The Language of Dying Read Online Free PDF

address book. I fetch it from its place by the phone and flick through the yellowed pages, looking at the numbers and words laid down in your neat, scratchy hand. My heart clenches.
    You won’t be writing again.
    Not ever.
    The finality of the thought is cold and makes me shake. I am so tired. It’s been a long few months and, even though time has folded from the first diagnosis tonow, my body and soul know that I have lived through every painful second of it. They sing it to me through aching limbs and a torn heart. I am not very strong. I never have been. I hand the book to Penny.
    ‘All Dad’s numbers are in there.’ She looks at it as if it’s something sacred and not a ninety-nine pence stocking-filler address book from WHSmith. ‘If you ring Paul, then he can ring the boys. They all need to come and say their goodbyes.’ The words don’t feel adequate as I say them. ‘I’ll go to Tesco’s and get some more food in. I’ll call Mary and some of the others when I get back.’ I start gathering my purse and bag together. I still have my jogging bottoms on and I haven’t showered, but I don’t care. The supermarket will have to put up with it.
    Penny pulls on her cigarette. ‘Oh God, what am I going to say? What am I going to say to Paul?’
    I look at her. I know where this is heading. ‘Just tell him what the doctor said. Tell him Dad is dying and he needs to come now.’
    Her perfect eyes are pleading with me. ‘Maybe you should call him. You’re better at this kind of thing than me.’
    I grit my teeth.
What kind of thing, Penny?
I want to scream.
Clearing up the crap?
For a minute I look past the make-up and expensive perfume and see only the worst parts of my sister. Selfish. Spoilt. Damaged by her glow. I feel bitter and I can’t stop it. Penny has always hadPaul – the two of them are thick as thieves – and the twins have each other. I have you and now you are concentrating on leaving me.
    ‘You do it, Penny,’ I say, and then she stays quiet.
    *
    There are more people in Tesco than I expect on a working day and I lose myself in them as I drift up and down the aisles, filling my trolley with bacon and eggs and pineapple juice. I select a box of field mushrooms and then stare into the aisle. The lights overhead are too bright. A tired mother adds the large bag of King Edwards she’d obviously forgotten into her already overfull trolley, while the little boy in the child seat kicks at his metal confinement, squealing,
‘I want, I want
…’
    I can’t make out what it is he wants, but I think maybe his mother will give in and get it for him just to find a moment’s peace. She is pretty but looks exhausted and I wonder if I’ve caught her at a bad moment or whether she lies in bed at night and wonders how her life came to this.
    Behind them an old man carefully pulls a plastic bag from the holder and selects three or four new potatoes. Just enough for one. He adds them to his sparsely filled basket and shuffles slowly towards the tomatoes. I can’t tell if the shuffle is brought on by age or by sheer soul-weariness. Behind me I can still hear the cry of ‘
I want
’ It seems that age is all around, brought to nothing under the glare of the too-white light and inane music. Mythroat tightens in a way it hasn’t for a long time and my ears buzz. Somewhere underneath my heartbeat and dry mouth I wonder if I might abandon the trolley and run back out into the cold air of the car park. But then the moment passes.
    I relax my grip on the trolley and rub my fingers. They are cold. My heart steadies and I continue my shopping, but I focus hard on the shelves rather than the people. When the old man passes me again I squeeze my eyes shut so tight that I think I can hear the pummelling of black hooves somewhere in the distance, but the panic doesn’t grip me again and I open my eyes and sigh out a long, shaky breath. I add the ketchup I’m staring at to my trolley.
    *
    By the time I get home I