Sweet Temptation (15 page)

Ben was hanging back, eyeing Mum warily, but Emma went straight over and hugged her grandmother. My eyes pricked with tears as I noticed how tenderly she put her arms around Mum’s neck – a world away from the wild, tight, love-you-to-bits hugs she usually went in for.

Mum met Paul’s eyes. ‘Well, I’ve been better,’ she said. ‘And now I feel terrible for wrecking your holiday. Gerald, it was very naughty of you to phone them and drag them all away. It’s Gerald’s fault – blame him,’ she added with a glimmer of her usual twinkle at last. ‘Poor children,’ she said, patting Emma’s back and smiling over at Ben. ‘What pains in the neck Granny and Gerald are, eh?’

‘Let’s get you home, anyway, Mum,’ I said. ‘You can be a pain in the neck in your own bed for the rest of the day, you look worn out.’

For once, she didn’t argue with me. And that was a really,
really
bad sign, I thought to myself.

Mum was all for us returning straight to Wales, but I couldn’t stand the thought of being far from her. In the end, we decided that Paul would take the kids back to see the holiday out, while I stayed to keep an eye on Mum.

‘Are you absolutely sure you still want us to go?’ Paul said the next morning, passing me a coffee.

I sipped it gratefully; I’d barely slept. ‘Well, you’ve taken the time off work, and it’s all paid for . . . it seems daft for everyone to miss out,’ I said staunchly. ‘You take the kids – there’s no point us all hanging around here. Mum won’t thank you for it, either.’

‘Well . . . okay,’ he said doubtfully. ‘But if you change your mind and need a bit of support, we’re only a couple of hours away. Just ring me and we’ll be right back, okay?’

‘Okay,’ I said, trying to sound breezy and upbeat. ‘Thanks, love. She’s probably fine, but . . . I just want to be near her.’

And so an hour later, Paul, Ben and Emma drove back to Wales and I went straight round to Mum’s. Gerald answered the door, looking hollow-eyed and haggard, and told me that Mum was in bed with another bad headache and didn’t want to be disturbed. I asked if I could get some shopping for them, but he said he had it covered. All of a sudden, I felt redundant.

I went home again, wondering what to do. I wasn’t used to being left to my own devices. Life was usually so busy, so hectic – I was always juggling several things at once, rushing from one chore on the to-do list to the next. As I went back through our front door, I suddenly felt tearful and lonely and couldn’t stop thinking about food. I badly wanted to do some serious comfort eating – piles of toast, thick slabs of cake, chocolate biscuits . . . Funny – I’d barely thought about food during all the stress yesterday, but now it was the only thing on my mind.

An image popped into my head of Alison, the Fat-Busters lady, wagging her finger at me, and I groaned out loud, my conscience pricked. I knew I shouldn’t stuff myself right now – I wasn’t hungry. But, but, but . . . I just wanted to. I was stressed, I needed a boost . . .

Right at the last moment, just as my hand was on the door of the food cupboard, I remembered my diet buddies.
Who ya gonna call? Diet Buddies!

I smiled weakly, imagining Jess and Lauren in lurid Lycra superhero costumes flying to my rescue and confiscating all my secret calorific treats. Could I ring them? I hesitated. Lauren had sent me a lovely text the other week after I’d been on the radio, and I’d been really chuffed to hear from her. But she came across as being a bit . . . well, a bit abrasive sometimes. I felt too vulnerable and weepy to cope with any of that right now.

Jess, on the other hand, had been so sympathetic to me at the gym cafe that time. I bit my lip, feeling shy as I got out my phone. She was probably working, busy with something, I guessed. But . . . oh, what the hell. If it stopped me breaking into the Wagon Wheels, it was worth a try.

I removed myself from the kitchen and called. She answered after three rings.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi, Jess, this is Maddie, from FatBusters. Um . . .’

‘Oh, hi, Maddie, are you okay? I thought you were on holiday?’

‘No, I . . . I came back early. I’m not disturbing you, am I? Is this an all right time to call?’

‘Yeah, sure, I’m on a break – perfect timing. So how are things?’

‘Well . . . Not great,’ I said baldly. ‘My mum’s not well and . . . Well, I’m ringing because I was just about to have a food binge to cheer myself up. I was hoping Diet Buddy Number One could help me.’

‘Oh, Maddie!’ she said, sounding so concerned it made me want to cry. ‘Sorry to hear about your mum. But bingeing isn’t the answer. Can you think of something else you could do, something that doesn’t involve food?’

