Do No Harm

by L. V. Hay

  Denny didn’t need telling twice. He raced through.

  ‘How is she?’ I asked, my enquiry automatic. I’d hated hearing people do this when they came to visit my mother when I was a child. I’d wanted one of them to come up with a solution; to save her; or at least make her happy. But now, in the world of grown-ups, I realised why they’d all fallen back on polite enquiries and platitudes.

  ‘Oh, you know Mum.’ He looked even worse than at the end of term; his complexion was pallid, dark circles under his eyes. He looked completely done in. And he made no effort to kiss me, even on the cheek.

  ‘Lily? Is that you?’ Fran’s voice sounded shockingly frail.

  ‘Hi Fran,’ I drifted through to the living room, fixing a smile on my face before I saw her, in the hope it wouldn’t falter. ‘I thought it was chemo today.’

  ‘It is, it is.’

  As I crossed the threshold, I discovered Denny on the sofa next to Fran, several biscuits in his hand already. His glance challenged me to take them away.

  I looked to Sebastian, who shrugged. ‘Apparently, Maxwell decided to switch Mum to oral chemo, so she can take it at home.’

  I leaned down and kissed Fran’s cheek. Her skin was cold and clammy. She stiffened, as if she didn’t want me touching her. I couldn’t blame her. Being ill meant having your space invaded by all and sundry.

  ‘I did tell you, darling. Last week. And the amount I’m paying, I should get the best service,’ Fran murmured. ‘You don’t get this on the NHS.’

  Sebastian chuckled halfheartedly. The disrespect for one of our country’s greatest institutions set my teeth on edge, but I let it go. I took in the red turban wound around Fran’s head and a flash of my mother’s translucent moonlike face seared through my memory again, taking my breath with it.

  ‘Red suits you,’ I said, but again, that niggling feeling sprang up in the back of my head. It travelled down my neck, into my spine, making me clench my fists.

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ said Fran, her eyes closed.

  ‘Tea, Lil?’ asked Sebastian.

  I was about to turn in his direction, when realisation cracked open inside my skull. But first I had to check.

  My eyes followed the line of Fran’s jaw; her sharp cheekbones; the folds of her neck. My mother-in-law was older than my own mother had ever been and she looked nothing like her. Fran had always been long, thin, tapered; some might have called her ‘willowy’ in her youth. Mum had been all soft edges, even retaining that round face of hers as first cancer – and then the chemo had ravaged the rest of her body, taking her hair, eyebrows and even her eyelashes with it.

  And Fran still had hers.

  Task Objective Task status On track?

  Whisper Campaign Undermine Sebastian’s credibility as head teacher, before school inspection ONGOING YES

  Interrupt wedding Spoil the big day / ensure marriage gets off to a bad start COMPLETED YES

  Cut off electricity Reminder of who is in charge here, even in their own home COMPLETED YES

  Trash the maisonette Punishment for marriage / honeymoon / leaving me behind COMPLETED YES

  Assault charge Get Sebastian arrested / charged ONGOING YES

  Denny – unexpected pick-up from school Reminder of who is Denny’s REAL father / come between Sebastian and Lily COMPLETED YES

  Install GPS tracker app on Denny’s phone Surveillance COMPLETED YES

  Install GPS tracker app on Sebastian’s phone Surveillance [especially important regarding the ultimate plan; be sure that OMF does not know about this] COMPLETED YES

  Install GPS tracker app on Lily’s phone Surveillance [NB. Haven’t been able to get hold of Lily’s phone. Can proceed without this] INCOMPLETE NO

  Denny [bed-wetting] Invented issue to create friction between Sebastian and Lily ONGOING YES

  Therapy for Denny Use parenting of Denny to remind Lily of times past ONGOING YES

  Denny – missing Bring in Social Services; bonus – undermine Sebastian’s credibility as head teacher COMPLETED YES

  Cancer diagnosis and treatment Trauma to come between Lily and Sebastian ONGOING YES

  Our Mutual Friend Wind up our involvement; implicate Sebastian instead re: ultimate plan ONGOING OVERDUE

  Thirty-six

  Sebastian stalked into the kitchen, slamming Denny’s phone down on the countertop.

  Lily followed him in, her posture defensive: shoulders squared off, arms folded across her middle.

