Best of Friends (29 page)

“Have you got a bodyguard coming to protect us after class?” Steph whispered as Jess sat down. “ ’Cos Saffron is going to go for you big time. You ruined her ‘Britney is my heroine’ story and made her look dumb.”

“Tough. If she looks dumb, it’s because she
is
dumb,” said Jess with a defiance she didn’t feel. It had seemed like a good idea at the time to say what she had, but now that the heat of anger was gone, she wasn’t so sure. Saffron and her gang would have it in for her now and Jess wasn’t sure she could withstand the sort of bullying they dished out to Sian. Until now, people like Jess went below the class bullies’ radar. That could change.

On Tuesdays, the fourth years’ timetables gave them the last two lessons free, ostensibly for extra revision for the forthcoming exams. Only the very diligent spent the free time in the library swotting. Everyone else left the school premises at high speed. Today, the start of the holidays, nobody was waiting behind to study, but despite the rush, Steph and Jess were still among the first out of the front gate.

“Tell Saffron to piss off if she says anything,” Steph advised, gasping with the effort of jogging while carrying a huge bag of books. “She is a cow.”

“Unfair to cows,” panted Jess. “I like cows.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t want one as a pet, would you?”

“I’d like a dog, actually. They’ve puppies in the refuge and I’d love to have one but Mum says no.”

“What about Wilbur? Cats and dogs fight.”

“He’s well able to cope with a dog,” Jess said confidently. “He’d just swat it with his paw, show it who was boss and everything would be fine. Jean from the animal refuge says cats and dogs can be best friends. I’ve told Mum about the puppies and how they won’t be kept alive if Jean doesn’t get homes for them all soon, but she says Dad doesn’t want a dog, which isn’t true. It’s just an excuse.”

“They’re great with excuses, aren’t they?” sighed Steph. “If we use an excuse to say why we’re home at ten instead of half nine, they go ballistic, but if they come up with one, it’s a different matter. Hey, isn’t that your mum’s car?”

“Yeah, what’s she doing here?” Jess wondered. They walked towards the Jeep and Abby hopped out, hugging Steph as if she hadn’t seen her for months instead of just two weeks ago when Steph stayed over at the Bartons’.

“Hi, how are you?”

“Fine, Mrs. Barton,” said Steph, bemused and making a what’sup? face at Jess.

“Hi, darling.” Abby turned to her daughter and held her tightly.

“Hi, Mum,” said Jess. Definitely something up. “What’s wrong?”

“Does anything have to be wrong for me to pick you up?” demanded Abby tremulously.

She’d been at some posh lunch, Jess vaguely remembered, and she’d obviously had something to drink, which was unlike her mother, who was very hot on not drinking and driving.

“Did you have wine at lunch?” she demanded. One of them had to be responsible.

Her mother’s eyes filled with tears. “Only a glass of champagne,” she said. “Less than a glass, actually.”

Steph and Jess exchanged wide-eyed looks again.

“Well, bye, Mrs. Barton,” said Steph, eager to be away from this mother-daughter twilight-zone scenario.

“No, I’ll drop you home,” insisted Abby.

“OK,” said Steph reluctantly.

The girls hopped in the Jeep and Abby set off down the road in the direction of Gartland Avenue.

“Seat belt, Mum,” admonished Jess.

Abby nodded and obediently put her seat belt on.

Jess didn’t glance back to look at Steph because she knew Steph would have her “uh-oh, mad parent alert” face on.

At Gartland Avenue, Abby slowed down for the speed ramps and talked about how happy they’d been there. “Remember when you were ten and some boys from the park tied you to that tree by your anorak strings?” she said mistily as they passed a stunted cherry tree halfway down the suburban street. “Oh, and there’s Mrs. McDonald. Yoo-hoo,” she waved as they passed a woman walking a West Highland terrier.

“You hate Mrs. McDonald,” Jess reminded her mother.

“Not really,” said Abby. How could she explain that the nostalgia for her old simple life—before she’d slept with Jay and ruined everything—burnished the past with a golden glow. “There’s our house,” she sighed.

Jess, remembering the speed with which her mother had managed to get the family out of Gartland Avenue, groaned. “What is it, Mum?” she asked, fed up with this magical mystery tour.

“I’ll hop out here, Mrs. Barton,” said Steph helpfully.

