Читать книгу: «Another Way to Fall»

Chapter 1

I was sitting patiently to one side of Mr Spelling’s vast desk, which took up most of the floor space. The doctor paid me no attention, too intent on the images that flashed in quick succession across his computer screen. As I waited, I became vaguely aware that my fingers had developed a life of their own, tugging at the seams of my jeans then playing with the cord hanging from my padded jacket. I slipped my wayward hands between my crossed legs in an attempt to bring their fidgeting under control, but a moment later the soft whisper of denim across denim drew my attention. My right foot had broken ranks and had started tapping rhythmically in midair.

The sun streamed through the window and it stung my eyes as the rays of light bounced off the butter-cream walls. It was late November and bitterly cold outside but you would never have guessed in the snug little office. I made a point of averting my gaze from the window and the world beyond, choosing instead to concentrate on a collection of health and safety notices pinned to the walls explaining how to wash your hands, how to find the fire exit, how to wipe your nose. I knew every crease and tear of each poster by heart. Likewise, I was familiar with the gilt on the picture frames that protected Mr Spelling’s prized certificates, the ones that assured his patients that he was more than qualified to peer into the deepest crevices of their brains and read their fortunes.

My foot froze in midair as the doctor shifted in his seat. I waited for him to look up but he remained focused on his work. With my attention briefly diverted, my hands had broken free and I found myself twisting a dark curl from my ponytail around my fingers. My foot resumed its tapping.

Shifting restlessly, I started to regret wearing so many layers. I could feel my skin tingling with sweat beneath and was about to take off my jacket when Mr Spelling raised his head and this time he did meet my gaze. He had kept me waiting all of sixty seconds but it had felt like a lifetime. In my defence, my waiting had begun long before I entered his office. My life had been held in limbo for almost five years.

When Mr Spelling smiled, I had absolutely no idea if it was drawn from hope or sympathy. His deep green eyes had hidden depths that gave no clue to the news he was about to impart.

‘So go on then. Tell me,’ I demanded, my tone light but insistent, my patience exhausted. I held my breath, pursing my lips tightly to stop them trembling.

‘It’s over,’ he said.

That simple statement had numerous connotations but for me the message was clear enough for me to catch my breath. ‘All clear?’ My question came out as a tremulous whisper.

‘Complete remission,’ he confirmed.

At last I allowed myself to look out of the window, beyond the treetops that were being stripped of all remains of life by autumn gales and towards the clear blue sky. Freedom, I thought as I allowed a smile to ease away the pain and fear that had cast an ominous shadow over my life. It had been a long time coming but I was only twenty-nine. I had my whole life ahead of me and an awful lot of catching up to do.

‘Emma, it’s time,’ Meg whispered.

Emma felt her body stiffen, her fingers left hovering motionlessly over the keyboard as the connection with her words was broken. The smile on her face faltered as she looked up and caught a glimpse of Mr Spelling and his entourage in deep discussion further down the ward. The thudding of her heart sounded like a drum roll preparing for the fall of the executioner’s axe.

It had taken her a huge amount of concentration to block out her surroundings as she began to write, drawing herself into a world over which she had complete control and one she was loath to set aside. At least she was feeling well enough to write, she told herself as she tucked a rogue curl back behind her ear, sweeping her fingers towards the dressing at the back of her scalp as if to remind herself that the nightmare was far from over. Reluctantly, she pulled down the lid of her laptop and pushed it to one side.

Emma’s marked improvement was not a result of the operation itself, which had been purely exploratory. It was the new regime of drugs she had been taking that made her thoughts feel clearer and the headaches that had plagued her for weeks had all but disappeared. Her vision wasn’t perfect but then it never would be; damage to her peripheral vision was an old war wound. She had been diagnosed with a brain tumour four years earlier and had been in remission for three of those. She was now awaiting the results of a biopsy that was likely to confirm that her future was in doubt once again.

