‘And that’s only the start of it. Once you’ve got them through the door, you need to convince them to come back, which is why there are all kinds of discounts and special offers that will target this specific demographic.’
‘What kind of offers?’
‘Free tea and coffee with breakfasts, special lunchtime offers and afternoon teas. By focusing the new strategy on the earlier part of the day, it doesn’t affect your established clientele in the evenings, which works reasonably well already. We’re simply building on your successes.’
‘I didn’t realize I had any,’ replied Louise glumly.
‘Give yourself some credit.’
Louise smiled at her sister and her eyes brightened. ‘Maybe I could look at adapting the menu, include some traditional dishes.’
A figure cast a shadow over the computer screen as Louise and Emma pored over the spreadsheets. Emma could feel the glow from Ben’s smile before she saw it. ‘I take it your mission has been accomplished?’ she asked.
‘You’re a hard task master but, yes, I have in my hand the contact number for Iris and Jean and I’ve also secured their boundless enthusiasm.’ Ben was holding up a folded piece of paper but when Emma reached for it, he snatched it to his chest. ‘Not so fast,’ he said. ‘I want something in return.’
Emma narrowed her eyes at him. ‘I would have thought keeping your job would be incentive enough.’
Ben wasn’t about to crumble so easily. He held her gaze but said nothing.
There was a flutter of excitement in Emma’s stomach, which she tried her best to ignore. ‘OK, what is it?’
‘Get your coat, we’re going on another adventure.’
Once Louise had been tasked with inviting Iris and Jean over to the bistro to start putting their plans into action, there was no other reason for Emma to refuse.
St John’s Beacon stood over four hundred and fifty feet tall and was a prominent feature of the Liverpool skyline. On a clear day it could offer amazing views that stretched all the way to Snowdonia and as far up the coast as Blackpool. Luck was on Ben’s side because although the day was cold and the city was still thawing out from recent snow fall, the sky was bright and clear. The tower housed a local radio station but offered tours and Ben had bought the tickets before Emma had even agreed to go.
‘Shall we?’ he said, letting Emma step into the lift first as if suspecting she might make a bid to escape if his back was turned.
Emma squeezed in between an old couple and a woman with a small baby in a pram and a toddler in tow.
‘Emma?’
The woman with the pram was looking at her and the frown on her brow eased when the spark of recognition lit up in Emma’s eyes too. ‘Claire? Wow, I haven’t seen you since sixth form.’
In the few seconds it took to reach the viewing platform at the top of the tower, Emma had already decided not to share her complete life story with Claire. She found it liberating to pretend to be as normal as the next person and they had swept excitedly through the last ten years of each of their lives by the time they stepped out of the lift. Claire’s little boy Jake was four years old and he didn’t have an ounce of fear as he pulled his mum towards the floor-to-ceiling windows that leaned ominously outwards to give a unique view across the city.
Emma and Ben meandered off to find a window that looked towards Snowdonia. From the apartment, the silhouette of distant hills had been only an appetizer for the view in front of her. She could glimpse the snowy Welsh peaks glinting temptingly. ‘Is it helping with your creative juices?’ Ben asked. He was standing slightly behind her, his head peering over her shoulder to capture the view that she found so alluring. ‘That could be the Hudson river in front of us.’
‘I’m looking at Mount Kilimanjaro,’ Emma corrected him, a whimsical lilt in her voice as if she were in a trance, but this had no hint of seizure about it.
‘You do like to travel.’
‘I didn’t, but I do now,’ Emma said, turning to smile at him. He was standing close and she tried to tell herself it shouldn’t feel so comfortable. ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me next that the stadium we can see over there is the home of the Yankees.’
Ben turned in the direction she was pointing but remained tantalizingly close. Emma could feel her skin tingling, anticipating his touch. If there had been a voice in her head about to tell her to step away, it was overpowered by the sound of a child bawling. Claire hurried over to them, steering her pram with one hand and pulling Jake with the other.