I sighed. ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘I don’t feel like doing any housework or watching anything. I just feel like some nice food.’

‘How about going for a walk?’ she suggested. ‘Clear your head. It’s a lovely day.’

‘Is it?’ I said in surprise, gazing out of the window. I hadn’t noticed the bright July sunshine casting long shadows in the back garden. I’d assumed it was still raining, because that’s how it felt inside my head. Then I sighed. I didn’t feel like going for a walk in the sun either. It always made me feel too hot and uncomfortable. ‘Maybe later,’ I said unconvincingly.

Jess paused, and suddenly I felt bad, putting her in the position of agony aunt like this.
Whatever she suggests next, I’ll do it
, I decided. Just so the poor woman could get off the phone and go back to her tea break.

‘Well, maybe . . . Do you want to come and meet me to talk about it?’ she said. ‘My lunch break starts at one – we could have a salad in the cafe or something. You don’t have to tell me the details, but sometimes company can help. And it’ll get you away from the kitchen, too.’

I looked at the clock. It was only ten thirty. I wasn’t sure I could hang on until one. But at least it would break up the day. ‘Thanks, Jess,’ I said. ‘I’d really appreciate it. Are you sure that’s all right? I don’t want to take up your time.’

‘It’s totally all right,’ she said in such a firm voice that I believed her. ‘I’ll meet you in reception at one o’clock.’

I put the phone down. Two and a half hours to kill. I had to get out of the house, otherwise I knew I would crack and pig out. I didn’t want to keep pestering Mum – I’d told Gerald I’d pop back in the afternoon to see how she was doing. Nicole would be working and, even though I knew she’d be sympathetic, it would be with a whipped-cream hot chocolate and a pastry, and I was trying to stay away from her restaurant for that exact reason while I was dieting – too many tasty temptations.

Then an idea popped into my head: a thought that had never ever occurred to me before. I’d go to the
gym
for a workout before I met Jess! It was such an unlikely and unusual thing to occur to me that I actually laughed out loud.

I would do it, though. Mum would be dead pleased when I told her later, and that was as good a reason as any.

Jess was kind, encouraging and supportive when I met her that day – the perfect near-anonymous person to let off steam to. The gym was surprisingly therapeutic too. So much so, in fact, that I found myself going there for the next few mornings as well, and letting out all my stress and frustration on the machines. Mum was still crippled by terrible headaches and stubbornly refusing any assistance, and I felt powerless to do very much for her. I wanted to help, but there was nothing really I could do – and I knew that badgering her would eventually send her into a rage. I kept popping round, but she was usually in bed or lying on the sofa, feeling too rotten to talk.

‘I’m scared,’ I said to Nicole one evening on the phone. ‘I’ve never seen her like this before, she’s always been so . . . so well. So together. Now she’s just this feeble invalid, barely able to sit up and talk to me.’

‘Shit,’ Nicole said. ‘I can’t imagine her like that. Is there still nothing definite from the hospital? What have they told you?’

‘Well, they’ve said that the full blood count showed “an imbalance”, whatever that means, but that it wasn’t enough to draw any conclusions. We’ve just got to wait. It’s awful.’

‘I can imagine, babe,’ she said sympathetically. ‘Just hang in there – and if there’s anything I can do, you know you only have to shout. Running errands or taxi-ing you both around – anything at all.’

By the time the call came from the GP the following week asking Mum to come in to discuss the results, I had almost got to the point where I didn’t want to know, so frightened was I of what the diagnosis might be. ‘I’ll take you to the surgery,’ I insisted. ‘No buts. I know you want to do everything yourself, but tough. I’m coming with you this time.’

She looked like a sullen teenager for a moment and I half expected her to stamp her feet and argue the toss, but she rolled her eyes instead, with a flash of her old humour. ‘Since when did you get so bossy?’ she muttered, but there was a reluctant smile there too. ‘Come on, take me if you must, then.’

I could tell by Dr Brooks’s face that something was seriously wrong as we sat down in her room. Dr Brooks was about my age, lean and rangy, with a sharp fringe and keen eyes. Today, though, those eyes were full of sorrow, and her lips were set in a strange, awkward line.
Oh God
, I thought, sitting down.
It’s bad
.

‘Hello, Anna, hello, Maddie,’ Dr Brooks said, then took a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid it’s not good news,’ she said bluntly. ‘The CT scan results show you have a tumour on the right side of your brain. It’s quite a large tumour – about the size of an apple. That’s what caused the seizure on Monday, and that’s why you’ve had such bad headaches and nausea recently.’

