Love Life

by Nancy Peach

  She had always been scrupulous about her finances; growing up they had counted every penny, and it was only the hardship fund through school that had allowed her to even consider applying for medicine. Had she known quite how complicated the issue regarding the vet’s bills was due to become, she might have pushed harder, but the next time she saw Edward he was with his young niece and nephew and she felt embarrassed to mention it. As the television host said, “It would be a bit vulgar Tess, and believe me, I make a living from vulgar.”

  Edward was looking relaxed and happy when he arrived at the hospice with his sister Madeleine a few days later. Tess was on the phone and she waved as they trooped by, the little boy, Harvey, dressed in smart cargo shorts and a polo shirt, his younger sister, Annabelle, wearing an interesting outfit of winter tights, swimsuit, and fairy wings, her face smeared with chocolate. Madeleine was tall and imposing, like her brother, but she had a capable, down-to-earth manner and, perhaps because of her young children, she seemed a less intimidating figure. She looked anxious as they walked past and Tess realised that this would be the first time she’d have seen her mother looking quite this ill. It was bound to be a shock, and she wondered whether Edward had prepared her.

  In the event, it seemed that the children were an ideal distraction from the grim realities of the situation, and if Madeleine was distressed she hid it well. After a while, Edward stuck his head out of the door and asked Tess if maybe she could come in, as Mary was keen to introduce her to the grandchildren. Both kids were perched on Mary’s bed when she walked in and she went straight up to them and shook their sticky hands.

  “Well! I know exactly who you two fine, upstanding citizens are. Your granny has told me all about you, and I have to say your photos do not do you justice. I had no idea we were going to be visited by such a handsome gentleman and a proper fairy princess today – I love your outfit, by the way,” she said as an aside to Annabelle.

  “I’m Harvey,” the little boy said, “and this is my sister Annabelle.”

  “Well. I’m Tess and I am very pleased to meet you!” she said, dropping them a small curtsy.

  “Uncle Eddie has told us about your cat!” piped up Annabelle from the foot of the bed where she was balancing an unused disposable sick bowl on her head.

  “Ah yes, the brave and valiant Morris. Your uncle came to the rescue and no mistake.”

  “Like a fireman?” Annabelle wanted to know.

  Tess nodded slowly and looked sideways at Edward who was smiling. “Kind of, yes. Like a fireman,” she said.

  Annabelle beamed at her uncle and patted him proudly on the hand.

  Tess turned her attention back to the little boy who was playing with the edge of the blanket on his grandmother’s bed.

  “And I understand that you like animals too, Harvey? Granny tells me you ride horses? But of course, I said to her, ‘No, five-year-olds can’t ride horses!’ And I think, looking at you, that she must be wrong, because surely you are seven or eight at least?”

  Harvey smiled shyly. “No,” he said. “I am really five and I do have a pony! I ride her every day. And we have two cats and three dogs and, well, a lot of hens. They are noisy but I like them. Daddy’s looking after them at the moment.” He returned to plucking at the edge of the blanket. “I miss them.”

  “He’s just like you were, Eddie,” Madeleine said to her brother. “Obsessed with everything that barks, clucks, neighs, whatever.”

  “Hi,” she reached out a hand to Tess. “I’m Madeleine. Mum has told us about you, and how much of a difference you’ve made to her. It’s nice to meet you.” Her voice was brittle; she was maintaining a brave front for the children, but her concern was evident in her eyes.

  Tess shook her hand. “Likewise,” she said. “I hope your journey was okay?”

  “As good as a transatlantic flight with small children ever can be.” She had picked up none of the American intonations of her children; her accent was exactly the same refined English as her mother and brother’s.

  “Hmm! Yes.” Tess rolled her eyes in what she hoped was a knowing manner despite never having been on a transatlantic flight herself, let alone accompanied by children. “Now,” she said, “I’ve got to crack on.” She turned to look at the children again. “Would you like to see if we could make that into a fairy crown for you?” she asked Annabelle, pointing to the sick bowl still on her head. “I expect I can find you some crayons?”

