TWO
‘St Ives should be about ten miles up this road.’ Ellie peered at her map and then at an outcrop of small white signposts half-hidden in a tall hawthorn hedge. ‘Yeah. I think it’s pointing that way. Look.’
‘Bloody hope so. The roads have been getting narrower and narrower since we left that A road. Marilyn was made for wide highways, not these bloody tiny lanes,’ Fee grumbled, putting the motorhome back into Drive and setting off again. ‘Can’t say I’m getting used to the left-hand drive yet either.’ Fee had nicknamed the motorhome Marilyn, and the name suited its faded silvery glamour and rounded curves.
‘I could drive. She is mine, you know,’ Ellie offered, knowing that Fee wouldn’t let her behind the wheel. Her chest was healing, but she did feel weak still, and sitting up for long periods of time was tiring. The good thing about the motorhome was that it had beds, and Ellie could go and lie down whenever she wanted. Inside, most of the features were still original, down to the gas hob, the cleverly designed cupboards and the fold-out table that they’d sat at earlier, stopping en route from the Devon inn when they found an amazing view over Dartmoor.
‘Don’t be daft. You can pass me some fudge, though.’
Ellie dutifully reached into the box on the long dashboard in front of her and passed Fee a silver-wrapped piece of fudge they’d picked up yesterday at a garage.
It was strange, not having the routine of her ordinary life to structure her days. Gone were the days of being up at five thirty to go for a run from her flat overlooking the river in Vauxhall, across the bridge and along the Embankment and into the City, to get to work by six thirty in time for a shower, do her hair and make-up and get dressed, to be at her desk around seven.
She had a full-length locker in the capacious changing rooms of the gym, which she went to three times a week, and kept a rotation of work outfits in it, pressed and ready. She kept at least two pairs of heels in her office, though if she wasn’t needed in any meetings that day – a rare occurrence – she’d go barefoot or wear slippers under her desk. Her firm had once had a policy that all female employees were required to wear high heels, and although that had now been firmly outlawed, Ellie felt that there was still an expectation.
For the past few weeks, though, she’d slept in late, and eaten whatever she wanted. Not that she wanted much, at first, after the operation, but gradually her appetite was starting to come back. She’d been on a vegan macrobiotic diet for years – not including the booze, which was seen as a kind of necessary evil by her friends – to keep her figure at a size 8, which, at thirty-seven, was a lot harder than it had been when she was twenty-five.
Ellie would never usually have eaten fudge – pure cream and sugar! – but she didn’t feel like she cared anymore. And, as Fee – who had never dieted in her life – had pointed out, Ellie would have a hard time eating as a macrobiotic vegan in Cornwall, the land of pasties, cream teas and fish and chips. Last night at the inn, they’d had steak pie, chips and gravy, followed by banoffee pie, and it had been glorious.
Ellie’s operation had been three weeks ago, and by now she could walk around and function reasonably well. Her drain had been taken out by an efficient, friendly district nurse the week before, and she had daily exercises to do. She was still on the painkillers, but at a lower dosage. She still had a large dressing on her scar which she changed daily: the nurse had given her a supply of everything to take with her.
Fee had suggested they had two weeks away, touring Devon and Cornwall in Marilyn, since Ellie had been crazy enough to buy her. Fee was a freelance graphic designer, so she could work from the road if she needed to, but she’d set aside the time to be pretty much available for Ellie.I haven’t taken any time off this year, anyway, she’d said when she’d visited Ellie the week before.Come on. Why don’t we take her for a road trip?
Ellie had decided not to think about work for now. She needed to get away from London, not least because her boss had already dropped in with a lavish fruit basket and casually asked her if she thought she’d be back before six weeks.
