On Top of Everything (14 page)

Harry was a real bastard, I could see that now. For all his careful consideration he was still ultimately blaming me for something about which I had no knowledge and over which I had no control and that was not fair. The trouble was that every time I saw him I felt worse. It would be better, I decided, if he was dead. But unlike me, who was getting thinner and paler as the days went on, he was still rather irritatingly looking the picture of health. All that going to the gym and getting ‘a hand’ with ‘Charles’ was turning him into some sort of a stud. Yes, I decided, dead would be good.

But as I whipped up a fourth mixture adding some frozen
berries I’d found in the freezer, I remembered what Will had said about not wanting it any other way. Without Harry, there would be no Monty and without Monty it really would be the wiggly coat hook. So, I found Crystal hard to accept, but as I’ve said, she was quite a difficult person to actively loathe. She had so far proved to be so sensitive and obliging it was hard to find fault — I had to really work at it. True, I was enraged to see her organic peanut butter hidden behind the toxic kind on the pantry shelf, but deep down I knew that organic peanut butter was not really in itself a heinous crime.

Still, she had taken my son and made him her husband at a time when I really needed him just to be my son. I wavered as I put the experimental berry cupcakes into the oven and thought I would be better off if she was dead too.

But by the time I took them out again I felt differently. So, I’d lost my job, crippled my gay husband, and my son was going to leave me. These were three of the rottenest things that could ever happen. But that was it. Over and done with. There was nothing else that could go wrong.

And on the plus side, I had a roof over my head, this particular roof, and beneath it I was going to make a living, to make a future, for myself. And Sparky. It may have been a sugar buzz from licking the spoon so diligently over so many hours, but despite everything I actually felt a glimmer of hope.

Forty-eight cupcakes can do that to a person.

I thought Crystal was lovely, and so did Beth and Archie.

You could tell from a mile away how much she was in love with Monty and he with her. It was so romantic, I thought. Meeting all the way over there in Australia and getting married despite the obstacles.

I think I would marry a nineteen-year-old too if one met me and fell in love with me but there don’t seem to be a lot of nineteen-year-olds in East Anglia. There’s Russell who helps Dad mow the lawns but he doesn’t have any of Monty’s sort of grown-up-ness. He still seems like a spotty teenager to me. Not that I’ve got anything against spots, they’re only toxin build-ups, but still, I am thirty-five. I should aspire to spot-free, even though I wouldn’t let spots stand in the way of true love if they were attached to the right person. Russell, I think, is not the right person. He has a scotch egg for lunch every day, for a start. That’s sausage meat. The worst kind.

Anyway, I was worried about Florence after meeting Crystal because I could see how hurt she was by it all. And who wouldn’t be? Archie’s being silly when he says Harry was always poofy. He and Beth thought they were a match made in heaven (just like they are, only square). And so did I. It’s dreadful what’s happened, although of course Harry must be true to himself. I know Effie believes that but still. She’s been a bit robbed on the happily-ever-after front and we all know how that feels.

It would be terrible if she turned her hurt into something mean, though. She’s done that before, a few times, just over little things, without realising it, I think. She doesn’t know how tough she is, Effie, how strong. But I do. It’s one of the things I so admire about her. I wish I was that tough and strong.

CHAPTER TWELVE

‘We’ve struck a bit of a problem,’ Will told me a few days later. Stanley was standing behind him, looking worried, which should have struck fear into my heart but didn’t.

Despite the generally serious atmosphere that lurked ominously in the hallway, I just could not focus on the problem, whatever it was. It was not foremost in my mind. It was far from it. Much closer, so close as to be taking up nearly all the available space, in fact, was Will himself. Yes, Will was on my mind. Completely and utterly. The thing is, I had dreamt about him. In a rather explicit fashion.

And as he stood there looking at me the dream, which I had until that moment forgotten, came back in a blinding rush and sort of tackled me, starting down near the floor and ending in my cheeks by way of a chronic blush.

In the dream he had come into my room and sat on the side of my bed and just smiled at me in the most patient,
understanding, adoring fashion. Then he had pulled back the covers, slipped off my nightie (transformed for dreaming purposes from the usual T-shirt with the hole in one armpit to a saucy see-through Agent Provocateur-type thing) and run his hands down my body, like a blind man, feeling every bone and hollow and bump until I was totally exposed head to toe, naked and moaning with longing.

Then he had stood up, his clothes sort of dissolving into a puddle on the floor, and he had climbed into the bed next to me. He lay there, just stroking me — my breasts, my collarbone, my ribs, my hips — and then his fingers had slipped down below. He’d pulled me on top of him then and with his hands on my thighs he had guided us both to an extremely erotic and satisfactory ending.

Plus, the dream hadn’t ended there. Unlike in real life where sex is often followed by the immediately gentle snoring of one or other or both parties, Will and I had lain on our sides facing each other on the bed, holding hands. He had told me that he loved me, that he would always be there for me, that with him beside me I had nothing to fear and never would ever again.

