On a Beautiful Day Read online

  ‘What? To tell me off for being defeatist?’

  ‘No, because you’re used to pretending everything’s fine,’ he replied. ‘Is that why you haven’t told your husband?’

  Talk about putting her on the spot. ‘He’s busy today, he couldn’t have come anyway,’ she protested, but felt herself squirming beneath his gaze. ‘Oh, look, I don’t know,’ she added, feeling flustered. ‘Hopefully it’ll be fine – he’ll never have to know.’

  Lewis eyed her over the rim of his mug. ‘Wouldn’t you want to know, if it was the other way round?’ he asked. ‘If he was worried he had – I dunno – prostate cancer or something? You’d want to be there at the hospital with him, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but—’ She broke off, colour flooding her face. Of course she’d have been there for Neil, of course she’d want to know every single development, if he was ill or worried or fearful. She’d have organized every appointment, every stage, with military precision, taken charge. Why had she not given Neil the chance to do the same for her?

  She sipped her tea – pretty disgusting – and changed tack. ‘Look, I know this sounds mad, and I’m really not a superstitious sort of person, but lately I’ve just felt as if Death is hard on my heels, out to get me,’ she confessed in a low voice. ‘There’s been one thing after another: lucky escapes, missed chances, other people being struck down, and not me.’ She shivered. ‘I just can’t help feeling . . . it’s my turn next. And I want to spare my family the details for as long as possible. Nothing wrong with that, is there?’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re right,’ he said, and she was surprised at how gratified she felt at his agreement – for two whole seconds at least. Then he added, ‘About sounding mad, that is. Aye, it does sound mad. It sounds absolutely bloody ridiculous. Death out to get you, indeed. Like we all take turns. The world doesn’t work that way, Eve.’

  She blushed an even hotter red, feeling stupid, and was about to stammer out something defensive when he put down his mug and stood up. ‘Come on. Much as I love overbrewed tea and UHT milk, I’m sure we can find something more uplifting to do instead – take your mind off what’s just happened. Fancy it?’

  ‘Well . . . Where? What do you mean?’

  He tapped his nose. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he assured her. ‘Trust me.’

  Trust him, he’d said, which apparently involved them both getting in her car – he’d taken the bus to the hospital – and then allowing him to dictate where they were going, road by road, junction by junction, without providing any further information. For someone like Eve who aspired to precision and control, it was practically a form of torture. ‘If you just tell me where we’re going, I could put the destination into my satnav,’ she’d tried saying, but he’d shaken his head, with a laugh.

  ‘You can’t bear it, can you? Not knowing. The suspense, eh? Where is he taking me? Why did I ever agree to this? Oh – left turn coming up, by the way.’

  ‘Here? Are you sure?’ They had left the city behind by now and the landscape was increasingly rural, the horizon widening out to encompass fields and farmland. The turning he was pointing to looked insignificant, as if they might be venturing down a dead-end, and her inner warning system started to flash with alarm. He didn’t strike her as the type of person who’d lure a possibly cancer-riddled woman down a cul-de-sac and finish her off, but you never could tell. If Eve was going to die, then she’d prefer to do it her way, with dignity, rather than ending up as a tabloid story with a lurid headline.

  ‘I’m sure,’ he replied, and she indicated left, turned into the narrow road and then, with her warning system still on high alert, abruptly pulled over in a lay-by. There was a farmer with a sheepdog within sight; she could lean on the horn if there was a problem and get attention, she thought, strategizing quickly.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked in surprise.

  ‘I’m . . .’ She sighed. He wasn’t going to kill her; she was overreacting, no doubt, but all the same. ‘I can’t cope with a mystery tour right now,’ she told him. ‘I’m really tired. I’m not in the mood. Thanks and all that, but I think this was a bad idea.’

  He softened immediately. ‘You’re right. I thought it might be relaxing if I took charge, but . . .’ Now it was his turn to colour. ‘But I misjudged it. Sorry. Och, I was only going to suggest a walk – the cats’ and dogs’ home is just another mile down here, and I often walk the dogs for them. There’s a great stretch of woodland, and a good wee pub – we could have lunch even or . . .’ He was shrugging, looking embarrassed. ‘It always makes me feel better, that’s all, being out in the woods. And look, the sun’s even trying to shine a bit. But if you’d rather not, then that’s cool, too . . .’

