Chapter 12
‘How are you feeling?’ I ask Rose later that afternoon as I place down a tray with two flat whites.
‘Truthfully? Still pretty grim,’ she says. ‘Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to see the back of the radiotherapy, but I’m exhausted. Just wiped out. I’ve never felt anything like it.’
‘Did they tell you to expect that?’
She nods and picks up her coffee to take a sip. ‘I have to have this injection in my stomach called Goserelin, which has put me straight into the menopause. Overnight. So no periods for me, ever again. When I first heard that, I thought, well, that’s not a bad thing. I can get it all over with in one go. Now I’m starting to miss the cramps and Tampax.’
‘Why, what’s happening?’
‘Oh, I just feel like I’ve been hit by a ton of bricks. Anxious. Lethargic. All that fun stuff.’
‘You didn’t have to meet up today, you know. If ever it’s too much, just cancel on me. You know I won’t hold it against you.’
‘Oh, I wasn’t missing this. You’ve got to keep hold of some of the little rituals.’
As young TV execs in London in our twenties, Rose and I gravitated to one particular café on Clapham High Street every Saturday afternoon. If we were lucky enough to get a seat by the window we would never feel inclined to move and could stretch out a single coffee and cake for hours. These days it’s not just the location that’s changed – to a new favourite next to a second- hand bookshop in the centre of Roebury that’s equidistant between our two houses. It’s everything.
When someone your age, your best friend in fact, has a diagnosis like hers, it hardly feels real. Even now, more than four months later, I can’t get my head around it.
She went to see her GP initially having found a puckering of the skin under her armpit. It was subtle, she’d said, only visible in a certain light, which was one of the reasons she was convinced it would turn out to be nothing.
The other was that she’d had cysts before. None of them had amounted to anything troublesome. So when she was referred to the breast unit, she assumed she’d get the same message as a couple of years previously – that it was benign and nothing to worry about. She’d even only mentioned the appointment in passing, as if it was nothing more important than getting her roots touched up.
But an examination, then a mammogram gave a consultant cause for concern. She requested a biopsy and Rose received the news that same day: she had cancer. I got a text from her as I was about to go into a meeting on the fourth floor that she herself was due to attend.
I’m not going to make it at 3.30. Can you give my apologies to Andrea? Will explain later x
There was something about the message I immediately didn’t like.
Weren’t you at the hospital today? How did it go? I asked.
Three dots undulated on the screen for too long. When she finally responded, it was with four short words.
Not according to plan x
Worse was that Rose’s husband Angel was over in Spain visiting his mum. Yes, he’s really called Angel. The standing jokes you might expect – about whether he took her to heaven and back – were all duly forthcoming when she first started seeing him 15 years ago.
The funny thing is, he lives up to his name in all the ways that count. He’s one of the kindest people you could meet, a sweet, energetic primary school teacher, avid Real Madrid fan and owner of the biggest smile in south Manchester. He’s impossible to dislike and would do anything for Rose. Except on this occasion, stuck in another country, he couldn’t do much.
His only option was to frantically book a flight back to the UK the following day. I couldn’t let her be alone that first night, so my mum came over to watch the kids while I stayed at her house. Rose wasn’t ready to break her news to anyone other than me at that stage, including her dad, the only one of her parents still alive. She planned to phone him later in the week, when she’d be less liable to burst into tears and ‘give him a heart attack, which would be the icing on the fucking cake, let me tell you’.
I felt helpless. All I could do was bring wine. Order pizza. Arrange the supermarket flowers I’d grabbed on the way there in a vase on her kitchen table. We were quite drunk by the end of the evening, but neither of us very sleepy, so we flicked around on TV until we landed on Dirty Dancing . An absolute favourite for both of us.
‘On any other day, this would be a great sleepover. We must do it again,’ she said, through reddened eyes.
‘I agree. We can watch When Harry Met Sally next time and I’ll bring some yogurt face packs.’
‘Done,’ she said and managed to smile.
