‘But there will be crocodiles,’ Cally said. ‘At the zoo.’
‘Crocodiles!’ Noah shouted, looking terrified and yet thrilled beyond belief in equal measure.
‘Crocodiles!’ Riley emulated his big brother.
‘Definitely,’ Cally said.
‘Sing the song!’ Riley yelled. ‘Sing the song!’
One of the songs Riley loved from the playgroup he went to two mornings a week was about a crocodile.
‘You must never smile at a crocodile, ’cos a crocodile has got an evil smile,’ Cally began to sing softly, almost a whisper.
But the boys had other ideas and began to sing the song, with wild facial gestures and much snapping of arms to indicate a crocodile’s jaws, very loudly.
Jack looked slightly embarrassed at the noise his sons were making.
‘Sorry,’ Cally mouthed at him.
‘Nah,’ Jack said. ‘It’s all right. We’ll let this one go. I expect there’ve been worse things on the top deck of a bus!’
And so the boys made more than a few repetitions of the crocodile song, and when they got to the zoo, Jack bought bags of special food for them to feed the animals and birds. Cally burst out laughing when Noah showed more interest in the locks and bolts on the gates of the pens than he did in the animals inside them.
‘He’s going to be an engineer,’ she said.
‘I should hope so,’ Jack said. ‘Or I’m a rotten role model.’
And could you take on the role of mother, if…?
Cally knew the answer to that – yes, he could.
Like all small children when they saw a big, empty space, Noah and Riley wanted to run into it. The paths in the zoo were wide and, at this time of year, not as crowded as they would be in the summer holidays with more children about.
‘When do we lose the ability to be so uninhibited?’ Jack asked. ‘Look at them!’
Noah and Riley were tearing around on their sturdy little legs, their blond curls blown every which way by the light breeze and their frantic activity. They were both squealing with delight, making car noises. Cally wished she could rush off in the sort of gay abandon Noah and Riley were achieving. Perhaps the lump would go if it knew she didn’t care about it, that she wasn’t going to let it get her.
‘Bang, bang,’ Riley said. He had found a stick from somewhere and was pointing it at Noah. ‘I deaded you.’
Dead.
Cally’s blood ran cold at Riley’s innocent choice of word in a game all children played, however much she might not like them playing it.
‘How happy they are,’ Jack said.
And they were. Cally took her phone from her bag and began taking photos. Lots of photos to go with those she’d already taken on this holiday. More memories. If…
‘It’s going to cost an arm and a leg getting that lot developed,’ Jack laughed.
Cally still loved to hold a photograph in her hand, rather than look at it on a screen, which was the norm these days. Already she had about six large albums full of photographs of the boys.
‘Some things are priceless,’ she said softly.
Jack linked his arm through Cally’s.
‘Like you. You’re priceless to me, sweetheart.’
Cally leaned in to him, full of sadness for what might yet turn out to be, yet full of love as well. It was all too much to bear, and the tears began to fall.
So, there in the zoo, with the boys running around, shouting their heads off, cheeks pink with exertion, Cally told Jack, their arms leaning on the wooden rail of the pen where strikingly beautiful zebra were nibbling grass.
‘I’ve found a lump.’
‘Where?’ Jack asked, putting an arm around Cally’s shoulder.
‘In my left breast.’
‘When? When did you find it?’
‘Two weeks ago? Three?’
‘Why didn’t you say?’ Jack sounded concerned rather than cross that she hadn’t mentioned such a serious worry.
‘I don’t know now. I should have. But I thought I might have been imagining it. That, maybe, I’d twisted a muscle or something and that it would unkink itself if I ignored it. At first I kept finding it with my fingers all the time. I couldn’t stop myself searching for info on the internet either.’
‘So, that’s what you were looking at?’
‘Yes, mostly. I found a chat site for cancer sufferers where they share their stories. Someone on there – a man called Tony – got in touch. I didn’t know men could get breast cancer.’
‘So, the email you were so keen for me not to see was from him?’
‘I wouldn’t have minded you seeing it, but I hadn’t told you and I didn’t want you jumping to conclusions.’
‘Oh, Cally. You’ve been shouldering this on your own. And I must confess I did begin to wonder if, you know, another man had come into your life. I hated myself for even thinking it, and I didn’t know how to handle it. So I thought it might be best if we got right away from our usual environment, and the computer, and just went back to being us.’
‘We’re always going to be “us”,’ Cally said. ‘And I’m really sorry now I told a chat site before telling you. Tony was one of many men on there – those who have, or have had, cancer, and those widowed by it. Tony said he wished he hadn’t told people when he did. He said he wished now he’d had all the correct information and a prognosis under his belt before he did, because people can have a lot of crackpot theories.’
‘This Tony is right there. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, sweetheart,’ Jack said. He pulled Cally closer. ‘We’re both guilty of not telling one another what fears we had in our minds, I think. I ought not to have booked this holiday without giving you the chance to say whether you wanted to come or not.’
‘I’m glad you did now,’ Cally said. ‘Or I’d still be searching cancer sites, and reading other people’s often very sad and scary stories night after night, and instead it’s been lovely sitting on the deck while the boys sleep, watching the moon cast its avenue of light on the water, and hearing the soft shush of the waves. It didn’t make the lump go away but it didn’t make it worse either, and for that short while I was able to forget.’
‘Sometimes the simplest things are the best.’
‘But I’m frightened, Jack,’ Cally said.
‘And I’m frightened with you. I can’t pretend anything else at this moment. But we must hang on to the fact that no one’s told you the lump is cancer yet. But if it is you need more than one soldier to fight a battle. And I’ll be right beside you. So, my next question – do you want to go back home right now and get the ball rolling, as it were, or…?’
‘No! Really, no. There will be fewer chances as the boys get older to holiday in school time like this. We’ll stay.’
‘And holiday like we’ve never holidayed before.’ Jack drew Cally towards him and kissed her cheek.
‘We will. And the weather seems to be on our side at the moment. And when I get back I want to cut back on work. Maybe just two days a week. I know Mum loves having them but the time with them is so short, isn’t it? Can we afford for me to only work two days?’
‘Yes, and