The Other Life of Charlotte Evans Page 13

  So he kind of understood, wanted to understand, he just didn’t like it. He didn’t want Eileen’s boat rocked, but he didn’t want his own rocked either. ‘I know, it probably sounds crazy.’

  ‘You tell me. You’re not the first to want to do it, and you won’t be the last.’ He looked confused all over again. And hurt. ‘What is crazy is how much of your time you spend thinking about it. How much you let it distract you from everything else. From us, Charlotte. From Eileen, from your friends, and yes, from the stupid pub quiz. And I get to wondering whether you’re being fully honest with me too. Because it’s like you wish you were somewhere else. With someone else. With some imagined family or something. Like I’m not enough for you.’

  We’re a family, he’d said. Isn’t that enough? And she hadn’t agreed with him. By looking for more parts of her she’d hurt him.

  He threw her a look that was part sad, part angry, and all kinds of desolate, then jabbed his heel down onto his pedal and sped off.

  They’d almost made things better. But now she was left feeling worse than ever.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘Another waiting room. Now I know the true meaning of that. Wait. Wait. Wait.’ Charlotte looked over at the stack of glossy magazines and couldn’t be bothered to pick one up. She’d been in so many waiting rooms recently she was all up-to-date with Hollywood gossip and what she apparently needed to put in her homes and gardens, and not terribly interested in the global-warming feature on the front page of the National Geographic that was five years out of date. What she really needed to read was a relationship handbook on How to Fix Something You’re Breaking But Can’t Seem to Stop. She looked over at Lissa, who was mulling over a tattered copy of a travel magazine – still hoping for the best then. ‘I’m getting mightily sick of sitting and waiting for someone to give me results.’

  Lissa dropped the magazine and grabbed Charlotte’s hand. Which was becoming a habit she’d never had before. ‘Yep. Killing me too.’

  ‘I don’t know why you didn’t just buy a pregnancy test from Boots and do it. You wouldn’t have all this hanging over you.’

  Her friend sighed. ‘Because a) you suggested we come here together, so we’re doing just that, and b) that would be a very grown-up response and I’m not a grown-up. I’m a stupid, scared child who’d rather put her head in the sand than face up to reality.’

  ‘Still not mentioned anything to DJ Ryan?’

  Lissa pressed her lips together for a moment, almost as if she was trying to stop herself from crying out. ‘No. I didn’t want to do anything until we know for sure. What about you? Told Ben?’

  ‘About your… problem? No.’ At least that was something Charlotte could feel good about. She hadn’t broken her promise to Lissa, no matter how many times she’d almost said something to Ben.

  Lissa nudged her. ‘Not about me. I mean, have you told him about your tests?’

  ‘No.’ Because if she mentioned her blood test, then she’d have to say she was going with Lissa and why, or lie. Outright lying was worse than omitting things, wasn’t it?

  ‘And you’re not worried?’ Seemed Lissa was trying to distract herself by focusing on Charlotte’s issues instead of her own.

  As it was, Charlotte felt strangely calm about her own results. Her only anxiety being here was for her friend. ‘No, I’m not worried at all. The counsellor said finding anything was unlikely. I’ve already had one health scare this year, so it’s extremely unlikely anything else will crop up. I’m just not that unlucky. I mean… you know your history, right? And you have nothing weird there. Ben hasn’t. Eileen…’ She’d taken to thinking of her mum as Eileen now because Mum was becoming all mixed up with Carol. ‘Eileen hasn’t got anything much in her family and my dad just had heart disease on his side. So, as I’m your ordinary, run-of-the-mill woman, there’ll be nothing to worry about. Pretty sure about that.’

  ‘Lucky you.’ It wasn’t a malicious statement. Charlotte knew exactly what Lissa meant; she was lucky. She didn’t have the life of someone else hovering over her. Someone she didn’t want to get to know. She didn’t have her future in the balance; all her dreams in midair, on hold until the results.

  ‘Yes, I know. I am very lucky. And you will be too, whatever happens.’ She pressed her head against Lissa’s and dredged up a grin. ‘Just you see. We’ll both be fine and meeting up afterwards with huge smiles and wondering why we got so worked up about nothing.’

