The Last Day of Winter

by Shari Low

  Eight

  Josie

  The secretary – Margaret, Josie presumed – glanced up with barely disguised resentment when Josie entered the office suite.

  ‘Josephine Cairney for Dr Ormond. And if you’re going to call security, could you give me warning because I’ll never be able to outrun them in these boots.’

  Margaret Rosemund’s eyes instinctively moved downward, to check out the black leather, pointy-toed stilettos, complete with silver studs around the ankle. Despite herself, she found the edges of her mouth turning up in amusement. This woman was outrageous, stroppy and demanding, but she couldn’t half rock a pair of killer heels. Not the usual attire for a lady of her vintage.

  Despite the antagonistic phone call, Margaret felt herself defrosting. The patient was stressed and upset – a bit of high-maintenance, demanding behaviour was totally understandable. ‘I told Dr Ormond that you were coming in and he’s happy to see you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Josie replied with complete decorum, as if she hadn’t threatened to storm the building if the good doctor refused to see her.

  She plonked herself down on the chair nearest Dr Ormond’s door. She was a woman who never got nervous, who rarely felt fear, yet – for the first time in her life – she was utterly consumed by panic. She also felt sick, exhausted and weary, but she’d hidden all those things under such a heavy blanket of denial that she found it difficult to admit the truth even to herself.

  A sudden bout of coughing sprang from nowhere, making her bend forward at the waist as she gasped for some relief. The cough had been around for the best part of a year now and, yes, it was ridiculous that she’d waited this long to get it checked out, but she was a busy lady. She had a life to live, friends to enjoy, family to shock with her behaviour – there was no time to be sick. Besides, what was the point in wasting someone’s time with something as minor as a common cough?

  The bark had barely subsided when the door next to her opened and Dr Ormond proffered his hand. ‘Miss Cairney, come on through.’

  Josie wondered, not for the first time, if he was the kind of man who kept his socks on during sex. His voice was clipped and on the far end of the posh scale, and he had an introspective manner that suggested he’d always been more studious than sexy. However, right now, she didn’t care if he wore his wife’s slipper on his willy in bed, just as long as he delivered good news.

  ‘Please take a seat.’

  Josie did as she was told, biting her tongue to stop herself breaking the tension by saying something rude or crude. Old habits die hard.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me at such short notice. I couldn’t have waited until after Christmas. I hope you understand.’

  ‘Of course, yes. Although, normally we do ask that you bring a family member or friend with you as it can be useful to have someone else taking everything in too.’

  An icy cold grip of fear started at Josie’s toes and began to work its way through her veins. What was there to take in? She was hoping for a packet of pills, an instruction to take two tablets twice a day and to be sent on her way. Instead, the man with the answers was pulling out a large manila file and removing a sheaf of documents.

  This wasn’t good. She could feel it in the bones that were being consumed by that cold terror.

  ‘As you know, Miss Cairney, we carried out extensive tests, including blood analysis, chest X-rays and a CT scan of the lungs. Unfortunately, those tests identified abnormal cells in both lungs. I’m going to be direct with you, Miss Cairney – I’m terribly sorry to tell you that you have what we call small cell lung cancer.’

  Josie’s first thought was, Jesus, he could have sugar coated that. Her second thought, she vocalised. ‘I. Have. Lung. Cancer?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘How bad is it?’ The words were made terse by cold, blind fury. Fucking lung cancer. She couldn’t have that. Absolutely not. She wouldn’t allow it.

  He sighed, and once again, Josie knew that whatever he was about to say wasn’t going to be good. ‘Miss Cairney, we need to do more tests and scans to see the extent of the spread of the disease into other organs. We can already see signs that it’s in—’

  Josie put her hand up. ‘Spare me the details. I don’t want the doom and gloom. I just want you to tell me what you can do about it.’

