Page 3 of A Midlife Gamble

She hadn’t seen Caro since the night she’d taken Libby’s baby and stayed out too long…fartoo long. And recently, Kay’s calls had become less frequent. Thinking all this, Helen sighed. Kay, she suspected, had run out of patience. Had, after all these years, finally tired of playing go-between, between herself and Caro. And who could blame her? She’d relayed the message to Helen more than once. Caro was desperately sorry, distraught that she’d caused Libby such anguish, but no, she still couldn’t explain what had happened. She understood that Helen didn’t want to meet, but hoped that once the dust had settled…

‘She’s not answering,’ Libby said, looking up from her phone. ‘I’ll send a text.’

Helen turned, the sound of Libby’s voice calling her back into the room. ‘Put it down.’ She nodded at Libby’s phone, and bent low to her grandson, strapped in his bouncy chair. ‘We’ll go to Messy Play won’t we?’ she cooed. ‘Mummy can come along after her exam.’ And as she straightened up she added, ‘It’ll be nice for you to have lunch with Leanne.’

Libby stood with the phone in her hands. ‘Are you ok, mum?’

‘Fine.’

Helen turned to busy herself with tidying the table. It was too complicated. Firstly, she wouldn’t bring up that night again in front of Libby for anything. And beyond that… How could she explain? Friends, getting them, keeping them – easy as breathing when you’re five years old and you invite the whole class to your party, and the whole class wants nothing more than to come to your party. So much harder as adults. And it wasn’t as if the need diminished in proportion. In fact, as her children had needed her less, she had, she knew, needed her friends more. So where did it go? The simplicity of childhood friendship? Helen closed her eyes. She understood where. It got stamped down by life. Experience making strangers of people you thought you knew inside out. And how could she possibly explain that?

‘So you’re sure about going to Messy Play?’ Libby asked.

‘A hundred per cent,’ she said with a jollity she didn’t feel. She fixed her notebook back in place, opened the freezer and stood staring at it. ‘What time does it start?’ she said, pulling out a packet of fish fillets. ‘We’ll have fish for dinner.’

‘Eleven.’ Libby was moving to and fro along the length of the table, jamming bottles and nappies, spit-bibs, wipes, rattles, spare clothing, books that squeaked, and a change-mat into the baby bag. The baby bag that came with more pockets and clips and pouches than Lawrence’s cargo pants. In went a towel, and a thermometer, and a dummy, and a spare dummy, spoons and spare spoons, one jar of baby food, one pouch of yogurt, one enormous packet of what looked like the polystyrene bits used to pad out fragile packages but were apparently edible corn.

Helen stared. Was that it? The amount of baby paraphernalia required seemed to double with each generation. She didn’t know, and she wasn’t going to ask, because anything she might say like,How long are we going for?OrHow many babies are you packing for?OrGoodness, I wonder how mums in the Gobi Desert manage,would, she knew, be met with the titanium resolve of the brand-new mother that Libby had evolved into.

Because starting from the night Caro had taken her baby, something had awoken in Libby. She had undergone a metamorphosis. Out had gone the shell-shocked pyjama clad sleep-walking youngster of before, and in had blown this most formidable of creatures – the new mother: determined on providing the best possible start, in thrall to the latest fad and blissfully oblivious to the fact that women had been keeping babies alive for millennia, long before books, let alone those that squeaked, had been invented. A sleek and energetic lioness, perpetually on guard.

Not that Helen was complaining. Libbyhadneeded to step up. It was just that she understood how unsustainable it all was. Libby, despite her youth, wouldn’t be able to juggle all these plates for long. She was about to re-sit the first of her final exams. The exams she should have taken several months ago. After that, she had a future mapped out, which sounded great on paper but which exhausted Helen just to look at. But what could she say? What could she possibly advise?It’s a marathon, Libby, not a sprint. You don’t have to be perfect every day Libby. Even if you get it all right there will still be times when you will want to just walk away…

Ah, what was the point? Libby would learn chopping her own path through the jungle. It was Helen’s job to walk behind, not forge the way ahead.

And of course today, exam day, Libby was extra-wired. As if the first real test of her ability to get herself out of the mess she had created had arrived. Not that anyone could consider Ben a mess… Helen bent low, took hold of Ben’s chin and waggled it between thumb and forefinger. He responded with a deep-throated gurgle of joy. She smiled at him. That was the problem with babies, wasn’t it? No matter what went before, they swept it all away once they arrived, cleared the decks with their cat-clean mouths and their other-worldly smell… and their other, all-too-worldly smell. ‘Umm, I think he might…’

‘Not again!’ Libby cried.

Helen nodded. She unstrapped Ben and lifted him up, her nose wrinkling. ‘He’s going to need new trousers,’ she said, looking at an ominous brown stain across Ben’s bottom.

Libby closed the bag and turned for Ben. Just as she did, the doorbell rang.

‘Go and change him,’ Helen said. ‘I’ll get the door and then we’ll be off.’

Less than half a minute later,one hand still on the doorhandle, it took Helen a long moment for her mind to catch up with her eyes.

She’d answered the door to Caro. There she was, on the doorstep, looking smaller than Helen had ever seen her. Looking so diminished, so drawn, that instantly Helen understood something was wrong. She opened her mouth, but then and forever after, would have no idea of what she might have been about to say.

‘It’s Kay,’ Caro managed, in a timbre Helen had never heard before. ‘She has cancer. She’s dying, Helen, and there’s nothing we can do. Nothing.’ The words were forced, as if Caro was struggling to let them live, as if she would rather strangle them. And then her head wobbled, and she took a step sideways, swayed and began to fall backward.

Helen grabbed her arm. ‘Kay’s…’ But her own voice was mostly air. ‘She’s—’ Sounds would not take shape.

Caro nodded. She’d managed to straighten herself so that her face was now very close to Helen, her free hand pressed against the brickwork of the house.

With arms of tingling lead, Helen manoeuvred her over the threshold and closed the door, watching as Caro leaned against the wall.

‘I’m sorry,’ Caro whispered. ‘The last thing I meant was to blurt it out on the doorstep.’

Nodding, Helen brought her hands to her chin, knitting her fingers, and all the time three little words snaked around her feet like a cold mist.Kay has cancer. Kay has cancer. Kay has…

‘She’s going in for an operation tomorrow.’

‘An operation?’

‘Lymph node dissection.’

‘When—’ Helen stopped talking. The recent longer periods of silence between herself and Kay had been real. A widening gap, that Helen had thought she’d understood. Which she hadn’t, because this she hadn’t seen coming. And looking at Caro’s shattered features, Helen remembered her mother,Now then, Helen. It’ll be alright.Everything will be alright.The day she had broken the news of her own cancer, what a shock it had been, how despite the fact her mother had known for weeks, neither Helen nor her brother had had any suspicions something was wrong, terminally wrong. So how long, she thought now, had Kay known? How long had she been struggling with it, unable to get them all in the same room together, to break the news. ‘How long have you known?’ she said, her voice hoarse.

---