Another Way to Fall (35 page)

‘You’re beginning to sound like your mum.’

I smiled. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. She wasn’t as fortunate as I am. She didn’t have someone like you by her side but she still managed to create a secure and stable family. Louise and I never lacked for love and attention. She thought her heart would break when I left but she stayed strong. The bond between mother and child is unbreakable. She knew that and now so do I.’

Ben kissed my nose and I rested my head on his chest. ‘So, are you ready to face the next chapter of your life?’

I couldn’t look at him. The contentment I felt for the life I had led so far didn’t mean I was any less reluctant to face the future. I was about to turn sixty and was starting to feel my age but there was life in the old dog yet. I took a deep breath. ‘I’m ready,’ I told him.

Mr Spelling’s office was deep in shadow, matching the dark brooding day outside. Emma was sitting in the chair next to his desk, watching the doctor as he stared at the screen in front of him, rubbing his chin. She lifted her head slightly as if to catch the warm rays of sun that weren’t streaming through the window. Her eyes stung against the nonexistent light that nevertheless reflected off the pale butter-cream walls.

Emma had been summoned to receive the results of her recent scan but her mind was pulling her somewhere else. The sense of familiarity was at first difficult to place but once Emma recognized it, her heart quickened. This was where it had all begun. This was the moment that Mr Spelling would turn and tell her in his own inimitable way that it was over, that she had the all-clear. For a split second, she almost wished that she had asked Ben and her mum to come into the office with her rather than relegating them to the waiting area outside, but then reality pulled her back. She pushed away the feeling of déjà vu and planted her feet firmly into the carpet to stop her legs from trembling.

‘I’m afraid it’s bad news, Emma,’ Mr Spelling said.

By the time Emma was ready to leave his office, the initial shock had been replaced by two very different emotions. Fear and relief. The relief for Emma was that she no longer had to face the torturous prospect of any more radiotherapy, or any kind of therapy for that matter. When Mr Spelling had explained that new tumours had developed on her brain stem, that these were causing the back pain, Emma had taken a deep breath and prepared herself to accept whatever treatment her doctor could offer. But it hadn’t taken Mr Spelling long to convince her that there would be little to no benefit in continuing with treatment; it would not justify the unpleasant side effects. It was over and that was exactly how Mr Spelling had phrased it in a cruel perversion of the scene she had described at the very beginning of her book. The fight was over.

The fear she felt meanwhile had nothing to do with being told that she didn’t have long to live, that particular prospect was strangely another part of her relief. There would be no more fear of the unknown and no doubts about what the future held. That certainty was reassuring, liberating even. The monster in her head had won but she would be a good loser.

The source of Emma’s fear lay on the other side of the door. The two expectant faces that turned towards her as she left Mr Spelling’s office would not share her relief.

Ben and Meg rose to their feet as she approached. Ben met her with a bright, innocent smile and no inkling of the news she was about to impart. It was her mum who had seen the warning signs, and the way Emma wasn’t making eye contact as she approached was only the final confirmation she needed. Meg had been aware of the almost imperceptible deterioration in Emma’s condition over the last few weeks, which couldn’t be explained by radiotherapy alone. Clues that Emma had managed to hide from everyone except her.

Emma had played out a few scenarios in her mind on the long journey from the doctor’s office to the waiting area. She considered beginning with the good news that she wasn’t going to have any more treatment but that would be too cruel. There really was no way to soften the blow. ‘I have three more tumours,’ she began, ‘and they’ve appeared really quickly. The only treatment now is palliative care.’

There was a deathly silence as Meg’s face completely drained of colour and she almost stumbled. ‘No,’ she said in a painful mewl. She reached out and grabbed Emma’s proffered hand with such force that it took the last remnants of Emma’s self-control not to cry out.

Time seemed to stop as they all stood in stunned silence, broken only by the sound of Meg’s gulps for air. ‘I’m going to be sick,’ she gasped before staggering off towards the washroom at the end of the corridor.

As Emma watched her mum running away, the finality of her situation hit home far more than when Mr Spelling had given his grim prognosis. If there had been even the tiniest spark of hope in Emma’s heart, it was brutally extinguished by the sight of her cavalry making a hasty retreat.