Emma looked towards her mum and she had no doubt that the fear she could see etched on her face was a mirror image of her own. There were other similarities between mother and daughter. They had the same dark auburn hair that fell in soft curls, the same round hazel eyes, high cheek bones and tall willowy frames. Meg had often been mistaken for Emma’s sister and there were those who would be genuinely surprised to know that she was already the wrong side of fifty, but not today. Today, her age was showing.

Meg was sitting upright in an easy chair next to the bed; her hands gripped the neatly folded newspaper, which she had been reading moments earlier. She looked tired in her creased blue cotton dress, which matched with the cold blue walls of the hospital ward. As Emma reached out a comforting hand towards her, it didn’t escape her notice that the skin tone of her own arm, semi-transparent and tinged blue, also matched the decor.

Meg quickly discarded her newspaper and gripped Emma’s outstretched hand. ‘Ready?’ Meg asked as they both looked towards the huddle of doctors heading their way.

Emma bit down hard on the inside of her lip to hold back the scream building inside her. She wanted to say, ‘No! I’m not ready, I’ll never be ready. Please, oh, God, please send them away!’ Her unspoken words burned like acid at the back of her throat as she nodded in silent submission, never taking her eyes off Mr Spelling as he approached the foot of her bed. Emma had an assortment of consultants involved in her care and it was the neurosurgeon who would have assessed the pathology results of her biopsy. But it was her neuro-oncologist whom she relied upon and listened to most and she had asked for him to deliver the news. Mr Spelling was in his late fifties. He had a full head of thick, brown hair but it was peppered with far more grey than when they had first met. Back then Mr Spelling had been confident and the treatment offered had been intensive – major surgery followed by months of chemotherapy – but remission had been her reward.

Lately, however, each time she had met Mr Spelling, he had looked just a little less confident, less eager to give Emma one of his winning smiles. He felt Emma’s gaze on him now and, when he looked up, he smiled at her but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, their hidden depths a little closer to the surface than Emma would have liked.

‘Writing anything interesting?’ he asked her, nodding towards the discarded laptop.

Emma tried to return his smile but the corners of her mouth were being pulled down by invisible weights. She could feel herself not just sinking back into the bed but shrinking in size too, like a small, defenceless child gripping her future like a comfort blanket that was about to be torn from her grasp. ‘Just idiotic ramblings,’ she answered with a dismissive shrug.

In the days when she had counted on endless tomorrows, Emma had nurtured great ambitions and writing a book had been amongst them. Her first battle with cancer had derailed her dreams for the future and she had spent the last three years prevaricating rather than picking up where she had left off. The blind spot that her cancer had left in her peripheral vision unnerved her and she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that there was something still there inside her head, lurking out of sight. She had been hoping for the best but all the time preparing for the worst, questioning every twinge, every headache, panicking each time she had a lapse of memory. She had told herself it was paranoia but the phrase I told you so was echoing across her thoughts now and with it, a sense of regret. There had been so much she could have achieved in the intervening years but she had waited too long. Panic bubbled inside her as she felt time slipping through her fingers.

As Mr Spelling put down her medical charts and walked to the side of the bed, there was an ominous silence, filled only by the continued pounding of Emma’s heart. His entourage followed in his wake and when they had fully encircled Emma, her nurse, Peter, pulled the curtain around the bed to provide a degree of privacy. She felt trapped and glanced anxiously from one face to the next, searching out a pair of eyes that might hold a hint of hope. There was none.

‘Right, then,’ Mr Spelling said, taking Emma’s free hand as Meg squeezed the other even tighter. Imperceptibly, the gathering of registrars and nurses leaned in a little closer, eagerly awaiting judgement to be passed.

‘Tell me,’ Emma commanded.

‘We’ve ruled out necrosis,’ Mr Spelling told her, knowing that Emma would immediately understand what this meant. The mass that had shown up on recent scans was not scarring around the site of the previous tumour and that left only one other explanation. Any further attempt to soften the news was futile and Mr Spelling left no pause before delivering the final blow. ‘There’s a tumour in your temporal lobe, Emma. A grade-three Glioblastoma Multiforme.’ He let the words sink in. The brain tumour wasn’t only back, it was more aggressive than it had been before. ‘We need to plan some radical treatment, a programme of radiotherapy and chemo.’