At that point, they weren’t able to give a prognosis, but reading between the lines, it seemed relatively positive. She was told that the lump – because underneath that puckering there was a lump – was only 1cm in diameter. Small and contained.
A few weeks later, the story changed.
The operation to remove the tumour revealed that it was twice the size they’d originally thought. Worse, it gone into one of her lymph nodes. Even accounting for the fact that the surgeon thought they had managed to get it all out, her anxiety was through the roof. Quite understandably, it still is.
‘I went to see a counsellor this week for group therapy,’ she says.
‘How was that?’
‘Bit odd. All that sitting in a circle with a bunch of strangers. But . . . it was good on balance. I think it was the first time I’ve really stopped and thought about everything that’s happened since December. What a crazy time it’s been.’
‘I think the way you’re handling this is incredible, just for the record,’ I tell her.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that,’ she sighs. ‘I’m just handling it. What other option is there? I just keep reminding myself throughout that all this could’ve been worse. I mean . . . I don’t need chemotherapy, so that’s something. Did I tell you what the first thing I thought of was when they told me I had cancer?’
‘Your hair,’ I say.
She smiles. ‘So I did tell you. How silly is that?’
‘It’s your crowning glory,’ I say, nodding to the silky pre-Raphaelite tendrils spilling over her shoulders. ‘I don’t know anyone who’d want to lose that.’
‘Well, Angel thinks that’s very weird.’
‘I think what he means is he’d love you just as much, with or without your lustrous locks.’
She presses her mouth into a smile and lowers her eyes. ‘I feel lucky to have him at the moment. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d had to go through this by myself.’
The next thought seems to occur to both of us before she’d even finished her sentence: if this had happened to me, not her, that’s exactly what I’d have been. By myself. Obviously, I’d have my parents, kids and friends, all of which counts for a lot, I know. But there would be no life partner to hold my hand in the middle of the night or kiss away my tears whenever things got too much.
‘I mean, I’d have coped,’ she adds, hastily. ‘And family makes all the difference, doesn’t it? Anyway, tell me about what’s going on at work. I want every last bit of gossip.’
I briefly fill her in about a few major work-related developments before getting down to the stuff I know she really wants.
‘Andrea’s had to start wearing flat shoes and compression tights because she did something to her Achilles playing golf.’
‘She won’t like that.’
‘No. She’s quite short without her heels. Oh, Nice Nigel from Marketing – the one with the quiff – is now very serious with a woman who works at Sky Sports and is friends with Clare Balding. He’s been to Clare’s house for drinks – twice .’
‘Blimey.’
‘Daisy has joined a club for vintage postcard collectors who meet at a café in Chiswick. She’s got very into vinyl. I offered to lend her a Wet Wet Wet LP I had knocking about somewhere but she didn’t seem all that excited.’
She chortles into her coffee.
‘So what about my stand-in, the handsome Mr Russo? Is he still unpopular?’
I bring my cup to my lips and take a sip, buying some time. ‘What makes you think he’s handsome?’
‘ Obviously , I’ve had a good snoop at his profile picture.’
I feel my neck redden. ‘I think that’s got a filter on it.’
I’m partly stalling for what to tell her about him. I don’t want to let her know that he’s clearly got aspirations to keep her job permanently. She’s got enough on her plate as it is without that.
‘Well . . . Andrea fancies him,’ I offer.
‘She fancies everyone with a Y chromosome.’
‘Exactly.’ She waits for more information. ‘Oh . . . he’s being a pain in the bloody neck, if I’m honest – and causing me a lot of trouble over Our Girl In Milan .’
She frowns. ‘Oh no, really?’
Why can’t I learn to keep my mouth shut? Because now she wants to know about his objections and we end up talking about what he said about glamorising an industry that ‘manipulates vulnerable young women’.
‘Seems a little extreme. Maybe he’s not entirely wrong, though.’
I pull a face. ‘ Yes , he is. The whole thing is ludicrous.’
‘I wonder what his problem is?’ she says. ‘Maybe he just likes the sound of his own voice.’
If only it was nothing more than that. Either way, if he does think he’s getting Rose’s job, he’s got another thing coming.