Jilted (25 page)

‘Fact is, if Flynn felt for me what I do for him, he wouldn’t be dating Lauren, or anyone else for that matter. He’s too noble, too committed. So there’s no point in raking up the past. It’d be hard enough talking about it, I can’t handle Flynn’s guilt and pity as well.’

As they turned into Matilda’s street, the older woman snorted and said, ‘Maybe I should take matters into my own hands and tell him myself.’

‘No!’ Ellie shrieked, almost losing control of the car. ‘You wouldn’t.’

Mat took a moment before replying. A moment in which Ellie’s heart stopped beating. ‘No. I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘But I think you’re making the biggest mistake of your life.’

Matilda wasn’t one to hold a grudge, but Ellie knew her godmother was angry. That night she was even more stubborn than
usual, insisting on getting ready for bed on her own, and refusing their ritual night-time hot chocolate. Her rejection hurt almost as much as Flynn’s. Well, maybe not quite that much. Matilda would come around.

Ellie thought the tension would disperse overnight, but in the morning, you could still cut the air with a knife. Mat let Ellie drive her to the hospital for her check-up, but made it clear she didn’t want company when she went in to see the doctor.

Ellie sat on the cold plastic chairs in the waiting room, flicking through ten-year-old copies of
New Idea
and
Woman’s Day
. She’d never pay for these rags in real life, but burying her nose between the pages was a good tactic for avoiding Lauren. She’d bet her life savings that if Lauren could engineer a way to talk to her – or rather, to gloat about her time spent with Flynn – she would.

An orderly mumbled a hello to Ellie as he stopped to sweep under the chairs. Ellie smiled quickly and lifted her feet to give him access. Time ticked by and Mat stayed with the doctor for longer than Ellie expected. Maybe it was the cold she was coming down with. Ellie twisted her watch around on her wrist and tapped her feet against the floor. Finally, the door to the examination room opened. She stood, ready to help Mat, but only Lauren came out.

As the door clunked shut, Ellie sat back in the chair and lifted another mag up to her face. Her heart beat wildly, thumping so hard she swore she could hear it. She was furious that Lauren made her feel this way. So nervous, so on edge. Was she going to say something? If not, why the hell didn’t she just walk past?

‘You like reading upside down, do you?’

At Lauren’s mocking tone, Ellie took a good look at the page and realised it was about a colleague’s drug addict son. And it was upside down. Why couldn’t she think of something witty to say
in response? Something incisive, something to show Lauren she couldn’t get to her. When nothing came to mind, Ellie simply turned the magazine around and kept pretending to read. She prayed to the God she wasn’t sure existed, begging him to make Lauren disappear. But nobody up there was listening.

Lauren sniggered. ‘Don’t think you’re in there this week. A month off set and you’re yesterday’s news. Although I’m sure they could write a story about how cold and callous Channel Nine’s darling is. Perhaps I’ll give them an exclusive interview.’

Cold and callous?
Had Flynn called her that? Her heart cramped at the thought. She knew she shouldn’t bite. Ignoring the bait was the only way to handle people like Lauren. But dammit, she had to know.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

Lauren smirked, wicked dimples forming as she did. ‘Running away again, what else?’

Ellie hoped the look she gave Lauren screamed scathing and annoyed. ‘If you mean returning to Sydney to my job, then yes, I leave on Friday.’

‘Typical.’

Don’t bite, don’t bite
. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘You, your habit for leaving the people who need you.’

‘Flynn doesn’t need me anymore, Lauren.’

She laughed at that, loudly, and in a most unladylike manner. ‘Of course I know that. I didn’t mean Flynn. I meant Matilda.’

Stunned, Ellie shook her head as Lauren strutted off down the corridor. ‘Wait,’ she called. ‘Matilda?’

For a moment, Ellie didn’t think Lauren was going to stop. But when she did – turning around agonisingly slowly – her smile was pure evil. She marched back just enough that she didn’t have to raise her voice. ‘Oops.’ She pressed her fingers against her cherry-red lips. ‘You mean she hasn’t told you? I just assumed because you
two were so close …’ Her voice trailed off and then she shrugged. ‘Forget I said anything. It’s not my place.’

Lauren twisted on her heels and marched away again. Ellie’s body went cold with fear. Her heart was thumping again and she wondered if what Lauren said had any truth in it. Perhaps it didn’t. Surely even Lauren wouldn’t risk her job – patient confidentiality and all that – simply to manipulate her.

