by Zoe Cook
Lucy looked at Tom. He couldn’t be that ill. He didn’t look that ill. He just looked tired.
‘It had stopped working,’ Tom said, looking at Lucy briefly. ‘It was making me so sick, Mum and Dad were having to care for me like a baby, it was unbearable. And it wasn’t even achieving anything. It was ruining my life. What I’ve got left of it.’
‘What you’ve got left of it?’ Kristian said. ‘What the hell, mate?’
‘I’m not getting better,’ Tom said, firmly. ‘I’m not going to get better.’
Lucy felt like she might collapse onto the floor. ‘Of course you’ll get better,’ she said, reaching for his hand again. He pulled it away.
‘No, Luce, I won’t. There’s nothing left that they can do. It’s game over.’ He tried to smile, but Lucy could see the pain in his eyes. The urge to hold him was overwhelming. She sat next to him, put her head on his chest and spoke into his body. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t understand. This can’t be happening.’
‘I think we should give them a minute,’ Tara said.
Lucy stayed on Tom, her head pressed against him, heaving sobs pulsing through her now. He stroked her hair gently and let her cry.
‘Why didn’t you tell us you were ill?’ Lucy asked eventually. ‘How long?’
‘I was diagnosed a year ago,’ he said, ‘had a few awful headaches, then the seizures started. Mum made me go to the doctors, it all happened pretty quickly.’
‘There has to be more they can do,’ she said, ‘there’s always some trial going on, or research programmes, my friend’s mum had–‘
‘ Don’t, please, Luce’ Tom said, stopping her, putting his hand on her face. ‘I know my options, and I made my choice when the radiotherapy stopped working. I don’t want to go like that. I wanted this – one last proper summer with my best friends, with the girl I love.’
Lucy still couldn’t believe what he was saying, and her mind raced through possibilities.
‘Why aren’t your parents here, if you’re so ill?’ It was as if she might catch him out on a technicality, like he couldn’t actually be this ill if she could just trip him up on a detail.
‘I begged them to go,’ he said. ‘They spent six months taking me back and forth to hospital, carrying me back up to bed, cleaning up my sick. It was absolutely terrible, Luce, it was no life, not for any of us.’
‘And you didn’t tell anyone? How does no one know?’
‘Tara knew,’ Tom said. ‘I had to tell her, she found me once, my second seizure, I think it was. Plus I needed her to run the café for me while I was in treatment. She’s been amazing.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Lucy said, it was all too much. ‘Why is this happening?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tom said. ‘It’s unfair, it’s awful, and there’s nothing at all I can do. Realising that actually set me free, really. Fighting it didn’t work, Luce. I gave it my best shot. I was so convinced that I’d be okay. You hear about those brave people “battling” against cancer and things – that’s what I was going to do, I was all set. Turns out it’s not actually just about positive thinking; it has more to do with how aggressive the cancer is, how quickly it grows. Mine’s a fucking bitch.’
Lucy sat in silence. The machines were still bleeping quietly, a clock ticking on the wall.
‘Do you want me to call your parents?’ she asked eventually, a sudden desire to be helpful.
‘It’s okay, I’ll call them,’ he said, ‘I’ll call them tomorrow. It’s late now and I know they’ll rush back.’
‘Of course they’ll rush back, they’ll want to be here, with you,’ Lucy said, annoyed by his casualness. ‘You can’t not tell them. You should have told us a long time before now.’
‘So you could what, Luce? Rush back from London to see the invalid? You think I wanted you to see me like that? Like this? I spent a month trying not to fall back in love with you because I didn’t want to hurt you like this. But then I realised it was too bloody late because I’d never stopped loving you at all. I knew that the moment I saw you again.’
‘I knew too,’ Lucy said. ‘It’s always been you, Tom. Always.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. Lucy thought she could see tears in his eyes. ‘This isn’t what I had planned. This isn’t what I wanted. I thought you’d come down for a month, and then go, and you wouldn’t get caught up in this messy stuff. I thought you’d be long gone.’
‘How long?’ Lucy asked.
