Page 32 of A Found Family at the Cornish Country Hospital

‘You three looked like you were plotting a revolution as I walked over.’

‘I was just after some advice on getting a glow up.’ Wendy pulled a face. ‘But I probably need Paul Daniels to pull off a trick like that, and he’s been dead for years.’

‘What a load of rubbish.’ Gwen, who’d been chatting to Esther, on a neighbouring table, swivelled around in her seat, and Esther followed suit. ‘What you need is a lesson in self-confidence. I went through that same thing when I hit fifty, and I wanted to cover up and hide.’

‘You?’ Esther nearly choked on her drink, and Aidan had to press his lips together to stop himself from laughing. It was almost impossible to believe that Gwen had ever lacked confidence about anything, but she shot Esther a look that said otherwise.

‘I thought my best days were behind me, but I had no idea how good things could get if I just worked at it.’

‘Is this where you tell me I need to get myself a gym membership, cut out all sugar, and give up alcohol?’ Wendy wrinkled her nose. ‘Because I don’t think I can do that and there’s no point anyway, it’s not like I can turn the clock back. How can I feel anything but past my best, when my ex hasgot a woman who’s five years older than our eldest daughter pregnant? A woman he met when, for once in his life, he covered for me at a college open evening when our youngest went to look round. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, Gary’s ex-wife is all over social media with her wedding pictures. She’s lost forty pounds since they split, and got lip fillers and veneers. I went out and got myself some hair extensions, because I thought that might be an easy fix for looking and feeling younger. But my daughter said they look cheap and that they make me look, in her words, even older than I am.’

‘Do you like them?’ Gwen narrowed her eyes.

‘I did, until she said that.’

‘What everyone else thinks doesn’t matter. The only person who can make you feel better about yourself is you.’ Gwen stood up and took hold of Wendy’s shoulders. ‘You need to stand in front of a mirror and tell yourself all the things you like about the way you look. I couldn’t even look at my reflection when I first started, and all I saw was stretch marks and dimply bits, and things that swung a hell of a lot lower than they should.’

‘I can’t think of anything I like about the way I look.’ Wendy frowned.

‘Neither could I, so I started with what I was grateful for. This body that I’d complained about, because bits of it were more floppy than perky, had carried my babies. It had also allowed me to work as a midwife for more than three decades at that point, and it had kept me healthy and well, despite the fact I often abused it. Once I started to be grateful for what it had done for me, I could see things I liked about it too. And once I got to that stage, there was no stopping me. One of the most liberating things I ever did was becoming a life model for an art group at the Three Ports College. I had to pose naked, and the first time I was terrified what the results might look like. But when the students were finished and the tutor asked for my opinion ontheir work, I could finally see my body through someone else’s eyes. I was strong and beautiful, in a perfectly imperfect way. Nothing stopped me after that, and I wouldn’t be doing all the things I’m doing now, if I hadn’t gone through that phase in my life.’

‘I’d rather sand my fingertips off with a cheese grater than pose naked in front of an art class at the Three Ports College, especially as my ex-husband’s girlfriend works there now.’ Wendy laughed for the first time. ‘But I get what you mean.’

‘I think what we need is a St Piran’s night out.’ Aidan looked at Wendy. ‘We could go somewhere really classy, that we all need to dress up for. Don’t get me wrong, I love a barbie as much as anyone, but we need a night out where jeans and a T-shirt just aren’t going to cut it.’

‘What about one of the fundraising balls at The Pavilion? The Friends of St Piran’s had one last year, but they have loads of them.’ Wendy’s face lit up at the thought, and she wasn’t the only one. It had been ages since Aidan and Jase had been on a night out like that. They’d been so caught up in their plans to start a family, and then in Isla’s diagnosis, but they all needed to have some fun. There was nothing Aidan liked better than seeing Jase all dressed up for a big night out. Every time he saw his husband in a tuxedo, he fell in love with him all over again. And if it helped Isla feel as if life was back to normal for a night, too, that would be even better.

‘We’d need twenty for a table at most of the events, I think.’ Esther furrowed her brow. The hospital had a large workforce, but there was a core group of staff who’d become closer, most of whom worked in A&E, or like Wendy, had some connection to it. ‘With partners, we could probably stretch to a second table. I’m sure all the usual crowd would be up for it.’

‘We’ll have to ask Amy, Zahir and Isla too; it’s such a shame they couldn’t make it tonight, but I suppose some of us hadto work.’ Danni set the bottle she’d been carrying down on the table, and put a hand on her bump. ‘I’m happy to be the designated driver and take as many as I can fit in my car, but when we work out the numbers, we could think about hiring a couple of minibuses.’

‘I’ll text Isla later and see what she thinks.’ Aidan had no idea if she’d feel up to having a night out, but she needed the distraction more than anyone, and he was already determined to do whatever he needed to make it a special night for her.

‘The way things are going, this might have to be mine and Charlie’s hen and stag do, even if we have pushed the wedding back for a while.’ Danni smiled. ‘Because the chances of us organising a night out when this little one comes along are pretty slim, especially seeing as all of our potential babysitters would be on the guest list. That’s if anyone even wants to volunteer for babysitting.’

‘You can put our name on the list for a start; we’re up for as many baby cuddles as we can get.’ Jase’s tone was light, but Aidan could see the yearning in his eyes. And suddenly picturing his husband with a baby in his arms held even more appeal than the idea of him in a tuxedo. He was made to be a father, and Aidan wouldn’t let him down again.