  “I’ll draw a picture of your cat,” said Harvey in a serious voice.

  “Good thinking,” said Tess. “He would love that, and it might help him get better. He’s a ginger tomcat, so I’ll make sure we get you an orange crayon.”

  “Will it make Granny get better?” Harvey asked Tess. “If I draw her a picture too?”

  “It might make her feel better, and that’s very important. Why don’t you find out what her favourite thing is and draw that?”

  “Well that’s easy.” He smiled as he looked back at Mary propped up on her pillows. “Her favourite thing is me!”

  “There you go then,” said Tess as she opened the door. “I’ll see what I can find.”

  A few hours later she was presented with an approximation of an orange cat lying in a hospital bed with a bandage on his head, and a stick figure wearing a pink dress standing next to him that was clearly supposed to be her.

  “Now that is fantastic!” she said. “You’ve got my hair just right! Morris is going to love this.” She leant down and kissed Harvey on the cheek. He blushed.

  “Bye-bye Tessie,” said Annabelle, running around the foyer in circles with a hand holding her crown in place. Janice had managed to locate some glitter in the relatives’ room, and a fine trail of pink sparkle was settling on the linoleum.

  “I suspect a lot of that is going to end up in your car,” Tess said to Edward as he passed by the desk, laughing as he watched his niece.

  “She appears to have inherited her mother’s dubious craft skills. But we’re off to Pizza Express anyway; I expect my car’s interior will be trashed after that, if Annabelle’s previous form with ice cream is anything to go by.”

  He and Madeleine waved as they left the building, and Tess reflected that she had not seen him looking so carefree in the entire time that she had known him. Any underlying concerns he might have had about his sister blaming him for not doing enough to support their mother seemed to have been allayed, and Tess recognised the relief of having a sibling to share some of the burden that he must be feeling.

  Mary was predictably exhausted by the visit, but was beaming when Tess saw her later that day. She explained that it had been six months since she had last seen her daughter and grandchildren, having flown out to visit them for Christmas at the end of last year. The trip had been marred somewhat by Mary having to reveal her diagnosis. Madeleine had been particularly hurt that her mother had known about her cancer a full two months before telling either of her children, but Mary had downplayed the prognosis even then, not wanting to spoil her family’s festive celebrations with the knowledge that the tumour had already metastasised. She had begged Madeleine not to tell Edward when he called to wish them a happy Christmas, and asked instead that she be allowed to tell him face to face when she returned. The memory of that conversation was painful: seeing the realisation dawn in his eyes, the knowledge that he may in fact have missed the last Christmas he could have spent with his mother because he’d been too busy to leave the firm for more than the obligatory bank holiday. It had been a freezing January morning, and Edward had driven over to Bristol to collect Mary from the airport, having no inkling of the catastrophic information she was about to unleash.

  “He just didn’t seem to understand it at all at first,” she said. “I wondered if he was being deliberately obtuse, but with hindsight it was clear that he just couldn’t process the information.”

  Tess nodded. “Yes, I think that’s quite a common reaction.”

  “And then of course when he did understan
d he went into overdrive, researching every possible treatment option, arranging second and even third opinions from private specialists in London and Manchester.”

  “Gosh, that must have been exhausting – for both of you?”

  “Well, yes, but he needed something to do. Eventually he realised that I had a serious, untreatable cancer, but even then he refused to entertain the notion that I might actually die. And that is about the point when we first met you. As I’m sure you remember.”

  “It rings a bell.” They shared a knowing smile. “He seems… I don’t know, a little more accepting of it now?”

  “I do hope so.” Mary sighed. “I do wonder if he’s just putting on a show for me though, or whether he remains completely in denial. It’s interesting what the human brain can do, isn’t it? He’s a very rational person, but once he realised I wasn’t going to pursue that last course of chemotherapy, it was almost as if he stuck his fingers in his ears and pretended he couldn’t hear me.”

