does a good job of looking well, but it won’t be long.’ He pauses and puts a hand on Becky’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Becky takes a deep breath. ‘I just had no idea, that’s all. We haven’t talked in years.’
The nurse frowns. ‘She told me you were at her last book launch a few months ago.’
Becky tenses. No doubt one of her mum’s embellishments. ‘No, she must be getting confused.’
The nurse nods sympathetically. ‘It happens.’
He leads her down a small corridor lined with doors, knocking gently on one of them.
‘Oh, you don’t need to knock, Nigel,’ Becky hears her mum call out. ‘God knows you’ve seen it all already the past few days.’
It feels strange to hear her mum’s voice again, just a metre or so away instead of over the phone. Deep and gravelly like it’s scratched with sand.
The nurse laughs. ‘Your daughter’s here, Miss Rhys.’
Becky smooths her hair down, feeling nervous.
‘Come in then,’ her mum calls out. The nurse opens the door. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he whispers with a raised eyebrow. Then he walks away.
Becky stands at the threshold. She can’t see her mum properly, just the end of her bed and a large window that looks out to sea. Suddenly, she feels the urge to run away. Hadn’t her mum once, when Becky needed her the most? She was just eight, for God’s sake. And yet her mum had still turned on her heel and left, hadn’t she?
But she wasn’t like her mum.
She walks in, her mum gradually revealed with each step she takes. She’s lying in bed, head turned towards the window, her once lush dark hair now brittle and greying in parts. Her arms that were once plump and tanned are now thin, papery and white, and her apple cheeks are sunken.
She turns towards Becky. Even her blue eyes have changed. Once vivid but now pale and watery. The only sign of her old self is a kind of fierceness in those eyes. And, of course, the vividly coloured nightdress, bright green nightingales against navy skies.
Her mum smiles slightly and, for a moment, time stops. Becky’s that eight-year-old girl again, standing on a windswept beach, reaching her hand out to her mum as she smiles down at her.
‘You came,’ her mum says.
‘Of course.’ Becky walks over as her mum struggles to pull herself up, adjusting the top of her nightdress. Becky examines her mum’s face. There are folds and creases there she’s unused to. Her mum was never smooth-faced – a few pockmarks from childhood acne on her cheeks, crinkles around her eyes even when she was young – but they made her even more beautiful. But her age is really showing now. The torment of illness.
‘Not quite how you remember me, I imagine,’ her mum says as though reading Becky’s thoughts.
‘It has been ten years,’ Becky replies. She moves a book from the chair by her mum’s bed so she can sit down. Love by Angela Carter. She remembers her mum reading a lot of Angela Carter’s books.
‘Has it really been ten years?’ her mum asks.
‘Yes, that long.’ Becky leans forward. She feels like she ought to take her mum’s hand, kiss her cheek. But things feel so brittle between them, like one touch might break everything. ‘How long have you known?’
‘I’ve known about the cancer for years.’
Becky frowns. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I seem to recall you saying you never wanted to speak to me again the last time we talked.’
Becky’s cheeks flush.
‘Anyway, I’ve been managing fine until now.’ Her mum straightens her crisp white bedsheets with her fingers and shrugs. ‘Had to catch up with me sooner or later, I suppose.’
‘I presume it’s spread?’ Becky asks.
Her mum nods. ‘Brain. Bones. Liver. Cuticles and hair strands too, probably. The lot.’
Becky turns away, a tear trailing down her cheek. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices her mum reaching her hand out for her.
Then there’s a knock on the door.
Her mum lowers her hand. ‘Come in!’ she calls out in a faux bright voice.
A doctor walks in; an Indian woman, tall and serious looking.
‘Ah, you have a visitor,’ the doctor says, smiling.
‘Yes, this is my daughter,’ Becky’s mum replies.
Becky stands, putting her hand out to the doctor. ‘I’m Becky.’
The doctor shakes it. ‘Doctor Panchal.’ She turns to her patient. ‘How are you today?’
‘Not dead yet,’ Becky’s mum replies.
Doctor Panchal gives her a stern look. She turns to Becky. ‘I’m pleased you’re here. Your mum may have explained that we’re making preparations to move her to a hospice, a very good one. They have an excellent reputation in palliative care.’
Becky blinks. Palliative care. End of life. End of her mum’s life.
‘My daughter’s one of you lot, you know,’ her mum says to the doctor.
‘You’re a doctor too?’ the doctor asks Becky.
‘No, a vet,’ Becky explains.
The doctor smiles. ‘Wonderful. I have two cats.’
‘What sort?’ Becky asks, clutching onto the familiar conversation to stop her whirling down a rabbit’s hole of grief.
‘Siamese.’
‘I had a Siamese cat in one of my novels,’ her mum says.
‘Oh yes,’ the doctor replied. ‘The Circle, wasn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’ Becky’s mum sighs. ‘It’s actually my least favourite novel.’
‘Oh really?’ the doctor says. ‘I loved it!’
It still feels alien to Becky, hearing people fuss over her mum’s novels. She was used to those early years, when her mum was struggling to make a success of things. But now, her mum has several million book sales and awards under her belt. Of course, she’d watched it all happen from afar, reading articles in newspapers describing her mum as the ‘Sunday Times bestselling author’ and ‘book club favourite’, the publicity photo of her staring out to sea, trademark sunglasses on, all Greta Garbo-esque. Then she’d won a major book award a few months later, and foreign deals meant she made it big in the States too.
At first, she gave interviews that Becky would read and throw away in frustration when
