The Telling

but then they found secondaries. She had to have chemotherapy. Medicine so strong it makes you ill. We both got thin: I had morning sickness. We both had scans. On hers, there were these grey-white beads; they looked like a broken string of pearls. On mine, we’d seen tiny bones glowing translucent grey, a skull like an eggshell. I could see her on the screen, flipping around like a caught fish, though I couldn’t feel anything inside me yet. And I didn’t tell her.’
    Instinctively, my hand descended to my belly and rested on the scar. My throat and palate ached with the threat of tears.
    ‘The nurse gave her wristbands, tight grey cuffs with plastic beads sewn on to the inside: they pressed between the bones of her wrists, and wore red marks there; they looked like stigmata. They were supposed to help with the nausea. I asked her if they did any good, and she said, I kind of hope not; if they’re working I can’t imagine how shit I’d be feeling without them.’
    My vision swam with the wetness of my eyes. And still the words kept coming, hard lumps of words, retching out of me, hurting.
    ‘She got so thin: she didn’t want anything; the flesh just fell off her, her hair came away in clumps. Her skin went grey; you could count the bones in her hands. She faded. And I got better. I bloomed, like you’re supposed to. It felt obscene. There was never going to be a good time to tell her. There was never going to be an all-clear. She was back at home. She was resting on the bed, propped up with pillows, a blanket over her legs. We’d been talking for a while, and I was too nervous really to remember what was said, until I said, I have something to show you, and I took out the print-out and held it out to her, and the paper was trembling in my hand. Her hand looked so mechanical, you could see every shift and movement of the tendons –’
    The words seemed somehow to slice through into the dark; it was an agony to speak them. They grasped hold of my grief, wrenched it out into the air. It was raw, skinless, bloody; it didn’t want to be born; it had tried so hard not to be.
    ‘It was ages while she looked at it. The whites of her eyes were yellow. Then she asked When are you due; I told her, End of January. I watched her register the fact that I was half-way gone, and had left it till then to tell her, and there was a flicker of something . I couldn’t quite see what it was. Anger, or frustration, or resentment, I don’t know. I don’t know that it was directed at me, but I could have been sick there and then, I really could. She laid the picture down, her lips peeled back from her gums; she smiled at me.’
    There was a faint tickling sensation on my cheek. I pressed a hand to it; my fingers came away wet.
    ‘Sweetheart, she said, Sweetheart. She lifted up her thin arms for me to hug her. I laid myself against her gently, afraid of my own weight. I pressed my face half into the pillow, half into her throat and hair. I was afraid. I wanted to be forgiven. She smelt sour. She stroked my back. Then, after a moment, she said, Is this okay for the baby? And I asked What? and she said, All the chemicals in me. I nodded and sat down, and she held my hand – hers was so cold – and she smiled at me again, and started to talk about the baby, and I joined in, but all the time I knew that part of her was sealed up, was somehow contained in her disease, and that she just could not be reached.
    ‘And I’ve been stuck too. Stuck in that year, when she was dying and I was pregnant, and if things could have been different – I –’
    Outside, in the street, a car drew up; the engine cut off, the door slammed. I pressed my eyes then glanced around the room; whatever had been there, if anything had been there, was now gone. I rushed over to the window, glanced out.
    Mark.
    *
     
    ‘You’re here.’
    ‘Yes.’ He came up the front steps to me.
    ‘Where’s Cate?’
    ‘She’s with my mum.’ He stopped short, a step down. His voice was tight. ‘You didn’t come, Rache. You didn’t come. I waited, and I waited, and you didn’t come. I rang you. A million times. I checked with the AA in case there’d been a motorway pile-up. I drove five hours and didn’t even know if you’d be here.’
    ‘I’m sorry.’
    ‘You said you were coming back. You said you would get help.’
    He stepped up, and I moved back into the house. He took my arm and looked at me closely. His eyes were tired, his skin soft with