  Fury bloomed in him, red and fiery as lava. ‘What the hell was all that about?’ He took a deep breath, trying to keep a lid on his anger as he indicated her to shut the kitchen door.

  But Lily didn’t, she just chewed on the inside of her cheek and shrugged.

  Sebastian sighed, still trying to keep his anger in check.

  In the living room, moments earlier, Lily’s bombshell had been in the form of a question: ‘I would have expected Fran’s eyelashes and eyebrows to have gone first, wouldn’t you?’

  Still on the sofa, Fran’s eyes had sprung open. Sebastian had frowned, unable to understand the question at first.

  ‘Lily, what are you saying?’ he’d said.

  Lily had looked as if she felt the carpet under her feet was shifting, but she stood her ground. ‘I was just pointing out that Fran still has her eyebrows and eyelashes.’

  Sebastian felt his voice drop an octave. ‘So?’

  Lily swallowed. ‘I’m just surprised, that’s all. Mum lost all of hers straight away.’

  Sebastian was confused. His wife had read the leaflets Maxwell had given them. ‘Lily, you know everyone responds differently to chemotherapy. Some people don’t even lose their hair at all, never mind their eyebrows or eyelashes.’

  Yet Sebastian could see fierce anger burning inside Lily’s eyes. What he couldn’t fathom was why. What did she think was going on, here? Sebastian recalled that there had been a head teacher at the first school he’d worked at, Mrs Bennett, who’d had breast cancer for two years. She’d not lost her hair.

  Now, Sebastian reached around Lily and shut the kitchen door himself. Out in the living room, he could hear Fran distracting her stepgrandson with cartoons on TV.

  ‘What’s going on, Lily? Talk to me.’

  Lily sighed, as if she couldn’t decide whether or not to part with her thoughts. ‘Don’t you think … don’t you think it’s a bit weird that Maxwell happens to be the one treating your mum?’

  ‘Well, not really. He’s an oncologist. She’s got cancer. She’s not one to go to an NHS hospital, so the Cromwell is the best in Epsom. And it’s not like they’re actually related, so there’s no real conflict.’

  Lily took a step towards him. ‘Yes, but has she?’ Her expression became earnest.

  ‘Has she what?’ Sebastian couldn’t believe what he was hearing – couldn’t yet articulate the thought to himself.

  ‘Look, Maxwell did everything he could to get between us … Then he suddenly stopped – at the very moment your Mum apparently developed cancer…’

  ‘Apparently?’ Sebastian echoed, backing away from his wife. ‘So … so you think she’s … faking it?’

  ‘No, no … I reckon Maxwell is!’ Lily grabbed at Sebastian’s hands, but he pulled them away. ‘Think about it,’ she pleaded. ‘There must be ways of faking chemotherapy … Do you even know what chemo looks like?’

  ‘No,’ Sebastian admitted.

  ‘Maxwell could have been hooking Fran up to a bunch of saline solutions in there, for all we know! Would Fran know the difference?’

  Lily managed to grab his hand now. Sebastian wrenched it away.

  ‘She’s not stupid,’ he said. ‘My father was a doctor as well, remember.’

  ‘And I was married to Maxwell! But I don’t know the ins and outs of chemotherapy. Not really.’ Lily looked earnest. Her accusations were confusing him now. ‘Neither do you. Why would we? But now suddenly he’s switched her to oral chemo … just like that?”

  Sebastian quickly sorted thro
ugh his thoughts. It was true Maxwell had behaved terribly, using Denny as a pawn. But all that was over now. Sebastian could not believe he would abuse his position as a doctor to fake a cancer diagnosis. It made no sense; the plan couldn’t go anywhere. Unless … he was giving Fran real chemo, killing her off slowly? No, that was ludicrous. As horrible a person as Maxwell was, he had sworn the oath all doctors must – ‘primum non nocere’: ‘do no harm’.

  ‘If what you’re saying is true, he could be struck off. No, he wouldn’t risk it. And what for, anyway?’ Sebastian was certain Lily was mistaken.

  ‘But that’s Maxwell all over; he loves risk. And he’s so arrogant, he’d never imagine he’d be found out!’

