Never Say Goodbye (7 page)

Josie tried to swallow. ‘So you think it might be . . .?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say the word.

‘Let’s just say we want to rule it out,’ the doctor responded. ‘The clinic’s at the Kesterly Infirmary, so you won’t have far to go. I’m just not sure they’ll be able to fit you in before Christmas, with it being only ten days away.’

The words seemed to hammer inside Josie’s skull.
Before Christmas? She must think it’s something really serious if she’s in such a rush.

‘Don’t look so worried,’ Dr Moore said kindly. ‘The rules state that everyone with breast symptoms has to be seen within two weeks.’

That sounded like a good rule for those who needed it.

‘Here’s a leaflet, explaining all about it,’ the doctor continued, handing one over. ‘If you have any questions after you’ve read it, give me a call. I’ll be happy to go through it with you.’

Josie was staring at it, but for the moment she couldn’t seem to take it in.

‘Breathe,’ Dr Moore smiled. ‘It’ll be fine, I’m sure. I’ll contact the clinic now and they should be in touch with you directly sometime in the next week to give you an appointment. As I said, it’s probably not going to be before Christmas, but I’m sure they’ll slot you in soon after.’

Realising she should be glad of that, Josie said, ‘Thank you. I, uh . . .’ She couldn’t think what else to say.

Squeezing her hand, Dr Moore told her, ‘They have a One Stop facility at the infirmary, so chances are you’ll know the results by the end of the day.’

‘That’s good,’ Josie mumbled.

Getting to her feet, Dr Moore went to the door. ‘They’ll keep me in touch with everything,’ she said, before opening it, ‘and once again, if you want to talk, or come back and see me before your appointment . . .’

‘I’ll be fine,’ Josie assured her, mentally pulling herself together. ‘I’ll read this leaflet and turn up when I’m told to. I’m sure it’ll all be a lot of fuss about nothing, but as you said, it’s better to be safe than sorry.’

‘It is indeed.’

Back out on the street Josie took in several lungfuls of chill, snowy air. For a moment she couldn’t think where she was going, or what she was supposed to do next. Remembering, she started down Long Walk towards the main road. It was dark out now, with Christmas lights glowing from just about every house, blurring and clearing in front of her eyes, a playful kaleidoscope of cheery colours. She glanced up at a bunch of reindeer on someone’s roof, and a Santa starting down the chimney on someone else’s.

If Jeff didn’t borrow Alan’s ladder tonight, she’d go over there tomorrow and borrow it herself.

Realising she was still clutching the leaflet with its big Dean Valley NHS logo at the top, she stuffed it into her bag and took out her phone. Not sure who she was intending to ring, she simply slipped it into her pocket and took out her gloves. The hole in the thumb reminded her that she’d intended to ask Jeff for a new pair for Christmas, but now she was going to ask him for a Pilates board. Perhaps Lily could get her the gloves. She’d spotted two pairs for a fiver in Primark the last time she was in Bristol, with any luck they still had some.

The big question really was what on earth she was going to get Ryan. Lily had already made up a calendar with photos from their childhood marking each month of the coming year, while Josie’s mother, his doting nan, was proposing to send him a girlie magazine. Josie was fairly certain the prison wouldn’t allow that, but rather than argue with her mother, she’d decided it was best simply to let her get on with it. The last time she was there Ryan had mentioned he’d taken up reading, so a couple of paperbacks might be a good idea. She’d find out what sort of books he was into, then pop in the second-hand shop to see if she could track them down there.

Remembering she hadn’t actually arranged her visit yet, she opened up her phone to try and do it now. Since it was past the time they took the calls, she made a mental note to do it in the morning, and put the phone away again.

What day was it tomorrow? Was she supposed to be at the caff or at John Crover-Keene’s?

