Girl on the Run (8 page)

By the time I meet Heidi, I’m so frazzled that the ends of my hair are almost singed. I’ve spent the day racing between meetings, unable to pause long enough to breathe properly, never mind answer all calls (including another from the insurance company – arrgh!).

I must confess, I use the word ‘race’ loosely. The movement is more like a frantic limp – an expeditious hobble, if you will. I suspect after my foray into running, it may be three weeks before I’m capable of putting on socks without a winch.

When I arrive at the café, Heidi is in the corner nursing a herbal tea. She didn’t mention being off sick in her email, as Priya told me, but it strikes me the second I see her that she does look peaky. That’s at least better than the alternative – her buggering off to work for someone else.

‘Hey, Heidi,’ I say, switching my phone on silent. ‘Are you feeling okay?’

Heidi looks up and nods, then pauses as if to tell me something . . . but says nothing.

‘So,’ I say awkwardly, ‘did you get caught in the rain? Priya looked half-drowned when she came in. This sort of weather should be against the law in July.’

‘Um, no,’ she manages.

I wait, giving her the opportunity to say what she’s dragged me here to say. It’d be suspenseful if there weren’t a million other things going through my mind. The looming deadline for an NHS tender; the new Spring website; the four more outstanding invoices I’ve remembered since my chat with Egor.

‘What was it you wanted to discuss, Heidi?’

I notice the redness around her eyes and it hits me. She
is
about to quit. Bloody hell, I’m about to lose my first employee!

In the split second before she speaks, I feel a strange combination of defensiveness – why wouldn’t she want to work for me any more? – and defiance – see if I care!

‘I’m ill,’ she says simply.

‘Oh. Well, yes – Priya said you’d phoned in sick. What is it?’ I suddenly wonder whether there’s some obscure European legislation that prevents me, as her employer, from prying into such matters. ‘If you don’t mind telling me.’

‘Do you know what, Abby? I hate getting even a cold,’ she says with a strange, gravelly laugh. ‘I only have to sneeze and it irritates me. I’ve got better things to do than be sick, Abs – do you know what I mean?’

‘Absolutely.’ I’m with Heidi 100 per cent on this, and it’s no surprise that someone as ambitious as she is should feel like that. The way she says it is weird though.

‘Well,’ she gulps, ‘I’ve got more than a cold.’

A chill runs through my blood. I have no idea what she’s going to say next but there’s something about the look in her eyes that tells me it isn’t good.

‘It was finally confirmed yesterday,’ she continues numbly. ‘Though we – at least, my doctor and I – had suspected for a while now what the problem was.’

‘What is it?’ I whisper.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I’m rambling, aren’t I?’

‘Heidi,’ I urge her – and not because I’m in a rush any more.

She looks into my eyes and swallows hard, as if a pebble is stuck in her throat. ‘I’ve got multiple sclerosis.’

We live in an age when it’s hard to shock. When revelations on magazine stands are no longer headline news; when words that would have made our grandmothers pass out barely make us blink.

As I sit in front of Heidi, taking in what she’s told me, the world around me zooms out of focus. All I can fix on is her pretty face. And I am shocked.

‘Multiple sclerosis?’ I repeat lamely.

She sips her tea. ‘You weren’t expecting that, were you?’

I shake my head mutely.

‘Don’t worry. Neither was anyone else. When you’re twenty-three and you tell people you’re ill, why would they think it was anything more than the flu?’ She almost grins. ‘A bit of flu would’ve done me nicely, let me tell you.’

A waitress appears and removes Heidi’s empty cup. ‘Sorry, I didn’t get you a coffee, did I?’ says Heidi. ‘Fancy a cappuccino?’

She goes to stand but I put my hand on her elbow and gently push her back into her seat. ‘Heidi. Talk to me.’

She nods and looks at her fingers, playing with an empty pack of sweetener. ‘Do you know what MS is, Abby?’

I clear my throat. ‘I . . . not exactly. I mean, I knew someone – a friend of my parents’ – who had it years ago. He was on crutches and . . . well, I haven’t seen him for a while.’

That’s true – it’s been fifteen years since I saw Damian but he wasn’t in good shape then and I’ve heard that he’s worsened significantly since. The crutches he only used irregularly before are now permanent, and his speech difficult to understand. When he was Heidi’s age, he was an avid football player and a teacher. I don’t say any of this, obviously, but from the look on her face she has guessed some of it.

