Love @ First Site Read online

  "Hi!" she says brightly, making an attempt to sit up more.

  "Stay as you are." I move forward and make a gesture for her to lie back again, not daring to actually touch her. "How you feeling?"

  "Not bad actually, considering . . ." She smiles weakly. "Still a bit sore." She touches the area near her right breast, which, in the half light and covered by her nightdress, looks indistinguishable from before. "Look, can you open the curtains a bit? It's terribly gloomy in here, not conducive to feeling cheerful at all."

  I oblige, and she screws up her eyes as a shaft of bright light streams directly onto her face.

  "Too much?"

  "No, I'll get used to it. Just give me a few seconds." She pats the bed. "Now come and sit down. I want to hear everything you've been up to."

  The minutiae of my life seem particularly trivial today, but if Olivia wants to discuss it, I'll oblige. For the next hour, I fill her in on Tom, the older gentleman with all his talk of pretty ladies and champers, on Simon . . . yes, with the frenzied sex bits . . . and Kara and Dan . . . without the frenzied snog bit, which I'm too ashamed to admit to anyone. Throughout, I'm leaping up and down from the bed animatedly describing scenes, embellishing anecdotes and pulling extreme faces in a bid to make her laugh.

  It works, and by the time I get to last night's denouement of Kara announcing she's back with Dan, Olivia's face is glowing with delight, wrapped up in the scandal of an outside world where others' lives are treading their usual predictable, trivial path, unsullied by life-threatening diseases.

  "Oh, Jess, you are a tonic!" she declares, clapping her hands together in glee. "I told you I needed you to carry on dating, just so you could come round and cheer me up with your stories. And how's work been?"

  "Bearable." I shrug. "The usual bollocky diet of tripe and trivia, although I did do a really worthwhile report recently," I add, telling her all about my visit to Sunshine House.

  "Those poor, poor kids," she says, tears welling in her eyes. "At least I have managed to enjoy some kind of life before getting ill. Their lives have barely begun."

  I nod. "I know, although strangely, they seem to deal with it far better than their parents, according to what my friend who works there says."

  Olivia mulls over what I've said for a few moments. "True. For all that I'm going through at the moment, I know that it would be one hundred times worse if it was happening to one of the children instead. As a parent, you'd feel so hopeless, wanting to take the sickness away from them and bear it yourself."

  I absentmindedly pick a hair from the shoulder of her nightdress. "My friend Ben says they also feel terrible guilt, because they feel that in creating the child, they have somehow created the illness too."

  "So what's he like then, this Ben?" she asks, taking a sip of water from a glass on her bedside table.

  "He's great." I smile. "Bit of a strange cookie though. He seems very old fashioned in many ways."

  "Do you fancy him?" she grins cheekily.

  I shake my head. "No. Besides, there's a chance he could be gay. Tab and Will certainly think so, and he doesn't seem to have had a girlfriend for a long time."

  "Set Richard on him." Olivia laughs. "He'll find out."

  "God, can you imagine?" I groan. "I wouldn't wish that on anyone. No, I'm sure Ben will cough up in his own good time, but meanwhile I really like his company and I admire him enormously for what he does."

  We lapse into silence for a few seconds, the only sound Michael's travel alarm clock ticking away.

  "Have you said anything to the children?" I ask eventually.

  She nods. "Yes, a little bit. We had to really, particularly as I'll still be in bed quite a lot when they get back."

  "So what do they know?"

  "We didn't make a big deal of it . . . you know, building it up and making a somber announcement . . . we just told them casually that mummy has got a blood disorder that's making her a bit tired. It's how you relay something to children that's so important."

  "So did the casual approach work?"

  She purses her lips. "Seems to have done, yes. They asked a couple of basic questions, like would it make me throw up and would I still be able to cook Christmas dinner." She laughs at this point. "So I said yes, and yes. It's especially important they know that I'll be getting sick for when the chemo starts."

  "Which is?"

  "Middle of next week. I have to say, the thought of it terrifies me more than the surgery I've just had."

