Another Way to Fall
Another Way to Fall
Amanda Brooke
Published by HarperCollins
Publishers Ltd
77–85 Fulham Palace Road
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins 2013
Copyright © Amanda Brooke 2013
Cover layout design © HarperCollins
Publishers
Ltd 2013
Cover images © Werachai Sookruay/123RF (girl, foreground); Mark Owen/Trevillon Images (background)
Amanda Brooke assert the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
These novels are entirely works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed within are the work of the authors’ imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780007445929
Ebook Edition © 9780007445936
Version: 2014-12-12
To Nathan, my autumn child
Contents
I was sitting patiently to one side of Mr Spelling’s vast desk, which took up most of the floor space. The doctor paid me no attention, too intent on the images that flashed in quick succession across his computer screen. As I waited, I became vaguely aware that my fingers had developed a life of their own, tugging at the seams of my jeans then playing with the cord hanging from my padded jacket. I slipped my wayward hands between my crossed legs in an attempt to bring their fidgeting under control, but a moment later the soft whisper of denim across denim drew my attention. My right foot had broken ranks and had started tapping rhythmically in midair.
The sun streamed through the window and it stung my eyes as the rays of light bounced off the butter-cream walls. It was late November and bitterly cold outside but you would never have guessed in the snug little office. I made a point of averting my gaze from the window and the world beyond, choosing instead to concentrate on a collection of health and safety notices pinned to the walls explaining how to wash your hands, how to find the fire exit, how to wipe your nose. I knew every crease and tear of each poster by heart. Likewise, I was familiar with the gilt on the picture frames that protected Mr Spelling’s prized certificates, the ones that assured his patients that he was more than qualified to peer into the deepest crevices of their brains and read their fortunes.
My foot froze in midair as the doctor shifted in his seat. I waited for him to look up but he remained focused on his work. With my attention briefly diverted, my hands had broken free and I found myself twisting a dark curl from my ponytail around my fingers. My foot resumed its tapping.
Shifting restlessly, I started to regret wearing so many layers. I could feel my skin tingling with sweat beneath and was about to take off my jacket when Mr Spelling raised his head and this time he did meet my gaze. He had kept me waiting all of sixty seconds but it had felt like a lifetime. In my defence, my waiting had begun long before I entered his office. My life had been held in limbo for almost five years.
When Mr Spelling smiled, I had absolutely no idea if it was drawn from hope or sympathy. His deep green eyes had hidden depths that gave no clue to the news he was about to impart.
‘So go on then. Tell me,’ I demanded, my tone light but insistent, my patience exhausted. I held my breath, pursing my lips tightly to stop them trembling.
‘It’s over,’ he said.
That simple statement had numerous connotations but for me the message was clear enough for me to catch my breath. ‘All clear?’ My question came out as a tremulous whisper.
‘Complete remission,’ he confirmed.
At last I allowed myself to look out of the window, beyond the treetops that were being stripped of all remains of life by autumn gales and towards the clear blue sky. Freedom, I thought as I allowed a smile to ease away the pain and fear that had cast an ominous shadow over my life. It had been a long time coming but I was only twenty-nine. I had my whole life ahead of me and an awful lot of catching up to do.
‘Emma, it’s time,’ Meg whispered.
Emma felt her body stiffen, her fingers left hovering motionlessly over the keyboard as the connection with her words was broken. The smile on her face faltered as she looked up and caught a glimpse of Mr Spelling and his entourage in deep discussion further down the ward. The thudding of her heart sounded like a drum roll preparing for the fall of the executioner’s axe.
It had taken her a huge amount of concentration to block out her surroundings as she began to write, drawing herself into a world over which she had complete control and one she was loath to set aside. At least she was feeling well enough to write, she told herself as she tucked a rogue curl back behind her ear, sweeping her fingers towards the dressing at the back of her scalp as if to remind herself that the nightmare was far from over. Reluctantly, she pulled down the lid of her laptop and pushed it to one side.
Emma’s marked improvement was not a result of the operation itself, which had been purely exploratory. It was the new regime of drugs she had been taking that made her thoughts feel clearer and the headaches that had plagued her for weeks had all but disappeared. Her vision wasn’t perfect but then it never would be; damage to her peripheral vision was an old war wound. She had been diagnosed with a brain tumour four years earlier and had been in remission for three of those. She was now awaiting the results of a biopsy that was likely to confirm that her future was in doubt once again.
Emma looked towards her mum and she had no doubt that the fear she could see etched on her face was a mirror image of her own. There were other similarities between mother and daughter. They had the same dark auburn hair that fell in soft curls, the same round hazel eyes, high cheek bones and tall willowy frames. Meg had often been mistaken for Emma’s sister and there were those who would be genuinely surprised to know that she was already the wrong side of fifty, but not today. Today, her age was showing.
