Daddy painted little red spots on his face to pretend he had the measles too.
Mummy made Jenny’s favourite lunch - sausage and mash - to tempt her to eat.
Gran knitted a hot water bottle cover in the shape of a policeman.
“I copied it from Grandad’s old uniform,” she said popping a kiss on little Jenny’s head. “You might need this later.”
And she was so right.
Jenny got the shivers and Mummy put her to bed - in the middle of the afternoon - with the newly covered hot water bottle to keep
her toes toasty.
After a few days Jenny felt better.
Jen put the writing pad aside. She felt ridiculously weary. Ridiculous because she had done nothing strenuous for days. Some light housework,
a bit of futile pottering in the garden. A few stints at the computer ... But her concentration and enthusiasm seemed to be slipping away.
It couldn’t still be the after effects of the Move, surely. The new house in a new village had been meant to be a relief not a new burden.
Maybe she was just missing Mark. He was so often away since his promotion. Attending courses, running courses, carrying out bonding
exercises with his colleagues, investigating difficult cases.
“You could do some supply teaching,” he suggested. “Now that you haven’t got me to cater for all the time ...”
“Are you suggesting that I am suffering from Time on My hands?” she had said. But Mark had not picked up on the cue for
a tease as he once would have. “And there’s always my writing,” she finished lamely.
Maybe she was pining for her mother. They had always been so close - shopping for mother ‘n daughter outfits, insisting on foisting culinary
experiments on each other, popping in for coffee on the spur of the moment. But now she was so far away ... but so happy and fulfilled,
Jen reminded herself. Working her way through all the relatives she had found soon after embarking on an Internet Family Search.
And as for Dad ... He was far away too but the distance between them was more a mental one than geographical.
Maybe it was the onset of the Menopause. She would phone her sister-in-law later and they would have a good laugh about it.
Michelle was sufficiently convalescent now to enjoy that kind of telephone chat.
But first she would go and see what the postman had poked through her letterbox. She had heard the once-welcome plop but had
crouched out of sight rather than give him a friendly wave through the window. What an old misery I am becoming, she thought. And
the post did not bring cheer - several bills, lots of junk mail and a rejection slip.
Much later, and more in despair than inspiration, Jen settled in her “writing chair” again.
Jenny had chicken pox.
At first it was fun.
Daddy put blobs of calamine all over his face to pretend he had chicken pox too.
Mummy made Jenny’s favourite pudding - upside down banana sponge - to urge her to eat.
Gran rummaged in a drawer to find the hot water bottle cover and stitched a new badge on the policeman’s helmet.
“This’ll be a comfort sooner or later,” she said, ruffling little Jenny’s curls.
And she was right.
Jenny’s teeth began to chatter and Mummy put her to bed - at five o’clock in the afternoon - with the newly decorated hot water bottle
tucked into her back.
After a few days Jenny got better.
Jenny had ............
Jen flung down her pencil.
What’s the use, she thought. She knew that the magazine she wrote for would never accept this. It would be returned - from one of the
blonde and beautiful twelve year olds who now ran the editorial department - she had looked them up on Facebook. There might be a rejection
letter enclosed, rather than the ultimate insult - a printed card.
This is unsuitable for the magazine, it would say. Far too downbeat for our readers. We suggest the author
studies our publication closely.
Bah! As though she hadn’t had access to Gran’s copies since she was seven - before these bimbos were born. She still missed Gran.
They had been so close. Memories of overnight stays at the cottage remained with Jen - more vivid and real than events more recent and
which should have been equally happy. But it was not of her beautiful wedding day nor of her bissful first few years of marriage that Jen thought
when she sought comfort. She could conjure up a mental video of Life with Gran as though it was only yesterday they walked together through
the bluebell wood, jostled each other in the small kitchen as they put up jars of chutney, giggled as they leafed through photograph albums or
read the weekly magazine together, sitting side by side on the sagging sofa. Gran had hidden her illness from everybody till it was too late for
treatment ...
Jen felt her left breast. The lump was still there. Probably time to take it to the doctor’s.
****************
A year later, Jen, bald and aching, indescribably uncomfortable, mentally and physically in her specially-designed undergarment, sat down
at her desk. This in itself was amazing after months of feeling neither the desire nor the strength to do anything but loll on the sofa. She worked
her way down the In tray, sorting out bills and bank statements. She had assured her little circle of helpers - mainly Mum and Michelle and
the nurse who came in at first to change the dressing - later to take blood samples ready for the hospital visits - that she could now tackle
simple tasks like this on her own. Anything that did not need too much concentration. At the bottom of the soul-destroying heap was a
cardboard file marked UNFINISHED STORIES. She opened it. And snapped it shut the moment her eye fell on the title of the top page.