But as she thought it over, little things began to add up, and the sum total pounded her skull like an angry fist. Mat looking frail and weary after two nights in hospital. Her fatigue, her constant need for nanna naps. Feeling the cold more than she ever had before.
Oh Lord!
Sorting her stuff and packing up her house …

Goosebumps swam like a plague on Ellie’s skin. Her breath raced. She stood, sat, stood, and paced the pokey waiting room, trying to calm herself.

Don’t overreact. It could be nothing
. But her little pep talks did nothing to placate her anxiety. Inside, she knew. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, horribly wrong with Mat.

And she had to know what it was.

The door of the examination room opened again. Ellie stopped pacing and turned. Dr Bates had a steadying hand on Matilda’s back as she helped her through the doorway.

‘So, I’ll see you again next week,’ she said. ‘And please, think about what I said. Please?’

Matilda nodded. When she looked up at Ellie, the fight of the morning was gone. She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her usual heights. Ellie regarded her mother figure – her best friend – and her eyes brimmed with tears. It wasn’t fair for either of them to have the conversation here.

‘I’ll go get the car,’ she said. Her feet pounded the cold linoleum and raced across the carpark. It was raining, so she pulled up right in front of the hospital entrance. She helped Matilda into the car and ran round to the driver’s side. ‘How was your appointment?’
she asked, trying to focus on driving and not on the crippling fear in her bones.

‘Fine. What do you feel like for lunch? I could make us some nice scrambled eggs.’

‘I’m supposed to be looking after
you
.’

‘Then you can make the scrambled eggs,’ said Matilda, an edge to her voice.

Two could play at this game. ‘When does the doc think you’ll be able to put pressure on your ankle?’ Ellie asked surreptitiously.

‘Soon.’ Matilda glanced out the window as they arrived at the cottage. ‘Oh look, Joyce is here.’

Ellie wanted to kick something. She should have gotten straight to the point. Now she’d have to wait until Joyce left, and that could be hours. Mat and Joyce talked faster than anyone Ellie had ever known, and when they got together, getting a word in was impossible.

Ellie sighed. Joyce came out to help Mat up the steps, so Ellie went on ahead to put the kettle on. She banged cupboards and the fridge door as she thundered around the kitchen, collecting cups, milk and coffee. Patience wasn’t one of her virtues at the best of times, but when worry was thrown into the bargain, she didn’t have any at all. The kettle seemed to take aeons to boil and the coffee didn’t want to dissolve. In the end, she only made two cups, deciding she’d leave Joyce and Mat to their gossip and take herself off for a bath. But when she turned down the hallway to deliver the drinks, their hushed and hurried voices stilled her. At a sudden halt, coffee slopped over the edges and over her fingers and onto the carpet, but she stood, oblivious to the heat and the mess, her ears stretching to hear the conversation.

She placed the mugs on the side table next to a vase, and crept closer to the door. Someone had gone to the effort of almost closing it, but the tiny gap was enough to make out their words.

‘You have to tell her,’ Joyce hissed. Her voice conveyed a forcefulness Ellie hadn’t yet witnessed in the jovial woman.

‘I can’t,’ came Mat’s irate reply. ‘I don’t want to hold her back.’

‘Bah humbug. Or to put it your way,
bollocks
. How do you think Ellie will feel when she finds out from someone else? Or when it’s too late?’

There was silence in the living room as Mat pondered her response. Ellie waited a moment before deciding it was time to announce herself. Forgetting the coffee, she pushed open the door and stepped into the room. It lacked the usual warmth found in Matilda’s house. She stood straight and tall, her tight fists on her hips. She glared first at Mat and then at Joyce.

‘What is it you need to tell me?’

Joyce rubbed her lips together. She stared at the carpet as if the ancient weave were worthy of museum status. Mat looked up and tried to smile but her face crumbled. She seemed small and weak and it scared the living daylights out of Ellie. Her shaky hand patted the spot on the couch beside her. ‘You’d better come sit down.’

Thoughts flashed through Ellie’s mind. First and foremost that nobody ever said sit down before good news. What was going on? She sat down and prepared herself for the worst. But the words that left Mat’s mouth next were ones you could never be prepared to hear. Nightmare words.

