‘Maybe,’ she said, but she hesitated. There was so much he didn’t know, so much she still had to tell him, and until it was out in the open, she really didn’t want to get into the whole formal dinner thing. It just seemed wrong, and she didn’t know how she could sit there and pretend that everything was all right.
‘How about coming round to mine for supper in the meantime?’ she suggested. ‘And maybe this time we’ll get to finish our meal.’
And that all-important conversation.
‘That would be good. My sister Beth’s coming over this evening with her brood to see Jamie and Mum, but I could do tomorrow or Wednesday.’
‘Make it Wednesday,’ she said, suddenly wanting to stall this whole thing and wishing she’d never brought it up. ‘Seven-thirty? I’ve got a clinic before, so I can’t get away too early.’
‘Seven-thirty’s fine,’ he said, and then patted her on the bottom. ‘Come on, off my lap, gorgeous, before I get too distracted to work. I’ve got a rammed surgery this morning, and a load of visits, and that’s before the phone line’s been open for more than five minutes!’
He was right, it was a hectic day, and Tuesday was no better.
By Wednesday she’d managed to work herself up into a frenzy about their meal—well, more specifically the conversation after it—and the last thing she wanted at a busy well-woman clinic was children running around. Not with what she was going to have to tell Sam later, anyway. And there were three of them, the O’Grady children—although one wasn’t running anywhere, and she frowned at him.
Liam. She knew him—and he was normally as lively as a cricket. He must be going down with something, she thought, and then dismissed it as she worked her way through her list of patients.
Until she got to the last, Siobhan O’Grady and her little brood, and then as she ushered the children in, Gemma glanced down at Liam and frowned again. He had bruises on his arm, big bruises, like finger marks, and she thought, No, not Siobhan. She was a wonderful mother. And the father was a nice man, a policeman. So what…?
‘Hello, Liam,’ she said, crouching down beside him. ‘You’re very quiet today, you’re normally tearing around. Aren’t you feeling well?’
He shook his head, and Siobhan said worriedly, ‘No, I don’t think he can be, he’s been so quiet, you know, and he’s not the quietest child. And he’s so pale. I thought, if it went on much longer, I ought to bring him to the doctor and have him checked out, but perhaps you could have a look at him since he’s here with me now, just in case he’s picked something up at school.’
‘Of course, you’re at school now! What a big boy. Can I have a look at you, Liam? Want to pop up here?’
And she lifted him carefully to the couch and sat him on the edge and studied him. And her heart began to pound slowly. ‘How long has he had the bruises?’
‘Oh, I hadn’t even seen them! Good grief, there’re dreadful! Niall, what have you been doing to your brother?’
‘Nothing! I didn’t do nothing, I swear!’
But alarm bells were ringing, and Gemma lifted trembling fingers and felt the sides of Liam’s neck. Peas. Chains of peas, running down each side, and under his chin, and in his armpits.
‘I think we need to get a doctor to have a look at you, my little fellow,’ she said, lifting him down and putting him carefully onto a chair. ‘Siobhan, stay here with them, I’ll be back in a moment.’
And she went out of the door, closed it behind her and took a long, steadying breath. Thank heavens there was nobody in the waiting room, because she was shaking like a leaf, her heart was racing and she thought at any moment she might be sick.
Her legs wobbling, she walked down the stairs and over to Reception. ‘Is there a doctor free?’
‘No—oh, yes, someone’s just come out of Sam’s consulting room. Nip in now, quickly,’ Hazel said, and she thought, of all the doctors, but maybe he was the right one, and maybe this would open the gates to that conversation.
She tapped on the door and went in, and he glanced up and his eyes softened and he smiled at her. ‘Hello, my gorgeous girl. What can I do for you—? Gemma? Are you all right? What is it?’ He got up and crossed over to her, a frown pleating his brow, and she forced herself to smile.
‘It’s not me.’ Not this time. ‘It’s a little boy upstairs—Liam O’Grady. He’s tired, pale, listless, his glands are up.’ She swallowed. ‘And he’s bruising.’
Sam frowned and tilted his head to one side. ‘Leukaemia?’
