by Voss, Louise
I did not care at all about the dolphins; in fact when Ted took my arm and tried to get me to come and look, I shook it off and said something very rude indeed about the damn dolphins. I just wanted to get back on dry land, but I knew there was another two hours and forty-five minutes to roll around the deck before it ended.
It’s so horrible, feeling like this and knowing that it won’t stop. With the dolphins, it was only three hours, and they didn’t make my hair get so thin. With this chemo, it’s another five months and almost certain baldness. And then five weeks of radiotherapy every day. And then what? Still the cancer? I could go through all this and, at the end, nothing has changed.
Mr Babish says he got it all out in the operation, but just one tiny speck, and it’s back, spreading through me again like mould on cottage cheese. At least with the dolphins, I was not afraid, just sick. With this, I am scared stiff. I am terrified of dying. I look at Ted’s face, and see this fear for me in him too. The only time he look relaxed is when he sleep. So, I’m enjoying watching him sleep, even with all the snoring and dribbling what is going on. I am taking pleasures where I can, and eating a lot of ginger root in syrup, to try and make the nausea go away. But I keep crying, in private, which is not at all like me.
I have been trying so hard to Think Positive. But sometimes this is not so easy. I will keep trying, though, and I will not tell anyone how afraid I am. I must think of poor Ivan and these terrible charges. It is vitally important that I get better to see him through it all. And I must also be there for Rachel, to encourage her through her recovery. I have things to do! I must pull myself together, like the curtains.
I went to a yoga class the other week. The teacher was a pregnant but very bendy young woman in a leotard which disappear right up her bottom, and she told us that we must imagine our bodies are full of golden sparkly light travelling around it, booting out all illness and so on. It is a nice idea, although I could see her bottom in the big mirror on the wall behind her, and her thong leotard bother me so much it made me itchy and then I couldn’t think about the golden light, only about how she might get a yeast infection unless she start to wear less invasive clothing. It surely could not be good for the baby.
I wish Ted and I could have had a child together.
Susie says the same thing about her and Billy. She and I have a lot in common. I feel so sorry for her. I still have my Ted, and I know she loved that strange Billy with his vests and his baseball caps round the wrong way. I only met him once and, I must say, I didn’t really see what the appeal was. He was not nearly as handsome as my Ivan, and he had no social skills that I could see. Although perhaps she just wanted an easy life. I know how hard it is, trying to keep Ivan in line.
Ivan should have realized how good Susie was for him. It would be so wonderful to see them back together again. Although not very likely, I think.
Speaking of Ivan, I must remind him that it’s his turn to give me a lift to chemo tomorrow. The time since the last bout has gone so slowly, because of the feeling sick all the time. And now I must do it all over again and probably feel more sick…Oh well.
I ring him up, but there is no answer from his home; no point in calling him at the club, and his mobile phone is switched off. So I leave a message telling him to ring me back, but not between three and four-thirty, because the nice aromatherapist is coming then. Of course what does he do but ring me back at four. When I come downstairs after my massage, on woolly legs, smelling beautiful and miraculously not feeling sick, I press PLAY on the answerphone.
‘Mama, it’s me,’ he says. His voice sounds tight, like he doesn’t want to waste it. ‘I hope you’re OK. I can’t give you a lift tomorrow, sorry, but something’s come up. I need to see Susie, though, it’s urgent. Please let me know when she will next be at your place.’
This is alarming, at the way he spits out the word ‘urgent’. Uh-oh, I think. Here is trouble. For Susie, and probably for all of us. I must find out what’s going on.
I pay the nice aromatherapist, and she packs up her towels and oils and the big table she carries with her, telling me she’ll be back in a fortnight. Then as soon as she’s gone, I ring Ivan back on his mobile. It still goes straight to the voicemail.
‘Darling, it’s me. I’m afraid I really do need you to give me a lift tomorrow. Ted is out all day at a Rotary meeting. Susie is still at Corinna’s, and Rachel’s got physio at that time – not that she’d be able to take me anyway, of course. Otherwise I will have to take a taxi. You wouldn’t make me take a cab to chemo, would you, darling…? I thought not. It won’t take long. So I’ll see you at eight-thirty then? Thank you, Ivan, you are a sweetheart. Bye bye.’
