Page 57 of The Women at Ocean's End

Pancreatic cancer. There it was again and now, to give her thoughts a chance to catch up, she looked towards the windows, but of course, the drawn curtains had blocked them out, so instead she imagined huge grey clouds rolling back outside to reveal the bluest sky and sunniest day she’d seen in years.

Pancreatic cancer.

‘Constance?’ Heather was holding her hand now. ‘Constance, are you listening?’ She knew it was Heather, but she couldn’t bring herself to meet her eyes, not Heather’s, nor Ros’s.

‘I understand. Weeks, months…’ she repeated, because she had been listening. ‘Probably not months, though, less… yes?’

‘I’m so sorry.’ There was a mumbling from the wall of trainee female doctors and Constance was sad that they’d gotten the rotten job of being here for this.

‘It’s okay,’ Constance managed eventually, but she felt tears roll down her cheeks, although the wherewithal to wipe them clear had completely deserted her at this point. ‘I’ve had a good life. I’m lucky, I’ve got a little notice, to put things right…’

She tried to smile, but she knew it was a wobbly attempt. She waited while the consultant spelled it all out, had he said something about his name being Richard? She wasn’t sure. It hardly mattered. She wouldn’t be seeing him again. The cancer had been there for quite a while, apparently, silently eating her up from the inside out. That was how it worked – who knew? Itturned out, for a long time, she might have been walking about like a mutely ticking time bomb, just waiting to implode.

It would be fast. In the end, she could go about her business; if she moved quickly, there was time to get her affairs in order – if she could figure out where to start.

‘Oh, Constance.’ It was a gasp more than a sentence, and when Constance finally looked at Ros, she thought her heart would break because she could see it, right there in Ros’s eyes. There was such love for her and this news was breaking her heart as much as it was Constance’s.

‘Ah, now, come on, I’m not gone just yet.’ She opened her arms and Ros moved forward and they hugged each other as if Ros would never let her go. ‘Can I go home now?’ Constance looked towards the consultant. ‘Home to Ocean’s End?’

‘Of course. I’ve written prescriptions for painkillers and the nurses here will organise for palliative care and…’ His words began to race away from her then; Constance began to shake her head slowly. They would deal with it as they needed to, but today they had heard enough. She knew Heather, silently standing there, was trying to be strong for all of them; Ros was only just holding it together and, as to herself, she really wasn’t sure. Everything felt unreal, as if it was happening to someone else.

‘Yes. Let’s go home,’ Heather murmured. She smiled at her with so much love and kindness that in spite of the devastating turn Constance’s life had so sharply taken within the space of a few fragile minutes, she knew she was lucky. She really was very lucky indeed.

38

Heather

Heather’s phone began to fire off notifications at around three o’clock in the morning. At first, she had no idea what the constant beeping was as, sleepy-eyed, she reached for the bedside light and switched it on. Disorientated at first, she thought she was back in London; despite the net curtain billowing in the open window, she assumed it was a fire alarm going off somewhere in the old flat. She threw back the quilt, her feet touching the floor finally waking her up properly. That was no smoke alarm, Heather wasn’t even sure if there were smoke alarms in Ocean’s End. She looked across at the old sideboard that sat snugly in the corner of her room. It was a squat affair, with an aged mirror that had blackened round the rim. Her phone, sitting at its edge, vibrated and rang out once more.

Bleary-eyed, she picked it up, expecting it to be some random advertiser, taking the worst moment to sell their wares. She was wrong. It was a new group, set up and including her in it. The Daisy Pickers. What on earth? Who had added her to this? It took another minute to figure out that the members were all familiar, all ex-employees of the flower shops she’d owned in London with Philip.

Bloody Charlotte, she’d mentioned this that day in London. Heather immediately tapped the three dots at the top of the messages to extricate herself from the group, but thensomething made her hesitate. She knew all of these people, could she just…

But she hadn’t spoken to most of them since they’d sold the shops. Their lives had simply pedalled on as before: she had left the shops behind her, but as far as she knew, the people who had worked for her had been content to work for the new owners.

