Chapter 21
TWENTY-ONE
Medical team. Specialist. Consultant. Where had this come from? Ellen had been certain that Robert’s secret was to do with matters of the heart but not for a second that it was his actual physical one. She reached out and clutched his arm. ‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’
‘Let’s sit down.’
Taking her hand, Robert led her towards the back of the beach. Stumbling after him, her mind fired off in a million directions, terrified about what she was about to hear. At the edge of the beach, where it met the pavement, Robert swept sand from a low wall and they sat down together.
‘Do you remember that I had to go to London a few months ago for a medical?’
She did remember. It was about a week after Abigail’s final exam and they’d had a family dinner planned that night. Grace was supposed to be bringing Max but he’d – surprise, surprise – not been able to make it at the last minute. ‘I do remember. It was for your health insurance.’
He nodded. ‘Well, they found some irregularities. With my heart.’
The way he was looking at her intently, enunciating every word as if he was speaking to her on a long-distance phone call, still didn’t make it any easier to understand. ‘Your heart?’
He paused again. ‘Yes. I have a descending thoracic aneurysm. It’s a chronic heart condition that can be fatal. There is surgery, but that has its own risks.’
Shock made her brain slow to comprehend. Maybe she could’ve taken this in if he hadn’t kept it from her for so long. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? That night, when you got back, I was angry with you.’
She had a vivid memory of being cross because he was late home and they’d had to rush to get to the restaurant.
Once they were there, supposedly celebrating their daughter’s end to her school days, he’d been quiet and hadn’t entered into the spirit of it.
When the girls had suggested continuing on somewhere else for another drink before they went home, he’d told the three of them to go ahead without him.
He was tired, he said. She’d accused him later of putting work before his family.
He shrugged. ‘I just didn’t know how to tell you.’
There were a million questions about the condition, but she was still confused as to where Charlotte entered the story. And Lucy. ‘Does everyone back at the house already know about this?’
It wasn’t important in the light of what he’d just told her, but she couldn’t help but feel hurt that he hadn’t been able to confide in her. What did that say about their marriage?
Robert rubbed his eyebrows with his finger and thumb. ‘That’s where it gets a little complicated. I tracked Charlotte down. Well, not her exactly. I researched who were the leading doctors in their field dealing with my kind of condition. You know how I love a bit of research.’
His smile was weak, but she did her best to return it.
It was a long-standing family joke that Ellen would buy a new car or book a holiday in the same amount of time it took Robert to meticulously research the best brand of dishwasher tablet.
‘Charlotte can’t be old enough to be the leading doctor for anything. ’
‘No, she’s not. But she works with a guy who is.
I tried to get an appointment with him, but he’s all booked out with private patients.
I happened to be in the area of his office on Harley Street and so I decided to just turn up there, see if there was any way I could charm his receptionist into getting me in for a consultation. ’
She shook her head at him in amazement. His confidence never ceased to amaze her. ‘And did she?’
He shook his head ruefully. ‘No. But when I was on my way out, I bumped into Lucy. She was there to meet Charlotte for lunch.’
It was amazing that he’d recognised Lucy among a sea of faces on the street. Ellen had struggled to recognise her at the airport and she’d been looking out for her. ‘How did you know it was Lucy?’
‘I didn’t. She recognised me. Said I hadn’t changed. When she told me she was there to visit her daughter, she was so proud that she told me who she was working for and—’ he held out his hands ‘—it was like a gift.’
‘Lucy got you in to see the doctor?’
‘Kind of. She invited me out to lunch with her and Charlotte and I explained my position. Charlotte said she’d speak to the consultant, see what she could do.’ He looked a little embarrassed. ‘Apparently, he’d been to the same school as I had. A few years before.’
There it was. The old school tie doing its thing. This time, though, she was grateful for it. ‘And he saw you? He’s going to make it all okay?’
He held up his hands. ‘It’s not as straightforward as that. He did see me and he sent me for another raft of tests. It’s a complicated condition and procedure. He needed to know it can be done.’
‘And can it?’
Breaking eye contact, Robert looked down at the sand and then out to sea.
If she hadn’t known him as well as she did, she might have imagined that he was struggling not to cry.
Taking a deep breath, he turned back to her with eyes full of uncertainty and pain.
‘I don’t know. I have some decisions to make.
Charlotte was able to access my test results earlier.
That’s what we’d been talking about when you got back.
She hadn’t wanted to but I persuaded her into it.
The condition has progressed faster than I’d expected.
I need to make a decision soon. About whether to have the surgery. ’
Trying to keep herself upright, Ellen pushed her palms downwards onto the rough cement of the wall. Every muscle in her body tightened with fear. ‘And if you don’t have it?’
Her heart beat once, twice, three times in her ears before he answered. ‘Let’s go back to the house. Charlotte can explain it all a lot better than I can.’
He stood up and held out his hand to pull her up to standing. Terrified to push him for an answer, she followed without speaking.
It wasn’t until they’d passed the main crowds of tourists and were on their way – slowly, carefully – back up the hill towards Lucy’s house that she trusted her voice. ‘How have you been able to keep this to yourself? You must’ve been visiting the doctor, going for all of these tests.’
Robert swallowed. ‘I’m not proud of myself, but I’ve been stretching the truth a little. When I’ve been telling you that I’m working away, I’ve actually had hospital visits.’
More subterfuge. ‘And Lucy?’
‘I did stay over at Lucy’s one night because I had to be at the surgery really early. She and Joe have an apartment in London, which is only a short cab ride from there, and she was insistent that I didn’t stay in a hotel.’
‘And that’s where you met Joe?’
He looked surprised. ‘Yes. How did you know that?’
‘He’s not as good as you at keeping secrets.’
His smile turned down at the edges. ‘I’m sorry, Ellen. I just didn’t know what to do for the best.’
All of this was immaterial. Robert was ill. Really ill. ‘What’s going to happen next? Can they fix it? What’s the treatment?’
‘To be honest, I couldn’t really take it all in when Charlotte was explaining the test results. It all got too much. That’s why I came for a walk. When we get back there, I’ll ask her to go through it all with me again. Listen properly this time.’
She squeezed his hand. ‘Go through it with both of us .’
In more ways than one, the walk up the hill was harder than the walk down had been.
In places, it was so steep that she wanted to stop and catch her breath.
Calm and supportive as ever, Robert was clearly trying to protect her by not going into too much detail.
Hadn’t he always been like that? Her safe place, her support, her foundation.
Now she had to be all those things for him. But what – oh, God – what if it was too late for that? What if she was going to lose him forever?