by Dani Atkins
Chapter 16
Chloe
She came running up the road towards us, her long dark hair flying out behind her like a streamer. I saw several men turn their heads – and a couple of women too. Maddie didn’t appear to notice. I guessed it had always been that way for her.
‘I’m so sorry I’m late, I must have misread the bus timetable.’
‘We’ve been waiting ages,’ grumbled Hope. It was one of those parenting moments when you really regret telling them they should always be truthful.
Maddie dropped lithely down to Hope’s level and kissed her cheek. ‘I’m sorry, Pumpkin,’ she said, lightly touching Hope’s face with her fingertips. ‘Oh, you are cold.’
Hope shook her head, making her own hair fly in an action replay of her mother’s. ‘No. Not really. It’s not as cold as Lapland,’ she declared, smiling back into Maddie’s face. The grizzly child who’d moaned that she was turning into an icicle appeared to have suddenly melted away. Maddie rose smoothly up to my height, apparently unaware that she’d once again worked her own particular brand of magic.
‘I’m sorry. I should have offered to pick you up.’
A fleeting look of relief flashed over her features that I’d done nothing of the sort. I had to admit, I felt the same way.
‘I’ll be driving again soon, anyway,’ Maddie said. ‘The doctors gave me the go-ahead at my last check-up.’
My smile was neutral, hiding the fact I was a long way from comfortable about the idea of Hope being in a car with her. This letting-go-and-sharing business was turning out to be a lot harder than I had expected.
‘So, new school shoes?’ Maddie declared excitedly, directing her attention back to Hope. ‘That’s fun. I love shoe shopping.’
I couldn’t help thinking that Maddie’s enthusiasm was probably borne from the type of expedition where you ended up with a pair of Jimmy Choos or Louboutins rather than Clarks’ finest, but her excitement must have been infectious, because Hope jumped up and down gleefully. Maddie turned to me as we walked three abreast towards the shoe shop. ‘It was so nice of you to ask me to come with you today, Chloe.’
I shrugged as though it was nothing, which I don’t think either of us believed. Ryan had certainly been surprised, and had stared at me incredulously when I’d suggested it.
‘You’re volunteering to spend time alone with Maddie? When I’m not with you?’
I carried on folding up the pile of laundry that was still warm from the dryer. ‘I’ve spent hundreds of hours with Maddie when you weren’t there,’ I reminded him.
‘Not when she was conscious,’ he replied. It was a checkmate comment and I had no rebuttal.
‘It’s an hour or two out of my day. I think I can be the bigger person here and ask her to join us. She might not even want to come,’ I’d replied. But of course Maddie had said yes, so enthusiastically it made me feel guilty how I’d almost changed my mind right up to the moment when I’d dialled her number.
The shoe shop was warm and smelled of leather, with an undertone of sweaty feet. Hope raced ahead as we climbed the stairs to the children’s department and by the time we joined her, she was already staring lovingly at a shelf of sequinned party shoes.
‘These are so pretty, like Cinderella shoes,’ she cried, touching the glittering footwear reverently as if they were treasure.
‘They’re lovely,’ Maddie agreed, before catching the subtle shake of my head. ‘But I bet there are some even nicer ones if we keep looking.’
I gave an imperceptible nod of thanks and was rewarded with a smile that took me by surprise, and not just because it looked so much like Hope’s. There was something in it that for a moment made me forget that this woman could so easily steal everything precious in the world away from me. Ryan had once told me, long before he and I got together, that Maddie could charm just about anyone with her smile. People were drawn to her, they always had been, he’d said. I’d dismissed his words as the exaggeration of a man mourning the woman he loved, but today, on the receiving end of that smile, I could see he’d spoken the truth.
I turned away from her, momentarily unsettled. ‘How about these, Hope?’ I asked, pulling a pair of Mary Janes from the shelf.
‘Yuck,’ declared Hope.
Maddie’s eyebrows rose. Perhaps she’d not seen this side of her daughter before. Maybe inviting her along wasn’t so foolish or crazy after all.
‘These, then?’ I suggested. Hope pulled the kind of face she usually reserved for bad-tasting medicine. But before she had a chance to kick them to the kerb, Maddie piped up.