‘MS is an auto-immune disease that affects the nervous system.’ She tells me this with calm clarity – the same way I’ve seen her behave in important presentations when I’ve brought her along as back-up. ‘Those most likely to develop it are women in their twenties and thirties. Just like me.’

‘How serious is it?’

‘It isn’t terminal. Not most of the time anyway,’ she replies. ‘And in the years immediately following diagnosis, people can usually lead a relatively normal life. Go on working, for example. At least at first.’

‘Good,’ I say firmly, clinging to this. ‘Because I can’t afford to lose someone as talented as you.’

She bites her lip. ‘But there are also a range of symptoms that you can go on to develop that . . . well, they’re not nice. To put it mildly. Spasticity, pain, vision problems, cognitive problems, fatigue – they’re just a few.’

‘People don’t always develop those, do they?’ I ask.

‘Everyone’s MS is different,’ she tells me. ‘It’s impossible to know which of the symptoms you’re going to get – and, yes, it’d be unusual to get all of them. The only thing you do know is that it tends to get worse over time.’

‘Are there treatments?’

‘There are drugs to slow its progress and manage symptoms. But the real nightmare is . . .’ she looks up. ‘There’s no cure.’

The room swims as I take in her words. God knows what hearing this must have been like for her.

‘Of course, some people only ever develop the mild version. So, I’m trying to look on the bright side. I’m trying really bloody hard. But it’s virtually impossible for the doctors to give a prognosis. I have no idea whether I’m going to end up in a wheelchair with nasty complications or with some insignificant disability in my left foot.’

I glance at her hands as she slowly folds and unfolds her sweetener packet.

‘You seem incredibly calm, Heidi.’

She takes a deep breath. ‘Although the diagnosis has just been confirmed, this has been going on for ages. I’ve had a while to get used to the idea.’

‘When did it all start?’

‘A couple of years ago my foot went numb,’ she explains. ‘It went away after a while, but then came back again, with tingling down my leg. Then some weird stuff happened with my eyesight. I’ve had tests since the start of last year. But MS isn’t an easy thing to pin down.’

‘It must have been terrible.’

‘The weird thing is, part of me is relieved to know that that’s definitely what I’ve got. That sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? I’ve got an incurable disease and I feel relieved. But for the first time in God knows how long, I know what’s wrong with me and I know what I’ve got to do about it.’

I’m struck by Heidi’s lack of drama.

Then I notice her lip trembling and the glaze of tears over her eyes. ‘What am I going to do, Abby?’ she says, quietly crumpling. ‘I’m not ready for this. I’m not old enough. What on earth am I going to do?’

‘Oh, Heidi. I’m so sorry,’ I whisper as my own eyes grow hot. ‘You’ve got people around you who’ll help.’

I feel so weak saying this. What the hell do I know? Abby Rogers who, despite her permanently elevated stress levels, hasn’t got any real problems.

Heidi looks up, her face so pale it’s almost ghostly. ‘I’m scared, Abby.’

I squeeze her hand and try to think of a response. But nothing’s good enough. Not a single thing.

My car trouble pales in comparison with Heidi’s news. Everything pales in comparison with Heidi’s news.

So by the time I finally get round to speaking to the insurance company on Saturday morning in a bid to put Tom, Joan and little Lydia – or whoever – out of their misery, I can’t help feeling distinctly blasé about it.

Then they deliver the verdict – or rather, Jimmy, a chirpy call centre Geordie – does. He’s friendly and polite, though he’d need the oratorical skills of Cicero to soften this blow. If Tom’s firm successfully claims against mine, next year’s premium will shoot up so high that my only option will be commuting via pushbike. Which would be environmentally friendly, but about as practical as sling-back ski boots.

I trudge across a muddy field to Jess and the kids in time to witness a shire horse emptying his bowels at a positively operatic volume.

We’re at Windy Animal Farm, a place that’s apparently enormously entertaining when you’re four. As well as the shire horse’s offering, the air is filled with a pronounced aroma of goat. It’s been drizzling for the past hour and a half.

‘What exactly is MS?’ asks Jess as she battles to negotiate Lola’s pushchair through the mud. ‘I know hardly anything about it.’

Since Heidi broke her news, I’ve spent three days obsessing. Women of twenty-three aren’t supposed to get incurable illnesses. Except they do.