‘I think so.’
‘Oh, hell. Right. Who’s with him?’
‘His mother, and his brother and baby sister.’
‘Is there a father?’
‘Yes. He’s a policeman. He’ll be at work—he’s in the CID.’
‘OK. I’ll come up. They’ll have to take him straight over to St Piran for blood tests, if you’re right, and then they’ll let them know in the next day or so, I guess.’
Or sooner…
‘Has she got a car?’
‘Yes. She lives up near me, I see her quite often.’
‘Right, let’s go and have a look at him—Liam, did you say?’
‘Yes.’
And she led the way back up, hoping she was wrong, hoping that Sam would tell her she was imagining it, that this dear, delightful little boy wouldn’t have to go through the hell of—
‘Siobhan, this is Dr Cavendish.’
‘Sam! Oh, I’m so pleased it’s you!’ Siobhan said, her eyes filling.
He smiled warmly. ‘Hello, Siobhan. Long time no see. We were in the same year at school,’ he explained to Gemma. ‘So, which of these little men is Liam?’
‘He is,’ Niall said, and Sam, having already zeroed in on Liam, nodded and crouched down beside his chair.
‘Hello, Liam. I’m Dr Sam. I’m an old friend of your mummy’s. Can I have a look at you, do you think?’ And at Liam’s nod, he lifted him onto the couch, laid him down and gave him a gentle but thorough examination. And then he pulled the T-shirt down over his skinny little chest, straightened up and met Siobhan’s worried eyes.
‘It’s serious, isn’t it?’ she whispered. ‘Holy Mother of God, Sam, tell me it’s not serious.’
‘Gemma, have we got any toys?’
‘Of course. I’ll just…’ She stuck her head round the other treatment-room door, where Lara had just finished her clinic. ‘Lara? I wonder, would you mind playing with the children for a moment? They’re a bit bored in here.’
‘I’m sure I’ve got lots of toys. Shall we go and have a look?’ And Lara smiled at the children, scooped Liam up gently and held her hand out to little Caitlin.
And as the door shut behind them, Siobhan started to shake uncontrollably. ‘So—come on, Sam, for the love of God tell me!’
‘He’s going to have to have some blood tests, and then the haematologist will talk to you, but, yes, I’m afraid it may well be serious, Siobhan. I’m very sorry.’
‘But…’ Her eyes swivelled to Gemma’s, desperately seeking reassurance. ‘No. Tell me—tell me it’s not leukaemia.’
So she had known, or suspected. Oh, dear help her, poor woman, Gemma thought with a detached part of her brain, because the rest of her was screaming in denial and just wanted to run away, as far and as fast as she could.
‘I’m sorry, but it’s the most probable cause of his symptoms. They’ll take blood, and as soon as they have the results, which is usually within hours, they’ll do a bone-marrow biopsy if it’s indicated, and then if that confirms it they’ll start chemotherapy straight away, possibly tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow!’ she gasped, sagging into a chair and staring at Gemma open-mouthed. ‘No! They can’t! My baby!’
‘Siobhan, it may not be. They have to test for it, but—’
‘But you know, don’t you? You know. Oh, God, I want Sean. Can I call him now?’
‘Of course you can,’ Sam said, but she couldn’t hold her phone, far less speak, so Sam took it from her and asked her
husband to come down to the surgery, while Gemma sat beside her and held her hands and waited.
And then, because he’d only been at the other end of Harbour Road, Sean was dropped off by the patrol car he’d been in and was shown up to the room, and Siobhan threw herself sobbing into his arms and Sam filled him in on what they suspected.
‘So—what’s the prognosis?’ Sean asked directly, meeting Sam’s eyes head on, and Sam shrugged.
‘I can’t tell you. We don’t even know if it is leukaemia. We do know that it’s a classic presentation, but that’s all. He will have to have the blood test to be sure, and the bone marrow biopsy to confirm it and to indicate the best treatment, and only then will you have any idea—but treatment is better than it’s ever been, and children do survive this in great numbers. But you have to have it confirmed, and until then, there’s no point in torturing yourselves.’
