Fortunately, Emma’s deteriorating health was counterbalanced by a rise in her spirits. Whilst it was hard to silence her body, which was telling her to spend the weekend cocooned in her bedroom, she was determined to celebrate her engagement and to toast the recent successes of the bistro. Her compromise with herself was to organize a special but otherwise sedate Sunday lunch surrounded by family and friends.
When Emma walked into the bistro with Ben, everyone else had already arrived, holding court at one of the long tables in the centre of the restaurant. Even her mum was there before her, conspicuous by her absence all morning and now deep in conversation with Ally and Gina, who looked like they had demolished a bottle of wine already.
Jean and Iris were there, sitting either side of Steven and clearly enjoying the attention of a young man. They were all honoured guests for the day and Louise was making a concerted effort to show her appreciation by closing the bistro for a few hours and taking charge of cooking dinner.
The conversation came to an abrupt end as Emma took her seat. She looked from one guilty expression to another. ‘So what have I missed?’
‘Ally was just telling us about the dirty weekend she’s planning,’ Gina announced.
Ally glared at Gina, her face turning as red as the wine in her glass. ‘No, I wasn’t,’ she growled.
Emma’s tired body flared with excitement. ‘Tell,’ she insisted.
Ally groaned. ‘You don’t want to hear about my love life. We’re here to celebrate yours.’
‘Peter?’ Emma asked, ignoring her attempt to sidestep the question.
‘She’s in lurve.’ Gina giggled, ignoring Ally’s second glare.
‘Don’t blow it this time,’ warned Emma.
‘Yes, for God’s sake, Ally, don’t be yourself,’ Gina added, laughing at her own joke.
‘Your first weekend away. How romantic,’ Emma said but when Ally’s blush deepened, it made her check her words. ‘It’s not the first one, is it?’
‘We went away last weekend.’
‘When I was in Scotland. Is there no end to the secrets you lot have been keeping from me?’ Emma demanded and then was met with a wall of silence for the second time that day. ‘OK, that’s it. Tell me what’s going on.’
‘We were wondering what kind of plans you had for your wedding,’ Jean replied eagerly when everyone else simply shifted uneasily in their chairs.
Emma shrugged her shoulders shyly as the image she had described in her book came to mind. She was ready to accept that the real-life occasion couldn’t be so magical but it was enough to know that she was going to marry Ben; it didn’t really matter how or where. ‘We’ll probably opt for something low key, a registry office followed by a quick bite to eat,’ she suggested.
‘You will not,’ Gina said huffily. ‘I didn’t go through all of those plans with you for nothing.’
‘That was only my dream wedding,’ Emma told her firmly.
‘And I’m not wasting my very amusing speech over a quick bite to eat,’ warned Steven.
‘But when we had our imaginary wedding, we were spending imaginary money,’ replied Emma, who wasn’t in the mood for false hopes.
‘But Meg and your dad have already stumped up the cash,’ Gina said primly.
‘What?’ Emma asked, directing the question towards her mum. ‘You’ve been making deals with Dad?’
‘I’ll do whatever’s required to give you the wedding you deserve. You’re going to be married on the first day of spring in St Luke’s,’ Meg said firmly.
‘Sorry,’ offered Jean. ‘I was only being polite when I asked you what kind of wedding you wanted. I’m afraid it’s out of your hands now.’
‘We’re the newly formed Wedding Planners,’ Iris declared, banging her hand on the table. ‘And I hereby bring this meeting to order.’
‘The Wedding Planners?’ Emma asked but was duly ignored now that official business was underway.
‘When is the first day of spring, anyway?’ Gina asked.
‘The beginning of March, isn’t it?’ Jean said. ‘Oh, dear, that’s tomorrow.’
Emma was shaking her head. ‘Not necessarily. There are differing views and the one I prefer to go with is the vernal equinox.’ Jean looked blankly at her. ‘Twenty-first of March,’ Emma added quickly.
There was a collective sigh of relief. ‘Then that’s plenty of time,’ Jean said.
