‘I’m sure one of the boys won’t mind you leaning up against them snoring, when you get about twenty minutes into the movie.’ She turned around, still within the circle of his arms and grinned. The truth was, she’d have liked nothing better than snuggling up on the sofa with Matt and she never resented himfalling asleep after a long day on the farm. They didn’t get to go out a lot, but it didn’t matter. It was enough to sit side by side doing not very much at all. What was that saying? It’s easy to find someone to do something with, but much harder to find someone to do nothing with. She never took that for granted and the biggest parts of her relationship with Matt were glued together by all the tiny seemingly insignificant bits that made up their everyday lives. There was no one she’d rather do nothing with, but tonight she had big plans, the kind that were dominating her every waking thought, and they didn’t include Matt.
‘I’m sure you’re right, darling, but I’ll still miss you.’ Matt pressed his lips against hers for a moment, before pulling away again. ‘And I really hope one of the girls has come up with something.’
‘Me too.’ She didn’t want to admit, even to her husband, just how much she was banking on that. Half an hour later, with Matt and the boys safely ensconced in the living room, tucking into pizza and watching an action movie, she was serving up the curry to her guests.
Bex had thought long and hard after the threat her mum had made about letting Briony know what was going on, and she’d gone back and forth with what to do for the best. Even if she tracked Briony down and her sister agreed to be a donor, there was every chance their mother would dig her heels in just as hard as she had when Bex had offered to donate part of her own liver. Then she’d have risked her relationship with her mother for nothing. If they only had a limited time left the last thing she wanted was to waste a second of that arguing. As soon as the thought had crossed her mind, she’d pushed it down again. She refused to think like that, because it would be accepting defeat before she’d even started.
It wasn’t fair to think that Briony’s life was somehow worthless than hers, just because she didn’t have children, but it had been her mother who’d said she wouldn’t allow Bex to be a donor because of the boys. So there had to be a chance she’d feel differently if Briony made the offer. There’d probably be some other reason why Donna wouldn’t allow Briony to do it, but if the two of them could stand united – for this one thing – maybe the shock of that in itself would be enough to persuade their mother to change her mind. It had to be worth a try. Finding Briony and asking her to help was the only option she had, but she had no idea where to even start. She knew Ken wouldn’t give her any contact details, after her mother had forbidden him from doing so. It was why she’d asked her friends for their help, and had arranged this dinner so they could all give an update on the progress they’d made in tracking Briony down.
Rowan was there of course, along with Toni and Anna, who were both midwives working in the community. She’d known Toni since her school days and had become friends with Anna through Toni. Linda had arrived just after the others, the pinched expression on her face giving away the fact that she hadn’t been able to uncover anything during her research, before they even got around to talking about it.
‘I’m so sorry.’ Rowan was the first to bring it up, as they sat around the huge, scrubbed pine table in Bex’s kitchen. ‘I thought I was pretty good at research, but I couldn’t find any trace of Briony.’
‘Me neither.’ Toni pulled a face. ‘And if there was an Olympic team for tracking down people on social media, I’m pretty sure I’d be called up to represent my country. Briony Deyes isn’t exactly a common name, but the only person I found that came anywhere close was a variant of Bryony, spelled with two Ys. It definitely wasn’t her though.’
‘What about our birth surname? Did you try Davis?’ Bex wasstill desperately clinging to the hope that one of her friends had found something she hadn’t.
‘Yes, I tried that too and a handful of people came up, but none of them were her.’ Linda sighed. ‘And before you ask, I also tried your mum’s maiden name of Hetherington. I found a couple of matches, but neither of them were your Briony.’
‘Oh God.’ Even though Bex had tried to prepare herself for the fact that her friends wouldn’t have had any more luck than she had in tracking Briony down, it really wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear, and she wasn’t able to mask her disappointment. Even Linda’s description of her as‘your Briony’didn’t rankle in the way it usually would. None of that mattered now, she just wanted to save her mum.
‘I’m so sorry, Bex.’ Anna reached across the table and squeezed her hand. ‘Maybe we should think about involving a professional in the search?’
‘Maybe.’ Panic was rising in Bex’s throat. ‘I just can’t help worrying that with every day that passes the tumours could be growing and surpassing the three-centimetre limit, or another one could be forming. I don’t know how long it would take a professional to get started with the search, even when we find one who might be able to help us. It just feels like we haven’t got that kind of time to waste.’
‘I know what you mean.’ The frown Linda had been wearing from the moment she’d arrived still hadn’t lifted. ‘I thought maybe we could ask Iris to look into it. She works as a researcher, so I’m sure she’d have some insight.’