Abby pulled over and Steph climbed out, waving her mobile phone at Jess as a hint to phone her when everything was OK again.

“What’s up, Mum?” asked Jess again.

“I’m so sorry, darling, it’s Sally Richardson, she’s very sick. It’s cancer.”

Jess said nothing, just looked blindly out of the windscreen.

Abby’s heart ached at the thought of how this would upset Jess. She and Sally got on so well. Sally treated Jess like a grown-up and had even given Jess a voucher for one of her favourite shops as an extra thank you for helping out at the party, and the girl had been as thrilled as if she’d been given a diamond necklace. If she found out about Jay as well … But she wouldn’t. While she’d been driving to the school to pick Jess up, Abby had come to a decision: she’d beg Tom not to reveal the truth to Jess, she’d beg on her hands and knees if necessary. He would surely do anything not to hurt their daughter and he’d keep quiet for her, if not for Abby herself.

“Talk to me, Jess,” she said.

“What’s to say?” Jess said dully. Cancer. Not Sally, it couldn’t be right. Cancer was what old people got.

“I didn’t want to treat you like a child and not tell you,” Abby went on. “She might get better.” She crossed the fingers on her right hand. “But you need to know, because it’s very serious.” That sounded better than saying Sally might die.

“Have you seen her?”

“No. Steve told your father earlier. He’s offered to let the boys come and stay with us because they get on so well with you. I don’t know if that’s going to happen or not but we’ve got to be strong for them.”

“They’re so small and sweet,” said Jess, thinking of the two chubby-cheeked little boys. “Danny calls me Dess because he can’t say Jess.” The tears came then.

Her mother began to cry too, tears speeding down her cheeks both for poor, dear Sally and for herself.

Dad was late home and, for once, the first thing he did was come upstairs to Jess’s room. She was at her desk, supposed to be starting on her English work, but she had the radio on low and, hidden by her pile of school books, she was reading
The Little House on the Prairie.
The book was comforting and familiar—like having hot milk and toast in bed when she was sick. Nothing bad could happen when she was reading about Laura and Ma and Pa Ingalls.

“Hi, Jess.” Dad looked sombre; his face seemed older and thinner than usual.

“Hi, Dad.” Jess pulled her English notes over the book.

“How are you?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed beside the emptied-out contents of her school bag. He picked up her mobile phone in its purple furry cover and began fiddling with it absently. “Terrible news, isn’t it?”

Jess nodded.

“I phoned Steve on the way home,” he went on. “He’s left the boys with Ruby for tonight and he was going back into the hospital, but he says it would be good if we could take them for a couple of days from tomorrow until things settle down. Apparently Delia’s so shocked she keeps crying and he doesn’t want the boys to realise anything is wrong. I didn’t know what to say to him, to be honest with you. What do you say to someone in that position? ‘I’m sorry’ just sounds pathetic.”

Jess realised what was different about her father: he sounded the way he did when he talked to Mum in the evening, telling her about his day. But Mum was around, she’d been in the kitchen for hours cooking because Jess could smell it. She’d been at it so long, she must have been filling the freezer.

“Mum’s downstairs,” Jess volunteered. “She’s really upset.”

For a second, her father’s face hardened. “Is she?”

“Yeah,” said Jess in surprise. “She loves Sally.”

Dad reached out and touched Jess on the shoulder. “I know, I know. I’m sorry, Jess, I’m upset. Everything’s changed, it’s all different and I don’t know what to do.”

Pushing her work away, Jess threw herself at her father and hugged him. “It’s so horrible,” she said into his shoulder, wanting him to explain why it was happening. Dad could make sense of things like that; he always had in the past. Like when Granny Barton was sick and had died, and Dad explained that she’d been ill for such a long time and it was cruel of everyone to want her to stay on earth and suffer when she’d be happier in heaven. But this time, Dad had no explanation. He clung to Jess as if he was hoping for an explanation from her.

Jess snuggled deeply into her father. “Don’t worry, Dad. You’ve got us,” she said.

Abby looked at the foil containers filled with double helpings of vegetarian lasagne, chicken casserole and vegetable curry. Should war be declared, the Barton family could quite happily survive for two weeks on what she’d just cooked. Usually, after Abby had done a marathon freezer session, she felt ravenous and had to eat, no matter what spartan diet she was currently on. This evening, she didn’t feel hungry. She’d cooked because it seemed like the only nurturing thing she could do without feeling like a hypocrite.

