by Maeve Haran
‘Ssssh!’ Wenceslaus had whispered. ‘Not to frighten birds. If birds moving tells fish we here. Frighten birds and you frighten fish.’
They had sat silently listening to a wren sing, only slightly muffled by the sound of passing jumbo jets. Ella had watched fascinated as Wenceslaus cast off after scattering a handful of hemp seeds into the water. ‘Sometimes,’ he’d grinned at Ella, ‘I use dog biscuits. Fish not know they are dog food so OK. You like to hold rod?’
Ella had tried not to react as Wenceslaus steadied her arm, but she had to repress a slight shiver of pleasure at finding his strong young arms round her after so long without any kind of masculine encounter.
Really, Ella, she’d told herself sternly, you’re turning into a cougar like Sal. Pull yourself together! He’s forty years younger than you!
Why, she found herself wondering, did the poor old cougar become the symbol of predatory older women? But then were coot queer or newts pissed?
‘So what do you do if you catch a fish?’ she’d asked him, to bring everything back to normal. ‘Are you allowed to take it and eat it?’
‘At home yes, not here. There was row in paper, Minka tell me, Polish fishermen accused of eating all British carp. Here, you catch, weigh, take photograph, throw back in pond.’
‘Isn’t that a bit pointless?’ Ella had asked, though to be honest the point of most sports passed her by.
‘My grandfather once spend whole summer and not catch one fish. He wait night and day, twenty-four hours. Catch nothing. He says is like game of chess – and fish is Grand Master!’
There had been a tug on Ella’s line and excitedly she’d seen the float bob up and down on the surface.
‘Pull fish in now, gently, gently, hold steady.’
She’d thought he might strengthen her grip again with his arms, but he’d just watched, smiling, as she gradually pulled in the fish.
It was a big one. Ella, despite her un-sporty nature, found her breath coming faster as she fought the fish and a pure stream of excitement flooding through her as she reeled him in. Suddenly the tackle had run out and there he was, threshing with his tail in the water at her feet. A big yellow carp with brown markings. Wenceslaus had caught him in the net.
‘He’s huge!’ Ella had exclaimed, nervous that such a big fish could be swimming below the surface of this peaceful pond.
‘Is baby, maybe twelve pounds. Big one is forty.’ He carefully released the hook from the fish’s mouth.
‘Does it hurt them?’
‘Fish not feel, mouth hard.’ Wenceslaus had thrown him back in. ‘Bye bye, fish. Tell your grandfather we are looking for him!’ He turned to Ella. ‘Did you enjoy?’
She’d nodded. It was true.
‘Fishing bring you close to nature. In harmony with surroundings. At end of day you feel more complete person.’
Ella had nodded. None of her children ever took the time to talk to her like this. She wondered if they ever even thought in such a philosophical way. He really was rather an exceptional young man.
The allotments were busy today. Sharleen was packing apples away in brown paper for the winter; Stevie was cleaning his tools in a bowl of water, and Bill appeared to be having a clear-out of his shed.
‘Anyone want any pumpkin seeds?’ he called out.
‘Put them in the seed-swap box with the other three million,’ Sharleen suggested.
‘How’s your illegal immigrant getting on?’ Stevie asked. ‘Got a council house yet?’
‘Stevie!’ Sharleen rolled her eyes.
‘He’s living with me, actually. Doing odd jobs to pay his way.’
‘I wish I could have got a free house for putting a few shelves up,’ Stevie moaned.
‘Not unless you’re on top of Apple, Twitter, Google and Facebook,’ Ella smiled.
‘What’s she on about?’
‘Platforms.’ Sharleen grinned. ‘Are you not online, Stevie?’
‘I’ll stick to celeriac and swede,’ Stevie insisted firmly. ‘You know where you are with a celeriac.’
‘Stevie Norman speaks,’ Sharleen teased. ‘They’ll be asking you to do a TED talk next.’
Getting an appointment with Sal’s family doctor was marginally harder than applying for tickets for the Men’s Final at Wimbledon. The phone line opened at 8.30. If you called at 8.29 you got a recorded message saying the practice was closed. If you called at 8.31 the line was busy and stayed so continually until you finally got through to find all the emergency appointments had already gone.
