The First Last Kiss (42 page)

Emboldened by a surge of energy and the desire to shock him, like I’ve just been, I run over to the car, throw open his door and start pummelling him with my hands.

‘You bastard, you shitty fucking bastard! How could you? How could you? How COULD you?’

He slides out of the car and catches me as I fall to my knees, clutching my chest and moaning with pain, like I’ve been shot in the heart.

‘Molly? What the . . . Molly!’ he hoicks me up under my arms and holds me in front of him like a rag doll, his blue eyes flitting between mine. They are glistening, like when the sun catches a wave and I recall how looking at him has always felt like being instantly transported to a summer day. Not now though. Right now I’m in the middle of a storm.

‘Molly? What’s going on?’

‘You tell me, you fucking . . . fucker!’ I pummel my fists furiously against him, crying harder with every strike.

Ryan holds my wrists. ‘Hey! Molly, what is all this? Honestly, I don’t know what you’re on about!’

‘Casey!’ I cry. ‘I’m talking about you and Casey!’ I see a flash of acknowledgement in his eyes then, but there’s no guilt, just relief.

‘Oh
that
. . . ’ he sighs wearily and drops my hands. He sits back in the car, leaning his head back against the rest as if he can’t quite hold it up on his own. I know how he feels. I grip onto the car for support, knowing that my legs aren’t able to do their work alone right now.

‘It was nothing, Molly babe, honestly,’ he says flatly. ‘Nothing I didn’t expect anyway. I told her she was out of order. End of.’

‘You’re saying she . . . ? Not you . . . ? And you didn’t . . . ?’ He nods to all three of my unfinished sentences. The next one I finish: ‘Why should I believe you, Ryan?’ I murmur.

He looks at me, his eyes watery with tears. ‘Because you know it’s true.’

And I do. I think of my vows.
I do.
And I know that he’s telling the truth. She has flirted with every single one of his friends and my friend’s boyfriends, she’s slept with men who have girlfriends, wives even. She has always been completely indiscriminate in her romantic choices. And deep down, I guess I’ve always known that Casey was in love with Ryan. I’ve known it since that holiday in Ibiza. Maybe even before. I saw the way she looked at him. But I never thought, I never thought, she would ever do this to me . . .

I lean my whole body against the car door, clinging on to it for support. I look at Ryan, my saviour, the one who has always kept me afloat. ‘So you really didn’t come on to her, then?’ I say quietly, knowing even as the words leave my mouth that he wouldn’t. Not ever.

‘No! Of course not! I would never . . . ’ He reaches up to take my hand and smiles weakly as he rubs his thumb over my engagement and wedding rings. ‘You’re the only girl for me, Molly, you always have been . . . and . . . always will be . . . ’ He turns away and rubs his forehead and I see his shoulders are shaking. He’s crying.

I feel so stupid. And so confused. I know there’s something more. I run round to the passenger seat and get in the car. ‘What is it? Tell me.’ I’m crying now. ‘I don’t want to lose you, Ry . . . I’ll do anything. When I was in New York I realized that I want what
you
want. I’m ready. I want to move here, buy a house, have kids. I’ve done everything I ever dreamed of doing and I don’t want anything to take me away from you any more. Being with you is more important than anything else. I love you so much, Ry. Please we can work through whatever it is that’s happened, whatever it is you’ve done. I know we can. I-I love you so much.’

I’m sobbing now because somehow it feels like I’m losing him all over again and I can’t bear it.

Ry lifts his hand up to my chin and smiles. ‘I know you love me, Moll, you silly cow.’ I put my hand over his and stroke it. We sit there for a moment staring into each other’s eyes. There’s something different about him but I don’t know what it is.

‘Then what is it, Ry?’ I whisper urgently. ‘What’s wrong? Why have you been so distant since I got back? Why have you brought me here? I’ve been so scared, not knowing what’s going on is killing me. Please just tell me. We’ll work through it, whatever it is.’ I cling on to him and squeeze his hands. He looks down at them clasped together, joined so tightly that it’s impossible to tell which hand belongs to who. Then he looks up and the years have fallen away and suddenly he looks just like the teenager I fell in love with. He takes a deep breath, his voice is soft but laboured. He can’t look at me. He looks at our hands, at his wedding ring glinting at us, shining brighter than the sun.

