From Christmas to Eternity

by Caroline Anderson

  The sound made her breath hitch, and she closed her eyes and squeezed them tight shut.

  Why had he come back? She was just getting her head around being here without him, and now he was back and she felt unsettled and restless and sad.

  Was it just guilt about the children that had brought him back tonight? Or had he intended to try and win her round, but she’d put him off by being defensive?

  She’d seen the look in his eyes when he was talking to the girls, when he’d first walked in, and he’d looked—gosh—grief stricken, for a moment? So did that mean her plan was working, that finally it had sunk in just how much he was needed by all of them? How much he hurt them every time he broke a promise?

  He’d shut himself away now—keeping out of her way so as not to intrude? She didn’t think so. And he wasn’t really working, despite what he’d said. If he’d been working, he would have been in his study as usual.

  Maybe he felt it wasn’t his any more, but that was ridiculous because he was the only one who used it, by and large. Their books were stored in there, shelf after shelf of reference books and novels and autobiographies, DIY books and How-To books, all the family photograph albums from their first holiday together through to Lottie’s first few months, and all their household bills and things were filed in the cupboards at the bottom, along with all the important stuff, like birth certificates and their marriage certificate and the wills.

  But it was his study, always had been, and recently it had been the place he’d retreated to more and more. So why not tonight?

  She went down to the kitchen and saw an open bottle of wine on the side. He must have taken a glass upstairs.

  She poured herself a glass and hesitated. Should she go up to him? Talk to him again, find out what was really motivating him? Maybe he was waiting for her, hoping she’d go up to him.

  Maybe that was why he’d chosen a bedroom, she thought, rather than the study, and she ran her tongue over suddenly dry lips.

  She felt a fizzle inside her, a tingle of something that could have been fear or then might have been excitement. She sipped the wine, put it down and squared her shoulders. Only one way to find out, she told herself, and headed for the stairs.

  Then stopped, and walked back into the kitchen.

  No. She wasn’t going to make it that easy for him. If he wanted to make it up to her, to them, then he could come and talk to her. He knew where she was, and she was damned if she was going to fold first. And anyway, she reminded herself, nothing had changed. He’d been four hours later tonight than he’d said he’d be.

  No. Let him sweat.

  Ignoring the wine, she made herself a cup of tea, went through some information from the practice, watched a little television and went to bed, to find the lingering scent of his aftershave clinging to the sheets and tormenting her dreams.

  * * *

  He was up and showered and dressed by the time Lottie woke, and he went down and scooped her out of her cot and cuddled her as he carried her into their bedroom.

  ‘Someone needs you,’ he said, and Lucy emerged from the bedclothes looking rumpled and warm and so beautiful he nearly weakened.

  ‘You’re dressed.’

  ‘I’ve got an early appointment,’ he said glibly, kissing Lottie and handing her over.

  ‘When are you going to see the children again?’

  He sucked in his breath silently. ‘I don’t know,’ he said honestly. ‘I’ll give you a call.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Good luck with work today. Hope it goes well.’

  ‘Thanks. It’s only the morning. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘I’m sure you will.’

  Then, because he just couldn’t help himself, because she was propped up against the pillows with Lottie suckling noisily at her breast and the scene was tearing holes in his heart, he leant over and pressed his mouth to hers in a hard, brief kiss of farewell.

  ‘Goodbye, Lucy,’ he said.

  And then before he could make a fool of himself and pour it all out, he walked away, glancing in on the girls just to torture himself a little more before he carried his bag downstairs. He left his laptop in the study. He wouldn’t need it today. Maybe never.

  He let himself out of the front door as the taxi drew up outside, and as it pulled away he glanced back and saw Lucy standing at the bedroom window. He lifted a hand, and then looked away before he crumbled and asked the driver to stop.

  He had to do this—had to go to the hospital and face the future, and he had to do it alone.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  RAJ was waiting for him in the MRI suite, and he shook his hand and then ushered him through to the changing cubicle.

  ‘You know the form. I’m afraid you need to take everything off and put on the gown. There’s a locker you can put your things in. Any metalwork we need to know about?’ he asked, and Andy shook his head.

  ‘No. All me.’

  ‘Good. Don’t forget to take off your watch and any jewellery, and come out when you’re done. We’re ready to go.’

  No time to run away, then.

  Not that he was going to, but it was ludicrously tempting.

  He was taken through to the MRI scanner and lay down on the bed, his head towards the hollow tube where the scan would take place. Someone connected him up to the headphones, and left him there.

  This was it, then. He’d get his answers now, thanks to this miracle machine which could see inside him with astonishing clarity. For a second, he wished it had never been invented.

  ‘Right, lie as still as you can, but breathe normally,’ a voice said through the headphones, and the scanner bed started to move.

  He’d told people about them, but he’d never understood what noisy, confined things they were until he was posted into it. He hated tight spaces, always had, and his pulse rocketed.

  He fought the fear, crushed it down as the thing whirred and clonked for what seemed like an age, and then at last it was over and they slid him out and Raj came and stood beside him.

  ‘OK?’

