Peering out of the window into Lily’s street, Audrey felt the question niggling her. She turned to Jess, knowing there would never be a perfect time, that she couldn’t put it off much longer. She’d been living with Jess for nearly a month now and every day she’d searched for a good opportunity to broach the subject, but none had arisen. She could hear the clock ticking loudly in her ears, knew she didn’t have the luxury of time, and took a deep breath, trying to remember the phrasing she’d been rehearsing for weeks.
‘Jess, I need to ask you something, but I want you to listen before flying off the handle. Can you do that for me?’
The tension thickened as Jess’s forehead puckered into a frown. ‘Why? What is it?’
Audrey tried to swallow but her mouth was dry. ‘I don’t want to get maudlin, and I know you don’t like talking about it, but I can’t just sit by, knowing I’m ill, and do nothing while you and Lily are still estranged—’
‘Mum, I—’
‘Please, Jess. Please hear me out—’
‘But there’s no point. This conversation’s going nowhere.’
‘There is a point, of course there is. I don’t want the first time you and Lily to see each other in years to be at my funeral. I can’t bear the thought of it. Surely you can understand that? And what about Mia and Phoebe? Do you really want them having to contend with all that tension on the day you bury me? Please, Jess, please just meet her, talk to her. I can be there or not, whatever you want. Just please agree to see her.’
Audrey’s voice began to crack and she pinched her lips together. She didn’t want emotional blackmail to force Jess into agreeing. She wanted Jess to see for herself that this decades-long feud was pointless, that it did no one any good, least of all Jess.
She kept her eyes trained on her daughter, searching for any sign of a softening, but when Jess began to speak her voice was so eerily calm that a chill inched down Audrey’s spine.
‘I don’t know how many times I can say it, Mum. I know it’s hard for you, but this isn’t about you. It’s about me and Lily. And I’m an adult so you have to let me manage my relationships as I see fit. I don’t want Lily in my life and I never will, and there’s nothing anyone can do about that.’
‘But if only I knew the reason, if only you’d tell me why you won’t speak to her, perhaps I’d understand. Perhaps I’d be able to help. I just don’t believe we can’t sort this out, whatever it is. I have to try, you must understand that.’
Jess thumped hard on the steering wheel. ‘I am not telling you. How many times do I have to say it? I don’t want to see Lily and that’s that. I don’t want you and me falling out about this, Mum, but if you mention it again then I can promise you we will.’
Jess glared at her, and Audrey resisted the temptation to try to bridge the gap between them with words of reassurance. She knew, from decades of experience, that there were times when her attempts to appease Jess only exacerbated her anger.
Neither of them spoke until Audrey heard Jess sigh, then swallow.
‘I’m sorry, Mum. I’m sorry for getting so angry. I know this is hard for you, really I do. And if there was any way I could make things better, I would, honestly. But I can’t. I just can’t.’
Their eyes met fleetingly before Jess turned back to the road. Audrey looked out of the window to see a throng of shoppers emerging from Westfield – friends, families, couples, laughing, chatting, sharing stories of their day – the knowledge settling in her head like a thick winter fog that, nearly a month after moving in with Jess, she was still no closer to effecting a reconciliation between her daughters.
Part Three
April
Chapter 12
Audrey
‘I’m so sorry it’s not better news. I know it’s a lot to take in. Can I get you a glass of water?’
Audrey moved to shake her head but she felt as if it were no longer attached to her body. ‘Thank you, no. I’m fine.’
I’m fine. She almost apologised to the consultant for the absurdity of it.
She’d known, as soon as she’d walked into the consultant’s room and seen the Macmillan nurse sitting in a high-backed chair upholstered in standard NHS blue vinyl, that today was going to be a Bad News Day. They only ever brought in the Macmillan nurses when there was heavy emotional lifting to be done.
‘I know it’s really difficult news to hear. I wish I could be telling you something different. But from your latest scan and blood tests, it does seem to be spreading more aggressively than we’d originally thought. And this fourth tumour we’ve found on your lung – as I say, it’s small, but of course we’d rather it wasn’t there at all.’
Audrey felt the room shrink as though each of the four walls was slowly advancing towards her. ‘How does this change the prognosis? How long have I got?’
Dr Sharma shifted in her seat and swept some invisible dust from the surface of her desk before raising her head and looking directly at Audrey. ‘As I’ve said before, it can be really unhelpful to talk in terms of timelines. There’s no reliable means of predicting how cancers are going to behave. Every case is unique. What I will say is that now might be a good time to reconsider whether you’d like to undergo any treatment. I know you were against it before, but this latest diagnosis does change the outlook. I have to be honest with you: given the way your cancer has spread in the last few weeks, treatment options are limited. But chemotherapy may help slow the growth of the tumours and minimise the risk of the cancer spreading. You don’t have to decide anything now. I’m going to give you all the leaflets again, just so that you have the information to hand. Maybe you’d like to discuss it with your family over the weekend.’
Audrey reached out and took the same collection of leaflets she’d first been given nearly seven months before, filled with advice and information she could have recited verbatim if tested. ‘But assuming I still don’t want treatment, how long do you think I’ve got?’
An almost imperceptible flicker of something skittered behind the consultant’s eyes: impatience or pity, uncertainty or apology, Audrey wasn’t sure which.
‘Honestly, Audrey, I really don’t think it’s helpful to talk in those terms.’
‘It will help me. Please. There are things I want to do. Things I need to do …’ Her voice trailed off, the words trapped in her throat. She breathed slowly, tried to compose her face into that of someone who was prepared for the answer, however difficult.
The consultant eyed her silently, glanced over at the Macmillan nurse, and leaned forward in her chair. ‘As I say, Audrey, there’s no accurate means of prediction. And every case really is unique. But on average, patients with cancer like yours – cancer that’s spread in a similar way, with a similar alacrity – might be looking at a life expectancy of somewhere around four to six months.’
Audrey felt all the air escape from her lungs. Her limbs loosened, as if she were about to topple forwards out of the chair. She tried to focus on a fixed point – the cardboard calendar on the windowsill – like a seasick sailor gluing their eyes to the safe line of the horizon.
Four to six months.
She’d arrived at the appointment believing she had at least a year left to live. Now she had just half of that, possibly a third. She sat completely still and thought about all the events she might not live to witness.
Her sixty-third birthday. Mia and Phoebe’s eighteenths. The girls’ A-level results.
Christmas, New Year, Easter: all those milestones she’d experienced for the last time without knowing it.
‘I know it’s really hard to hear. That’s why we try not to give timeframes unless someone’s determined to know. This isn’t a precise science – we can’t know exactly how your cancer’s going to behave. It could be that you have longer. As I say, I can only give you averages.’
Audrey nodded, wanting to remove any doubt on the consultant’s part that perhaps she’d made a mistake in telling the truth. But now that she had the facts, Audrey didn’t know what to do with them. They felt hot in her mouth, loud in her ears, tight in her chest.