She wondered how her boy was filling his days, stuck there in that dreadful prison. It scared her so much to think of what the other inmates might be doing to him. Her only way of dealing with it was to shut it out of her mind. After all, it wasn’t as if he was in for interfering with children, or anything terrible like that. He’d been involved in a burglary that had gone horribly wrong when one of his accomplices had hit the homeowner round the head with a crowbar and fractured the poor bloke’s skull. Fortunately, the victim had survived, so the charge had been downgraded to grievous bodily harm for which Ryan had received the maximum sentence of five years. The others, previous offenders from the Zone every one of them, had managed to get away with three years apiece after insisting that Ryan had wielded the bar. Josie believed her son when he swore to her that he hadn’t. Ryan had never been violent. Foolish, yes, and easily led, but never violent. The trouble was, he was so afraid of the villains he’d got involved with and what they’d threatened their families would do to his family if he didn’t take the rap, that he’d ended up copping to the assault, and nothing Josie, Jeff, or the criminally expensive lawyers could say had persuaded him out of it. (They should have qualified for legal aid, but with all these cuts they hadn’t, which was why Jeff’s redundancy payout had gone, along with their savings.) What hadn’t helped Ryan with the judge was the fact that his mother was a cleaner for the family he’d burgled, which was how Ryan had got hold of the key – and how Josie had ended up losing four good paying jobs on the west side of the hill.

Ryan, Ryan, Ryan
, she was sighing to herself as she crossed the main road at the traffic lights to start heading into the maze of their part of the estate.
What on earth’s going to happen to you when you do finally come out? Please don’t let your life be ruined by this. Make something good come of it, son, for your own sake, if not for ours.

A sudden, horrible thought struck her.

She would still be around when he came out, wouldn’t she?

The shock of even thinking it was so brutal that it took her a while to realise someone was calling her name.

‘Hey, Josie, hold up, where’s the fire?’

Turning round she saw her old school chum Bob Chapman, waving out from the door of Chanter Lysee, the karaoke bar he managed.

‘Hi Bob,’ she responded cheerfully. ‘How are you? All ready for Christmas I see. Hope all those lights are hotwired into Downing Street. Let them jokers pay the bills, is what I say.’

‘You’ll get no argument from me on that,’ he assured her. ‘Bet none of
them
’s worrying about how they’re going to put a turkey on the table Wednesday after next. Anyway, I wanted to make sure you’re coming for our Christmas special on the twenty-third.’ He was pointing to a sign in the window.
Happy Hour all night long, bottle of bubbly to best singer in town.
‘You’d be an outright winner,’ he informed her. ‘That lovely smoky voice of yours, I keep telling you, you should go on
The X Factor
, make yourself a fortune.’

‘Yeah, right,’ she laughed. ‘The next SuBo, that’s me. Or was she on
Britain’s Got Talent
?’

‘Who cares? So are you going to come? I’ll put a couple of tickets aside if you are, on the house, given how you bring in the crowds.’

Laughing again, she said, ‘Yeah, you can count me and Jeff in. I expect my mother will want to come too, just please don’t let her have the mike when she’s had a few. She’ll only start murdering “Je t’aime”, and she’s embarrassing enough without going that far.’

Chuckling, Bob said, ‘Three tickets are yours and I’ll keep your favourite table. Any chance Lily and her chap might join you? I hear they’re getting married next summer.’

Since Josie had broken the happy news to Carly over a week ago she wasn’t in the least surprised to find out that Bob already knew, half of Kesterly probably did by now. She just hoped they weren’t all waiting for invites, because if they were a lot were going to end up disappointed. ‘Yes, she should be home by then,’ Josie told him, ‘so I’m sure they’ll want to come.’

Giving her the thumbs up, he waved her on and as he took out his mobile to answer a call, she fumbled for her own to check who was trying to reach her.

Lily.

‘Hello my love, how are you?’ she asked, clicking on.

‘Yeah, I’m cool. I just wanted to tell you to look at your emails when you get home. I’ve sent you a link to a stationery website. They’ve got some seriously cool stuff for weddings and I want to know what you think.’

‘Of course, have you highlighted any in particular?’

‘Not yet. I want to see if you come up with the same ones I did. You know, like we usually do when we’re choosing stuff.’

Josie smiled. It was true, they really did seem to have similar tastes. ‘I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve had a look,’ she promised. Then, changing the subject, ‘Have you sent the calendar to Ryan yet?’

‘No, I thought I’d take it in when we go to see him next week. Have you arranged it yet?’

‘It’s top of my list tomorrow.’

‘OK, just let me know. Where are you now?’

