• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

I saw him weigh the possible routes in. He took a breath to steady himself. ‘She's ill.’

‘Ill?’

‘Yes. Very ill.’

His eyes were sad too, I realized. Full of emotion. Some distant wave of consciousness, some swell of comprehension was gradually building out at sea, gathering momentum, slowly approaching.

‘Define very ill.’

‘It's terminal. She's got cancer. She's dying.’

He watched me absorb it: watched the wave break over me and throw me onto the beach. Like so many tiny pebbles I skittered wildly up the shore in its wake.

27

I let go of his hands as if they were molten. Felt one of mine go up to cover my mouth. I hadn't been expecting that. I stared at him. ‘Shit, Ant.’

We gazed at each other, our eyes silently communing. I shook my head slowly in disbelief as the enormity of what he'd said continued to filter into my consciousness; as I thoroughly absorbed it. My eyes filled quickly. I raised them to the ceiling, then brought them back level with Ant's. Shook my head again, dumbfounded, my fingers still pressed to my mouth.

‘She can't be,’ I heard myself say eventually, in the smallest voice.

‘She is,’ he said, a sad little smile bringing down the corners of his mouth. He took my hand, waiting for me to catch up.

‘How long?’ I whispered.

‘How long has she had it?’

‘No, how long until…’

He made a helpless gesture. Spread his hands. ‘I don't know, exactly. No one does, yet.’

‘That beautiful girl?’ I narrowed my eyes at him incredulously, as if perhaps he'd got it wrong, hadn't entirely been telling the truth.

‘Yes,’ he agreed.

‘But… isn't there something they can do? Surely these days – chemotherapy, radiotherapy—’

‘It's spread too quickly. Far too quickly. And it wasn't caught in time. Wasn't picked up.’

‘From where? Where did it start?’

‘Oh… women's… you know.’

‘Breast?’

‘No, I think…’ His eyes slithered past mine awkwardly.

‘Cervical?’

He nodded. Obviously couldn't say it. It struck me there were a lot of words Ant couldn't say; this literature professor, this dealer in the English language. Cervical. The silent killer, they called it. The one you didn't know about till it was too late. Non-negotiable. The one that grew where babies were supposed to, but where instead, a hobgoblin had set up his stall, rubbing his hands with glee. Size of a grapefruit, women would whisper later, huddled in supermarkets, sucking their teeth. ‘When they took it from that poor girl's body…’

‘She doesn't look ill,’ I said stubbornly, fighting her corner.

‘She's very thin.’

Yes. Yes, she was thin. I remembered those tiny legs protruding from her denim skirt and disappearing into floppy boots. Remembered being taken aback.

‘And very pale,’ he added.

‘Yes,’ I conceded numbly, recalling her face as she turned it up to me when we'd walked together in her knot garden, in the evening light. Pale. Anxious. A very slight tinge to the whites of her eyes too. I remembered feeling ruddy and hulking, beside her. Beside what I imagined to be her ethereal beauty. I just didn't know how ethereal. How rude my own health was. I quickly got off the bed, wrapping my dressing gown around me tightly. And I remembered Ted's face too, when I'd commented in the car on how lovely she was. How the tears had welled up again, his face creased with grief. Of course. Tearful Ted. No wonder. His daughter. His granddaughter.

‘Stacey!’ I breathed, swinging back to Ant.

‘I know.’

‘Oh my God – does she know?’ I asked stupidly.

‘Of course. From day one.’

Yes. Of course she knew. I came quickly back to the bed. Sat down, curling my legs tightly under me. What had that been like? How had that little scenario played out? Telling your only child. It didn't bear thinking about.

Questions were muscling through the wall of shock now, in no particular order. ‘When did she tell you?’

‘Bella? The second day we were there. You were still asleep upstairs, I think. Or getting dressed. She told me in the garden.’

I stared at him. ‘Under the cherry tree?’

‘Yes.’

‘On that little round seat?’

‘Yes.’

‘You pushed her hair back.’

‘Did I?’ He looked