‘I have cancer, Ellie. Bone cancer.’

Ellie took a few moments to process the diagnosis. There had to be some mistake. Mat had never smoked. She’d always derided Ellie for her terrible eating habits. And she came from sturdy stock. Her mother, who died only last year, had lived to nearly a hundred. There had to be a misunderstanding, a medical mix-up.

‘Since when?’

‘Since a few months ago. It’s all right, everyone has to go one way or another.’

‘Hold on … rewind a second. We’ll talk about the dying later.’ No way in hell would she let a disease rob her of the only mother she’d ever known. ‘If you’ve known a few months, why didn’t you tell me?’ Hurt and confusion threatened to bring forth tears.

Mat shuffled over and put her arm around Ellie. ‘What use would it have done? You’d only have worried yourself sick.’

‘And that’s my right, dammit! You’ve worried about
me
long enough.’

Joyce cleared her throat. ‘I might leave you girls to it. If you need me, just call.’ She slipped out, almost unnoticed.

Matilda locked eyes with Ellie. ‘I’m sorry, but I needed some time. I had to make a couple of decisions on my own.’

‘What decisions?’

‘What I should do. Whether I should fight it.’

Ellie jolted from Mat’s embrace. ‘What do you mean
if
?’

‘The cancer is quite aggressive, Ellie, it already was when I was diagnosed. I could have done chemo and radiotherapy, but they couldn’t give me any guarantees – besides the fact it’d be an absolute hell. The symptoms could fill a book: vomiting, hair loss, fatigue. Bunch them together and there’s no quality of life. I decided against it.’

‘You what?’ Ellie couldn’t keep the fury from her voice. She shot up, needing to move around before her negative energy took over.

Mat reached for her crutches and tried to struggle up.

‘Stay there,’ Ellie growled. Her muscles had never felt so tight. She wanted to start hurling antiques and souvenirs, screaming at the top of her lungs. She stopped and ran a hand through her hair. Her fingers caught in the elastic of her ponytail at the precise moment that nausea whirled in her gut. She covered her mouth and fled the room.

In the bathroom, she slammed the door and fell onto the tiles. She gripped the toilet bowl as sobs and vomit combined in a cocktail
of fear, anger and grief. When she thought it was finally over, she reached for the toilet roll and tugged. The whole thing began to unravel. She tore off long lengths and scrunched them up, swiping at her cheeks and eyes. The last time she’d been this sick was in this very bathroom. Only a week or so before her wedding.

Shivering, she tossed that thought aside and looked around. The sobs had slowed, but as she contemplated the bathroom – one that could only be Matilda’s – the feelings resurged. The walls were covered in sayings, poems and crazy jokes her godmother had collected over the years. Many a first-time guest had been known to spend hours in here, simply reading. It was like a collaged history of all the places she’d been – a quote or a poem from every city and village, a testament to a woman in love with life and the world around her. How could she not fight this?

‘Els?’ Mat’s voice sounded through the door. ‘Can I come in?’

‘No.’ Ellie pouted. She couldn’t look at Mat without the anger welling up again. She loved her more than anyone, but she just couldn’t see her right now.

‘Please, Ellie, come out. We need to talk about this.’

‘No.’

‘This is childish, Ellie.’

‘Now that’s the pot calling the kettle black.’ Ellie glowered at the bathroom door. ‘Not seeking treatment is childish.
And
selfish.’

‘Now look here, young lady, you can call me a lot of things, but don’t you dare call me selfish. I’ve never been that. Especially not to you.’

‘Sure seems that way from where I’m sitting.’ Ellie crossed her legs and arms and leaned back against the door.

‘So it was selfish of me to turn down one of the best offers of my career, was it? To take on a child who wasn’t mine?’ Ellie had never heard Matilda raise her voice in this way, at least not to her.
And she’d never mentioned this sacrifice before. ‘To house her, feed her, clothe her, love her?’

Another sob slipped from Ellie’s lips. There were so many damn thoughts, so many damn emotions going through her mind and body she didn’t know what to feel. But life without Mat wasn’t worth thinking about. When she didn’t respond, neither did Matilda. After a while – Ellie couldn’t be sure how long – she heard the slow click-clack of Mat’s crutches against the floorboards as she walked away. Ellie stayed there until her bum went numb. Despite the pins and needles, she still wasn’t ready to see her godmother. Not yet.