‘What on earth was she talking about, Mum? Why didn’t you tell her she’d got it wrong? She must have had someone else’s notes. I’ll call her back.’
As Jess turned to walk out of the cubicle she heard an intake of breath behind her, a single word trailing after her.
‘No.’
She looked back, saw her mum sitting up in bed, saw the expression on her face: a plea or an instruction, fear or an apology, she couldn’t tell which. Jess was aware of a pause, as though for a fraction of a moment, like the final seconds before the sun dips below the horizon, everything in the world appeared to have stopped moving.
‘Don’t call her back. She didn’t have the wrong notes.’
‘What do you mean? What was she talking about?’ Jess watched distress burrow into the lines around her mum’s eyes, into the crevices at the edges of her lips, deep into her pores until her whole face was awash with it.
‘I didn’t want to worry you. I didn’t want it to be a burden …’
Her mum’s voice trailed off and even though Jess was scared of where the conversation was heading, the questions lining up in her head forced her to follow it. ‘You didn’t want to worry us? So all that stuff she said – about the tumours, about your blood counts – all that was right? Why on earth didn’t you tell me? Did you think I wouldn’t find out?’
‘I don’t know. I just thought it would be for the best. I just … I didn’t want to put you through it all. Please don’t be so angry, Jess.’
Jess opened her mouth and then closed it again, frustration catching in her throat.
‘So what’s the prognosis? Is there anything they can do?’ It was Lily’s voice, softer than Jess’s had been, but Jess kept her eyes fixed on her mum, watched her shake her head.
‘Nothing beyond palliative chemo but I don’t want that, you know I don’t.’
‘For God’s sake, Mum, why won’t you accept help? I didn’t understand it when you first said it months ago and I don’t understand it now. It’s like you want to die. It’s as if you don’t care what happens to you. I don’t understand why you’d reject whatever treatment’s available to you.’
‘Mum, stop it. Come on, you can see Granny’s upset.’
Jess turned to where Mia was standing, so close to Phoebe as if their bodies might fuse together, and she couldn’t be sure whether the anger pulsing at her temples was directed towards her mother or her daughter. ‘We’re all upset, Mia.’
‘I know. But flying off the handle isn’t going to help. I get why Granny doesn’t want treatment and you do too, don’t you, Phoebe?’
Something about the ease with which Mia said Phoebe’s name, something about the way Phoebe turned to Mia and fired a look of panic, sent a cold trickle of sweat down Jess’s spine. ‘How do you know what Phoebe thinks?’
It was the most fleeting of glances: had Jess blinked she might have missed it. A transitory look of caution that passed between Mia and Phoebe: a silent note of warning, like a tell in a badly played game of poker.
‘I asked you a question, Mia. How do you know what Phoebe thinks?’
Guilt flared in Mia’s eyes and it was all the confirmation Jess needed.
‘Don’t be too hard on her, Jess. What did you expect? They’re seventeen-year-old girls, with social media at their disposal. Did you really imagine they wouldn’t be able to find each other?’
Her mum’s voice was soft, imploring, but all Jess heard was complicity.
‘Are you saying you knew? Are you telling me you knew they were in contact and you didn’t see fit to tell me?’
‘I only found out earlier today.’
Words began to erupt from Jess’s mouth and she couldn’t have stopped them even if she’d wanted to. ‘I don’t care, Mum. You should have told me. You know how I feel about this. I couldn’t have made it any clearer. Mia, get your bag, we’ll talk about this at home. Mum, let me know when you’re ready to leave tomorrow and I’ll come and pick you up.’
‘Darling, please …’
Ignoring her mum, ignoring Lily and Phoebe, Jess grabbed hold of Mia’s hand, gripped it tightly, and walked out of the cubicle without looking back.
Chapter 33
Audrey
Nobody spoke. Outside the cubicle, pagers bleeped, phones rang, a child cried, a doctor called for help.
Audrey looked at the open curtain, hoping that if she stared at it long enough, Jess and Mia might reappear, like magician’s assistants in a stage trick.
‘Mum, are you OK?’
Audrey nodded, her chest hollow as if someone had opened the cage of her ribs and scooped everything out. The mattress creaked as Lily sat down on the bed, her fingers tracing the veins on the back of Audrey’s hand.
‘Mum, whatever you want to do, it’s your decision. But please, help me understand. Why won’t you accept treatment, even now?’
Audrey glanced at Lily, then up at Phoebe standing behind her. Because I don’t deserve it, she wanted to say. Because I know it won’t work. Because I feel as though I’ve been waiting almost three decades for something like this to happen and now that it has, I don’t have the strength to fight it.
Audrey reached for the water beside her bed and sipped it, but her mouth still felt dry. ‘Can we talk about this tomorrow? I know it’s a shock and I’m genuinely very sorry I didn’t tell you before. I’d never upset any of you intentionally, you know that. I honestly thought it was for the best. But I’m exhausted now and I’m not sure I have the words in me to explain.’
Concern twitched between Lily’s eyebrows before she pulled her face into a facsimile of reassurance. ‘Of course. Whatever you want.’
Audrey kissed Lily and Phoebe goodbye, felt the weight of their expectation linger long after they’d left.
She rolled onto her side, coughing against the fluid in her lungs she knew couldn’t be cleared. Her limbs sank into the mattress, heavy and leaden, the noises outside in the corridor – nurses, telephones, trolleys – muddy in her ears. She thought again of the horror on Jess’s face when she had first come in and seen them all together, and the fury in her voice as she’d instructed Mia to leave.
Audrey closed her eyes, and felt the past begin to claw at the edges of her memory.
Perhaps she had been na?ve to hope that Lily and Jess might recover from the events of that summer. Perhaps the grief was too deep, the injustice too great. Perhaps there was no way to repair the heartbreak they’d endured after the losses they had suffered.
Because once upon a time there had been three little girls: Lily, Jess and Zoe.
Chapter 34
June 1988
She sits on the side of the bed, watching her daughter sleep. It should, she knows, be a moment of maternal quietude, but it cannot be peaceful when trolleys are clattering outside in the corridor, when another child is wailing in the midst of injections two beds away, when the noxious combination of illness and bleach pollutes the air like a fateful spectre.
It cannot be tranquil when her little girl is lying in a bed that is not her own, punctured by tubes.
Audrey chokes back her tears and commands herself to be strong. Zoe could wake at any moment.
She looks down at the pale, almost translucent skin stretched across her daughter’s cheekbones. Sometimes she fears that one day she will arrive at the hospital and the skin will have thinned so much that she will be able to watch the blood pulse through Zoe’s veins.
It has been fourteen months since Zoe was diagnosed with leukaemia. They have been through more than a year of treatments no one has ever promised will be successful. For months, Audrey has oscillated between hope and despair, never knowing which will take the lead on any given day.