  Sebastian felt sorrow surge through him as he regarded his wife’s fervent gaze. The past few months had been so tough. It was true Maxwell had been difficult, but he couldn’t fault him now. Lily was jumping at shadows. He could hardly blame her, either. They’d all been pushed as far as they could go.

  Sebastian placed his hands on his wife’s shoulders. ‘Is this because I’m not home much at the moment?’

  Lily twisted from his grasp. ‘I’m not a child, Sebastian. I can cope alone.’

  Sebastian raised his hands. ‘Look, I know this is not ideal. But I’m doing my best…’

  ‘I never said you weren’t!’ Lily clenched her fists, but kept them at her sides, as if to stop herself from lashing out. ‘But don’t you see – this is what Maxwell wants?’

  ‘I don’t need this right now.’ Sebastian shook his head, as yet more frustration and resentment came bubbling up. On a knife-edge for weeks after a difficult half-term followed by the new stress with his mother, Sebastian suddenly could not deal with this tantrum from Lily – and he was sure now that this was all it was.

  ‘Need this … or need me?’ Lily challenged him.

  Sebastian paused for a fateful beat.

  Lily stepped backwards, sardonic smile on her face. ‘Message received, loud and clear, Sebastian. Thanks a lot.’

  ‘Oh, Lily for God’s sake…’ Sebastian began, but she wrenched open the kitchen door, swept through the hallway ahead of him onto the porch.

  He had just enough time to grab at her arm as she opened the outer door. ‘Come on, let’s talk about this.’

  Lily tilted her head at Sebastian, then indicated Fran’s house. ‘Actions speak louder, Sebastian.’ Then she jerked her arm out of his grasp and stormed down the path and back towards the road beyond.

  Sebastian sighed and turned, only to find Denny standing behind him in the middle of the hallway, seemingly unconcerned at being left behind.

  Thirty-seven

  My trainers hit the pavement, the rubber soles scuffing against the slabs. I was at the traffic lights, just beyond the common, before I realised I’d left Denny back at Fran’s.

  Momentary guilt arrested me in my tracks, but then I ploughed on. It wasn’t as if I had left him at a stranger’s house, for God’s sake. He was with his stepfather, my husband. The man I married, for better or worse, for all the good it seemed to have done us. I pressed the button on the pelican crossing, waiting for the little man to flash green. Our fledgling marriage appeared to have faltered after only a few hurdles … More shame heaped on me now. There couldn’t be many newlyweds who had had to face so many obstacles in their first few months of marriage. First Maxwell, then Fran … If her illness was real. No, surely Sebastian was right. Maxwell couldn’t be that much of a sociopath that he’d fake Fran’s diagnosis…

  Could he?

  Cars came to a halt just as the crossing beeped. I didn’t look at them as I usually would have, but marched across the road, sights set straight ahead. I didn’t have a destination in mind, but as the incline steepened, pulling at the backs of my calves, I recognised I was on my way to Maxwell’s. I didn’t have a plan, but I knew I needed to confront my ex-husband.

  This couldn’t go on.

  Rage coursed through my veins once again. Thoughts and accusations flickered through my brain like light through a hall of mirrors. No, I was right: Maxwell had to be behind all our problems. Besides which, how could Sebastian trust that Maxwell had Fran’s best interests at heart, just because he was a doctor? He’d got Sebastian arrested! He’d tried to ruin Sebastian, make him lose his job: first via the assault charge that was still ongoing, then by reporting him to Social Services over ‘losing’ Denny at the fête. It wasn’t much of a jump to suppose Maxwell could have seen an opportunity when Fran fainted at the park. Fran had been a patient at the Cromwell for decades; he could have looked up her records with ease.

  Maybe he’d even got to her before all that. Fran had been sickly for some time – I’d noticed it, and I knew Sebastian had too. Maybe she’d gone to the Cromwell to see what was up, and then, somehow, Maxwell had slipped her a drug of some kind, made her faint? It wasn’t like he didn’t have access to any medicine of his choosing. Maybe he’d been planning it all along. I shuddered. I’d always known Maxwell was ruthless, but maybe even I had underestimated him.

  The further I walked, the more I was certain of it: Maxwell was lying about Fran’s cancer. As this conviction took shape, becoming solid in my mind, anxiety pierced through my thoughts. Could he be giving Fran real chemotherapy? Was he that much of a psychopath? She had been throwing up … I heard it.

