A Song in the Night (18 page)

Suddenly she was back in Saint Edwin’s. Eight or nine years old, gripping her mother’s hand and gazing round as the congregation sang the hymn with great conviction. The rousing swell of the music, the comforting smell of beeswax candles and polished wood, the motley family of unmatched, colourful characters all offering their worship, the solid sense of being part of a much bigger picture. It came back to her now as though it had happened only the Sunday before. She turned over onto her side, overcome by a sudden, bittersweet longing. What she would give to go back to those innocent, untroubled days. As if in response to her heart cry, a soft voice seemed to whisper,

You are still my little one. And I’ve been waiting for you … .

____________

Michael Romily was restless. He’d made the stupid mistake of falling asleep on the sofa earlier in the evening, and now here he was in the small hours, wide awake and fidgety with not an ounce of slumber in him. He turned over to Sarah. Her breathing was almost silent, but the rhythmic rise and dip of her shoulder told Michael she was firmly in dreamland. Conceding defeat, he gently swivelled out of bed and padded downstairs. His eye caught the accusing face of the mahogany grandfather clock in the hall.
Two fifteen.
He wasn’t going to let it get to him. That was the worst thing one could do. Making himself some hot milk, he went into the lounge. He realised something was niggling his mind. At first it was a vague, grey disorderliness, the sort of cloudy-headed feeling one might expect after the kind of stressful day he’d been through. But as he pondered on what the problem might be, it narrowed into a specific; something he’d meant to check out, a question he’d meant to answer …

Of course.
It came to him in a moment. He went over to a cabinet by the Hi-Fi system and clicked open the door. His fingers leafed systematically through a wedge of glossy publications:
Country Living, House and Garden, The Lady.
He frowned to himself. Surely it was still here; Sarah couldn’t have thrown it away. His confidence in her was suddenly rewarded as his hand fell upon an item sandwiched between the rest. A magazine they’d only just started taking –
The Maestro.
He quickly flicked through the pages. Yes, here it was. He skimmed the words and smiled wryly. Well, this guy had certainly rated her.

‘A tiny figure with an almost luminescent fragility, whose slender arms and small white hands moved with such lyrical intuitiveness, she succeeded in producing a performance of quite ferocious tenderness …’

He skimmed again.
Blah blah blah –

‘For my money, only one question remains. What next from the angelic Beth Maconochie?’

Michael sat back in his chair. The spelling was certainly the same. He remembered the girl from the concert.
Could it possibly be?
London was a big place – there could be dozens of Beth Maconochies out there. Still, it wasn’t a common name. He breathed out slowly, thoughtfully. Well, he’d know soon enough. She was on his clinic list for tomorrow. A humorous image forced its way into his mind.
If she turns out to be six foot four with the body of a beached whale, I’ll know alright. Absolutely no connection whatsoever.

____________

Of course it
was
her. The moment she walked in and he shook one of the
‘small white hands’
, he knew it. She looked even more slight now than he remembered, and to his trained eye, the drawn anaemic face was a sure giveaway. The decline had been rapid.

“Mrs Beth Maconochie, I believe you’re a musician.”

Her eyes lit up. “Yes, yes I am! And my husband too.”

Michael shook hands with Ciaran and gestured them both to sit down. He felt almost pleased with himself. This was proving to be an excellent icebreaker.

“I saw you perform at the Laureate Hall a few weeks ago. Most, most impressive. I bought tickets as an anniversary treat for my wife, and I must say, we were not disappointed. Absolutely marvellous.”

Beth’s pale face suddenly glowed. In a few well-chosen words, Michael Romily had given her a point of reference. A reminder of who she was. Somewhere outside the crazy chain of events that was overtaking her, there was normal life and music and dreams. Whatever happened, she had to hold onto that.

Later that afternoon, Michael Romily managed to find a quiet space just long enough to have a cup of coffee. It had been a tiring day and it wasn’t over yet.

