The Two Week Wait (2 page)

At once, a burst of excitement. Soon it’s Christmas, then New Year, and she can kiss goodbye to this vile twelve months forever.

‘We’re going on holiday!’ she says, and claps her hands.

*  *  *

Lou resists an impulse to wake Sofia. It’s 5 a.m., wouldn’t be fair.

It’s all very well telling me not to worry, she thinks. If only it were that easy to switch off my mind.

She rolls over onto her back, eases down her pyjama bottoms, checks her abdomen. Is it her imagination or does it feel tender? Though she could just be bruised from all the prodding.

The previous evening they had scoured the Internet for possible diagnoses. Sofia homed in on less dramatic conditions (including, to Lou’s irritation, constipation), but Lou is still
convinced it’s something worse. They’d wondered about calling a medical helpline, then decided it was too late and not really an emergency. ‘Let’s go to bed,’ Sofia
had urged. ‘We can ring the doctor in the morning. We’ll get you an appointment as soon possible.’

So Lou is here, in one of the twin divans her mother insists on giving them. These days Irene runs the family home as a B. & B., and this is the room they’ve been allocated, even
though her mother doesn’t take guests over the Christmas holidays, so there’s a much larger double free next door. ‘She is like a woman from the 1950s, your mum,’ Sofia had
moaned. ‘Even in Spain, most mothers are not so strict. Does she believe it will stop us having sex?’ ‘It’ll stop her having to admit we do,’Lou had replied. Her
mother’s propensity for denial would be laughable had not vast swathes of Lou’s life gone painfully unacknowledged as a result.

Lou continues the exploration. She knows she’s being obsessive, yet she’s vaguely hoping it will ease her fear, and at least in the dark, in the silence, she can concentrate. With
both hands she locates the lump again. It feels huge. How can she have missed it until today? She presses it; it makes her need to pee.

Sofia stirs and rolls over. Lou holds her breath – she could do with Sofia to murmur sleepy consolation, soothe her – but she doesn’t wake.

Lou persists with her mission, fingertips slow, ominous, tarantula-like. If the lump were in the middle, she’d concede it was just the way her body is made. It’s the alien asymmetry
that most alarms her. She swallows her fear. She can’t – she won’t – allow
that
notion to gain hold.

She puts her counsellor head on, thinks what she would say if she were a client. She is better at giving advice than receiving it. Perhaps she should make a list of symptoms to report to the
doctor.

She’s made allowances for her bladder – sitting on the end of a row in the cinema, snatching any opportunity to go to the toilet on protracted journeys lest she get caught short
– for as long as she can remember. But she’s hardly incontinent and her periods aren’t that bad. Many women suffer from much worse.

Otherwise, she’s pretty fit. She can do a hundred sit-ups in succession, easy, so there’s nothing wrong with her muscles. She doesn’t drink much; her diet is almost exemplary.
So what on earth is it? If something major were wrong, wouldn’t she be in some kind of pain?

None of this is helping. It’s only raising more questions, sending her thoughts spinning. And whichever way she turns them, she ends up with the same answer, like a ball on a roulette
wheel that lands on the same number, time and again.

*  *  *

The plane rumbles along the runway, gathering speed. Cath watches the airport blur past, grips the seat arms with clammy palms, waiting for the wheels to lift from the ground.
In the seat in front of her a toddler is crying.

Poor thing, she thinks. I hate take-off and landing, too.

That’s when she has heard most accidents happen, and certainly it’s when there’s no escaping the absurdity of spewing a vast metal object into the sky. When they’re
cruising tens of thousands of feet up, Cath can suspend disbelief, imagine she’s just in some strange tube-shaped cinema, watching the sun and clouds through the misty porthole like a
film.

Faster and faster they go: she can’t believe they’re not yet airborne . . .

Finally –
whoooosh!
– they’re up.

Phew.

She’s been holding her breath the entire time.

She sits back, relaxes. Shortly the ‘Fasten seatbelts’ sign goes off, and the child in front stops wailing. Cath can feel him jolting the chair, wriggling, restless, so she scratches
the white antimacassar above his head to get his attention. He peers round the gap between the seats. His face is tear-stained.

‘Hello,’ she says, and smiles.

He ducks away, wary. Shortly he re-emerges, wide-eyed, curious.

‘Boo!’ says Cath.

Again he disappears, and a few seconds later he’s back.

