The Almost Wife: An absolutely gripping and emotional summer read Read online

  ‘Any other symptoms? I’m guessing from the sunglasses you’re feeling a bit light sensitive?’

  ‘Sunglasses?’

  ‘The ones on your face, Emily.’ Dr. Blake’s eyebrows join each other briefly in a concerned frown.

  ‘Oh God, sorry, I’d forgotten they were there. Yes, they’re not exactly easing the pain but I feel worse with them off.’

  ‘OK, any sickness?’

  ‘Yes, once this morning.’ She’s trying not to swallow, the burn is still there in the back of her throat from all that retching.

  ‘Temperature?’

  ‘I haven’t checked it but yes, I do feel hot. One of the kids at nursery had exactly these symptoms on Friday so I’m sure I’ve just picked up his bug. Is there something I can take that will wipe this out today?’ She starts to shuffle more upright in her chair, sure she’ll be handed a prescription soon and be on her way.

  ‘Let’s check you out first, shall we?’

  Emily likes Dr Blake a lot but this is mildly annoying. She’s already wasted the best part of an hour in the waiting room. She just wants to get home, mainline some drugs and crawl in to bed to catch up on all those missed hours of sleep from last night. But no, Dr Blake is taking her temperature (39°C), checking her blood pressure (high, apparently), shining a blinding light in her eyeball (seriously?), squeezing hard on the glands either side of her neck and asking a whole load of questions about her extended family’s medical history, none of which Emily can recall anyway. Perhaps any other day she would appreciate the thoroughness, not today, not when she’s this exhausted.

  ‘Tell me more about the position of the pain, Emily.’

  Oh come on…

  ‘I can pinpoint it exactly. It’s behind my left eye but stretching deep into my head. That is where is has been for the whole time, getting progressively worse. I’m just super stressed. It’s hardly surprising.’ A big irritated sigh is filling the space between them.

  ‘That’s my concern actually, Emily. What you’re describing to me is not a stress headache, that would typically be directly across your forehead. You’d feel as though you were wearing a hat that was too tight. And that’s not what you’re telling me. The more precise location of the pain coupled with your other symptoms make me think we ought to get you in to Oxford General for a quick MRI scan.’

  ‘What? Bit over the top isn’t it? Anyway, I can’t, I haven’t got time.’ She’s bolt upright now, body language making the point loud and clear that she has to be somewhere else.

  ‘You’re not going in to work today, I presume?’

  ‘Well, no.’ Busted.

  ‘OK, well let’s do it then. The radiologist is an old colleague of mine and I know she’ll fit you in if I ask her to. I’m not going to prescribe you anything until I know more about what we’re dealing with, Emily. The scan will give us a nice clear view of all your brain’s blood vessels so we’ll be able to see if there is any trauma there or a minor blockage.’

  ‘I don’t need to start Googling brain tumours, do I?’ Emily asks flippantly.

  ‘No, Emily. Your symptoms would have been present for considerably longer if it was that. Look, I’m not overly worried, so you shouldn’t be, but let’s be sure. There is a real limit to what I can tell from looking at you. If there is a chance to know for sure what’s causing the headache, why wouldn’t you want to take it? If I call them now, there is a good chance we will get you in today. Go and take a seat in the waiting room again and I’ll let you know when I’ve spoken to them. And book an appointment with your optician so we can rule that out too.’

  Back in the waiting room Emily calls her mum from her mobile but it goes straight to voicemail, so she opts for a local taxi firm instead. She can do without the fuss a lift from Glo would involve anyway. Fifteen minutes later and with her appointment confirmed by Dr Blake, she’s in the back of the minicab on her way to hospital, when her mobile goes.

  ‘Hi Mum, yes I’m feeling much better actually. I’m just going to pop in to the florist’s in town to get a few ideas. Won’t be long, home soon.’

  That’s the great thing about wedding planning, it gives you a thousand reasons and excuses to be somewhere else, even when you’re not.