  I squeeze her hand. "It'll be fine. You always deal so well with things."

  She looks unsure, her face crumpling slightly. "I'm scared, Jess. Really scared." She clasps my hand as if she might never let it go.

  "I know, sweetie, I know." I lean forward and hold her, my face embedded in her hair. "I'm always here for you; don't ever forget that."

  She pulls away, visibly composing herself. "Jess," she whispers, her expression worryingly serious. "I need you to do something for me, but it must be our little secret. You mustn't tell a soul."

  "Of course, of course."

  She points down to the dresser drawer near my feet. "Open that and pull out the green folder that's tucked under the blanket."

  Intrigued, I do as she asks and place it on the bed in front of her.

  Casting a quick glance towards the doorway, she half buries the folder under the duvet. "Michael mustn't see it, he'd go mad," she whispers, opening it up.

  Inside are several sheets of paper covered in Olivia's distinctive handwriting, plus dozens of photographs of Matthew and Emily at various stages in their lives.

  "I'm putting together two memory boxes for the children, just in case . . . well, you know." She looks at me apologetically. "I want them to have something to remember their mummy by."

  I am, by turns, both horrified and immensely touched at the thought, but I know that now is not the time to express the former. "Sweetie, you are not going to die, but it's a lovely idea anyway." I smile.

  She looks pleased. "I was really hoping you'd say that. I can't show it to Michael because I know he'd get really cross with me for even thinking that I might not be around to see the children grow up."

  I flick through the stack of photos on her lap. Matthew, aged about six months, his face smeared with chocolate, Emily being nursed by Olivia on the day she was born, the four of them, suntanned and smiling, sitting in a beachside cafe . . . all snapshots of a normal, loving family.

  "And what's all the writing?" I say, pointing at the sheets of paper.

  "A history of their lives so far, as I remember it," she says enthusiastically. "You know, little anecdotes like how Matthew became attached to an old dishcloth and took it everywhere with him . . . how Emily once threw up straight into our pediatrician's lap . . . when Matthew was a sheep in the school nativity and mistakenly made a mooing noise . . . and how Emily insisted on wearing a ballet tutu over her trousers for virtually the whole of last winter."

  I grin from ear to ear at the memory.

  "I know they're just silly little things," she adds, "but when children get older they do love to hear about their little idiosyncrasies, and if I'm not around to fill them in, I doubt Michael will know a lot of it because he's at work so much."

  I nod in agreement. "And men tend to remember the big, grand things in life. They're not very good on the small details." I smile. "So, we're agreed it's our little secret. Now what would you like me to do?"

  She pushes the paper and photographs back in the folder and hands it to me to replace in the drawer. "I need you to buy me two scrapbooks, some glue, and two fancy boxes that will accommodate the books, plus some other little bits of memorabilia like Matthew's first shoes, and Emily's old blanky. Luckily, I kept a lot of those kinds of things anyway." She smiles.

  "Consider it done." I press my fingers to the side of my head in a salute sign.

  "Thanks, honey." She visibly relaxes, knowing that her important task is being dealt with. "And besides, if I do hang on in there,
which I have every intention of doing, then the boxes will still be great mementos for the children, regardless."

  "That's the spirit." I smile.

  "Oh, and one other thing . . ." Her back straightens slightly again.

  "Yep?"

  "I don't know if you remember, but a couple of years ago I told you I was putting you down as one of the executors of my will?"

  I frown slightly. "Vaguely, yes. Although I wasn't quite sure what it entailed."

  "Well, basically, it meant . . . still does mean . . . that if I die, then you would be part of a panel, including a lawyer, Michael and Dad, to make sure that my last wishes were carried out as I requested."

  I nod my understanding.

  "When I first asked you, it was one of those in-the-unlikely-event-of things, but now of course I've been thinking about it a lot more . . ."

  I open my mouth to contradict her, but she presses a finger against her lips.

  "So now I want to ask you something else . . . something a lot more serious . . ."

  "Go on . . ."