  That threw him, but he remained impeccably calm and professional as he changed direction. ‘Well, what I can tell you, is that in the lungs, we can see that it is in a late stage of progression, and we are therefore extremely limited in our options. It’s actually quite remarkable that you are maintaining your current quality of life, given the extent of your illness. For this type of cancer, surgery is not an option. I would recommend an intensive course of chemotherapy, possibly combined with radiotherapy, with the hope that an aggressive course of treatment will slow further spread.’

  ‘You mean you can’t cure it?’ she asked, hearing her voice but strangely detached from what it was saying. She was still stuck on his assertion that she had cancer. That couldn’t be right. It was simply unacceptable.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Cairney—’

  ‘In the name of God, call me Josie. It’s the least you can do when you’re telling me my lungs are up shit creek.’

  He nodded, and she could see the sympathy all over his face. For some reason that made her even angrier. Do not pity me, she wanted to scream. Do not feel sorry for me.

  ‘Josie,’ he said kindly. ‘There’s no easy way to say this. Your cancer is terminal. Chemotherapy and radiotherapy will prolong your life, but there’s no way to reverse or cure this.’

  There was a minute of silence as they both allowed time for Josie to digest this.

  ‘How long do I have?’ Her words were slow and deliberate, waging a desperate fight against the rapid beats of her heart.

  ‘We don’t give specifics, Miss… Josie.’

  ‘Doctor, I really don’t care about protocols and what you do or do not do.’ Her statement was harsh, but it was out of desperation and he seemed to understand that because he nodded thoughtfully. ‘If you’re going to be my own personal Grim Reaper, at least fill me in on the details.’

  ‘In my experience—’

  ‘That’ll do,’ Josie assured him.

  ‘With no treatment, three to four months. With treatment, perhaps six months to a year.’

  She leaned forward, only stopping herself from sliding to the floor by grasping the desk until her knuckles were white.

  ‘I’ve checked our schedules and we can begin treatment on the twenty-eighth of December. I’ve made an appointment for you at 10 a.m. with our head of oncology. Again, I’d advise you to bring a family member or friend along with you. I’m so sorry to be giving you this news, Miss… Josie. But I promise you we’ll do everything that we can to support you over the coming months. Do you have any further questions for me?’

  She had many and none. What was the point? What would they change? She was dying. Three months, ten months, what did it matter? A death sentence was a death sentence and there was nothing that could make that go away.

  In a semi-trance, she rose from the chair, leaned over and shook his hand. ‘No questions. Thank you, Dr Ormond.’

  Turning on her steel stiletto heels, she walked out, passing the secretary, who gave her a weak smile. She knew. Josie could tell.

  ‘Goodbye, Margaret. Have a lovely Christmas,’ she said, for some reason feeling the need to redeem herself after giving the woman such a hard time on the phone. Karma. That’s what this was. She always thought that on the grand scale of karma, the fact she adored her family and friends, and would do anything to help anyone, made up for the fact that she could be a bolshy cow. Now she was fairly sure that wasn’t the case.

  Outside, the bitter cold hit her face and the rain seeped into her hair, but she barely noticed. She walked along the road with absolutely no idea where she was going. Walking. Just walking. Mind racing. Thoughts ricocheting through her brain. She s
hould call her son, Michael, in Italy. Or her daughter, Avril, in London. She should tell Val.

  Oh God, Val. They’d been friends for so long and they did everything together. Hadn’t Val had enough heartache? It was only a few years since she lost her daughter Dee after a hit-and-run caused by a drugged-up driver. The thought of bringing her more pain was unbearable.

  Walking. Still walking. She was almost past the café when the aroma of fresh coffee made her glance in the window. Without a conscious decision, she stepped back and made her way inside. She wasn’t hungry but she just needed somewhere quiet, somewhere alone to think.

  Her back ached as she slid into a seat beside a white painted table. The owners had made a real effort to decorate it for Christmas with gold and green sprayed pine cone arrangements in the middle of every table and tinsel draped around the top of every wall. In one corner, a miniature silver tree, already twinkling with white lights. Band Aid played in the background and she remembered the first time she heard that song, back in the eighties. She’d joined in, belting out the chorus as she watched the Live Aid concert on a big screen at a huge bar in the city centre. She’d outlasted a few of the folks who had been on the stage that day – Bowie, Freddie Mercury, George Michael, all of them bloody marvellous – and she’d thought she was so indestructible that she’d outlive them all. Not now.