  * * *

  Thrilled she is wearing the biggest, ugliest pants she owns (buy honeymoon lingerie can join the to-do list), Emily is undressing in a small room in the hospital’s radiology department and changing into a stiff green gown – one with unreachable ties at the back so there is no hope of doing it up. Having been asked to remove anything metal – jewellery, clothes with zips, underwire bra – and place it in the small grey locker along with her valuables, Emily has opted to take everything but the giant pants off. If she has to lie down for an hour, she may as well get comfy. She’s heard about these scans before, how the magnetic pull is so strong inside the scanner it’s known to send medical equipment flying across the room, sucking in bits of furniture. Now she can see it, Emily is thankful for two things. 1. She is fairly petite, because the tunnel she’ll have to lie in is surprisingly narrow and 2. She isn’t claustrophobic, because the space between where her head will lie and the top of tunnel is minimal.

  The whole thing is so random. She should be wiping Coco Pops off the nursery floor after the kids’ breakfast time about now, but instead a studious-looking older woman called Mary is asking her to lie on her back on the scanner bed, while she positions some pads under her knees to make Emily more comfortable. The bed is heavily padded with a groove where her head goes and there are blankets to keep her warm. Mary offers her some headphones that will pipe music into her ears during the scan and a handheld panic button in case she freaks out halfway through. Far from panicking, Emily, is looking forward to the lie down. This, she thinks, is actually the problem with having such a good relationship with your GP. Would Dr Blake have sent someone else, less well known to her, off for this scan today? Is she just being super thorough because she has a personal relationship with the family? Maybe Emily is being harsh but it just all seems so unnecessary. It’s a headache – admittedly a bloody painful one – but who goes to hospital for a headache? Is she missing something here? Is there some awful congenital strain in her family medical history that has been kept from her? Was Dr Blake putting in an Oscar-worthy performance as mildly concerned doctor when in fact she thinks Emily is about to expire? No, that just doesn’t ring true. It’s just fuss… that and probably Dr Blake’s fear of what Glo will do to her if she misses anything. Emily feels like one of those time-wasters you read about, squandering precious NHS resources when she should be taking an ibuprofen and getting the hell to bed. This is some palaver to go through just to get some nice strong codeine out of Dr Blake.

  As the strains of Nat King Cole’s ‘Unforgettable’ fill Emily’s ears, a whoosh of cool air rushes through the tunnel and Emily closes her eyes. Laser-firing sounds come in a series of repeated strengths and volumes all around her head, like machine gun fire but slightly muffled by the music. The cool breeze gives the illusion of fresh air and Emily’s thoughts drift to her honeymoon – she and Mark walking hand in hand along a sun-soaked beach, toes sinking in to the warm sand. She pictures coconut-infused sundowners next to a private pool, the air scented with the sweetness of frangipani; days spent lounging on giant sunbeds ordering skewers of fresh fruit; sipping rosé under a striped umbrella while they tuck in to lobster and prawns fresh from the sea. But more than anything, she imagines the two of them chatting and laughing together, making plans for the future. The home they will build, the good times they’ll have, the babies they’ll love, the solid family they will become. The daydream is so good, she almost doesn’t want the scan to end, but one hour later it does and she is back in the changing room, wriggling free of the gown.

  ‘Do you have any plans this afternoon?’ asks Mary.

  ‘No, just heading home to do some wedding planning,’ says Emily. ‘I’m getting married in a few months.’

  ‘Oh,’ Mary�
�s face seems to drop ever so slightly before she regains herself. ‘Well, good luck, Emily. Keep your mobile on, the results will be through quickly.’

  ‘OK, goodbye.’

  As Emily exists the room she glances back over her shoulder to see Mary pick up the phone.

  ‘Yes, it’s Mary from Radiology,’ she’s saying. ‘Who is the most senior consultant on today please? I need them to look at something.’

  While Emily waits outside for her return taxi on one of those sad memorial benches with its shiny gold plaque dedicated to a ‘devoted husband and father’, she thinks about Mary’s phone call.

  The radiologist had surely scanned lots of people that morning, she wasn’t necessarily talking about Emily’s results. How could she be anyway, they’d only just finished? Besides, the people who do the scans are never the ones to interpret the results, she knows that.