18

Isla had managed less than three hours’ sleep. She’d started doing research into whether the form of leukaemia she’d been diagnosed with, and whether the treatment she was due to start as a result, would affect her chances of a successful egg collection. But she’d ended up down an internet rabbit hole of conflicting advice and personal stories. The evidence suggested that the treatment wouldn’t affect her long-term fertility, but that patients shouldn’t get pregnant once they’d started taking the inhibitors, because it could harm the baby. Right now, there was no chance of her getting pregnant, unless it was an immaculate conception, because she hadn’t even been on a date in well over a year. But what she couldn’t work out was whether the treatment would affect the quality of her eggs and whether that meant she should go ahead with the egg collection before her treatment started, not just for Aidan and Jase, but to safeguard her own chances of having a baby one day.

The trouble was, she still didn’t know whether they wanted her to be their donor any more. Aidan had told her not to even think about the egg donation until the doctors had monitored her first round of treatment, and assessed whether or not herbody was responding to the inhibitors. But her research had made her question if that was the right move. If she ever wanted to become pregnant naturally, she’d have to stop the inhibitors, and the same would apply if she wanted to undergo egg collection in the future. If she was going to do it, she couldn’t see the point in delaying. Although maybe it was Aidan’s way of gently backing out of their plan. There’d been more questions than answers, ever since she’d got her diagnosis, and it was the reason why sleep had been so elusive even after she’d stopped trawling through the internet. But by the time she dragged herself out of bed after far too little sleep, she had at least made one decision.

As she pinged off an email to the fertility clinic, a reminder popped up on her phone, telling her she had an appointment at The Thornberry Centre in ninety minutes. She hadn’t needed the reminder, even though the calendar on her phone seemed to be filled with appointments for blood tests and assessments. She was meeting her consultant again in three days’ time, and she wanted to be in a position to tell Dr Yang about the decision she’d made to go ahead with egg collection. In the meantime, Vanessa had arranged an appointment for her with one of the counsellors at The Thornberry Centre.

When Vanessa had called to tell her about the appointment, Isla had tried to say she didn’t need it, and that she had enough support ‘in real life’ not to need a stranger. She’d also tried to brush off the need to talk to anyone at all about how her diagnosis had left her feeling. After all, it was the ‘best’ kind of leukaemia she could have, according to Dr Yang. But Vanessa had clearly seen and heard it all before, and she hadn’t been prepared to take no for an answer. She could tell that Isla wasn’t taking this as casually as she pretended to be, and eventually she’d been forced to admit that her diagnosis had triggered some painful memories of her father’s battle with his own health.What she hadn’t confessed to Vanessa was that she couldn’t talk to her family, because she was terrified about how it might affect them. And that the ‘family’ she claimed to have so much support from was really Aidan and Jase. She hadn’t told any of her old friends yet, either, because they all knew her family and she didn’t want to risk the news getting back to them, even if one of them thought they were acting the good Samaritan by getting involved.

She’d had dinner at her grandparents’ place the night before, and Joy had fussed around her the way only a grandmother could, asking her if she was dieting again. Even when Isla had tried to insist, as she always did, that it was just a side effect of being on her feet for so much of the day, her grandmother wouldn’t let it go. It was like she was some kind of bloodhound, sniffing out the fact that there was more going on this time, and Isla had almost buckled under the pressure. It was only when Grandpa Bill had noticed how uncomfortable she was getting, and had told his wife to stop nagging, that Joy had eased off. That hadn’t stopped him taking Isla to one side afterwards, and quietly offering to gift her a regular monthly payment to‘help out’, so she could reduce her hours and get a bit more rest if she needed it. Isla was surrounded by people who loved her, but they were incapable of letting her sort out any problems she might have by herself.

The medication Isla would be taking when she started the inhibitors would be much easier to hide than chemo would have been, but going away with her grandparents to visit her mother and Lexi, after the babies arrived, still presented a risk. If she was stopped at customs and asked about her medication, the cat would be out of the bag. She wasn’t ready to tell them yet, and she wasn’t sure when she would be. But one thing she knew for certain was that she didn’t want it to overshadow the joy they should all be feeling at the arrival of the twins. It was just onemore reason why she wanted to go ahead with the egg collection, because her grandmother would definitely want to know why her plans had changed if she didn’t. Isla knew how lucky she was to have a family who cared about her so much, but there was no denying it felt overwhelming at times. And maybe there was more she needed to say to the counsellor than she was prepared to admit.

Sitting in one of the waiting rooms in The Thornberry Centre would have been a wake-up call if Isla had needed one. No-one would have been able to tell that some of the patients in the waiting area had ever been ill, but there were others who wore the side effects of their treatment like neon signs, declaring to the world they were in the midst of a storm, with the kind of devastating impact that only cancer could wreak. There were people from a wide span of ages too, from the elderly couple gripping one another’s hands in the far corner of the room, to the teenage boy in a wheelchair, whose lower left leg was missing, and who was listening to something on his headphones, whilst studiously ignoring his ashen-faced mother. Almost all the other patients had someone with them, except a woman who was furiously knitting, as if her life depended on it, the needles moving so fast they were in danger of giving off sparks.

‘Rube!’ The boy, who looked to be in his late teens and until that point seemed to have an expression set in stone, beamed with delight as Reuben came into the waiting room with a huge box in his arms. ‘I spoke to the coach and now that we’ve got some sponsorship, he’s going to look into starting a wheelchair rugby team.’

‘That’s brilliant, Ben, and I think we both know who their number-one player is going to be.’ Reuben hadn’t noticed that Isla was on the other side of the waiting room, and she wasn’t planning to alert him to it. She couldn’t take her eyes off him all the same.

‘Ben Meredith.’ A woman in a smart grey suit came out of one of the consulting rooms and called the boy’s name, but as his mother went to stand up, he shot her a look.

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