Vivienne had spent two entire days and nights at the cardiac clinic – fifty miles away from home – undergoing yet more echocardiograms, ECGs, CT scans, blood-pressure tests, ICD checks … There were so many she could hardly keep track of them all, nor did she feel anywhere near reconciling herself to the fact that this was what her life was all about now. She was resisting it in every bone of her body, even as her lungs struggled to take in air and her head filled with a numbing fog of fatigue. She knew she had to do better than this, that somehow she had to find a way to calm herself and her expectations, to accept that this really was happening and would go on happening until a donor heart was found – or until she died.
Of course the transplant centre had passed all the information they had to the clinic, but the new medical team had needed to carry out their own tests before taking full charge of her care. Her life was going to be a complex mix of drugs and tests, desperately trying to keep her heart going until a new heart became available. She was going to be with this team now until … well, until fate stole someone else’s life and gave her a second chance, or until it didn’t.
Fortunately, the ordeal of being back in a hospital less than two weeks after she’d left one hadn’t turned out to be quite as bad as she’d feared, though she was certainly relieved to be on her way home again.
Miraculously, given how weak she still felt, she was managing to stay awake through the journey and even take in the tranquil, billowing countryside they were passing through. The other miracle, that of still being alive, wasn’t one she felt much like getting into yet. Instead she tried recalling the names of the new medical team, an exercise of memory as well of necessity. Saanvi Sharvelle, the senior cardiologist, a serious, softly spoken Canadian; Trey Dyer, the cardiac physiologist in charge of monitoring her ICD; Katie the arrhythmia nurse and several others whose names and duties would hopefully come back to her in the fullness of time. So many people, so much technology, effort and expertise involved to keep one small heart beating.
Her mother probably remembered them all.
She and Gina hadn’t spoken much either on the way to the hospital, or since leaving. There was too much tension between them, too many fears, hopes, crushed dreams and new ones to try to fit into words that would either run out at key moments, or feel inadequate, or be painfully misconstrued. They were all being tested in ways they still didn’t know how to handle. Yet at the same time they shared a comfort in each other’s presence, in the other’s unspoken but known love, that couldn’t be provided by anyone else. They were close, too close, and yet so far apart that they seemed unable to find even gestures to help bridge the gap. It was easier when they didn’t try, or when they had visitors at the house, such as Gil, who’d already made the drive from Bath three times in the past two weeks, or Michelle, who came every day. When others were around they didn’t have to avoid one another, or feel guilty about their failures, or pretend they were coping when they weren’t.
‘But you are coping, and brilliantly,’ Michelle had protested when Vivi had confided in her a few days ago. ‘As usual, you’re putting too many demands on yourself. You both are.’
This had been said on the morning her mother had finally returned to work, at Vivienne’s insistence because having her mother around all the time was a reminder of how sickness, failure, and the shadow of death had taken over their lives. However, Gina hadn’t been prepared to leave Vivi at home on her own. It was too soon, they hadn’t learned to live with the ICD yet, much less what to do if it went off. It could happen at any time, and if it did someone needed to be there in case Vivienne fainted, or fell and hurt herself – or to call the paramedics if the proper rhythm wasn’t restored.
Though Michelle’s reassurance over the coping business had felt bolstering at the time, it was really still far too early for Vivienne to feel it was true. Staying alive was one thing, and of course not to be taken lightly, but coming to terms with her fears and limitations, with who she was now and what she could never be in the future, was another challenge altogether. She tried not to think about the lively, ambitious young lawyer who used to inhabit her skin; the Vivi who’d laughed loudly and easily and loved without thinking. To dwell on thoughts of how she’d pounded the pavements of Chelsea during early, misty mornings training for a marathon, had drunk champagne with friends in bars and nightclubs long into the night, and made mad dashes for business-class flights to New York or Hong Kong, did her no good at all. She’d hardly thought about the future then, she’d been far too busy embracing the thrills of growing success, throwing herself into meetings, negotiations, trials and tribunals as if nothing could matter more. She realized now that she’d believed in her own invincibility, her certain ability to reach whatever goals she set herself.