  She slumps into the back of the taxi, finally heading for home, noticing a missed call from Mum on her mobile. Oh yes, the florist fib, she’d better get her story straight. The good news is the headache has eased (see, she just needed some rest!) and she knows she wants an exotic honeymoon, probably Thailand or Bali, so that decision can be crossed off her list. The morning wasn’t an entire waste of time, after all. But the twenty-minute journey back home is taking forever, thanks to the taxi driver finding every red traffic light and road jam he can. Twenty minutes becomes forty minutes until finally she is rounding the corner into the village, just as her mobile phone rings.

  ‘Emily, it’s Sarah Blake.’

  ‘Oh hi, Dr Blake. You’re not checking up on me, are you? I did go for the scan, in fact I’m just arriving home now.’

  ‘I know you did, Emily.’

  Blimey, she sounds like a woman who wants her shift to end.

  ‘Oh, right. Well, it was fine, all good and to be honest I quite enjoyed the me-time. Sorry I was so grumpy earlier.’

  ‘I need you to come back to the surgery, Emily.’ Dr Blake’s voice is devoid of all jolliness, not her usual cheery self at all.

  ‘What? Have I left something there?

  ‘No, you haven’t but I—’

  ‘Oh, my prescription. Would you mind emailing it to the village pharmacy, please? I’ve spent a bomb on taxis today and no offence, Dr Blake, but I’d rather see my bedroom now if you don’t mind!’

  ‘Emily, I am calling because I am looking at your scan results and I need you to come back in the surgery, please. Is there someone you can bring with you? Is Glo around today?’

  The smile is immediately wiped from Emily’s face. She stops the taxi driver just as they get within sight of the house, redirecting him back to the surgery.

  ‘I’ll come now,’ she says before the taxi turns, leaving her family home behind them. Emily glances in the driver’s wing mirror and catches sight of her Dad pottering in the front garden, getting the flowerbeds ready for the big day.

  * * *

  The moment Emily gives the evil receptionist her name she is told to go straight through to Dr Blake’s room. She knocks once and enters to find her doctor poring over what looks like x-ray images of her sliced-open brain.

  ‘You came alone, Emily?’

  ‘Yes, although looking at your face now I am beginning to wish I hadn’t.’

  Dr Blake looks as though she has been crying. Her eyes are glassy and there is a telltale soggy tissue next to her keyboard. She gets up from her side of the desk and pulls her chair around next to Emily, taking her hand.

  Oh shit.

  ‘I’m afraid your scan results are not good, Emily. They show you have a cerebral aneurism behind your left eye. It’s very large, just over an inch and imbedded deep in the brain tissue. I have been on the phone to the senior consultant at Oxford General for the past half an hour and while there are lots of further discussions to be had, the initial feeling is that because of its position and size it is probably inoperable.’

  Emily’s hands move involuntarily to her face, cradling her cheeks as she takes a deep intake of breath. Aneurism. Inoperable. Why is Dr Blake assuming she knows what an aneurism is? She doesn’t. ‘What does this mean?’ she asks as the tears are starting to come.

  ‘I’m not an expert on this Emily and we have to get you referred to a specialist a.s.a.p. but essentially it means you have an inflamed blood vessel that has ballooned inside your brain and is compressing one of your cranial nerves, creating the pressure that has probably been causing your headache. Judging by the size of it, it has been there for some time. What we need to work out now is how we stop it rupturing, how best to treat it. But it’s important to remember Emily, you have been living with it fine up until now.’

  Can she really be hearing this right? Her first feeling is one of total stupidity. Why hadn’t she taken the headache more seriously, been more grateful for the immediate referral? But none of this makes sense.

  ‘How did it get there? Is it really serious? There is something they can do about it, right? Drugs, to shrink it?’ The questions are firing out of her more quickly than her brain can keep up. The words sound hollow, echoing, like they’re not coming out of Emily’s mouth at all.

  ‘Am I going to die, Dr Blake?’ She almost feels silly for saying it. How melodramatic is she? How weird is it to hear herself asking that question when an hour ago she was planning her honeymoon.

