“Shift over, will you?” the voice says, somewhat petulantly. Resentfully I shuffle over on the seat, still without looking up. I feel the air shift as the woman settles in beside me.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asks, already flicking with her thumb at her lighter. Clearly her husky voice isn’t the result of age alone and I find myself judging her before remembering I don’t like to judge anyone, let alone someone I don’t know. On the third flick it lights, and there is silence for a moment apart from the sound of her sucking on the end of her cigarette. Immediately she starts coughing and I finally look up, alarmed. Clad in a dressing gown and slippers, she is clearly a patient of the hospital, escaping on an illicit mission to indulge her frowned-upon habit. Her gray hair is disheveled and wispy, flattened at the back, and she is hacking and spluttering so hard I half expect to see a lung pop out onto the path at her feet.

“Are you OK?” I ask, unsure whether I should be dashing for help.

She holds up a finger, gesturing for me to give her a moment. When she recovers she nods and takes another suck on her cigarette. This time she manages to breathe it out without the dramatic display.

“Oh, yes, that’s better.” She nods. “That first puff always causes a bit of havoc.”

She eyes my face curiously and I realize I still have wet cheeks from the path of my tears. I quickly look back at my feet and wipe them away.

“Bad news?” she asks.

I nod.

“Family member?”

I shake my head.

“Ah.” Suck. “Yourself?”

Nod.

She sucks a few more times. “How bad?”

“About as bad as it gets.”

“Cancer?”

I look at her, surprised. “How did you know?”

She pulls a face. “I’m not psychic, if that’s what you’re thinking. Damn disease is everywhere.”

I notice the sickly pallor of her skin and the fact that the wrists poking out from her dressing gown are thin and sharp. Too thin. The hospital identification bracelet that encircles her left arm dangles loosely.

“You too?”

She sighs. “Yes. Started in my lungs. Now it’s in my bones and pretty much everywhere else.”

I look at my feet. “They just told me it’s in my bones now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“No. Well, not yet. Apart from a few minor niggles.”

“Oh. Then it’s not that bad. Definitely bearable.”

I appreciate her vague attempt at reassurance, even though we both know she’s lying.

Suck.

I watch her inhale the smoke right down into the bottom of her lungs, as far as she physically can, before reluctantly letting it out again between her pouted lips. She angles her pout to one side so that the smoke goes to her right instead of her left, where I am sitting. It makes no difference; the wind blows it back toward me anyway. It has a horrible smell, earthy but bitter, strong and intrusive. I honestly can’t understand the appeal.