‘Oh they’re lovely. I had a pair just like them when I was your age.’
Ten minutes later I was passing the assistant my credit card, still dumbfounded at how easy it had been. It was yet another aspect of ‘the Maddie effect’.
‘I may have to rope you in on all of our shopping trips,’ I said, taking the carrier bag from the young assistant.
‘I really hope you do,’ said Maddie, with such open longing that I instantly felt bad, because I’d only been joking.
As we made our way towards the exit, a woman in a smart black dress, who I took to be the store manager, smiled warmly at us.
‘Did you find a pair of shoes you and your mummy liked?’ she asked Hope.
‘Which mummy do you mean?’ said Hope, looking first up at me and then at Maddie. ‘I have two,’ she said proudly.
The coffee shop was warm and welcoming, and although I was going to say no when Maddie suggested it, I somehow found myself agreeing to go.
‘They have muffins there as big as your head,’ she told Hope, which was an exciting enough prospect to delight any six-year-old, and mine was no exception. Ours was no exception, I mentally corrected.
‘I think that store manager might have thought we were a couple,’ I said, taking a small sip from the caramel latte in front of me.
‘No? Really?’ said Maddie, blinking in surprise. I saw her mentally replaying the conversation and then the amusement which danced in her eyes and curled her lips. ‘Ryan would find that hilarious,’ she said, and the smile I gave was suddenly much harder to maintain. Because she was absolutely right. Ryan would find it funny, and it was disconcerting when you found yourself face-to-face with a woman who knew your husband as well as you did. Possibly better.
I glanced over at Hope, who was busily devouring an enormous chocolate muffin. She wasn’t listening to our conversation. ‘He felt bad about the things he said the other day, after Hope fell off the climbing frame.’
The humour slid off Maddie’s face as though it had never been there. ‘Did he? I’m not so sure.’
‘He’s always been very protective of her,’ I said, my face softening as I glanced over at Hope, who was now creating chocolate cake crumb mountains on her plate. ‘He practically beat up a photographer who’d got into your room soon after Hope was born.’
Why did I tell you that? I thought, as I watched my words find a home within her. Was I trying to make her love him all over again?
‘That doesn’t sound like him.’
‘He overcompensates, even now. Back then he was worried about all the things Hope would miss out on by having only one parent.’
Maddie looked away across the busy coffee shop for a long moment. When she turned back to face me, her eyes were bright with tears I knew she wouldn’t allow to spill.
‘But Hope didn’t miss out in the end, did she? You’ve been in her life since she was a baby. So in fact she’s always had two parents.’
I swallowed both my coffee and my pride. ‘And now she has three,’ I said quietly.
We turned and looked at the child we both so obviously loved.
‘Yes, she does,’ agreed Maddie softly.
Maddie picked up the bill while I was taking Hope to the toilet, and refused to take anything for our share. Not that I’d have known what our portion of the bill was, because although it was sitting on a saucer right in front of me, the numbers were indi
stinguishable blurs on the paper. Perhaps that was why, when we walked along the high street and found ourselves outside the opticians, I made a sudden snap decision.
‘Would you mind waiting out here with Hope for a moment while I go in and make an appointment? I’ve been meaning to get my eyes checked for a while now.’
‘Sure, no problem,’ said Maddie easily, taking Hope’s hand the very second I released it. The incident in the park had clearly left its mark on her.
‘Can I help you?’ asked a cheery-faced redhead behind the optician’s counter.
‘I’d like to make an appointment for a sight test, please,’ I said, glancing back over my shoulder where I could see Maddie and Hope on the pavement outside, chatting animatedly. ‘I’ve been having a bit of a problem with my eyes.’
The girl behind the counter rattled something into the computer in front of her, and then smiled at whatever she was reading on the screen. ‘Hey. You’re in luck. We had a last-minute cancellation this morning. So the optician could fit you in right now, if you like.’
‘Are you sure you don’t mind? I don’t know how long I’ll be. Forty-five minutes, maybe? Possibly longer, if I end up needing to choose some frames.’