Those times, that person had gone, in the same way that people left when they died. There one minute, alive, noisy, vital Vivi-vacious, gone the next, leaving a sudden and shocking emptiness that no one was prepared for. In her case there had been no burial or cremation to mark her abrupt transition from one world to the next, nothing at all to effect the transformation of Vivienne the lawyer into Vivienne the terminal invalid, apart from a myocardial infarction, of course, and two cardiac arrests. And now here she was in limbo, living a life that could go nowhere unless someone with the same rare blood type as hers and a healthy heart of the right size and in good condition died in time to rescue her.
She’d never given much thought to donors before, of any sort; now she thought about them all the time and perversely kept fearing for their lives. Feeling her constant companion, tiredness, overtaking her again, she let her thoughts drift and sink into blessed oblivion.
Gil said, ‘Don’t worry, as soon as you’re old enough you’ll be able to give blood too.’
Vivienne, aged eight, skipped along beside him, thrilled to be going with him while he donated a whole pint of the very ordinary stuff that ran through his veins. That was how he’d described it, ordinary stuff, because almost everyone was in the same sort of group as he was, while she was in a very special category because most people didn’t have the same sort as her, which meant that when she got older and was able to become a donor her blood would be very valuable indeed.
Gil was like that; he always made someone feel special – or stupid if they were being stupid, or very important if they did something clever or brave.
It was lovely having him as a dad. She’d liked it right from the start (apart from being a bit upset when he had taken her mum to Portugal on honeymoon and left her behind). She’d forgiven them as soon as they came back because she was so happy to see them, and as time went on she loved having him as a dad more and more. He was like Michelle’s dad, only better, because he was hers. He was interested in everything she did, and he really did listen when she had something to say, she could tell because if she asked him anything about it later he always remembered and knew the right answer. He was funny too, and made her mum laugh in a way Vivienne had never seen her mum laugh before. And now her mum was having a baby, which was going to be really lovely, especially if it was a boy. Vivienne didn’t need a sister because she had Michelle.
‘Mum’s going to come and pick us up when I’ve done my bit at the blood bank,’ Gil told her, ‘and then we’ll go to the Seafront Café for lunch. Does that sound good?’
Vivienne told him that it did, but really she was a bit disappointed, because she liked having Gil all to herself. Then she immediately felt mean because she didn’t want her mum to feel left out, not ever. So really, she was very pleased that her mum was coming too. Everything was always better when her mum was there, except sometimes it wasn’t.
After a brief yet deep sleep, Vivienne was once again gazing out at the passing landscape of farms, country estates and rambling commons, thinking how beautiful yet remote it was, and so very far from London. It felt like a journey through a parallel universe, one that was taking as many years as minutes.
‘I’d like to turn my hair blonde,’ she suddenly announced, as though changing hair colour was something she did every day, or had been thinking about for a long time.
Gina glanced at her in surprise. ‘You want to go blonde?’ she said, as though needing to be clear.
Vivienne turned to her. ‘You’re blonde, and I’m your daughter, so I thought, why not be more like you?’
Gina looked uneasy.
Realizing she might have sounded sarcastic, Vivi quickly said, ‘I always wanted to be blonde when I was little, like you. Now the urge has come back. Will you do it for me?’ She didn’t add, while we still can – there was no point, they both knew the other was thinking it.
After a moment that still felt tense, Gina said, ‘Of course. If you’re sure, but you have such pretty hair …’
‘That might be even prettier if it was the same colour as yours.’
Gina swallowed, and Vivi wondered if she was thinking, but you’ll never be able to go anywhere to show it off.
Gina said, ‘I think it’s a good idea. Having a different look might lift your spirits a little.’
Ashamed of having credited her mother with unworthy thoughts, and unsurprised by having her mind read, Vivienne said, ‘You could be right. I mean, we need to do something to get me out of this slump. Not we, me. I need to do something, just in case you think I’m blaming you in some way.’
Gina’s eyebrows rose. ‘Why would I think that?’ she asked quietly.
Because you always think that, Vivienne didn’t say. She shrugged. ‘You’re my mother. Isn’t everything your fault?’
The way Gina smiled made Vivienne smile too. She’d meant it as a joke, and for once they’d managed to share one without it springing barbs.
‘I’ll do it tomorrow, if you like,’ Gina said, slowing up behind a tractor towing a heavy load.
