by the surgeons would turn out to be localised and easy to deal with, effectively meaning a permanent cure.
Yet the results provided by Southshore Hospital’s pathology department were unequivocal—cancer of the liver, with the primary tumour not located, which meant a spread of cancer throughout her system. No hope of a cure or of long-term survival. At best, the possibility of chemotherapy, which would prolong the patient’s life for several months. Many people, in these circumstances, made the choice to have no treatment at all.
As yet, she wouldn’t have been told any of this. Usually, it was the surgeon’s job, but since he’d known this patient for such a long time he would do what he’d done once or twice before and phone the surgeon to suggest that he tell Mrs Deutschkron himself. It wasn’t something any doctor looked forward to, but Marshall felt that it would come best from him.
And he couldn’t shake it off, as he usually managed to. Hilde Deutschkron had been a patient at this practice since long before he’d started here, and that had been over twenty years ago. Her three children had been delivered by old Dr Rattigan, who was now retired. Her husband had been a patient here, too, until his death of heart failure six years ago.
Still, perhaps he might have shaken it off more easily if it hadn’t come as such a surprise…
At home, an hour later, the big house where he now lived alone seemed too big, ridiculously big for one man. Simon was still studying in the United States. He’d met an American girl and they were now seriously involved. It seemed all too likely that he’d make his home there permanently.
Rebecca and Harry lived just a short drive away in Surry Hills, but even with the prospect of overnight visits from darling little grandchildren in the not too distant future—and, good heavens, it was difficult to adjust to the idea that he’d be a grandfather soon—he didn’t need all this space. Should he sell and move somewhere smaller?
One of life’s big chances, a decision to make, as Hilde Deutschkron would have to do soon, only her decision was much more grave.
He picked up the phone and dialled Aimee’s number. What would she say if she knew that he could key in the eight digits off by heart now? Would she be pleased? Did she know his number, by any chance?
She answered on the first ring. Her voice was as cool and fluid and sweet as ever, but he hadn’t expected to hear it quite so soon, and was startled into speaking more abruptly than he’d intended.
‘Aimee? It’s Marshall. I’m sorry, I was going to suggest we go out for a coffee later on. We talked about something like that on Sunday, didn’t we? But I wouldn’t be good company tonight, I’m afraid. The news on Hilde Deutschkron wasn’t good…’
‘Oh, no!’
He gave her the details, then added, ‘And, well, as I said, I just wouldn’t be good company.’
‘That’s fine. Of course. I understand completely. Perhaps you should go for a walk or a jog or something.’
‘Good idea,’ he agreed, and a few moments later he’d put down the phone.
‘Or, Marshall, would it help if I—?’ Aimee began.
Too late. She heard a click in her ear, and then the metallic trill of the dial tone. He’d hung up without hearing her belated addition. She took the receiver from her ear and just sat there in her silent house for several long minutes, trying to argue herself out of an absurd disappointment, trying to take herself back to the mood of the weekend they’d just spent together at the ski resort of Perisher in the Snowy Mountains.
Two couples had had to pull out of a trip some friends of Marshall’s had planned, and he’d invited Aimee to join him in taking up the two spare rooms, already booked and paid for. They’d had a thoroughly wonderful time on the slopes and with Marshall’s four friends. Simmering below this, as yet unacknowledged, had been a stirring of the senses she’d forgotten about, hadn’t felt since…when? Her twenties? She already had a strong inkling about its importance.
Marshall had felt it, too. She was quite sure of that. They’d both sensed the unfurling of a physicality which had been dormant in each of them for a long time. But the six-hour journey back to Sydney after the weekend was over, in the four-wheel drive the six of them had rented, had broken the mood somewhat. Everyone had been tired, and the other two women, Penelope and Sandra, had been getting on each other’s nerves.
At her home, Marshall had helped Aimee to carry in her luggage, saying to her quickly at the door, ‘Can’t stop. Geoff’s on a short fuse.’ He’d taken her hands between his and she’d loved the warm, engulfing feel of his touch. Then he’d said something very quick and sketchy about ‘doing something together’ very soon.
His swift, tender kiss had brushed her cheek and the corner of her mouth, lasting only a moment, yet more than twenty-four hours later it still seemed to tingle on her skin.
I’m falling in love with him, Aimee realised. I’m really, truly falling in love with him.
It felt wonderful, and at the same time very, very frightening. She was fifty and he was fifty-one. They both had grown-up children, including each of them a daughter who would soon make them grandparents for the first time. Perhaps, after all, it was good that he’d cried off tonight with that brief phone call. She really had to keep her feet on the ground about this!
For the next hour and a half, Aimee did just that. She did sensible things, like ironing blouses and teatowels, and cleaning the cupboard under the sink. She made herself a mushroom omelette for dinner, and washed the dishes immediately afterwards. She rang her son Thomas, who was doing three months of field research near Cairns, and her daughter Sarah, who was having a very difficult time with her first pregnancy, which had now reached the end of the second trimester.
Sarah fretted over the phone, ‘My friend Louise says she never felt like this. And she thinks I look huge, but the ultrasound showed it’s not twins.’
‘When’s your next appointment?’ Aimee asked her daughter.
‘Next week.’
‘Write down all your concerns so you remember everything you want to ask the doctor. And if you’re really worried, give him a call tomorrow and ask if he can see you sooner.’
It was sensible advice, received with thanks from Sarah.
Then Aimee spoiled it all by pouring herself a glass of white wine—only a small one—letting down her long hair, turning off all the lights except the stained-glass lamp on the end table and dancing with her eyes closed to a compilation tape that Sarah had made for her, featuring Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and the Rolling Stones.
How old was fifty, anyway? Not old at all! Younger than Mick Jagger. And she’d just spent the weekend skiing, for heaven’s sake!
Then the doorbell rang. It might, in fact, have been ringing for a while. There was no point at all in listening to the Rolling Stones unless you listened to them loud!
Half-empty wineglass in her hand and silver-white hair flowing down her back, she went to answer it, almost hoping that it would be grumpy Gordon Parker from across the street, complaining about the music. Her lounge-room window was open and it was possible that the sound carried that far, although there was a thick screening of trees and shrubs in the way.
Gordon was only a year or two older than she was, but