  ‘Thanks, hun.’ Lissa pressed her forehead back against Charlotte’s and gave a wobbly smile. ‘For keeping me sane and keeping my secret.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. It’s not as if we’re exactly getting on at the moment.’

  ‘Pre-wedding nerves, that’s all. Hardly surprising. Everyone has them.’

  ‘And he’s got good reason to have them. We had a fight. Another fight. Basically, he thinks I’m selfish and self-obsessed and he’s probably right. But then there’s this other thing…’ She hadn’t been going to mention it, but saying it out loud would convince her she was just being silly by adding it to her long list of things to worry about. ‘…Something weird. He’s started doing extra overtime but it doesn’t feel like he’s doing overtime, you know? That doesn’t make sense. It’s just… oh God, you’re going to think I’m mad, but he has a scent, okay? A work smell and an exercise smell… he even has a sex smell.’

  The wobbly smile hung on Lissa’s lips a little too long. ‘Like… er, pheremones…?’

  ‘Yep… I guess so. And the other day, when he came home from work, he didn’t smell like work, he smelt like… sweat. Very nearly like sex. Weird.’

  Lissa’s eyes widened but she didn’t look surprised, she looked odd, as she stumbled over her words. ‘Wha… No. Do… you think… no, you don’t. This is Ben we’re talking about. Maybe he had to chase a criminal?’

  ‘He didn’t say – and trust me, if he’d had to chase someone down he’d have mentioned it, been all hyped up and macho about it. But he was just… different… distant. But physically knackered.’ The more she thought about it the more she felt as if the winding breach between her and her fiancé wasn’t just one-sided, and clearly Lissa could see that too if her reaction was anything to go by. ‘But I’m probably making mountains out of mole hills. It’s nothing. It’s just me being stupid.’

  ‘Yeah… probably.’ Lissa smiled, warily. ‘I’d forget about it if I were you.’

  ‘Hard to forget something like that. D’you think… no… he wouldn’t be cheating on me?’

  ‘What? Ben? Don’t be—’

  The nurse called Lissa’s name. Lissa inhaled sharply, her whole body trembling. ‘Okay. Okay, here goes.’

  Charlotte squeezed her hand. ‘D’you want me to come with you?’

  ‘No. I’ll be fine. I will. Besides, they’ll be calling you in any time soon too. Good luck, babe. And stop worrying about Ben, it’ll all work out.’ Even for someone who was impossibly strong, Lissa looked sick, and Charlotte felt as if her heart was being squeezed out of her chest.

  ‘Oh, I’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. No problem.’ Charlotte watched her friend walk slowly towards the nurse, her step faltering like someone in a historical movie going to the gallows. But then she heard someone calling her name and all too soon it was her turn to walk to the gallows as well. Only, this was a breeze compared to walking into Dr Montford’s room after the lump-finding, and after Dr Carter’s not-so-fine fine needle aspiration. This time she was completely in control. No shakes. No fast heartbeat. It was… well, it was almost an adventure! Finding out who she was! Finally.

  ‘So, let’s recap,’ the nurse-counsellor woman was saying. She wasn’t the one who’d been here last time, before the blood test: Avril, the friendly, older-lady type. Motherly. This one was a lot younger and not so soft. Erika. ‘You opted for the hereditary cancer-risk screening and the chromosome, genetic disorders and blood-disorder screening.’

  ‘Yes.’ Charlotte was waiting for the smile that said everythin
g was negative. She was waiting for something similar to Dr Carter’s metamorphosis from stern to cheery.

  It didn’t come. Erika glanced at the notes in front of her, then back to Charlotte. ‘And you still have no family-history information we can correlate with the results?’

  What the hell? This wasn’t exactly the adventure she’d been expecting. ‘No.’

  Erika’s perfect, drawn-in eyebrows lifted a little. ‘I see. Well, as was discussed with you at your pretest appointment, with genomic testing we can indicate a risk factor, but we can’t say whether or not you will definitely get the disease. But we can offer peace of mind that you can now make decisions that will positively impact your health in the future.’