‘Let’s hope the weather improves by then,’ added Ally, who was looking towards the window. It was a cold, murky day outside, growing darker and murkier by the minute, and the few souls who had braved the elements had their heads down and were holding onto their umbrellas for dear life.
‘I’ll second that,’ Gina said. ‘Only you could choose to get married in a church that doesn’t even have a roof.’
‘There is another problem,’ Louise added. She had appeared from the kitchen, looking for volunteers to help serve up dinner but the conversation had distracted her from the task in hand. ‘You can’t have a legal ceremony there.’
‘We can go to a registry office to get the piece of paper,’ Ben said. ‘That part doesn’t really matter. Our wedding will take place on the twenty-first of March in the bombed-out church. We’re going to make it happen.’
Emma’s gaze met Ben’s and a delicious shudder crawled down her spine. She needed no more convincing. She really was going to have the wedding of her dreams. Any ideas of a low-key wedding were abandoned. Emma would be putting her faith in the Wedding Planners to perform their miracles although she would be insisting that the costs were tightly controlled. Any spare cash her mum and dad were willing to throw around would be invested in the bistro, Emma would see to it.
Emma’s appetite for her lunch may have been wanting but the company was not. She was carried away by the collective enthusiasm for her wedding plans, but as the afternoon went on, so her energy levels receded. She felt much older than her years. The hot and sticky atmosphere was trying to overwhelm her but she was determined not to let it; her intent was to stay at least until the bistro opened for the evening custom.
‘It’s lovely to see you and Ben so happy together,’ Iris told her when everyone else was busy clearing away dishes.
‘Love is most definitely in the air. Wouldn’t you agree?’
Iris smiled coyly. ‘Yes, I confess, I’m all loved up too.’
‘So how’s it going?’ asked Emma in a low whisper so no-one else could hear them.
‘Oh, it’s early days,’ she said, ‘but I can’t afford to take things slowly.’
‘You and me both,’ Emma said with a laugh but Iris looked mortified. ‘Live for the moment. No-one knows what’s around the corner,’ she continued, holding her smile until Iris returned it.
‘I know that better than most. Ted and I were planning our retirement when he died. I thought my life was over and I would have been happy to crawl into the grave with him. Never mind he was a grumpy old sod and such a miser, I was lost without him. That’s the price of love, I suppose.’
The goosebumps that appeared without warning made Emma shiver. She thought of Ben and her guilt weighed down on her chest as did the air around her. ‘At least you had Jean,’ she offered.
‘Actually, I didn’t even know Jean then. We met when I moved into sheltered housing and quickly discovered how much we had in common. We had both lived very staid lives with husbands who kept a tight hold of the purse strings and now we’re making up for lost time. Jean bought me one of those experience days as a joke for my birthday, but we caught the bug. We had a taste for life again and you’ve seen what we’re like now.’
‘Like a couple of schoolgirls, mostly,’ observed Emma.
Emma wafted her hand in front of her face in a vain attempt to freshen the air around her. ‘I hope your new man knows what he’s letting himself in for,’ she said.
‘Are you feeling alright? You look a little flushed.’
Emma tried to convince Iris that she was fine but she was starting
to feel distinctly clammy. ‘I think I’ll just step outside for some fresh air.’
As she stood up, Ben was there to take her arm. He seemed to have developed a sixth sense to be there exactly when she needed him. ‘We’ll catch up later,’ she promised Iris. ‘You still haven’t told me about your new beau.’
‘I can’t wait for you to meet him,’ Iris replied with a meaningful wink that was lost on Emma.
The air outside the bistro was blissfully cool. The wind had chased away the rain and now it had finally lost its breath, leaving the world quietly exhausted. ‘I can’t wait until the blossom starts to appear,’ she told Ben wistfully, nodding towards the trees that lined the avenue. They were showing tantalizing signs of budding but wouldn’t be ready to reveal their hidden beauty for a month or two.