‘She’s also mum’s goddaughter and they’re very close.’ Bex had to be certain no one would blow their cover. ‘Are you sure she’d feel okay about going behind Mum’s back? We all know how Mum feels about the idea of Briony being involved in a transplant and we also know what we’re risking by going againsther wishes, but I wouldn’t want Iris to compromise her relationship with Mum, unless she knew what she was getting into.’
‘I’d make sure she knew that before she started, but I’d bet my left kidney on her being willing to do whatever it took to give your mum the best chance of recovery.’ Linda suddenly slapped a hand against her forehead. ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, Bex. Here I am talking about making a wager on my kidney, when the whole focus of this is getting your mum a new liver. I’m such an idiot and I just seem to be making all of this worse.’
‘No, you’re not, I’m so glad I’ve got you to lean on. All of you. I just wish I could persuade Mum or Ken to see my point of view. It would be so much easier if one of them would just give me Briony’s details. They must know where she is because they meet up with her every few months for a week or so, but Mum won’t even consider it and Ken doesn’t want to upset her.’
‘Surely it’s better to risk upsetting your mum than losing her altogether?’ Toni widened her eyes and Bex nodded, still finding it almost impossible to believe that her stepfather didn’t share her view. Ken worshipped the ground her mother walked on, and he’d be lost without her, so she’d never understand why he was so willing to go along with the crackpot idea that Briony shouldn’t even be told about the cancer, let alone be given the opportunity to do the right thing and help. That particular conundrum was something Bex didn’t even want to think about yet. Briony and ‘doing the right thing’ hadn’t always gone hand in hand, but she couldn’t worry about that. The priority was to track her sister down and they were getting nowhere fast.
‘That’s exactly what I said. I’d rather lose Mum because she’s decided not to talk to me any more, than lose her because the cancer has killed her.’
‘Me too.’ The voice behind Bex made her jump so violently,that the cutlery on her plate landed in her lap, splattering curry sauce all over her.
‘Ken!’ She shook her head in disbelief at the sight of her stepfather coming through the door that led from the hallway to the kitchen, Matt just behind him. ‘I didn’t even hear you knock.’
Matt shook his head. ‘There wasn’t any knock. Tom wanted to see if the owl that was outside last night had come back again, so I was out the front with the boys when Ken pulled up.’
‘Sorry if I caught you all unawares, but I had to take the opportunity to pop out while I could, so I didn’t raise any suspicion with your mum. She’d gone to her meeting at the W.I.’
‘She’s going to wonder where I am, I’d better text her and explain why I’m not there, before she has the chance to text me.’ Two spots of scarlet coloured Linda’s cheeks. Bex clearly wasn’t the only one feeling as though she was cheating on Donna. ‘I’ll have to tell her I’ve got a migraine or something.’
‘It’s a good job none of us tried to become a spy, I don’t think we’d make it past day one of basic training.’ Rowan exchanged a look with Bex, and they both laughed. They really were rubbish at this, but she had a feeling they wouldn’t have to keep up the secrecy for much longer, and the tension that had been weighing her down since her mum’s diagnosis already felt as though it was lifting off her shoulders.
‘I might as well tell you, but we’ve been trying to find Briony. I know it’s not what Mum wants, but I can’t stand the thought of just waiting around and doing nothing while the cancer progresses. Or watching her go through chemo when there’s another solution.’ Bex stood up and walked towards her stepfather.
‘Neither can I and that’s why I wanted to give you this.’ Ken handed her a piece of paper. ‘It’s got the only contact details I have for Briony, her email address. I don’t know where she is rightnow, because she travels around to quite remote places and she relies on this satellite thing that sits on top of her campervan to get online, because the phone signal is often non-existent.’
‘But you must have her mobile number.’ Bex was incredulous at the idea that he didn’t, but then she could probably count on the fingers of one hand how often her stepfather had called her on the phone. He’d just always let her mum take the lead on being the communicator.
‘You know me and mobile phones, and how I feel about Facebook and all that social media stuff.’ He shuddered and a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth, remembering a conversation they’d once had when she’d offered to set her parents up with Facebook accounts so they could contact old friends. Ken had told her he had no interest in seeing photographs of what someone he’d gone to school with fifty years ago had eaten for their dinner, and her mother had agreed. Mobile phones were for emergencies as far as they were concerned and the handsets they had were virtually museum pieces. Her mum had an iPad that Bex had bought her and which she mostly seemed to use for watching films and probably emailing Briony, but other than that neither of them were really part of the online world. So she had no doubt he was telling the truth when he said he didn’t have any other way of contacting Briony, but she couldn’t believe that her mother didn’t at least have a contact number for her sister.
‘What about Mum?’
