One Endless Summer

by Laurie Ellingham

  ‘Er …thank you, Caroline,’ Lizzie said, swallowing a mouthful of toast, ‘for organising everything and for flying my family here to see me. Seeing them has been amazing.’

  ‘And the helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon that I managed to reschedule for last night …’

  ‘Was brilliant,’ Lizzie said, fidgeting with the cushions behind her back. Beneath its sleek leather finish, the sofa was hard and unforgiving.

  ‘I know it was emotional saying goodbye to your … er … loved ones last night.’ Caroline flicked a glance at Jaddi before focusing on Samantha. ‘I am just so sorry about the David thing. If only I’d known you’d broken-up—’

  A sudden heat thrashed inside of Lizzie. ‘By thing, I assume you mean the kidnapping and attack of my two best friends by a deranged maniac?’

  ‘Drop it, Liz,’ Samantha said, lifting her face from her mobile. ‘It’s not your fault, Caroline.’

  No one spoke. Lizzie sighed and followed the movements of a silver SUV in the distance, negotiating its way through the suburban streets. It reached a line of stationary cars and stopped outside the gated building of a school. Tiny red dots zipped around the playground inside the gates.

  ‘Well.’ Caroline clapped her hands together. ‘It’s almost time for me to catch my flight back to London. So I’ll be leaving you once again in Ben’s capable hands. But I do have a small favour to ask?

  Lizzie glanced to Ben. He’d pulled one of the dining room chairs over to the sofa, and was eating a bowl of cereal with his back to the window. He smiled at Lizzie but gave no indication as to whether he knew what favour Caroline was about to ask. Their eyes remained fixed on each other for a moment too long.

  ‘How would you girls feel about moving your stay in New York from the end of your trip to next on the itinerary?’

  Lizzie shrugged and scanned Jaddi and Samantha’s faces. Samantha looked up from her phone and focused her attention on Caroline.

  ‘Will we still get to go to South America?’ Jaddi asked.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Caroline nodded. ‘I promise. No more changes to your destinations, just the order.’

  Jaddi shrugged. ‘Fine by me then, I guess, but why?’

  ‘Neil Mullon of The Sunday Night Late Show would like to have you on as special guests tonight. They phoned me last night after the latest episode had aired in the UK and asked if you’d consider it. The videos of you on stage with Guy Rawson are all over the internet, and they have picked us up a huge American following.’ Caroline watched their faces. ‘But you don’t have to do it. It would be great for Channel 6 and for me personally, but it’s by no means compulsory.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lizzie said. She looked at Jaddi and Samantha.

  ‘I don’t mind.’ Jaddi shrugged again before turning her face to Samantha.

  ‘I’m good with going to New York first, and with leaving here today,’ Samantha said, ‘but I don’t want to do the interview.’

  ‘No, no, of course not,’ Caroline said. ‘I can put a call into the producer. I’m sure it will be fine for just Lizzie and Jaddi to do it.’

  ‘Let’s go to New York then,’ Lizzie said.

  Caroline grinned. ‘Fantastic. Thank you, girls. I’ll sort all the flights and accommodation out straight away,’ she said, already tapping the screen of her phone. ‘There’s a flight leaving for New York just before lunch time which will get you in, let me see, with the time difference, it lands at JFK at … six pm. Which gives you two hours to check into the hotel and make your way to the studio.’

  With her eyes fixed on the screen of her phone, Caroline stepped towards the door. ‘Shoot, Lizzie, I almost forgot.’ She spun around. ‘Your doctor has been phoning the studio. Dr Hab-i-bi. Am I pronouncing that right? He’s trying to get in touch with you. Apparently he’s left several messages on your phone?’

  Lizzie sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and forced her eyes to remain on Caroline. She could feel Ben’s gaze on her, no doubt scrutinising every twitch of her face. ‘Oh, my phone’s been off. I’ll call him in a minute. I’m sure he just wants to check I’m still taking my meds.’

  Lizzie leant forward and plucked her last piece of toast from the tray on the coffee table. It lost its crunchy texture the moment it entered her mouth. The sweetness of the jam disappeared too, so that all she was left with was a chewy glob of cardboard. She continued to push her teeth into it whilst fighting to keep her face void of expression, as if she was eating her breakfast without a care in the world, and not spinning into a frenzy of panic at Caroline’s comment.