Vivienne watched random strands of straw flying out of tightly bound bundles, taking little leaps for freedom with nowhere to go but down. ‘Why don’t we do it today?’ she suggested.
Gina didn’t seem certain. ‘Aren’t you tired?’
Vivienne might have argued if there had been any point, but the need to keep breathing, to detach from the brutal harshness of this new reality, was starting to overtake her. This was the most she’d done since being allowed home, and the effort it had required was indeed starting to close her down. Her eyelids were heavy, her mind was clogging as though a kind of glue was settling in, and her shoulders had started to sag.
She didn’t sleep, but they continued in silence, passing the Ring o’Bells pub that a sixteen-year-old Vivienne had once been to on a date, and the Longfellow Timber Yard where Michelle’s builder husband, Sam, came for supplies. The signs to far-flung villages and country stores went by in a blur, then they were skirting the edge of the ancient forest where legend had it that Bonnie Prince Charlie had once hidden from the Redcoats. Michelle’s parents used to bring them here for picnics when it was sunny; it was the perfect place to play hide-and-seek, but scary too, because of how dark it was in places. They were sure it was haunted, which had added to the thrill.
They were still behind the tractor and its load, slowing almost to a stop as it turned off the road. She noticed a sign for Deerwood Farm and Shop, and a small clutch of unlikely-seeming teenagers with piercings and tattoos grouped behind a table with ‘organic fruit and veg for sale’ on a canopy-shaded table.
‘Maybe we should take some home,’ she said to her mother.
Gina’s hands were tight on the wheel, her gaze so fixed on the road ahead that Vivi realized she wasn’t listening, maybe hadn’t even heard her, or spotted the stall.
‘Shall we get some fruit?’ she repeated.
‘We don’t have to get it here,’ Gina replied stiffly. ‘I don’t want to stop.’
Though her mother’s response seemed odd Vivi let it go; she didn’t have the strength to argue, or even to check the mobile that began vibrating in her hand as they continued along the narrow road. She must check the phone, though, in case the transplant centre needed to get hold of her. Some chance of that this far into the wait! Or in case Trey, the cardiac physiologist, had detected some activity in her ICD overnight that she hadn’t been aware of and needed attention, maybe clinical, or even surgical. There was a blue holdall in the boot of the car, packed ready for an emergency ambulance journey to a transplant centre … That little bag of hope had to go everywhere with her. She knew it wouldn’t be long before she started tempting fate by leaving it at home.
She should check the phone. She was right: it wasn’t a new heart.
She closed her eyes and wondered, exhaustedly, how it was possible to feel so crushed by disappointment at the same time as being flooded by relief. She didn’t want a transplant, the mere thought of it terrified her, and yet not having one terrified her even more.
Gil was at the house when they got home, standing at the door ready to welcome them, and hastening to Vivi’s side as he realized how depleted she was.
She didn’t mind him helping her, his strong arm circling her waist in case her legs gave out. Her mother was behind, carrying in the bags and Vivienne’s mobile, which had slipped to the floor of the car.
‘Michelle rang,’ Gina said, checking the phone.
Vivienne wasn’t surprised that her mother had taken a look. She must have wondered, hoped – even dreaded in the same way Vivi had – that the call a few minutes ago had been the one they were praying for.
‘I’m here,’ Michelle announced, appearing in the doorway. Her eyes were shining in a half-concerned, half-mischievous way; her arms were full of grey satin cushions that she quickly passed to her husband, Sam, as he appeared behind her.
‘I was calling to find out how far away you were,’ Michelle said, going to Vivienne’s other side and slipping a hand through her arm. ‘How was it?’
‘OK,’ Vivi replied. ‘This is a big welcoming committee.’ She was looking at Sam and experiencing a surge of affection in amongst surprise and confusion. He should be at work; he usually was at this time of day. If she didn’t already have a brother she knew she’d want Sam to fill the role, for around about the same time as he and Michelle had fallen for each other on sight, he and Vivi had experienced their own instant connection. His look wasn’t suave or professional; he was more the sturdy, muscular type that gave off an air of capability and permanence and unfailing wicked humour – just about perfect for a builder, rugby player, husband and dad.
‘We have a surprise for you,’ Michelle confided. ‘Don’t worry if you’re not feeling up to it, you just have to walk into it and lie down. It’ll still be there when you wake up.’
