‘Lucky?’ I repeated. ‘Why?’ I wasn’t feeling particularly lucky in my marriage at that point. Rob felt too often like another a clingy child, hanging around and trying to get my attention. And because of what was going on with Mum, I didn’t have the attention to spare.
‘At least you’ve got someone no matter what happens,’ Mum said. ‘No one’s going to want me after this.’
‘Mum,’ I said. ‘You’re catastrophising.’Catastrophisingwas Wayne’s new favourite word and it was starting to grow on me too. ‘The surgeon promised you’ll look fine.’
‘One, he didn’t promise,’ Mum said. ‘And two, he said he’lldo his bestand the scar shouldbegin to fadeafter six months.’
‘It waswithinsix months, Mum,’ I said, reaching across to squeeze her arm, a gesture that, unusually, made her flinch. ‘He looked like a boob man to me,’ I said. ‘I’m sure he’ll make sure your tit looks even better than before.’
‘If it does,’ Mum said, forcing a smile that looked more like a death-rictus, ‘I’ll be all off balance, won’t I? I’ll probably go round and round in circles.’
But I understood totally why she was so worried. She’s always been proud of ‘Pinky and Perky’. Men had always commented on them too. For Mum, a partial mastectomy was about as traumatising as trauma can get.
We’d been out of Lucy’s madness for a couple of years by then, and I was only just starting to relax when Mum got diagnosed. Suddenly I found myself playing support team all over again, only this time it wasn’t to Lucy’s drug-fuelled frenzy, it was driving Mum to scans and consultations, and then surgery; it was post-op check-ups, chemo, and wig-buying… it just went on and on. But beyond the actual process, which in itself was terrifying enough, there was something bigger and even more scary: the fact that my mother had become mortal.
On top of my fears for Mum, I’d suddenly found myself in the at-risk category too, so I had to have scans and blood tests and specialist gropings. My own boobs were, for the moment, cancer-free, so that was a huge relief. I’m not sure I could have coped with much more.
I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about Mum’s cancer, and that included Rob.
‘You can’t make me keep secrets from my husband,’ I told Mum. ‘It’s unethical.’
‘Ooh, get you with your fancy words,’ Mum said. ‘Anyway, I think it’s up to me who I tell. Don’t you?’
‘But why, Mum? It just makes everything so complicated.’
‘Because I’m the one having my boob chopped off and it’s not an image I want to share with other people.’
‘They’re notchopping it off,Mum, and Rob isn’t justotherpeople, either.’
‘People change,’ Mum said. ‘Once they know, they change. Suddenly you’re just another old bag with cancer. Larking around with your Rob’s the only thing that keeps me going sometimes.’
‘Yeah… Only he’s not that larky these days,’ I pointed out.
‘No,’ Mum said. ‘He’s not. What’s that all about?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I think we’re going through a bit of a trough. But anyway, this is ridiculous! What am I supposed to tell him when I have to help you? When I have to drive you to the hospital or whatnot.’
‘Thendon’thelp me,’ Mum said. ‘I’d rather deal with it all on my own than have you tell all and sundry.’
‘Again, Mother!’ I said. ‘Rob isnotall and sundry.’
‘Dawn,’ Mum said looking grave. ‘I’ll make it simple for you, shall I? If you tell him… If you tella single bloody soul, then I’ll never speak to you again. And I do mean that. I really bloody mean that.’
‘Christ!’ I said. ‘OK!’
Of course, Mum was right, too. It wastotallyup to her who she told. But it did make things difficult back home. I told Rob Mum had ‘women’s problems’ – something that sounded so eighteenth century as to almost be laughable – but that wasn’t enough to cover the hundreds of days Mum needed me by her side, so I still had to fib my way out of the family schedule on a regular basis.
At the beginning, when Mum’s terror was most intense, Rob had been going through a needy phase, snuggling up against me in the hope of sex – sex I was too preoccupied to want. Sometimes he’d reach across to caress my chest. It was supposed to get me in the mood, I think, but in reality it made me think about breast cancer, and that, in turn, made me feel sick.
One night I remember in particular – I had an appointment to be professionally fondled the next morning. I pushed poor Rob away with a violence he didn’t deserve or understand.
He had a weird sort of midlife crisis just afterwards and became strangely unpredictable. He bought tighter jeans than he’d ever worn before and some square-toed biker boots and a very expensive-looking leather jacket. He also bought a couple of Hugo Boss suits and I remember joking that he needed to choose one identity crisis and stick to it.
He looked gorgeous in a suit, as it turned out, but I never once managed to say so. I’d always associated suits with bad people, that was the thing. Suits were for dodgy estate agents and wanker-bankers and shifty politicians – all the people we love to hate. So I disliked myself for finding him so sexy dressed that way, and ended up being mocking and sarky, essentially to hide my own discomfort. Poor Rob. He was trying so hard, but I don’t think he wore them more than twice.
He bought a very impractical sports car with such ridiculously small rear seats that we had to use my little Micra whenever we had company. ‘I’ll take yours,’ Rob would say, if he needed to drive two people anywhere, or if I asked him to take something to the tip. I’d roll my eyes and reply, Lucy-style, ‘Whatever,’ and watch him squeeze his enormous body into the driver’s seat.
He even bought a motorbike – I mean talk about midlife crisis! – and seemed gutted when I wouldn’t get on it.