  Silence. Dr Blake is obviously struggling to think of a nice way to say whatever it is she needs to. Emily decides to help her.

  ‘Are you going to be taking your hat back, Sarah?’

  ‘I can’t answer that, Emily,’ she whispers with the sort of thundering honesty that is not expected.

  Then Emily notices the one solitary tear travelling down Dr Blake’s face and watches as it lands, exploding on to her lap. In the twenty-seven years Sarah Blake has been her doctor and friend, she has never seen her cry.

  9

  Jessie

  Five months to go

  Bridesmaids. Jessie needs bridesmaids. The question is, who? She has already bowed to some major hint-dropping from Camilla and allowed her to invite the offspring of two friends to be flower girls. The Nicki MacFarlane peony-coloured dresses with their smart box-pleated skirts and puff sleeves are already ordered – if it was good enough for K-Middy… Now Jessie needs some grown-up attendants. Or does she? Would it matter if she just skipped that bit? There are no obvious contenders. No old school friends she cares enough about. No former work colleagues she has stayed in touch with, no new friends full stop. She knows she should ask her make-up-dodging younger sister but at five foot four and fourteen stone with hair that always looks like it needs a good wash, Jessie doesn’t want that lolloping up the aisle behind her, ruining the elegant aesthetic she is paying well over the odds to create. But Claire is her sister. It’s only natural that she should be involved in the day and she knows very well Claire will be hurt if she’s excluded. Yes, of course she should ask Claire, it’s the only right thing to do but somehow Jessie just can’t convince herself to act on that thought, she’s so jumbled between doing the right thing and ensuring every element of the wedding looks perfect.

  Perhaps if she didn’t have to worry about all this nonsense, she might not be late to her first ever hunt meeting, although looking at this positively, maybe she’ll meet someone today who’ll fill the bridesmaid-sized hole in her wedding planning.

  As Jessie approaches the satnav-invisible field where the hunt is due to start, Camilla Coleridge’s words are ringing in her head. There is no point pretending to be something you are not. Having given Camilla the impression she is a more accomplished rider than she actually is – a few rushed, last minute lessons covering the very basics like how to get on the thing is clearly not going to cut it today – Jessie now finds herself on the duke of Beaufort’s estate (a personal friend of the Coleridges’, of course), desperately trying to locate the rest of the hunt who are due to set off in, shit, ten minutes. Camilla has kindly (stupidly) lent Jessie one of her finest horses,
Horace, for the day: now where is Adam? Jessie knows she can’t be far off, the four-by-fours are lining the narrow country lanes she has been bombing aimlessly around for the past thirty-five minutes.

  Then she spots them, on the other side of an open field. There must be at least two hundred riders, all decked out in, oh God, nothing like what Jessie is wearing. When Adam shouted dress for the hunt over his shoulder this morning as he belted out of the house, why the hell didn’t she press him on the specifics? When his text arrived an hour later advising her to ask Lady C about hunt kit, she’s expecting your call she ignored it, not wanting to look clueless again. So Jessie got dressed for riding, not hunting. So, so wrong. And now look at all those dogs, huge dogs, looking hungry for the kill. Do not admit you don’t like dogs.

  She abandons the car and starts to sprint across the muddy field, growing sweatier by the second, earrings jangling, pink lippie smudged across her mouth by the time she reaches the outskirts of the group. Now she’s close she can really see what a colossal mistake she has made with her outfit. The hunting die-hards are all wearing what look like dark navy velvet top hats (nothing like her riding hat with its pink and orange silk and jaunty little bobbles dangling from the edge), navy blazer-like coats with buff collars (hers is tweed), fawn breeches (sports luxe black leggings), starched white shirts with ties (the tweed jacket is at least hiding her boob-skimming Abercrombie t-shirt) and knee-length black leather riding boots (Jessie’s Hunter wellies are mercifully black, she nearly went for the fun red ones).

  ‘Shit, shit, shit. Oh God, I’m begging you, please let this not be happening,’ Jessie pleads skywards. It’s like the clock has cruelly skidded backwards and she’s turning up for a double science exam on the day she should be doing her French oral. She is totally and utterly unprepared for what awaits her.