Meg was sitting upright in an easy chair next to the bed; her hands gripped the neatly folded newspaper, which she had been reading moments earlier. She looked tired in her creased blue cotton dress, which matched with the cold blue walls of the hospital ward. As Emma reached out a comforting hand towards her, it didn’t escape her notice that the skin tone of her own arm, semi-transparent and tinged blue, also matched the decor.
Meg quickly discarded her newspaper and gripped Emma’s outstretched hand. ‘Ready?’ Meg asked as they both looked towards the huddle of doctors heading their way.
Emma bit down hard on the inside of her lip to hold back the scream building inside her. She wanted to say, ‘No! I’m not ready, I’ll never be ready. Please, oh, God, please send them away!’ Her unspoken words burned like acid at the back of her throat as she nodded in silent submission, never taking her eyes off Mr Spelling as he approached the foot of her bed. Emma had an assortment of consultants involved in her care and it was the neurosurgeon who would have assessed the pathology results of her biopsy. But it was her neuro-oncologist whom she relied upon and listened to most and she had asked for him to deliver the news. Mr Spelling was in his late fifties. He had a full head of thick, brown hair but it was peppered with far more grey than when they had first met. Back then Mr Spelling had been confident and the treatment offered had been intensive – major surgery followed by months of chemotherapy – but remission had been her reward.
Lately, however, each time she had met Mr Spelling, he had looked just a little less confident, less eager to give Emma one of his winning smiles. He felt Emma’s gaze on him now and, when he looked up, he smiled at her but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, their hidden depths a little closer to the surface than Emma would have liked.
‘Writing anything interesting?’ he asked her, nodding towards the discarded laptop.
Emma tried to return his smile but the corners of her mouth were being pulled down by invisible weights. She could feel herself not just sinking back into the bed but shrinking in size too, like a small, defenceless child gripping her future like a comfort blanket that was about to be torn from her grasp. ‘Just idiotic ramblings,’ she answered with a dismissive shrug.
In the days when she had counted on endless tomorrows, Emma had nurtured great ambitions and writing a book had been amongst them. Her first battle with cancer had derailed her dreams for the future and she had spent the last three years prevaricating rather than picking up where she had left off. The blind spot that her cancer had left in her peripheral vision unnerved her and she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that there was something still there inside her head, lurking out of sight. She had been hoping for the best but all the time preparing for the worst, questioning every twinge, every headache, panicking each time she had a lapse of memory. She had told herself it was paranoia but the phrase
I told you so
was echoing across her thoughts now and with it, a sense of regret. There had been so much she could have achieved in the intervening years but she had waited too long. Panic bubbled inside her as she felt time slipping through her fingers.
As Mr Spelling put down her medical charts and walked to the side of the bed, there was an ominous silence, filled only by the continued pounding of Emma’s heart. His entourage followed in his wake and when they had fully encircled Emma, her nurse, Peter, pulled the curtain around the bed to provide a degree of privacy. She felt trapped and glanced anxiously from one face to the next, searching out a pair of eyes that might hold a hint of hope. There was none.
‘Right, then,’ Mr Spelling said, taking Emma’s free hand as Meg squeezed the other even tighter. Imperceptibly, the gathering of registrars and nurses leaned in a little closer, eagerly awaiting judgement to be passed.
‘Tell me,’ Emma commanded.
‘We’ve ruled out necrosis,’ Mr Spelling told her, knowing that Emma would immediately understand what this meant. The mass that had shown up on recent scans was not scarring around the site of the previous tumour and that left only one other explanation. Any further attempt to soften the news was futile and Mr Spelling left no pause before delivering the final blow. ‘There’s a tumour in your temporal lobe, Emma. A grade-three Glioblastoma Multiforme.’ He let the words sink in. The brain tumour wasn’t only back, it was more aggressive than it had been before. ‘We need to plan some radical treatment, a programme of radiotherapy and chemo.’
‘No operation this time?’ Emma asked, doing well to hide the tremor from her voice. ‘Even if the NHS can’t afford to sharpen its knives any more, I would have thought the surgeons here could do a decent enough job with a butter knife from the hospital canteen. Or is that what they used last time?’ Emma’s false bravado was betrayed only by the gentle trembling of her knees beneath the blue cotton blankets.
‘If my colleagues’ knives were as sharp as your wit, I’m sure we wouldn’t be facing this problem right now,’ Mr Spelling argued gently. ‘I’m afraid we can’t operate on the tumour without seriously compromising your brain function. We could remove some of the growth but each time we operate there are more risks and the results are less effective. We’ll reassess as we go along but I think for now at least, radiotherapy and chemo offer the best option.’
‘And will it get me back into remission?’ Her mum’s grip on her hand was practically cutting off Emma’s circulation now.
Mr Spelling broke eye contact briefly, looking down at his feet to take a breath before facing her again. The look he gave her wasn’t in the least bit enigmatic. He couldn’t hide his feelings, not when his eyes were brimming with sympathy. Emma sensed that he was about to sugar coat his answer so she jumped in before he had a chance to reply. ‘What’s the five-year survival rate?’