Sometimes, I reflect, it is best to be firm, to treat him like a seven-year-old again. Seven-year-olds don’t like to have too many choices; they need boundaries. Ivan, too, need boundaries in his life.
I am quite afraid that he won’t turn up, and I really will have to get a taxi, but at eight-thirty-five the next morning I hear his car roaring up the drive. Even from the front door I can see that his face is like thunderclouds. I brace myself as he gets out of the car to meet me, pressing myself slightly against the wet ivy which grows up the side of the porch wall. It leaves dark patches on the shoulder of my cream Burberry mackintosh.
‘Hello, my baby,’ I say, kissing his stubbly cheek.
‘Mama,’ he replies curtly. ‘Ready?’
He looks more tired than ever, with pouches under his eyes, but he holds the passenger door open for me, and waits to close it until I have arranged my skirt and handbag on my lap. For some reason I feel like the Queen. Perhaps it is the Burberry, and the headscarf I have started to wear outside the house now. I’m not bald yet, but I’m anticipating it. They said I wouldn’t necessarily lose my hair, but I don’t want any nasty surprises. I have already looked at wigs, and found a nice chestnut one not unlike my own hair at its best.
I am gearing up for our usual game of Twenty Questions, to try and discover what is going on his life from just yes and no answers, but to my surprise he begins talking first, as soon as the car has pulled away.
It is like he is accelerating himself into conversation.
‘OK, Mama, listen. I may as well tell you now because if I don’t, Rachel or Susie will – in fact I’m surprised they haven’t already. Anthea’s left me. She’s packed all her things and buggered off abroad somewhere, I don’t even know where. But what I do know is that I think Susie’s been stirring things. She couldn’t bear to see me happy and settled, so she put the boot in to get her own back for …well, things that happened between us in the past. I have to say, I feel very strongly that I don’t want you and Ted to make her welcome her any longer. She’s outstayed her welcome. She’s broken up my relationship for her own selfish reasons, and I think it’s completely intolerable. Just because she’s been dumped by that hippie, she’s—’
‘Stop!’ I put up my hand, trying to quell the flow of words. I am shocked at what he is saying, and struggle to take it in. ‘Anthea’s gone?’
I hadn’t really ever warmed up to Anthea, but this is big change for Ivan. They seemed settled.
‘That’s what I said.’
‘Oh darling, I’m so sorry. Perhaps if you talked to her …’
‘I told you, Mama, she’s left the country. I don’t know where she is. Portugal, probably, at her mother’s.’ He shifts in the beige leather seat and scratches his head. I reach out and stroke his leg.
‘But how do you know it was anything to do with Susie? She’s not like that, Ivan, I’m sure she wouldn’t have—’
‘She did,’ he says curtly. ‘She must have done. Anthea left me a note, mentioning …that she knows about …Well, there’s this other woman, you see, and… Oh, it doesn’t matter. The thing is that she found out.’
‘Oh, Ivan.’ You silly, silly, boy, I think. Aren’t you in enough trouble? I know that he used to sometimes not be so faithful to poor Susie, but I thought he had grown out of that by
now.
‘And frankly,’ he adds, spitting out the words, ‘what use am I to Anthea now? I can’t afford to buy her anything anymore. I’m stressed all the time, worried about the court case, my debts …’
I glance at him sideways. I hope he is not blaming me for that.
We have slowed down to a crawl in the rush-hour traffic on the Kingston Bypass, and I look at my watch. I don’t want to be late for chemo because it is done on a first-come first-served basis and there are only so many of the old Hello! magazines I can read without them getting blurry if I don’t get there when they open at nine.
‘Who is this other woman? Some little fling, or somebody you want to be with?’
Ivan sighs. ‘Not a fling. Someone I’ve got a lot of history with, if you must know. Her name is Natasha, and I really like her …But she doesn’t want me either, Mama. She’s grown out of me. Who can blame her? Not exactly a catch any more, am I?’
‘Calm down, Ivan darling,’ I say soothingly. ‘This will not do your blood pressure any good.’
‘There’s one more thing I wanted to tell you …I mean, well, confess, actually,’ he mutters. I can tell it feels like having his teeth tugged out to admit it, and my heart sinks even lower down. It feel like a balloon with water inside. I close my eyes with terror that he will confess to computer stuff.