  His voice petered out while she did her best to process all of this. Walking a dog? She’d never really been a pet person. The girls had pleaded with her now and then for some fluffy companion or other, and Eve had refused each time, citing bad smells, fur, mess and the fact that she knew damn well it would be her who ended up looking after the creature, however passionately they might argue to the contrary. But he might be right about being out in the countryside lifting the spirits, she supposed, and it was sure to be an improvement on sitting alone in her living room, listening to her own panicked thoughts.

  Her alarm system reset itself again, drama over. ‘Okay. That sounds good. Thanks.’ And she started the car and set off down the road.

  Once at the centre, they were partnered with a black-and-white cross-breed – part whippet, part collie, part something else – which greeted Lewis with huge tail-wagging joy and much prancing about, as if his lean wiry body couldn’t quite contain so much excitement. ‘This is Huxley,’ Lewis told Eve, as he clipped on a lead and signed them out. ‘Came in here with a cigarette burn on his head and a broken leg; he’d been dumped in the street and was found dragging himself along, like the most pathetic specimen you’ve ever seen, apparently.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ Eve said, aghast, unable to equate this story with the bright-eyed hound before them that kept jumping up delightedly, trying to lick Lewis’s face.

  ‘I know, it breaks your heart, doesn’t it? How anyone could do that to an animal? Talk about an underdog. But two months’ rehab and loads of love in this place and he’s a changed wee laddie. Aren’t you, eh? All mended and handsome again?’ He crouched down to make a fuss of the excited creature, then called goodbye to the manager. ‘Shall we?’ he asked Eve.

  Beyond the walled car park there was a footpath that led into a stretch of verdant meadow, long grass speckled with scarlet poppies, buttercups and cornflowers. There was a mass of tall leafy trees at one end, with rolling farmland in the distance, and a lone bird of prey skimming above their heads, a silent silhouette against the clouds. Once the gate had clanged shut behind them, Lewis bent to let Huxley off his lead and the dog bounded ahead down the path, long legs covering the ground with ease. ‘That’s better,’ said Lewis, watching him go. Then he turned to Eve. ‘Okay?’

  She nodded. ‘Better. Thanks.’ Being here and feeling the sun unexpectedly warm on her arms as it broke through the clouds was definitely preferable to trudging back to the office. She could smell the earth beneath her feet, sweet and ripe, and felt anchored to it once again; the hospital and its echoing corridors shimmering far behind already like a mirage. ‘Tell me about you,’ she said, letting her fingertips rustle through the long grasses to her left. She gave a small laugh. ‘We’ve gone through such a weird few hours together and I really don’t know anything about you. How did you get into your line of work?’

  They walked on companionably together while Lewis told her more about himself: how his mum had died a few years ago up in Fife and he’d gone off the rails afterwards, drinking too much and ‘getting into a wee bit of bother with the police’. His voice dropped to a mumble. ‘Did a few things I regret.’ He’d drifted for a while, before coming to Manchester for a change of scene, picking up some bar work and labouring jobs, before real
izing that being outdoors always made him feel good, and deciding to take a personal-trainer course. ‘Running and exercising outside – it’s common sense, really. We’re animals, like Huxley, it’s good for us to get out of our air-conditioned buildings and cars and be in the real world, the living world. I know you think it’s all hippy crap, but . . .’ He wrinkled his nose and grinned. ‘It works for me.’

  ‘No, I get it,’ she replied. ‘There’s something about being outside like this that makes me feel better, too. More relaxed.’ She rolled her shoulders. ‘I guess I could do with relaxing more.’

  He elbowed her teasingly. ‘You don’t say!’

  ‘Hey!’ she laughed, trying to sound indignant.

  ‘You should come along to one of my fitness classes,’ he went on. ‘Be spontaneous and bunk off work one day, try the afternoon class in Platt Fields. There’s a really great mix of people who come.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, even though she knew already that she wouldn’t dream of ‘bunking off’, not ever. ‘Although . . .’ She gave another laugh, this one self-deprecating. ‘I must confess, I’m not really the most spontaneous person, to be honest.’