MAGIC HOT WATER BOTTLE.
It’s too soon, she decided and crept back to the sofa.
She lay there, reliving the past months. The shock of the diagnosis - shock for Mark, that is, not for Jen who had known since the
moment the first doctor asked permission to do an immediate needle biopsy. “Sit down, Officer,” said the second doctor, helping the tall,
robust husband into a chair, smiling sympathy at the smaller, frailer wife, who was by far the most calm and collected of the two. “We’ll get
you some hot, sweet tea. Then I would like to outline the procedures ...” Mark was a copper, just like Grandad. Gran had been proper
chuffed about that though she was not around for the wedding, just the engagement. “Can my sister-in-law come in?” asked Jen. “My husband
and I will probably not be able to take in half you say.” It was Michelle who had advised her to ask this.
“I’m an old pro,” she had joked. “Been there, done that - twice, remember.”
Michelle drove them both home, made more hot, sweet tea, went over the options with infinite patience even when they asked the
daftest questions.
“Could they have made a mistake?” asked Mark.”Should we not ask for a second opinion?” The tea cup rattled in his hand. His
sister shook her head at him, took the cup and set it down.
“Must I really go for the full works?” said Jen. “They did say I could just have a lumpectomy ...”
“Yes, Jen - but they also said that may lead to a second op later - if the margins are murky ..."
“Wh - what does that mean?” said Jen, not really wanting to know - swivelling round to face Mark, willing him to say the magic words.
Thick and thin, for better or for worse, won’t make any difference ... Anything along those lines. But he didn’t, despite his sister glaring at him.
And he left before the bandages came off. But Michelle stayed - and accompanied Jen for the gruelling daily trip to Radiotherapy -
and every day of those five weeks they both hoped Mark would come back and help Jen accept the disfigurement, the mutilation, the dreadful
loss of confidence.
Jen’s mother came back from Canada to see her through the chaemotherapy. Her father was too far away in Australia, too busy with
his second family, too long removed from any intimacy with his first born.
“Will it always be as bad as this?” Jen asked, halfway through the third cycle, fit for nothing but hiding herself away under the duvet,
unable to crawl to the loo or swallow a morsel of nourishment.
"In a week’s time you will feel much better,” her mother reminded her, gently.
“OK - I vaguely remember that - but then what?”asked Jen peevishly. She felt the last remnants of her sunny nature slipping away
leaving this disagreeable person for herself and others to cope with.
“Then it will keep happening until all those nasties in your system have been chased away, luv.” Her mother pulled up the covers,
adjusted the pillows. “Just snuggle down under that duvet, darling,” she whispered.
Until the ultimate duvet of death, thought Jen.
“Would you like a hot water bottle?” asked her mother, pausing in the doorway. But Jen was blessedly asleep.
************************
Five years on - and the significant FINAL CHECK UP. Jen felt well enough to go by herself. This time she took in everything
the consultant said. The paperwork necessary for her “release” was tedious as ever, the taxi driver a tat too curious, though gentle and
supportive. Jen was anxious to get indoors and almost ran up the front path. She was aware of an unfamiliar flicker of interest tempered
with dismay at the state of the garden. The chap who had come in once a month while she was unable and uninterested had kept it tidy -
but it was hardly inspired.
Once indoors, she flung her coat on the hook and hurried through the living room with barely a glance at the sofa, her refuge for so
long but now holding no attraction whatsoever. In her study she booted up the computer, filed away the prescriptions and National health
bumph while she waited for it to warm up.
First an email to Michelle, copy to Mum, informing them of the results. Then she browsed through her desktop documents till she
came to “Current Children’s Story.” She read it through twice - and then began to tap away at the keys.
Jenny had cancer.
It was no fun from the first.
The doctors prodded and poked, incised and chopped.
The nurses inserted needles and fed in poison.
The technicians aimed deadly rays at her chest.
Then Jenny died, the hot water bottle clutched in her scrawny arms ...
Jen threw back her head and laughed. She caught sight of a clump of daffodils on the bank opposite the window. She felt a surge of
happiness well up inside. She felt like a new woman and along with this cliché she grinned at the thought “even though I’m only half the
woman I was.” How good it felt to be able to grin again.
She pressed the Delete button and went to seek out her gardening gloves. Time to decide what to do about her writing later.
Maybe she would take a stab at the novel she had always meant to write - but kept fobbing herself off with feeble excuses about lack of time.
Time. That’s what she had now. And she was going to make the most of every single minute.