  "Can I put you down as a guardian of the children? . . . along with Michael, of course. It's just that although he adores them, he could never be a mum to them and they'll need that if . . ." She tails off and takes a deep breath. "Anyway, you've known them since birth and they see you as a sort of surrogate mother anyway."

  I listen intently, saying nothing.

  "You wouldn't have to live with them or anything like that," she continues. "Just visit a lot, help Michael to make decisions, that kind of thing. And of course, make sure they get lots of mummy-style cuddles . . ." She breaks off and tries to suppress a small sob.

  "There, there, don't upset yourself." I stroke her hair soothingly. "It won't come to that, you'll see. You're going to be around to give your grandchildren cuddles, mark my words." I only wish I could one hundred percent believe it myself.

  Olivia blows her nose. "Anyway, I want you to think about it for a while, decide whether you're up to taking on that responsibility. If not, it's no problem at all, I can ask Mum."

  "What, and subject Matthew and Emily to an adolescence of squeaky clean hair, highly polished shoes, and shirts with frilly ruffs on?" I tease. "No, I don't need any time to think about it, Liv, the answer's yes, of course. It would be an honor."

  She lets out a long sigh of relief and sinks back onto the pillows. "Thanks, Jess, you don't know how much it means to me to hear you say that. I know I'm supposed to be thinking positive all the time, but there are just some things I need to get in place in case I don't get better. Then I can concentrate on fighting it."

  "I know, I know," I say, stroking her hair again.

  She closes her eyes. "Hmmm, that's nice. I hope you don't think I'm rude, but I feel like I need to sleep now."

  I carry on stroking her hair until her breathing becomes deeper and her mouth falls open slightly. Then I sit there for a few minutes more, just staring at her beautiful, peaceful face and wondering what the future holds.

  Thirty

  Simon is already outside the cinema as I cross through the middle of Leicester Square, picking my through the tourists, drunks, and cuddling couples intertwined together on benches.

  I can see him in the distance, huddled against the cold, his hands rammed into the pockets of his long, black overcoat. He looks at his watch, then stares into the distance across the other side of the square.

  "Boo!"

  He looks startled as I appear at his side. "Aha, there you are." He plants his cold lips against mine for a hasty peck. "Come on, let's get inside. It's bloody freezing."

  It's one of those sit-anywhere cinemas, and five minutes before the movie starts, Simon and I are ensconced in the middle of a central row in isolated splendor, with vacant seats in front of us too.

  "Looks like we're in luck," he says. "It's one of my pet peeves to be hemmed in by people in the cinema, particularly when they choose to slurp their way through a hot dog and gallon of drink throughout the film. Why don't these people eat before they come?"

  Just as the lights dim and we're thirty seconds from a clean getaway, the door bursts open and Mr. and Mrs. Slob walk in. She's carrying a jumbo popcorn, he's brandishing a plate-sized burger with all the trimmings, and please God no, they start to edge their way along our row.

  Just as she starts to lower herself into the chair next to Simon, he leaps to his feet. "Ah, greetings, disciples! Jesus loves you!"

  I stare at him in mute astonishment, but it's nothing compared to the look on Mrs. Slob's face as she gapes open-mouthed, a fistful of popcorn poised just inches from her lips.

  "He's in us all, you know!" Simon continues. "You . . . and you," He points at Mr., then Mrs. "All of us!" He spreads his arms wide to embrace the entire cinema.

  "Fucking nutter," says Mrs., just as the film's rating appears on screen. "Come on . . ." She jerks her head at her companion. "Let's get away from this God-botherer."

  "Works every time," Simon says with a grin, settling back into his seat as we watch them move several rows forward.

  I laugh and snuggle into his arm as the film's opening scene unfolds. It involves lots of gunfire, dead bodies, and Colin Farrell cussing, but I have absolutely no idea what's going on because I have tuned out, my mind wandering back to my chat with Olivia earlier today.