  “I guess he just didn’t want it to be true?”

  “Quite. Edward’s a devil for repressing his feelings. He had to learn to keep his temper in check, but he applies the same control to all other emotions now, which I suspect is not terribly healthy. You never know quite what he’s thinking.”

  “Stiff upper lip and all that.”

  “Yes, exactly. It was the same when his dad died. Although they weren’t particularly close, which maybe makes it worse? I don’t know. There’s no easy way to lose a parent, is there? Let alone two.”

  “No. People do manage, but it is hard.”

  “Still, let’s not dwell on that. It’s been a perfect afternoon and those two are such little angels, aren’t they? Tell me it’s not just grandmotherly bias – they bring me so much joy!” She showed Tess the picture Harvey had drawn her – the whole family with Mary taking central position in her hospital bed.

  “That certainly needs to go in pride of place.”

  Tess propped it up on the windowsill next to Mary’s collection of photos.

  “Quite the artist!” She grinned at Harvey’s depiction of his uncle Edward, long and thin with enormous hands and feet, but her expression turned to one of concern as she saw Mary clutch at her stomach and take a sharp intake of breath.

  “Mary?” she crossed the room back to the bed and put a hand to Mary’s shoulder. “What is it? Are you in pain?”

  Mary nodded. Her eyes squeezed shut and she scrabbled around with her hand on the table in front of her, reaching a sick bowl. She grabbed it and brought it under her chin just in time. She heaved and winced as she vomited up a small amount of bile and blood. Tess handed her a tissue to wipe her mouth and they both looked at the contents of the bowl.

  “Good thing Annabelle had already made her crown,” she said, as she rubbed Mary’s back and brushed a wisp of hair out of the way.

  “Hmm, yes. I don’t think she realised what these are actually for.” Mary pushed the bowl away. “You won’t tell them, will you? Or at least, don’t call them back today. I want them to be out enjoying themselves. And besides”—she dabbed her mouth with a tissue—“I’m feeling a lot better now.”

  Tess eyed her sceptically, seeing her hands clutch again to her stomach. “I’ll get your drug chart,” she said. “Let’s see if we can give you something for the nausea.”

  Later that evening, Tess phoned her mum.

  “Tess? You all right?”

  “Hi, Mam. Sorry it’s late. I didn’t wake you, did I?”

  “No, love. No bloody chance; I’m at work. Hang on, I’ll get Colin to keep an eye on the till. Col! Would you mind, love? It’s our Tess on phone.” There was a rustling as her mum relocated somewhere more private. “There. I’m in the store cupboard now,” she said. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you at work. I just wanted a chat.”

  “Of course, pet, any time, you know that. Just a catch-up was it, or did you have summat particular on your mind? Coz if you didn’t, I can tell you all about idiots we’ve had in this evening. That’ll keep you entertained and no mistake. Colin’s surpassed himself – caught a group of lads trying to nick three packs of Doritos and a bottle of Cinzano. A bottle of Cinzano, would you believe?! Gave them such an earful he reduced them to tears! And then there were—”

  “Mam. I just wanted to say… I know I was mad at you about the letters.”

  Her mother’s voice hushed slightly. “Oh, right. D’you want to talk about this now, pet?”

  “It’s just that, I know I was angry, but I do get it. I know why you did it and I just wanted you to know… that it doesn’t matter. Well, it does, but I’m okay with it, and in the grand scheme of things, it’s like… seeing patients of mine in the hospice at the moment and it just makes me think about… I don’t know.”

  Her mum stayed silent at the other end of the phone.

  “I just wanted you to know how much I love you,” Tess said in a rush. “And that’s the only important thing. I keep seeing people who’ve left it too late and they think, ‘Oh, it’s okay, they know I love them,’ and then they’re gone and the person is left wondering if they should have done more or said more or… I just wanted you to know. That’s all.”

