Miss You (52 page)

‘I know.’

She whips round to face me.

‘You
knew
I had breast cancer?’

You’re writing a memoir and you’re only thirty-four!

‘Last night . . .’ I falter. ‘I could feel the scarring . . . and with your family history . . .’

The heavenly room has become a GP surgery. I try to take her hand, but she snatches it away, then, her eyes fixed on mine, lets the sheet drop.

In the thin stripes of sunlight falling across her chest, the incision lines are a little pinker and shinier than her natural skin tone. If there is a right thing to say, I don’t know what
it is. I long to reassure her that it doesn’t make any difference, but I suspect that might make it sound like it does, so I just refuse to look away.

‘They do look real, don’t they?’ she finally asks. ‘Under a T-shirt?’

‘Yes.’

‘They’re much smaller than my original ones. I was always a bit top heavy, to be honest. A swimmer’s build, you know?’

I nod.

‘So, is it OK if I love you?’ I ask.

She thinks for a moment.

‘I suppose it must be,’ she smiles, and sinks back into the pillows, her eyes now sparkling with invitation.

I lie on the bed beside her, propping myself up on an elbow.

‘I love you, Tess.’ I stroke her face. ‘I’ve never said that to anyone and known what it means.’

‘I love you, too, Gus. And I have said it to two people, and I did mean it, but that was before yesterday . . . before I found you.’

I kiss her quickly.

‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’ she says. ‘We have dictionaries full of amazing words, and yet the only phrase human beings have come up with to express their singular and
infinite passion is three tiny, inadequate syllables?’

‘Singular and infinite passion’ is nine syllables, I think.

She reaches up to me with open arms, and as we kiss lingeringly it feels as if our souls are meeting and making solemn promises. I clasp her very tightly, trying to gather the very essence of
her into me, and we begin to make love again, noiselessly – aware of other guests passing our door on their way down to breakfast – speaking without words, staring into each
other’s eyes, touching with silent, excruciating tenderness. I love feeling every millimetre of her long, lean body pressed against mine, I love that when she’s close to orgasm she
suddenly laughs with the joy of it. I love that we reach beyond the sensual oblivion of pleasure, to a paradise place of pure, ecstatic happiness.

We both suddenly freeze as we register the sharp, regular tap of heels approaching.

There is a knock at the door.

Fused together, we hold our breath.

‘Signorina Costello?’ Lucrezia’s stern voice.

‘Yes?’ Tess answers guiltily.

‘Do you know where is Mister Goos? His car she block the miniboos.’

Neither of us replies because we’re stuffing the sheet into our mouths to stifle the laughter.

TESS

If there’s one place in the world you should go to on the day you fall in love, it’s Pisa.

We approach it through a stretch of souvenir market that looks like a hundred other tourist spots. There’s this big fortified wall, so we can’t see anything until we walk through the
arch, but then it’s like a vision of brilliant white marble, on flat green lawns, against a cerulean sky. I thought it was just the Leaning Tower, because that’s all you see in the
photos, but there’s a cathedral and baptistry and cloisters, a whole amazing square of beauty. The colours are so luminous they look computer generated, and then you think about the people
who built it, all those hundreds of years ago, before there was electricity or cranes or anything like that. That must be why it’s called the Campo dei Miracoli. The Field of Miracles.

The Leaning Tower looks as if it’s peeping round the side of the cathedral. The notice which gives you the history says that when it was first built it was considered such a failure of
architecture that nobody wanted to claim it as theirs. So we don’t even know the name of the person who created something that millions of visitors come to see each year.

There’s a line of tourists taking photographs of their friends striking poses to make it look as if they’re holding the tower up.

‘Let’s do one!’

I stand with my hand in the air and Gus lines up the shot. I’m about to send it to Doll, when he says, ‘Why don’t we take one of all these people from the other side, without
the tower in it, and see if she guesses where we are?’

Which is a great idea, and she doesn’t reply, so that’s probably got her wondering.

We sit on the grass, like hundreds of others, although the signs say not to.

A white butterfly flits randomly from one small blade to another. I try to take a photo of it, white against the green grass, white against the blue sky, but it never settles for long
enough.

A couple of backpackers approach us, holding out their camera to request a snap in front of the cathedral. The marble is as white and lacy as a wedding dress, and the tiers are like an
intricately iced cake. At the apex of the roof, there is a golden statue of the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus in her arms.

The couple smile their thanks as I hand them back the camera.

‘Do you think people can get married here?’ I pull Gus to his feet to take a selfie of us with the Duomo.

