Page 103 of While I’m Still Here

Plunge.

Sports.

All displayed on headless mannequins with breasts. I watch Bea's face. “Bea.”

She doesn't answer. Her eyes move slowly across the rails. “I have that one.” I follow her gaze to a black lace bra. “And that.” A pale-blue one. Her mouth turns down before she fixes it. “I bought the blue one for a dress and then didn't wear the fucking dress.”

I don't know what to say, so I don't say anything.

“I've got loads.” Her voice is quieter now.

“I know.”

“No, I mean loads. It's actually financially irresponsible.”

“I gathered.”

She gives me the smallest smile, then it disappears. “What am I supposed to do with them?”

The question catches me. Not because I don't understand it, but because I do. Too well. Some belongings become strange after cancer. Things that belonged to the body you had before. After my mastectomy, I found an old fitted shirt I used to wear regularly. There was nothing wrong with it. Technically, it still fitted. But the fabric sat differently over my chest, and I stood in front of the mirror staring at it so long that I eventually took it off and shoved it into the back of the wardrobe.

It stayed there for eighteen months as evidence of the old me.

“You don't have to decide today.”

“But I'm not going to need them.”

“No.”

Her jaw tightens as she looks back at the bras. “I spent a fucking fortune on these. Do you know how much decent bras cost?”

“No.”

“Exactly. Men just wander around with their nipples loose and completely ungoverned.”

I smile, but hers disappears almost immediately. Her fingers catch around the strap of a black lace bra, holding it without taking it from the rail. “I don't want to give them away, but I don't want them in my wardrobe either. I don't want to come home after surgery and see them hanging there waiting for tits that don't fucking exist.” Her voice cracks, and suddenly we're not talking about underwear anymore. A woman nearby glances over. I wait until she looks away, then turn back to Bea, who is blinking furiously at the rail. “I don't know what to do with them.”

“You don't have to know yet.” I take the shopping bags from her, and she lets me. That worries me more than the tears. “Leave them where they are until you do.”

She nods, unusually quiet. As we walk away, an idea occurs to me. It's ridiculous, involves fire and would almost certainly appeal to Bea. I glance back at the bras. Perhaps she doesn't need to decide what to do with them.

Perhaps she needs to say goodbye to them.

We end up in a cafe because Bea announces that being “emotionally assaulted by underwear” has created an urgent medical emergency that could only be cured by cake. Then she chooses the largest slice in the display cabinet with the seriousness of someone making an important treatment decision.

I don’t comment.

By the time we find a table near the window, we’re surrounded by so many shopping bags that we barely have anywhere to put them. Bea takes three enthusiastic bites of chocolate cake before abandoning the rest, pushing crumbs through the icing with the side of her fork while she watches people pass outside.

I've learned enough about her by now to know that silence usually means she's building towards something. “Can I ask you something?”

“You usually do.”

Her fork stops moving. “Can I see it?”

I know immediately what she means, but the question still catches me off guard enough that I buy myself a few seconds. “See what?”

“Your scar.” Her eyes flick away as soon as she says it, suddenly fascinated by the remains of her cake. “If that's weird, forget I asked.”