Page 4 of A Midlife Gamble

‘Yesterday,’ Caro whispered. ‘She told me yesterday.’

‘And that’s why you’re here?’

Caro nodded.

Neither of them spoke. Eventually, after a minute, or maybe five, Helen said, ‘Kitchen?’ And with this, Caro nodded, turned and made her way along the hallway.

Helen stood looking at nothing. Then she turned to the hall mirror and saw how her mouth had turned down in a long sad curve. Kay would have needed them. Should have been able to turn to them, using the long-established ropes of their friendship to guide. But how could she have done that, when those ropes were such a tangled mess?

‘I can’t believe it.’

Caro didn’t answer. She stood at the far side of the table.

‘I just can’t believe it,’ Helen said again and looked down at the crumpled packet of fish on the table. The packet she’d taken out a minute earlier, which was a different lifetime ago. The lifetime in which Kay didn’t have cancer.

‘Helen.’

‘It can’t be true!’ The veins in her neck tensed like rope.

This time Caro didn’t sayHelen.This time she just looked down at her hands.

A rock rose in Helen’s throat, so brutally hard she couldn’t swallow. ‘Where’s your car?’ she croaked and it seemed very strange that she should think of this now, but she hadn’t seen a car. There hadn’t been a car in the driveway when she’d opened the door. Not like the last time Caro had been at her house, when she’d left her car and her phone and taken Ben.

‘Around the corner,’ Caro said quietly. ‘I…’ She didn’t finish the sentence.

She didn’t need to, they both understood why Caro would have approached the house with caution, would have made as quiet an entrance as possible. And now, as if for the first time, Helen saw how she had also positioned herself, upright and tense and as far away as possible. The sight weakened her. Once upon a time Caro would have swept into this kitchen as easy as a breeze. She would have pulled out a chair without asking, without waiting for Helen to finish whatever domestic chore she was in the middle of. She would have sat herself down and poured the wine, sliding Helen’s glass across, watching as Helen flittered around tidying up. All those evenings they’d laughed and cried over life, and how rubbish and wonderful it was, and over what they’d expected as opposed to what had been delivered. Evenings that had ended with the world tilted right again. How she’d missed that!In these last few months, how much she had missed all that! She looked at Caro and the solidity of shock crumbled. Kay had cancer and Caro was at the other end of the table. How were they going to put this right? How on earth were they going to put the world back on course again?

‘Sit down,’ she whispered. ‘Will you?Please.’

Slowly, Caro pulled out the nearest chair and slowly, Helen did the same. Neither of them spoke and with every moment the silence became heavier. It dropped like leaden snow on Helen’s head, rounded her shoulders and her spine. ‘I should have called,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t know how.’

‘I didn’t know either,’ Caro whispered back.

The house was silent. Across the room, on the fridge, her notepad clung on at a lopsided angle.Bread, milk, cheese,written in her own hand.

Bread, milk, cheese.

‘I never…’ Caro’s voice was tiny. ‘I… I never meant to…’

‘I know, Caro,’ Helen said flatly. ‘I know.’ And with the pad of her thumb, she pressed down, through the fine wool of her sweater to her wrist, feeling the bone roll and move. She went to press again, as if it might ground her, but now her hand was loose as water. She couldn’t make a shape of it, couldn’t feel it.Kay has cancerdissolved every thought she was attempting to think. Opening her fingers she looked at her hand as if it was something she’d never seen before in her life.

‘It’s skin cancer,’ Caro murmured.

Helen looked up. ‘But that’s treatable,’ she said and found her voice strong. ‘It’s treatable these days. It’s—’

Caro was shaking her head. ‘It’s spread, Helen. She found out a couple of weeks ago. Tomorrow she’s going in for a dissection.’

‘And then chemo? There’s such a lot…’

‘Not chemo. Radiation. And then targeted therapy to… to buy time I suppose.’ Caro looked down at the table. ‘I’m going to see her afterwards and she wanted me to tell you. She wants you there… She wants both of us there.’

A wave of nausea swept up Helen’s chest. A couple of weeks! Kay had known for a couple of weeks! She put the back of her hand to her mouth and looked at Caro, tears streaming down her face. No one needed to explain to her the details of a cancer that had metastasised. No matter how much time passed, some moments retained their clarity, and always would. One of which was the day her mother had explained her own diagnosis. The gently emphatic way she had closed down every entreaty Helen had made, because… well because there was no way out of the maze. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said now, shaking her head. ‘She looked so well.’ But even as she said the words Helen knew they weren’t true. Kay had looked exhausted for months now. Every time they had seen each other, Helen had urged her to go to the doctor. Get a little HRT, she’d badgered, as if it were the cure-all for everything. Kay who had urged her to pick up the phone to Caro. Kay who was wiser than the two of them put together. Kay who had known for two weeks. Who was dying. Who couldn’t possibly be dying. ‘I’m sorry, Caro,’ she whispered. ‘I hope you know that I mean that. I wasn’t big enough to make the first move.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Caro tipped her head to the ceiling and pinched the bridge of her nose. ‘Nothing matters now, except Kay.’

Helen nodded. She looked up the clock and then she looked across at the packet of defrosting fish.

‘What are we going to do?’

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