I honestly don’t mean anything by it.

‘Shall we?’ he says.

We look at the selfie. The cathedral is perfectly framed, and I’ve managed to get all of the golden statue, but only the tops of our heads.

So we do another one and I’m about to send it to Doll when Gus asks, ‘Tess, did you hear what I just said?’

I pretend to be concentrating on the message when he gently prises the phone from my hand.

‘Will you marry me?’ he says.

‘I can’t!’

‘Do you want me to go down on one knee?’

‘No, please don’t! I like you being tall!’

And I can’t bear the idea of this moment appearing in the background of other people’s photos.

‘We’ve only known each other two days . . .’

‘No, Tess,’ he says, very seriously. ‘We met when we were eighteen, but there was this tiny shift in fate and we kept missing each other. I know that sounds cheesy, but I
can’t think of another way of putting it. All I know is these last twenty-four hours have felt like a whole lifetime of how life should be. I’ve never been sure of anything, Tess, but I
am certain about this.’

I try to focus on the purity of the white against the clarity of the blue in order to hold back the tears that are blurring my vision. But, when I speak, my voice is steady, because I’m
not going to lie, and I’m not going to feel sorry for myself either, because this is actually the best day of my life.

‘The thing is,’ I begin. ‘The thing is, they got rid of my breast cancer, but I’ve had a couple of dizzy spells recently, so they want to scan my brain to see if
there’s a secondary tumour, and that’s why I’m here in Italy now, because when I get back, that’s what’s happening, and believe me, you do not want to be around for
chemotherapy, and the likelihood is I’m going to go bonkers, then die!’

‘No,’ he says firmly. ‘There are lots of reasons you could have fainted. It was hot at that concert. You’re still very thin and weak after your op. Look, I’ve got a
friend who’s a brilliant oncologist and he will see you straight away. He’ll make sure you have the best treatment. And I will look after you. Whatever happens. I promise I will look
after you.’

I squeeze his hand very hard, trying to impress the reality on him.

‘Mum died. She got a scan every year, but she still died.’

‘But you may not,’ he says.

I’m not sure whether he’s talking about probability or whether he’s forbidding it, but I love it that he doesn’t tell me that I’ll be fine if I fight hard
enough.

‘This is our beginning, Tess,’ he says.

‘It’s not that I’ve given up,’ I tell him. ‘But the thing is, the cancer doesn’t actually take any notice of that . . .’

He smiles at me, his blue-and-gold eyes shining with compassion.

‘Marry me!’ he says. ‘Or if you don’t want marriage, just be with me. “Come live with me and be my love!” Let’s move to Italy! What’s to stop us?
I’ll put the house on the market! It’ll sell in a day. The girls can visit just as easily. And Hope, too, if she’d like that. I’ll cook good, healthy food. Maybe even start
a supper club!’

‘Or we could stay in the Portobello Road?’ I say.

‘Or we could stay in the Portobello Road,’ he agrees.

‘I don’t want it to feel like we’re running away . . .’

‘We won’t run away.’

‘But we may not have much time,’ I say.

‘Nobody knows how much time they have, do they?’ he says.

I look up at the golden statue of Our Lady, and I suddenly think of how Mum must have felt after her first cancer, with Hope just a baby. And even though the title I’ve
given my book is
Living with Hope
, I’ve never known before why Mum gave my sister that name. I always assumed it was because there was something different about Hope, and Mum was
worried about her, but I realize now that she couldn’t have seen that then, not when Hope was a newborn. It’s suddenly radiantly clear to me that ‘hope’ was all about not
allowing cancer to cast a shadow over living.

I’m standing in glorious sunshine on the Field of Miracles and I have this powerful feeling that my mum is close and she’s smiling because I’ve finally got it.

‘I’ve found myself a kind man, Mum, a man who understands who I am,’ I tell her silently, as a white butterfly flits around us, like confetti dancing on the air.

There are many charitable organizations offering information and support around the medical issues involved in the book. The following do invaluable work and were particularly
useful during my research:

Kate Eberlen grew up in a small town thirty miles from London and spent her childhood reading books and longing to escape. She studied Classics at Oxford University before pursuing various jobs in publishing and the arts. Recently, Kate trained to teach English as a foreign language with a view to spending more time in Italy. Kate is married with one son.

First published 2016 by Mantle

This electronic edition published 2016 by Mantle
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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www.panmacmillan.com

ISBN 978-1-5098-1996-6

Copyright © Kate Eberlen 2016

Design and illustration by Joanna Thomson,
Pan Macmillan Art Department

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