Love @ First Site (25 page)

I open my mouth to contradict her, but she presses a finger against her lips.

"So now I want to ask you something else . . . something a lot more serious . . ."

"Go on . . ."

"Can I put you down as a guardian of the children? . . . along with Michael, of course. It's just that although he adores them, he could never be a
mum
to them and they'll need that if . . ." She tails off and takes a deep breath. "Anyway, you've known them since birth and they see you as a sort of surrogate mother anyway."

I listen intently, saying nothing.

"You wouldn't have to live with them or anything like that," she continues. "Just visit a lot, help Michael to make decisions, that kind of thing. And of course, make sure they get lots of mummy-style cuddles . . ." She breaks off and tries to suppress a small sob.

"There, there, don't upset yourself." I stroke her hair soothingly. "It won't come to that, you'll see. You're going to be around to give your grandchildren cuddles, mark my words." I only wish I could one hundred percent believe it myself.

Olivia blows her nose. "Anyway, I want you to think about it for a while, decide whether you're up to taking on that responsibility. If not, it's no problem at all, I can ask Mum."

"What, and subject Matthew and Emily to an adolescence of squeaky clean hair, highly polished shoes, and shirts with frilly ruffs on?" I tease. "No, I don't need any time to think about it, Liv, the answer's yes, of
course.
It would be an honor."

She lets out a long sigh of relief and sinks back onto the pillows. "Thanks, Jess, you don't know how much it means to me to hear you say that. I know I'm supposed to be thinking positive all the time, but there are just some things I need to get in place in case I
don't
get better. Then I can concentrate on fighting it."

"I know, I know," I say, stroking her hair again.

She closes her eyes. "Hmmm, that's nice. I hope you don't think I'm rude, but I feel like I need to sleep now."

I carry on stroking her hair until her breathing becomes deeper and her mouth falls open slightly. Then I sit there for a few minutes more, just staring at her beautiful, peaceful face and wondering what the future holds.

Thirty

S
imon is already outside the cinema as I cross through the middle of Leicester Square, picking my through the tourists, drunks, and cuddling couples intertwined together on benches.

I can see him in the distance, huddled against the cold, his hands rammed into the pockets of his long, black overcoat. He looks at his watch, then stares into the distance across the other side of the square.

"Boo!"

He looks startled as I appear at his side. "Aha, there you are." He plants his cold lips against mine for a hasty peck. "Come on, let's get inside. It's bloody freezing."

It's one of those sit-anywhere cinemas, and five minutes before the movie starts, Simon and I are ensconced in the middle of a central row in isolated splendor, with vacant seats in front of us too.

"Looks like we're in luck," he says. "It's one of my pet peeves to be hemmed in by people in the cinema, particularly when they choose to slurp their way through a hot dog and gallon of drink throughout the film. Why don't these people eat before they come?"

Just as the lights dim and we're thirty seconds from a clean getaway, the door bursts open and Mr. and Mrs. Slob walk in. She's carrying a jumbo popcorn, he's brandishing a plate-sized burger with all the trimmings, and please God no, they start to edge their way along our row.

Just as she starts to lower herself into the chair next to Simon, he leaps to his feet. "Ah, greetings, disciples! Jesus loves you!"

I stare at him in mute astonishment, but it's nothing compared to the look on Mrs. Slob's face as she gapes open-mouthed, a fistful of popcorn poised just inches from her lips.

"He's in us all, you know!" Simon continues. "You . . . and you," He points at Mr., then Mrs. "All of us!" He spreads his arms wide to embrace the entire cinema.

"Fucking nutter," says Mrs., just as the film's rating appears on screen. "Come on . . ." She jerks her head at her companion. "Let's get away from this God-botherer."

"Works every time," Simon says with a grin, settling back into his seat as we watch them move several rows forward.

I laugh and snuggle into his arm as the film's opening scene unfolds. It involves lots of gunfire, dead bodies, and Colin Farrell cussing, but I have absolutely no idea what's going on because I have tuned out, my mind wandering back to my chat with Olivia earlier today.

After she'd fallen asleep, I'd sat downstairs for another hour, chatting with Michael about the reaction of my parents, the children, and his own thoughts on what the future holds. By the time I left, I felt emotionally drained, an empty shell who, far from stepping out to watch a vacuous Hollywood movie, simply wanted to sit at home, weep self-indulgently in front of a romantic old film, and eat comfort food. But, given Olivia's vicarious excitement at my burgeoning relationship, here I am.