‘What is it, Sonny Jim?’
‘The money I owe you.’
‘Yes? You have been paying it back; there is no problem.’
‘Well, no, there is. A problem, I mean. The thing is—’
We have eventually got to the hospital, and I interrupt him to point out an empty parking space. He scowls at me.
‘As I was saying, I was wondering if I could defer the rest of the payments for a while? At least until after the hearing?’
‘Of course, Ivan. I am sure things are difficult for you at the moment, with not being able to work and so on.’
‘It’s not just that,’ he says, and he looks so ashamed that I am surprised. ‘I haven’t been able to afford to pay you back for some time now.’
‘But you have been paying us back?’
‘Yes. But I …Oh, this is hard to tell you…But I…had to get the money from elsewhere.’
‘Elsewhere? Where else?’
An ambulance screeches up to the doors of the A&E department, and two men unload a body on a stretcher bed. It makes me shiver.
‘I owe money to loads of people. The builders who renovated the club. The people who laid the new courts. Even the kitchen suppliers, and the brewery. I can’t even pay the bar bill! I’ve been getting threatening letters – I’m sure it’s one of these bastards who set me up with the porn. I told the police about it at my initial interview, so they’re investigating all that now too. I’m going to be declared bankrupt, whatever else happens. So, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being such a disappointment to you, and a failure. I didn’t download that porn, but I did carry on paying you back when I ought to have been paying back other people. I just couldn’t bear you to think of me as the loser that I am.’
What can a mother say to that? What sort of a bad mother was I, that Ivan worry more about paying me back than about getting so much into debts that he will be bankrupt?
‘I go for my chemo now,’ I say, in a big daze.
‘I’ll wait out here,’ Ivan replies, not looking at me.
I get out of the car very slowly. It would be so nice for him to offer to come with me, just a little chit-chat while I lie there, to take my mind off it. But I guess it doesn’t occur to him.
The needle into my vein hurts more and more with each visit, but this time I barely notice it for worrying about what will become of my boy. At least with Anthea he had a bit of stability in his life – although it did not stop him getting into big money troubles. Oh Lord, how could he let such a thing happen? Now it really will be the end of his dreams of the clubs.
I don’t believe Susie would do anything to spoil things between Ivan and Anthea, though. Whatever Ivan says, it’s just not like her.
Ivan has managed to spoil everything all by himself.
Chapter 45
Rachel
It’s very strange, being back here, and I am getting rather tired of telling people the same things, as I hop on my crutches to and from the club toilets:
‘…Yes, I did it skiing.’
‘…Significant fracture of the tibial plateau…The top of the tibia, just under my kneecap.’
‘…On crutches for three months. A few more months after that till I can play again.’ (I can’t bear to admit that it might be longer; it might be never.)
‘…No, it doesn’t hurt much, not now.’
Then I take the leg brace off and pull up my tracky bottoms to show them my scar, the seven-inch line down the front of my knee, and that shuts them up.
The attention is nice in one way, but in another way it’s a bit overwhelming. I haven’t talked to so many people in one fell swoop for weeks; probably not since the Zurich tournament. Plus, I wonder if they are fussing over me so much because they feel more sorry for me about Dad. Nobody asks me about him, or how he is. It’s a relief – I’m not sure what I’d have said, anyway:
‘…On bail for child porn crimes, thanks for asking.’
‘…Downloading images from illegal websites.’
‘…I don’t know, really – six months in jail? We don’t even know when the trial is.’
I hate what he’s supposed to have done; hate it. But I’ll stand by him, of course, at least publicly. He is my family. That’s what families do, isn’t it? In my Fantasy Family, we all stick up for each other. (But of course in my Fantasy Family, there are no allegations of child porn, or divorces, or cancer. Probably the biggest problem we all might have would be trying to decide where to cycle to on our picnic, and what sort of fillings to put in our sandwiches…) I’d stand by Dad. What sort of daughter would I be, if I didn’t? Not that I’ve seen much of him since Anthea left. I can’t bear to ask him about Natasha Horvath, although I admit I’m curious. The only thing I can see them as having in common is their grumpiness, judging by that match she and I had.