It took all Sal’s powers of cajoling, charm and finally losing her temper and yelling that she might bloody well have breast cancer before she was grudgingly given a slot later that morning.
The doctor turned out to be a young woman, but then all the doctors these days were young women. What had happened to all the young men, Sal idly asked herself, trying to take her mind off her situation. Had the men decided if medicine was increasingly female it was somehow downgraded? Or were the women just cleverer? It would make a good piece.
‘What can I do for you today?’ the doctor asked brightly.
Sal sat down. She was never ill, mainly because her mother had never believed in illness and not even an aspirin had been administered in their hardy household. In fact, as far as she could recall she’d only been to see the GP about once before.
‘I’ve found a lump in my breast.’
‘Fine.’ The young woman nodded.
Fine? Of course it wasn’t fine!
‘Could you take your top off and pop up on the examining table?’
Sal did as she was asked.
‘Left or right?’
‘Left. At the side.’
The doctor gently examined her. ‘Yes. Yes, I can feel it. Now I don’t want you to worry. There are lots of explanations for lumps and bumps in the breast that have nothing to do with cancer. The vast majority of breast lumps are absolutely nothing to worry about.’
That meant that there were still quite a lot of breast lumps that were something to worry about, Sal concluded.
‘When did you last have a mammogram?’
‘I’m afraid I had to miss the last one. Pressure of work.’
‘I see.’ The doctor raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, let’s get one done now.’
‘When?’
‘Today.’ She printed a form out and signed it. ‘The thinking now is that you should go straight to a specialist breast clinic where they can do all the treatment in one place. All much more efficient than the old days.’ Sal supposed she should be grateful for this improvement. ‘I’m going to send you to the Princess Lily, their clinic is excellent. I’d send my own mother there.’
Sal smiled wryly as she got up and thanked her, the voice in her head repeating the mantra, Don’t worry. This is only a routine procedure.
Outside on the pavement she thought again about calling Ella and stopped herself. Ella would say, ‘Great, I’m coming with you.’ This was ridiculous, it might well be nothing. Her mother’s voice replaced Ella’s in her head: Stop making so much fuss, Sally. You always did cry at the smallest scratch. Grow up, for goodness’ sake. Could you still grow up at sixty-three? Besides, her mother was long dead. Sal replaced both the voices with the previous comforting mantra: Don’t worry. This is only a routine procedure.
‘Come on, Mum, you can’t possibly want to hang on to that!’ Claudia’s daughter Gaby was holding up the misshapen pottery vase she’d made at infant school aged four-and-three-quarters.
‘To be honest,’ Claudia admitted, ‘the teacher insisted you’d made it yourself, but I was a tad sceptical when I saw all the other identical pots they gave the other mothers.’
‘That’s because the pottery teacher made them all and forged our names on the bottom. It’s hideous anyway!’
‘Not to a doting mother, it isn’t.’ Claudia had been so dreading clearing the house that she’d enlisted her daughter’s help.
‘Right,’ Gaby announced, revealing a w
hip-cracking sternness that would have impressed Rosa Klebb. ‘Three Piles: OXFAM. KEEP. THROW. I’ve got two hours before I have to meet my friend. Let’s go for it!’
Claudia proceeded to drive her daughter mad by putting something in the THROW pile then immediately swapping it back to KEEP.
‘Come on, Mum, you can’t be emotionally attached to an old toaster.’
‘But it was a wedding present!’
‘Along with about ten others. Anyway, you’re hopeless with toasters, you get through a new one every six months.’
‘That’s because no one makes them to last.’
‘Well, that one’s definitely popped its last slice.’ Gaby threw it firmly onto the THROW pile.
‘We can’t chuck away those Sylvanian families!’ Claudia almost misted over at the memory of Gaby, aged eight, playing with the tiny figures of bears, foxes and badgers all dressed up in tiny suits and dresses.
‘Look, Mum, if you’re thinking of grandchildren, stop right now. There’s no one I even fancy and if I did the thought of you hoarding Sylvanian families for our future children would have him hopping onto the next bus.’