  He pantomimed shock. ‘No! Seriously? Aw, but spontaneity is when all the best stuff happens. You should try it.’

  The dog bounded back to them and Lewis bent to fondle his head while Eve found herself thinking of her own life, so rigidly controlled, so tightly bound by its structures and deadlines that there wasn’t much room left for spontaneity nowadays. ‘We are so completely different,’ she said with a little laugh.

  ‘That’s all right, though. That’s good! Who’d want a world where everyone was the same?’

  ‘I know, but . . .’ She was starting to think she had judged Lewis unfairly, that was what she wanted to say. That she had written him off prematurely as a bit of a loser, only for him to keep confounding her with his real, sincere self. ‘Listen, I know you overheard me that time you came back into the office,’ she went on awkwardly. ‘When I was saying you were disorganized or something . . .’

  He waved a hand. ‘Och, it doesn’t matter. It’s true anyway – although you didn’t need to run me over for it.’

  She snorted despite herself. ‘You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so. But that’s okay. We make mistakes – and we keep on going, right? We don’t have to let what happens to us define us for the rest of our lives.’

  She lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun as she turned to look at him. ‘Very philosophical,’ she commented wryly. ‘Life Lessons from Lewis Mulligan – there’s a radio phone-in show there somewhere, I swear.’

  ‘It’s true, though, isn’t it? I mean, look at Huxley, so trusting and full of love, after everything he’s been through. Aren’t you, boy, eh?’ They watched as the dog galloped away in pursuit of a magpie that he was never going to catch. ‘Ach, I’m not trying to get all serious on you, Eve, but . . . well, it’s life-affirming, isn’t it? He’s a good role model for us humans. That life can knock you down, but you’ve got to—’ He caught her eye and then broke off midsentence, looking embarrassed. ‘Am I laying it on a bit thick, do you think?’

  ‘A bit,’ she replied, elbowing him.’ But I appreciate what you’re trying to say. I hear you. And thanks.’

  Later that night, her breast throbbing like a pulse beneath her nightie where the pre-biopsy anaesthetic had worn off, Eve lay in bed staring up through the darkness and tried to get her head in order. Today had been a very unusual day. She had been through three gruelling rounds of tests at the hospital that had left her emotionally depleted. She had walked a dog for miles through fields and trees, and drunk ice-clinking lemonade in a beer garden with a man who said ‘Trust me’ and had been unremittingly kind to her. And for the rest of the day she’d put in a bravura acting performance as Eve Taylor, competent superwoman, normal mother and wife, which had apparently fooled everyone.

  Tomorrow she would have to get up and go to the office as usual, chat to her colleagues and return to her desk as if her mind wasn’t one gigantic ticking clock, counting down the hours and minutes until the results of her biopsy came back. The day after that, she and Neil were supposed to be going out with Jo and her new boyfriend Rick; they would have to be witty and entertaining, make clever comments about politics, books and TV, recount old stories that portrayed Jo in a golden light, and she would have to do that subtle sisterhood thing of catching Rick’s eye in a way that said: Hurt my friend and I’ll kill you. And all the while not let on, not breathe a word of what was really happening in her life, in her body. How on earth would she be able to pull it off?

  Try and put the whole thing out of your mind, the doctor had advised, but Eve felt like laughing with sheer incredulity that anyone could think this was remotely possible.

  It almost felt as if she was having an affair – all this secrecy, the double life that she was leading. Not that she thought of Lewis in that way or he, her; he had a girlfriend, Katie, who was into kick-boxing and grungy music and they were very happy together apparently. Still, if Eve had been having an affair, she could totally have got away with it right now, she reckoned. Nobody had noticed that anything was wrong with her. Neil, having been preoccupied by the conference all evening, was now making that annoying snuffling sound on the other side of the bed that meant he was already asleep, his face naked and vulnerable without his glasses. Maybe Eve’s acting had been more convincing than she’d imagined, after all. Or maybe he just wasn’t that interested.