‘No operation this time?’ Emma asked, doing well to hide the tremor from her voice. ‘Even if the NHS can’t afford to sharpen its knives any more, I would have thought the surgeons here could do a decent enough job with a butter knife from the hospital canteen. Or is that what they used last time?’ Emma’s false bravado was betrayed only by the gentle trembling of her knees beneath the blue cotton blankets.

‘If my colleagues’ knives were as sharp as your wit, I’m sure we wouldn’t be facing this problem right now,’ Mr Spelling argued gently. ‘I’m afraid we can’t operate on the tumour without seriously compromising your brain function. We could remove some of the growth but each time we operate there are more risks and the results are less effective. We’ll reassess as we go along but I think for now at least, radiotherapy and chemo offer the best option.’

‘And will it get me back into remission?’ Her mum’s grip on her hand was practically cutting off Emma’s circulation now.

Mr Spelling broke eye contact briefly, looking down at his feet to take a breath before facing her again. The look he gave her wasn’t in the least bit enigmatic. He couldn’t hide his feelings, not when his eyes were brimming with sympathy. Emma sensed that he was about to sugar coat his answer so she jumped in before he had a chance to reply. ‘What’s the five-year survival rate?’

‘It’s difficult to say,’ Mr Spelling began but then checked himself, knowing Emma wouldn’t accept anything but a straight answer. ‘A small percentage. A very small percentage.’

‘I’m dying, then,’ Emma said matter-of-factly. ‘This time, I’m dying.’

‘No,’ gasped Meg, ‘no, you’re not. We’ll go somewhere else if we have to. We’ll find a clinical trial somewhere.’

Mr Spelling raised an eyebrow as he looked at Meg but then turned his attention back to Emma. ‘There are a number of overseas clinics that have had some success treating cases similar to yours and we’ll do our best to investigate all the options, but I don’t want to raise your hopes. The clinics may not accept you and even if they do, there are no guarantees. Right now we have to be realistic and plan the treatment that we can offer you here but you have to understand that this is palliative treatment, not curative, not in the long term.’

‘So I am dying,’ repeated Emma.

Mr Spelling’s silence told her more than her mother’s knee-jerk reassurances had. Fear tore through her body as she felt her future being wrenched from her grasp, taking with it all her hopes, dreams and foolish whims. Everything was gone.

Emma had heard enough and tried to close her ears to the conversation that continued around her, which was now just noise. Her hand went limp in Mr Spelling’s grip and he placed it gently on the bed. She shouldn’t have wasted so much time, she told herself as cold terror was replaced by a slow-burning fury. She had been waiting for that magical five-year marker before resuming her life and what a life it was going to be, one where all her dreams were there for the taking. She had faced death head on and she deserved a better future. Perhaps in another lifetime, she thought as she turned her gaze towards her laptop, which looked back at her, its half-open lid smiling benevolently, letting her know her escape route was still open.

‘How long?’ she asked, her voice barely audible as she forced herself to rejoin the conversation.

‘Did you say something, Emma?’ Peter asked, interrupting Meg in mid-sentence.

Emma silently thanked her nurse as she returned her attention to Mr Spelling. ‘If I haven’t got five years, exactly how long do I have? I started writing a book this morning. Will I have time to finish it?’ she asked, not taking her eyes off the doctor for even a moment. Her question smacked of desperation but she needed to know that at least this ambition could be realized. She wasn’t about to accept defeat, not yet.

‘Emma, you can’t be thinking of writing now,’ interjected Meg.

Emma ignored her. ‘I need maybe a year. Can you give me that?’ she asked with a tone that dared the doctor to deny her dying wish.