All in all, I feel queasy with stress in case one of his Junior players’ parents, or one of Gordana’s friends, asks after him. They ask after Gordana, I notice, and that is easier to respond to: ‘She’s doing well, thanks.’
It was Kerry who persuaded me to come down to the club in the first place. I hadn’t wanted to, but I couldn’t really say no; not after I’ve been moaning so excessively to her about how bored I am. Besides, I’m meeting Mum for lunch in a restaurant down the road later, so it sort of makes sense to combine the two outings.
José is on holiday, Kerry said, and in his absence she needed some advice on her serve, which she claimed had ‘completely gone’. She asked one of the first team ladies’ players to give her a match, and she said she wanted me there to watch.
We haven’t talked much about Dad, and the charges, although of course she knows. I guess the squads are talking of little else, although nobody mentions it in my presence. I asked Kerry if there have been journalists or photographers down here, and she said she hadn’t seen any. The fact that I haven’t noticed any further reports in the newspapers seems to back this up.
It occurs to me that this will probably all change around the time of the trial; assuming there is a trial. There’s bound to be press interest then. The day is probably coming when people begin to look at me not as a tennis player, or an ex-tennis player, but as the daughter of a paedophile. It is more painful to me than my knee has ever been.
It is a cold December day. I can see my breath in the air, and frost is sparkling on the red fake-clay courts. I dressed with more care than usual this morning, in a proper matching tracksuit, and I even cleaned my trainers, washed my hair, and put on a bit of makeup. Just in case Mark is here. My leg-brace is on the outside of my tracky bottoms, partly so that it doesn’t press on the recently-healed wound, and partly o
ut of vanity – it doesn’t make my leg look huge that way. I’m self-conscious enough as it is, knowing that I’ve gained so much weight in the past weeks. I’m eating almost the same amounts that I used to, but without burning off any of the energy.
Today, however, adrenaline is probably burning off quite a few calories for me: a weird, jittery feeling of discomfort at everyone’s knowledge of Dad’s alleged crime, and the necessity of pretending everything is OK.
Then there is the possibility of Mark being there, whom I haven’t heard from since the arrival of Jackson and my embarrassing sob-fest. I want him to see how much better I’m looking. Podgier, yes, but I know I have colour back in my cheeks, and I am practically leaping around on my crutches. I want him to see that he was wrong to write me off. I’ll be playing again in no time; far sooner than everyone thinks, especially Mark.
‘You look great!’ exclaims Kerry, swallowing surprise when Pops drops me off at the club. Despite the well-wishers quizzing me about my knee, it is still quieter than usual. There are a couple of squads training on the far courts; a quartet of elderly men playing a sedate set on Court One; and a bored-looking coach I don’t recognize giving a beginner a private lesson. I am simultaneously relieved and disappointed that Mark isn’t there.
‘Thanks, Kerry.’ I’d like to have added, ‘So do you’, but as usual, Kerry’s hair is unkempt and unwashed, and her mismatched sweatpants and WTA sweatshirt have weird reddish stains down the front, which she later confesses to be old Ribena. I give her a hug. I haven’t seen much of her at all since I’ve been staying out at Gordana’s; she’s been on the tournament circuit as usual, and it has been hard to find time to meet up more than once or twice.
‘Wish you were playing with me,’ she says as her partner, Zoe, approaches, stubbing out a cigarette on the path and waving cheerily. Zoe is a huge orange-haired freckly girl who chain-smokes and looks like a turkey when she runs, but she is a very useful player, with a superb eye for the ball. Kerry of course will thrash her, but at least she’ll get a decent game out of it. ‘Me too,’ I say, doing up my puffa jacket as I get settled with my leg stretched out on the bench nearest their court. I watch with envy as they warm up, smacking the ball up and down. It’s so reassuring, to be able to control the ball the way we all could. In fact, there’s nothing else in my life that I can control, I think to myself. I can’t control Gordana’s cancer, or the happiness of either of my parents. I certainly can’t control Dad or Mark; and at the moment, I can’t even control my own career. But once I’m playing again, I’ll be able to control that little yellow ball. However many months I am away from this game, I know that, nine times out of ten, I will still be able to make it go where I want it to go, over that net, into one corner or another, high, low, fast, slow …If I want it to, of course.