  No, I reminded myself: Fran still has her eyebrows and eyelashes. The nausea was probably stress, brought on by a supposedly terminal diagnosis. Who wouldn’t be traumatised by being told they were about to die?

  As well as that, Maxwell had switched my mother-in-law to ‘oral chemo’ at home. Hopefully, some kind of placebo. This must have meant someone at the Cromwell had been asking inconvenient questions. Even in a private hospital, as a consultant, Maxwell would still have to answer to someone.

  Within half an hour, I was standing outside Maxwell’s lavish home. I’d barely broken a sweat: it was like dark fury alone had carried me there.

  Denny and I had never lived here; Maxwell moved in just after our divorce. With its three storeys it was far too big and incongruous for a single man. But, like everything Maxwell did, it was a statement – not only of the size of his bank balance and his status in the world, but also his bottomless well of self-belief: it said, You and Denny will both return to me.

  Well, fuck that.

  I undid the latch on the garden gate, stormed towards the porch, opened the outer door, put a finger on the bell and left it there. Inside, Ginny howled in disharmony with the noise.

  ‘Okay, okay!’ I heard Maxwell’s irate voice float down the stairs.

  Bored of pressing the bell now, I grabbed the ostentatious lion-shaped door knocker and starting rapping. I heard Maxwell lower his voice and say something, but it wasn’t directed at me and I couldn’t catch what it was.

  ‘Coming! Jesus…’ Maxwell’s shadow appeared behind the glass. He pulled the door open, the aroma of lemon shower gel accompanying him.

  I took him in: he was bare-chested, wet from the shower. A white towel was slung low around his hips. It accentuated, rather than covered, his crotch, as it led the eye towards the dark pubic hair there. He met my gaze with a smirk, as if to say, See anything you like? It was true, Maxwell was an attractive package – on the outside – but I had no time for his games now.

  I was just about to start on my accusations, when I heard laughter floating down the stairs behind him: bell-like, unmistakably female.

  ‘Hey, you coming back or what?’ came the call.

  So, he had a woman up there. But that wasn’t what twisted in my gut as I made the connection.

  ‘Hey!’ Maxwell called halfheartedly after me as I shoved my way past him.

  I raced towards the stairs and grabbed the oak bannister. He made no move to pull me back or manhandle me out of his house. He could have, if he’d wanted to; he was just three or four steps behind me, a good foot taller and much broader across the shoulders. Instead he trailed after me as I ran up the stairs two at a
time.

  I faltered as I made it onto the landing, momentarily disorientated. Maxwell was still a few steps behind but, weirdly, he still didn’t make a grab for me.

  ‘Lil.’ His voice was low, carrying a warning, but I didn’t turn in his direction.

  I had to see it to believe it. I looked left, down the palatial landing: the doors were all closed. I looked to the only door ajar, on the right. I couldn’t bring myself to cross the threshold, and hovered outside instead.

  I pushed the door and as it swung open, I could see an unmade double bed, the sheets rumpled. The unmistakable musty smell of sex still hung in the air. Betrayal pumping through my veins, I digested the sight of her clothes on the floor, her bag on the dresser.

  Inside the bedroom, next to built-in wardrobes, another door opened: the en suite bathroom. Though I wished with all my heart not to see her, inexplicably she was right there in front of me, naked, groping for a towel off the bed. As she saw me in the doorway, she brought it away from her face, her expression stricken.

  I recalled all of the events of the past twelve weeks, her part in all of it: spying for him, covering for him, lying for him. Setting Sebastian and me against each other, getting between us, metaphorically and literally. Had she been the one to trash the maisonette? Had she swiped the electricity bill so Maxwell could phone to have us cut off? I realised she’d not been at the meeting that first day back at school. And did this all mean she hadn’t been on my side at all when she’d seen him at my flat. Had she just been jealous?

  Her words of just a few months ago came to my own lips, almost unbidden, as a thousand synapses fired into life inside my brain: ‘Wouldn’t mind a crack at that, myself.’

  And now she was frozen beside the en suite door, guilt etched all over her pale face, the towel now covering her modesty.

  Triss.

  Thirty-eight