Knowing from the taut, dry feeling in her face that her strain was showing, and feeling her eyes losing focus with tiredness, Vivi took a few quiet gasps of air as Gil handed her over to Sam, who put an arm gently around her. ‘There’s my girl,’ he murmured, as though he was speaking to his five-year-old Millie.
As he took her the few steps along the hall and into the downstairs room that was now hers she hesitated, looked around and tried to make sense of it. It was as though she’d stepped out of time, or into a dream where the before and after had merged into new, but familiar images of both.
‘We thought you’d like to have your things around you,’ Sam said softly, ‘so we got to work and made it happen.’
Her flat, her beloved London flat was here, in this room, from the washed-oak floorboards – he’d clearly laid them specially – to the huge ivory silk rug, the plush grey Toga sofa with matching armchair, and circular coffee table with opaque glass top and dandyish Louis Quinze legs. Gone was the sombre old dark wood dresser that had stood against the long wall for years, and in its place, between the curvaceous Design Italia floor lamps, was the chalky-white Long Island sideboard that she’d found at an antiques fair in Chelsea and paid a fortune to have restored. Even the photographs she’d always displayed around the flat were here, as were the vibrant abstracts by Maryanna.
She hardly knew what to say or do. She simply stood looking at it, aware of a swamping sensation in her head, a distant conflict of emotions that turned to confusion, maybe alarm, as she saw that NanaBella’s old dining table was no longer at the other end of the room. Instead, there was her ornate white French-style bed, complete with frost-blue Scandinavian linens and whimsical drifts of voile draped from the ceiling to complete it.
‘We knew you didn’t want to get rid of it all,’ Michelle said, scattering the satin cushions over sofa and chairs, ‘so Sam and I had the idea of creating a home from home.’
Vivienne swallowed drily. She was aware of the kindness, could feel it in every cell of her body, every vein that her blood was struggling to run through, but the words she needed stayed buried inside her.
‘She should lie down for a while,’ Gina said, and for once Vivienne was glad her mother had stepped in, because that was exactly what she needed.
A few hours later she was awake again, lying on her beautiful bed gazing up at the ornate patterns on the inside of the canopy, and feeling such a wrenching ache in her chest that she wasn’t sure if it belonged to her physical heart or her emotions. Tears slid soundlessly from her eyes and dropped onto the pillows. She understood how much effort and planning had gone into transforming this room, and she was grateful to everyone who’d loved her enough to make it happen. But with every fibre of her being she wished they hadn’t. It was just bringing it home to her that she was here now, to stay, and there could never be any going back.
Telling herself that she had to stop this, right now, she turned her head, a start getting up, but seeing the home monitor that her mother had apparently set up while she was sleeping she deflated. It was incredible really, that the ICD implanted in her shoulder could wirelessly transmit information to this device. In spite of how depressed it made her feel to know that she needed this amazing technology, she couldn’t help being impressed by it, and grateful too, since it was playing a vital part in keeping her alive.
The other part, she knew, had to come from her. She really did need to find the will, the energy and determination to get through this, even beat it if she could, although she knew how impossible that was going to be without a new heart. Even so, didn’t she owe it to herself, and to those she loved and who loved her, to make the time she had left as special and uplifting as she could?
Summoning her strength again, she swung her feet slowly to the floor and inhaled a deep, steadying breath. It took a moment for the dizziness to pass, a clearing of the senses that left her with a surprising but welcome feeling of calm. It was good to have her beloved flat around her, she told herself. It didn’t have to feel frightening or wrong or anything negative at all unless she wanted it to.
Going to the bookshelves that filled the niche next to the new pale wood fireplace she ran her fingers lightly along the spines of her familiar friends. It felt comforting to have them here: a complete collection of Daphne du Maurier; a selection of Doris Lessing’s short stories and novels; an assortment of quirky dictionaries and reference books; old travel guides; some spy thrillers; several box sets of DVDs; Jane Austen and the Brontës, Paul Theroux, Hilary Mantel, everything she’d treasured from her shelves in London was here.
