by Zoe Cook
At the door, the woman stopped her to hand her a greasy paper bag. ‘Are you alright, dear? Can I call someone for you?’
Lucy told her she was fine, there was no need to call anyone, and left the café with her sandwich.
It’s already fucking happened, you moron, she thought. The world just carries on as normal, but mine is falling apart all over again.
With the imposing hospital building in sight, Lucy took her phone from her pocket and dialed Spectrum’s number. An unfamiliar receptionist answered and she asked to speak to Lydia. It was the kind of call that a week ago would have sent her heart racing, but today felt like the simplest thing in the world.
‘Lucy?’ Lydia answered with typical brusqueness.
‘Hi,’ Lucy said. ‘Look, I’m sorry to let you down, but I’ve had a change of circumstances here. I’m not going to be coming back to London for a while, not for a few weeks at least.’
There was silence from Lydia.
‘What the actual fuck,’ came her eventual reply. ‘Are you fucking joking?’
‘No,’ Lucy said, calmly. ‘I wouldn’t be doing this unless I had to. You know me well enough to know that. I don’t have a choice.’Lydia let out a nasty laugh. ‘Of course you have a choice, Lucy, you’re just fucking it all up again. I can’t believe this.’
Lucy could hear a commotion in the background. Was that Emma’s voice? There was a stifled exchange and a rustle before Emma’s voice sounded down the line.
‘Lucy, if you do this you will never work in TV again. I’ll see to it. I’ve held this position open for you for weeks. Do you know how lucky you are to have this chance after the stunt you pulled?’
‘I know, I’m sorry,’ Lucy hadn’t expected to have to speak to Emma directly, but still she couldn’t muster the usual panic this exchange would have caused.
‘My friend, my boyfriend, has cancer. He is dying,’ she said, factually. ‘He has a few weeks to live, Emma. I’m not going to come back tomorrow. He needs me.’ There was a pause. ‘Well, we need you here,’ came the reply, taking even Lucy, with her years of experience with Emma, by surprise.
‘And unless you are some kind of cancer specialist now and are planning on curing him, it doesn’t sound like you’re much use down there anyway. We’ve all made sacrifices for our careers, Lucy.’
Lucy searched for the words to reply, but found none. Emma couldn’t have done any more to convince her that her decision to stay was entirely right.
‘Thank you for the opportunities you gave me,’ she said, after an uncomfortable pause, and she ended the call before Emma could speak again.
39
‘I suppose it should be okay,’ Karen was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of tea, Kristian standing in front of her, big eyes pleading.
‘We’ll keep it low key,’ he said. ‘Won’t we Lucy?’
‘Yes, of course we will,’ Lucy said, pouring herself a glass of water from the fridge.
‘Well, okay then. I’ll help him get ready.’ Karen placed her empty china cup onto the marble work surface.
Tom’s condition had shocked the group over the past few days. The rate of his decline unexpected, although not to his medical team, it seemed. He was on a cocktail of drugs, which kept the pain at bay and reduced the pressure in his skull, but he was weakening. Lucy could see it each day – a little more of his strength gone. He hadn’t been able to leave the house, and seeing Kristian return from the beach each morning was taking its toll on his spirit – he had confided as much in Lucy. It was heartbreaking to see him like this. It had been Lucy’s idea to take him to the beach. If they took the car and a wheelchair, it shouldn’t be too strenuous, but his parents hadn’t been too keen on the idea and insisted they run it past Karen.
‘Green light,’ Lucy said, walking into Tom’s room. He was sitting in bed, drinking lemonade through a straw.
‘Cool,’ he said, not looking happy about it.
‘You okay?’ Lucy asked. ‘Do you feel alright?’‘Yeah, fine,’ he said, pinching the bridge of his nose and scrunching his face. ‘It’ll be good to see the sea, get some fresh air. I just wish I could get in the water. I want to surf. That’s what I really want to do.’
‘I know,’ Lucy said. There were no comforting words to make him feel better – she’d stopped trying to find them.
‘Sorry, I don’t want to moan,’ Tom said, trying to pull himself up further in bed. Lucy reached to help him.
‘You look pretty,’ he said, looking her up and down. ‘You’re so brown!’