  Moving stealthily so as not to disturb him, Eve moved her hand under her nightie and gently touched the dressing still taped to her skin. She had peered at it earlier in the bathroom mirror, furtively and hurriedly, because there was no lock on the door, and had seen for herself the bruised tenderness there. Her hand closed protectively around her breast and she held onto herself like that for some time, finding comfort from her own touch. She thought of the girls fast asleep in their own beds, dark hair fanning across the pillows: Grace on her back with her arms across her chest, Sophie curled up like a little hedgehog. The images were enough to make her breath catch in her throat again, because she wanted more than anything to stay in their lives long enough to see them grow up, fall in love, navigate their way into careers they each loved, build satisfying and wonderful lives for themselves . . . How could anyone deem it fair to deny Eve the pleasures of admiring their wedding photos on her mantelpiece, or holding warm tiny grandchildren with reverential care, or hearing the latest details of her daughters’ success and fulfilment in their professions? What good would she be dead and cold, her ashes scattered to the winds?

  A tear spilled from her eye and rolled down into her ear. Nine out of ten, she reminded herself, trying to hold back from plunging fully into despair. Nine out of ten patients had luck on their side. Who was to say she wouldn’t be one of them?

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘Oh my GOD, Jo – he’s lovely,’ Laura pronounced, the minute they were through the door of the Ladies.

  ‘He’s so nice and funny and friendly,’ agreed Eve.

  ‘He’s even listening to Dan’s boring plumbing stories and actually looking interested.’ India put a hand up for Jo to high-five. ‘Full marks to you, lady. He’s a keeper.’

  Jo flushed at this collective display of enthusiasm. The four of them were in the loos at Cane and Grain, where they’d come for a Thursday-night get-together, along with their other halves – or not, in Laura’s case. ‘Just a drink, no big deal,’ Jo had said on the phone, but Laura knew that she had been nervous of them all meeting Rick, and rightly so. Having seen Jo suffer through her divorce, she, Eve and India were extra-protective of her and wanted this new man to be the real deal. And he did seem pretty great, Laura thought, having personally given him her full forensic onceover. He was friendly. Confident. Complimentary about Jo. Generous on the drink-buying front – lots of ticks, in all.

  Although . . . not that she
would ever dream of saying this, obviously, but he wasn’t exactly what Laura had been expecting, especially after all Jo’s gushing and cooing. He was kind of . . . well, chubbier than she’d imagined, for one thing: round in the face, with the beginnings of a belly on him and just a hint of double chin in the offing. And, goodness, those big juicy lips of his, too – they seemed very fleshy, didn’t they, almost womanly in fact. Laura, for one, would not like to kiss those lips.

  Not that that had ever been on the agenda anyway, obviously – and not that she was exactly in a great position to be critical about other people’s new boyfriends, either, right now when, chances were, she was destined for a long old lonely lifetime on the shelf from here on in. Jealous, are we? carped a mean little voice in her head.

  No! she thought defensively, rummaging in her bag for mascara. It was just something of a surprise, that was all. Greg, Jo’s ex-husband, had been tall, athletic and handsome; Laura had assumed Rick would be a similar type. Not a fat fish-face. Oh God, that was mean of her, wasn’t it? Very unsisterly. Maybe she was a bit jealous after all. Jealous that Jo was so damn radiant with joy. ‘Yeah, he’s brilliant,’ she said quickly, trying to atone for her inner witch.

  ‘I’m so glad you like him,’ Jo was saying, high colour in her cheeks. She fanned herself jokingly. ‘The triple seal of approval – phew!’

  ‘And it’s going well, the two of you?’ asked India, touching up her red lipstick in the mirror. ‘You’re still madly happy and in love?’

  ‘Well . . .’ And then Jo’s face did a strange twisty thing, the exact same one it had done on the day when Laura had been four and Jo eight, when Jo had sat her down and said they had to be very, very brave because Dad had gone, and now it was just them and Mum left, okay? ‘Um. Ye-e-es.’

  ‘Do I sense a “but” lingering in the air like a wet fart?’ asked India.

  ‘What’s up?’ Laura asked, pausing in her mascara application to stare at her sister and taking in for the first time the fact that Jo was wearing this silky sort of blouse with a pussy bow at the neck, teamed with a linen skirt and high-heeled sandals, plus quite a lot of make-up. ‘It’s not this bloody daughter again, is it?’ she guessed, eyes hardening. ‘The evil stepdaughter,’ she informed the other two. ‘A little madam who’s been running rings around Jo.’