She hides her face behind her hands, then quickly removes them. ‘Boo!’

He giggles.

What a sweetie, Cath thinks.

So now there’s just landing, then her first skiing lesson, to get through. She’s dreading that. Cath was never good at PE; she was the girl at school who took every opportunity to
skive and sit on the bench, and skiing will require not just aptitude but bravery too.

Still, having stared at her own mortality in the mirror, nothing frightens her quite as much as it did.

*  *  *

It’s no good: Lou can’t rest, and now she can hear birds – at this time of year it must be a robin, laying claim to its territory. Perhaps she doesn’t
miss those trees after all.

She gets up, impatient, throwing back the sheets. At least with Sofia in a separate bed it’s easier not to wake her.

She raises the blind a touch to help her see, rummages through her holdall for appropriate clothes, retrieves her trainers from the floor and tiptoes into the bathroom to pull on her tracksuit.
She has to do something with this nervous energy.

Down the stairs, softly, softly. Her mother is the lightest sleeper; Lou can’t face a dressing-gowned inquisition on top of her own anxiety. She eases back the bolts on the front door,
praying they won’t clank, and then she’s out and on the drive.

She inhales fresh air deep into her lungs, and, without stretching – the desire to get moving far outweighing any concerns of injury – she’s off down the lane.

The house is on the outskirts of town. Bare, tangle-twigged hedgerows rise on either side of her. In the distance are gently undulating fields, ploughed and ready for planting. Dawn is
approaching; mist rising from the valley, spectral grey on brown.

It takes a minute or two for her muscles to warm up and to hit her stride. Ah, that’s better – the rhythm helps calm her, each footfall brings with it increased lucidity, shaking
down thoughts like rice in a jar so they no longer crowd her.

Sofia must be right. Would she be able to sprint like this if she was really ill? Of course not.

It’s just, things have been going so well lately. The two of them are looking to buy a place together; her job counselling kids who’ve been excluded from school is easier now
she’s no longer such a novice. It would be typical if something were to trip her up.

As if to comment on her thoughts, a driver toots, forcing her into the kerb, then overtakes at speed in a glistening Audi.

What’s the hurry? thinks Lou, annoyed.

She decides to get off the main road. Hitchin is commuter-belt territory; even this early, people are heading to work.

She turns left through a kissing gate and onto the common. The riverside path weaves through alder trees and the arching stems of pendulous sedge. In the reed beds frogs will be mating come
early spring, then there will be tadpoles just like the ones she and her sister used to collect in jam jars when they were small. And there in the grazing pasture are the cattle: English Longhorns,
an ancient, placid breed. They raise their heads from the vegetation to gaze at her, bemused.

She takes her cue, reduces her pace.

You can run but you can’t flee, she tells herself.

Two laps later, she’s feeling less agitated. As she jogs out onto the road once more, she has an idea. Yes, why not? She’ll go back that way, through town.

She slows to a walk as she approaches the entrance, a mark of respect. She briefly wonders if anyone will mind that she’s in her exercise gear, then remembers it’s most unlikely
there will be other visitors at this time.

It’s been a while, but she finds the spot quickly and kneels down. The ground is damp with frost.

How strange to think of him beneath this soil.

Even after all these years, she still misses him. She wishes that she could talk to him; so much has happened since he died. She’s finished her training, moved to Brighton, come out to her
mother . . . And now, this lump. What would he say about that?

In part he’s what’s made her so jumpy. She’s thrown right back to the experience of his illness: the protracted demise, the pain and fear, the loss of dignity. He became so
thin and fragile, a ghost of his former self. The prospect of going through anything even remotely similar to her father terrifies her.

Lou plucks at the grass, struggling with her memories. Although most plants have withered in the cold, the hump still needs weeding, she thinks abstractedly. It can’t have been done in a
while. She’s surprised her mother hasn’t tended it – Irene’s garden at the B. & B. is immaculate: every pot diligently planted with winter pansies, the drive lined with
snowdrops, just beginning to push through. Maybe she doesn’t come here much, can’t face it. Lou finds that notion strange, but that’s her mum all over.

She yanks at the weeds more deliberately, uses her nails to prise them from the cold soil, working from the front of the plot to the back. Soon she’s collected a little pile of wilted
leaves. She smoothes the earth with her palms, sits back to check her handiwork. The couch grass will need a fork, but it’s a start.