A gust of wind appeared from nowhere and Emma heard nearby branches creaking in response. A sense of déjà vu crept over her and she squeezed her eyes closed as she felt her mind pulling her towards another world.
‘It won’t be long,’ Ben told her, wrapping an arm around her waist.
It wasn’t only the branches creaking that Emma could hear now. She could hear her children’s laughter and in a leap of faith, Emma opened her eyes, blinking away the bright sunlight to reveal white clouds of apple blossom and a shower of petals raining down on Charlie, who was gently kicking his feet to propel himself back and forth on the swing. ‘Not long at all,’ Emma agreed as her vision settled back into reality.
Chapter 16
My fingers danced over the keyboard more slowly than once they had but then life was slower too. To accompany my rhythmic tapping, I could hear the rain falling in heavy, lazy drops, thudding against the window sill. The usual morning birdsong had been reduced to the gentle cooing of a single wood pigeon. Beyond those sounds, silence.
I was aware of the sonorous springtime ballad being played around me as I worked and despite the pressures of a challenging deadline for my latest novel, I was relaxed. I was contented. I stopped typing and let the sound of my breathing join in the music. The air felt fresh and slightly metallic as I pulled it into my lungs.
I stood up from my chair, gently stretched my aching back, yawned. The house felt empty. My birds had flown the nest but I didn’t feel the sense of loss I had feared. I stepped out of the study and as I glanced up the stairs, my mind’s eye glimpsed a child running down towards me. Rose as a little girl with a sparkle in her eyes and a teddy in her arms, Charlie next, in a Superman costume. My arms reached out instinctively to catch him as he tried to fly. Then Rose, a little older, in her school uniform, the back of Charlie’s head as he stormed up the stairs in his football kit, trailing mud behind him but refusing a bath. Charlie in his cap and gown, Rose in her doctor’s whites, then her wedding dress. The memories flooded my heart and the rush of love and pride pumped through my veins.
Behind me, I heard the door opening and closing, followed by the scrape of boots against the mat, the flapping of a coat being shrugged off and the dripping of water as the rain fell from wet clothes. I didn’t turn around but my body tensed. Playing to form, Ben crept up behind me, wrapped me in his arms and buried his cold, wet face into my warm neck.
‘You’re freezing!’ I scolded but I didn’t pull away.
‘So what were you staring at? Waiting for the kids to come down the stairs?’
‘I know they’ve gone,’ I said, twisting around towards him. Raindrops that had pooled in the creases of his brow were dripping through the softer wrinkles around his eyes and when I kissed his wet cheek, the spring rain tasted sweet. ‘But they’ll always be my babies. They’ll always be a part of me, no matter what.’
‘You’re beginning to sound like your mum.’
I smiled. ‘I’ll take that as a compliment. She wasn’t as fortunate as I am. She didn’t have someone like you by her side but she still managed to create a secure and stable family. Louise and I never lacked for love and attention. She thought her heart would break when I left but she stayed strong. The bond between mother and child is unbreakable. She knew that and now so do I.’
Ben kissed my nose and I rested my head on his chest. ‘So, are you ready to face the next chapter of your life?’
I couldn’t look at him. The contentment I felt for the life I had led so far didn’t mean I was any less reluctant to face the future. I was about to turn sixty and was starting to feel my age but there was life in the old dog yet. I took a deep breath. ‘I’m ready,’ I told him.
Mr Spelling’s office was deep in shadow, matching the dark brooding day outside. Emma was sitting in the chair next to his desk, watching the doctor as he stared at the screen in front of him, rubbing his chin. She lifted her head slightly as if to catch the warm rays of sun that weren’t streaming through the window. Her eyes stung against the nonexistent light that nevertheless reflected off the pale butter-cream walls.
Emma had been summoned to receive the results of her recent scan but her mind was pulling her somewhere else. The sense of familiarity was at first difficult to place but once Emma recognized it, her heart quickened. This was where it had all begun. This was the moment that Mr Spelling would turn and tell her in his own inimitable way that it was over, that she had the all-clear. For a split second, she almost wished that she had asked Ben and her mum to come into the office with her rather than relegating them to the waiting area outside, but then reality pulled her back. She pushed away the feeling of déjà vu and planted her feet firmly into the carpet to stop her legs from trembling.