He thought about Danny Rossington, the nine-year-old boy he’d bumped into earlier on the ward. Michael had been treating Danny’s father for the last five months. The prognosis was not good. He doubted Ben Rossington would last much beyond February. One of the nurses had been chatting with Danny’s mother. “And what will you be wanting for Christmas?” she’d asked the young boy, just to bring him into the conversation. Danny had replied in a quiet, hopeful voice. “My dad. I want my dad back home – better.” That had shut the nurse up, Michael recalled; and it had left
him
standing there like some impotent Santa Clause, frustrated that he couldn’t grant the boy’s wish. Cancer had been his life’s work for the last twenty-two years. He both hated it and respected it. In his war against the disease, Ben Rossington was one battle he looked like losing. And Michael hated losing.

He allowed his mind to flag up his schedule for the next few days. Tomorrow Angus Baldwin was coming in for review. Mattie Lennon was due to be discharged; that was always a pleasant task. Various other names swirled round his head. Courageous people he’d come to think a great deal of. It had been a heavy few weeks; some cases were tough going. That was the thing with cancer, he reflected. No matter how many victories he managed to win, there was always another battle to be fought, another trusting hopeful looking to him to deliver them from the enemy’s clutches. Not until this formidable foe had been wiped off the face of the planet could people like him claim total triumph. Something told him his job was secure for a good while yet.

He found himself thinking about his new patient. Such a gifted young woman. But then in this game, what did that matter? Talent, money, education, pedigree – all the things that society coveted were paper swords in the face of this opponent. Cancer was no respecter of persons. In Beth Maconochie’s case, even the statistics went against her. Twenty-four years old with stomach cancer – that certainly wasn’t the norm. His own daughter Carmen was the same age. A Cambridge graduate with a brilliant scientific mind, she was also beautiful. Beautiful, tanned and healthy, nothing like the pallid girl he’d spoken with earlier.

He filed some notes into a cabinet.
Let’s hope there’s no extensive metastasis.
He shut the drawer with a clunk.
Local invasion at the very worst.

____________

It was the first time Rosie had seen Beth since the diagnosis. They sat in the hospital restaurant as they had just over a week ago, but this time Rosie felt strangely awkward. They’d already exchanged superficial pleasantries on the ward, but now there was a strained quiet between them. It was Beth who spoke first.

“It’s okay, Ros. I’m not going to dissolve into tears or anything freaky.”

Rosie shuffled uncomfortably. “Sorry. It’s just …” She paused, unsure what to say next. “How
are
you – in yourself, I mean?”

Beth gazed out of the window, a troubled half-smile on her face. “To be honest, Ros, I feel a bit of a schizo at the moment. I mean, in a weird way it’s almost a relief. I’ve felt off it for ages, but you just ignore it, don’t you? Pretend it’s not there, hope it’ll go away.” She toyed with the idea of admitting that she’d bought a pregnancy test, but decided against it. It hardly mattered now. “Three weeks ago I guess it all came to a head.”

“Three weeks ago? Why, what happened?” Rosie frowned.

“I had a real bad do at home. Felt like someone was strangulating my insides. Suppose that’s the first time I got really scared. Things went pretty pear-shaped after that. Four days later I ended up in here. Still, as I said, at least now I know what we’re dealing with. In some crazy way, it’s a relief to have it out in the open.” She gave a small, ironic laugh and stared down at her hands. They looked sinewy and fragile, and seemed ill-fitting on one so young. She exhaled slowly. “From time to time I’ll get these strange surges of mad elation, like my adrenaline’s psyching up for a fight. And then at other times, it all seems unreal, like I’m in some film or stupid hospital soap. Then I think I can make anything happen. Y’know, change the script, walk off set, and everything’ll be back to normal. But then it hits me. In no time at all I’m as low as I think it’s possible to get. It’s all so scary. Overwhelming. I feel just too small. I think,
Why me?
Then I think,
Why not?
All my fight goes out the window and it feels like everything’s over for me.” She shook her head and laughed weakly again. “No kidding, Ros, it’s exhausting. I can move through all these moods within an hour. It’s like having some kind of weird multiple personality disorder.”

They sat in silence for several moments. Rosie could certainly identify with one thing. It did all feel unreal. Okay, so Beth did look very thin and not particularly well. But that could be put down to anything, surely. A tummy bug or a bad dose of flu. Not cancer. That seemed almost unthinkable.

“So what happens next?”

