‘Number seven.’
‘That’s terrible.’ She flings the brochure on the grass. ‘I feel sad now.’
‘It’s the hormones.’
‘Sadder than you’d ever believe.’
‘Yeah, it’s the hormones.’
She gazes hopelessly at the sky, then almost immediately turns back to me with a smile on her face. ‘Did I tell you I’m picking the keys up in three weeks?’
Talking about the flat always cheers her up. The council has agreed to give her a grant. She’ll be able to swap vouchers for paint and wallpaper, she tells me. She gets quite animated describing the mural she plans for her bedroom, the tropical fish tiles she wants in the bathroom.
It’s strange, but as she talks, her body begins to waver at the edges. I try and concentrate on her plans for the kitchen, but it’s as if she’s caught in a heat haze.
‘Are you OK?’ she says. ‘You’ve got that weird look on your face again.’
I sit forward and massage my scalp. I focus on the pain behind my eyes and try and make it go away.
‘Shall I get your dad?’
‘No.’
‘A glass of water?’
‘No. Stay there. I’ll be back in a minute.’
‘Where are you going?’
I can’t see Adam, but I can hear him. He’s turning over the soil so his mum can plant flowers while we’re away. I can hear the push of his boot on the spade, the wet resistance of the earth.
I go through the gap in the fence. There’s the whisper of growing things – buds opening, delicate fronds of green pushing their way into the air.
He’s got his jumper off, is only wearing a vest top and jeans. He had his hair cut yesterday and the arc of his neck as it joins his shoulder is shockingly beautiful. He grins when he sees me watching, puts the spade down and walks over.
‘Hey, you!’
I lean in to him and wait to feel better. He’s warm. His skin is salty and smells of baked sunlight.
‘I love you.’
Silence. Startling. Did I mean to say that?
He smiles his tilted smile. ‘I love you too, Tess.’
I put my hand over his mouth. ‘Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.’
‘I do mean it.’ His breath makes my fingers humid. He kisses my palm.
I bury these things in my heart – the feel of him under my fingers, the taste of him on my mouth. I’ll need them, like talismans, to survive an impossible journey.
He brushes my cheek with one finger, from my temple to my chin and then across my lips. ‘You OK?’
I nod.
He looks down at me, gently puzzled. ‘You seem quiet. Shall I come and find you when I’m done? We could go out on the bike if you like, say goodbye to the hill for a week.’
I nod again. Yes.
He kisses me goodbye. He tastes of butter.
I hold onto the fence as I go back through the gap. A bird is singing a complicated song and Dad’s standing on the back step holding a pineapple. These are good signs. There’s no need to be afraid.
I go back to my chair. Zoey’s pretending to be asleep, but she opens one eye as I sit down. ‘I wonder if you’d fancy him if you weren’t sick.’
‘I would.’
‘He’s not as good-looking as Jake.’
‘He’s a lot nicer.’
‘I bet he gets on your nerves sometimes. I bet he talks utter crap, or wants to shag you when you don’t feel like it.’
‘He doesn’t.’
She scowls at me. ‘He’s a bloke, isn’t he?’
How can I explain it to her? The comfort of his arm around my shoulder at night? The way his breathing changes with the hours, so that I know when it’s dawn? Every morning when he wakes up, he kisses me. His hand on my breast keeps my heart beating.
Dad comes up the path, still clutching his pineapple. ‘You need to come in now. Philippa’s here.’
But I don’t want to be inside. I’m having trouble with walls. I want to stay under the apple tree, out in the spring air.
‘Ask her to come out, Dad.’
He shrugs, turns back to the house.
‘I need to have a blood test,’ I tell Zoey.
She wrinkles her nose. ‘All right. It’s freezing out here anyway.’
Philippa squeezes her fingers into sterile gloves. ‘Love still working its magic then?’
‘It’s our tenth anniversary tomorrow.’
‘Ten weeks? Well, it’s doing wonders for you. I’m going to start recommending all my patients fall in love.’
She holds my arm up to the sky and cleans round the portacath with swabs of gauze.
‘You packed yet?’
‘A couple of dresses. Bikini and sandals.’
‘That all?’
‘What else will I need?’
‘Sun cream, sun hat and a sensible cardigan for a start! I don’t want to be treating you for sunburn when you get back.’
I like her fussing over me. She’s been my regular nurse for weeks now. I think I might be her favourite patient.
‘How’s Andy?’
She smiles wearily. ‘He’s had a cold all week. Although of course, he says it’s flu. You know what men are like.’
I don’t really, but I nod anyway. I wonder if her husband loves her, if he makes her feel gorgeous, if he lies entranced in her fat arms.
‘Why don’t you have any children, Philippa?’
She looks right at me as she draws blood into the syringe. ‘I couldn’t manage that kind of fear.’
She draws a second syringe of blood and transfers it to a bottle, flushes my port with saline and heparin, then packs her things away into her medical bag and stands up. For a moment I think she’s going to reach down and hug me, but she doesn’t.
‘Have a lovely time,’ she says. ‘And don’t forget to send me a postcard.’
I watch her waddle up the path. She turns on the step to wave.
Zoey comes back out. ‘What’s she looking for in your blood exactly?’
‘Disease.’
She nods sagely as she sits back down. ‘Your dad’s making lunch by the way. He’s going to bring it out in a minute.’
A leaf dances. A shadow travels the length of the lawn.
There are signs everywhere. Some you make. Some come to you.
Zoey grabs my hand and presses it to her belly.
‘She’s moving! Put your hand here – no, here. That’s it. Feel it?’
It’s a slow roll, as if her baby’s spinning the laziest of somersaults. I don’t want to take my hand away. I want the baby to do it again.
‘You’re the first person ever to feel that. You did feel it, didn’t you?’
‘I felt it.’
‘Imagine her,’ Zoey says. ‘Really imagine her.’
I often do. I’ve drawn her on the wall above my bed. It’s not a great drawing, but all the measurements are accurate – femur, abdomen, head circumference.
Number ten on my list. Lauren Tessa Walker.
‘The structures of the spine are in place,’ I tell Zoey. ‘Thirty-three rings, one hundred and fifty joints and one thousand ligaments. The eyelids are open, did you know that? And the retinas are formed.’
Zoey blinks at me, as if she can’t quite believe anyone would know this information. I decide not to tell her that her own heart is working twice as fast as usual, circulating six litres of blood every minute. I think it would freak her out.
Dad walks up the path. ‘Here you go, girls.’ He puts the tray down on the grass between us. Avocado and watercress salad. Pineapple and kiwi slices. A bowl of redcurrants.
Zoey says, ‘No chance of a burger then?’
He frowns at her, realizes she’s joking and grins. ‘I’m going to get the lawnmower out.’ He goes off to the shed.
Adam and his mum appear at the gap in the fence. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it?’ Sally calls.
‘It’s spring,’ Zoey says, her mouth sprouting watercress.
‘Not until the clocks change.’
‘Must be pollution then.’
Sally looks alarmed. ‘A man on the radio said if we stop using cars we could buy the human race another thousand years on the planet.’
Adam laughs, jangles the car keys at her. ‘Shall we walk to the garden centre then, Mum?’