The Switch(48)

I’ve been trying to work out a good way to get her out of the house for days, and then I finally hit on it after Mum asked me to pick her up for bingo. Bingo is perfect. And the more the merrier, frankly, now that I have made the decision to invite my mother, with whom I have yet to really have a proper conversation for the last year and two months.

‘Why are you so tense?’ Nicola asks, squinting at me.

‘I’m not tense.’

She says nothing, but in a pointed sort of way.

‘It’s my mum. We don’t … we’ve not been getting on that well. And she’s late.’ I look at my watch again. Mum’s been to her yoga class in Tauntingham and asked me to pick her up from there, which is quite out of my way, but I’m trying very hard not to find that annoying.

‘Fallen out, have you?’

‘Sort of.’

‘Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not worth arguing with your mother over. Life’s too short for that.’

‘Well, she wouldn’t let me convince my sister to try a potentially life-saving cancer treatment. And now my sister’s dead.’

Nicola pauses. ‘Right,’ she says. ‘Golly.’

At that moment the van door slides open and my mum climbs in. I notice, with a wince, that the window on Nicola’s side is wide open.

‘Potentially life-saving treatment?’ Mum says. My stomach drops at the tone of her voice – it’s clipped with fury. She’s not spoken to me like that since I was a child. ‘What potentially life-saving treatment, Leena?’

‘I showed you,’ I say, gripping the steering wheel, not turning around. ‘I showed you the research, I gave you that pamphlet from the medical centre in the States—’

‘Oh, the pamphlet. Right. The treatment that Carla’s doctors advised against. The one everyone said wouldn’t work and would merely prolong her pain and—’

‘Not everyone.’

‘Sorry, everyone but your one American doctor who wanted to charge us tens of thousands of pounds for some false hope.’

I slam my hand against the steering wheel and turn to face her. She’s flushed with emotion – it’s dappling the skin of her chest, flaring on her cheeks. I feel a wave of almost-fear, because we’re really doing this, we’re really having this conversation, it’s happening.

‘Hope. A chance. You always said all my life Cotton women don’t quit, and then when it mattered more than anything else in the world you let Carla do just that.’

Nicola clears her throat. Embarrassed, Mum and I glance in her direction with our mouths open, as though we’ve both been caught mid-word.

‘Hello,’ Nicola says to Mum. ‘Nicola Alderson.’

As if she’s pierced a bubble, we both deflate.

‘Oh, hi, sorry,’ Mum says, sitting back in her seat and putting on her seat belt. ‘So sorry. How rude of us to – to – I’m so sorry.’

I clear my throat and turn back to the road. My heart is pounding so hard it almost makes me feel breathless, as if it’s working its way up my throat. I’m late to pick up the rest of the bingo lot, now; I turn the key in the ignition and pull away.

… and straight into a bollard.

Fuck. Fuck. I knew that bollard was there, I made a mental note when I parked here – I thought to myself, When you pull away, don’t forget about the bollard that’s just out of your line of sight.

For fuck’s sake.

I leap out of the van and grimace, covering my face with my hands. The bottom right side of the bonnet is badly dented.

‘Actually, no,’ Mum says, jumping out of the van behind me and pulling the door closed with a slam. ‘I’m sick of half-having these sorts of conversations with you. I’m sorry, Nicola, but we’re not done.’

‘That’s all right,’ Nicola calls. ‘I’ll wind the window up, shall I?’

‘How dare you act like I gave up on my daughter?’ Mum says, her fists clenched at her sides.

I’m still processing the dented bonnet. ‘Mum, I—’

‘You didn’t see her day in day out.’ Mum’s voice is climbing. ‘The emergency admissions, the endless, brutal, wrenching vomiting, the times she was so weak she couldn’t make it to the toilet. She put on a brave face when you visited – you never saw her at her worst!’

I let out a small gasp. That hurt. ‘I wanted to be there more.’ My eyes are stinging, I’m going to cry. ‘You know Carla didn’t want me to leave my job, and I – I couldn’t be here all the time, Mum, you know that.’

‘But I was here all the time. I saw it. I felt it, what she felt. I’m her mother.’

Mum’s eyes narrow, catlike, frightening. She’s speaking again before I can respond. The words come spilling out of her in a voice that’s raw and rising and doesn’t sound like my mum.

‘Is this why you left us and cut us out of your life? To punish me, because you think I didn’t try hard enough for Carla? Then let me tell you something, Leena. You cannot imagine how much I wanted your American doctor to be right. You can’t imagine it. Losing Carla has made me wonder what the hell I’m living for every minute of every day, and if there was any way I believed I could have saved my little girl, I would have taken it.’ Her cheeks are wet with tears. ‘But it wouldn’t have worked, Leena, and you know it.’