Beth sighed and rolled her eyes. “Well, I’ll be moving to B1 – that’s the cancer wing. I think they’re sending me up there in a couple of days if they can find a bed. This week they’ll be doing more tests. Ultrasound scan, blood monitoring, full body scan. It’s almost certain they’ll do surgery at some point, but not till they’ve got a better picture of how things are.”

“D’you have any idea when you’ll be home?” Rosie realised she was thinking about Ciaran. She could only guess how tough he was finding it.

“Apparently I’m not up to it yet. Besides, Dr Romily says things will move a lot faster while ever I’m in here. It would only be for a little break anyway, y’know, before they whip me back in for surgery. Whether they decide to schedule that before or after Christmas will depend on what they find in the test results. Everything’s a bit up in the air really.”

“Well, at least you’ve got their attention. I’m sure they’ll do everything they possibly can to sort you out.” Rosie tried to sound positive.

Beth grimaced. “I can think of better ways to get noticed.”

Their conversation drifted onto other things. At first, Rosie had been nervous about making any comment that might remotely smack of humour. She knew it was out of some distorted sense of respect; it seemed almost irreverent to pepper her talk with the usual wisecracks, Beth being in this condition and everything. For that reason, she’d found herself saying little and listening far more than was usual for her. But Beth was not so easily dampened. In the middle of recounting a long, unsavoury bedpan tale, she suddenly began to snort with laughter, and Rosie realised to her relief that Beth’s irrepressible spirit had not been broken yet. By the end of their time together, they were laughing as they always had. Rosie was pleased. A barrier had been broken down.
The Big C
had been dragged out into the open. The unmentionable had been mentioned. And they were still friends.

“My parents are travelling down in a couple of days.” Beth’s face seemed to light up at the thought of it. “It’ll save on Mum’s mobile bill at least. I’ve lost count of the times she’s called me this past fortnight. It’ll have cost her a fortune.”

A cold, empty shadow shivered through Rosie’s mind then.
I don’t begrudge you that, Beth. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t envy you.

Beth glanced up at the ward clock. The familiar squeak of the meals trolley as it trundled back down the corridor signalled the end of yet another lunchtime. Hospital routine was so unvarying and predictable, she found herself forgetting what day it was sometimes. Not today though. Today was Tuesday, and Beth had made a request. Now she sat by her bed waiting expectantly. At about quarter past one, a young woman came onto the ward. She looked about sixteen or seventeen and was tall and heavily set. She had, Beth noticed, the body of a large woman, but the chubby face of an adolescent girl. Her mousy hair was taken up into a ponytail and she wore no makeup at all. It was clear that the young woman had made no attempt to pretty herself up in any way. Even her clothes were dowdy and practical.

“Beth Maconochie …?” She plodded purposefully over to the bed.

Beth nodded, pleasantly surprised at the confident tone of her visitor.

“I’m Laura, your hospital volunteer. I’ve come to collect you.”

They went out onto the corridor and towards the lifts.

“It’s the chapel you want, isn’t it?” Laura pressed the lift button with a pudgy finger. “We’ll soon have you down there. It gets boring when you’ve been in here a bit, doesn’t it?” She spoke with a command that seemed at odds with her played down appearance.

Beth began to warm to her. “How long have you been working here, Laura?”

The lift arrived then and Laura skilfully manoeuvred the wheelchair into position with well-practised ease. She pressed for the ground floor. “Since I did my GCSEs in the summer. I’m doing a course at college at the moment but I try to get in here for a few hours a week when I’m free.” The doors opened and she spun Beth out onto the corridor.

“What are you hoping to do in the end?”

“I want to go into some kind of care work – probably with the elderly. Or I might even end up working here. Care work of some sort.”

“I think you’d be very good at it,” Beth said thoughtfully. “You certainly know how to handle this thing. I feel very safe with you. There’s a lot to be said for that when you can’t get about on your own so well.”

“Thanks.”

Beth smiled as she detected the first hint of bashfulness in Laura’s voice. They had reached the chapel by now. Laura pushed open one of the semi-glazed outer doors. “Did you want me to stay with you or would you rather I came back in a while?”

Beth straightened. The thought of Laura
staying
had never occurred to her. She spoke gently, not wanting to appear ungrateful. “Would it be okay if you came back – say, in twenty minutes, half an hour?”