  Only when she’d finished every last bite did she stand up. Blobs of red and yellow appeared in her vision again, adding to the dizzying affect.

  It was an effort to walk in a straight line across the hotel living room. Lizzie pictured the pink and yellow teacups, on the seafront near her childhood home, and the ride operator, always a teenage boy in a white vest, always moving with purpose and ease between the teacups as if the ride was stationary when in actual fact it was rotating around and around.

  CHAPTER 60

  Lizzie

  Lizzie dove towards her backpack and reached her arm inside. Her fingers prodded through her clothes until she felt the familiar hard plastic of her mobile.

  She pressed her finger onto the power symbol. After a pause it lit up and vibrated. It felt as though months had passed since she’d turned it off and left it forgotten at the bottom of her bag. So much had happened since their time on the Gold Coast, it hadn’t occurred to her to switch it back on again.

  Until now.

  Dr Habibi had been her neurologist for twenty-six years. He knew her. He knew everything. If he was contacting her, it could mean only one thing.

  Lizzie held her breath as her mobile connected to her messages. A stiff electronic voice announced one new message.

  ‘Hello, my name is Hal Fitzgerald. I’m a neurologist in San Francisco. Perhaps my friend Dr Moss mentioned me to you.’ The tones of the man’s Californian accent rose at the end of each sentence, so that each one sounded like a question. ‘She sent your MRI scans to me, you see, which I’ve spent some time looking at. I’ve tried to speak with your own Doctor, Dr Habibi, but it appears he’s out of town. Please return this call. I’m looking at the scans right now, and I’d very much like to talk to you about them.’

  Lizzie’s mind reeled as the electronic voice spoke again; ‘Nine old messages. First old message.’

  ‘Miss Appleton, this is Dr Moss from the Gold Coast University Hospital. Please call me regarding your MRI scan results. You may remember me mentioning a friend of mine in America who is a neurologist and a specialist in brainstems – Dr Fitzgerald – and it’s imperative that you call me or him immediately.’

  Lizzie skipped through the recordings from Dr Moss. Her tone hardened with each message, and they all ended with the same urgent plea to get in touch.

  Another message started to play. ‘Lizzie, Dr Habibi here. Please call me as soon as you get this.’ His voice sounded muffled as if he was holding the receiver too close to his mouth. She could hear every inhale and exhale of breath. ‘A doctor from America is calling me. I need to know what I should say.’

  Lizzie slumped into the armchair and stared at the screen of her phone. From the moment she’d been wheeled into the MRI machine in Australia, her hold on the situation had loosened. She’d been unable to stop the edges from unravelling. With Ben’s suspicions and the calls from Dr Moss, it had seemed only a matter of time before everything fell apart. Then nothing had happened, and like a fool she’d allowed herself to relax.

  Lizzie swallowed and held down the power button on her phone. Her eyes remained fixed on the screen until it transformed into an inanimate object once more.

  She knew she should call Dr Habibi, but she couldn’t. Time was running out. She could see the end.

  Lizzie drew in a sharp intake of air, her eyes widening as another, far more worrying realisation struck her. If this was the fir
st time that she’d switched on her phone in weeks, and the first time that she’d listened to her voicemail, then why weren’t all the messages new, instead of just the one from Dr Fitzgerald? Someone else had listened to them, but who? The blotches returned, swarming in front of her eyes until her vision was like looking through a stained-glass window. She replayed the messages in head. How much would someone learn by listening to them?

  A scuffling of feet sounded from Ben’s room. There was a light knock and then the door opened.

  ‘Did you get through to him?’ Ben said from the doorway.

  Her mind blanked. ‘Huh?’

  ‘Your doctor. You came in here to call him.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Lizzie dropped to her knees and shoved her phone back to the bottom of her bag. ‘He didn’t answer.’

  ‘Are you OK? You look really pale.’ Ben said, moving towards her.

  She stood up and turned to face him. He’d trimmed his beard since they’d kissed, and had his head shaved again. Without his glasses he looked less like the Ben she knew, and more like the faceless cameraman she’d met at the check-in desk at Heathrow Airport. Then she looked into his eyes and the magnetic field drew her in.