  There was a loud sniff from the other end of the line and a rummaging noise as her mum found a tissue. “Thank you, pet,” she said. “That means a lot. I thought, I really thought I’d blown it. Jake’s still furious, and to be honest, I wondered if you’d ever forgive me… I can’t tell you how much it means to know…” She broke down and started to cry.

  Tess was crying too. “Shit, Mam, sorry. This wasn’t the plan. We’ll have a proper chat okay? Over the weekend maybe? I could pop home for a night?”

  “That’d be lovely.”

  “But it was just for now, I wanted you to know I love you and it’s all okay. I know you’ve only ever wanted the best for me and Jake. He knows it too.”

  Her mother sniffed again. “Got to sort me bloody face out now. Give customers a scare otherwise. Not to mention Colin.”

  “Oh, I think it’ll take more than some streaky mascara to put Colin off, Mam. You finish your shift. I’m going to head off to bed. But I’ll give you a ring tomorrow, and I’ll pop up in few days’ time. See if Jake’s about too?”

  Her mother took a deep shaky breath. “Grand. That’ll be grand. Right, I’ll get back to shop floor.”

  “Love you, Mam.”

  “I love you too, Tessie. So much.”

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Yep. And Tess?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you, pet. You don’t know how much this means to me. Thank you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The heavy clouds thudding across the sky gave the hospice an ominous grey glow the next morning and Mary was unusually subdued. Today they would get the cytology results and find out whether the cancer had spread to her lungs, and Tess wasn’t sure whether her drawn expression was a result of anxiety or nausea, or both. Edward, however, seemed cheerful as he accompanied her to the ambulance. He’d brought another of Harvey’s pictures and a bag of his mum’s favourite sweets for the journey to their appointment at the General, and didn’t appear to notice that she left them untouched. Spending time with his sister and the kids had clearly been just what he needed and Tess was glad to see him smiling and jollying his mother along, even if it seemed to be having little effect.

  By the time they returned it was late afternoon. Mary smiled bravely at Tess as the paramedics helped her back to her room, but Edward did not look at her, focussing only on getting across the foyer. Tess wasn’t sure whether this was deliberate; his face was impassive and she couldn’t read anything into his blank expression, but she was worried. Although the atmosphere between the two of them had mellowed considerably, she had not forgotten his chilling words from their row a few months ago. If there was bad news, he would likely hold her responsible. Sure enough, the television host was around t
o remind her of the potential challenges ahead by muttering about medical negligence claims and charges of manslaughter.

  When she went to check on them later, she found Madeleine sitting at the far end of her mum’s bed. Her cheeks were red and blotchy but she looked up with gratitude as Tess entered the room, seemingly hoping that an additional person may help deflect some of the emotional burden she was struggling with. Edward was sitting by the window, studiously ignoring her. It was not her imagination; he wouldn’t look at her. Instead he rose out of his chair, a tall shadow against the grey light of the window. He cleared his throat and spoke to his mother and sister.

  “I’m just popping out for some fresh air.”

  “Really Edward? It’s chucking it down out there!”

  “I won’t be long.”

  Tess moved aside as he brushed past her. His eyes were averted but she could see that they were tinged with red, and his hand shook as he opened the door to leave. She went to take his seat, still warm from his body, the atmosphere around it still smelling faintly of him.

  “Now.” She leaned forward. “What did the doctors tell you?”

  Mary took a deep breath. “It’s not the greatest news.”

  Madeleine muttered something into her tissue.

  “Dr Brown was very kind but, yes, the fluid they took off my lungs does contain some cancerous cells.”

  “So, it’s spreading.” Madeline’s bald statement was barely audible.

  “Yes, dear. It’s spreading. But I knew that.” Mary smiled bravely at Tess. “It’s fine. I feel much better and that’s the important thing. I’ve tried telling these two”—she gestured round the room and to the door to indicate the absent Edward as well as her daughter—“that what matters now is making the most of the time I have left.”