Mum's List

by St. John Greene

  It turned out the tank had suffered what is known as a “coral crash,” which sent the PH through the roof, killing all of the invertebrates and coral and most of the fish. We were all absolutely gutted, but I did manage to stabilize the water, and the few fish that did survive pacified the boys a bit. The tank looked trashed, though, and it would have to be thoroughly cleaned and revamped or, better still, replaced with a new one once the extension was done.

  The next morning I got the boys up and out early. The fish tank dominates the living room and can’t be avoided, so I thought it was best to lay on some entertainment out at sea to distract them. I loved seeing them kitted out in their lifejackets, squealing with delight as we bombed along the water, and now that the boat was fully run in I could push it to its limits.

  “Go faster, Daddy! Go faster!” they said, even when I was close to breaking the speed limit and it felt like we were doing 100 mph along the Bristol Channel. Kate would have absolutely loved to see them like that, the wind in their hair and eyes shimmering like the sea. Finn was giggling like mad the whole time, and she absolutely loved his giggles.

  As we sailed I thought about Kate’s grave and felt heartened to think she was just up on the cliff top, not too far away from us, perhaps even looking down on us through the gap in the hedgerow.

  I also thought about one of my favorite memories of Kate on the water. She was pregnant with Reef at the time, so it must have been around the spring of 2004. We’d taken our old boat out from a local sailing club in Portishead. The weather was lovely but didn’t stay that way for long as clouds started to form overhead and the wind picked up. As we got further down the Bristol Channel, we were being pushed around as the sea was getting choppier by the minute.

  “Lifeboat training,” I said, nodding over to a large boat with eight big hairy blokes on board, which was also being blown about.

  Kate complained about the wind in her face, though she wasn’t in the least bit afraid of the blowy conditions. “Good practice for the lifeboat men,” was all she commented.

  “I reckon we should get back,” I said a few minutes later.

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re five months pregnant and the weather’s turned!”

  “OK, you’re right, spoilsport!” Kate reluctantly agreed.

  We headed back and watched as the lifeboat crew followed us in and attempted to secure their craft to its cradle. They failed spectacularly, and Kate and I watched in amusement as a series of giant waves smashed into the side of the boat, throwing three of the strapping blokes unceremoniously overboard. The rest of them jumped ship as they were very close to the slipway, and they scrambled ashore looking embarrassed and a bit shaken up.

  “Want some help?” I shouted.

  “Yes please, Singe!” came the grateful reply from one of the crew I recognized.

  “You OK to drive our boat in while I help them?” I said to Kate.

  Kate nodded, and I climbed overboard, leaving her in charge of Singe 1. She always rose to a challenge, and “did a Kate,” as I used to say. This was no exception, and she “did a Kate” with considerable style that day, steering our boat beautifully and coming in at a perfect angle before sitting it expertly on the trailer.

  “Well done, Kate,” I shouted before glancing over to the eight astonished men who were now standing on the slipway. They were all gaping open-mouthed, absolutely gobsmacked that this petite blonde had brought her boat in single-handed, and done it with such finesse in such choppy conditions, while they had collectively failed.

  “Bloody hell, it’s a blonde bird!” I heard one say as I brought their rib safely in too.

  My heart swelled, and Kate looked absolutely brilliant as she slid over the side of Singe 1 and skipped up the slipway.

  “And I’m pregnant!” she said, flashing a feisty smile at the men.

  We laughed our heads off remembering that story so many times, and I told the boys a shortened version of it that day.

  “Mummy was really brave and fearless,” I said. “She’d be very proud of you two little sailors, you’re doing really well.”

  Reef and Finn were delighted with themselves. I could see it in their little faces each time they learned something new on the boat, which gave me a great deal of pleasure.

  “Tell us the jet-ski story, Daddy!” Reef said. “I like that story about Mummy!”

  I don’t think Finn remembered it, and I took great delight in retelling another of my favorite Kate stories.

