All morning I’ve been making silly mistakes while trying to input new titles on to the library’s computer system because I’m worried about what she’s found and its potential to ruin everything. At her age, ill health is always going to be a risk, but I didn’t expect it to happen so soon. My shifting attitude towards her is also a concern. I was supposed to despise Maggie until the day she died. Instead, I find myself worrying about her.
Despite everything, she and I have built a type of co-dependent relationship, not so much a friendship but an alliance. So now, when I think about her dying before her time, it pulls at me. Maggie has been my only constant in thirty-eight years and I don’t know if I am ready for her to leave me yet.
It’s my lunch break and I’m hunched over a desk in an empty research room. A yellow notepad lies open in front of me. I draw a line down the centre of a page with a red biro and on one side, I write ‘Ways to help’ and on the other, ‘Risks involved’.
I begin with ‘Make Maggie an appointment with her GP’. Straight away, I know this wouldn’t work because her employers and ex-workmates think she has dementia and is living on the coast 300 miles away. If she were to reappear without warning, they wouldn’t need to spend much time with her to know that she’s a long way from losing her marbles.
Next, I write, ‘Take her to a walk-in centre’. On the other side of the column I add why this is pointless. They wouldn’t give her a mammogram or perform a biopsy. They would refer her to a specialist breast clinic.
And the only way for either of those options to work would be if once out of the house, Maggie says nothing about where she has been for the last two years. Can I trust her stay quiet? No, of course I can’t. If it were me, once outside I’d be running up the path and down the road faster than Usain Bolt.
I stare at the page and I lose track of time, trying to come up with another suggestion. Eventually, I write down the only choice left open to me.
‘Do nothing’.
CHAPTER 57
MAGGIE
I haven’t eaten with Nina in days. Instead, she has returned to leaving my three meals alongside vitamins and powders outside the bedroom door when she knows I’ll be asleep. I know why. It’s so she doesn’t have to face me and tell me what she plans to do about my lump. She is torn, and while she is feeling this way, I have a chance of getting through to her. But not from behind a closed bedroom door.
The clock on breakfast television tells me it’s just past 8.30 a.m., but I have yet to see her leave the house and set off for work. She is rarely this late, even if she is working a different shift. She is also never sick. My mind briefly wanders ... what if sheissick, though? What will happen to me if something happens to Nina? I’ve read stories about single mums who have died suddenly, and their infant children have starved to death because they didn’t know how to raise the alarm. Their situation hardly differs from mine. I too am totally dependent on someone else to keep me alive. If Nina had become incapacitated, how would I know? And even if I did, I couldn’t help either of us while the landing door is locked. It’s another thing to add to my list of worries.
I am hovering by the window waiting for her to leave when a moving car draws my attention. I think I recognise it – it looks like the same white one with the sunroof that’s been here three times before. The last time, Elsie said something that warned him off and he scuttled away with his tail between his legs. Then my house was empty, but today I believe Nina is still here. I stand on my tiptoes as he makes his way up the path, before Nina emerges to meet him halfway. Then they give each other a tight hug. This is a turn-up for the books.
I try to get a better view of my daughter and I’m noticing something different about her. She usually prefers to blend into the background with plain blouses, sweatshirts and jeans. But today she is wearing a colourful dress and heels. They walk to the car and she slips her handbag from her shoulder into the car’s footwell before climbing inside. As she closes the door, I catch her turning her head to look upwards to where she assumes I will be watching. She’s right; I am. But it doesn’t stop me edging backwards like a peeping Tom who has just been caught. Her companion’s car pulls away and they disappear up the road.
Who on earth is he? When she first put me under lock and key she couldn’t wait to tell me in minute detail about everything that went on in her life as a reminder that the world was turning without me. But this man has been conspicuously absent from her conversation.
Returning to the dressing table, I spot a small plastic tub of flaxseed that I forgot to sprinkle upon my soaked oats breakfast pot. It’s on the tray alongside a book calledFighting Cancer through Good Food and Positive Living. I roll my eyes at the title. Positive living! I skim the back of the jacket. Apparently, the author reveals how you can fight the disease simply by changing your lifestyle and diet. I don’t get past the contents page, where I see no mention of ultrasounds, biopsies, X-rays, MRI scans, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hormone therapy or any of the other weapons I need in my arsenal to fight this thing inside me, if cancer is what it is. And chapter headings such as ‘Outdoor exercise’ and ‘Support from friends’ are as much use to me as a scuba-diving kit.
I feel my chest tighten as I think of how I’m growing ever more resentful of Nina. She is burying her head in the sand if she thinks this is the way forward. And I’ll be damned if I’m burying myself next to her. I know that every day counts. The longer I wait for a diagnosis, the more advanced it could be.
I can’t leave the damn lump alone. Half a dozen times a day I am touching it, working my way around it, moulding it with my fingers, wondering if it has gone up or down in size or remained consistent. Sometimes when it’s dead silent in here I think I can feel it growing, stretching my skin and expanding beneath the surface. Perhaps it’s like a dandelion head, casting its cancerous little seeds about my body to rest and sprout in all my nooks and crannies. Whatever this thing is, I want it out of me. And I want out of here.
I wander into the bathroom to refill my water bottles. On the way out, I notice there’s still half an inch of water left in the bath. I push down on the press-in plug but it doesn’t budge. I try again and this time the whole thing pops out from its socket. Curious, I examine the plug’s mechanism to see how it operates. My eyes light up when I take a look at what fits the two pieces together – a two-inch screw with a sharp pointed end. It’s loose so I can take it apart. Both this and Nina’s companion might be my ticket out of here.
CHAPTER 58
NINA
TWO YEARS EARLIER
I sense Dylan has arrived before I see him. I look to the glass panel in the pub door and recognise the shape of his shadow behind it. It opens and he spots me sitting at a table, alone, and waiting for him. My heart flutters as just for a second, all I see is Jon Hunter in his son’s face.
He goes by the name Bobby now, I remind myself. He approaches me with a nervous smile that replicates my own, followed by a ‘Hello.’ I have a lemonade waiting for him, alongside my own glass of the same. He removes his coat and takes a seat opposite me.
Six weeks and two days have passed since the one and only time we have met. I really wanted to see him sooner but I had so many revelations to process that it wasn’t fair on him to meet when my head was in such a state. I needed to come to terms with all I’d learned, then punish Maggie before I could allow him into my life. I wanted him to meet the best possible version of myself, and now I’m ready. After we first met I messaged him just once, promising I’d be in touch, but that he needed to give me time. And bless him, he did just that.
His eyes are directed towards the tabletop rather than towards me. I don’t blame him. He’s mustered up the courage to risk rejection twice now.
‘I wasn’t sure if I’d hear from you again,’ he begins.
‘I’m sorry,’ I reply, ‘I really am. And I’m also sorry that I left you in the pub that night without explaining why.’
‘I understand it must have been difficult for you.’
‘I panicked, but you didn’t deserve to be treated like that. Please remember, before then, I had no reason to believe you existed.’
