The Hardie Inheritance (42 page)

The council, she read, wished to inform her of its intentions with regard to the area marked in red on the enclosed section of the ordnance survey map. Mrs Faraday would doubtless be
aware that it was intended eventually to encircle the city of Oxford with a ring road, some sections of which were already in use. Plans were now being drawn up for the building of the eastern section, and a valuation officer would be happy to attend at the property to discuss the land which would be required and to negotiate its purchase. Should it not prove possible to come to an arrangement by mutual agreement, the council would seek powers of compulsory purchase.

Grace was so disturbed that she could hardly focus on the details and had to read it all through again. The long thin rectangle of red on the map enclosed the stream which ran through the lowest point of the Greystones estate, part of the wood on one side of it and an area of open ground on the further side. Was it really possible that this could be snatched away without her consent? And if that did happen, her land beyond the road would be cut off from the rest, so that she would really be losing far more than the designated area.

There was a lot to think about, but it would have to wait, because she had a New Year's Resolution to keep. She had promised herself that before the first week of January ended she would see a doctor.

As a child she had suffered regular bouts of ill-health. She now knew them to have been caused by asthma, but at the time her breathless, chesty wheezing had been assumed to be bronchial. It was because the swampy air round the riverside house in Oxford where she was born seemed to have brought her so near to death that Greystones had been built for her on a hill. Even after the move she suffered occasional attacks, but when it was realized that these were triggered by exposure to specific irritants, like horses, she had learned what to avoid and grew into a strong, healthy adult. No doctor had been summoned to the house on her behalf since the birth of her baby almost twenty years earlier.

All the same, Dr Murray, who had taken over the practice in Headington Quarry just before the war, was no stranger. The children had all had their share of childish ailments and
accidents. The doctor smiled in recognition now as she entered his consulting room.

‘How are you, Mrs Faraday?'

Grace was not one to beat about the bush. ‘I feel very well,' she said. ‘But I have a lump in my breast.'

‘We'd better have a look, then.' He motioned to her to go behind a screen and waited while she took off her blouse and vest. ‘Which side?'

‘The right.'

‘Put your hand on my shoulder, will you?' He did not need to ask exactly where to feel. Three and a half years earlier Grace had needed to probe deeply with her fingers before becoming suspicious, but within the last few months it had become easy to trace the outline of the lump beneath the skin which dimpled above it. She looked straight ahead as, pinching it gently, he measured it with his fingers, first in one direction and then the other. Next, with a firmer touch, he pressed into her armpits.

‘Any other swellings or discomfort anywhere?'

‘No.'

‘Get dressed again, will you, Mrs Faraday.'

By the time she emerged from behind the screen he was writing his notes, but looked up with a serious expression on his face.

‘When did you first notice it?'

‘Some while ago now, but it was tiny then. It's just in the last few months that it seems to have been growing at a great rate.'

‘I wish you had come to me straightaway. Or even a few months ago.' He reached forward to the telephone.

‘Just a moment,' said Grace. ‘What are you going to do?'

‘Make an immediate appointment for you at the Radcliffe Infirmary. No point in my giving you a fuller examination here when they'll just do it all over again when you get there.'

‘What will they do?'

‘Blood tests. X-ray. And a biopsy on the lump itself to find out whether it's malignant.'

‘Do you have any doubt about that?'

Dr Murray looked at her steadily.

‘It's the strongest possibility. You realize that yourself, don't you? If it were smaller, we could hope that it might be a cyst, easily and permanently removed. But from what you say about the rate of growth …'

‘So what you're saying is that they'd cut out the lump, discover whether it's malignant – and then what?'

‘The biopsy is normally done very quickly, while you're still under anaesthetic. If carcinoma is confirmed, it would be necessary to remove the breast. It's a very safe operation. Nothing to be frightened of.'

Grace had known what he would say, but still felt herself paling. She was determined, though, to press the discussion to a conclusion.

‘And would that be the end of it?'

‘We would hope so.'

‘But suppose our hopes are not realized. What's the worst case, Dr Murray? I mean, people die of breast cancer. If the operation itself is a minor one, what else goes wrong?' She could tell that he was reluctant to answer. ‘I'm not going to let anything happen until I understand why. I have to rely on you to tell me the truth. I realize that I've been foolish and that I shall have to pay for it. I must know what the price will be.'

He hesitated a moment longer before giving in to her determination.

‘If you had come to me when you first noticed a tiny lump,' he said, ‘then I could have given you a more optimistic opinion. But as it is … What happens, you see, is something called metastasis. The cancer doesn't confine itself to the lump that you can see and feel. The malignant cells start to spread through the lymph nodes and into the bloodstream. They cause other tumours to grow. And whereas it's easy enough to operate
on the breast, there are other parts of the body where it's more difficult. That's why it's urgent that you should attend the Infirmary as soon as possible.'

‘Do you think that this process you describe may already have begun?'

‘Only a specialist with all the proper test equipment can answer that question.'

‘Let me have your guess, then. The balance of probabilities.'

‘It would be grossly irresponsible to hazard an opinion without having any evidence.' But for a second time he submitted to her wish for a truthful answer. ‘All I can say is that the consultant will be bound to ask you whether you have lost weight recently. Or noticed any unusual tiredness or lack of strength.'

Grace considered the hint in silence. She had no idea how much she weighed now or had ever weighed, but certainly she had noticed a loss of strength in recent months. It was one of the reasons why she had at last plucked up the courage to come to the surgery.

