In the orangey glow from the nightlight Michelle looked excited and dreamlike, as though she was a kind of fairy whose very presence could make things come true.
‘You’ll have to be really quiet,’ Vivi cautioned. ‘I’m not supposed to know where he is, but I found him in my mum’s room when she was outside in the garden.’
Bemused and seeming a little worried, Michelle crept on tiptoe after Vivi, out of the room and along the passage to the three stairs that led up to a door that was half open.
Vivi paused, listening for the sound of the TV downstairs. Her mum and NanaBella always watched Come Dancing on Saturday nights, and from the sound of the music she could tell it had already started. That was good, because they wouldn’t be able to hear anything else, not that she and Michelle were going to make a noise. Grandpa, she knew, was out at one of his card nights, so he wouldn’t hear them either.
‘Better not turn the light on,’ she whispered to Michelle as they crept into her mother’s room, ‘but the curtains aren’t drawn yet, so we might be able to see.’
Michelle kept close behind as Vivi led the way round the high bed with four short posts and over to a chest of drawers with photographs of a baby on the top (Vivi), and a wooden-framed mirror that reflected an unlit chandelier hanging from the middle of the ceiling.
‘Ssh,’ Vivi murmured as she eased open the bottom drawer. ‘He’s in here.’
Michelle was looking worried again. ‘Is it a photo?’ she said faintly.
Vivi shook her head, and pushing aside a pile of clothes she found what she was looking for and lifted it out.
Michelle stared at the big round bundle. ‘If it’s his head I don’t want to see it,’ she said earnestly.
‘It’s not his head,’ Vivi assured her, and carefully unwrapping the muslin shroud she revealed a heavy bronze figure of a man in a hat and a baggy suit, with arms outstretched and legs that seemed to be moving. ‘This is him,’ Vivi whispered, holding it so Michelle could get a good look. ‘I think it’s why my mum always watches Come Dancing, just in case he’s on.’
Michelle was bewitched. ‘Why does your mum keep him wrapped up in a drawer?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘You should ask her.’
‘I think she’d be cross if I did.’
Seeming to understand that, Michelle continued to gaze at the sculpture until Vivi wrapped it up again and put it back in the drawer.
Vivi was feeling strangely distanced from the life-saving equipment around her, hardly hearing it, or even sensing its attachments to her body, as she willed time to stop or, better still, turn back. Her mother and Mark were on one side of the bed, Michelle and Gil on the other and the senior cardiac nurse plus two junior doctors were grouped around the end, trying to look professional and compassionate. Dr Novak himself, with his Slavic features and easy manner, was studying the tablet he’d been handed on entering the room, assessing the latest reports of her progress and saying nothing yet.
Eventually he turned his attention to Vivienne and smiled in a way that made her feel fleetingly brave, even though she was racked with dread.
What was he going to say? Whatever it was she had to try to deal with it, even if it was bad.
As he came closer his grey eyes didn’t move from hers, and for a bewildering moment it felt as though they were the only ones in the room. ‘What I’m about to tell you is good news,’ he began in his pleasantly accented voice, but before Vivienne could register relief he was saying, ‘It probably won’t seem like it at first, but once you’ve had time for it to sink in I think you’ll agree that it is.’
Vivienne’s eyes went to her mother. Gina apparently didn’t understand either. She was clinging tightly to Mark’s hand.
‘You have presented us with an unusual situation,’ Dr Novak informed her, ‘because the sort of infarctions and arrests you’ve suffered are currently falling between two diagnoses. Please don’t look so worried.’ He smiled gently. ‘I said unusual, not impossible, as both conditions are treatable, it’s simply a question of going forward in the right way.’
This was sounding reasonable, not too frightening. Treatable was always good.
‘… because of the damage the muscle – your heart – has suffered, and the complications that have arisen, I’m afraid your recovery isn’t going in the way we’d hoped.’ He put a hand over Vivienne’s as though sensing the deepening of her fear, and wanting to hold her back from it. ‘It’s my professional opinion,’ he said softly, ‘that your heart isn’t strong enough to give you much more than a year of life, and that life won’t be like the one you’ve known up until now. This is why, with your permission, I’m going to recommend that you are assessed for a transplant.’
Vivienne heard a gasp, a small cry of shock, but she had no idea where it had come from. Maybe her; or maybe it was her mother. Her eyes were still on Dr Novak’s, her fingers holding fast to his, as if letting go would cause her to spiral down into an abyss of such darkness and despair that she would never find her way back.
He began speaking again, saying more, much more, but none of it changed what he’d already said. The heart she had was so weak, so sick, that unless it was replaced, and soon, she was going to die.
Early Summer 1989
‘… and I’m the one who has to name him, because he’s going to be my pig, isn’t he, Daddy?’
‘He is indeed,’ Jack cheerfully confirmed, while glancing in the rear-view mirror to where all three of his children were framed like a small family portrait – Hanna aged eight, Zoe seven next week, and four-year-old Josh, soon to be the proud owner of one small pig. Josh was a miniature version of his father; the same untameable dark hair, deep blue eyes and a smile that was as infectious as his laugh – apart from in his sisters’ opinion, but he didn’t worry too much about that.
Shelley checked the wing mirror on her door of the old Land Rover, making sure Jack’s brother, Nathan, and his wife, Katya, were still in close pursuit. This was going to be Nate and Kat’s first visit to the Dean Valley County Fair, and while the children were thrilled to have them along, their aunt and uncle’s most important task today was to tow the trailer that would later carry home any new livestock they purchased, most importantly the piglet.
Behind the Land Rover was another trailer, this one transporting Milady, the imperious, overweight and highly coiffed sheep that Zoe was entering into the children’s Best in Show competition. Zoe had done most of the grooming herself – post shearing, which she’d watched closely with her inexpert eye to make sure a good job was done – and had only just stopped short of mascara and lipstick. She’d also persuaded Jack to join her for a camp-out in the barn last night to make sure no rival competitor tried to steal the potential prizewinner. (There had been no reports of rustling in their area, but someone had put the idea into Zoe’s head and so all precautions had to be taken.)
‘I’m going to call