‘I guess I am,’ Lucy said, looking at her bronzed arm next to his pale skin.
‘I’m a lucky guy,’ he said, pulling her in for a kiss.
Lucy needed to pop into the café to speak to Tara about the week’s greengrocer order, so she left Kristian and Karen to get Tom into the car and down to the beach. Tom didn’t like Lucy watching him be helped in and out of bed, so she tried to find reasons not to be there when he was moved around.
‘Do you want to come with me?’ Lucy asked Nina as she was heading out the door; Nina was sitting on the stairs looking lost.
‘Yes, please,’ she said. ‘I can’t stand it here at the moment.’
They walked out together, towards the beach path.
‘Are you okay?’ Lucy asked. ‘How is baby?’
Nina instinctively placed a hand on her belly. ‘Baby’s fine,’ she said, smiling briefly. ‘This is just too much, isn’t it? I can’t really feel anything other than total sadness, which can’t be good for this one.’ She patted her stomach gently.
‘I know,’ Lucy said. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘The house is ready for us to move in,’ Nina said, looking out to sea. ‘I think we are going to go back to Bristol this week.’
Lucy hadn’t expected the news. She’d assumed they’d all stay around to help Tom.
‘I don’t think we are helping,’ Nina said, as if she’d read Lucy’s thoughts. ‘To be honest, I feel like we’re getting in the way, and it’d be better for Tom’s parents to have fewer bodies in the house. It must be overwhelming for them.’
‘I hadn’t thought of it like that,’ Lucy said, suddenly wondering whether she’d misjudged the situation.
‘We can still come down lots,’ Nina said. ‘Do you think Tom will understand?’
‘I know he will,’ Lucy said. ‘I’ll miss you, though.’
‘You’re hardly here, missy!’ Nina said, gently poking Lucy’s arm. It was true. She’d spent most days at the café with Tara and the rest of her time she was with Tom.
‘I think you’re doing the right thing,’ Lucy said. ‘I just think you need to tell Tom as soon as you can; manage his expectations, you know.’
‘Kristian’s telling him today,’ Nina said. ‘Have we got time for a coffee?’
‘Yeah, I think we have,’ Lucy said, as they made their way into the café, which was bustling with the early-lunchtime rush.
‘We’re taking Tom to the beach,’ Lucy told Tara, as she pulled up a chair at their table to find out how he was doing.
‘That’s brilliant,’ she said. ‘Can I come along?’
‘Definitely,’ Lucy said. ‘Bring Olly, if you like. We’re just doing a little barbecue thing, nothing too hectic.’
‘Cool, I’ll see you in a few hours, in that case. I’m working till 4pm.’ She left to get their coffees.
‘He’s not going to be there,’ Nina said.
‘Where?’ Lucy asked, confused.
‘At our wedding. Tom’s not going to be at our wedding.’ It seemed to be the first time Nina had thought of this, although Lucy didn’t think that could be the case.
There wasn’t anything Lucy could say. It was true – just one of the many moments that would happen without him there. She could think of a thousand.
She reached across the table and held Nina’s hand. ‘He’s devastated about that,’ she said, honestly, recalling the conversation they’d had on her balcony a few nights earl
ier. I’d always imagined I’d be his best man, Tom had said; he’d looked like he was fighting tears.
‘Unless –’ Lucy stopped herself.
‘Unless…?’ Nina asked.
‘Unless you guys get married now, this week, here, in Hideaway.’ The idea didn’t seem completely ridiculous as she said it out loud.
‘How the hell would we do that? Where the hell would we do that?’ Nina asked.
‘On the beach,’ Lucy said, as if she had a plan in mind and this wasn’t the first time she’d thought of it. ‘You could just have a simple ceremony on the beach, a blessing or something, and then we could have a party here, in the café.’
Nina seemed to be considering it when Tara put two coffees down on the table.
‘What do you think, Tara?’ Nina said, looking back to Lucy.
‘About what?’ Tara asked
‘Do you reckon we could host a little reception here next week, if Kristian and I had a ceremony on the beach?’
Tara clasped her hands together in excitement. ‘I think that’s a brilliant idea,’ she said. ‘We could definitely sort something out, couldn’t we Lucy? Oh my God, Tom would be so happy.’