  The woman was talking gobbledegook. Charlotte’s tummy tightened. She could feel her breath stop in her chest. She hadn’t said everything was negative and now she was saying something about a risk factor. A risk factor for what? ‘What is it? Was do I have?’

  A strained smile. ‘Ahem. The results all came back clear—’

  ‘Oh. Oh, thank God. You had me worried for a minute.’ Charlotte managed to breathe out and again – a long, whooping sound that emptied her lungs of all the stagnating air, then hauled in new, cleansing air – wishing she’d gone for the full DNA test to find out her ancestry too. It would have been fun to know if she was part Viking, or African, or if she really was a gypsy princess. Still – good to know there was nothing of note going on inside her. Peace of mind to know she was just the same as everyone else she knew. ‘Wow. That was a bit intense for a moment. I was starting to panic a bit—’

  Erika held up her hand. ‘Please let me finish. The results were all clear…’ A dramatic pause where the perfect eyebrows hooded dark eyes. ‘…Apart from the BRCA1 result, which indicates…’

  BRCA1. Sounds familiar…

  ‘That’s the women’s one, right? The breast cancer one?’ Charlotte had done enough reading to know the answer to this – it looked like an abbreviation of breast cancer; easy to remember. But she was okay. She didn’t have cancer… Dr Carter had told her that just a few weeks ago. She was fine. She was fine. She had a mother who was still alive in her forties. She didn’t have anything to worry about.

  She let go another held breath of air.

  Erika’s voice dropped a tone, a faux-sincerity or pity or sympathy or something. Something that indicated this was not good news. ‘It indicates you have a mutation in the breast cancer gene that means you have a much higher risk of developing breast cancer than the general population.’

  But she’d been given the all clear. ‘A mutation. Breast cancer? But I can’t… I don’t understand. Dr Carter, the breast surgeon, told me I was all fine.’

  ‘Yes, if he did that then your breasts are currently fine. But did he do this particular test?’

  ‘Well, no. But he did a fine-needle thing and it was okay. I’m okay. I don’t have cancer.’

  ‘No. No, you don’t. Not yet.’ Erika cleared her throat. ‘But having the mutation means you are at a very high risk of getting it. Not one hundred per cent certain, obviously, but… well, you do need to think things through.’

  Not yet.

  Not yet.

  What the hell kind of answer was that? What the hell kind of game was this? A few weeks ago she’d been through hell and come out of that bruised and battered and with a million questions unanswered. It had forced her into doing things she’d lost control of; looking for her mum, keeping things from her family. Lies. A sort of panicked reaction to facing the prospect of her own mortality.

  And now she was being told she’d have to go through it again, but for real this time. With a real disease. A real disease. This was bad, bad news.

  There was a pain under Charlotte’s ribcage. Heavy and thick and spreading fast from her heart outwards. She didn’t have cancer, but she was going to get it. Is that was this Erika woman was saying? The pain reached her head and everything seemed to be a blur she couldn’t make any sense of. ‘Wait… what do I need to think through? Please can you explain it to me? Slowly.’

  ‘You have lots of options – look at this as an opportunity to do something proactive.’

  ‘I’d prefer not to have to do anything at all. I’d prefer not to be hearing this.’ But it wasn’t this Erika’s fault. Charlotte had ridden blindly into all this, believing she’d be okay.

  She wasn’t. She wanted a hug. From Ben. Eileen. She wanted someone to tell her it was all going to be okay. She wanted to feel Ben’s reassuring arms around her. To breathe in her mum’s scent.

  Her heart ached. How was she going to tell them? After the all clear? Break their hearts all over again. Break their hearts.

  Erika grimaced a little, trying to hide it and failing. ‘The good news is, we can filter you into the NHS system and you will be given increased surveillance, such as regular MRI scans and breast checks and monitoring your cancer antigen levels. As you get older there are chemo-preventative drugs you could take, and of course there is surgery.’

  ‘Surgery. You mean… take my boobs off?’ Wow. They were back to that again. It was like Groundhog Day, but with no happy ending.

  ‘Yes.’ Erika nodded.

  ‘And that reduces the risk?’

  The woman nodded again. ‘Yes. Your breasts and ovaries.’

  Whoa. ‘Why my ovaries?’