Drifting over to the front window she folded back the plantation shutters – the trouble they’d gone to! – and looked out on a very different view to the one she’d had over a London street. As her eyes adjusted to the golden glow of a sunset she made out her mother and Gil sitting in deckchairs on the dunes with Michelle and Sam leaning against one another on a picnic rug. They looked so relaxed and settled, as though nothing was wrong in their world and all they had to do was drink a glass of wine and soak up the sweet balmy air at the end of a long and taxing day.
After a while she realized it was Mark sitting in the deckchair next to her mother, not Gil, and then she remembered that her brother had said he was coming home today. She liked the fact that he called this home, though she suspected he referred to Gil’s house the same way.
She wondered where Gil was, and guessed he’d probably already driven back to Bath.
How did he feel? Banished? Unwanted? Glad to get away to his new girlfriend? She needed to ask Mark about that.
Minutes ticked on as she stood staring out at the bay, no longer seeing what was in front of her, but what had come out of her memory to remind her of three darkened figures in the same glow of sunlight many years ago, her mother and Gil with three-year-old Mark between them. They were swinging him across the dunes, down to the beach and into the waves. Vivienne had been able to hear Mark’s shrieks of delight, the roars of Gil’s pretend monster and her mother’s joyful laughter. She’d been about to run and join them, wearing the new swimsuit that she wanted to show off, but then they’d suddenly set off running to the rocks without realizing she was calling out to them.
She remembered slowing to a halt and the horrible stab of loneliness that had struck her, the bewildering, terrifying feeling that they were trying to get away from her, that she didn’t matter any more. She remembered how the woman she was watching hadn’t felt like her mother during those moments. She’d seemed like someone who had a separate family that she loved more than she loved Vivienne, and who made her happy in a way Vivienne never could.
So many frightened and nonsensical thoughts had jumbled themselves up in her eleven-year-old mind that day, in much the same way that they were managing to right now.
Forcing herself to let them go, she turned away from the window and looked around again at her belongings. They seemed, she thought, almost as baffled by being here as she was to see them. She wondered how they felt about their new home, as if it were even possible for them to feel. Did they mind being so far from London, exchanging the elegant setting of a Georgian town house for a less chic Edwardian detached; the distant roar of traffic for the gentle sough of waves? The metallic smell of diesel fumes, for the salty, invigorating tang of the sea? They fitted into the room quite well size-wise, perhaps a little more cramped than before, but the high sofa back provided a good divider between the two halves of the long room, while the sideboard seemed to join them like a bridge between past and present – or night and day, given their different functions. Were they looking forward to finding out who their new visitors might be in this part of the world? She tried to think of who might come that her long sofa and comfy chair hadn’t hosted before. There was no one. She thought of the GaLs; how could she not? They cared about her, of course, and she knew they’d try to stay in touch, but she understood their lives, the speed of change, the pressures of their jobs, the unending demands from so many quarters. They were too busy to keep her at the front of their minds for long. And even if they did stay in touch, did she really want to hear about the world she’d known so well but could no longer be a part of?
She was gazing fixedly, though absently, at the sideboard when Michelle came in, pausing at the door to watch her, knowing that her presence had been sensed, holding the silence for a few moments more.
She wasn’t surprised when Michelle said, ‘I know what you’re looking for, but I’m afraid it got broken in the move.’
Vivienne imagined the exquisite pyramid-shaped decanter, blazing with colours, that she’d brought back from Venice – Murano to be more precise – ten or more years ago, smashed into small pieces, no longer of any value, or of any use.
‘You can have mine if you like,’ Michelle offered. Michelle’s was different, more of a pear shape and all shades of blue. Their mothers had taken them to Venice for a girls’ break before their GCSEs, and had bought the decanters as mementos of a special time. Vivienne wouldn’t dream of taking Michelle’s, not only because she knew how much Michelle treasured it, but because she had no use at all for a decanter – and actually never had had.
‘Shall I tell you what I think would look good there?’ she said.
Michelle watched her, and her eyes began to widen with understanding as Vivi turned to her. After a beat Michelle asked, ‘Do you know where it is?’
Vivi shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen it for years. I don’t even know if she still has it.’
Michelle seemed anxious now, proving that she hadn’t forgotten the first time Vivienne had asked her mother about the bronze male dancer, nor any of the times since, and like Vivi she wouldn’t want any of the scenes repeated.
