er … that’s a solid number. Again, just some friendly advice – you don’t actually need to share that kind of personal information with everyone.’

      ‘I’m not sharing it with everyone,’ Ella smiled. ‘Just you. Could I have another latte?’ If she and Bob weren’t going to have intercourse then she might as well enjoy another hot beverage. ‘With almond syrup in it?’

      After this conversation, for reasons Ella didn’t fully understand, Bob began taking a more active interest in her welfare. It was Bob who’d explained to her that she would have to organize some sort of service for her grandmother. He’d even offered to drive her out to the cabin, if she needed company or a shoulder to cry on.

      ‘You mean I have to go? Myself?’ Ella sounded surprised.

      ‘You don’t “have” to go. But you’re her next of kin, and she left you the ranch,’ Bob explained. ‘So, yeah. I’d say it’s sort of expected.’

      ‘Expected by whom?’

      ‘By everyone.’

      ‘Like who?’

      Bob tried another tack. ‘Your grandmother would have wanted it.’

      ‘Would she?’

      ‘I expect so.’

      ‘OK but she’s dead now.’

      ‘Yes, I know she’s dead, Ella. But she raised you. This is your chance to say goodbye.’

      Ella frowned, like a mother being forced to explain something painfully simple to a child. ‘You can’t “say” things to dead people, Bob. That’s ridiculous.’

      Still, in the end Ella had taken Bob’s advice, because he was her friend and because he understood the world better than she did. She’d arranged today’s service, and posted notices in the local paper, and had a caterer provide sandwiches and drinks, and worn the black dress Bob’s wife Joanie suggested and carefully listened to Bob’s instructions on how to behave. ‘Just scatter the ashes, and if you can’t think of anything else to say to people, just say “thank you for coming”.’ So Ella had driven out here on her own, despite her terrible headache and having to pull over to the side of the road to vomit and despite her sadness that this was not her chance to say goodbye to her grandmother, whom she loved. She’d missed her chance to say goodbye, just like she’d missed it with her parents, and now she was all alone in this world and losing her mind and she didn’t even have a brain tumor to explain it. And now here she was sitting in this tiny bathroom with the timber walls and the framed Bible verses hanging over the basin, in this cabin where she’d grown up so lonely she’d almost died.

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