Nina smiled at Lucy. ‘Well, if we can sort it out, then I’m up for it. I’ll need to speak to Kristian, though. And I’ll need to find a bloody dress. God, can you imagine how hideous I’ll look all fat in a wedding dress? Grim.’
‘You’ll look stunning,’ Lucy said. ‘Will you speak to Kristian this afternoon?’
‘Yeah, I will. Let’s do this!’ Nina said.
‘Wheelchairs and sand don’t mix,’ Tom said, as Lucy and Nina approached. Tom was sat on a blanket, drinking a beer.
‘Kristian carried me,’ he said. ‘What a fucking sight we must’ve been.’ He clinked his bottle with Kristian’s.
Lucy felt momentarily stupid for not having figured that, of course, they couldn’t just wheel him onto the beach. But he was here now and he looked happy.
‘Some great surf out there,’ Tom said, watching surfers weave over waves. ‘Man, I wish I was out there.’
‘I’ll carry you in for a paddle,’ Kristian said, nudging Tom.
‘Not quite the same, mate, but thanks,’ he replied. Lucy felt like crying, but fought her tears away, determined to have a good time this afternoon.
The beach was busy, but not as crowded as it had been a few weeks before. It was coming up for the end of the season, and it felt as though the whole town was breathing a sigh of relief, loosening up, relaxing a bit. Even the sun was a little less ferocious, the air warm, the sand comfortably hot, rather than scorching.
‘This was the dream,’ Tom said, looking around at the group. ‘Getting us all back together was all I really wanted. Does that sound a bit sad?’
‘No,’ Nina said. ‘It’s been perfect. I hadn’t imagined it would be this perfect. I thought we might have drifted apart a bit after all those years, you know. Turns out we haven’t grown up much at all, really, have we?’
Lucy thought about it, how true it was. All those years she’d been gone, she’d built a whole new life in London with new friends, boyfriends. She’d thought she’d become a new person, a strong, different version of herself. And if she hadn’t come back here this summer, well, maybe she would never have realised that, actually, she was still the fifteen-year-old girl who liked sitting on the beach with her friends. She hadn’t really grown up at all.
As the afternoon heat gave way to early evening, the beach emptied by the hour as families drifted off to get showered and sand-free for dinner. The town was buzzing with people in search of food, teenagers eating cones of chips on the wall by the campsite. Tara and Olly arrived. It was funny seeing them as a proper couple now, but Lucy could see how happy he made Tara and was pleased for them.
‘I spoke to Kristian,’ Nina said, quietly to Lucy as the boys talked about lighting the barbecue.
‘He thinks it’s a great idea, if we can get it arranged in time,’ Nina said.
‘I’ll call the vicar,’ Lucy said, ‘to find out what’s possible. I think he’ll do it. He knows Tom’s family. They’re praying for him at the church every Sunday.’
‘I can speak to the florist,’ Tara said. ‘I’ll get some decorations sorted. And we have all the bits from the Sundowner, so we could pimp the café up a bit for the party.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ Nina said. ‘Kristian said we shouldn’t tell Tom, though.’ She paused, looking down at the sand. ‘Just in case, you know, we run out of time. We don’t want to get his hopes up, or put too much pressure on him.’
The idea that Tom might not make it to next week wasn’t new to Lucy. She’d spoken to Dr Jenkins, to his parents, to Karen. They all knew he was getting weaker. The medication was keeping him relatively pain-free, but it wasn’t going to slow his deterioration. Tom had been totally honest with Lucy. It could be days, he’d said, hopefully it’s weeks. She couldn’t believe the best-case scenario was that he’d still be with them in September. It was like living in a nightmare. Except there was none of the drama she’d have imagined if someone had told her this would happen. It wasn’t like in a film where everyone walked around giving meaningful looks to one another, sad music playing. A lot of things just carried on as normal. It actually hit her over and over again when she remembered what was happening; when Tom held her at night and she couldn’t fight the thoughts away any more like she did when she was at work, or helping his parents; when she was stalking the miles and miles of cliff path that she now walked to keep herself busy when Tom was sleeping.
