It was early afternoon when Jake emerged from Westminster tube station and began walking up towards the park. A weak sun shone through the London Plane trees which now seemed to have finally succumbed to the approaching winter and were shedding a blizzard of yellow and brown leaves. He spotted her immediately, sitting on a bench near the bridge, her head bent over her mobile phone. He kissed her on the cheek and sat down beside her.
‘Well?’ he said.
‘What do you know about assisted dying?’
‘AD? Well, it’s been legal now for ten or fifteen years. It’s getting to become quite common, I believe. Why?’
‘Dad told me that Gran is thinking of having an assisted death.’
‘Auntie Manne, really? You mean sometime in the future – or, like, soon?’
‘I got the impression quite soon. Dad was very vague – but I felt I was being softened up. I asked Mum and she confirmed it – in fact, she was keen to tell me it was all for the best. But the thing is, she doesn’t seem to have any particular illness. I mean, don’t you have to be terminal or something? Mum says we must respect her decision when the time comes, but it just seems so fucking wrong. I mean, how can they even think about it with someone as brilliant as Gran?’
Jake was silent for a while, trying to formulate his response and absentmindedly tearing small strips off a fallen leaf. He watched while some fat ducks waddled past, lured by a woman throwing bread into the water.
‘Jeez, Jake – are you getting this at all?’ said Leah. ‘This is my family we’re talking about,’ and she reached out suddenly and flicked the remains of the leaf out of Jake’s hand.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Jake, resting his hand lightly on Leah’s for a few seconds. ‘My family too – and yes, it is surprising, and sad, but…’
‘Sad? Is that all you can say? It’s fucking criminal. You don’t understand. I love Gran – she’s, like, so inspirational. It’s Gran who really motivated me to work hard these last two years – and to apply to Cambridge. She’s just… talked to me about so many things. And I have been reading her novels set in Russia – I’m on the third one. God, they’re just brilliant…’
‘Yes, I’ve read them – they are very good. But look, maybe this is all a bit premature. Maybe she is just thinking about it for the future – or maybe there is something we don’t know about. I’ll talk to Mum – or Claire, she knows everything.’
‘No – you mustn’t talk to them. Dad said he wasn’t sure he should have told me and I absolutely wasn’t to say anything to anyone.’
‘OK. But I’ll make discreet soundings and I may hear something. And you try to find out more from your parents.’
‘OK, sorry for getting cross. I just wanted to tell you ’cos, you know, I’m away for most of next week. God, I still can’t believe it…’
‘Let’s walk for a bit,’ said Jake.
They set off on a slow amble around the central lake, talking about Marianne and the merits of assisted dying.
‘Do you believe in anything?’ Leah asked.
‘Believe? Are we talking religious belief?’
‘If you like.’
‘No, I can’t say I do. I suppose most people get their religion from their parents. My parents are pretty much atheists; they tend to regard all religions as a bit like a nasty virus – something they hoped their children wouldn’t catch.’
‘I was interested in Buddhism for a time.’
‘Not now?
‘No. It appealed to me when I felt I was suffering – teenage angst, I guess. You know, the Buddhist concept of dukkha. You have to accept suffering in life; part of the Karmic Cycle.’
‘Did you meditate?’
‘I tried. I liked the idea of trying to separate mind and body – to disregard all the bodily senses, to let your mind drift apart. For a time, I got interested in suicide from a Buddhist perspective.’
‘Buddhism doesn’t encourage suicide, does it?’
‘Not exactly, but it doesn’t condemn it like Christianity. It’s regarded as, like, a negative thought – and so against the path of enlightenment. But since the whole point of Buddhism is not to be attached to life, it seems to me that suicide might seem quite logical.’
‘To me the whole idea of Nirvana is pretty close to being dead,’ said Jake, kicking out at a pigeon in his path. ‘You know, having no desires, no aversions. Freedom from suffering, freedom from individual existence.’
‘Right.’
‘It’s the antithesis of the life of feeling, the life force which we tend to value: the great object of life is sensation – to feel that we exist – even though in pain…’
‘Who said that?’
‘I can’t remember – one of the Romantics, I think.’
‘I like it – pain is then, like, intensifying life, it can be an upper, not just to be endured.’
‘Sometimes, yes.’
As they crossed the bridge for the second time, a shaft of sun light emerged from a bank of cloud over Buckingham Palace, shimmering on the water and lighting up the roofs of Whitehall. ‘I love this park,’ said Leah. ‘I feel I’m in the heart of London – the centre of my world now.’
‘Australia…?’
‘I’m in no hurry to go back.’
As they turned and walked beside the lake, past Horse Guards Parade, there was a sudden gust of wind and a shower of leaves began to fall around them, dancing and jerking in the breeze. Jake held out his hand to catch a dark red leaf but just as it appeared certain to fall into his hand it made a sudden swerve and his fist closed on air.
‘Missed it,’ said Leah, laughing.
‘OK, quit laughing, it’s not so easy.’
Leah focused on a leaf spinning in the low autumn sunlight, flashing its orange wings like a summer butterfly. ‘Shit,’ she said, as at the last minute it spun out of her reach. While she spoke, as if to compensate for her previous miss, a large lazy leaf, shaped like a child’s fan, wafted gently into her arms.
‘Look,’ she said, holding up the perfect, butter-yellow specimen. ‘I got one. What is it?’
‘It’s a Ginkgo – Chinese.’
‘How come you know about trees and stuff?’
‘My mum…’
‘Of course, Aunt Julie. It’s exquisite – reminds me of a scallop shell, a golden scallop.’
‘Yes, and now you will have good luck.’
‘I already have,’ she said, touching Jake on the arm.
Before he realised what he was doing, Jake found himself moving his head down towards Leah, while at the same time she looked up into his face, her lips slightly parted. In that split second he realised he was about to kiss her – he badly wanted to kiss her; he could smell her hair and felt the scent of her breath on his face – but a warning bell had rung somewhere inside him – she’s your little cousin, just out of school – and he turned to brush his lips against her cheek.
To hide their mutual confusion, he squeezed her hand and said, ‘You’ll be back by Saturday won’t you? Shall we go for a meal, or maybe take in a movie…?’
For a moment Leah looked irritated and disappointed, then she shrugged and said, ‘Sure, if you like.’
‘Any preferences?’
‘Why don’t you surprise me.’
Back in his flat Jake went straight to his laptop. Closing some personal writing, he clicked on ‘Assisted Dying’. He realised he knew almost nothing about the topic. He began by looking at the original legislation. Lots of safeguards, two independent doctors, a review of the patient’s physical and mental state, a sound mind, ‘a voluntary, clear, settled and informed wish’, a cooling-off period between the expressed intention and the assisted death itself. It seemed, as far as Jake could understand it, that the original proposal of an assisted death for those with a terminal illness had been rejected as discriminating against those with chronic long-term conditions, and the final formula talked about ‘intolerable physical or mental suffering brought about by a medically serious somatic condition’.