  “Well, as you probably remember, Mummy was a very, very good jet-skier,” I said. The boys both nodded. “One day we took the jet-ski down to the beach at Clevedon. I watched Mummy go out first, and she looked really cool. She was wearing a big silver helmet that matched the silver flashes down the side of her jet-ski. Mummy loved to go really fast, just like you two, and she could do tricks like jumping the waves.”

  “Tell Finn about the old people, Daddy!” Reef said, eyes shining.

  “I’m just coming to that bit. Anyway, it was the middle of the afternoon, and lots of grannies were out for a stroll from one of the nearby old folks’ homes. I heard one of the old ladies say: ‘Oooh, look at that boy racer, Gladys,’ and do you know who they were talking about?”

  “Mummy!” Finn squealed.

  “That’s right. Then it was my turn to go out, and I waved at Mummy to come back in. She headed to the shore as if she was going to give me my go, but then changed her mind. She shouted ‘Naaah’ really cheekily as she shook her head and giggled. At the same time she turned the jet-ski sharply, like doing a handbrake turn in a car, which absolutely soaked me with a gigantic gush of sea water, and nearly knocked me off my feet. The old people were going ‘Oooh’ and ‘Ah,’ and one of them said, ‘Just look how fast he’s going! I think he’s a bit dangerous!’ I couldn’t wait for Mummy to finally come in, and when she did, and pulled off her helmet, I thought some of the old ladies were going to faint! ‘It’s a girl!’ they said, pointing at Mummy with her long, blonde hair tumbling down the back of her wet suit. Mummy skipped up the beach, flicking out her hair and giggling. I don’t think the old people had ever had such a big shock!”

  The boys beamed, just as Kate had beamed that day. They had inherited her sense of fun and adventure, and it was my job, my pleasure, to keep that alive.

  Luckily, I had another little adventure already lined up for the boys, as I’d agreed to take them camping with my parents in just a few weeks’ time. That night, I explained to Reef and Finn we would be staying with Grampy and Nanny P., my dad, Bob, and stepmum, Pauline, at a campground near Bridport in Dorset, on the World Heritage Coast. It’s pretty stunning, and we’d been before, but I don’t think they remembered it.

  “The view is amazing, and our camper will be near the cliff edge, so we have the best view on the site,” I told the boys enthusiastically.

  I hadn’t changed my tune about camping. I will never understand the attraction of sleeping in a flimsy van and having to cook and wash up just like you do at home, but with worse facilities. It’s an adventure for the boys, though, and one that is relatively easy to deliver, so I’m prepared to do it for their sakes. I also think that, since losing their mum, it’s very important they spend time with all of their grandparents, which is another reason for me to make the effort.

  “What is there to do there, Daddy?” Reef asked.

  “Swimming in the pool, days out on the beach with the boat, bit of shopping in Lyme Regis, fossil hunting on the beach . . . how does that grab you?”

  Both boys cheered. “I can’t wait!” Reef said. “Do I have to go shopping? How many sleeps?”

  “Well, the quicker you get to bed tonight, the less sleeps it will be,” I said. “It’s time you two went upstairs and got in the bath.”

  They scampered upstairs, and I followed them, running the bat
h while the boys got undressed. They were ready before the water was, and I took the opportunity to check over Reef’s tummy. It was something I did every now and again, a habit I would probably never be able to break. I’d been told that the majority of cancers that return come back in the same place the original tumor was removed from—either that or it goes into the lymph nodes and explodes around the body, like Kate’s did.

  “Let’s have a little look at that belly,” I said routinely, asking Reef to lie flat on the bath mat.

  After the surgery to remove the tumor from his abdomen, Reef was left with what are known as “shotty nodes” on his stomach and groin, which look like tiny lumps under the surface of the skin. I’d been told to keep an eye on them because if they grew in size it could be a warning sign that all was not well.

  My heart cramped in my chest when I looked at Reef’s stomach that night, and my nerves twanged so violently it felt like shards of glass were shattering in my veins. The nodes were very visibly enlarged. My mouth went dry, and I felt like I’d been winded, as if butterflies and knots had crowded into my body, pushing out my breath. “It can’t be, it can’t be,” I thought, gulping in as much air as possible without scaring Reef.

