After the End(31)

I’m not running a charity, Chester said once, when Max had asked to cut down on the travelling while Dylan was in PICU. I sympathise, he’d said, I really do, but we’ve all got families, Max, we’ve all got baggage.

That’s how he saw Dylan. Baggage.

So I went to my parents’ house, slipping off my shoes and sinking into the warm embrace of my childhood. After supper, Dad retired to the sitting room to fall asleep over the newspaper, and Mum and I cleared up, and talked about whether the wisteria might flower this year, and if St. Giles Blue would be too garish for the spare bedroom. I thought of Max, at his work dinner, and wondered if there was a bit of him that needed the distraction of work, the same way I felt better for my mother’s inconsequential chatter.

“So.” Mum pulls up a chair next to me. “What’s the latest?”

“Max has found a doctor in Houston who thinks he can help.” I look at the pictures of Dylan on the kitchen wall, and the high chair wiped clean and waiting in the corner. I think of the cot upstairs, for when he stays overnight, and of the box of my toys Mum kept in the loft all this time.

“That’s wonderful!”

“The next step is to ask Dr. Khalili if the trust will send Dylan there for proton beam therapy.” I skirt over the issue of funding, but a leaden, sick feeling builds in my stomach at the thought.

“If we had insurance,” Max said, “we wouldn’t even have to ask. We’d just take Dylan to the best doctor in the States—wherever they were.”

It wasn’t what he said, but what he didn’t say. He didn’t say that he’d had insurance, back when he lived in the States. He didn’t remind me that it was me who wanted him to live here, who persuaded him to transfer to the UK office, who scoffed at the changes in employment terms because what did that matter, when you were in love? He didn’t remind me that I’d dismissed his musings over whether he should extend his cover to include his newborn son; that I’d told him the practicalities made it pointless.

“It would mean flying to the States if he got ill,” I’d said. “And besides, the UK has the best health care system in the world—everyone knows that.” And somehow it had turned into one of those jokey conversations like why Brits couldn’t make proper sandwiches, and why Americans don’t use kettles. Because who ever thinks they’re going to need insurance anyway?

Mum is full of questions. “And does he think—this doctor—does he think he can remove the tumour completely? Are there any side effects? Would he come here, or would you have to take Dylan to America?”

“America,” I say, because that one, I can answer. “We’d be out there for ten weeks.”

“Ten weeks . . . Goodness.” Mum rallies. “Still. Whatever it takes, right? Getting him better, that’s all that matters.”

I chew the inside of my lip. I look at the determination in Mum’s face, at the love in her eyes. Love not just for her grandson, but for me, and for Max. “Mum?”

She waits.

“What did I like doing, when I was Dylan’s age?”

She hesitates, not wanting to indulge me because she knows where this is going, why I’m asking. She sighs. “You liked feeding the ducks. We went every day after your lunchtime nap, and I had to hold on to your hood to stop you jumping in with them.” She smiles at the memory.

“What else?”

“Books. You’d climb onto my lap and turn the pages faster than I could read the story.” Her voice cracks on the last word.

“What else,” I say fiercely, even though it’s hurting us both.

“Dancing,” she says softly, her eyes filling with tears. “You loved to dance.”

I swallow hard. I picture my three-year-old self, twirling in pale pink ballet shoes, throwing bread in my yellow hooded rain mac, turning the pages of book after book, pointing at the pictures, laughing at the voices my mother was so brilliant at. I picture Dylan the way he was; the way he is now; the way he might be, if he lives.

Mum knows me too well. “It’s a different sort of life,” she whispers, pulling me close. “But it’s still a life, Pip. It’s still his life.”

And I sob in her arms and wish I was still that twirling three-year-old, and that she still had hold of my raincoat to stop me from falling.



* * *





B’s real name is Bridget. Her mother—the woman responsible for all those hours of Bringing Up B—is Eileen Pearce, and they live in a small terraced house on the outskirts of Bath. She replied to my email with her phone number, and when I called, her voice was so warm, and so familiar, it was like speaking to a friend.

“If it would be easier to talk over a coffee,” she said, “we live outside Bath, not far from—” She interrupted herself. “Although you might not be able to leave the hospital—I understand.”

I’ve never missed a day with Dylan. I’ve taken Dylan to all his appointments, all his blood tests and chemo sessions and follow-ups. When he moved to PICU, after we left the parents’ flat and drove in each day, I fell into a new routine. Up at five thirty; in the car by ten to six; with Dylan from seven in the morning till ten at night. Max came with me, if he was working from home, or joined me after work, if he was at the UK office. We would drive back in convoy, Max insisting on my going first, as though he could keep me safe simply by keeping me in view. At the lights by the retail park I’d look in my rearview mirror, and he’d be there, blowing me a kiss, or pulling a face to make me laugh.