In the dream, I had wanted to cry because I was so happy.

Now I wanted to cry again because it hadn’t really happened. As well as not having recently had sex, I had also not recently (cupcakes not included) had happiness. And now here was Will trying to explain to me what was going wrong with my tearooms-to-be and I was too busy wondering if it had been the cheesiest dream in the entire universe or the loveliest one to concentrate. I knew I should have been nodding or shaking my head or going ‘tut tut’ but instead I could only gaze blankly at the space just to Will’s left because I could not bring myself to look at him.

‘I can’t fix the pipes with things the way they are down
there, Florence,’ Stanley chipped in morbidly, which brought me out of my torpor. ‘Dry rot’s the enemy of the plumber as well as the builder, you know.’

‘Dry rot?’ So that’s what we were talking about.

‘Yes, it’s wicked stuff,’ Will said. ‘We went to detach some of the old plumbing in the basement and one of the joists just about disintegrated in my hands. They’re in a pretty bad way and we’ll need to replace them and some of the floorboards before Stan can go any further.’

‘So, what does it all mean?’ I couldn’t just at that minute think what a joist might be.

‘It means time,’ Stanley said.

Well, actually, I had plenty of that.

‘And money,’ added Will.

‘Oh shit.’

Now he had my attention. Forget pulling me on top of his naked body. Hell, now I was thinking about that again. I reverted to thoughts about joists which brought me back down to earth. And on earth time was not a problem but money was. Will and I had budgeted the renovations at exactly £30,000 because that was exactly what I had.

‘How much more do you think we will need?’

Stanley looked even more worried.

‘I’d like to say ten thousand but it could be more,’ ventured Will.

‘Oh shit, shit, shit.’

Any residue of my delicious dream vanished into thin air, taking any fleeting happiness or hopefulness I had felt with it. Where the hell was I going to get another wodge of cash? I hadn’t even had the brains to get the first one. That had been a mistake. And I was living as cheaply as I could but I was still perilously close to dipping into the £30,000 just to feed
myself and Sparky and keep the pantry full to choking with flour and butter and sugar and raisins and chocolate and … My knees buckled beneath me and I swooned. Not in an adoring way but in a losing consciousness way. Will sprang to my aid and steadied me. I felt unbelievably weak and woozy and needed to lean on him as he helped me to the kitchen, sat me at the table, and as he had done the first day we met, set about making a cup of tea.

He was talking and I was nodding but I couldn’t really make out what he was saying. There was a film of something floaty in between me and the rest of the world. It muffled everything. It should have been scary but was actually rather nice. I lingered in the middle of it and would have been quite happy to stay floating there but as soon as I tried to extricate myself from whatever it was, I slid off the chair and hit the floor.

‘Florence!’ I heard a muffled version of Will calling. ‘Florence!’ He was a blur, a blue denim blur, so I knew it was the real him, not the dreamy one because the dreamy one would be flesh coloured.

‘I believe you,’ I told him, because I really wanted someone to love me and always be there for me no matter what, the way he had in my dream. Or was I still dreaming? I couldn’t quite figure it out. ‘I believe you,’ I said again. ‘I do.’

‘Florence, can you sit up? I need to sit you up.’ The blurriness started to sharpen and all of a sudden the crisp version of Will was trying to scrape me off the kitchen floor. His voice was as clear as a bell. His look radiated a concern, a caring that penetrated my bones and I felt suddenly overwhelmed with longing: not the sexual longing of my dream but a yearning of another kind. What it was for — him or the past or just your average everyday common or garden happiness — I’m
not sure but it chased away any airy-fairy floatiness, that was for sure. It was sharp and hard and real.

I felt my body settle into my consciousness again, my bones start to stiffen, my brain tick over.

‘Florence?’ Will scooped me up by my armpits, sat me back on the chair, then bent me forward over my knees. He had his hand on the back of my neck. I could feel the calluses on his fingers. The rough sandpaper of his skin against mine. ‘Can you hear me? Are you all right?’

I was not all right. I was pretty sure nobody who had been through what I recently had would be all right. But still, in the strange clear aftermath of a dead faint, I registered that I really was not all right. Deep down inside I was not all right. Physically, I was not all right.

I had lost weight, maybe as much as a stone; I was pale as a ghost beneath my make-up and any passing blushes; and my troubled circumstances were playing havoc with my digestion, which had become more sluggish in recent years but come to almost a standstill in recent months.

I had previously put this down to my three rotten things but now I thought about it, now Will had my neck in his warm, worn hand, it occurred to me that maybe there was more to it.

‘I think I need to see a doctor,’ I said in a funny feeble sort of a voice that barely belonged to me. Hearing it made me feel better though, and I sat up straight.