Claudia conceded, looking at her daughter out of the corner of her eye. Gaby was bright and pretty but rarely seemed to have a boyfriend. Claudia wondered if any of her friends did or if they just went out together, just girls. When Claudia was growing up, a boyfriend – any boyfriend – was an essential. Nowadays girls seemed to dispense with boys altogether.
‘OK, the Sylvanian families can go as long as it’s to Oxfam so they find another home.’
Soon the THROW pile was resembling a curious bonfire made of incomplete board games, a moth-eaten fur coat which even Oxfam would decline, soleless trainers, a tennis racket with broken strings, a pile of empty video cases, and a very smelly black plastic bag which neither Claudia nor Gaby wanted to check inside. ‘I think it might be the duvet you were sick on when you had gastric flu and missed your school trip that time.’
‘But that was about ten years ago,’ Gaby pointed out in horror.
Claudia wrinkled her nose. ‘More like twelve.’
‘Mum-um!’
‘Well, Dad wouldn’t touch it, so I just picked it up with tongs and bundled it into a bin liner.’
After the allotted two hours the cellar was almost clear.
‘It’s quite big, isn’t it?’ Claudia remarked. ‘Maybe I should call that couple who wanted to turn it into a basement.’ She hugged her daughter. ‘Thank you, darling. You were fantastic. You could have a great future as a decluttering specialist.’
‘No I couldn’t. I’d go mad dealing with all those bumbling old dears who want to hang on to their baby’s first nappy.’
‘Like me, you mean?’ Claudia produced a battered one-eyed teddy from behind her back. ‘I quite agree. We shouldn’t hang on to useless objects for ridiculous sentimental reasons, should we? I’ll just put this on the THROW pile, shall I?’
‘Edward Bear! Where did you find him?’ Gaby clutched her long-lost bed companion to her chest.
‘In that corner. Behind the un-used rowing machine.’
‘OK, I take it all back. He can wait for me in my new bedroom.’
‘Now who’s the soppy sentimentalist?’
‘What are you talking about, Mum? Edward Bear is a real person. By the way, when is D-Day?’
‘Next week. Unless there are any hitches, the removal van comes on Wednesday.’
Claudia could hardly believe it herself. The head teacher had been suspiciously understanding about her announcement and was obviously going to reorganize her job. Peter Dooley had been smug. Some of her pupils had been regretful and produced little French-inspired presents. But the thing that had touched her most was a mini Eiffel Tower with a note attached from one of her pupils’ mothers, whom she had taught as well. It read:
Dear Mrs Warren,
Thank you for teaching me and Becky French. I will always remember the tapes. They really helped me with the oral. Merci and Bonne chance with your retirement.
That word. Retirement. It brought to mind superannuated greyhounds or horses sent to the knacker’s yard. Surely there should be a better word? Refocusing? Re-engaging with life? Rediscovering? How about Rebalancing? That wasn’t too bad. ‘I am not retiring. I am rebalancing my life.’
‘Come on, Mum,’ Gaby gee-ed her up. ‘It’s so exciting! A whole new chapter starting.’
‘Yes, Dad’s over the moon. He’s already planning the garden shed he’s always dreamed of. I may have to stop him installing a TV or I’ll never see him again.’
Gaby hugged her. ‘I’ll be down for some country air practically every weekend.’
‘Mind you do and bring as many friends as you want. I won’t know a soul in the village.’
‘Mum. You’re going to make friends really easily.’
‘Not unless I take up bell ringing or peasant shooting.’
‘Don’t you mean pheasant shooting?’
‘It’s all the same thing in the country.’
‘Mum, Surrey is not Siberia. They have a Gap in Guildford and I hear they even run to a Whistles in Weybridge. Besides, there’s the Internet.’
‘So I’m leaving London and all my friends to spend the rest of my life at a screen!’ Even Claudia was beginning to feel she’d gone far enough down this road and was boring herself. ‘You’re right! Of course you’re right! I’ll make tons of new friends.’ And couldn’t stop herself adding, ‘They just won’t be like my old friends, that’s all.’
