Chapter 2
2
C assie stiffened immediately like a cat who’d had its fur brushed the wrong way then, for good measure, its tail pulled too.
Of course, Marc was sitting there like he owned the place. Like someone who didn’t work a fifty-hour week then feel like a wrung-out dishcloth by Friday evening. Like a white, heterosexual man in his forties who’d grown up amid great wealth and privilege. The world was built by men like him for men like him.
Just one brief glance was all Cassie needed to reaffirm her intense dislike for Russell’s best friend. He was tall, even seated, and had a tan that came courtesy of exotic foreign locations rather than out of a bottle and smelling of biscuits. His brown hair, just a little too long, had been lightened by the sun and yes, objectively he was handsome with his absurd cheekbones, his green eyes (typical of him to have green eyes) and his forearms. Cassie had to concede that he had really good forearms. But subjectively, Cassie would rather look at fish guts than have to look at Marc Lacourt.
He was wearing jeans, a black T-shirt that fitted as if it had been tailored for him – in fact it probably had – and because she worked in fashion, or at least a fashion-adjacent industry, Cassie recognised the black suede Malone Souliers trainers. It was a simple outfit, which had probably cost more than Cassie earned in a month. Not that she held that against Marc. No, she had other entirely valid reasons for the thin smile that it killed her to give him.
He didn’t get up, just lifted a hand in greeting as if even that was more effort than Cassie warranted.
‘Marc.’
‘Nice hair,’ he said and accompanied the subtle put-down with his ever-present and very tiresome smirk.
Her space buns were suddenly ridiculous. She was ridiculous.
At least Russell looked pleased to see her. He was a big blond bear of a man who quickly got up so he could fold Cassie into his arms and kiss her sweaty forehead. ‘Hello, lovely. So good to see you.’
He was the only member of the family who was behaving as Cassie would have expected. Unlike Lucy, who had put the bottle of rosé down on the weather-beaten wooden garden table and was now staring at it blankly.
‘Oh! I forgot glasses.’ She promptly disappeared back into the kitchen.
‘I’ll see if I can scare up some nibbles,’ Russell said and followed her.
Then it was just the two of them. Cassie could feel Marc’s eyes on her as she sat down and plucked at her dress so she had something to do with her hands.
Marc would sit there quite happily in a spiky silence but Cassie wasn’t built that way.
‘You’re well?’ she asked, her tone entirely uninterested.
‘Very well,’ he said in his stupid drawly voice like he was always amused at a joke that Cassie didn’t get and was probably at her expense anyway.
She sighed and wondered just how long it took to bring out two glasses and maybe a bag of Kettle Chips.
‘Have you been away this summer?’ She persisted even though she already knew from Lucy that he’d been to Santorini for the wedding of a friend. Like Marc, some financial tech entrepreneur who was rich enough to be able to afford a destination wedding to one of the most expensive Greek islands.
‘Here and there.’ He was absolutely determined not to give Cassie anything to work with.
There was a bottle of lager from a local microbrewery on the table in front of him. He picked it up and tapped a finger against the neck of the bottle. Then he raised it to his mouth, there was a flash of tongue, and Cassie had to look away.
God, it had been sixteen years and the memory still made her quiver then want to die …
‘Sorry about that. We’re all at sixes and sevens today!’
Cassie looked up gratefully as their hosts returned. Lucy was a woman who’d yet to meet a tiny decorative bowl she didn’t like, and she lived for a charcuterie board, but now she dumped a load of items, still in their wrappings and containers, on the table: olives, crackers, half a salami.
Russell placed another bottle of lager in front of Marc, who was perfectly capable of smiling and saying, ‘Thanks, mate,’ to people who weren’t Cassie. ‘But I said I was only having the one. I’m driving, remember?’
‘So you did, so you did,’ Russell said, rubbing his hands together. ‘Mind like a sieve.’
Lucy poured herself and Cassie glasses of rosé that were up to the brim.
‘Steady on! Are you trying to get me drunk?’
‘Jesus Christ, I wish I was drunk,’ Lucy said, picking up her glass with a shaking hand.
There had never been a time during their forced acquaintance when Cassie had ever felt any kind of kinship with Marc, but now as she glanced over at him, it was to share a fleeting, anxious look because something was clearly wrong.
‘You’re not moving, are you?’ Cassie asked suspiciously. She’d lost count of the number of her friends who’d left London, even when they’d sworn that life outside the capital with its sandy beaches and rolling green open countryside and much cheaper housing stock held no temptation for them. ‘Oh my God, are you moving to Whitstable? Everyone has moved to Whitstable!’
‘Not Whitstable,’ Lucy snapped, which was very unlike her. ‘Fuck Whitstable!’
‘Bit harsh on Whitstable.’ Marc put down his now empty bottle and looked like he was regretting his decision to drive over so he could only have one lager.
Russell cleared his throat. ‘OK, there’s no easy way to say this, I’m just going to hit you with the headlines.’ There was a pause. Whatever Russell was going to say, Cassie didn’t want to hear it. She suddenly knew, with a deep certainty, that there was a before and after bookending this pause and that her life, all their lives, were about to change.
She made an indistinct noise of protest, which made Russell glance over, but it wasn’t enough to stop him.
‘I’ve got stage four cancer,’ he said, each word like a bullet. ‘Metastatic hepatocellular carcinoma. Liver. Lymph nodes too, unfortunately. Not curable. Not really treatable. I’m hoping to hang on until Christmas. We’re not telling anyone else for now.’ He looked at Lucy, who shook her head. ‘I think that just about covers it.’