Will smiled, relaxed, felt my forehead. One of those calluses scratched gently above my left eyebrow. I imagined it leaving a scar. A permanent one. Proof he’d been there.

‘You don’t seem to have a temperature,’ he said. ‘But the doctor’s probably a good idea. You’re very pale, Florence. And at the risk of sounding like your mother, you need your strength.’

‘You’ve clearly never met my mother,’ I told him, my vocal cords sounding more familiar. ‘She thinks strength is
overrated
. I’m supposed to celebrate my frailties.’

Will laughed.

‘Anyway, we can sort something out about the rot, about the money,’ he said. ‘Please don’t worry about that. And I’m glad you believe me. I don’t know what it is exactly that you believe, but I’m still glad.’

I managed a weak smile, possibly even a half-hearted blush. And when I felt my heart rate return to its regular pace, I crawled up the stairs, exhausted, and fell into a deep sleep, free of luscious dreams, free of riotous sexual congress, free of anything but blissful oblivion.

Later on, I rang and made an appointment with Nick March, our ancient family doctor. As it turned out, it was Nick’s son, also Nick, who I eventually saw a few days later.

Old Nick had retired seven years before, Young Nick told me, to my great astonishment. It had obviously been a long time since I’d needed medical attention although I couldn’t believe it was quite that long. Seven years earlier, I had been the healthy, happily married mother of a twelve-year-old boy.

Now, here I was, according to his scales seventeen pounds lighter than I had been then, newly and involuntarily single, and the perfect example of the sort of mother-in-law innocent newlyweds have nightmares about.

Young Nick sat very sweetly through a quarter of an hour of me crying about my rotten things before gently suggesting I jump up on to the bed so he could have a good old poke around my abdomen and ask a few questions about my ‘movements’.

I was a bit like Granny Rose in this department, I didn’t like talking about that sort of thing and I still don’t, but the truth of it was I had been chronically bunged up for weeks and
had come to the doctor partly to seek relief so it only seemed fair we swap a bit of chit chat on the subject.

Rather than simply prescribing me some extra strength laxatives or giving me a lecture on the benefits of fibre, however, Young Nick surprised me by suggesting an internal examination.

I did not know what sort of an internal examination he meant before I agreed to it and found it deeply undignified, to say the least. In fact, when I realised he was actually going to use my rear end like a glove puppet I just about died and started blushing and stammering and suggesting I come back another time. Perhaps when I was feeling better, in which case I might not have to bother at all. Young Nick smiled comfortingly and said he did this all the time and it wasn’t as bad as one might imagine and anyway would be over in a jiffy.

When he extricated his hand from my nether regions, however, his smile had definitely gone. So had mine, but then I hadn’t had one to begin with.

‘I might just refer you on for another test, Florence,’ he said, with a certain false brightness.

‘Why?’ I asked, panic rising. ‘Is there something wrong?’

‘I very much doubt it,’ he said calmly, ‘especially considering what you have been through of late. One’s bowels can often bear the brunt of emotional upheaval. However, you are coming up for forty and with your family history there’s no harm in having a bit of a look-see. It’s nothing to worry about, Florence. I’ll get the nurse to ring and make an appointment for you to have a colonoscopy. She can call you with the details.’

Upon extensive questioning of the nurse I found out that a colonoscopy was a camera that went up into the colon —
just another word doctors liked using instead of bowel, as it turned out, not a whole different organ as I originally assumed — and had a look around to make sure everything was
tickety-boo
. Lots of forty-pluses had colonoscopies, she told me, even though I wasn’t forty-plus, and they didn’t hurt a bit. It was less invasive than an internal examination, she added, because the clinic gave you lovely drugs so it didn’t hurt and you didn’t remember a thing.

Looking back, it would be easy to say that I sensed something was wrong, that I could feel it, that I knew something dangerous lurked within me, but the truth is, I didn’t have a clue. I missed the first colonoscopy appointment because I forgot about it and it’s only because the nurse was so cross when she rang up to reschedule that I turned up for the second one. There was so much wrong on the outside of my world that I could have been twelve months pregnant and had twenty sluggish colons and still would not have noticed anything untoward.

The camera up the colon had no such other-worldly distractions. It slithered its way into my body while I chatted happily, totally on top of the world thanks to God knows how much Valium, then it had a look around, spotted the tumour and was out of there — with photos — in less than twenty minutes.

Thanks to the Valium I remained pretty upbeat about this discovery as I was wheeled into the recovery room and brought dreary grey tea and slightly stale digestives.

The colonoscopist — if that’s what they are called, I thought it hilarious at the time — couldn’t be sure it was malignant (that’s the bad one, right? I had to ask) until they had sent it off to the pathology lab for testing. But I could tell by the way the colonoscopist looked at me, the way his receptionist
patted me on the back, the way the no-longer cranky nurse escorted me to the door and told me she’d be in touch as soon as possible, that no one expected the news to be good.