She’d heard Tom come home and had felt relieved when his footsteps had sounded on the stairs. Then, the relief turned to fear. What if he was going upstairs to pack and leave?

She assembled the last lasagne and was slotting on its cardboard cover when the kitchen door opened. Without looking round, Abby knew it was Tom. She closed her eyes to give her strength, then turned to face him.

To her surprise, he didn’t look angry. Instead, he looked beaten, defeated, shrunk in stature almost.

“Tom, I’m so sorry …” she began.

“I have nothing to say to you, Abby,” he said. “I mean it.
Don’t talk to me.
Don’t talk to me,” he repeated harshly.

“But, Tom—” she said.

“Did you hear me? Are you deaf? Don’t talk to me.”

It was like listening to a stranger, not the man she’d married, the man she’d made love to, the man who’d held her hand through all the tough times. That Tom was gone.

“We’ve got to talk,” she said frantically.

“There’s nothing to say.” He picked up his diary from beside the phone. “I told Steve that we’d take the boys tomorrow for a couple of nights. He’ll be here with them at ten. Will you be around?”

Abby nodded.

“Fine.” He left the room and, moments later, Abby could hear the front door shut quietly.

She waited up until midnight but he didn’t come home. At one, she heard his key in the lock, but when he came upstairs he went into the spare bedroom and shut the door firmly. In the morning, he was gone before she got up.

It was nearly eleven the next morning when Steve Richardson arrived with Jack and Daniel and what looked like a carload of kids’ toys and clothes.

“I wasn’t sure what to bring,” Steve said helplessly, “so I brought everything.”

“That’s fine,” soothed Abby, taking the boys into the den and plonking them in front of the children’s channel with beakers of juice. Fascinated by the huge telly, and by all Jess’s old cuddly toys that Abby had unearthed from a box in the attic, they were soon engrossed in a cartoon.

“I’ve made coffee, would you like some?” she asked Steve.

“Yeah, great,” he said absently.

By the time Abby returned with coffee for the two of them, Steve was staring at the television with the same intensity as his two sons. The only difference was that he was looking through it. Abby put milk in his coffee and handed it to him but Steve didn’t drink it. He just held on to the mug and stared blankly.

Abby sipped her own coffee in silence, not knowing whether to say anything. She was almost too tired to talk. The little sleep she’d had the night before had been tormented by visions of both Sally and Tom dying, with her frantically trying to help them, only to have Tom shout at her to leave him alone, that it was all her fault in the first place.

“I don’t know what to do, Abby,” Steve said suddenly. “Last week, we thought the worst would be Sally having a cancerous lump, because they can do so much with cancer now. She was fine, we’d got it early, she hadn’t any real symptoms although she’d lost weight. But now …” He looked bleak. “The lump was the tip of the iceberg. She has what they call metastatic breast cancer, stage three advanced cancer. It’s spread to nearly all her lymph nodes, which means it’s moving. It could affect her lungs, her liver, her bones, we don’t know. She’s having a bone scan next, in fact.”

Abby realised he was fluent in this new language he’d learned: the language of breast cancer.

“What’s going to happen now?” she asked.

“Chemotherapy,” said Steve. “It’s just that she has a very aggressive cancer and there’s no guarantee chemo will work. I couldn’t tell Sally that, I couldn’t …” His voice broke off.

Abby put down her own coffee and took Steve’s from his unresisting grasp, then held his hands in hers. She didn’t say anything. What could she say? There were no words, no platitudes that could make it better.

“How do I tell her that there are no guarantees?” he went on. “I’m supposed to protect her and I can’t.”

Abby was silent.

“It’s the fear I can’t cope with,” Steve went on. He wasn’t looking at Abby. He was facing her but his mind was focused on some place and time far away. “The fear of her dying and the fact that I have to keep going on without her for the boys’ sake. I don’t think I can do that. I can’t.”

Abby tensed her throat, trying not to let the tears well up. He wasn’t crying. Who did she think she was to cry when Steve was the one lost in pain and grief?

“Now is the eye of the storm, so to speak. She’s here, I have her, I
still
have her,” he said, almost reverently, “but what if she dies? I just can’t …” He was trying to find the right words. “I just can’t picture that. I can’t picture a life without her or a world without her.”