‘I’m really sorry,’ she said. ‘I need to change the baby and Jake here is refusing to come with me into the Ladies’. ‘Could you keep an eye on him for two minutes? Please?’
‘Of course we can,’ Ben answered, patting the dewy eyed little boy on the head.
Jake’s face brightened and he ignored his mum’s instructions to behave as he pulled at Ben’s hand and led him towards the view he wanted to see. Emma was the last to move. She felt a tug in her heart at the sight of the little boy, the same feeling she had been trying to write about but for which so far she hadn’t found the words. Upon meeting her old schoolfriend, her initial reaction had not been curiosity or delight, it had been envy. Four years ago, when Claire had been busily giving new life to the world, Emma had counted herself lucky to hold onto what life she had. Cancer had taken away her belief in the future and with it the hopes of becoming a mother herself. Having children had been one of her most treasured dreams from a very early age and unlike some of her other ambitions, it was the one that she had never doubted would happen. To lose that certainty had been devastating and even after her first battle with cancer had been won she dared not raise her hopes again. She had buried her desires to be a mother so deeply that it was a shock to feel them resurface.
‘Emma?’ Ben called when he noticed her reluctance to follow.
Jake stopped and turned towards her, copying Ben’s every move. ‘Emma?’ he called. When Emma didn’t respond, Jake rushed back towards her and grabbed her hand. ‘Come on, lazybones.’
If cancer had frozen her maternal instincts then Jake was thawing them out as he squeezed her hand tightly and escorted her across the room. When they reached one of the windows, he lifted up his arms for Emma to pick him up. Ben didn’t dare ask Emma if she could manage but he couldn’t quite hide the look of concern. ‘I’m fine,’ she told him.
Jake giggled and writhed in her arms as Ben tickled him but she didn’t mind, it gave her an excuse to hold onto him more. Ben started pointing out landmarks, convincing the little boy that they could spy magical lands full of trolls and giants.
‘Oh, isn’t he lovely,’ cooed an old lady who had broken free from a party of pensioners. ‘How old is he?’
‘Four,’ Emma said brightly.
‘They’re lovely at that age, aren’t they? You’d better make the most of it though. Take it from me, he’ll be all grown up before you know it.’
The lady was called away so didn’t see the shadow of grief cross Emma’s face. ‘Here, you take him,’ she said to Ben, feigning aching arms.
‘Mummy!’ squealed Jake, wriggling out of Ben’s arms as soon as he’d taken him.
Claire returned but she was still flustered, explaining that she had used the last of her nappies so had better be heading home. A well-placed bribe of a visit to the toy shop was enough to persuade Jake to call it a day and with some fond farewells and promises from Emma that she would pass on Claire’s regards to Ally, Emma’s brief taste of motherhood was over.
‘You’re quiet,’ Ben told her when they had concluded their viewing with a cup of coffee from the vending machine.
‘Time to go home,’ Emma said, taking an empty cup from Ben and dropping it in the bin.
‘Did I do the right thing bringing you here?’ he asked. There was an element of doubt in his voice.
‘Of course,’ she said, trying to shake her mood. ‘You always do the right thing.’
‘Good, because it means a lot to me,
Emma. In fact, I’d like to do a lot more of this.’
Ben had taken her hand in his before she realized what he was doing. Her heart had been the first to notice and was beating furiously. Her mind flashed back to her conversation with the old lady, when Jake had been in her arms and Ben by her side. The image of a perfect family that could never be. She pulled her hand away. ‘No, Ben.’
‘Sorry, Emma. I thought …’
His dejection only compounded her misery. ‘I like you, Ben. Too much to hurt you.’
Ben did the one thing that Emma didn’t want to see. He smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not Alex. I won’t run away. I know I can’t begin to imagine how tough it’s going to get but I do know I want to be there for you. Don’t think about me, Emma, think about what you want.’