‘Listen Moll, while you were away I went to stay with Mum and Dad for a night, and Mum noticed this mole. On my back. It looked a bit weird and she got me to go to the doctor. I told him about feeling constantly tired and thinking I had flu because my glands were up . . . ’ He looks at me and I gaze at him silently. ‘I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to spoil your trip and have you worrying over something that was probably nothing.’ Probably. I hate that word. He speaks again but this time his voice is quiet and it cracks. ‘I mean, I thought I’d just have the mole removed and that would be it. Plenty of people have cancerous moles, right?’ He squeezes my hands and then smiles brightly. ‘They removed it and said something about swollen lymph glands which might involve an operation, and the tests they did said that it was stage three. But then they said they wanted me to have a CT scan today. Which I’m sure will show it’s all fine.’ I blink at him.

‘Wh-hwat are you saying, Ry?’ I whisper.

‘I’m sure they’ve got it all, the cancer was just in that mole, but I’ve got an appointment today to get the results of the scan and see about the lymph glands. I’m not scared or anything.’ He lifts up his shoulders and then they slump again as if he hasn’t got the energy to pretend.

Cancer.

I want to speak but I can’t. I can’t speak because I can’t breathe. I shake my head, trying to dislodge the word from my head.

One word.

Cancer. Cancer. Cancer.

I put my hands over my ears to drown out the word. It is roaring its name like it’s the Gruffalo in our nephew Beau’s favourite book.

I gaze at him pleadingly, and then disbelievingly, and then defiantly.

‘No,’ I say quietly, then louder. ‘I don’t believe it. NO!’ I grasp his hands again, entwine my fingers in his, and I close my eyes and I lift them to my lips and kiss them all over, kissing each finger, each knuckle, every last inch. I open my eyes and rest my cheek against our cold hands. Ryan kisses my head.

‘Babe,’ he says, ‘it’s going to be alright. I promise you, I’m going to be alright.’

And I nod to show I believe him. I’m a Cooper now which means I am an optimist. We are optimists. The mouse
can
defeat the Gruffalo.

The First Last Kiss

Why did no one warn me that every kiss is a countdown to goodbye? It’s only now that I’m treating them like they’re the most precious things on earth that I realize that each one is like a grain of sand slipping through my fingers and I can’t hold on to them no matter how hard I try. How do I stop the sands of time?

How can I make a kiss last for a lifetime?

PLAY> 26/02/07

Half an hour later we’re standing outside the private hospital in silence, clutchingπ the strong takeaway tea and flapjacks that Ryan stopped off to buy before we came here. We’re early and waiting till the last possible minute to go in for the appointment where we’ll be given the results of his CT scan. Neither of us wants to sit in the waiting room so we informed the receptionist we’re here and then came back outside, into the fresh air.

I can’t speak yet. The words ‘skin cancer’ and ‘malignant melanoma’ and ‘Stage 3’ are pounding my brain like feet relentlessly running on a treadmill. I’m clinging on to Ryan with my spare hand like my life depends on it.

Between the train-station car park and here, we have talked about it all, with me storing the information he gives me like a squirrel hoarding nuts for winter. The more I know the less my imagination can work overtime.

I’m struggling with the knowledge that Ryan and his parents have known about this for weeks. I’m his wife, I should have been told. Instead, I was in New York, selfishly living out my dreams whilst my husband was living a nightmare. I close my eyes and try to rewind to the meeting where Christie asked if I wanted to go to
Viva
’s New York office for a month.

No
, I want to shout, not for the first time today.

NO.

I take a sip of tea and try to eat the flapjack that Ryan bought me. But it gets stuck in my throat. I have no saliva, no moisture left in my body; I’m sure I have cried it all out. Which is lucky, because I do not intend to do any more crying. I am going to be positive. I throw the flapjack in the bin we are standing next to.

‘Hey! That’s a waste,’ Ryan says. ‘I’d have eaten it.’ Always thinking about his stomach.

‘I don’t want a fat husband,’ I say shrilly, in a voice that doesn’t sound like my own.

‘Had you noticed the mole had changed before?’ I then ask quietly.

He nods. ‘A year or so ago, I think. I honestly don’t know. I didn’t think anything was wrong, it just looked a bit . . . misshapen, bigger maybe, but I didn’t think anything of it.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ I demand. ‘
I’d
have told you to get it checked.’