‘What do you mean?’ Tom replied
‘How long have you got?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tom said. ‘Weeks, I guess, at most. My consultant’s speaking to me later, but I don’t think it’ll be longer than weeks. The seizures are back. That means I’m deteriorating. I always knew this would be the first sign.’
Blood pounded in Lucy’s ears. This couldn’t be right. There must be some mistake. She imagined Dr Jenkins arriving and explaining that it had all been a terrible error. Then she looked at Tom, saw the expression on his face and realised with terror that this was actually happening. To Tom. To the love of her life.
‘I only just got you back,’ she whimpered. ‘You can’t leave me, Tom. You can’t leave me too.’
‘I know,’ he said, stroking her face, crying now. ‘I’m so sorry, I should never have brought you back here.’
‘Are you joking?’ Lucy said, looking him in the eyes. ‘You saved me, Tom, this summer, it saved me from myself. I was going to self-destruct in London. I had all these ridiculous ideas about things, and then you asked me to come back, and you brought me home.’
Tom smiled at her and she kissed him. He still smelled of aftershave. She buried her head into his neck and breathed him in, running her hand through his hair.
‘You’re my home,’ she said quietly. ‘You’re everything.’
She must have fallen asleep on the bed with Tom, because the next thing she knew there was a serious-looking man in a suit arriving. He introduced himself as Dr Jenkins, shook her hand and greeted Tom like an old friend. He was a calming influence in the room and Lucy’s fantasy of him sorting everything out and sending Tom away with a telling off for causing such an unnecessary fuss returned briefly. Then he started discussing symptoms with Tom, asking how his pain relief had been working. Lucy remembered the pills in the storeroom, the surfing injury he’d claimed to have had. She had missed the signs.
Lucy excused herself, kissed Tom on the cheek, awkwardly in front of Dr Jenkins, and made her way out of Tom’s room. Kristian and Tara were in the hallway, they both looked exhausted.
‘Nina’s gone home to rest,’ Kristian said, rubbing the back of his head.
‘How is he?’ Tara asked.
‘I don’t really know,’ Lucy said, feeling weak.
‘I think we need to take you home too,’ Kristian said, looking at Lucy.
‘I want to stay,’ she said, ‘I want to be with Tom.’
‘You’d be better off letting him rest, and you won’t be any good to him without a proper night’s sleep yourself,’ Kristian said, kindly.
Lucy knew she wouldn’t sleep, but also knew he was right. The clock on the wall showed it was gone 11pm now.
‘Come on,’ Tara offered her hand to Lucy in an unexpectedly intimate gesture. Lucy took it and they walked together down the hallway, into the lift, and out of the hospital into the cool night air.
‘Can you drop me here?’ Lucy felt Tara’s car slow to a standstill.
‘Here? Are you sure?’ Tara looked confused.
‘Yeah,’ Lucy replied, opening the car door, before leaning back in to kiss Tara on the cheek. ‘I’ll walk the rest of the way. I need the fresh air.’
She closed the door before Tara could reply and watched her pull away slowly, her car lights disappearing over the crest of the dark hill.
Lucy’s heart thudded in her chest, hard but slow. Her body was tired, but her mind raced as she walked towards her old house. Thoughts of Tom flashed into her mind with each step: dis
connected, random images of him, of their life together, of the future. She walked quickly, hoping to chase them away.
She felt numb as the big white house appeared when she turned the corner towards her driveway. The fencing standing between her and her childhood home making it seem like a fortress, but she remembered the spot to the side where Tom had helped her into the garden. She found the dipped section and used a reserve of strength she’d not known she had to pull herself over the wood and metal, landing heavily on the other side.