  After she'd fallen asleep, I'd sat downstairs for another hour, chatting with Michael about the reaction of my parents, the children, and his own thoughts on what the future holds. By the time I left, I felt emotionally drained, an empty shell who, far from stepping out to watch a vacuous Hollywood movie, simply wanted to sit at home, weep self-indulgently in front of a romantic old film, and eat comfort food. But, given Olivia's vicarious excitement at my burgeoning relationship, here I am.

  Don't get me wrong. I like Simon and, under any other circumstances, I would have been at fever pitch all day, meticulously preparing myself for our hot date. But there's something about having a major crisis in your life that makes such things seem irrelevant in the grand scheme.

  If Simon and I were a year into our relationship, he'd know Olivia, Michael, and the children and be experiencing firsthand the strain we're all under. He'd understand completely if I said I wanted to stay in, just the two of us, or even if I preferred to be alone. That's the beauty of familiarity: you can be miserable when you want to, you don't have to pretend.

  But when it's all shiny and new, you're both constantly in buffing mode, polishing your personality for public display. To show your imperfections too early could tarnish it irrevocably.

  Colin Farrell is now snogging someone and the music is reaching such a crescendo that I can only assume we have reached the end. The credits suddenly start to roll and confirm it.

  "Highly entertaining," Simon pronounces, pulling on his coat. "Did you enjoy it?"

  "Yes, it was great," I say vaguely, hoping he won't ask anything more in depth.

  We stroll arm in arm across the square, him chatting animatedly about a particular action scene in the film, me nodding and smiling in silent agreement.

  Within a few hundred yards, we arrive at the door of a new, trendy Indian restaurant with a red rope and ubiquitous, house-sized bouncer blocking the door.

  "Name," he booms, looking at his clipboard. The urge to say "Julia Roberts" almost consumes me, but I doubt humor is his strong point and we'd find ourselves frequenting the nearest McDonald's.

  "Simon Young."

  Wordlessly, the bouncer unclips the rope and stands to one side to let us pass.

  It's another dark, somber joint, reminiscent of last weekend's date, with cozy tables partitioned off for privacy. I wonder if Simon is expecting a rematch of our Olympian sex session too.

  "You OK? You seem a little distracted tonight," he says, passing me a menu to study.

  "Sorry." I smile apologetically. "I've got a lot on my mind at the moment."

  He looks at me thoughtfully for a few moments. "Well, let's get ordering out of the
way; then, if you fancy unburdening some of it, I'm all ears."

  So there it is, plain and simple. An open invitation for me to tell him about Olivia, to reveal the extent of the huge weight bearing down on my shoulders and see if he's up to alleviating some of it.

  I have two options: tell him, or use the numbing effect of alcohol to block it out of my mind completely and have a hedonistic evening focused simply on having fun. Although Olivia would advocate the latter wholeheartedly, in my mind it would seem like a betrayal of her.

  "So cough up then, what's on your mind?" says Simon, turning back to me after we've finished giving our appetizer selections to the waiter. His cheery demeanor suggests he thinks I'm about to relay a problem on a par with my car breaking down.

  I wince slightly. "My sister has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a mastectomy on Monday."

  He says nothing for a few seconds, his face impassive. Then a small furrow appears between his eyebrows. "God, what a bummer."

  I'm not quite sure what response I expected to my earth-shattering news . . . well, shattering to my earth anyway, but I have to admit that this one wouldn't have figured highly on a list of possible options. "How terrible," yes. Or perhaps "How awful, dreadful, terrifying, or shocking" . . . any of those would have sufficed. But "what a bummer"? It renders me speechless for a moment or two.

  "Um, yes I suppose it is," I say eventually. "It's certainly knocked our entire family for a loop."

  "I'll bet." He looks uncomfortable and takes a mouthful of wine. "I had an aunt who died of cancer. I think it was liver though . . . or was it lung?"

  How reassuring, I think murderously. "Well, we're hoping Olivia will fight it and go on to live a normal life," I say emphatically, trying to convince myself as much as him.

  He nods and pushes my wineglass towards me, clearly hoping more alcohol might loosen me up. "So I presume that means you have to keep a close eye on yourself?"

  "Sorry?"