Don't get me wrong. I
like
Simon and, under any other circumstances, I would have been at fever pitch all day, meticulously preparing myself for our hot date. But there's something about having a major crisis in your life that makes such things seem irrelevant in the grand scheme.

If Simon and I were a year into our relationship, he'd
know
Olivia, Michael, and the children and be experiencing firsthand the strain we're all under. He'd understand completely if I said I wanted to stay in, just the two of us, or even if I preferred to be alone. That's the beauty of familiarity: you can be miserable when you want to, you don't have to pretend.

But when it's all shiny and new, you're both constantly in buffing mode, polishing your personality for public display. To show your imperfections too early could tarnish it irrevocably.

Colin Farrell is now snogging someone and the music is reaching such a crescendo that I can only assume we have reached the end. The credits suddenly start to roll and confirm it.

"Highly entertaining," Simon pronounces, pulling on his coat. "Did you enjoy it?"

"Yes, it was great," I say vaguely, hoping he won't ask anything more in depth.

We stroll arm in arm across the square, him chatting animatedly about a particular action scene in the film, me nodding and smiling in silent agreement.

Within a few hundred yards, we arrive at the door of a new, trendy Indian restaurant with a red rope and ubiquitous, house-sized bouncer blocking the door.

"Name," he booms, looking at his clipboard. The urge to say "Julia Roberts" almost consumes me, but I doubt humor is his strong point and we'd find ourselves frequenting the nearest McDonald's.

"Simon Young."

Wordlessly, the bouncer unclips the rope and stands to one side to let us pass.

It's another dark, somber joint, reminiscent of last weekend's date, with cozy tables partitioned off for privacy. I wonder if Simon is expecting a rematch of our Olympian sex session too.

"You OK? You seem a little distracted tonight," he says, passing me a menu to study.

"Sorry." I smile apologetically. "I've got a lot on my mind at the moment."

He looks at me thoughtfully for a few moments. "Well, let's get ordering out of the way; then, if you fancy unburdening some of it, I'm all ears."

So there it is, plain and simple. An open invitation for me to tell him about Olivia, to reveal the extent of the huge weight bearing down on my shoulders and see if he's up to alleviating some of it.

I have two options: tell him, or use the numbing effect of alcohol to block it out of my mind completely and have a hedonistic evening focused simply on having fun. Although Olivia would advocate the latter wholeheartedly, in my mind it would seem like a betrayal of her.

"So cough up then, what's on your mind?" says Simon, turning back to me after we've finished giving our appetizer selections to the waiter. His cheery demeanor suggests he thinks I'm about to relay a problem on a par with my car breaking down.

I wince slightly. "My sister has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. She had a mastectomy on Monday."

He says nothing for a few seconds, his face impassive. Then a small furrow appears between his eyebrows. "God, what a bummer."

I'm not quite sure
what
response I expected to my earth-shattering news . . . well, shattering to
my
earth anyway, but I have to admit that this one wouldn't have figured highly on a list of possible options. "How terrible," yes. Or perhaps "How awful, dreadful, terrifying, or shocking" . . .
any
of those would have sufficed. But "what a bummer"? It renders me speechless for a moment or two.

"Um, yes I suppose it is," I say eventually. "It's certainly knocked our entire family for a loop."

"I'll bet." He looks uncomfortable and takes a mouthful of wine. "I had an aunt who died of cancer. I think it was liver though . . . or was it lung?"

How reassuring, I think murderously. "Well, we're hoping Olivia will fight it and go on to live a normal life," I say emphatically, trying to convince myself as much as him.

He nods and pushes my wineglass towards me, clearly hoping more alcohol might loosen me up. "So I presume that means you have to keep a close eye on yourself?"

"Sorry?"

"You know," he pats his hand against his chest. "Check for lumps. Not that I noticed any last weekend." He grins, gently nudging my shoulder with his.

I stare wordlessly out into the middle distance. This person, who clearly knows as much about cancer and its devastating effects as I do about the offside rule, has inadvertently made an off-the-cuff remark that has skewered me to my seat with deadly precision.

Amidst all the trauma of the past few weeks, the operation, my parents' devastation, the memory boxes for the children, my own emotional anguish, the
one
thing that hasn't crossed my mind is the possible physical implications for me.

Whilst there's no history of breast cancer in our family and Olivia's ill health is looking increasingly like an unavoidable bolt from the blue, who's to say the same couldn't happen to me?

