I have worked quite hard. I put up a Christmas tree in the window and have decorated it with sparkling white lights and baubles I bought from her shop. I tried to get some of the ones she had talked about. The ones she said she had fallen in love with but openly admitted she couldn’t justify buying. I plan to gift both the tree and baubles to her when the evening is out, because although she’s certainly making my December a lot more fun, I still feel no need to have a permanent flashing reminder of the season in my home, not even my temporary one.
I lead her to the sofa, two snowflake cushions one end and two blankets neatly folded at the other, one silky smooth and the other so fluffy that it’s a miracle it’s not mewing. There’s a small table to the side where I’ve popped the remote control for her and a small bowl of nuts to snack on.
The room does look pretty and I have pinched one of Mum’s millions of scented candles, one designed to smell of Christmas – pine, clementines and eucalyptus. To me it smells like loo cleaner but I hope that the scent wafting through the room will please Belle. It certainly sent my mum into a paroxysm of joy when I asked if I could pinch it.
‘I knew you’d be shattered after your insane work week so I’ve made you a Christmas nest from where you can eat your Christmas dinner…’ She looks at me with wide eyes. ‘Yep, it’s just a roast really but with pigs in blankets and a couple of extra bits. Don’t get excited, I can’t compete with your dad,’ I say and shrug my shoulders.
‘I … I don’t know what to say,’ Belle says, her eyes casting around, lighting on one thing and then another. ‘I really don’t. It even…’ She stops and sniffs. ‘It even smells of Christmas in here.’ She starts to move forward and for a minute it looks as if she’s going to launch herself onto me but she stops at the last minute and instead runs her uplifted arms through her hair, looking at me intensely as she awkwardly brings her hands back to her side. ‘This is insane. You’ve done all this for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘It’s … it’s amazing. The tree is so gorgeous, all those baubles, and they’re the ones I told you I loved. You’ve got me Christmassy snacksanda Christmas dinner too. I could cry. You have no idea how hungry I am. I swear I’ve been living off sandwiches, samosas and toast this week but…’ She pauses again. ‘Why? Why have you done all this? Apart from the fact that clearly you’re a saint and have completely become my best Christmas angel of all time.’
‘What do you mean, why?’
‘Why would you go to all this effort?’ she questions.
‘Most people wouldn’t ask that.’
‘Maybe not but I bet they’d all think it.’
‘No, I’m fairly sure most people would just accept it as their due. Why? I guess I want to say thank you for being my friend. Honestly, I expected this to be a difficult trip. The past, you know … and the fact that I’m here to—’
I realise I haven’t told her why I’m in the UK, about Mum’s diagnosis, and I assume she knows about Jessica, thanks to the invasiveness of social media and our linked past. I’m so used to keeping everything to myself, not seeing a need to share personal information, that she couldn’t possibly knowwhyI am here. In fact, I know that I have very deliberately swerved the question when she has asked before. I sit myself down on the sofa as I debate whether I want to tell her and realise that it isn’t a case of whether I want to or not, it’s more that it feels weird not doing so.
She comes and sits next to me and looks as if she’s going to rest her hand on my leg but, again, stops herself and places her hands back in her lap. I look at her and we hold eye contact as if she’s silently acknowledging that she’s here, ready to listen and she wants me to know that. Then she pops a handful of the nuts in her mouth without once taking her eyes from mine and that smile sparkles at the corner of her lips, mischief peeks out of her eyes as she rolls them to show me how heavenly she thinks they are. I’m not unaware that she has deliberately not spoken. She’s waiting for me.
My mum would love Belle, although they probably couldn’t be trusted together. Together, the two of them would end up on the modern-day equivalent of wanted posters, the length and breadth of the land. My mum is a good judge of character though and I know she not only won’t mind me telling Belle, she wants me to talk to someone.
I take a deep breath.
‘I’m here because my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer.’ I can feel tears from nowhere suddenly prick in the corner of my eyes. I blink rapidly, pushing them back.This is not me. I do not cry.I’m good at many things but salvaging people’s reputations and supreme self-control are the things I excel in. Excel in. This is just the first time I’ve said those words out loud to anyone other than Mum.
Belle opens her mouth and, in an attempt to make her realise the truth of the situation, to see that I am a rational adult not an over-emotional child and that I know things are probably, no,aregoing to be okay, I quickly add, ‘It’s stage two but they’ve caught it early and the differences in prognosis, in a woman’s chances, are so different now to how they were ten years ago. I’m fairly confident that this time around she’s going to be okay.’ This time around, I say. I know that the chances of it recurring are high, that another time she may not be so lucky. Nope. I am not going down that road.
Belle makes a move just a fraction forward and I can see that she’s seeking to reassure me, to comfort me. I move away. In the back of my mind a sneaky voice warns me I’ll fall apart if she touches me. I’m scared of the torrent that a little bit of sympathy could unleash.
I shake my head to dispel such an unsettling thought.
I’m not going to get caught up in emotion right now. Facts are what matter. ‘The surgery is next week, just before Christmas, and her consultant says she has high hopes of it all going well. Mum will have a lumpectomy and they’ll get anything left and have a good look around, see what’s happening to the lymph nodes then decide on next steps. We don’t know at this stage if she’ll need radiotherapy or chemo or anything like that but like I say, the consultant is hopeful. They’ve moved really quickly; Mum says since the diagnosis it’s like being on a carousel as everything whirls around her. So, they’re being speedy, which is good, and we’ll know much more after the first surgery.’ I force a smile to my face, to reassure Belle there’s nothing to worry about.
‘That’s a lot. Of course you came home. I’m so sorry that is why you’ve had to fly back but it sounds like your mum’s got a lot going in her favour.’
‘She has.’ I’m glad Belle understands what I’ve been trying to say. That she appreciates my need to stick to the practical.
‘But you know that doesn’t mean you can’t be upset.’
I gulp.
She ploughs on.
‘You’re an only child, aren’t you?’
‘I am.’ And then all semblance of holding it together vanishes, a seawall finally washed over by the incoming tide, ferocious in its attack. Words spill forth. ‘And the thing is, the thing is that the thought of losing Mum as well, I just … I just can’t…’ I pause as I try and collate my thoughts that are now rushing at me in a fury. ‘Mum and Jess rooted me, they made me feel tethered. Secure.’ I sniff and take a deep breath but it’s as if now I’ve started talking I can’t stop and something in me, something I can never remember feeling before, something is encouraging me forward, reminding me that I am safe with Belle. That she will understand, that there will be no judgement.
‘Jess was my everything. The love she had for me, the love she chose to have for me, made me feel like a king. She was the most remarkable woman I have ever met and to this day I cannot quite believe it was me she chose to be with. Me she saw a future with. I know you knew her, Belle, but you didn’t, not really. No one got that close apart from me. I was the one she chose to let in. I saw her, the whole of her, and she was perfect. Even in her flaws she was perfect. She made me feel I could conquer the world.’ I hear myself release a short, sardonic laugh. ‘When I was little I struggled a bit. I’m not alone in that but having my dad walk out before I was even born, to know that I wasn’t even worth holding once before he rejected me, to know that he didn’t feel that any good could come of his life if I was in it, that makes a child feel lost, unworthy. And the ridiculous thing was it didn’t matter how much love Mum poured into me, it was his absence that I dwelt upon.’
‘He didn’t know you, Rory, if he had he would never have walked away.’ Belle rubs my arm as she says it and I look at her face. It’s hard to read but I don’t believe she thinks that it’s that simple for one minute.
