Chapter 12
DAWN
When my consultant told me the diagnosis was late-onset multiple sclerosis, my response was, ‘I thought it might be’.
By then, I’d done so much googling of the symptoms that I’d come to the same conclusion myself.
I thought that might lessen the shock of the formal diagnosis.
I knew that preparation for these big life changes is key.
In the end, his confirmation still struck hard and reverberated through my body in screeching ripples, I simply did well to hide it.
I had read that MS is incurable but manageable. Incurable. Damn it.
I kept my composure as he talked me through what it meant and how things might play out from there.
I was sure to nod along in the way someone does when they’re listening and taking in all the information, but I wasn’t doing either of those things.
He might as well have been white noise. As he spoke, my brain was busy going, ‘Oh fuck’ on repeat and thinking about Megan and this awful book I was in the middle of writing terribly.
I couldn’t bear the idea of leaving it in its current sorry state.
If someone found it after I was gone, they might do something sentimentally irrational, like publish it in my memory.
The idea was unfathomable and distracting.
Whether the doctor could tell I was listening or not, he nobly said all he needed to say, came to his conclusion and then sent me away with some leaflets that detailed resources and support.
I walked home. I was going to take a taxi, but my feet kept going and I didn’t have the energy to challenge them.
It was as though my body was determined to prove the doctor wrong: Look at me walking all the way home!
I’m fine! On my way, I bought a bunch of budding flowers from a stall I passed, and once home, I cut the stalk ends and popped them in a vase.
I stood back and felt disappointed that they didn’t open straight away.
The next day, they were still closed. I hadn’t slept well from all the crying and worrying, and I yelled at the flowers for being fucking useless. They had one job.
The day after that, they opened.
I thought they looked lovely. A weight lifted off my chest. They were so bright and colourful and radiant. I apologised for shouting at them and then I phoned Henry.
‘Can we meet for lunch?’ I asked him. ‘I’ve something important to tell you.’
He, being Henry, cancelled whatever else he had on that day and met me as requested.
After a bit of small talk, he tilted his head and said, ‘What did you want to tell me?’
‘Oh, well, recently I’ve had a bit of numbness in my leg,’ I told him with a dismissive wave of my hand. ‘I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but you know how tired I get and then there were some tremors—’
‘Tremors?’
‘In my hand. Subtle but irritating, especially when trying to write. I went to the doctor about this combination of ailments and after a few tests, I’m afraid my suspicions have been confirmed and it’s MS.’
He didn’t say anything. A muscle in his jaw twitched. His forehead was creased. I realised he was trying not to get upset, the thought of which made me so upset I was forced to lift up the menu and say, ‘Now, what are your thoughts on padrón peppers?’
He never got over that remark. He brought it up almost any time I saw him after that. ‘What a moment to ask about my thoughts on padrón peppers, for Christ’s sake,’ he would mutter, shaking his head in disbelief.
I made it clear that I didn’t want to focus on my illness or talk about it, in much the same way he didn’t want to discuss his either.
We were very different people but, in the end, when it came to life-threatening problems, we chose to face them in the same way: pretend they didn’t exist. Henry’s reasoning for that is because he hated attention.
My reasons were much more based in denial.
We agreed my motivations were the unhealthier and more destructive of the two, but I was going to stick with it.
‘You should talk about it with someone,’ he advised once, not for the first or last time.
‘I talk about it with you.’
‘No, you don’t.’
‘You know about it.’
‘But we don’t talk about it. You deflect or joke when I bring it up.’
‘Yes, but you’re not well.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘I don’t want to steal your thunder.’
He gave me a wry smile. ‘Go ahead and joke, Dawn, prove my point. You don’t have to talk about it with me if you don’t want to, but you should talk to someone. Have you told Jemma?’
‘No.’
‘She’s your best friend. She’d want to know. You have to tell Megan, too. It’s not fair.’
‘I’ll tell her in my own time, Henry, now stop it.’
‘As someone who has recent experience in these matters, I’m only trying to give you some advice. It helps to talk about it.’
‘If I wanted your advice, Henry, I’d have stayed married to you. Besides, I know that if ever I need to talk to someone, I have you. Does that satisfy?’
He nodded. ‘For now.’
We sat in content silence for a while. Then he said, ‘I’ve been trying to work out if a terminal illness gives life more meaning.’
‘Nothing too heavy on your mind, then.’
‘It seems almost a stroke of luck that uncertainty has been taken out of the equation.’
