Marj had loved seeing her girls in London. They had spent a glorious weekend together, catching the Thames riverboat to Greenwich, buying each other little gifts from the hand-made jewellery stalls there, taking in Jersey Boys, a musical in the West End, and having cosy nights in when she cooked their favourites: fish pie, her special prawn and pea risotto with mint, and rich bread and butter pudding with vanilla custard.
‘Just as well you don’t live here all the time,’ Max had told her, ‘we’d be fattened up in no time.’
Fergal joked he knew it was dinner time when he heard the beautiful sound of a fork piercing a microwaveable lid. Cheeky thing – that only happened once or twice a week when she was in a hurry to get to her yoga class.
Marj had chosen one such night, when the girls had finished supper and were curled up on the sofa in their pyjamas, watching television, to tell them about her operation. For a moment or two she built up the courage to tell them. She didn’t want to spoil the night – they looked so happy. It might have been two decades ago but had so much changed from when she’d tuck them up on the sofa at home with a cosy fleecy blanket? Then, she had watched them, all rosy-cheeked and full of anticipation, as she handed them mugs of milky hot chocolate. She knew she was blessed to have such beautiful girls who loved not only her but each other so much. She knew that then and she knew it now.
‘Girls, I have something to tell you,’ she said, pressing mute on the remote control.
They looked up at her expectantly, their sweet-featured faces blank canvases. Part of Marj didn’t want to tell them. She loved being there for them, sharing their funny stories, helping when things went wrong. She was there to worry about them; that’s what mothers were for. She never wanted that role to be reversed. And yet she had told her girls they could tell her anything – secrets were only kept between those who never truly trusted each other – so it was only fair she applied the same logic to herself.
‘Before I tell you, you have to know that everything is OK.’
Max’s brow furrowed, her big brown eyes suddenly apprehensive. Lucy looked frightened.
‘A while back I found a lump in my breast.’ Marj heard her voice like it was suspended, her words hanging like a wisp of cigarette smoke in the air. Suddenly she felt a lump in her throat. She knew she had to speak quickly, tell them everything. She had to make them see everything was going to be fine.
‘I had a biopsy and it was breast cancer…’
Max’s eyes had filled with tears. Her chin was shaking uncontrollably as she fought with everything she had not to cry. Lucy looked uncomprehending.
‘I didn’t tell you because I wanted to have the operation first. I hope you understand. I didn’t want you to worry until I knew more… Anyway, I had the lump removed – they call it a lumpectomy. A mastectomy is when you have the breast off. It was as good news as I could have hoped for. I’d caught it early and it was a slow-developing grade of cancer. It hadn’t spread to my lymph nodes – you have them under your arms. The doctor said that was crucial to knowing the cancer hadn’t moved on elsewhere around my body. He was hopeful – more than hopeful – he’d removed it all.’
Marj hated watching Max and Lucy battle to take this in, to grasp what she was saying.
‘I’m having a little treatment, radiotherapy, at Ninewells Hospital when I go back to Dundee. But that’s more of a precaution, to make sure I’ve got all the… all the…’
‘Cancer?’ Lucy asked, quietly.
Yes, cancer. Marj nodded. No matter how simply she put it to the girls, no matter how bright a picture she tried to paint, there was no getting away from that word. When Marj had first heard it in the doctor’s surgery she felt like she had been given a death sentence. She had grown up in an era when the ‘C word’ was whispered over garden fences.
When she was a little girl, Marj remembered her own mum telling her friend in a hushed tone that one of the neighbours, Vera, had the ‘C word’, as though, if she actually said the word, it might spread. Marj never saw Vera again. That’s the way it seemed to be with anyone who got the ‘C word’.
‘It’s not like it used to be,’ she said as brightly as she could. ‘The doctor was even able to tell me the chances of it coming back. And you know what? After the radio-therapy there’s a ninety per cent chance it will never return.’
‘Really? That sounds good,’ Max whispered, straining to speak. Somehow, she had managed to keep in her tears. She could cry later, she told herself, not in front of Marj, who needed to see in her face that things were going to be OK.
‘Well, let’s put it this way, Max. Ninety per cent in an exam would be a top-band A grade, right?’
‘Right.’
‘So, my chances of being OK are top-band grade A. The doctor even recorded what he said to me after the op so I could play it back whenever I needed reassurance.’
‘Dad? How’s Dad?’ Max asked.
‘Oh your dad is the best man in the world. He’s been my best friend through it all; he made me feel more beautiful than ever. He wanted to come and see you, but I thought I’d like to tell you myself, have a little bit of girl time.’
Max gave a lopsided smile of reassurance and it melted Marj’s heart.
Lucy was on her feet. She was crying; she couldn’t help it. She put her arms around her mother and hugged her as tightly as she could. The distinctive floral smell of Paris perfume hit Lucy, its familiarity filling her with happiness and sadness at once.
‘You should have told us,’ she whispered.
‘Sorry,’ Marj said into her daughter’s soft hair.
Lucy pulled away, wiping the tears from her eyes. ‘It’s OK, I understand why you didn’t.’
Max tapped Lucy on the shoulder. ‘Room for a little one?’ she asked.
Lucy stepped back, keeping one arm around Marj and putting the other around her sister. The three women stood there, holding each other, in the sitting room of the Kensington flat. At first they cried but eventually they smiled.
Marj was right. Everything was going to be alright.