Out of the corner of his eye Sam saw Gemma shake her head slightly, as if to clear it, and then he looked more closely. She was chalky grey, her fists were clenched and her knuckles white, and she was shaking. All over.
‘Gemma?’
She jerked to her feet. ‘I’ll go and see how the children are. You take as long as you need. We’ll be next door.’
She went out, closing the door behind her with trembling fingers, and then took a moment to breathe in deeply before following the sound of giggling. She dredged up a smile. ‘Hello, all. How are you doing?’
‘What’s wrong with Mummy?’ Liam asked, and she crouched down beside him and swallowed hard.
‘Nothing, sweetheart. She just needed to talk to the doctor, and we thought it would be boring for you all.’
‘Is it because I’m sick?’
Oh, hell. But experience had taught her that honesty was the best policy, and age was no barrier to understanding. It was just a case of pitching it right, and she had no idea if she would. But she had to answer him, because he was waiting, and so she nodded slowly. ‘Yes. She’s worried, but she would be. You’re her big boy, and you aren’t feeling well, and she wants you to be better.’
‘So will I have to have medicine?’
She nodded. ‘I think so. The first thing is you’ll need to go to the hospital and they’ll need to take a little bit of blood from you.’
‘With a needle?’ he asked, his eyes wide, and she remembered that Liam hated needles. Passionately. His pre-school booster had been a work of art to get into him, and had taken her weeks of patient persuasion.
‘Yes,’ she said, because there was no point in lying. ‘Yes, there will be a needle, but they’ll be very gentle.’
‘No! I don’t want to go to the hospital! I want you to do it here!’
And then Sam was sticking his head round the door and frowning. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Liam wants me to take his blood.’
The frown grew deeper. ‘How?’
How what? How would she do it? Or how did Liam know? How had she been so stupid as to tell him?
‘He asked if he would have to have medicine, and so I told him the truth,’ she said simply, and after a moment, Sam nodded.
‘OK. I’ll ring the hospital. It might be possible for you to do that. I’ll ask.’
‘No, let me. I’ll know what bottles we have and if we can do it. Liam, stay here with Lara and Caitlin and Niall, and I’ll be back in a moment, OK?’
He shook his head. ‘I want to come.’
She looked at Sam, and he shrugged, as much as to say, Well, it’s his illness, and you know him. Your call.
‘Come on, then,’ she said, holding out her hand, and when they were back in the other room, he went straight to his mother and climbed on her knee and sat there, watching Gemma as she explained what she’d told him.
‘But, Liam, you have to realise that if I take your blood today and they say you need to go to hospital for your medicine, you’ll have to go. I can’t do it here. So although I may be able do this first bit, I can’t do any more. You do understand that, don’t you? It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just that they have special people to do it, and they’re very good. They have lots of children there, and they know how to do it so it doesn’t hurt and they can look after you.’
His chin wobbled a bit, but then he nodded.
‘OK, let’s ring them,’ she said, and dialled the hospital number and asked for Jo in Haematology, while Sam watched her thoughtfully.
‘Hi, it’s Gemma Johnson at Penhally Bay Surgery—hi, Jo. No, I know. It’s about a patient this time,’ she said, and he thought, What an odd remark, as if she knew the person on the other end and talked to them about other things. What other things? Maybe she’d had some training there or knew them socially. Whatever, she was still talking, and the part of him that wasn’t trying to work out the sub-text was listening.
‘We have a child with suspected ALL—can I do the bloods here? He’s needle phobic and we’ve been working together on this, so he wants me to do it. No, they can bring them up straight away. OK, tell me what I’ll need, and I can do that.’
She scribbled down the tests that would be required, and the tubes she’d need, then thanked Jo and hung up, then smiled at Liam. And if you didn’t know her well, she looked fine now, he thought, except for something in her eyes, some shadow that haunted them. But what? What was going on here?
‘OK, Liam, I can do it here, so do you want to lie down or stay on Mummy’s lap?’
‘Mummy,’ he mumbled round his thumb, snuggling closer, and Sam could see his eyes beginning to fill.