  “Is it OK, Daddy?” Reef asked brightly.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked him, though I could barely speak.

  “Good!” he said, bursting into giggles as I touched his stomach. “You’re tickling me! Stop!”

  “OK, now jump in the bath then, quick as a flash and we might just have time for a story.”

  I got straight on the phone to the consultant, Professor Mike Stevens. He’s the most fantastic guy, one of the top consultants in Europe for rare cancers like Reef’s. We’d gotten to know each other so well over the years I had a direct line to him, for which I was extremely grateful.

  “Bring him in tomorrow,” he said after listening to my description of the lumps. “We’ll give him a thorough check-up. Try not to worry too much.”

  I could barely sleep that night. The same two thoughts kept running through my head, as if on a loop. Reef was not expected to live, whereas Kate was expected to make a good recovery.

  “His chances of survival are so small,” Kate sobbed. “What if we lose him?”

  Reef beat the odds, and then it was Kate’s turn to beat her odds. They were much, much better than Reef’s—an eighty percent chance of survival compared to his meager six percent on initial diagnosis. “You’ll make it,” we all told Kate, convinced she would. We were all wrong. Reef survived, Kate died. Reef was not expected to live and he survived. Kate was expected to live and she died. I drifted in and out of sleep, thinking those same thoughts over and over again and wishing Kate was with me. I wanted to feel the warmth of her skin against mine.

  “Singe, what if we lose him?”

  I could hear her saying it, and I could hear my reply.

  “We have to stay positive,” I told her. “He has the most fantastic mummy on his side. He’ll make it, I’m sure he’ll make it. We have to believe he will.”

  Kate clung to me, and I was happy to be her rock. I had to be a rock still, and I had to stay positive even though my body felt compacted with dread and fear. Stay positive, I said. Go to sleep, I told myself. I tried to conjure up images of Reef when his treatment was over, telling myself he had slain his cancer like a little dragon-killer. He was victorious and he would always be a survivor.

  I thought about Reef’s fourth-birthday party. Even though he was still having treatment and was not quite in remission, it was such an achievement for him to come this far. It was July 2008.

  “Let’s celebrate his birthday big time,” Kate said.

  “Too right! What shall we do?”

  We were like a couple of kids looking forward to Christmas morning. Reef’s improving health was an incredible gift. We could scarcely believe he was turning four; it was a miracle he had reached this landmark.

  We hired the Curzon cinema in Clevedon. It’s one of the oldest cinemas in the world, and we invited more than two hundred friends and family to a private showing of Ice Age 3.

  “We’ll party like there’s no tomorrow!” I chuckled.

  “Don’t you mean like there are lots of tomorrows?” Kate pointed out.

  “Actually, yes! Here’s to the future, to celebrating lots and lots of birthdays.”

  * * *

  When I woke the next morning I immediately remembered Reef’s lumps, and any positive thoughts I’d had the night before seemed to have completely deserted me. I felt frightened and alone. The house was quiet, and I couldn’t stop one very persistent negative thought from banging on my skull. “You looked on the bright side with Kate,” it said nastily. “You were wrong.”

  I saw Kate’s outline appear in the door frame. “Singe, I’ve got a little lump,” she said, stepping into the bedroom from the shower. She was wearing a towel and was smoothing her hand protectively over her left breast. It was a hot day in August 2008, just a few weeks after Reef’s birthday celebration at the cinema.

  Poor Kate, I thought. I could hardly blame her being paranoid about her health after what had happened to Reef. Each time we gave him Calpol to calm his raging temperature Kate had worried we were missing something.

  “What if there’s something really wrong with him?” she kept asking. “What if we’re missing something?”

  When she got no answers, she didn’t give up, neither of us did. Reef had test after test, but still it took months and months to work out what had happened to our once-active child.

  “We wasted nine months,” Kate sobbed when Reef’s cancer was finally diagnosed. “We treated cancer with Calpol,” she cried. “If he’d been diagnosed sooner he might never have been disabled.”