Ben’s eyes were wide with shock and he seemed torn between staying with Emma and going to help Meg. He stayed but perhaps only because he couldn’t trust his legs to carry him. ‘Palliative?’ he asked, still trying to digest the information.

‘End-of-life care, Ben,’ Emma said, reaching for his hand. His grip was tentative, as if he were holding a delicate flower he was terrified of crushing. ‘Some drugs, specialist nurses, hospices, that kind of thing.’

‘And that’s it?’ he asked, his voice trembling. He glanced back in the direction that Meg had gone.

‘She knows,’ Emma told him. ‘A few months ago, I would have needed to call security to keep her from storming into Mr Spelling’s office and demanding he cure me, but not now. I’m so sorry, Ben, it’s time to start thinking of letting go.’

‘But how can I let you go when you’re not even mine yet?’ he asked but it was a question that Emma couldn’t even begin to answer.

There was no discussion about where they should go when they left the hospital. There was only one place to go.

‘If I wanted to know what my wake would be like, you’re all doing a very good impression,’ Emma warned when the hushed tones around her usual table at the Traveller’s Rest were too much to bear. ‘Can’t we at least put some music on to liven the place up?’

‘I need to get back to work,’ Ben said, making a move to leave. He hadn’t left Emma’s side since the news had broken but he had adopted the role of silent partner. He had been as brave as Emma had expected he would be, taking care of her and her mum, but after his initial questions, he could find nothing else to say.

‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ Louise told him. ‘I’ve already arranged cover. You’re family now and we need you here with us.’ When Ben tried to refuse, Louise interrupted him again. ‘Besides, the state you’re in, you’ll probably burn the place down.’

‘In that case, I’ll go sort out the music,’ Ben insisted.

When Louise looked like she was going to object again, Emma raised her hand. ‘Let him go,’ she told her, and when he left, her heart went with him. ‘Let him do what he has to.’

It was Meg’s reaction that surprised Emma the most. She may not have argued with the prognosis but she wasn’t about to stop being her daughter’s advocate and Emma knew it was going to test her strength to the limits. Her mum was prepared to discuss the practicalities of arranging palliative care and didn’t even dismiss the suggestion of finding a hospice. Not that they had discussed it in detail, the news was still sinking in for all of them.

‘You still want to go ahead with the wedding, don’t you?’ Meg asked.

Emma was about to reply that of course she did – preparations were underway and they had already posted their marriage notice at the register office – but then she stopped herself. She looked towards the kitchen door and noticed the continued absence of music. ‘I need to speak to Ben first,’ she said and with a knot of fear twisting at her insides, she went in search of him.

Ben wasn’t in the kitchen, so Emma moved on, past the inanimate music system and headed towards the small corridor that led upstairs. Ben was sitting on the stairs, his shoulders hunched and his hands over his head, covering his ears as if the music he hadn’t switched on was deafening. He was visibly shaking.

For a moment, Emma stood still, not sure if she should run up and wrap him in her arms or back slowly away without him ever knowing that she had been there to bear witness to his private torment. She did neither. She sat down gently beside him and waited for him to decide if he wanted her to see him.

Ben didn’t look up as he reached for her hand and when she gave it to him, he wrapped his fingers around hers and reverently brought her hand to his chest. His tears fell like raindrops onto her hand and she imagined the tears following the creases of his skin, following wrinkles that were yet to reveal themselves. She felt a shiver of familiarity course through her body but her heart was beating too fast to let the image of an older, rain-drenched Ben to take form.

Ben took a deep breath and held it, trying to compose himself before he spoke. ‘What if your mum was right all along?’ he began, his voice sounding hoarse as if the scream he had been holding back for the last few hours had already torn his vocal chords to shreds. ‘What if there is a better doctor out there who can help you?’

‘I already have the best doctor, one who told me the truth and didn’t pull any punches.’

‘But I haven’t had long enough with you yet, not nearly enough,’ he said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze.

