Читать книгу The Other Life of Charlotte Evans - Louisa George, Louisa George - Страница 11

Chapter Four

It was amazing how quickly things moved when you had money. No matter how much Charlotte had refused, her mother had pushed for a quick appointment, so here they were, the very next afternoon, pushing open the heavy wooden door with the golden plaque bearing the name West London Breast Clinic.

The place looked like a hotel, not a private hospital. With blonde stone and marble floors it oozed grandeur and wealth. It was everything the NHS GP surgery wasn’t: plush, spacious, tidy. In any other situation Charlotte might even have been excited about going into such a place. ‘Wow. Very glam. If only I wasn’t feeling quite so nervous. All the gilt and marble is a bit intimidating.’

‘Yeah, I know what you mean.’ Ben squeezed her shoulder, but the tremble in his hand gave him away. ‘Look at the sculptures and the artwork. Now you know where half the consultation fee is going.’

There were huge, comfortable chairs in the waiting room and in each of them sat women a lot older than Charlotte. All of them looked glum. Anxious. Which made Charlotte’s worry quota escalate a hundredfold.

‘Miss Evans?’ A lady with a smart chic French knot smiled across the reception desk, her voice rich and welcoming… and the loaded seriousness of her words made Charlotte’s heart race. ‘Dr Carter is waiting for you. Room two. Down the corridor, third on the left.’

‘Okay.’ She gripped Ben’s hand, sounding a lot more confident then she felt. ‘Let’s do this.’

A short consult. A wait. A mammogram. A wait. An ultrasound. A wait. And now a something-something biopsy. There was a lump. Yes. Yes. They had to see what was in it.

She was lying on an examination couch with Ben seated next to her. To her right was a huge ultrasound machine that beeped and whirred and clicked and made the room too hot.

‘We’ll do a fine needle aspiration…’ The room phone rang. Dr Carter peered at them over his half-rimmed glasses and frowned. He wore a tartan bow tie and a charcoal three-piece suit; very old-school with his speech and mannerisms and clothes. Charlotte hoped he was very new school with therapies and treatments and diagnostics. ‘Excuse me,’ he said to them, pointing to the phone and picking it up. ‘Yes. Yes. I see.’

When he finished he put the receiver down. ‘Excuse me again, Miss… er…. Evans. A query. Outside. Not about you.’

Then he left the room leaving Charlotte and Ben wordless. Being here and seeing the blurry pictures on the screens made everything feel so much worse. She’d always imagined the first ultrasound she’d have would be about a baby growing inside her. Not this.

‘I feel like I’m staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.’ Charlotte finally managed to get words out through a tight throat, keeping her voice low because everything was hushed here. ‘It’s like I’m in a dream. Or it’s happening to someone else and I’m watching.’

Ben gave her a half-smile that tried but failed to reach his tired eyes. ‘I am watching and it’s no better this end, believe me.’

Trying to break the tension she laughed a little, although it sounded forced, even to her. ‘To be honest, I’ve never had so many people touch my boobs, and definitely not all in one day.’

‘Serves you right for flashing them to anyone who asks.’ He winked and tugged her gaping gown across to cover her left breast. ‘Hussy.’

‘Well, I’ve been asked a lot today. A lot of people seem to want to look.’ She paused. Wondered whether to say what she was feeling. Decided, what the hell. ‘I’m scared, Ben.’

That was the truth of it. She felt utterly out of control. Utterly at the mercy of the stars, or fate. In a strange limbo land that had stripped her of the ability to enjoy anything, no matter how much she tried. That had made her see herself in a new light. As something mortal, fragile, vulnerable, and she didn’t like it one bit.

It was, as she’d felt so many times when hanging out to see whether she’d landed a role in a show or the corps or a solo, the waiting that was the worst part.

‘I know, me too. Shit scared with custard on top.’ Ben gave her another half-hearted smile. That was a huge admission. Something she’d never heard him admit even when he’d been posted to the riots a few years ago. Or when he’d been caught up in a stabbing and nearly got hurt himself. Even when his father got sick and it had been touch and go whether he was going to pull through.

That made her feel doubly worse. ‘He’s a bit grumpy, though, isn’t he? Dr Carter. Very serious and pompous. I think I’m more scared of him than I am of the needle aspiration thingy.’

‘Imagine him naked or something, that’ll make you feel better.’

‘Ugh. He’s ancient. Like, over seventy or something.’ That would definitely not make her feel better.

‘I meant, he’s just normal like you and me. He’s nothing to be scared of.’ Ben leaned across the space between them and ran his fingers down her cheek. His mouth close to her ear. ‘You’re going to be fine. I can feel it. You’re going to be okay. And when he tells you there’s nothing wrong…’

Charlotte sighed. ‘When they get the results of the what was it…? The cyt… cytology. It’s a whole new language. Which won’t be for another three days… another whole weekend of worry. Again.’

‘Let’s run away instead of going to work and doing jobs, then. And eat marshmallows and salt and vinegar crisps. Just you and me and no one else.’ Ben’s voice was soothing and deep and warm.

‘And drink chardonnay from a bottle. Okay. Where will we go?’ She fitted her hand into his. Where it was always meant to be.

‘Fiji. The Maldives. Hawaii.’

‘Oh, yes. Somewhere exotic with cocktails. Sun and sea and… you know what?’ She daren’t say that word out loud. Not in here where everyone was so prim and proper. A little panicky giggle started to bubble up from her tummy. Gallows humour probably. ‘I almost said the “s” word.’

‘I’m looking forward to the “s” word more than you can imagine.’ Ben’s eyes flared with warmth. Not quite heat. Because how could he fancy her when she was lying here like this? Vulnerable and pathetic and half scared to death. ‘Should we just forget all of this and go right now?’

But the door swung open and Dr Carter stepped back into the room.

***

Unfortunately, life had a habit of getting in the way, and absconding to Fiji for the weekend wasn’t quite as easy as Charlotte hoped. Instead of sun, sea and the “s” word, she was stressed from work, corseted up and putting on a brave face in front of her best friend.

‘I look like a big meringue.’ Lissa’s hands were on her hips as she twirled in front of the Bliss Brides dress shop’s huge, gilt-edged mirror. The dress was an off-the-shoulder sheath of palest lavender silk that hugged her slim dancer’s frame. In true elegant-fashion tradition, the designer had given it a cutesy name: Isla. Which was reminiscent of the wilds of Scotland and so not inner-city London or goth-inspired Lissa with her mess of raven hair and liberal use of black eyeliner. Still, it worked. She rocked it. Actually, Lissa would have rocked a paper bag.

Charlotte grinned at her friend in the mirror. ‘You look adorable. There’s no way you would ever look like a meringue. Actually, could you try to look a little less amazing, please? It’s my wedding, but everyone’s going to be looking at you, not me. Your bottom might even get its own Facebook page or something, like Pippa Middleton’s.’

‘Honey, I don’t even have my own Fake Book page, so my backside isn’t getting one, that’s for sure.’ Lissa was in the too-cool-for-social-media camp rather than the how-does-it-work one. She rearranged her boobs inside the built-in cups in the dress and winced. ‘Ouchy.’

‘What’s the matter?’ Charlotte frowned. Was everything about boobs these days or was she just hypersensitive?

Lissa growled, ‘P.M. bloody T. Worst I’ve ever had it. Sore boobs and I’m grumpy as hell. Hence the meringue reference and the huge swollen belly. Ugh. Who’d be a woman, right?’