It was so quiet here. Tucked away behind the supposedly secure fence, she felt as though she was in a different world. She walked to the French windows of the living room and forced them open. A red light blinked quietly in the corner of the ceiling, some kind of alarm or camera, she wasn’t sure which. She began pulling white dustsheets off old and familiar furniture. Dust puffed into the air, lit with moonlight that flooded through the huge windows. Standing back to observe the scene was surreal, her childhood home stood as she’d left it the day she’d left for London. It looked as if it had waited all this time for her. She made her way through the house, floorboards creaking underfoot, opening curtains, removing dustsheets and revealing her old home. Each room was filled with its own distinct memories; Richie’s bedroom with its glow-in-the-dark stars stuck all over the ceiling, still lighting up after all these years; her mother’s dressing table, half-empty perfume bottles still waiting to be finished; her dad’s study, meticulously neat, folders and papers at right angles on his mahogany desk. It should be creepy, Lucy thought. But somehow it all felt comforting.
She thought of her family, of how they’d disappeared from her life in a flash of terror. How she’d spent so many years running away from the memories of them. She’d never really faced up to it, not really said goodbye. She’d just kept on running. She wished her mum was here to talk to about Tom. Making her way back downstairs to the pearly light of the living room, she sat on the soft leather sofa, her body rigid. How long did she have with Tom? She felt as though she’d forgotten everything he’d said. Was it months? Weeks? Or did he not know? It felt separate from her, the pain of it all now. Sitting here, surrounded by ghosts of her childhood, she felt safe and alone all at once. The evidence all around her of how badly she’d handled what had happened to her family spoke to her loudly. She had a chance this time, at least, to say goodbye to Tom, to make the most of him for now. Tears fell down her cheeks as she thought of him in this way, of the ending to their story. How could something like this happen to someone so young, so happy and so alive? It wasn’t fair; but she knew all too painfully that fair didn’t matter, it didn’t count for anything.
Lucy wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly aware of the cold. She took the cashmere throw from the back of the chair behind her and pulled it over her body, lying down on the worn, weathered fabric beneath her. Her eyes stung with tears as she closed them and drifted into an anxious sleep.
37
‘So, you knew,’ Lucy said to Tara, as she lifted a tray of glasses into the dishwasher. She’d offered to help out at the café, welcoming anything that might take her mind off everything.
‘Yeah,’ Tara said. ‘He swore me to secrecy. It was the only way I could get him to ask you to come back here.’ She was standing still, apron on, looking at Lucy sadly.
‘What do you mean ‘get me to come back here’?’
‘He wasn’t going to ask you, Lucy. You know what he’s like. He’s proud. We spoke about it all when he decided to stop his treatment, what he was going to do with this summer. He wanted you all back together; I don’t think he ever really moved on from those summers you all spent together, before you left. I thought it was all pretty straightforward; he’d call you, tell you what was happening and you’d all come down and rally around. But he wouldn’t do it that way.’
Lucy began polishing cutlery, happier to have her hands occupied. Tara carried on speaking.
‘He’s proud, isn’t he? Didn’t want you all knowing he was ill, didn’t want anyone’s pity. He wasn’t going to ask you to come at all. He said it had been too long, that you’d moved on. But, Lucy, the way he talked about you, I knew, really, that he didn’t just miss you as a friend, he was still in love with you. Even after all this time. It was kind of romantic, but sad, really, too. I couldn’t believe he was caught up on some girl he hadn’t seen in however many years.’ She paused.
‘You have no idea how hard it was to convince him to ask you to come down here.’
‘I thought you two were an item,’ Lucy said, shifting awkwardly on the spot. ‘I thought you liked Tom.’
‘Yeah, well, I guess I did once upon a time,’ Tara said, looking away, half-smiling. ‘When I first came down here, I suppose I thought something might happen between us, eventually. But then we became friends and I realised no one had a chance against you – and you weren’t even bloody here. It was mad. And then I met Olly, so that was that.’
Lucy felt a wave of relief that they’d finally got it all out in the open – it shouldn’t have taken this. But her mind spun with what Tara was saying. All that time she’d missed Tom in London, thinking he’d forgotten her, hated her, even, and he’d been down here thinking about her. They’d wasted so much time. She felt tears in her eyes and tried to keep them in by pressing a napkin to her eyes.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,’ Tara said, misunderstanding Lucy’s emotion. ‘It’s been so hard. When Tom was off in Plymouth at hospital, having to lie to you, I hated it. But I had to respect what he wanted and he kept telling me he would tell you all when the time was right. I know this wasn’t what he was planning.’