  ‘Removing your ovaries and fallopian tubes reduces your risk of developing ovarian and breast cancer… it’s the hormones, you see.’ She reached across the desk and picked up a brochure from a pile, handing it to Charlotte. ‘It’s a lot to take in, I know. But it’s all explained in here. Take one of these and read it through, later. Surgery’s definitely something you could think about. Once you’ve finished your family—’

  ‘I’m twenty-five, I haven’t started a family yet. We’re not thinking about anything for another few years. We have a plan, you see…’ Was it going to be like this for ever? Every time she was at the doctor’s she’d have this conversation? Explain The Plan? It was starting to sound silly. A silly girl’s dream in an adult world of disease and surgical options and stuff she wasn’t ready to think about. ‘Is there a hurry?’

  ‘Usually, once your family is complete we suggest consulting a surgeon. Obviously, if surgery is something you do want, then the sooner you have it, the sooner you’ll feel you’re in control and the lower the risk will be. But I must warn you, there are side effects to the surgery too. You’ll tip into early menopause.’

  ‘Geez. At my age? I’m going to become old overnight? Is there any good news?’ She wished she’d told Ben about this, wished he was here right now hearing this, holding her hand, making sense of it all.

  No.

  She wished she’d never suggested coming here at all. And yes, that was a childish reaction, because knowledge was power and all that. But… she didn’t want to know this. She didn’t want to have these kinds of options. She wanted to be getting married in a few weeks, looking forward to the rest of her life, to be walking down that aisle a healthy, happy woman who had nothing but good things to be looking forward to.

  Not this.

  This was a nightmare. And she wanted to wake up.

  Erika’s hands were steepled, elbows on the table just like Dr Carter’s had been. Was that what health professionals were taught? Sit. Steeple. ‘As I said before, having the mutation doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll develop the cancer. If there was some way of knowing whether the women in your family have developed either of these cancers over the years then we could be more certain.’

  ‘I met my birth mother recently. She mentioned her mother had been sick around the time she was pregnant with me… so, twenty-odd years ago. But she didn’t say what was wrong with her. She also mentioned she had brothers, but not sisters. She may not even know herself.’

  ‘Well, if you happen to see her again, maybe you could ask her?’

  ‘I don’t know… we’re not at that stage yet. We’ve only met once and it was…
well, we’re not exactly friends.’ And now she was going to have to tell the woman who’d given her away that she had a dodgy gene and perhaps she might want to think about getting herself checked out. Or maybe she already knew and had just omitted to tell her? Not an outright lie, just an omission. The way Charlotte had omitted to tell Ben things.

  God, she was more like Carol than she wanted to believe.

  The counsellor glanced at the clock. Clearly the appointment time was finished. ‘Well, there’s no rush.’

  Charlotte ran her hand across her breasts. Again. She’d only just stopped doing it from the lump scare. No rush for you, maybe. You don’t have this threat. Maybe it was already growing inside her? Tiny little seeds no one could see, not even on an X-ray or mammogram. ‘I think there is a rush. I think I need to do this. I need to fight it.’

  Erika managed a smile as she leaned back in her chair. ‘Every time I have this conversation my clients do one of two things; they either collapse into a puddle of grief, or get ready to fight. I see you fall into the second category. That’s good. Although you may find you do the collapsing thing too. Later on. It’s just a natural reaction.’

  ‘I’m not going to collapse.’ But the urge to curl up into herself and hide from reality was pretty bloody strong. ‘Of course I want to fight. I want to live a long life with kids… yes, I want kids.’ She thought of the little boy she’d almost run over on her bike. Of the potential of Lissa’s possible baby. Of the sixteen little girls in her toddler dance group, and how every single one of them was adorable. And she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she wanted her own kids. ‘We both want them. In a few years’ time. That’s our plan, you see. In five years… but then it may already be getting too late, right? The cancer may have already started. It might be in me right now. But no… Dr Carter said…’ The counsellor didn’t answer and Charlotte thought about the research she’d done when she’d found the lump. The videos she’d watched on YouTube of women younger than herself talking about their experiences with breast cancer. ‘But tell me honestly, Erika, if you were me, what would you do?’