The day my daughter fell into the sea, I had a new feeling that was so big it took me a while to work out what exactly it meant. But even as it happened, even before I found the time to analyse it, I could sense that almost everything had changed.
The progression of illness may be essentially linear, but you notice it in stages – the need to cut a new hole in a leather belt, the first time your gums bleed as you brush your teeth, the first – and last – clump of hair to fall out.
The fact that I was now too sick to run to save my daughter was a ghastly new revelation. But it was counterbalanced by the incredible knowledge that I didn’t need to run because Mark could, and Mark did.
I have honestly never seen anyone move like that. Perhaps time was distorted by the nature of what was happening, or perhaps my illness slowed my own thinking down, but the speed at which Mark vanished from the bedroom, the time it took before he reappeared sprinting across the beach – it seemed like a physical impossibility. It was as if everything else – myself, my thoughts, Sarah’s slow toppling motion, even the gulls swooping their huge wings as they scrambled to get out of Mark’s way as he streaked across the beach – was slowed down.
I knew that she would be fine. I knew that he would save her, and that knowledge gave me a big warm feeling that I didn’t know what to do with.
And when he swore at her, I recognised his anger instantly for what it was, fear. I saw at that moment that he had become her parent. The bond between them was now such that no other solution for Sarah’s future would be thinkable. My guess was that though he didn’t realise it yet, Mark wouldn’t even allow any other arrangement. His reaction to my attempts at contacting Nick, were, I suddenly saw, a demonstration of this.
Over the next few days, I watched them together and everything I saw confirmed this view, and, between vomiting fits, I started to wonder if the time was right to bring the subject up. I knew from experience how resistant Mark could be to any idea he didn’t think had originated in his own head. Any heterosexual woman will tell you that the most useful relationship skill a woman ever learns is to make men think that everything and anything was their idea, and Mark, bless him, was no different: he needed to come to this realisation of his own accord. But the problem was that I wasn’t sure how much time we had for him to get there.
I could tell that the chemo was doing bad things to my body, in fact, I can honestly say that I have never felt so ill. And just as food poisoning from fish can put you off fish for months, my body knew that these pills were bad – it was becoming increasingly difficult to even swallow them, and it could only be a matter of time before they bumped me off the trial altogether. Beyond that it would presumably be a matter of months before the golf-ball in my brain resumed doing whatever it was going to do to me. Amazingly, no one had actually told me how I might die yet. I didn’t know if it would be silent and painless, or a slow agony, and I hadn’t found the courage to ask. But though it still seemed like an abstract, absurd concept, I was starting to get what remained of my brain around the fact that I was probably going to cease to exist, or at best, cease to be able to look after Sarah in any meaningful way. My failure to sprint across the beach indicated that this process was perhaps more advanced than I wanted to admit.
So I started to imagine Mark and Sarah ten years down the line. I imagined him looking at the rude adolescent that she had become, and feeling love tainted with sorrow at my departure. And then I imagined him remembering Ricardo as well – remembering everything he had given up to look after her.
Because what if Mark never met anyone else? Lord knows, I can vouch for the fact that love doesn’t hang around on every street corner. So what if Ricardo was Mark’s last chance for love and he felt he had had to choose between Sarah and Ricardo? What kind of shadow would that cast over their relationship?
I couldn’t let that happen. Even if they were to split up at some point in the future, I had to make sure that it could never be said that it was my or Sarah’s fault.
I told Mark I would buy him a ticket back to Colombia. I would just have to pray that he returned.
The next morning, I awoke with a headache and a fever. Every joint in my body ached like I had a bad case of flu. I lay there listening to the sounds below trying to summon the energy to organise what needed to be organised and wondering how I would survive a fortnight, possibly longer, without him.
And then I hear the doorbell ring. I stopped breathing to listen as Mark opened it.
A familiar voice rang out, and though I’m not sure, I think I heard Mark gasp.
I felt angry and jealous and cheated all over again. I felt apprehensive and excited and thankful too.