The words come out as a squeak, a whine, a
self-obsessed
whine. Ryan just laughs (how can he laugh? How can we ever laugh again?). He puts his tea down, ruffles my hair affectionately, and winds his arms around me.

‘I just didn’t think there was anything to it,’ he says gently. ‘And then when I thought it might have grown, we were always so busy with work and going here and there, and I just didn’t have time to get it checked.’ His fist tightens into a ball and he presses it against his forehead and closes his eyes. Then he opens them and smiles at me. ‘It’s fine though. It’ll all be fine! The docs removed it after the CT scan.’

‘But why didn’t you tell me when your mum noticed it?’

‘Because I didn’t want to worry you over nothing, Moll, you were in New York and I had the . . . mal-ignant mel-an-oma removed . . . ’ He pauses. The words fall clumsily out of his mouth, ‘ . . . almost immediately. Within a week! And yes, my blood test results show my red-blood count is up, but I feel fine! Fit as ever!’

He doesn’t look at me when he says this, and I know that this isn’t true. He hasn’t been feeling himself for months. He’s been tired and listless, exhausted just walking up the stairs to our flat, but he thought it was just work taking its toll. Or his age. He is nearly thirty . . .

Only
nearly thirty.

This shouldn’t be happening. Not to him! He’s a PE teacher! He juices every day! He’s run marathons! He’s scaled cliffs! Dived out of planes!

He’s used a sunbed for years.

Her voice is quiet, discreet, reverential, but completely unwelcome as ever.

Get out Get out Get out! I hate your cynical, negative thoughts that are as cancerous as the cancer itself.

I cling on to his hand and he looks up and smiles brightly. ‘I’m sure the CT scan result today will show they’ve got it all.’

‘That’s why I didn’t tell you,’ he continues, ‘because it could have been nothing . . . it could
still
be nothing.’

‘Stage three cancer isn’t nothing,’ I reply. The word ‘cancer’ is hostile in my mouth.

‘It will be when I’ve finished with it.’ Ryan mimes drop-kicking a ball into the far distance, puts his hand up to his ear as if waiting for the sound of it landing, then brushes his hands together and cups my face. ‘Look at me, I’m as fit as you like! There is no way some stupid little mole has had any other effect on this finely tuned machine!’ He jumps back, waves his hand at his body, flexes his muscles and poses, body-builder style. Then he grins and jogs on the spot. ‘You’re going to have to put up with being married to me for many years to come, Moll, so don’t you start thinking there’s any other way out . . . ’

‘Don’t joke about it, Ryan, please, I can’t . . . ’

I’m crying and I hate myself for doing this but I’m not ready to joke. I won’t be until I hear the doctors tell us that he has beaten this.

No, that
we
have beaten it.

‘Hey,’ he swipes away my tears with his thumb. ‘Molly, stop.’ He grips my wrists gently and makes me look at him. ‘Hey, listen to me.
I know
that these results are going to show that everything is alright. At worst, a couple of bouts of chemo, some radiotherapy maybe to make sure, and I’ll be right as rain!’

I look at my husband, so positive and upbeat, so strong and sweet, protecting me for as long as possible because he didn’t want to worry me. I don’t know much about cancer and the details I do know come from reading the real-life features in our magazine, but I know stage four is bad, so stage three must mean there’s a chance? Maybe if it was isolated to that mole, it can be beaten? In fact, now I come to think of it, I’m sure we once featured a girl who had skin cancer, had the mole removed, had chemo, and had been clear of it for five years. Was it stage three? Probably! So that just goes to show it could definitely be curable! Almost certainly in fact! Cancer isn’t a death sentence any more. And there’s so much they can do. Really, we shouldn’t be at all worried. I’ll look into alternative medicines as well as whatever treatment the doctors decide to do. I’ll write a list. I’ve heard of cases where people have beaten cancer purely with diet alone. Obviously I’ll need to learn to cook first. But I could learn reflexology. Do a course in it or something? Or go to Holland & Barrett and get lots of essential oils. I’ll get some books on it from Amazon as soon as we get home. Maybe
I’ll
be the one to cure his cancer, not the doctors. He won’t even need treatment, probably. I’m all he needs now. And maybe one other person . . .

‘Good,’ I smile as I take his hand. ‘Because we haven’t got time for cancer if we’re going to start trying for a baby . . . ’