‘You know I can’t give you a firm answer but twelve to eighteen months would be a reasonable expectation. It really depends on how the tumour develops and how you respond to treatment, but if it was down to sheer determination on your part then my guess is you’ll finish your book, and I’ll do my damnedest to help.’

‘Thank you,’ replied Emma, reaching up to squeeze Mr Spelling’s arm gently in gratitude. Her mother slowly released her fierce grip on Emma’s other hand and Emma surreptitiously flexed her fingers. She didn’t want Meg to know that she had caused her hand to ache, she would be feeling bad enough already. ‘So when do I start treatment?’

‘I’m working on the schedule now but I’d say within the month.’

‘But it’s Christmas in a month’s time,’ Emma told him. ‘How about we relook at those schedules and make it the first week in January?’

Mr Spelling glanced towards Meg for support but she remained uncharacteristically silent on the subject and simply shrugged her shoulders. ‘It gives us more time to consider other options,’ she offered.

Mr Spelling sighed. ‘OK, January it is,’ he conceded.

‘Which gives me six more weeks of freedom, so my next question is, when can I get out of here?’

‘We’ll play that one by ear but if you’re going to be your usual determined self,’ he said, emphasizing the word determined, ‘then I’d say you could go home early next week.’

‘Monday,’ Emma said, nodding her head as if Mr Spelling had already agreed the date.

Mr Spelling suppressed a gentle laugh. ‘Yes, Monday should be fine,’ he said.

The white-gowned bodies disappeared as quickly and silently as they had arrived, ghostly spectres that had completed their dark deed for the day. The screen curtain was pushed back against the wall, officially releasing Emma from her visitation, but she felt more trapped than ever.

Meg cleared her throat, swallowing a torrent of unshed tears that she wouldn’t allow Emma to see. ‘Want to talk about it?’

Emma shook her head slightly. ‘Not yet.’

‘You should get some rest then.’

Emma knew she was right but the steroids she was taking made her edgy and restless and the temptation to pick up her laptop was becoming hard to resist. It felt safer filling her mind with words than allowing time to reflect on what else might be lurking in there. ‘I will when I’m ready.’

Meg remained frozen to the spot where she had been sitting throughout Mr Spelling’s visit. ‘You’re not on your own, Emma,’ she said, taking a deep breath that lifted her head and pulled back her shoulders. Emma was reminded of a lioness raising her eyes to the horizon, sniffing out the dangers that threatened one of her cubs.

‘I know,’ she said although right now she would have been quite happy to have some time on her own. As that thought registered, Emma realized that she hadn’t thought about Alex once.

She had been dating him for almost a year, her longest relationship to date and her only relationship in the last five years. Whilst her friends from university had been busy settling down and starting families, Emma’s future had followed a different path, one that felt like walking a tightrope where each step was a leap of faith. There had seemed little point in searching for someone to share her life with when she didn’t know how long, or how brief that life might be. It had been a complete surprise when her close working relationship with Alex at Bannister’s Kitchens and Bathrooms turned into something far more intimate, although, she noted, not so intimate that he was there by her side today.

At first, his claim to have a phobia of hospitals had seemed a tad convenient but when she had seen the look of abject terror on his face on the one occasion he had visited her, she had been tempted to believe him and hadn’t pushed him since. ‘I should ring Alex,’ she said.

‘And I need to let Louise know what’s happening,’ Meg said, standing up and taking a tentative step away from the bed.

‘I’ll be fine, Mum,’ Emma replied. Louise was four years younger than Emma and was still considered the baby of the family but she hoped her sister would provide a better shoulder for her mum to cry on than she could. ‘But tell her she doesn’t have to come in. Friday nights at the bistro are too busy and she can’t afford to pay for extra cover.’

‘Now isn’t the time to worry about the bistro,’ Meg told her forcefully as she picked up her purse. ‘Louise is going to have to learn to stand on her own two feet.’