‘Damage to the protective sheath surrounding your nerve fibres,’ I tell Jess. I’ve read so much about this in thirty-six hours I could start editing
Neurology Weekly
. ‘That interferes with messages between the brain and other parts of the body. For most people, it’s characterised by relapses: the symptoms appear then they go into remission and you are back to normal. And then the symptoms reappear. It gets worse as you get older, but how much worse is down to the luck of the draw. It’s completely unpredictable.’

The cow next to us lets out a rambunctious moo and prompts Lola’s bottom lip to wobble. ‘Oh dear,’ soothes Jess, producing a dummy and popping it in the baby’s mouth. ‘So there’s no way of knowing whether Heidi will have the serious or mild form?’

‘Not yet. Though there’s one good sign: people with fewer lesions on the brain tend to fare better. Heidi only has one – for now. But nothing’s certain. Ever.’

We head to the café to give Lola her lunch, since if she doesn’t eat at exactly twelve noon she throws a tantrum that would make Mariah Carey look like Mother Teresa. Jamie has a sandwich and I can’t resist buying us all one of the gorgeous-looking chocolate cakes with Smarties on top.

‘They’re meant for the kids,’ Jess grins as we find a table.

‘So I’m reliving my childhood. How’s Adam?’ I’ve found over the years that asking Jess about her husband helps to give the impression that I’m fond of him.

‘Oh, he’s fine,’ she replies, looking a bit forlorn as she lifts Lola into her highchair. ‘Same as usual.’

I frown, sensing something amiss. ‘What does that mean?’

‘Nothing,’ she replies, too innocently. ‘Nothing at all. I mean . . . he’s fine. Simple as that.’

‘Mummy,’ interrupts Jamie after taking a single bite of his sandwich. ‘I don’t want this. It tastes like ham.’

‘It is ham,’ she informs him.

‘But I don’t like ham,’ he says.

‘Since when? You’ve always loved it.’

‘I like chicken now,’ he argues.

‘Well, they had chicken, but you chose ham. You chose ham because you like ham.’

‘Not any more.’

‘You’re going to have to eat it, I’m afraid, Jamie. Some children are starving in this world, you know.’

He looks at her sorrowfully. ‘They could have my sandwich if they liked.’

Jamie spends ten minutes dissecting his food into infinitesimal pieces before Jess finally relents and allows him to play in the ball pool while she feeds ravioli to Lola.

‘What did you mean about Adam before?’ I ask, now Jamie is out of earshot. ‘You went . . . funny.’

‘Did I?’ Jess is wiping Lola’s mouth. ‘I didn’t mean to. It’s nothing, honestly.’

I glare at her. She looks at my face and caves in.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Well . . . can I ask you a question?’

‘Fire away,’ I reply, picking off a corner of cake and popping it in my mouth.

‘Do you think Adam and I are well matched?’

I cough back crumbs and, between splutters, finally bring myself under control. ‘Of course.’

‘That’s not a very convincing response,’ she points out huffily.

‘Honestly, I do,’ I protest. Jess has always been Adam’s biggest advocate – determined that he’s the most intelligent, funny and kind man she knows. Personally, I can’t see it but there are some things you can’t say even to your best friend.

Despite her insistence about his qualities, however, there’s still a part of Jess that holds back, though I have no doubt that this is one of the many consequences of her emotionally confused upbringing.

She and her younger sister Sarah were raised by an austere mother, who never showed the girls affection, while their more demonstrative father was forever disappearing to enjoy his sole recreational pursuit: womanising.

Despite his philandering, part of Jess has always adored her father. And a part of her is
exactly
like him.

Before Adam, Jess struggled terribly with commitment; she loved the idea, but couldn’t manage the practice, which meant virtually every relationship she had ended in infidelity – hers.

When her mum died of breast cancer, she made an overnight decision – one she’s determined to stick to. Much as she loved her dad, she didn’t want to turn into him: she wanted stability, monogamy and a family. There’s no doubt that Adam has delivered all that.

Yet I still have a nagging suspicion that she chose him because he represented all those things and not necessarily because she was head-over-heels in love. This suspicion was reinforced a few years ago when, one drunken night out, she confessed she’d never told him that she loved him.

She narrows her eyes as if sensing my thoughts. ‘You don’t, do you?’