‘You think I’m being selfless in all of this?’ she fumed, as Ben’s smile faltered. ‘Why do you think I put up with Alex? I was thinking of me. I don’t want to be with someone worth loosing, Ben. I can already imagine what I’m missing out on.’ Jake’s face flashed across her vision again. ‘And I don’t want to get any nearer to it than I have to because it’s going to hurt all the more when it gets ripped away from me. I know you won’t let me down and that’s the problem. You would be good for me but right now that’s too painful to contemplate, so much so that I can’t even bear to imagine it.’
Ben paused long enough to collect the thoughts that flickered like shadows across his face. ‘I can’t agree with you, Emma, but I don’t want to upset you. Under other circumstances I could crawl away in embarrassment now and let you calm down. We could spend days if not weeks avoiding each other but you and I both know there isn’t time for that. So I’m sticking around and I want you to know that I’m here for you under whatever terms you want. And who knows, maybe we can have this chat again when you’ve had enough of watching life from a safe distance and you’re ready to try living it again, when that heart of yours thaws a little.’ He paused and the smile that had fuelled Emma’s anger returned with a vengeance. ‘I think we’d better get you home before you hit me, though.’
Even Christmas couldn’t thaw Emma’s heart. She had always enjoyed this time of year, not least because it was the winter solstice, which marked the point in the year when the world halted its descent into darkness. The days would start to lengthen and no matter how harsh the winter, Emma could start looking forward to the arrival of spring. But this year, 21 December also marked her return to hospital to face Mr Spelling, and the tension was building long before she stepped into his office, her mum her constant shadow.
It was late afternoon and the sun had already surrendered the day, so it was the artificial lighting that bounced off the window behind Mr Spelling’s desk and the only view to greet Emma was her own frightened reflection against a sea of darkness.
Mr Spelling greeted them with an enigmatic smile but whatever secrets he was about to share, Emma knew the best she could hope for was a lack of bad news. The results of the MRI would have to wait, however, as Mr Spelling demanded that Emma perform her usual tricks, including walking a straight line and squeezing his hands. Then there were questions to be answered, questions about any changes to her motor skills, her memory, her speech. When Mr Spelling asked about seizures, Emma shrugged. It was her mum who filled in the gaps but Emma refused to elaborate. Whatever treatment she would have was already in train, it really didn’t matter in the scheme of things. There were far more important things to discuss and as Mr Spelling shone a light into her eyes, he finally got the message and acknowledged her silent plea.
‘Right then,’ he said, turning to his computer, tapping a few keys and then swivelling the monitor towards Emma and Meg so they could peer at the screen, which revealed cross sections of Emma’s brain, before and after shots. Emma sensed her tumour smiling smugly at her but it wasn’t a smile she returned.
Mr Spelling gave a guided tour of the scans, explaining where the biopsy had been taken and, more importantly, how there had been some minor changes in the tumour but nothing to raise any alarm. The size of the problem was clear to see and now they needed to make that all-important decision: what to do about it.
‘My approach,’ he began, his inflection directed at Meg in particular, ‘would be to start with six weeks of radiotherapy and low-dose chemo combined.’
‘But that’s only to start with?’ asked Emma, recalling how tough it had been first time around and that had been without the radiotherapy.
‘We would take an MRI about a month later to check for any initial indications of how effective the radiotherapy had been and to give a new baseline before we start you on six months of high-dose chemotherapy. I know it sounds intensive and it is,’ he said, noting the look of trepidation on Emma’s face. ‘But then the treatment we’re trying to secure for you in America will be even more rigorous.’
‘And do you think they’ll accept her, now you’ve seen the scans?’ asked Meg.
Mr Spelling nodded. ‘I think so, but that will be for the clinic in Boston to decide and, of course, it will ultimately be Emma’s decision whether or not she wants to go ahead with the treatment.’
The blind spot in the corner of Emma’s eye hid her mum from view but she could sense her bristling at the comment. ‘We’ve come this far,’ Meg told him curtly. ‘I don’t think it’s helpful revisiting the options. That particular decision has already been made.’