‘I’m afraid it’s bad news, Emma,’ Mr Spelling said.
By the time Emma was ready to leave his office, the initial shock had been replaced by two very different emotions. Fear and relief. The relief for Emma was that she no longer had to face the torturous prospect of any more radiotherapy, or any kind of therapy for that matter. When Mr Spelling had explained that new tumours had developed on her brain stem, that these were causing the back pain, Emma had taken a deep breath and prepared herself to accept whatever treatment her doctor could offer. But it hadn’t taken Mr Spelling long to convince her that there would be little to no benefit in continuing with treatment; it would not justify the unpleasant side effects. It was over and that was exactly how Mr Spelling had phrased it in a cruel perversion of the scene she had described at the very beginning of her book. The fight was over.
The fear she felt meanwhile had nothing to do with being told that she didn’t have long to live, that particular prospect was strangely another part of her relief. There would be no more fear of the unknown and no doubts about what the future held. That certainty was reassuring, liberating even. The monster in her head had won but she would be a good loser.
The source of Emma’s fear lay on the other side of the door. The two expectant faces that turned towards her as she left Mr Spelling’s office would not share her relief.
Ben and Meg rose to their feet as she approached. Ben met her with a bright, innocent smile and no inkling of the news she was about to impart. It was her mum who had seen the warning signs, and the way Emma wasn’t making eye contact as she approached was only the final confirmation she needed. Meg had been aware of the almost imperceptible deterioration in Emma’s condition over the last few weeks, which couldn’t be explained by radiotherapy alone. Clues that Emma had managed to hide from everyone except her.
Emma had played out a few scenarios in her mind on the long journey from the doctor’s office to the waiting area. She considered beginning with the good news that she wasn’t going to have any more treatment but that would be too cruel. There really was no way to soften the blow. ‘I have three more tumours,’ she began, ‘and they’ve appeared really quickly. The only treatment now is palliative care.’
There was a deathly silence as Meg’s face completely drained of colour and she almost stumbled. ‘No,’ she said in a painful mewl. She reached out and grabbed Emma’s proffered hand with such force that it took the last remnants of Emma’s self-control not to cry
out.
Time seemed to stop as they all stood in stunned silence, broken only by the sound of Meg’s gulps for air. ‘I’m going to be sick,’ she gasped before staggering off towards the washroom at the end of the corridor.
As Emma watched her mum running away, the finality of her situation hit home far more than when Mr Spelling had given his grim prognosis. If there had been even the tiniest spark of hope in Emma’s heart, it was brutally extinguished by the sight of her cavalry making a hasty retreat.
Ben’s eyes were wide with shock and he seemed torn between staying with Emma and going to help Meg. He stayed but perhaps only because he couldn’t trust his legs to carry him. ‘Palliative?’ he asked, still trying to digest the information.
‘End-of-life care, Ben,’ Emma said, reaching for his hand. His grip was tentative, as if he were holding a delicate flower he was terrified of crushing. ‘Some drugs, specialist nurses, hospices, that kind of thing.’
‘And that’s it?’ he asked, his voice trembling. He glanced back in the direction that Meg had gone.
‘She knows,’ Emma told him. ‘A few months ago, I would have needed to call security to keep her from storming into Mr Spelling’s office and demanding he cure me, but not now. I’m so sorry, Ben, it’s time to start thinking of letting go.’
‘But how can I let you go when you’re not even mine yet?’ he asked but it was a question that Emma couldn’t even begin to answer.
There was no discussion about where they should go when they left the hospital. There was only one place to go.
‘If I wanted to know what my wake would be like, you’re all doing a very good impression,’ Emma warned when the hushed tones around her usual table at the Traveller’s Rest were too much to bear. ‘Can’t we at least put some music on to liven the place up?’
Another Way to Fall Page 27