‘That’ll be Mummy,’ says Lou. ‘Do you want to buzz her in?’

She follows Molly to the intercom. Small fingers reach up to hit the button.

‘Let’s watch her come upstairs,’ Lou suggests. Together they go to the landing; she lifts Molly so she can see over the banister.

Lou and Sofia live in a studio flat on the top floor of a three-storey house – she and Molly hear Karen’s footsteps before they see her. Eventually she comes into sight: chestnut
hair and anorak soaked from the rain.

‘Mummy!’

Karen looks up from the floor below, her cheeks rosy from being outside. ‘Hello, Molster,’ she smiles. When she reaches them she bends to kiss her daughter.

‘Ew, you’re wet,’ says Molly. ‘And don’t call me Molster.’

‘Sorry.’ Karen glances at Lou. ‘Everything OK?’

Lou nods. ‘We’ve had a great time, haven’t we?’

‘We’ve done a funny drawing,’ says Molly.

‘Ooh,’ says Karen. ‘Why is it funny?’

‘It’s a plan for the allotment,’ says Lou. ‘She wanted to plant seeds – she saw the ones I’d ordered from the catalogue – but I told her it wasn’t
the right time of year. So we did a plan instead.’

‘Come and see!’ says Molly. The three of them head into the kitchen.

‘It’s really great of you to have her,’ says Karen, peering at the drawing.

‘No problem at all,’ says Lou. She looks at the combination of her own adult handwriting alongside Molly’s enthusiastic colouring-in and smiles. ‘I’ve enjoyed
it.’

‘Well, you know Molly’s your number one fan.’

That pleases Lou. The feeling is mutual. ‘Have you time for a cup of tea?’

Karen pushes damp tendrils from her face. ‘I guess I have – just a swift one.’

‘Here, let me.’ Lou takes Karen’s coat, hangs it on the radiator to dry.

Karen stands gazing out of the window. The street of Victorian terraced houses looks tired and tatty, a hotchpotch of mismatched dirty pastel frontages. Beyond it the sea is dark and dreary.
Even the pier seems to be struggling to remain bright and cheerful with its gaudy lights flashing in the drizzle and fairground attractions empty.

‘So how are you?’ says Lou, catching Karen’s wistful expression.

Karen sighs. ‘OK, I guess.’ Molly is winding herself round her legs like a cat. Karen glances down at her daughter, strokes her hair. She looks up and smiles wanly at Lou.
‘I’ve been worse.’

Lou nods, recognizing Karen’s sadness. She pauses, unsure whether to make this observation, decides it’s better to do so: ‘It must be tough, the run-up to . . . well, you
know.’

Karen swallows. Lou can see she is fighting back tears, which must have been near the surface. Oh dear, she thinks, perhaps I shouldn’t have brought it up with Molly here. But there are
enough people scared of mentioning what Karen’s been through; Lou doesn’t want to be one of them.

Karen struggles to keep her voice steady. ‘It’s our first Christmas without him.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ Lou says. ‘I should have thought.’

‘Don’t worry,’ says Karen.

But Lou feels dreadful. She’s been too wrapped up in herself; first enjoying the Lakes with Sofia, then preoccupied with this wretched lump. Yet she, more than anyone, ought to have
remembered how her friend would be feeling. Lou was with Karen when her husband died the previous February.

The kettle has boiled. Within seconds Lou is handing over a steaming brew. It seems inadequate but Karen takes it gratefully.

‘Molly, love,’ Lou says gently. Molly has stopped entwining, is eyeing her mother. ‘Would you like to watch
Princess Aurora
for a bit while Mummy and I have a
chat?’ Karen brought the DVD when she dropped off her daughter; it’s Molly’s favourite.

‘I’ve seen it already,’ says Molly.

‘It’s all right,’ says Karen. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.’ She goes over to the sofa, adjusts a couple of cushions so she can sit down. Molly clambers
onto her knee, all pink and pastel against her mother’s olive greens and browns.

Karen continues stroking her daughter’s hair, running comblike fingers away from her forehead. Molly wrinkles her nose and pouts. Karen, lost in her thoughts, doesn’t see; the motion
seems more to comfort herself than Molly. Lou switches on the TV anyway, flicks it to a children’s programme. Soon Molly is transfixed by the antics of a giant-eyed CGI bunny, so when Karen
clutches her tight and kisses the top of her head repeatedly, she barely registers.