The previous year, with a particular carving in mind, she had acquired a large piece of rosewood. She knew before she set to work that it was harder than the walnut or oak which she chose as a rule, but was appalled, when she embarked on the process of roughing out the shape, to find how often she had to stop and rest. In the early stages of any large carving it was necessary to spend hours at a time hitting a large gouger with a mallet until most of the outside was cut away and an approximation of the final shape was left. This had never caused her any problem before.

She had wondered at first whether the lump itself, and the swelling under her arm, was distorting her action and putting an unusual strain on her muscles. And if that was not the answer, it had seemed reasonable to accept that, as she grew older, she was bound to become less strong. But now it appeared all too probable that Dr Murray's suggestion came nearer to the truth. She stood up, pushing back her chair.

‘I'd like to think about it,' she said. ‘Please don't phone the Infirmary just yet. I'll be in touch with you again.'

Dr Murray also stood up. ‘You come here to ask my opinion and you must understand what it is. You are in urgent need of treatment and it would be foolish of you to waste any time before taking it.'

‘I've been foolish already.' Grace managed to smile. ‘When I've delayed for so long, a day or two can't make much difference.'

‘When the tide comes up against a barrier of sand, there is one second when it's restrained, another second when the first small wave trickles over or through, and only one more second before the tide sweeps on and covers it completely. The point of no return in your own case could fall between one day and the next.'

‘I'll be in touch,' Grace repeated. ‘Thank you very much, doctor.'

The walk from the village to Greystones was uphill all the way, but it was a journey which she had been making without effort for fifty years. Today, though, her legs felt heavy and her body lethargic. She walked slowly, wearily, back to the house and into her studio.

The piece of rosewood, clamped to her work table, seemed to look at her reproachfully. This was a piece of work which she had intended to enter for a competition. The subject was political prisoners, and Grace had envisaged the hollowed-out shape of a skull, with slits cut out of its casing to reveal something – its shape not yet decided – struggling to escape through what would resemble prison bars. All possibility of finishing it in time for the competition had already vanished, but that did not mean that she intended to abandon the project.

Marking in charcoal the next area to be cut away, she then poured a few drops of oil on to her oilstone and selected the right chisel. Automatically – for this was part of every day's routine – she began to sharpen the chisel, moving its cutting
edge over the stone in a figure of eight pattern; pressing it down, turning it over, checking with her fingers rather than her eyes that no burr remained. When satisfied of its sharpness she transferred it to her left hand and leaned forward to pick up a leather-bound mallet in her right.

She never completed the action. Checking herself in mid-movement, she stared at the chisel. It was an old one, its handle darkened by years of use. Only the edge was silver-bright, razor-sharp: she could not take her eyes off it.

Setting it carefully down, she turned her head to look at the rows of tools which hung neatly in their wooden racks along the wall. In the rest of the house Grace was untidy, and at first sight the studio often seemed the greatest mess of all; but she had always been meticulous in caring for the instruments of her trade. Stone-cutting tools, wood-carving tools, and the oddly-curved pieces of wire and bone with which she worked on the clay originals of her bronzes – all were in good order.

It was the knives which she studied now. A surgeon would pick up a knife like this and slice through her flesh as easily as she sliced through clay. The clarity of her vision made her shiver, although not with any imagining of pain. After all, she would be unconscious. Why then had she postponed for so long the visit which for three years or more she had known must be urgent? Was it sheer cowardice or had she subconsciously wanted to be told that she had come too late?

Abruptly she turned and hurried out of the studio, up the stairs, into the bathroom. Locking the door, she pulled off her clothes and stood naked in front of a looking glass. She could see herself only from the waist up, but that was enough.

Rarely even as a young girl and never in the past thirty years had she concerned herself with the look of her body. Was it beautiful or ugly, glamorous or ordinary? She didn't care. She had always accepted what she was born with, and hard physical work had kept it in good shape.

Until now. Already the lump was visible, beginning to distort the shape of her breast, and soon, presumably, it would
be larger still. But to lose the breast altogether would be a distortion of a different order. A mutilation. An amputation. What would Andy think? She shrugged the question away as soon as it entered her mind. She did not care what Andy thought. Only her own feelings mattered.

As she tried to imagine herself with one side of her chest flat and scarred, she was surprised to realize how consistently she had valued symmetry in her work. The holes she carved were usually circular or oval and even when, as often happened, they twisted round between one side of the sculpture and the other, the effect was always one of balance. Symmetry satisfied her eye because it was natural; and the prime example of natural design was the human body.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense would laugh her out of the proposition that since her body was, in a way, a work of art it was better dead than mutilated; but it must have been an underlying feeling of that kind which had kept her away from the doctor for so long, and had sent her to him at last not because she was alarmed but because she was already sure that the time for surgery had passed.

It was a certainty which Dr Murray had said nothing to dispel, and no one could turn the clock back four years. Calmly, not frightened yet, Grace dressed herself again.

Dr Murray called at Greystones later on the day of Grace's visit to his surgery. Although she had half expected him to come, she made no apology for the fact that she was wearing her working clothes as she offered him a cup of tea.

‘It's a problem now, with the health service,' he said. ‘The pressure of so many people queueing in the waiting room. You probably felt it as much as I did. Our conversation was one which ought not to have been hurried. I didn't feel that we'd brought it to a satisfactory conclusion.'

‘Sugar?' asked Grace.

‘No thank you. I feel a responsibility, you see, for making certain that you see a consultant as soon as possible.'

‘The responsibility is mine, surely.'

‘Well, not entirely. I can't be expected to know that a problem exists until you tell me; but once I
do
know, it's a failure of duty on my part if I don't see that you have the best possible treatment.'

Because her earlier uncertainty had disappeared, she was able to smile. ‘I hadn't realized that a patient could be accused of damaging her doctor's reputation as well as of self-neglect.'