Ellie knew if she stayed in her flat, she’d start looking at her emails, and from there, it was just a hop, skip and a jump to being back at her desk, insisting that she was fine, and plunging back into a work culture that didn’t allow for part-time work. Too often she’d seen female colleagues coming back to work after their maternity leave edged out of their jobs by expectations that the long hours and the after-work drinks and meals out weren’t optional. Requests for flexible working were usually rejected, as were shortened weeks or even job shares after female employees had babies. If you had kids and had to leave work for a childcare emergency, or just had to leave at a certain time to pick up your kid from nursery, faces were pulled and you were seen as ‘dropping the ball’ or ‘not being a team player’. You had to be seen to be doing the hours, at the drinks and hobnobbing with the powers-that-be, no matter how good your work was.
Ellie had seen it all, and she knew that some people probably already thought that getting cancer was a sign of weakness on her part. Or that perhaps she wasn’t as committed to her health as she could be. Even Toni had, after enquiring whether she was going skiing the next month to their usual exclusive French resort (clearly, she wasn’t), had told her how wonderful wheatgrass had been in helping clear up her skin.It’s some kind of wonder drug, especially with ginger in a smoothie,she’d said, her eyes darting to Ellie’s loose button-through top, under which some of her chest bandage could be seen.I’ve heard that it can actually cure cancer.
That had really hurt. Ellie knew Toni and Suzanne thought they were being helpful, but Ellie had wanted to scream at them,Do you think wheatgrass will bring back the feeling under my arm? How much ginger do I have to consume to stop waking up in the night because I can still feel my phantom breast and it hurts? And please tell me how this wonder drink could have saved my mum’s life. If only us poor people had known about wheatgrass then! How our lives would be different.
‘You know, you were the only friend that came to see me that actually asked me how I was.’ Ellie looked at her friend as they drove along. ‘Not many people came to see me at all. My boss just wanted to know when I was coming back, and Toni and Suzanne spent all fifteen minutes of their visit trying to tell me that if I’d only stuffed a rose quartz egg up my fanny, none of this would ever have happened.’
Fee snorted. ‘Did they really? Idiots. I’ve said it before, Ellie. I really don’t know why you hang out with those guys.’
‘They’re my friends,’ Ellie protested. Despite the fact that Toni and Suzanne had really hurt her feelings, Toni had been the one that had made her come and stay at her parents’ holiday home in Kos after Ellie’s mum’s funeral. They’d spent the whole summer together on the beach with some of the others from their course, all staying at Toni’s parents’ large villa, swimming, drinking and taking boat tours around the islands.
‘Are they?’ Fee raised an eyebrow.
‘You know what I mean. We’re a group. It’s a work thing.’
‘If they don’t care about you when you had breast cancer, Ellie, they’re not your friends.’
Ellie wondered what had changed. She couldn’t have asked for better friends after her mum died, but now, it felt like she was being ignored. Everyone was getting older, of course; some of her friends had young families now, and because she didn’t, they naturally had less in common. But it wasn’t just that. Something had shifted, imperceptibly, and she didn’t know what it was.
Perhaps it was her. Perhaps she had changed.
‘Hmm. Lucky I’ve got you, then.’ Ellie fluttered her eyelashes at Fee. Fee had been Ellie’s first flatmate when she’d moved to London, back in the days when she’d got her first law job. They’d been so young, then: Fee had a job as a junior graphic designer at a fancy firm in the West End that treated her terribly, and Ellie routinely worked late into the night.
They were both busy, but on the nights when they got home at a decent hour, they’d pour themselves a large gin and tonic each or share a bottle of wine and watch the weekly soaps, laughing at the terrible storylines and over-the-top acting. Sometimes they’d go along to each other’s work drinks, or go dancing. Eventually, Ellie had moved out to live on her own when she could afford it, but they’d stayed friends.
‘You are blessed—’
Fee broke off, frowning, and tapped the control panel in front of the steering wheel. At the same time, there was a crunching sound, and Fee swore and stood on the brakes. They came to a stop, fortunately with no other cars around them, in the middle of the narrow road.
‘What happened?’ Ellie leaned over and looked at the speedometer. A couple of red lights had flickered on. ‘What does that mean?’
Fee pulled on the handbrake and turned the key in the ignition a few times, off and on. Nothing happened.