"I never thought of that," I stutter. "I'll make an appointment to see my doctor next week."

"Attagirl," he says cheerily. "And don't forget, I'm more than happy to check you regularly for any lumps and bumps." He starts to nuzzle my ear.

And that was it. Not one question about Olivia's well-being, whether she was older or younger than me, did she have children, were our parents still alive and if so, how had they reacted. Nothing. He simply carried on as if my revelation had never been uttered.

"So, I thought we'd finish off here, then go back to my place," he murmurs, his hand discreetly roaming inside my jacket. "What are you wearing?"

"Clothes," I say flatly.

"Very funny, you know what I mean. Are the stockings back by popular demand?" His hand moves down to the hem of my skirt, but I clamp my thighs together and brush him away.

"Not here!" I chide. "People are looking." On the contrary, no one is taking a blind bit of notice of either of us.

"Let them look," he says. "They're probably jealous." He removes his hand from my leg and picks up his wineglass instead. "
Are
you wearing stockings?"

I shake my head. "No, it was a bit cold tonight, so it's tights, I'm afraid."

He looks fleetingly disappointed, then his face lights up and he leans forward, gazing straight into my eyes. "Then I'll just have to remove them with my teeth."

At any other time, when Olivia wasn't ill and I had consumed a few more glasses of wine, his remark would probably have whipped me into a sexually aroused frenzy. But sober and still slightly wounded from his low-key reaction to the reason for my slightly somber mood, it sounds misplaced and faintly ludicrous.

Our food arrives, a welcome distraction for me as I struggle to make a crucial decision about what happens afterwards. Do I drink to excess to numb my pain, then go back home with Simon for a night of unbridled passion? Or do I just give in to my subdued mood and put this date out of its misery until a time I feel better equipped to be windswept and interesting?
If
, of course, Simon feels inclined to hang around and wait for my return to form.

Postponing a decision until I absolutely
have
to make it, I eat my main course in virtual silence whilst he regales me with a story he'd heard that week about an elderly woman who wandered into a mobile cervical screening unit set up in a supermarket car park.

"So she walks up to one of the nurses and says 'Excuse me?' but the nurse is dealing with another patient, so tells her to go into one of the little booths and take her trousers off," he says, stuffing a piece of nan bread into his mouth and chewing rapidly.

"She does as she's told, and the nurse eventually follows her in, does the smear test, then tells her to get dressed again and register her name and address at the desk.

"Afterwards, the old duck wanders up to the receptionist and says, 'I've never had to do this to get a bus pass before!'"

He starts laughing and lolls to one side, a cue for me to laugh too. I dutifully oblige before clearing my plate of the last vestiges of chicken korma.

Simon pours the last dribbles of the wine bottle into both our glasses and waves it at me. "Fancy another here, or shall I open one when we get back to my place?"

I let out a small sigh and shift slightly in my seat. "Actually, Simon, I really hope you don't mind, but I want to go home."

"Your place then?" he says happily. "No, I don't mind at all. It'll be nice to see it."

I wince a little. "No, I mean I'd like to go home
alone.
"

His face drops almost instantaneously. "Oh, I see. Sorry, bit slow on the uptake there." He gives me a weak, sheepish grin.

"No, it's
me
who should be sorry. You've organized and paid for the cinema, brought me to this wonderful restaurant for dinner . . .," I pause and look around, ". . . and all I've done in return is to be a total wet blanket."

He makes a tutting noise and shakes his head. "No worries. Entirely understandable considering what your sister is going through. Just as long as it's not my company that makes you miserable," he jokes, clearly not comfortable at the conversation veering towards serious matters again.

"No." I smile. "On the contrary, you've cheered me up enormously. You should have seen me
before
I came out."

He waves at the waiter and makes a scribbling motion with his hand. "I should probably get an early night anyway. I'm playing soccer with the lads tomorrow, and there'll no doubt be some ferocious drinking afterwards."

"Sounds great," I say unconvincingly. I already have my day mapped out in my head. Shopping for memory boxes and sifting through the two bin liners of old photographs stuffed in my closet, trying to find ones Olivia might like to include.

Ten minutes later, shuddering in the cold outside the restaurant, the distance between Simon and me seems even more unbridgeable.

"Well, thanks again, and sorry again," I stutter, my teeth chattering.

"Don't apologize. These things happen," he replies, as if my sister's breast cancer was simply one of life's little misunderstandings, like a lost check or a broken alarm clock.