Emma knew that Mr Spelling was testing her resolve one last time and she fought the urge to get up and run rather than confront what lay ahead. She didn’t particularly savour the idea of the treatment awaiting her overseas and she certainly didn’t want her family to face the inevitable financial strain but she also didn’t want to rip out the final shred of hope from her mum’s heart. There was something else that kept Emma pinned to her chair and nodding in agreement with her mum. Something far more obvious but still difficult to face. She didn’t want to die. Not yet. ‘When will we hear from Boston?’ she asked.
‘They’ve promised to get back to me by the first week in January at the latest. That way we can keep to the schedule here if for some reason Boston doesn’t accept you.’
‘When would we go to America, do you think?’ Meg asked, ignoring the suggestion that there was still a chance she wouldn’t get her own way.
‘That would be in their hands but I would think you’d be over there before February.’
Emma could feel the clock counting down. She began to make a mental list of all the things she wanted to do in the time she had left before treatment so she tuned out of the verbal ping pong that continued between Mr Spelling and her mum. She needed to make sure her plan for the bistro was followed through and then there was the issue of her dad. She still didn’t know if Louise had contacted him, she had refused to be involved, but she would need to know if he was willing to plug a gap in the funding for her treatment, otherwise all her plans for the bistro’s future would go to waste.
And then there was still her friendship with Ben to smooth over. She hadn’t seen him since their argument and although they had parted on good terms, she needed to know that she could still feel comfortable with him again. She missed him. Thoughts of Ben led naturally to thoughts of her book. She wanted to continue to write more than ever and she started to consider where her imaginary life should lead her next but her musings were brought to an abrupt end when she realized there had been a lull in the conversation around her. Mr Spelling was looking at her with a raised eyebrow, aware that her mind had wandered.
‘Wouldn’t you agree, Emma?’ he asked.
Emma matched his raised eyebrow and returned the wicked smile he was giving her. ‘If by that you’re asking if you’re boring me yet then the answer is yes.’
Despite the sharp intake of breath from Meg, Mr Spelling laughed. ‘Then we’ll call it a day,’ he said, ‘and I’ll see you in a few weeks. Until then, have a good Christmas.’
‘But not necessarily a happy new year,’ muttered Emma to herself.
Chapter 8
I returned to earth with a bump when the plane landed at Kennedy, and as I walked out of the airport, I lifted my face to the sun in a feeble attempt to warm my spirits. It was April, cool and crisp, a refreshing change from the relentless heat but that hadn’t been the only thing I had left behind in Tanzania. I was already missing Ben and that worried me.
At my insistence, he had returned to England to follow up on the smallholding he had talked about, while I continued with my own dreams. I had promised him I would be in touch to arrange our next expedition but now I wasn’t so sure. Wasn’t I delaying the inevitable? Our paths would separate one day so wouldn’t it be better to end things now? I kept telling myself that Ben and I were never meant to be.
‘But isn’t that what I’m here for?’ the shopkeeper asked me. ‘To make it be?’
I played with the wrappings on the box he had placed in front of me. I didn’t need to read the label to know what the contents held. Ben would make a wonderful husband and father one day.
‘We have different dreams,’ I insisted.
‘Really? You don’t want to spend your life with a man who loves you? To raise a family together?’
‘He wants to settle down on some Godforsaken farm and make cheese,’ I said with a laugh that felt hollow and empty.
‘But settling down was in your original plan, wasn’t it?’
The shopkeeper’s persistence was unnerving; it was as if he knew every twist and turn of the life I had mapped out for myself. I had been twenty-two when I had first joined Alsop and Clover and had been ready to give the company the best years of my life. My intended reward would be a senior associate position by the age of thirty, after which I would spend the next few years establishing myself in my chosen career before concentrating on the other aspects of my life, such as finding a soulmate. And that would lead nicely to the next phase. Unlike my mum, I intended to carve out my career first. Family would be the cherry on the cake rather than a pebble in my shoe.
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