Her finger hovered over the icon for a moment. She knew what this was, opening it would only be confirmation of the fact. Already, there were fifty notifications, another now, from Dawn who had started out with them in the Camden Road shop. Heather smiled, she’d always liked Dawn, a middle-aged woman who could have been bitter about losing her daughter, but somehow remained a kind-hearted soul who always went the extra mile for every customer she dealt with.

Heather took a deep breath, pressed on the conversation that was ongoing, that she had not asked to join and that she knew already would shake her world in a way she’d never expected it to be shaken.

It was exactly as she expected. A line of photographs, downloading to her phone. A gorgeous newborn baby, pink-faced, wrinkled, eyes closed, mouth pursed – beautiful. It was the most beautiful baby, just as every baby Heather had ever seen was beautiful, and for a moment she caught her breath. Philip’s baby had arrived; her ex-husband was now a father. All their lives forever changed and she felt once more that familiar yank at her heart – it was the feeling of change, wringing its way through her body, not bad change, but change all the same.So many photographs, she thought, as her thumb moved them up the screen of her phone. A baby girl, proud father, exhausted and Charlotte, beaming at the camera, looking down on her daughter as if she’d just managed to do something no other woman had ever managed before.Stop it. Then there were the comments, theoohsandahhs, theisn’t she gorgeousandshe’sthe image of her mother. Who knew there were so many emojis forcongratulations, it’s a girl?

Heather thought for a moment she might be sick, her back resting against the pillows, crouched over her phone, her body filled up with an unfamiliar tension that threatened to throw her whole insides upside down. Was it jealousy? Could she really not be wholeheartedly happy for Philip’s good fortune and wish him well in the way his life was panning out? She started to type, her fingers racing across the phone keypad.Well done, so thrilled for you both, she is absolutely beautiful.For what felt like eternity, her finger hovered over the screen. Then she took a deep breath. Felt the air exhale from her lungs as if she was releasing every stress and tension she’d ever felt in London, in the business and in her marriage to Philip.

No.

She would not play along with Charlotte’s cruel games. She had moved on with her life, finally. It had taken too long, but now she was here, in Ocean’s End, surrounded by people she truly loved. Perhaps it was the news that Constance was dying, but everything in life seemed to have fallen into perspective suddenly. She tapped the three dots, made her selection. Exited the group and exhaled. My God, that felt good. She would let Philip know tomorrow that she wanted no further contact, he could tell Charlotte. They were welcome to each other. She fell asleep smiling, feeling somehow liberated anew. It was a beautiful baby, though, she thought, a really beautiful baby.

Although she certainly didn’t expect to, Heather slept soundly for what remained of the night. So soundly, in fact, that she woke the next morning to the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and frying bacon wafting up from the kitchen below. The sun was beaming in through the window so brightly that it lit the room up with a pristine yellow that reminded her of how things lookedhere when she was a child and it felt as if summer could last forever.

‘Oh, you’re still here? I assumed you’d gone out earlier. I’ll just add some extra to the pan, we can sit together then when Ros arrives.’ Constance nodded towards the kitchen window, where she’d probably already spotted Ros making her way across the fields in the distance.

‘I can’t remember the last time I slept so late,’ Heather told her as she leaned against the sink, looking around the kitchen with fresh eyes. God, she loved being here; it was shabby and worn out and everything was dated, but it felt as she was tethered to something that felt right for her. When Ros arrived she told them both about her divorce from Philip and how he’d moved on so quickly with Charlotte and, now, news of their baby arriving in the night.

‘And you’re okay?’ Ros said.

‘I’m okay,’ Heather said, passing her phone across to Constance to see the baby pictures.

‘Are you sure? I mean, it’s such a big part of your life, you’d be well entitled to feel a little out of sorts today,’ Constance said. She had turned positively gooey-eyed at the sight of the baby.

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