  Ben reached for her hand, causing a tingling to radiate from his touch.

  ‘I’m sorry we haven’t spoken since Friday,’ he said. ‘I didn’t want you to think I was avoiding you, or that I regretted what happened. Now that the film crew have gone, we can talk …’

  Lizzie took an unsteady step back and pulled her hand free from his hold. She needed to think, to focus, and Ben wasn’t helping. ‘Have you been going through my phone?’ she snapped.

  ‘What?’ Hurt registered on Ben’s face.

  ‘Someone’s listened to my voicemails. Was it you?’ Panic carried in the tone of her of voice.

  ‘No, of course not. Lizzie, what’s going on?’

  ‘Nothing.’ She shook her head. ‘Look, I’m sorry but I can’t do this with you. I can’t drag you into it.’

  Ben threw his hands up and exhaled. ‘Can’t drag me into it. Into what, Lizzie? I’m already in as deep as I can get. I care about you. I care about what happens to you.’

  ‘You know what’s going to happen to me, the whole world knows.’

  Lizzie stared into Ben’s eyes as the truth caught in her throat. She scooped her backpack from the floor and turned towards the door. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this.’

  A solitary tear ran down her cheek as she walked into the living room. It seemed a lifetime ago that she’d stood in the dressing room of the Channel 6 studio. ‘It’s too late to put the lid back on the can of worms,’ Jaddi had said. If it was too late then, she had no hope now.

  CHAPTER 61

  Samantha

  Samantha breathed in the crisp air as a cold wind whipped through her clothes. The smell of fried onions and hotdogs filled her senses, and for the first time in days her stomach rumbled with hunger.

  Traffic hummed around them, horns blasted long and loud in the distance, whilst the beat of music drifted out from shop fronts.

  New York had been the first place she’d suggested when they’d knelt on the threadbare carpet in the living room of their East London flat and opened up an A3 map of the world. The higgledy-piggledy buildings – different heights, different colours – all set in perfect square blocks across the city, had appealed to her more than the temples and the beaches.

  There was something familiar about it: the hot-dog vendors on the street corners; the subway grates on the sidewalks; the dark-haired policemen in crisp blue uniforms; the sea of yellow cabs. It was just as she’d imagined from the hours spent watching reruns of Friends and Sex in the City.

  ‘Oh crap, it’s cold. So cold,’ Jaddi said, pulling her jumper up to her mouth. ‘Shall we get a taxi?’

  ‘Our first time walking the streets of New York and you want to get a taxi?’ Samantha rolled her eyes. ‘What happened to your authentic experiences?’

  ‘What could be more authentic than a yellow cab? Besides, my body has forgotten what cold feels like. We’ve done humid, hot, hot and humid, scorching, warm, and more hot. But not cold. Now I remember why we put New York last on the itinerary. Another month and it’ll be spring time here.’

  ‘Well, we’re not getting a taxi. This is Times Square. The studio is just across the street.’

  All around them, people in winter coats, carrying paper shopping bags, dashed in and out of shops. Tourists with cameras snapped photos of giant electronic billboards rising up the sides of the buildings. Humps of charcoal-coloured snow dotted the edges of the sidewalk. Somewhere above the rooftops the sky was black, but among the shops and the people, and the colourful adverts, it was as bright as day.

  Samantha threw a glance at Ben, walking a pace in front of them with his camera balanced on his shoulder, just as he’d done before their trip had been hijacked by Caroline and her film crew, and they’d been dragged to Las Vegas. Before David. Before she’d realised how wrong she’d been about her life.

  They drew to a stop by a pedestrian crossing. A small, square screen on the opposite sidewalk displayed a red hand, warning them to wait. A row of people on each side obeyed the command. A smile touched Samantha’s lips. In London, pelican crossings were often ignored by pedestrians. In Vietnam, even the cars and motorbikes paid no attention to traffic signals, but in New York, the city that never sleeps, where everyone is in a rush, they waited.

  ‘Has anyone actually watched this show?’ Jaddi asked.

  Lizzie and Samantha shook their heads.