Feeling suddenly selfish, she put an arm round Gaby. ‘Thank you for helping me. It’s always fun doing things together.’ She realized she’d probably miss Gaby much more than Gaby would miss her, which was of course quite right and proper. ‘You’ll be all right without us?’
‘Mum,’ Gaby shook her head, ‘I’m a big girl now. Of course it’d be nice if I met somebody tall, dark and glamorous.’
‘I’m sure you will.’
‘It’s so much harder now than it was for you.’
Claudia was at a loss to understand why the young thought it so much harder to meet the opposite sex now. Surely it was easier with women sharing the workplace and standing on so much more equal terms? Equality couldn’t have made it harder, could it?
‘Why is that?’ she asked.
‘Boys won’t commit. They want to keep their options open.’
Claudia wondered how many generations of women had had the same complaint. Maybe some things never changed. Probably even Adam wouldn’t say ‘I do’.
‘I’m sure you’ll meet someone soon.’
‘Yeah. Obviously I will. By the time I’m forty and too old to care.’
Sal sat down in the reception area of the Princess Lily’s imaging department and was given a bleeper which would sound when it was time for her to be seen. With quite astounding efficiency this happened about five minutes later.
She was asked to go into a cubbyhole, lock the door, remove her top and put on a robe. The far door then led straight into the imaging area, where a vast, humming machine, which at first sight made Sal think of a salami slicer, dominated the room.
‘If you could just place your breast here,’ the radiographer requested brightly.
Sal attempted to get her small breast onto the machine’s flat plate. She’d been right about the salami slicer.
‘Do you have breast implants?’ enquired the helpful young woman.
‘Have you seen my breasts?’ Sal demanded. ‘Two fried eggs on a plate.’
‘It’s a routine question.’
‘Why?’ Sal had a sudden vision of silicon-splattered staff starring in The Texas Breast Implant Massacre. ‘Do they explode all over all the consulting room?’
‘They can spread internally if punctured, yes.’
‘Thank God that’s one procedure I resisted.’
The radiographer pressed the machine down hard on her breast. Sal was convinced it was deliberate. ‘Ouch!’
‘It can b
e uncomfortable. Only a few seconds, though. We need two images of each breast.’ She released fried egg number 1 and inserted number 2.
‘Thank you, you can put your clothes back on now.’
‘Everything OK? Can I have a look?’
‘I’m just going to quickly consult.’ Was that a note of concern she could detect in the young woman’s voice? They were Sal’s breasts, after all. ‘If you could wait here just a minute.’
Five minutes later, she returned with someone who seemed to be a junior doctor. ‘Hello, Ms Grainger, we’d like to send you up for a core biopsy, if that’s OK.’
‘What is a core biopsy?’
‘We insert a needle into the breast and remove some cells to examine under the microscope.’
Sal felt her world begin to unpick at the edges. ‘There is something to worry about, then?’
‘There is a mass of tissue that we’d like to take a further look at, yes.’ He pointed to her mammogram on the screen. There was a patch in the top left-hand side of her breast that was thicker and darker than the rest. ‘If you’d like to follow me?’ The young doctor smiled encouragingly, remembering his bedside manner.
Despite his smile, Sal was convinced he wasn’t looking her in the eye.
She sat in the waiting area trying not to panic. Once in the consulting room she avoided looking at the size of the needle in a sort of gun thing laid out and ready.
‘Don’t worry,’ the doctor reassured, ‘we’ll numb your breast up first. I’m told it doesn’t hurt.’
Sal bit back the quip ‘I bet you say that to all the girls’. She must stop cracking jokes. Especially ones as bad as that.
She lay back while they numbed her breast, still in her hospital gown, with a screen to her left. It made her think of all those happy pictures of young mothers going for their first baby scan. Strange that the same piece of technology could bring such good or bad news.
The ultrasound wand hovered over the darkened mass in her breast and the doctor attached the needle to what looked, on closer inspection, like a pair of scissors rather than a gun. Sal closed her eyes and heard a click, and then another.
‘Good,’ congratulated the young doctor a shade too heartily. ‘That’s all done now. Just lie there a moment. We’re taking a look at your lymph nodes at the same time.’