‘Take as long as you need,’ said Maddie, obviously delighted to be gaining some unexpected time alone with Hope. ‘I think there’s a pet shop down the road, so maybe Hope and I can go there and buy that kitten of hers some new toys.’
I watched them head off down the road, Hope’s hand practically super-glued to Maddie’s. Sharing my daughter was hard, but I would learn how to do it, for Ryan, for Hope and even for Maddie. It wasn’t the worst thing to happen in my life, I thought, never for a moment thinking that the very first worst thing was a great deal closer than I knew.
‘Okay, Mrs Turner, if you could just lean forward and look at the green cross for me.’
I dutifully peered into the aperture on the machine, while Mr Ingram the optician stared at a monitor. The eye exam was taking far longer than I’d thought, and we hadn’t yet got to the bit where I’d read letters off a chart, which was all I’d been expecting. I should have realised when I saw the consultation room crammed with state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment that eye tests had moved on a lot since I’d last had one.
The room was quiet except for the sound of the optician’s slightly stertorous breathing. ‘And now the left eye.’
Nobody could accuse this man of not being thorough, I thought, as I saw him draw his chair closer to the screen, as though he was the one having trouble with his vision instead of me. I almost giggled at that, but suddenly there was something in his voice that sucked the humour from me like a vacuum.
‘And once more with the right.’ He stared unblinkingly at the screen and I knew, even before he rolled back his seat to look at me, that something was wrong.
‘Is anything the matter?’ I asked in a voice that didn’t sound like mine at all.
‘How long is it that you’ve been having problems with your vision in this eye?’
It was a reasonable question and shouldn’t have alarmed me, but the small muscle twitching revealingly at the corner of his eye did. His foot was also jiggling up and down, performing a stationary tap dance against the metal frame of his chair.
‘A few months, I suppose,’ I answered, trying to quell an instinctive wave of panic that was rising up like nausea within me. ‘Is anything the matter?’ I asked again.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ Mr Ingram began. That’s when I knew that whatever it was he’d seen on the screen, it was definitely not nothing. This man should never cheat on his wife, play poker, or try to evade his taxes, I thought, because he was an absolutely appalling liar.
‘What’s causing my blurred vision?’
Instead of answering me, Mr Ingram swivelled the monitor around to reveal a screenshot of the image he’d been looking at on the machine, which according to the plate on its side scanned optical coherence tomography. I had no idea what that was.
‘This area here,’ he said, pointing one long thin finger to a section of the frozen image, ‘is a great deal . . . lighter . . . than we would expect to see on an OCT. I’d like to ask one of my colleagues to have a look at it later on today.’
‘Can’t they look now?’ my voice was full of the fear I could taste at the back of my throat.
‘I’m afraid he’s out for a few hours, but as soon as he returns I’ll share this with him and give you a call.’ He looked down at his notes to check my phone number was on them.
‘Can’t you at least tell me what you think might be wrong?’
‘I’d rather not, until I’m sure. I wouldn’t want to worry you unnecessarily.’
He was already way too late on that score.
‘Was everything all right?’ asked Maddie, as I joined her and Hope on the pavement.
‘Fine,’ I lied, far more convincingly than the optician had been able to do.
‘Do you need glasses, Mummy?’ asked Hope. I bent down and kissed the top of her head, closing my eyes tightly like a child hiding from something scary. When I opened them I saw Maddie studying me curiously.
‘No, no glasses for me,’ I said with forced cheerfulness. ‘My eyes are fine.’ The lies were piling up so high, I soon wouldn’t be able to see over the top of them.
Good manners made me offer to drive Maddie home; good sense made her decline. ‘Be sure to tell me what Elsa thinks of those new toys,’ she said, enfolding Hope in a long hug.
‘When will I see you again?’ Hope asked, taking the bulging pet shop bag from Maddie’s hands.
‘Soon,’ her mother promised.
Sooner than either of us expected, as it turned out.
The phone rang when I was chopping onions, which meant there were already tears running down my cheeks long before the optician got to deliver his message.
‘I don’t want you to worry,’ he said, as Ryan walked into the kitchen. He looked instantly concerned at the tears coursing down my face.