Lucy looked at Tara, her black eye masked with concealer, the tiny scratches healing on her cheeks. She felt so sorry for her, carrying around Tom’s secret. It must have been horrible for her, she realised.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘You’ve been a real friend to Tom, and you’ve been a friend to me too. I was a bitch when I arrived here. I was so jealous of you – this gorgeous blonde girl, so close to Tom. I totally misjudged it all. And I’m sorry, I must’ve seemed awful.’
‘Not awful,’ Tara smiled. ‘You were just a bit scary. I wanted you to like me.’
‘I do like you,’ Lucy said. ‘A lot.’
‘Have you heard from Tom yet this morning?’ Tara asked, changing the subject.
‘No, Kristian did, though,’ Lucy said. ‘He’s coming home in a couple of days, now he’s stable.’
‘That’s good,’ Tara said, although it sounded like she thought the opposite. ‘Did they say how long they think he has?’
‘No’ Lucy said, ‘Kristian didn’t say, but Tom said weeks, I think. I just can’t believe it, Tara. How is this happening?’
‘I don’t know,’ Tara said. ‘The whole thing’s been fucking crazy, just the absolute worst. He was fine, surfing every day, working here, then the next thing he’s having a seizure and then he’s in hospital. His mum sat me down and told me he had a tumour. I couldn’t even believe it, not until I saw him.’ Tara was talking quickly, the words pouring out now the terrible secret had been revealed.
‘The radiotherapy was just awful for him. It nearly destroyed him, I think, being that dependent on his parents, being so weak –’ Tara stopped to wipe her eyes on her apron. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘I just still can’t really believe it. It was like he was better, when he stopped going to the hospital each week, he became Tom again, and now this, it’s all happening. We always knew it would come, but I think I’d kind of pushed it away, started to forget. He’s been so bloody happy with you all back here, it’s just so fucking unfair.’
The involvement of the air ambulance had made Tom’s collapse on the cliff path big news in the town. After keeping it all a secret for over a year, suddenly everyone knew he was in hospital, even if they didn’t know why or how serious it was. A stream of people came into the café to ask how he was and to send their love. Lucy thanked them, told them he’d be home in a couple of
days, tried not to get upset in front of them. The tourists, of course, had no idea that anything, everything, had changed; they were still on holiday, still enjoying themselves. Lucy served them with a smile. It helped to take her mind off things for a few seconds at a time.
Olly came in at lunchtime and kissed Tara on the lips in the middle of the restaurant. Lucy watched him walk through the door, spot his girlfriend and march purposefully over to her and kiss her like he had a point to prove. She understood. It was the kind of news that made you want to grab hold of the people you love and hold them tight so you’d never lose them. She thought about her kiss with Tom on the beach, how electricity had jolted into her, how it felt like coming back to life. He loves me, she remembered, and he’s going to die.
She had called Claire when she got back to the house last night. It had been too late for phone calls, really, but she’d needed to hear Claire’s voice. Claire had been in shock when she told her. There had been a long silence, then she’d let out a terrible sob and they’d cried together. Eventually she asked Lucy what she was going to do, and Lucy had realised right there and then that she couldn’t go back to London, couldn’t go back to her job. It all seemed so obvious; of course she’d stay here. Tom needed her. Helping at the café gave her a practical way of helping out for now. And she wanted to be with Tom, after all the time they’d been apart they suddenly had this countdown clock over their heads and she wasn’t going to miss any more. She thought of him in his hospital bed: pale, weak, but still her Tom. Still those big arms, that hair, his smile. She was going to go and see him this evening. She was going to take him some surf magazines and she was going to climb onto that bed and lie down next to him and hold him and never let go.
‘What time do his parents arrive?’ Tara asked as they cleaned the café after closing early for the evening.
‘I’m not sure, late, I think,’ Lucy said. She couldn’t wait to see them again. She just wished it wasn’t because Tom was in hospital.