‘Yes, and she will,’ agreed Emma, as if prophesying her own doom. ‘But I’m still here and she’s still my little sister. I want to help her while I can.’ Meg nodded and her forced smile squeezed out the first tear, which they both dutifully ignored. ‘I meant what I said, Emma. You’re not on your own and I’m going to do my damnedest to get you through this. If Mr Spelling can’t help you beat this thing then I’ll find someone who can.’

‘You can’t fight this for me, Mum,’ Emma told her.

Meg looked down, playing with a seam on her purse rather than meeting Emma’s gaze. She looked more vulnerable than Emma had ever seen her. ‘I know I can’t. I wish I could but I know I can’t.’

‘I need to be realistic and I don’t want to hold on to false hopes. Do the research if you must but in the meantime, let me deal with this my way. I want to make the most of the time I have left,’ Emma began but the words caught in her throat as she realized what she had said. ‘I mean the time I have before I start treatment, the treatment Mr Spelling is offering me.’

Meg smiled through her pain. ‘All right, but I am insisting on one thing. I want you to move back home with me.’

Heat rose in Emma’s chest, a toxic mix of panic and anger. She felt like she was being pulled back in time to when she had first been diagnosed. Back then she had been forced to give up a promising marketing career in London and return home to Liverpool and her mother’s care. She had stayed with her for nearly two years before summoning up the courage to move out. The thought of giving up her independence once again was too much to bear.

‘But your apartment isn’t big enough for all of us,’ Emma told her, playing for time as the dust settled on the latest bombshell to hit her that morning.

At the moment, Louise was staying in Meg’s spare room, having rented out her own flat above the bistro when her business started to flounder six months ago. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not under any illusions that you and your sister could share a room,’ said Meg. ‘But right now your needs come first and I’ve already run the idea past Louise. She’s going to move out.’

‘So much for positive thinking,’ accused Emma as she realized her mum had been planning for the worst despite insisting that everything would be alright.

Meg chose to ignore the comment. ‘You can’t manage on your own, Emma. There’s your medication to keep track of, not to mention the possibility you could have more seizures, and then there’s just the simple fact that someone needs to keep an eye on you, look out for any changes which you might not notice yourself. At the very least, you need help building up your strength so you’re strong enough to deal with, well, whatever awaits us.’

‘Me, whatever awaits me,’ corrected Emma. ‘I’m twenty-nine years old, Mum, and I’ve grown up a lot in the last few years. I’ve had to. I can look after myself and, besides, I don’t live alone.’

Emma shared a house with Ally and Gina. She had known Ally from school and it had been her oldest and dearest friend who had been instrumental in securing her a job at Bannister’s as well as aiding her escape from her mum’s clutches. She would do all she could to help Emma stay in the house if it was what she wanted but Emma already knew that placing that kind of responsibility on someone’s shoulders was too much to ask of anyone, anyone that was except the one person who would always give her love and support unconditionally.

‘And I have Alex,’ Emma added but as the words slipped off her tongue in a last desperate attempt to make her case, she knew the argument had already been lost. The idea that Alex would be there for her wasn’t particularly credible when he was already conspicuous by his absence. ‘I’ll have to speak to the girls first. They’ll have to find another lodger.’ Meg shifted uneasily and Emma’s eyes widened in shock. ‘You’ve already spoken to them too?’ she gasped.

‘They said not to worry. You come first. We all want what’s best for you.’

‘I think you had better go and phone Louise,’ Emma said.

In her wisdom, Meg nodded but said no more. She had won the argument but the tone in Emma’s voice suggested that the decision could still be overturned.

As Emma watched her mum disappear down the ward, she desperately felt for her phone. Pulling it from her pyjama pocket, she imagined Alex anxiously waiting for her call.

Emma’s phone had been switched to silent mode all morning. No telltale vibration had announced a missed call or text message but the empty call list still left her disappointed. With a heavy heart, Emma tapped briefly on the keypad and waited for the call to be answered.

‘Emma?’ Alex shouted over pounding music and inane chatter.