  The thought haunted Kate, and I had to keep telling her she had done her best, we both had. We followed our instincts and kept insisting Reef be tested and tested again and again, and the doctors had done their best too, even though months and months slipped by as Reef’s condition worsened.

  I could imagine what was racing through her head that morning when she emerged from the bathroom, but I really didn’t want her worrying unnecessarily. She’d suffered too much stress already.

  “Kate, it’ll be a cyst or something,” I said as she got me to feel the tiny little lump.

  It didn’t feel much bigger than the tip of a pencil.

  “Make an appointment and have it looked at. I’ll come with you if you like.”

  I think Kate looked at me that morning and decided I’d had enough stress too.

  “No,” she said bravely. “I’m sure you’re right. I’ll book an appointment, just to be on the safe side, but there’s no need for you to take time off work.”

  Over the previous year Kate had decided to give blood. She wanted to give something back to the NHS for everything they had done for Reef; it was her way of saying thank you. Both Kate and Reef had a fairly rare blood type—O negative—so it was a very worthwhile thing to do. Kate gave blood successfully several times, but I remember she looked worn out when she came home from the latest session.

  “You’re amazing,” I told her. “Most people wouldn’t volunteer to go anywhere near a nurse or a syringe after all Reef’s treatment.”

  “Actually, they wouldn’t let me give blood today,” she said, sounding fed up. “Apparently I’m anemic. They told me not to worry, just to take iron tablets. I’m probably a bit run down.”

  The words came back to me when Kate went to have her lump checked out. I was teaching a lifeguarding course at an Esporta rec center in Weston-super-Mare and was trying to stay positive. Kate would be fine, I reasoned. Just like with the anemia, this would be absolutely nothing to worry about, and there would be a simple explanation.

  Kate’s appointment was at Weston General Hospital, just down the road, and a
ll morning I expected a relieved phone call from her saying: “You were right, Singe—it’s a harmless cyst. Nothing to worry about!” My phone never rang, though. I still tried to be positive, imagining the clinic was simply running late, hoping she’d been left at the back of the queue as she was not an urgent case.

  At lunchtime I’d just sat down with the lifeguards for a bite to eat when Kate walked in the door. She just about pulled on a smile for the group before saying quietly to me: “Can I have a quick chat with you outside?” I knew something was wrong because it was so unlike Kate not to say hello and be bubbly and chatty with people, even those she didn’t know.

  “Excuse me, guys, I’ve got to nip out for a minute,” I said, feeling the hairs on the back of my neck bristle uncomfortably.

  Kate walked silently out to the car park with me pacing after her. When she stopped by her car her head was bowed and she looked apologetic.

  “The scan wasn’t good,” she said. “I’m sorry, Singe, I have to go for a biopsy this afternoon.”

  She left the words hanging in the air as she climbed in the car, as if to get away from them. I sat beside her, and she grabbed me and held me really tight, as tight as she physically could. She started to cry, and for someone so little she squeezed me really hard, pushing the air out of my lungs.

  “I’m here for you,” I stuttered. “We’ll get through it together.”

  “I just can’t believe what’s happening,” she said. She was sobbing so hard I could feel her hot tears soaking through my shirt. “How are we going to tell the boys?” she wailed. “What are we going to tell them?”

  She was absolutely distraught, and it was painful to see her like that.

  “Kate, if it’s breast cancer at least there’s a good chance it’ll be OK,” I said, trying to keep my head but feeling shocked by what I was saying. We both knew what I meant, that it couldn’t possibly be any worse than Reef’s cancer, and we looked at each other in horror.

  I had not expected to be plunged back into the dark hole of hospitals we’d just escaped from, and I could scarcely believe I was now asking Kate what the procedure was for the appointment, just as I had so many times with Reef. How could one family be so unlucky as to have two cancers, I thought. Reef’s cancer was so rare, and we had been reassured it was not genetic. Perhaps there was some mistake. Or perhaps Kate’s tiny little lump had been caught so early it could be removed quickly and easily?