After the One, Cass Lester [top romance novels .txt] 📗

Charley that she thought that Baz should take Tara, not Charley, and further, that she believed Charley was wrong to collude with Tara to keep Baz in the dark.

‘It’s her body, she has a right to deal with it how she wants to,’ Charley argued.

‘But it is Baz’s role to support her. He’s her husband.’

‘Well, it’s not my role to tell him. I’m her friend.’

Pam didn’t reply, but her expression said it all. She obviously disagreed with her and Charley found herself on the back foot.

‘It’s to protect Monnie,’ Charley said defensively. ‘Tara doesn’t think she can trust Baz not to say anything to Monnie.’

‘Really?’ queried Pam. ‘That sounds a little overprotective to me, if it means keeping things like this from her own husband.’

Charley went rather quiet. It now occurred to her that Tara was perhaps not so much protecting Monnie, as protecting her relationship with Monnie. And at the expense of Baz, as Tara often did, and the thought of colluding with that, now made Charley feel uncomfortable. ‘The thing is,’ she explained, ‘Tara never had a dad, it was always just her and her mum, Kim.’

‘Ah,’ said Pam perceptively.

‘And so I think she doesn’t always know how to involve Baz.’

‘Or when,’ said Pam pointedly, then she paused before saying more gently, ‘You did have a dad though, didn’t you? Perhaps, as her friend, you could help her with that.’

It was said mildly and, Charley was sure, with best intentions, but nevertheless she felt the hint of rebuke. She nodded. ‘Yes. I’ll try.’

As she drove Tara to her appointment, Charley chattered away, filling the car with the kind of empty conversation that fills space, kills time and then evaporates leaving nothing. But as they pulled into the carpark, the sight of the grey concrete hospital building brought them both harshly back to earth and, turning to Charley, Tara said, ‘If it’s bad news, I’ve decided I’ll jack in my job and spend the rest of my time with Monnie. I might take her out of school and go on some once-in-a-lifetime trip.’

‘With Baz?’

‘He can come if he wants, if he can leave the business.’

‘I’m sure he’d want to…’ ventured Charley.

‘Maybe. But it’s Monnie that matters. I want every single precious, tiny little moment I can have with her before—’ Tara couldn’t finish her sentence, and turned away, blinking hard, clearly struggling to control her emotions. Charley didn’t comfort her, knowing it would only make it worse. She just waited, giving Tara time to pull herself together. Yet the agony in Tara’s eyes tore into Charley and a savage fury raged inside her at the unfairness of life, the injustice of death. Picking off its victims so casually. It was just so bloody unfair. Bereavement doesn’t make you scared of death, she thought, it makes you scared of dying, frightened of the damage your death will do to the ones you leave behind, the pain it will inflict on the ones you love.

The waiting room was crowded, but Tara and Charley manged to find a couple of seats next to each other. A tense silence filled the room while the distant, echoing noises of the rest of the hospital filtered through the double doors. If they spoke at all, people talked in hushed voices. Tara picked up a magazine and started flicking through it, but Charley doubted she was even focusing on the print. Charley let her gaze drift round the room. It was mostly filled with couples and almost everyone was a good deal older than them. One elderly pair were holding hands, not speaking, just holding hands. Looking at their hands, wrinkled and liver-spotted, with their gnarled fingers entwined, made Charley think how wonderful it must be to still to be loving, caring life partners after all those years. But then she thought how terrified they must feel, realising that their long journey together might soon end, leaving one of them to carry on alone.

Turning to Tara she said softly, ‘I know you want to protect Monnie, but maybe you should tell Baz. You’re a couple. You’re partners. He wouldn’t want you to face this alone.’

‘Maybe,’ was all Tara said.

And then Tara was called in.

‘Shall I come?’

Tara shook her head. ‘No, I’ll be fine.’

Waiting for Tara to return, the minutes ticked by and Charley flicked through a magazine, not really taking anything in. An advert for pro-biotic yoghurt showed a woman pushing a little girl on a swing in a garden. The sun shone, of course, as it always does in Ad Land, the mother smiled and the little girl was open-mouthed with laughter. Even the damn golden retriever in the background had a stupid grin on its face. How the hell was Monnie going to cope with losing her mum? thought Charley. How was anyone that young supposed to cope with death?

Then, suddenly, Tara was standing in front of her.

‘All done?’ asked Charley as lightly as she could, absently reaching for her handbag and getting up.

Tara nodded tightly. ‘They’ll send the results to the GP in a couple of weeks.’

‘Two weeks?’ It seemed a cruel, protracted delay to Charley, but she swallowed her outrage as they walked out, knowing Tara didn’t need her negativity right now. Two weeks would be a gruellingly long wait. ‘Did they give you any indication at all?’

‘No.’

Charley tucked her arm into Tara’s. ‘Come on, let’s have a coffee.’

They went to the Friends of the Hospital cafe and ordered huge slabs of fruit cake with old-fashioned milky coffee in comfortingly thick cups. Charley got out her purse, but Tara refused to her Charley pay, as usual, and they sat watching the steady stream of staff and patients flow by.

‘The problem with hospitals,’ said Tara, ‘is that they’re places where crap things happen.’

Yes, thought Charley. Really crap things. And suddenly it all came flooding back. Four years ago. Her desperate rush to get to Josh. Her lovely, kind, funny Josh, lying in Intensive Care, smashed up and broken after the crash. She remembered