The barbecue was so heavily laden with John Dory fillets wrapped in foil, lobster shells and burgers, that you could hardly see its glowing coals. Lucy watched Tom drink another beer, wondering whether it was interfering with his medication. He looked so happy. She walked over to him and put her arms around his shoulders, leaning in to kiss his neck.
‘Oi oi!’ Olly shouted. ‘Enough of that, I need to borrow this gentleman,’ he said, walking towards Tom.
‘What?’ Tom looked confused, but was smiling; he looked a little drunk, Lucy thought.
‘Kristian, give me a hand,’ Olly beckoned to Kristian to leave the barbecue and join them. He put down the tongs, looked seriously at his work and seemed to decide it would be alright to leave it for a moment.
‘Right, one arm each,’ Olly said, slipping his hand under Tom’s right arm, gesturing to Kristian to take his left.
‘What are you doing?’ Tom said, looking slightly embarrassed.
‘Taking you into the ocean, mate,’ Olly said. ‘If that’s alright? Can’t have you sat here looking longingly out to sea all night.’
‘I don’t think that’s a good idea,’ Tara said, looking around for support.
‘It’s a great idea,’ Tom said, ‘Luce, help me get this shirt off?’
Lucy hesitated, then, seeing the look on Tom’s face, decided to do as he asked. She unbuttoned his shirt, and he watched her, smiling.
‘Can you watch the barbecue?’ Kristian said to Nina. Nothing was so important that he’d forget the food.
The girls stood in a line, in something like disbelief, and watched Kristian and Olly help Tom walk towards the sea. He didn’t look like he needed much help; he looked stronger than Lucy had expected. They were laughing loudly at something as they made their way into the sea. Olly still had a bottle of beer in his free hand. If Karen could see this, Lucy thought.
Tara put her arm around Lucy as they watched the boys make their way into the ocean, holding on to Tom, taking him deeper and deeper into the water. Lucy thought she could still hear them laughing, even as they became miniature silhouettes in the waves.
‘You’ve got a good one there,’ she said, turning to Tara.
‘So have you,’ Tara said, squeezing her gently.
40
Five years earlier
Hideaway Bay, 2005
‘So you’re really going?’ Nina asked, offering Lucy a Marlboro Light.
&nbs
p; ‘Yes, tomorrow,’ Lucy replied, taking a cigarette and lighting it from Nina’s flame.
‘And what about Tom? Have you even spoken to him properly about this? Are you sure you’re not rushing it all, running away?’
Lucy bristled at Nina’s questions. She’d been winding her up more and more over the past few days, her tone judgemental and annoying.
‘Kind of,’ she lied. Every time they’d got close to discussing it they’d ended up arguing. Tom was so adamant she should stay.
‘You’re going to break his heart,’ Nina said, skimming a stone into the sea. ‘He’d go with you if you asked him, if it’s what you really want. You know that, right?’
‘How are things with Kristian?’ Lucy asked, changing the subject.
‘Ugh, not great,’ Nina sighed, lying back on the sand. ‘He’s just so immature sometimes. I swear he cares more about his surfboard than me.’
Lucy took a drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke into the night air above her. She was getting tired of this same conversation about Nina and Kristian, their constant break-ups and make-ups. It was pretty clear that they needed to go their separate ways once the summer was over. Nina was off to Bristol anyway, so that would be the end of it. Kristian wouldn’t leave the town – he was almost as devoted to the place, and to the surf, as Tom was.
‘Ladies,’ Kristian sat down in between Lucy and Nina, an arm around each of them. He smelled of beer.
‘The water is beaut,’ he said. ‘You girls should come in.’
‘I might do in a bit, actually,’ Lucy said. She loved an evening swim, the water still warm from the day’s heat, but clear of tourists.
‘We’re driving over to Newquay tomorrow, if you fancy it,’ Tom said, joining them now, dripping wet. He leant down and kissed Lucy, leaving salty water on her mouth.
Nina shot Lucy a look and she willed her not to say anything.
‘Yeah, maybe,’ Nina said, still looking at Lucy. Lucy stood up and lifted her dress over her head, revealing her neon-pink bikini with a black trim.