‘Where are you?’ Emma asked, as loudly as she dared. The ward was deathly silent other than the occasional groan from a fellow patient or the clatter of a hospital trolley.

‘We’re having lunch at the pub,’ he explained. ‘The latest sales figures are looking really good and Mr Bannister insisted. I couldn’t refuse.’ There was a pause as Alex waited for Emma’s response. Her silence prompted him to ask what she had expected to be the first thing on his mind. ‘But enough about me, I’ve been thinking about you all morning. How did it go? What’s the news?’

Emma became acutely aware of how life beyond the confines of the hospital walls had been carrying on regardless – another blow to her bruised emotions. Her earth-shattering news hadn’t even caused a ripple. She felt a brief swell of anger as she imagined their celebrations, celebrations that she should be party to. She deserved a pat on the back as much as anyone but her anger was swiftly quashed by a more powerful wave of despair. There were worse things in life. ‘My tumour’s back,’ she said stoically.

The background noise continued unaffected.

‘Alex? Are you still there?’

‘I’m sorry, Em. I really am,’ he said. ‘I feel so bad that I wasn’t there for you. I wanted to be with you, honestly I did.’

‘It’s alright,’ Emma said, surprising herself that she should be the one comforting him so quickly but that was so often the way. She hated her illness, not simply for what it was doing to her but the hurt it inflicted on those around her. ‘I’ll speak to you over the weekend when you’re less busy but I should be out on Monday anyway.’

‘I’ll come over to see you then, I promise.’

‘There’s just one thing,’ Emma told him. ‘I’m going to have to move back in with Mum for a while.’

‘Maybe that’s for the best. You’ll need a lot of looking after.’

Emma was tempted to tell him that she wanted him to look after her. She wanted him to be the one to wrap her in his arms and tell her she was going to be alright but she took the easy option. She said nothing.

‘We’ll get you through this,’ he added. ‘We’ll all help.’

‘I know,’ she said, but she didn’t know at all. It was an automated response to an automated offer and perhaps they both knew it.

‘I’d better go,’ Alex said to fill the pause, ‘but we’ll speak soon. Love you, Em.’

Emma kept the phone to her ear until her link to everyday life was severed and silence returned. She felt drained as she closed her eyes and she didn’t resist when she began to slip towards slumber, freeing her mind to take her on a journey of its own.

In her dreams she was still sitting in Mr Spelling’s sun-filled office, looking out of the window towards a group of forlorn trees. A handful of bedraggled leaves, silhouetted against the crisp blue sky. Her focus centred on a single leaf that had survived the autumn gales, holding on staunchly to its branch as it prepared to brave the winter frost. Without warning, a vicious gust of wind spun it into the air, where it twirled out of control, leaving sparks of orange and gold as it fluttered in the sunshine. Its descent was inevitable and it came to rest on a pile of leaves whose skeletal remains were being crunched underfoot by passersby who were blissfully unaware of the devastation around them. Emma tried to look away but the vision followed her as she twisted and turned to escape its grasp.

‘Emma, are you OK?’ Meg asked as she gently brushed away strands of Emma’s damp hair from her sweaty brow.

Emma opened her eyes but struggled to emerge from her dream. She felt disorientated and for a moment she was transported back twenty years. She half expected her mum to tell her that she had the flu and wouldn’t be going to school that day.

‘I’ll get you some water,’ Meg said when Emma didn’t respond other than to open her mouth to expose dry lips.

As Meg busied herself pouring water from a jug, Emma’s eyes settled on the window opposite. The afternoon was growing old but there was still enough light left in the day to reveal a thin scattering of autumn leaves clinging to the denuded treetops. Autumn had been her favourite time of year as a child and she had loved stomping through the deep layers of crisp autumn leaves as she collected conkers with her dad. It was only following her diagnosis that she realized there was nothing beautiful about nature’s death throes and she had firmly switched her allegiance to spring, preferring the life that erupted from the depths of winter with a shock of apple blossom.