  ‘I’ve seen it a few times,’ Ben said, moving his eye out of the camera lens. ‘He’s funny. You’ll have a good time.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t mind if I sit this one out?’ Samantha scrunched up her face as she looked between Jaddi and Lizzie. She hated the idea of letting them down, but she couldn’t face another live TV interview, especially after everything that had happened.

  ‘Of course we don’t mind.’ Lizzie smiled. ‘You can enjoy it from behind the scenes with Ben.’

  ‘Do I have time to stop and get a scarf and a hat, and some gloves?’ Jaddi said.

  Lizzie laughed. ‘No, we’ll go shopping tomorrow. That was another reason we wanted to leave New York until last, remember? We’d planned to shop until we drop before—’

  A green man flashed on the screen and they found themselves carried forward by the walking crowd. Almost immediately, the light turned red again and a timer ticked down from twenty. They made it to the sidewalk as the timer ran down to three.

  Samantha cast a sideways glance to Lizzie and grabbed her arm. ‘Liz, before you go in there, can we talk for a second? I need to show you something.’

  Lizzie grinned. ‘Sure. If it’s about Mondulkiri, you know I support you. I just don’t want you to rush into a decision about quitting your job. You’ve worked too hard—’

  Samantha shook her head. ‘It’s not about me. It’s about you.’ A blast of warmth carried from the heaters of shop. ‘Hang on, let’s stand here a second.’

  Lizzie nodded, wrapping her arms around herself. Jaddi stepped beside Lizzie, the pair waiting for Samantha to speak. She blanked out Ben’s movements from the corner of her eye. This was too important.

  Samantha drew in a breath. Hope danced in her stomach. ‘I’ve found a clinical trial you have to read about. It’s a new radiotherapy treatment for inoperable brain tumours. They haven’t published any results so far –’ Samantha pulled out her phone from her pocket as she spoke, desperate to get the words out before Lizzie could interrupt ‘– but the researchers are really positive about it. Look here.’ She thrust her phone in front of Lizzie and pulled up the webpage from her browser.

  Lizzie shook her head, closing her eyes as if she could block out the information. ‘Don’t, Sam, please. I know all this stuff. It’s not for my tumour.’

  ‘Oh.’ The hope hardened to stone inside as she watched her friend. ‘But if you just looked at it.’

&
nbsp; Lizzie stepped away, her head still shaking from side to side.

  Jaddi wrapped an arm around Samantha and gave her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Let’s talk about this later, OK? We don’t want to be late for the interview.’

  ‘Sure,’ Samantha said. ‘I’m sorry, I just hoped—’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Jaddi said. ‘Come on before my fingers drop off from frostbite.’

  Samantha trailed a step behind as they continued along the sidewalk. This wasn’t over, she thought to herself. The trial she’d found was new. Brand new. Lizzie could be wrong. It could help her. Samantha just had to make her see that.

  CHAPTER 62

  Lizzie

  The producer guided Lizzie onto a small stage. The low hum of voices drifted from the audience. She’d expected a studio with cameras and a crew busy with their tasks, not a stage with a captive audience watching her every move.

  ‘This is you,’ he said, pointing to a single white armchair.

  Nerves popped like bubbles inside of Lizzie as she sat down and stared out at the sea of faces gawping back at her. A heat crept over her cheeks. She shifted in her seat and watched the show’s black and yellow logo zigzag across a large screen, dominating the wall behind a white curved desk and a high-backed leather chair.

  ‘Neil will be out in a minute. Good luck,’ the producer said, before walking away and leaving her alone on the stage. Lizzie breathed in a lungful of stuffy air and winced as the bones of the corset dug into her ribcage.

  The wardrobe lady – an African American woman in her early thirties, called Natasha, with bright-red lipstick and matching fingernails – had laughed when Lizzie had suggested wearing her own clothes. She’d taken Lizzie by the shoulders and guided her to the long length mirror.

  ‘You want to wear that, honey?’ she’d said as she’d pinched the material of Lizzie’s shapeless red top – stretched and creased from the weeks of wear and travelling. Lizzie had looked at her own shiny, styled hair and smooth face, and then down at the frays straggling from her top, and had allowed herself to be squeezed into the corset and a pair of skin-tight burgundy jeans.