‘Is he my father?’ twelve-year-old Vivienne demanded hotly.
‘Is who your father?’ Gina’s voice was terse and dismissive.
Vivienne flushed.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’ her mother snapped.
‘I’m talking about the man that you keep in your drawer.’ Even as she said it Vivi felt miserably stupid. There couldn’t be a man in her mother’s drawer, so why had she said it? ‘The statue,’ she blurted, wishing she’d never started this now.
Her mother’s eyes darkened with anger and something that Vivienne didn’t understand. It frightened her, but made her defiant and determined to stand up for herself.
‘Have you been snooping about my room?’ her mother cried furiously. ‘That’s what horrible people do, I hope you know that. Horrible, sad, sneaky people go snooping about other people’s rooms.’
Vivienne was so hurt, and incensed, that she raged, ‘And horrible, nasty, sneaky mothers don’t deserve to be loved, so I don’t love you. I hate you, and I want my real dad to take me away, because I don’t want to be here and I know you don’t want me here.’
Her mother’s exasperation was almost as scary as the way she spoke, cold and mocking, still angry and forceful. ‘I wish to God you weren’t so fanciful,’ she snarled. ‘Gil’s your father. You love him and he loves you …’
‘He’s not my real father. He’s Mark’s, and I have a right to know who my real father is.’
Her mother stared at her in what looked like shock, or it might be fear, or fury, Vivienne couldn’t tell. She was desperate to get away, because she didn’t know how to argue with her when she was being like this.
‘Who told you,’ her mother asked, biting out the words, ‘that you have a right to know who your father is?’
The answer was Michelle, but Vivi was never going to admit that, especially when she had no idea who’d told Michelle, or even what a right actually was.
‘I hate you,’ Vivi blurted. ‘You’re always mean to me, and it’s not my fault that I don’t have a dad, it’s yours because you made him go away …’
‘You have Gil,’ her mother shouted angrily. ‘Think how he’d feel if he knew you were saying all this. You are the luckiest girl in the world to have a dad like him. So why are you doing this, Vivienne? Tell me why Gil, who loves you, suddenly isn’t good enough for you?’
Vivi hung her head in shame. She had no answer for that …
… And she didn’t have an answer for it now – she only knew how deeply her mother had hurt her that day, how wretched and wrong she’d made her feel for something that shouldn’t have been so complicated or fraught with emotion. She had a vague memory of four-year-old Mark coming to her room later and putting an arm around her as she cried. He’d said something about not minding sharing his dad, because he knew that his dad loved her very much and so did he.
For a long time after, Vivi had wondered if her mother secretly hated her, even wished she was dead. She became so worried about it and afraid that she’d ended up asking NanaBella if it were true, and the next thing she knew she was in her mother’s arms.
‘You’re my precious angel,’ her mother had wept, hugging her so hard it hurt. ‘You’re my little miracle who I nearly lost and I thank God every day that I didn’t.’
At the time it was all Vivi had needed to hear. She’d felt safe again and happy. She didn’t want to think any more about her real dad because it just upset everyone, and there was no point in that. So they hadn’t mentioned him again until the next showdown, a few years later, which had ended in much the same way.
‘She knows we have to have the conversation,’ Vivi said quietly to Michelle. ‘I’m not going to die without knowing who he is, and the sooner she understands that the sooner we can …’ She was going to say get on with our lives, but that phrase didn’t work so well for her any more.
Michelle was still looking worried. ‘Just as long,’ she said cautiously, ‘as it doesn’t turn into a repeat of what happened when you were eighteen, after Gil left, because frankly I’m not sure you could survive that again, not the way you are now.’
Vivi knew that was true. It had been terrible, wrenching, violent, even. Nevertheless, she insisted, ‘I need to know who he is. Do you understand that?’
Michelle’s eyes were tender as she nodded that of course she did.
‘It has nothing to do with Gil and not loving him, because I always have and I always will. I just have to know why my mother’s the way she is, because I’m sure it has something to do with my father …’ Her gaze went back to Michelle’s. ‘Is it wrong to want to know him, and for him to know me before it’s too late?’
Clearly as unsure of the answer as Vivi was, Michelle pulled her into an embrace. ‘Whatever you want to do,’ she said softly, ‘you know I’ll be there for you.’