She smiled. ‘I wouldn’t go that far. But you know… I might try it again sometime.’
‘Good,’ Will said. ‘That’s really good.’
As they walked back to his car, wondering how she was going to protect his upholstery from her soggy back and bottom, she thought of Tom for the first time. Always in her mind, or deep in her gut where her sadness seemed to lie, he had disappeared for a moment. And although she missed him with every fibre of her being, she realised that having a break from her grief had made her feel more able to carry it once more.
Had it been then? She wondered now. Had those been the moments when she first started to fall in love with him?
40
THE EIGHTH SUMMER – 2018
‘I don’t know, Libby, it feels like a farce going to Paris when he’s so ill. I mean, even if they can’t start treatment yet, he should be resting, surely?’ she said, tucking the phone under her chin as she spoke and zipping up her half-heartedly packed suitcase.
‘But it’s what he wants,’ Libby pointed out.
Sophie sighed, turning to sit on the bed. ‘I know,’ she said, feeling depleted. ‘He kind of wants a short break before he starts treatment. And it’s only two nights. And they weren’t going to be able to start much before then anyway…’
‘So why not go! Enjoy yourselves!’
Sophie shook her head. ‘But how can we?’
Libby was silent for a moment, then ‘But what’s the alternative? Sit around in the flat and wait for his treatment? Maybe if you can put it to the back of your minds just for one last break.’
Tears pooled, hot and insistent, in Sophie’s eyes. ‘How can I, though?’
‘Well, maybe you can’t. But perhaps Tom can. Maybe he needs to…’
‘So I’m just meant to pretend?’
‘I’m really sorry, but I think you have to. If that’s what he wants.’
Sophie had got used to the misery of infertility, carrying her disappointment with her almost constantly over the past year. But now, this, Tom’s – well, what? Terminal illness? Neither of them were calling it that, but what else was ‘incurable cancer’? It seemed too much to bear. Yet this time, she wasn’t the one carrying the majority of the pain. He was. His feelings had to come first.
‘Oh God, Libby, what am I going to do?’
‘You,’ said Libby, ‘are going to try to make the best of things.’
‘Yeah.’ She picked a thread from the eiderdown, idly watching as it snaked away from her across the embroidered satin. ‘I’m not so good at that.’
Libby gave a small snort of laughter. ‘Understatement of the century.’
Sophie smiled weakly. ‘But how do you do it?’
‘What?’
‘Well, you always seem to be so… upbeat. In the moment. And I know it hasn’t always been… easy.’
Libby’s father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years ago, and was now in a home. At just sixty-two, it was unbelievably cruel. They spoke about it sometimes, and Libby was both grieving and stressed about the situation. But what amazed Sophie was her capacity to rise above it. To throw herself fully into a night out, or immerse herself in a book. To talk about trivial things in the face of such monstrous bad luck.
Libby sighed. ‘Ah, chick. It’s not easy,’ she admitted. ‘But I figured, what’s the alternative?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if I sit and think about Dad and all the things that have happened so far, and what’s going to happen next, I could probably reduce myself to a blubbering wreck on a daily basis,’she said. ‘And I did, for a while. Remember when he was diagnosed?’
Sophie nodded. ‘Yeah.’
‘Well, I couldn’t understand why Mum didn’t seem as affected. I mean, she was sad, worried. But not floored. Not devastated. And I asked her. You know, “How come you’re not frightened?” And she told me that she was, of course. But that she’d learned that life was about seeing all this stuff – whether it’s your own illness or pain, or grief, or worry – and living anyway. Or else what was the point?’