‘What’s wrong?’ he mouthed. In answer I pointed at the chopping board and the pile of diced onions waiting to go into our bolognaise sauce.
He smiled, immediately relieved, grabbed a beer from the fridge and headed back towards the lounge. I waited until I was sure he couldn’t hear me before continuing with the call. ‘I’m sorry. What were you saying?’
‘I’ve spoken to your GP and also to a friend of mine who’s a consultant at Queen Mary’s. He’s moved some appointments around, and you’re lucky, Mrs Turner, they can see you tomorrow.’
I felt a great many emotions as I shakily noted down the name of the doctor and where I should go on arrival at the neurology department the following day, but lucky certainly wasn’t one of them.
‘Who was that on the phone?’
I twirled the long strands of spaghetti round and round on my spoon. So far I’d done a pretty good job of simply repositioning it from one side of my plate to the other.
‘When?’ I asked, buying for time.
‘Earlier on. When you were cooking.’
I delayed my answer by lifting the spoon of pasta to my lips. Tonight I had no stomach for what was usually one of my favourite dishes. I slid the spoon into my mouth and somehow managed not to gag as I swallowed what felt like a mouthful of slithering worms.
‘Just one of the school mums. Why do you ask?’
I didn’t feel so guilty about this lie, because I could justify why I was telling it. I was protecting him. Surprisingly, Ryan was the one who suddenly looked uncomfortable.
‘I wondered if it might have been Maddie, that’s all.’ Strangely I welcomed the shard of jealousy that stabbed my heart. It stopped me thinking about the hospital appointment and what I already feared the tests would find. That’s the problem with the internet. It’s all too easy to rattle in your symptoms and self-diagnose. And you never consider going for the innocuous or innocent illnesses. Armed with not a single jot of medical knowledge, you always go straight for the
very worst, scariest diagnosis possible. It was what I’d done as soon as we’d returned home.
‘Why would you think it was Maddie calling?’
Ryan looked even more uncomfortable. ‘I don’t know. You had a kind of look on your face that you only seem to get . . .’ The hole he was digging himself into was going to be impossible to climb out of, so he stopped trying.
‘No. Like I said, it was one of the mums from school. More spaghetti, anyone?’
Hospitals are familiar to me. I feel at home there. I like the smell, the noise, the constant buzz of everyone moving with a purpose. This used to be a large part of my world. So walking through the automatic doors and feeling my heart pound – not just in my chest, but all the way up to my throat; and feeling my stomach churn, even though I hadn’t touched a single mouthful of breakfast that morning, was both unexpected and unsettling.
My steps were slow and hesitant as I scanned the overhead signs. I felt small and lost, and suddenly very much alone. Why hadn’t I told Ryan I was coming here today? There had been time and opportunity. The day had begun like a thousand others before it: he showered, I showered; I woke Hope; together Ryan and I made breakfast while I packed Hope’s lunch and fed her kitten. I was busy, but no more so than on any other day.
When Ryan came quietly up behind me and stealthily swiped the slice of toast I was probably never going to eat from my plate, I could have turned my head and whispered into his ear. When he poured me my morning coffee and passed me the cup with a tender smile, that could have been the time to speak. And even if I’d missed every one of those opportunities, when he’d casually asked: ‘And what are you doing today, Mrs Turner?’ that was when I should have shared the truth with him. But instead I’d feigned a casual shrug, not easy with the crushing weight of the lie sitting across my shoulders like a yoke. ’Nothing much,’ I’d said. ‘A few errands, that’s all.’
And now here I was, on the one and only errand I had to complete today. Too confused by the signs to work out where to go, I asked at the information desk for directions. My heels clicked noisily as I walked along the hospital corridors, passing numerous clinics, many of which I’d much rather be visiting than the one I was heading for. Dermatology – that would be all right, I could cope with a rash or two. Allergy Clinic – I would just buy more tissues. Obesity clinic – I could probably do with losing a pound or two. Instead, my feet took me past all of those, until I arrived at a set of double doors that led to a department with not just one name, but many: Neurosciences; Neuro Critical Care Unit; Neuro Surgery.