Mum didn’t speak. Neither did I for a moment. The words were reverberating around my head and it took me a few seconds to unscramble them.

‘A tumour . . . so it’s
cancer
?’ I said. I felt numb, hollow, as if I couldn’t quite process my emotions. Then fear took over. ‘Oh no.’ I took Mum’s hands, tears swimming in my eyes. ‘Oh no, Mum.’

‘Now, I know it sounds scary,’ Doctor Brooks went on gently, ‘but a brain tumour isn’t necessarily a death sentence. The hospital want you to go in and have more tests this afternoon, before they decide a course of treatment.’

‘What sort of tests?’ I managed to get out. My heart was thumping hard, and adrenaline spiked through me. ‘What sort of treatment?’

She gave it to us straight. ‘The tests are to determine if the tumour in the brain is the primary tumour – where the cancerous cells originated – or if the cancer began somewhere else, and spread to the brain,’ she replied. ‘If they discover there are other tumours in your body, Anna, it will affect the treatment. So they want to do further scans, have a proper look at you, get all the facts as soon as possible.’

Mum still hadn’t spoken, and her face was a mask, betraying no emotion. ‘Thank you, Dr Brooks,’ she said politely.

Bless her. It was the diagnosis from hell, and she was giving the performance of her life.

Everything got worse after that. To cut a long and horrible story short, after an agony of waiting, the CT and ultrasound scans revealed that, yes, the primary tumour was in her brain, but that there were ‘shadows’ on her lungs, which meant undergoing a bronchoscopy. And when the results of
that
came back, it showed that, oh yes, there were cancerous cells there too. It was a late diagnosis. Terribly late. If they’d caught it earlier, they might have been able to operate on her brain and stop the cancer spreading, but now . . . Now, there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of hope for her chances.

She was dying, I just knew it. Surely there was no way back from this. My fabulous, feisty mum was being eaten away by cancer, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Chapter Nine

Wedding Cake

Jess

‘All set for the big day tomorrow, then?’ I said as I came back into the room. Francesca was lying face down on the massage table, her golden hair twisted up in a scrunchie, shoulders bare, and a thick blue towel covering the rest of her body.

I didn’t really need to ask, to be honest, because it was obvious that she was absolutely bubbling over with excited happiness – I had seen it in her eyes and in the hundred-kilowatt smile she’d flashed at me when I’d gone to collect her from the reception area. She seemed a completely different woman from the tensed-up-tight person who’d sat before me a few weeks earlier stressing about her wedding plans.

‘I just can’t
wait
,’ she said as I rubbed some of our energizing orange-and-ginger oil between my hands. ‘I can’t believe it’s actually happening tomorrow. After all this time – all this work, all this planning – I’m finally going to be Mrs McCarthy . . .’ Her head was turned away from me, but I could tell she was smiling as she spoke. ‘This time tomorrow, we’ll have said our vows, we’ll be man and wife . . . oooohh!’

I began the massage, lightly sweeping both of my hands up her back and around her shoulders until her skin glistened with oil. It was nice to hear that someone was happy at least – I’d had a terrible morning so far. Louisa had called me in for a little ‘chat’ first thing, and proceeded to really tell me off for letting down the salon image.

‘It’s not good enough, Jess,’ she’d said. ‘While you’re wearing the uniform, you’re an advertisement for this place. You’ve got to look professional at all times – and that means not walking about sobbing on your phone. For heaven’s sake, get a grip of yourself!’

It had felt like a slap. No ‘Is everything all right, Jess?’; no ‘Sorry to hear you were upset the other day, can I help, Jess?’ Not that I’d have
told
her anything about my private life, but, you know . . . the thought would have been appreciated. I reckoned Louisa must have been skiving the day she was meant to learn about adopting a ‘sympathetic bedside manner’ as part of her beautician training. She was about as sympathetic as Simon Cowell. ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled, desperate to get away from her as fast as possible.

‘Yeah, I should think so,’ she’d said. She’d pursed her too thin, too glossy lips and looked me up and down, her eyes contemptuous beneath their ridiculously over-mascara’d lashes. ‘I might as well tell you now,’ she’d said. ‘Karen’s not sure whether she’s coming back after her maternity leave, so I’ll be putting in for her position. And if I do become the manager of the salon, I’m going to shake things up a bit. That means slackers will be out.’