  She ordered a coffee, then nodded gratefully at the young woman who brought it to her table. Usually, Josie would be the first to strike up conversation, but today she had nothing to say. Instead, she just smiled in thanks, then tried to gather her thoughts and calm the swirls of emotion that were carrying her off in wave after wave of despair.

  Dying. Well, fuck it, it came to everyone, she told herself. The bugger of it was that it was coming to her now. She still had so much to look forward to. Watching Michael’s children grow up and being the most outrageous granny she could be for them. Seeing Avril, a make-up artist on movie sets, achieving brilliant new highs in her career. Even just the everyday stuff, with the people she spent her time with – she loved it all and didn’t want it to end. However, she honestly believed that she’d had a great life, made the most of it. If she had to go back and do it all over again, she wouldn’t change a single thing. That had to be a reflection of a life well lived, didn’t it?

  What mattered now wasn’t the past but how she handled what little time she had left. That’s what would break her heart – not that she was going, but that she was about to cause pain to the people she loved. Her job in life had been to make theirs better, to help when they needed it and to support them in tough times. Now she was about to be the reason for sorrow and heartache and she couldn’t bear it.

  A single tear dropped from her right eye and she brushed it away. She wasn’t a crier. That was Val’s department. She was a fixer, a solver, the one who stayed strong when the rest of the world was going tits up. And that, she instinctively knew, was what she was going to do now.

  There would be no treatment. She wasn’t going to prolong the agony of this for the people who loved her, not when it would only buy her a few weeks or a couple of months more. Nor was she going to put herself through that. She’d held the hands of friends who’d succumbed to cancer and she’d willed them to fight, demanded that they do everything they could to live.

  Right now, she was choosing otherwise.

  No debilitating chemo, no time spent hanging around hospitals waiting for radiotherapy, no rake of doctors probing and prodding her, delivering more bad news as they reached the end. For however long she had left, she wanted to spend every moment with friends, doing the things that they loved – drinks, songs, sarcasm and laughter just about summed it up.

  That was how she was going to go.

  She’d tell them all at some point, but not now, not today.

  Today she had a job to do. She was Cammy and Caro’s wedding planner, and they were relying on her to pull this off. If ever there was a day that would take her mind off her future – or the future that she no longer had – then this was it.

  Another coughing fit sealed the deal, giving her a kick of a reminder that she had to get off her arse and get things done.

  Cammy and Caro needed her and she had to be strong for herself and for everyone else, so it was time to get up, get to work and pretend that this morning never happened.

  Tomorrow was for thinking about dying – but today, she was choosing life.

  Nine

  Stacey

  ‘Stacey! Stacey! Stacey!’

  Oh. Dear. God. Every single person in this airport that didn’t know her name definitely did now.

  ‘Friends of yours?’ her new-found companion, Zac, asked. ‘Because right now I’m jealous that there’s no welcoming party like that for me.’

  Stacey had surprised herself with how much she’d enjoyed his company. They’d continued chatting while they’d waited at the baggage reclaim. ‘Look, I know this is weird, but can I have your number?’ he’d asked. ‘In case I maybe get lost or something? I’ve never been to Scotland before, so it could happen.’

  ‘You know we have fantastic technical advances like satnavs and maps here? We try not to lose too many visitors to our country. It hurts tourism,’ she’d joked, trying to deflect the question. He was cute. No, more than that. He was seriously good-looking. He was also articulate, sexy, and smart. Yep, it would be a terrible idea to give him her number. Awful. Her life was complicated enough. ‘It’s sweet of you to ask, but I’m in a relationship, and my life’s… complicated.’

  ‘I like complications,’ he’d bantered back. In another life, in another time, she’d be seriously attracted to his confidence and charm.

  ‘Trust me, I’m one that you don’t need,’ Stacey had answered, with just a little regret.

