Page 96 of Here One Moment

Sue wonders idly if she should try to get in touch with the young woman, try to help convince her to get treatment, but of course that’s ridiculous, you can’t meddle in a stranger’s life and she has her own family to worry about.

Right now they all look a little shell-shocked. There is no sound except for the giggles of her two granddaughters who are lying on their stomachs on the floor behind a couch playing Snap with an old pack of cards.

She says, “Well, you know, she hasn’t actually died—”

“Yet,” says her daughter-in-law. “She’s going to make the prophecy self-fulfilling.”

“Which is why it doesn’t prove anything,” says Sue. “Because—well. Just because.” This is like one of those awful “farmer crossing a river” puzzles, where you have to work out whether to take the wolf, the goat, or the cabbage first. Her head is starting to hurt.

“It means nothing,” says Max. “No need for anyone to stress.” His leg is jiggling up and down next to hers. “Why don’t we have some music?” Then he says unexpectedly, “Sometimes I wish we’d never gone on that damned trip.”

“But we had such a great time.” Sue fiddles with the apple charm on her bracelet that she bought as a souvenir of their trip to the “Apple Isle.” She’s sad at the thought of their camper van holiday memories being sullied.

“I know we did, darling, I’m sorry,” says Max. “We had—”

He stops. Sue looks at him, to check he’s not having a stroke. His dad’s last half-finished sentence was “I feel like something is not—” before he had the massive stroke that felled him.

“Jeez.” Max rubs his hand across his face as if he’s rubbing in sunscreen. “This whole situation is outrageous. Nobody should be taking it seriously. The old couple were so old!”

“Just so you all know, I would never refuse treatment,” says Sue.

Nobody speaks. Her youngest son spins his phone against the side of his chair in exactly the same way Max did on the flight. She shouldn’t have said that. Maybe that makes it seem like she now thinks a future diagnosis is inevitable.

Max stands, pulling on the legs of his jeans. “I’ll just check the…” He doesn’t bother finishing the sentence. They all know there is nothing for him to check.

“You can’t die first, Mum,” says her youngest son with forced lightness after Max has left the room. “Dad wouldn’t survive without you.”

“Well, he would,” says Sue. “He’d be very sad, but he’d survive. That’s life!” She grabs her grandson just before he sinks his teeth into a giant wheel of Brie. She buries her nose in his sweet-smelling hair. Her big strong grown-up sons fear death, but they also think they are somehow protected—it’s so far in their futures it doesn’t really exist, it’s only for people unlucky enough to make the news, for people inwar-torn countries and natural disasters, for sick elderly grandparents, but not for their young parents, not for years and years. Her boys haven’t yet discovered the awful fragility of life. They don’t yet know that the possibility of death is always there, sitting right alongside you.

She says, “Your dad would have no choice but to carry on.”

“Snap!” shriek her granddaughters.

Chapter 85

I’d been working for the National Parks and Wildlife for three years when Baashir hosted a Swiss fondue party for his fortieth birthday.

Obviously I was aghast to be invited.

Baashir was my boss and my friend, and I was so fond of him it virtually qualified as a crush, but I would know no one at his party except him. I would not have Jack to count me in and I had no doubt every guest would be older, more glamorous, and more interesting than me. Chances were high I would embarrass myself by speaking too much or not at all.

I feel tenderly now toward my twenty-two-year-old self. So upset to be invited to a party! Poor darling.

Look: I don’t know why I’m pretending anything has changed. Just last month I was horrified to be invited to a “coffee morning” and it must have showed on my face, because the person extending the invitation felt obliged to apologize and say, “It’s not compulsory!”

Embarrassing.

(I went to the coffee morning.)

Also embarrassing: I had never heard of Swiss fondue. I thought it was a type of dance. I asked my mother if she could teach me the steps to the Swiss fondue and she and Auntie Pat laughed longer and harder than necessary. My error really made their day. Each time they stopped, one of them started up again. I don’t know how they knew about fondue, it’s not like they’d ever been to Switzerland.

By the way, I’ve been to Switzerland multiple times since then and eaten fondue in some very fancy Swiss restaurants. Just so you know.

Gosh, humiliation takes a long time to fade, doesn’t it?

I got sulky and said I wasn’t going to the party anyway.

“You will hurt your friend’s feelings,” said Auntie Pat firmly. “Be brave, Cherry.”

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