Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
ANNA
I’d taken the edge off at lunchtime over a chicken Caesar salad I hadn’t been able to eat, and now (having checked that the waiting staff had changed shifts) I was taking it off again over an early dinner with Lulu and Barney.
We’d spent the past hour sitting by Gray’s bedside.
I’d told him about the mouse Augustus had brought in through the cat flap that morning, which had taken refuge under the kitchen island before I could catch it or the cat could murder it.
Lulu had told him about her friend Aisha’s break-up with her boyfriend.
Barney had told him about a stag beetle he and Orla had found in her garden, which he’d taken a photo of on his phone and would show Gray when he woke up.
‘Mum.’ Barney took a noisy slurp of his Oreo milkshake, then poked at it with the straw, looking down into the glass rather than at me.
‘Do you think Dad might get better? I mean, I know the doctors and everyone say he won’t.
But Joachim at school was saying there was a man at his church who was given days to live, and the pastor prayed over him, and he got up and he was fine. ’
Oh Joachim, you little fool. Why did you do that? Spread lies and fantasies and give my boy false hope?
I reached across the table and he took my hand, his fingers chilly from the glass. ‘Dad’s not going to get better, darling. I don’t know what illness the man at Joachim’s church had, but it wouldn’t have been pancreatic cancer. That’s something people don’t just get better from.’
‘Miracles don’t exist really, do they?’ Lulu muttered, poking at the lemon slice in her fizzy water. ‘Dad said once they’re just lies people tell themselves to feel better.’
‘Miracles aren’t like science,’ I attempted to explain, trying to keep my voice even.
‘Sometimes people want to believe in them, but they can’t be proved.
Or if they can, it’s because there’s a rational, scientific explanation behind them.
I only really believe things when there’s evidence to back them up, and your dad’s the same.
But there are people who like to believe in things that can’t be explained that way, like Barney’s friend’s family. ’
‘Joachim says faith can move mountains,’ Barney mumbled, letting go of my hand and picking up some chips.
‘The most important thing faith does is make people feel better,’ I said, wishing with sudden despair that I had it myself, so I could feel better. ‘And there’s one thing we can all have faith in right now, and that’s that your dad is getting the very best possible care in the world where he is.’
They were both watching me intently. I knew they were listening to every word I said, their own faith in me as their mother still strong. Don’t fuck this up, Anna, I willed myself.
‘He’s not in pain. He knows he’s safe and he knows we love him. I’ve got faith in that, and that’s how I’m managing to endure this. That and you two.’
I reached across the table and held my children’s hands.
Barney’s fingers were greasy from his chips, and Lulu had a smear of ketchup on her knuckle.
In that moment, I loved them so much it was like a knife in my heart.
If I could have eaten them to protect them, like a stressed-out mother hamster, I would have done in that moment.
‘What’ll happen to us after Dad dies?’ Barney asked, his eyes fixed on his plate.
‘What do you mean, what’ll happen?’ I asked gently. ‘What are you worried about happening?’
‘I mean, I know we won’t be orphans.’ He managed an awkward half-grin. ‘Because we’ll still have you, Mum. But you don’t have a job, and Dad does – Dad did. Will we be poor?’
‘Don’t be absurd, Barney,’ Lulu said. ‘Why would we be poor?’
But I could see a flash of alarm in her face, and I knew that although this prospect hadn’t occurred to her before, now that it had, it scared her.
‘Of course we won’t be poor,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry about that for one single second.
Your dad has insurance policies – one that pays off what’s left on the mortgage, and another one that…
well, life insurance, that he took out in case something like this ever happened.
Not that we thought it ever would, but that’s what things like that are for.
And Carl’s buying out Dad’s share of the business, although he’s going to pay that off over a few years. ’
‘Will we be rich, then?’ Barney asked.
‘We’re comfortable already,’ I answered firmly.
‘We’re incredibly fortunate – you both know that.
Your dad’s worked hard all these years and we’re in a far, far better position than many families.
And that isn’t going to change. We’ll get to stay at Damask Square for as long as we want.
You’ll both get to go to university if you want to, just like we planned.
And eventually there’ll be some money for both of you to put down deposits on homes of your own or go travelling or whatever it is you want to do. ’
And thank God for that, I thought. Thank God for all the boring, meticulous financial planning Gray did and I went along with; for the fairly sizeable inheritance from my grandfather, which had allowed us to put down the deposit on the Damask Square house, even though the renovations had since eaten up all my remaining capital and I hadn’t worked in years.
But it didn’t matter – everything was shared, ours and the children’s.
But what if Gray had changed the will? Changed it to include Laurel somehow, at our children’s expense? The idea made me feel sick.
As if my thoughts had summoned her, there she was outside. Laurel was waiting to cross the road to the hospice, her hands on the handlebars of her bicycle, the afternoon sunshine illuminating her face; she was half-smiling, as if something good was about to happen to her.
‘Mum?’ Lulu said. ‘See that lady over there? She came to our careers fair at school. She’s a nurse. Do you think she works at the hospice?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t. She’s a friend of your father’s.’
‘Really?’ Lulu stood up, crumpling her paper napkin and dropping it on her plate. ‘That’s wild. I’m going to go and say hi.’
Before I could stop her, she’d hurried out of the restaurant, and I saw her run across the road and over to Laurel.