  He’d accepted the finality of the answer, but still they’d walked together down the endless hallways of Glasgow Airport, up to the point where the huge glass doors slid open to reveal the people waiting for their loved ones.

  The chorus had been both instant and hilarious – her mum, Senga, with five of her pals, Ida, Ina, Agnes, Jean and Montana – all wearing Santa hats and somehow managing to dance while holding up a ‘Welcome Home Stacey’ banner. Some of them were shouting her name, others were blowing on party hooters and then cheering, causing much hilarity to everyone that passed.

  ‘Aw crap. Some people are actually filming this. Look!’ she nodded to a handful of travellers who had their mobile phones out, documenting the spectacle. ‘This will be bloody viral by lunchtime. I’m mortified.’

  Despite her words, she couldn’t help but giggle, as a wave of sheer bliss consumed her. Regardless of all her worries and woes, and the stress that had her wound tight as a drum since the wedding invitation had arrived, it felt like a suffocating weight was being lifted from her chest. It was so good to be home. It was even better to see her mum and ‘aunties’ there. None of the aunts were related by blood, but these women had been a gang all her life, supporting each other like sisters. Stacey loved every single one of them. Which was just as well, because they were now charging towards her, almost taking her down as they surrounded her and enveloped her in a hug.

  ‘Ma!’ Stacey exclaimed to her mother, Senga, the first one to reach her, who now had her in something between a headlock and a full body, unbearably tight, embrace. ‘You’ll burst my boobs!’ Stacey squealed, still laughing.

  ‘Freeze!’ Senga bellowed, and it took Stacey a second to realise she was shouting in the direction of a departing Zac, who stopped and turned around. ‘Who are you?’ she asked tartly. ‘And what’s your relationship to my daughter? Ida, get the thumbscrews – he’ll be easy to crack.’

  Stacey beamed with embarrassment. Her mother had been doing stuff like this to her all her life. Senga and her chums thought it was hilarious, but Stacey threw up her newly released arms in despair. ‘Ma! He’s just someone I met on the plane. Leave the poor guy alone.’ She turned to Zac. ‘Sorry. She does this. She shou
ld have been a spy in a past life. Or maybe in jail.’

  Thankfully his (admittedly ovary-twanging) grin suggested he was finding this whole scene entirely entertaining. ‘Good to meet you, Stacey. If I get lost, I’ll send up a flare.’

  ‘Take me ten minutes to track him down on a dark night,’ she heard Montana whisper behind her.

  He gave a parting wave. ‘Enjoy your wedding.’

  ‘Enjoy your… buying,’ Stacey replied weakly, then watched as he sauntered off. Poor guy. He’d probably avoid all trips to Scotland in the future in case he got accosted by wacky Senga and her chums.

  ‘How come I never get someone like that sitting next to me on a plane? I always get the one with bad breath that snores like a moose,’ Senga said.

  ‘Don’t talk about me like that! I brushed my teeth twice before we flew to Benidorm,’ her pal, Jean, said archly, making the rest of them hoot with laughter.

  Stacey couldn’t resist joining in. Oh, how she loved this lot, she thought again, as Senga linked her arm through hers. Anyone would be able to spot that they were mother and daughter. They both had the same sapphire eyes and the kind of high, perfect cheekbones people now got surgery to achieve. Over the years, Senga had sported every hair colour from purple to red to blonde, but now she was back to her natural ebony black, which she still wore long and flowing, defying all those bloody Daily Mail articles that hinted women should cut their hair short and cover their cleavage the minute they turned fifty.

  Senga clearly paid no attention to that either. Her décolletage was barely concealed under a low-cut red furry jumper that sported a snowman on each breast. Which wasn’t as bad, Stacey thought briefly, as the time this lot had turned up at her school nativity play dressed in flowing robes, announcing that they’d rewritten history to make it more realistic, and they were therefore here to represent the forgotten heroes of the nativity, the ‘Six Wise Women’. Stacey’s primary school teacher had turned a shade of puce that matched Rudolph’s nasal cavities.