Oh, hell, so were his. He blinked hard and concentrated on Gemma, ready to step in if she needed help, but she seemed to be managing fine. More than fine. Except for the look in her eyes.
‘Right. I’m going to put a little strap round your arm to stop all the blood in it from disappearing back into your body and running away from me, and then I can find a tiny little vein and get some out. Here, pull this end and stick it on there—no, bit tighter—that’s lovely. Oh, yes, look, here’s a lovely little vein. I’ll put some special magic jelly on it like we did before, and then it won’t hurt a bit. Now, do you know what colour your blood’s going to be when it comes out?’ she asked, and he nodded.
‘Red,’ he said. ‘Timmy had a nosebleed in the playground last week and it was bright red.’
‘Well, that’s a funny thing, because when it comes out and hits the air, it changes to bright red, but when it’s in your arm, it’s actually quite dark, almost purple.’
‘Purple?’ he said, giggling. ‘No, it’s not purple!’
‘Shall we see? I tell you what, shall we ask Mummy to hold your hand out here for me, so I can see better? That’s lovely, Siobhan, just hold it straight on your arm like that. Fantastic. Right—red or purple?’
‘Red!’
And with a chuckle, she slid the needle in, clipped the first bottle on and they watched it fill.
‘It is purple!’ Liam said. ‘I thought it would be red!’
‘I wonder what colour the next one will be?’ she asked, swapping bottles, and in the end she had several, and to Liam’s disappointment not one of them was red.
‘But,’ she said, pressing a swab over his vein as she drew the needle out, ‘when we take this swab off in a minute, I bet you the blood on it’s red.’
‘Wow. That’s really odd,’ Liam said, resting back against his mother and watching as Gemma wrote his name on all the labels.
‘OK, you need to take these in straight away, and go to the haematology lab and ask for Jo. She’s expecting you. And they’ll process them immediately.’ She ruffled Liam’s hair. ‘Well done, sport. You’re a good boy. And don’t worry, they’ll look after you.’
‘What about Niall and Caitlin?’ Sean asked, and she could see he was pale and hanging on to his control by a thread.
‘Is there someone you can leave them with for now?’
‘My mother—we’ll drop them round there on our way. I’ll ring her from the car. Gemma, th
ank you so much.’
Siobhan broke off, and Gemma bent and hugged them both, mother and son, then said, ‘Right—what colour is the swab?’
And lifting it away to replace it with a little plaster, she showed it to Liam.
‘It’s red!’ he said. ‘So I was right!’
‘Yes, we both were. Clever, eh? Now, you need to keep your finger on that for a while to make sure the bleeding’s stopped, OK? Good boy. Right, here are the bottles,’ she said, handing the plastic bags to Sean. ‘Let us know.’
‘We will,’ Sean promised, and he ushered his family out, with Sam following, while she sank down into her chair and closed her eyes.
She felt drained, exhausted, and her mind was whirling, dragging her back down into the vortex, and she had to get out of here. Had to escape, to run away, to forget the awfulness, the fear, the terrible loneliness of that dreadful journey that Liam and his family were about to make.
A journey she knew all too well…
What the hell was going on with Gemma?
Sam wanted to go back up, to see her, to get to the bottom of it, but his patients were backed up wall to wall, and when he rang her room, there was no reply. Damn. And he couldn’t see the car park from his surgery, so he had no idea if she’d left the building, but—she’d said she had a late surgery tonight, and he was going round for a meal at seven-thirty, so she should be here.
Maybe she’d taken Lara’s room? Or gone to the loo, or made herself a cup of tea. The waiting room upstairs had been empty, he remembered, and told himself not to worry. There were other things demanding his attention, and he could think about her later.
Except he couldn’t get her out of his mind, and he kept replaying the scene with Liam over and over in his head. She’d been so good with him, and she’d known so much about it. Almost too much. As if…
Cold dread washed over him as the thought crystallised. No. It couldn’t have been her, but maybe a member of her family had suffered from it—perhaps a sibling who’d died? But he knew she only had one brother, and she hadn’t mentioned it, and he was sure—absolutely sure—that she would have done.
Brides of Penhally Bay - Vol 4 Page 13