‘I can’t make myself better, Ben, and neither can you,’ Emma said softly. ‘It will have to be enough to know that I wrote myself better.’

Ben snapped his head towards her. His eyes were as red and pained as she had feared but they were also angry. ‘I don’t care about the book,’ he said. ‘It’s not real. I don’t care about anything but you.’

Emma raised an eyebrow and when she felt the spark of anger she went with it, it was an emotion she preferred, far better than the abject despair she had been facing. ‘Don’t care?’ she repeated. ‘Well, you damn well better care.’ She let her words sink in before she continued. ‘If you don’t care about the book then there’s no point in trying to bring any more of it to life. We might as well call off the wedding.’

‘We will not,’ Ben replied, his own anger filling his deflated body and forcing him to raise his shoulders.

‘And I might as well throw the book in the bin,’ Emma goaded.

‘You can’t. You put your heart and soul into that book. I won’t let you destroy it.’

Emma stared at Ben’s face and the trail of tears that slashed like scars across his cheeks. She wiped them away. ‘No more tears,’ she told him. ‘Not while I’m still here. When I’m gone, you can howl at the moon, rip the stars out of the sky and stamp on them if you want to, but while I’m alive, no more tears.’ Her words quaked over trembling lips, a mere fraction of the tremors that were coursing through her body but she would not let her own tears fall.

Ben tried to smile. It didn’t quite reach his eyes but it was a brave attempt. ‘I’ll try,’ he said.

‘Trying isn’t good enough,’ Emma pointed out. ‘We’re getting married and then we’re going to live happily ever after. Then, when I can’t be with you and when your tears are finally spent, there will be happy times to remember and there will be our story to remind you how I lived my dreams.’

Ben stared at Emma, his eyes narrowing as he tried to unravel her inscrutable expression. ‘Your Mr Spelling would be proud of you. You don’t pull any punches either.’

Emma felt herself relax as he smiled, more easily this time. She wrinkled her nose and smiled back and the weight of the world on their shoulders lessened by a fraction. ‘That’s why you love me,’ she said.

‘That’s one of the reasons,’ he corrected before leaning in and kissing her.

‘Egypt?’ the young woman offered tentatively.

‘Been there too.’ I sighed, leafing through yet another brochure.

The poor girl did her best to maintain a semblance of enthusiasm. We had been in the travel agents for an hour and it hadn’t taken our advisor long to realize that we had been to more places than even she had heard of. We were semi-retired and had taken what was meant to be only a year out to travel the world but every time we thought we’d had our last adventure we managed to find one last amazing place we simply had to visit. Now, after three years, we really had done it all and I didn’t like the idea that this might be it.

‘How about we go home?’ Ben said. His voice was raspy, too much laughter and fine dining over the years. He stood up and I suspected he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

I lifted my hand towards him in submission and he pulled me to my feet.

‘But …’ I said and then stalled. Could there really be no more buts?

‘Life isn’t about seeing the world, it’s about experiencing it,’ he said, ushering me to the door. ‘We have grandchildren now and maybe it’s time we thought about spending more time with them.’

We had almost made it to the door when I stopped in my tracks. ‘Yes, you’re right. There are plenty of experiences we haven’t tried yet,’ I told him. ‘Riding camels across the Sahara or deep-sea diving in Fiji, skydiving in the Himalayas …’

‘Emma …’ Ben warned.

‘OK, maybe not skydiving. That might be pushing it at our age, but how about hot-air ballooning across the Serengeti?’

Ben laughed as if I had gone mad but the travel agent had pricked her ears and was busily gathering some new brochures for me. He stopped laughing when he saw that I was serious. I wasn’t giving up, not yet. I was going to squeeze every last drop out of my life. I hugged him. ‘If it makes you feel better, then we can always take the grandkids to Florida. I’d like to see you face the Tower of Terror.’

‘There really is no stopping you, is there?’

‘That’s why you love me,’ I replied, returning to my seat in front of the salivating travel agent who was about to work even harder for her commission.

‘That’s one of the reasons,’ he said, taking the seat next to me and showing the first signs of enthusiasm as we started to trawl through our options. That was one of the reasons I loved him.