The Phoenix. Тилли Бэгшоу

face, like a model from a men’s clothing catalog. Strong jaw. Tanned skin. She wondered briefly what he would be like in bed, before refocusing on his identity. Maybe he’s a real-estate agent, come to make an offer on the ranch? Ella thought. It didn’t occur to her that such an approach at a funeral service might be considered insensitive, even offensive. The man’s presence made her curious, not angry.

      Unscrewing the top of the urn, Ella peered inside at the dust – all that was left of her grandmother. Not even the hardy, rugged Mimi Praeger could outrun old age forever. These ashes were now the sole remnants of Ella’s entire family, in fact. With more violence than she intended, she flung out her arm, scattering the ashes to the wind.

      Mimi’s neighbors gasped at the abruptness of the gesture, the shocking lack of ceremony. Ella sensed their disapproval but chose to ignore it, turning and walking purposefully back up the hill towards the cabin – her cabin, now – with her purse swinging jauntily over her shoulder and the empty urn in her hand.

      ‘Like she’s throwing out the trash,’ Mary Newsome whispered to Jim, shaking her head disapprovingly. The small gaggle of ranchers closest to Mary murmured their agreement. Poor Mimi. After all she did for that girl.

      ‘Come on, now. Let’s not be too quick to judge. Grief takes people in different ways,’ Jim Newsome reminded them. ‘Remember, that young lady’s lost just about everybody.’

      Inside the cabin, Ella hurried into the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Sitting down on the toilet seat, she slumped forward with her head in her hands and massaged her throbbing temples. Please no. Not now. Not with all these people here.

      The headache she’d woken up with this morning was coming back, although thankfully not as strongly as before. This morning, as so often lately, the white noise inside Ella’s skull had been deafening, to the point where she couldn’t get out of bed. And when she did, finally, stagger to her feet, an overwhelming nausea had seen her staggering to the bathroom in her tiny Mission District apartment, throwing up the entire contents of her stomach.

      ‘It’s a brain tumor,’ Ella had informed her doctor two weeks ago, sitting in his plush corner office at San Francisco’s Saint Francis Memorial Hospital. ‘It’s growing. I can feel it.’

      ‘It isn’t a brain tumor.’

      ‘How do you know?’ Ella demanded. ‘How can you possibly know that?’

      ‘Because I’m a neurologist.’

      ‘Even so …’

      ‘And because I’ve comprehensively scanned your brain with the very latest technology. There is no tumor.’

      ‘You’ve made a mistake.’

      The doctor laughed. ‘No mistake, I assure you.’

      ‘Yes. You must have made a mistake.’

      He looked at his patient curiously.

      ‘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,