  ‘I’ll live,’ he said, and wondered if that was actually true. ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘Sure. Get your clothes on and we’ll go up to my office.’

  Five minutes later Raj sat him down as they scrolled through the images.

  Shocking images, of the mass inside his head.

  They weren’t meaningless to him, of course, and certainly not meaningless in terms of their possible implications, but he knew Raj could understand far more from these slices of his brain than he ever would.

  ‘I can’t give you any definite answers,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m sorry, the only way is a biopsy, and I need to refer you for that. This is going to take specialist equipment we simply don’t have, and I want to fast-track you. I won’t beat about the bush, this is big, and I think you’re deteriorating fast now. Do you have any preference for neurosurgeons?’

  He felt a wave of nausea and crushed it. ‘Yes. David Cardew. I trained with him, and I still see him quite often at conferences and things. I think he’s got a good reputation.’

  Raj nodded. ‘He is good. Do you want to give him a call, or shall I?’

  ‘I’d better break the news first. Will you talk to him then?’

  ‘Sure.’

  He called his old college friend, and got his voicemail, so he rang the hospital and was put through to his secretary.

  ‘I’ll get him to call you straight away,’ she promised, and two minutes later his mobile rang.

  ‘Andy, hi, how’re you doing?’

  ‘Not great,’ he said without preamble. ‘David, I’ve got a problem. A mass on the left side of my temporal lobe. It’s over Broca’s, and it’s not small.’

  David swore softly. ‘Got the scans? Who�
�s your consultant?’

  ‘Rajiv Patel. He wants to fast-track me. He’s right here with me—want to talk to him?’

  ‘If I could.’

  He handed the phone over, and sat there listening to a one-sided conversation that he’d rather not have heard. There was the truth, after all, and then the whole truth.

  Frankly, he could have done with a bunch of lies.

  ‘He wants to talk to you again.’

  He took the phone back. ‘Get everything you need?’

  ‘Yeah. Give me a few minutes to look at these—Raj is sending them over now. I’ll call you, but from what he says, you need a biopsy. I’ve got a slot tomorrow, if that helps.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘I can’t do it today, much as I’d like to.’

  He laughed. ‘I didn’t expect you to. I was thinking, maybe, a week or so.’

  ‘No. Let me look at the images, and I’ll come right back to you.’

  He slid the phone back into his pocket and met Raj’s eyes. ‘So—he says he could do the biopsy tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry, Andy. I wish I could have told you something better, but I can’t. You’ll be in good hands, though.’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks, Raj. I’ll let you know what he says.’

  He got himself a coffee from the café and went and sat in his car outside, for want of anywhere more private to wait, and while he was there he called the garage and asked them to collect the car and service it. He couldn’t just leave it at the hospital indefinitely and at least they could return it to his home.

  * * *

  ‘Well, I think it’s a meningioma, arising from the arachnoid membrane surrounding the brain, rather than a tumour in the cerebral cortex itself,’ David said when he called back a short while later.

  ‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’ he asked, checking before he allowed himself to feel relieved.

  ‘Very good news. If you’re going to have a brain tumour, it’s the one to have. That said, it’s pretty extensive. It’s right over Broca’s area, which seems to control the way we express words rather than understand them. I understand from Raj you’ve got a slight speech loss—expressive aphasia, so you can understand everything but not speak as fluently, and it’s also affecting the motor control of your right side, especially your hand, but that you can understand everything that’s said. Does that make sense to you, fit your symptoms?’

  ‘Yes. Mostly I’m fine. It’s only complicated stuff, really, or odd things that I’m having trouble with. And my right hand’s been shaking for a while, off and on. I thought it was just stress and tiredness. It’s all much worse when I’m tired.’

  ‘Yes. It would be, because you’re compensating with all the day-to-day things, and it’s only the really high-level stuff that you’ve lost at this stage. So—surgery. I’m pretty sure I’m right about it being a meningioma, so I think we’ll bypass the biopsy and just cut to the chase. I’d like to operate tomorrow, if that’s all right with you?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ he echoed, shocked. ‘I thought you’d only have time to do a biopsy?’

  ‘No. I had a long elective procedure booked, but the patient’s had to cancel, he’s got flu. So I have a long enough slot. Otherwise we might be talking a couple of weeks and from what Raj has said, I don’t want to leave you any longer than I have to. Can you get down here today so we can run a few more tests and take a thorough history?’

  ‘Um—sure. Where’s the clinic?’

  ‘I’ll email you the link. It’s easy to find. And don’t worry about it, Andy. We’ll get you sorted. This is the kind of stuff I deal with every day.’

  Was it? He was glad he was sitting down, because he felt the blood leave his head and a wave of nausea swept over him. It suddenly all seemed incredibly real. ‘Um—how are you intending to do it?’

  ‘Awake craniotomy. It’s too large for an endoscopic technique, and I need access to the margins to make sure I’ve got it all. And I need you awake because of the speech implications. We’ll need to map the language areas.’

  Under normal circumstances he would have found the idea fascinating. Not today. ‘Can you tell from the scans if it’s benign or malignant?’