‘On my way home. We’ve been invited for a karaoke evening on the twenty-third, if you and Jasper can make it.’

‘Yay!’ Lily cheered. ‘Definitely sign us up for it. It’s such a scream, and you and Dad are so brill. Anyway, better go, loads to do. Love you, love to Dad too,’ and she was gone.

So what’s wrong with that,
Josie snapped irritably in answer to the little voice inside her that was asking, what if your appointment turns out to be on the 23rd?
It won’t be in the evening, so I’ll still be able to go to Chanter Lysee, and even if the news turns out to be bad, which it won’t, no way is it going to spoil Christmas for anyone, least of all me.

Just over a week later Josie and Lily were queuing up with other friends and families, waiting to be let into the prison. If there was a more depressing place on God’s earth Josie didn’t want to know about it, it was bad enough having to cope with this one. Its old grey stone walls made her think of dungeons and torture chambers, while its towering gothic windows were straight out of a Hammer House of Horrors. Just thank God Ryan was in one of the newer units at the back where each inmate had his own cell and the heating, or so he told her, was a functioning part of the place, unlike it ever seemed to be in the visitors’ room.

She’d watched a documentary the other night about young offenders at Aylesbury Prison and now seriously wished she hadn’t bothered. She’d hardly been able to sleep after seeing the way those tormented youths beat each other up, attacked the officers, vandalised their cells or went to terrible lengths to self-harm. One poor lad was so fixated on killing himself that he had to be constantly watched and even then they didn’t always catch him putting a noose round his neck, or slashing his wrists with the corner of a toothpaste tube. She couldn’t begin to imagine how his mother must feel, knowing he was so miserable, so devoid of hope that all he wanted was to end his life.

Maybe he didn’t have a mother, or not one that cared. It could be the whole root of the problem.

It was one of the worst parts of being a parent, she thought, as a gate finally opened in the huge blue iron doors to start letting the line through, the constant worrying over what your kids might be up to, or what you, as a parent – a mother in particular – had done to send your child down the wrong road. God knew she’d done her best with Ryan, had loved him the same way she’d loved Lily, and still did, but right through from the time he was born, a month prematurely with a tiny hole in his heart, to when he was six and nearly drowned in the sea off Temple Bay, to all the trouble they’d had with him at school, things had never seemed to go right for him. He always tried his best, but no matter how much effort he put into his lessons, or projects, or even a job after he’d turned sixteen, there had always been someone there to lead him into bad ways. He was too easily influenced was what Jeff always said, and though Josie hated to think that their son didn’t have a mind of his own, she had to admit that if he did, he didn’t always use it. She’d even wondered in her darkest moments if he was a little bit delinquent, but since none of his teachers had ever come forward with that, and nor had Jeff, she’d kept the awful suspicion to herself. After all, he wasn’t stupid, he understood the difference between right and wrong, he just didn’t always draw the line in the same place most other people would.

‘At least we’re out of that wind,’ Lily shivered, as they were ushered into a forbidding stone room with no seats or windows, just a noticeboard full of rules for visitors and a couple of security scanners. ‘It’s still like a fridge in here though,’ she grumbled, hugging her faux-fur jacket more tightly around her.

With her honeyed curls peeking out from under a blue bobble hat and her spiky dark lashes curling around her violet eyes she was as pretty as a primrose, Josie thought, and twice as precious.

‘It’s bloody cruel, if you ask me,’ a woman behind them piped up. ‘No one should have to put up with these sorts of temperatures, especially when they ain’t done nothing wrong. They could at least heat these communal areas.’

‘Too bloody mean,’ someone else joined in. ‘It’s inhuman locking people up in a place like this. They should have done away with it years ago.’

‘My husband’s in the newer unit,’ another woman informed them, ‘so it’s not too bad for him, but he says he hates coming over here for visits. Bloody nice that, innit? I comes all this way and he says he hates the visits.’

As the others laughed, Josie and Lily smiled politely, knowing better than to join in, since these exchanges often ended up turning nasty and neither of them was capable of holding their own with the type of women who came here. The male visitors weren’t much better, a mixed barrel of lowlife in the main, with a handful of quieter ones who, like Josie and Lily, knew to keep their heads down for fear of being picked on for no reason, which could happen right out of nowhere.