I turned to look at him in curiosity.
‘I can draw up lists,’ he continued calmly, ‘make plans to do what I’ve always wanted to do, see what I want to see, tell people how much they mean to me without coming across as a pretentious twit.
I can make peace with life and what it’s given me.
Now, when I experience genuine joy, I feel it deeply. ’
‘We’re all dying, Henry,’ I reminded him. ‘There was never uncertainty of that.’
‘I know. But we’re so casual and thoughtless with that knowledge.’
I took a deep breath. ‘Carry on like this and I’ll never invite you to any parties again, you’ll bore the whole room. People have a right to enjoy profound ignorance.’
He chuckled, shifting to look at me. ‘All I’m saying is, there is a different way to view this.’
I tore my gaze from his. ‘The decline is a certainty.’
‘And how will you choose to face it?’
‘In the same way I’ve faced all the challenges in life: copious amounts of wine.’
‘There are other options. You can let people in. Embrace the changes it brings.’
I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘I regret buying you that “quotes to live by” book.’
He laughed and we both shook our heads, wondering how it had come to be like this.
Years ago, Henry and I went through a period of not speaking.
It was straight after the divorce was finalised.
It was supposed to make things easier. There was a lot of anger then that clouded the love and respect we both knew was still there somewhere.
The deep-rooted friendship forged through the marriage would find a way to heal eventually.
I was in a new relationship at the time and Megan, in her teens, was finding it hard to cope with the divorce and all the change that came with me moving out, so we agreed that we’d keep our distance.
Megan wouldn’t talk to me though, so it became impossible to make plans to see her without getting Henry in on the act.
At first our communication was clipped, brief, formal and stilted.
Like business emails going back and forth trying to arrange a meeting that no one actually wants to go to.
I’m ashamed to say I backed off. My relationship with Megan never recovered.
Henry and I, however, eventually made our peace.
It was him who extended the olive branch first. I’d just been through my second divorce and was busy masking my sadness and loneliness with wild nights out and parties that courted plenty of scandal that consequently distracted me from the all-consuming fear that I lacked any purpose.
He contacted me to say he’d spoken to someone, a professional, and he thought it would help our relationship to talk through everything, even the difficult things, if I were willing.
He was right. It did help. But really, I didn’t need to talk things through.
For me, it was the simple fact that he wanted to protect our leftover relationship in the first place that saved it.
He deemed whatever we had worth saving. That was all I needed to know.
Over the years, our friendship regrew. I realised I may have married my best friend the first time round and felt lucky that we had a child together, even if that child disapproved of our closeness.
That’s why I told him about my diagnosis and no one else.
And that’s why, when the executor of his will informed me that he’d requested I take his ashes to France to scatter them there, I didn’t question it.
I honestly didn’t know Megan would be here.
It’s going to be difficult to keep my illness from her while I’m here.
My symptoms worsen in the heat. And I admit, when I first heard Henry’s instructions, I wondered whether my body would be able to cope with a full itinerary of activities, whatever they may be.
Henry must have considered that, too. And if he thought I could do it . . .
That’s why I jumped into the sea and swam to lunch.
It felt like such an achievement. This body that’s betraying me carried me through the water.
Coming out onto the beach felt like I’d won an Olympic heat.
And I swear, the moment I leapt from that boat, when the air roared in my ears, somewhere in the distance I could hear Henry cheer.
***
When I wake from my nap it’s evening, and the anger ignited by my feud with Megan and then flared by seeing Francoise has subsided.
The room is cooler than it was. I can think clearer and see perfectly.
I feel more myself. Pushing myself up, I drink from a bottle of water and then wander out onto the balcony.
Nico and Megan are below. I watch their interaction, fascinated. I study their body language, their expressions, their demeanour, and I find myself cheering for them all over again. Henry would tell me off for being a hopeless romantic.
‘I can’t help it and I won’t stop it. It’s made me lots of money,’ I’d reply.
Turning back into the room, I go to find my laptop in my bag and I bring it over to the desk in the corner where I sit down, take a deep breath and open a new word document.
I have no idea what kind of book I’m about to begin or why, but there are characters busily springing into life in my head and they won’t wait.
I’ll do a bit of writing and then go find some dinner, I tell myself.
When I finish writing, I realise that it’s dark outside and much later than I realised. I sit back and smile to myself. It’s been a long time since I felt the addictive rush of starting a story worth telling.