  ‘Not without a biopsy which we’ll do at the same time, but it hasn’t invaded the cerebral cortex or the dura as far as I can tell from the scans, so that’s a positive sign. However, it does look as if it’s following some of the tight fissures in Broca’s area. And that has implications for the prognosis.’

  He didn’t like the sound of that. ‘Permanent implications?’ he asked warily.

  ‘I hope not. It could, however, be significant post-op. You might find you lose your speech totally or almost totally for a while until the swelling and bruising caused by the surgery has healed and your brain’s recovered from the sustained pressure of the tumour. That’s why I want to do it as soon as possible.’

  ‘How long’s a while?’ he asked, wondering if he’d ever practise medicine again. Not if he couldn’t speak fluently, couldn’t pull important information out and share it, that was for sure.

  ‘Days. Weeks. Months, possibly, for the really high-level stuff to come back.’

  ‘So I’ll be off work for a long time?’

  ‘Maybe. I’m hoping it won’t be too long. Maybe a couple of months.’

  ‘But that’s assuming it’s not malignant and it hasn’t migrated into the brain tissue?’

  ‘Andy, this is all speculation. I can’t tell you any more until I’ve operated on you tomorrow. And I really need to do it while you’re awake. Are you OK with that?’

  Was he? He sucked in a long, slow breath, and nodded. It was the best way. He’d seen documentaries about it but now it had a new relevance, so last night he’d been reading up on it, watching video clips on the internet, and knew that they used electrodes to identify parts of the brain used for specific functions, so they knew which parts were important for which tasks. And for that mapping process, he’d have to be awake and responsive.

  He swallowed. ‘Yes. I’m fine with it.’

  And then he thought about Lucy, and shut his eyes.

  ‘I should tell my wife.’

  ‘You still haven’t told her?’

  ‘No. I wanted to know more.’ And now he did, there was no excuse for delaying.

  ‘Do you want me to talk to her?’

  ‘No. I’ll tell her. It’ll be better coming from me.’

  But she rejected his call. She was probably still at work, he told himself, but even so, he needed her, needed that contact desperately, and as he walked home to pack his bags, he felt more isolated than he’d ever felt in his life.

  * * *

  She didn’t answer the phone.

  She was in a café with Daisy Walker, with Lottie and Daisy’s Thomas in high chairs making a mess with biscuits, and they were talking about nothing in particular while her heart was quietly breaking. She’d watched him go this morning, seen him wave, and it had seemed so—so final, really. She’d really hoped, now the exam was out of the way, that finally they’d talk and find a way to bridge this gulf between them, but he hadn’t shown any sign of wanting to talk to her last night, and she’d hardly been able to concentrate all morning at work.

  She was glad she’d arranged to meet Daisy for coffee after she’d finished her surgery. Anything rather than sitting at home and wallowing in self-pity for the rest of the day.

  And when the phone rang, she hesitated, just in case it was him, but she couldn’t ignore it. It might be the school.

  It wasn’t. It was Andy.

  She hesitated, then rejected the call. She didn’t want to talk to him now. She’d call him back later, when she was alone. But not yet.

  ‘How about another coffee?’ she asked Daisy brightly. ‘I can’t be bothered to
go home and tackle the washing.’

  ‘Nor can I. I’ll get them. What was yours? Skinny decaf cappuccino?’

  ‘Please.’

  But then it ran again, while Daisy was still rummaging in her bag for her purse, and she answered it this time.

  ‘Andy, I’m a bit busy at the moment, I’m having coffee with Daisy. Will it keep?’

  ‘Not really. I need to talk to you pretty urgently.’

  ‘I only saw you this morning. How can it be that urgent?’ she asked, impatient with him because everything—everything—always had to be done to suit him, and she’d spent the whole morning in knots.

  ‘D’you know what? Forget it,’ he said crisply, and hung up.

  And then Daisy’s phone rang. ‘Sorry, I need to take this, it’s Ben,’ she said, and she answered it, then looked across at Lucy and frowned thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know. No, she hasn’t mentioned it and she’s just spoken to him. Yes, I’ll ask her. OK, darling. Thank you.’

  She sat down again. ‘Lucy, that was Ben,’ she said softly. ‘He said to ask you how Andy is.’

  ‘Andy? I don’t know. He was fine this morning when he went to work. Why?’

  ‘Because he didn’t go to work today. He’s off sick, apparently, and Ben saw him coming out of Raj Patel’s office. And yesterday he had a CT scan.’

  ‘What?’

  Her blood ran cold. Raj was a neurologist. And he’d had a CT scan? Why hadn’t he told her last night? Was that what he’d been phoning to tell her just now? And she’d all but told him to go to hell...

  ‘Lucy?’ Daisy took Lucy’s hands in hers, her face concerned. ‘Talk to me.’

  ‘He just rang me,’ she said, her voice sounding hollow and far away. ‘He said it was urgent, and I told him I was busy. Daisy, I’ve got to go to him. I had no idea there was anything wrong...’

  She broke off, sucking in a breath, trying to keep calm.

  ‘What can I do?’ Daisy asked, quietly and calmly taking command of the situation.

  Oh, help, the children. ‘Could you have Lottie? Just for now. I don’t even know where he is.’