Cassie felt herself grow hot. Hotter. As if she was boiling where she sat. She wanted to speak but couldn’t think of a single word to say so instead she gasped and put a hand to her chest. She could hardly breathe; it was as if there was a crushing weight bearing down on her; her face collapsing …
‘No, Cass,’ Lucy said sharply, again so unlike her. ‘You can’t cry. I can’t deal with that.’
So the four of them sat there in stunned silence. Even Russell and Lucy, as if neither of them could believe it either. The diagnosis. The prognosis. It couldn’t be true. Someone, somewhere, must have made a terrible mistake. Maybe some blood samples had been swapped around. A computer error. A human error. These things happened all the time.
‘Is this why you suddenly pulled out of the marathon?’ Marc asked, just as Cassie was wondering if they might sit there without talking for the rest of the night.
It was their thing, Russell and Marc, running marathons together, something that had started when they were at Oxford. They ran the London Marathon every year, as well as a second marathon somewhere else; Paris, New York, Rome. Because Russell was sporty. Fit. Oozing ruddy good health – except this year, he’d cried off the London Marathon with just a week’s notice. Something about an injury … Cassie really hadn’t paid much attention – though she’d missed cheering Russell on as he emerged from the underpass at Blackfriars – but she’d forgotten about it until now.
‘In a roundabout way,’ Russell was saying. ‘You know I had that shortness of breath on our training runs …’
Marc nodded. ‘You thought you’d sprained a muscle in your back. You were going to get it checked out.’
‘Well, the pulled muscle turned out to be cancer,’ Russell said. Cassie didn’t even know how he could say the word or muster up a smile. ‘Don’t you hate it when that happens?’
‘Obviously you’ve had a second opinion?’ Marc didn’t wait for Russell to reply. ‘What does not really treatable mean? Are you having chemo? Radiotherapy? Have you looked into having a liver transplant? Obviously, you’ve had a second opinion.’ He had his phone out and was busy scrolling. ‘There’s no harm in getting a third opinion. You know, I’ve been diversifying into MedTech so I’ve got quite a few contacts. I’ll get you in front of the best person. Whatever it costs. You don’t even have to ask.’
Lucy and Russell shared another look. A despairing look that made Cassie want to cry again.
‘That’s really kind of you, mate, but we won’t be doing any of that,’ Russell said very gently.
‘We’ve decided …’ Lucy’s voice cracked. She took a large gulp of wine. ‘We’ve decided that Russell’s quality of life is the most important thing.’
‘The time that I’ve got left I want to spend with Lucy and the girls. Not in hospitals and doctors’ offices,’ Russell said in his firmest voice, which was still light and laced with good humour. In all the time that Cassie had known him, sixteen years, she’d never heard him shout. If she were him, she’d be shouting to the fucking heavens right about now. ‘It’s not a decision that we’ve taken lightly, but our minds are made up.’
Cassie didn’t even realise she was clutching hold of the arm of her chair in a white-knuckled grip until Lucy prised Cassie’s hand free and threaded their fingers together. She tried to think of the right things to say, but there was nothing right about this and Cassie couldn’t trust herself to speak because she knew she’d cry. Instead she held hands with Lucy and let the conversation, Marc now firing questions about proton therapy, float above her head.
Eventually the girls drifted into the garden, Fleur sitting curled on Cassie’s lap like she’d done when she was littler and much lighter. Cassie didn’t mind the elbow in her ribs or Fleur’s sweaty stranglehold around her neck, her damp, shallow breaths against Cassie’s skin. Even the discomfort felt like a privilege.
They ordered Lebanese food for dinner. Normally Cassie would dip falafels into the hummus until she’d eaten so much that she felt sick, but even the act of putting food in her mouth, chewing, then swallowing was too much effort. She stroked Fleur’s hair and only spoke when she was spoken to, as Joni and Russell did a valiant job of making sure that they didn’t all lapse into another painful silence.
As soon as it was nine, the sun sinking and the shadows lengthening, though it was still hot and muggy, Cassie found her voice. ‘It’s getting late,’ she said, though she’d stayed much later before. So late that in the end she’d crash in the spare room. Not tonight, though. ‘I should be going.’
There weren’t the usual protests to have one more glass for the road. As Cassie stood up, her thighs practically numb from Fleur using her as a chair, Marc got to his feet too.
Cassie sighed with relief when the front door shut behind them. Usually the goodbye was protracted and featured a lot of hugging, but she couldn’t even look at Russell, let alone touch him.
She hurried down the garden path, Marc at her heels. He followed her a few metres down the road until Cassie stopped, turned around and took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding like she’d just done some heavy cardio, which she would never .
Marc watched as Cassie put a hand to her breastbone and pressed down with her fingers to will her heart to slow down, to quieten her shuddering breaths.
It wasn’t until Cassie was able to exist at a normal volume and a normal heart rate that Marc pointed at her with his key fob as if she was as biddable as his fancy electric car. ‘Want a lift?’
Never, but especially not now. ‘No, thank you. I’m going to walk,’ Cassie said. ‘I need to clear my head.’
‘Suit yourself.’ Marc stepped past her without another word. A second later, she heard the smooth purr of his car door opening.
The fact that, even after the world had tilted off its axis, he could still be a condescending dick was actually a small crumb of comfort.