Eventually, I rise to my feet and, still shaking, I use the handrail to pull myself up the stairs until I reach the kitchen. The digital clock on the oven reads 3.39 a.m. and it will be light outside before I know it. I continue using my phone’s torch as I unlock the back door and step outside. It’s silent out here and there’s only the barest sliver of a moon to help illuminate the path that will lead me to the flower bed at the end of the garden.
Snail shells crunch underfoot until I reach my sanctuary; the place I’ve come to for more than two decades to mourn Dylan’s loss. Since discovering that my child didn’t die, I’ve assumed this flower bed was empty. Now, I’m praying that it is.
I grab a spade from the shed, lay the phone on the ground and set to work, digging. Adrenaline charges through me as I shovel spade after spade of flowers and dirt on to the lawn. Each time the tool hits something that isn’t loose earth, I take a closer look and am relieved when it’s not bone. Sweat pours down my face and unused muscles in my arms burn as I dig further and further down, wider and wider, until eventually, I’m knee-deep inside the hole.
And then it happens. My spade makes a dull thud and goes no further; I know that it’s not soil beneath me any more. I shine the torch into the hole. I’ve reached a brown fibre which, when I rub it between my fingers, I realise is the stuffing from a duvet. Much of it is rotting away and leaving brown feathers, like the wings of a fallen angel.
I put a muddied hand over my mouth, leaving a film of grit on my lips. I need to see for myself what lies inside the material and I’m desperate for it not to be what I think it is; not something else my mother has taken away from me. I crouch and brace myself, then tear the tape that binds the remains of the duvet together and open it. The torch reveals flashes of a faded pale colour and something familiar. I pick it up and brush the dirt away; it’s Dad’s house keys. They’re attached to a key ring with my school photograph inside it that I gave him for Father’s Day. I hold them in my hands for a moment, then slip them into my pocket.
I know what I’m going to find next, yet I cannot prepare myself. I push away soil and stones with my hands until I can make out what I am seeing. It’s the ribcage of an adult. I am standing over my missing father’s body.
CHAPTER 50
NINA
I peer into her room and find Maggie lying on her side on the bed, gazing in the direction of the television, but I don’t think she’s actually watching it. She is somewhere else instead.
I can guess what’s occupying her thoughts because it’s been the only thing on my mind too. For now, I’ve stopped thinking of her only as the enemy, and instead as my vulnerable, elderly mother. This clouded judgement doesn’t sit comfortably with me.
I startle her when I say hello, then she frowns. ‘I wasn’t expecting you,’ she says. ‘We only had dinner last night.’
‘I know,’ I reply. ‘But look.’ I lift up a supermarket bag I’m carrying and she stares at it, unsure how I’m expecting her to react. ‘Move over,’ I say, and she hitches herself up the bed. I pour the contents across the duvet; there are at least a dozen packets and boxes. She slips on her recently repaired reading glasses and picks them up one by one, reading each label.
‘I’ve been looking online for alternative treatments and therapies for breast cancer,’ I explain. ‘I had no idea there were so many different options.’ I start reading aloud. ‘Camomile, omega-3 fatty acids, probiotics, St John’s wort, ginger ... lots of websites suggest similar things, so there must be something in it.’
‘We haven’t had a diagnosis yet,’ she says.
I ignore her. ‘A study by a university in Colorado suggests echinacea, garlic, turmeric and flaxseed can help, so I’m going to start cooking with these ingredients more. And I’ve bought you a flask which I’ll fill with hot water so that you can drink green tea. It’s full of antioxidants.’
Maggie lacks my enthusiasm; I see scepticism in her eyes. ‘Nina,’ she says hesitantly, but I cut her off. I know what she’s going to say; working in that surgery for half her life has brainwashed her into believing that man-made medicines are the answer to everything. They’re not. She has no knowledge of the huge leaps forward that’ve been made in naturopathy. I must convince her to keep an open mind.
‘You’re going to say that you don’t believe in this kind of thing. But you have nothing to lose by giving them a try, have you?’
‘No. But––’
‘I photocopied some recipes from a book I found at work calledCooking for Cancer. It has tons of suggestions. And in my lunch break I did an online shop and ordered us lots of fresh organic stuff from Waitrose that’ll be delivered tomorrow night. Also vitamin D is supposed to be good, so perhaps at the weekend, and if it’s sunny, we could go outside into the back garden for a bit?’ Her eyes widen ever so slightly at the offer and I reel myself back in. It was a spontaneous suggestion. I’ve been getting carried away. I haven’t thought this through properly, especially with Elsie next door. I guess there’s a chance I can get Maggie to the end of the garden where it’s private without her being spotted. ‘I’ve been reading up on the statistics of breast lumps,’ I add. ‘Eighty per cent are non-malignant. So chances are yours is just a cyst or fatty tissue.’
‘Nina,’ she repeats, but this time more assertively, like she does when I’m not listening. It works and I stop talking. ‘You know our family history,’ she says. ‘You know this type of cancer can be genetic. They call it “inherited altered genes”. I’m around the same age as when my mum and grandmother died of exactly the same thing, so I know the odds of this lump being malignant are much higher than most women’s. And I know how high the survival rates are when it’s caught early. If it’s cancer, it isn’t something that’s going to vanish with a few healthy meals and some vitamins. But before we do anything else, we need a professional diagnosis.’
‘Homeopathic medicine has been used for thousands of years,’ I counter. ‘Native Americans have always used fungis, herbs, lichen etcetera to treat themselves.’
She reaches out to touch my arm, but I pull away from her before she connects. I don’t understand why she’s not keeping an open mind and it’s annoying me.
Maggie must see she’s upsetting me because she takes another look at what I’ve bought her. ‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I’m grateful, I really am.’ A small part of me wants to pull her into my chest so that we can cry together. I dismiss it. There’s too much water under the bridge for that to happen. Instead, I stand firm, rise to my feet and move all the boxes back into my bag.
‘I’ll call you when dinner is ready,’ I say. And from the corner of my eye, she nods.
I leave her door open behind me and make my way downstairs, reminding myself once again that she is locked up there for a reason. I can’t let this health scare ride roughshod over everything she’s done to me. However, I am not ready for another person in my life to leave me.
CHAPTER 51
MAGGIE
I don’t think I ever really appreciated how much I missed having a bath until the luxury was taken away from me. Until recently, I was only allowed to fill it with lukewarm water and bathe twice a week. But with Nina allowing me to keep my longer chain attached, not only do I get to use the toilet instead of a bucket, I also have the use of my beloved bath again whenever I like.
I’ve started taking baths during the day after Nina leaves for work, filling them up with as much hot water as is left following her shower downstairs. As a precautionary measure, I normally wait until I’ve seen her disappearing up the road before I start to run one. Not that she has forbidden me; in fact, she hasn’t said a word about it. I just don’t want it to be used against me in the future.
As I kneel naked by the bathtub waiting for it to fill, I turn to look at the day’s worth of food and alternative medicines she has left in Tupperware boxes outside my bedroom door. I can’t say I’m not disappointed. A handful of almonds and some green teabags aren’t going to rid me of my lump. But a doctor might.
