Chapter 8
8
LOUISA
I cried on the day I dropped Flo to her first day at school, thinking about how fast my little girl was growing up. Before my diagnosis, I anticipated that dropping Stan off for his first day would be even harder. The last of my babies disappearing into a classroom, where they’d spend more waking hours than they did at home during term time, where they’d start to live lives that I had no real idea about parts of, only the bits they chose to tell me about. I can already see that with Flo. When she was at nursery, and even when she first started at primary school, she’d tell me in the minutest detail about what her day had entailed. Now when I ask her, sometimes I get detailed answers and, on other days, mostly when she’s very tired, she’ll say things like ‘not much’, or even ‘school stuff’, like a six-year-old who’s going on thirteen.
On days like that, I can picture the teenager she’s going to be one day so clearly, and it’s a thought that’s made me want to slow time down in the past. Except now, post-diagnosis, part of me wants to fast forward time instead, so I can watch Stan transition from the little boy who tells me everything, to one who has parts of his life that are his alone, just as his sister already does. And to watch Flo become the teenager I can already sense waiting in the wings. But I’m not going to be there for either of those things, and someone else will have to be there to pick up my children from school, and to ask them about their day. I know Tom will want to be the one to do that, but I’ve got no idea how that will work with his job. Holly will step in, as much as she can, and when I picture her in my place at the school gates, even though it’s still agony, it hurts a little less. That’s all I can hope for right now, I’m starting to realise. There’s no avoiding the pain that came hand-in-hand with my prognosis. The before and after of my hopes for the future are changed beyond all recognition by being told I have aggressive, incurable cancer. What I hope for now looks so different from before, but hurting a little less feels like a win and maybe that’s what I need to focus on, rather than trying to orchestrate a future for my children that I can’t possibly control.
‘Looking good, Lou!’ Billie calls out to me as I approach the school gates. I hate the over-familiarity of her shortening my name, which grates on my nerves when it comes from her mouth. ‘Losing weight suits you. What is it, Ozempic?’
I have to bite my lip to stop myself from telling her exactly what’s behind my weight loss, but the children are already starting to file out from the classroom and shouting, ‘I’ve got terminal cancer, you fucking idiot,’ is not something any child needs to hear, let alone Stan, who’s clamped to my hip, his head on my shoulder, sleepy from a day at nursery that’s left him with paint-stained hands and stray grains from the sandpit stuck to his legs. He’s too heavy for me to carry, really, especially now, but I want to hold on to every moment, and to him, for as long as I can.
I ignore Billie’s mention of my weight completely and address the fact that she’s at the school gates at all. The days when her au pair, Matilda, or her lovely mother-in-law, Jan, pick up the children instead are always far more pleasant. ‘We don’t usually see you on a Wednesday.’
‘I know. I should be at Pilates, but I’ve changed to a Thursday morning class so Jonathan’s mother can’t play the martyr and pick up the kids.’ Billie looks like she’s sucking on a sour sweet whenever she talks about Jan, but I can’t help poking the bear. Maybe it’s just another part of not caring what people think so much any more. Or maybe it’s the anger that’s constantly bubbling away inside me now.
‘Jan always seems delighted to pick the children up. Almost as thrilled as they are that it’s her who’s here to collect them.’ I don’t even try to disguise the dig, but if Billie picks up on it, she’s choosing not to react.
‘Oh she’s delighted all right, anything to get her claws into them and stay as close to Jonathan as possible.’ Billie is almost snarling. ‘She calls him Jon-Jon, can you believe that? Turns my stomach. Whenever she’s around it’s like I don’t even exist, so I had to do something to reduce the amount of contact she has with the kids and, by default, with Jonathan.’
‘That’s horrible.’ Now that cancer has tapped into my truth vein, I don’t seem to be able to control it. Jan and her husband, Graham, adore their only son and his children. It’s been obvious every time I’ve seen them together, and with Jonathan being Tom’s best friend, they’ve been on the periphery of our lives ever since we got together.
‘It is, isn’t it? Fancy having a sickly name like that for your son and taking every opportunity to hang around him. Jonathan’s almost as bad. Talk about an Oedipus complex.’ I still don’t know if Billie is deliberately misunderstanding me, or whether she really is that thick skinned, but as her son Felix comes out of the door of the classroom his face falls.
‘Where’s Nanny?’ It would break my heart if Flo looked that deflated that I was the one picking her up, but Billie doesn’t even seem to notice.
‘Nanny won’t be picking you up from school any more. You’ve got Mummy or Matilda every day now!’ Billie’s doing her best to make that sound like wonderful news, but Felix’s expression tells a very different story, even before he responds.
‘But I want Nanny. She was going to take me to the park before we get Bella.’ The whiny note in his voice earns him a sharp look from his mother, who grips his hand so tightly her knuckles turn white.
‘I can take you to the park and then we can get ice cream on the way home.’
‘I want Nanny.’ Felix tries to pull away, but Billie yanks his arm in response.
‘Well Nanny isn’t here and if you keep on I’ll just take you home. No park and no ice cream.’ Billie yanks her son again in the direction of the playground, so I don’t hear his response, but I do see the sadness in his eyes, as he turns around when they reach the school gates, no doubt desperately hoping he’ll suddenly spot Jan and that they can go to the park together after all.
There’s an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach and I hug Stan even closer to me, until I can feel his heartbeat thudding against mine. Should I call someone? Jonathan maybe, or Jan, and let them know how upset Felix was, and how hard his mother is being on him? I don’t think Billie would ever cause her son any physical harm, despite her roughness, but the potential for psychological distress almost worries me more. And as Flo emerges from the classroom, her blonde ponytail swinging from side to side behind her as she rushes over to me, I realise it’s not just Felix I’m worried about. The idea of Holly being the one to take my place at the school gates gave me a crumb of comfort, and I know she’d do that every day without question. But what if something puts a stop to it? What if Tom eventually meets someone who feels threatened by me, even though I’m gone? What better way to erase my existence in my children’s lives than to push my sister out of the picture? Even as I reach down towards Flo, and my daughter clings to me, with Stan sandwiched between us, I shiver at the thought. I’ve got to do whatever it takes to stop that happening and it’s time to invoke the most important Plan B I’ve ever had to come up with.