she added, grinning.
That was a bit consoling, but I’d have to accept that I was now never going to be an airy confection of spun sugar, only a solid Madeira sponge. My smart clothes had been packed away for so long I feared the creases were permanent and I was living in jeans, trainers and sloppy T-shirts. I’d also given up any attempt to straighten my curly fair hair, or cover the freckles across the bridge of my nose with makeup. In fact, I’d entirely resigned myself to looking wholesome, it just didn’t feel that important any more … though I might still grind cake in the face of the next person to remark brightly that I looked like a young Hayley Mills, because I’d Googled her films and no, I didn’t.
What would I have done without Celia? Other friends had slipped away since I had Stella, but she had remained constant since the day I first moved out of the family home and we shared both a flat and the struggle to make a living. She met her husband, Will, when Sweet Home commissioned an article about his driftwood sculptures and we happened to be in the offices when he came in to ask about getting a regular column. Love at first sight. Will is so nice, he almost deserves her.
‘What does Stella want for Christmas – or need I ask?’ she said now. ‘More of those Sylvanian Families?’
‘Yes. I’m afraid the addiction might be permanent, and it’s all my fault,’ I said ruefully. I’d been too old really for the little fuzzy animal toys when they first came out, but I’d loved them anyway and, over the years, added a few more to my collection. Now Stella, at three, had taken them over and I’d bought her even more.
‘I know she’s scarily bright, but isn’t she a bit young for them?’
‘Perhaps, but she’s never put things in her mouth, apart from her thumb, and she plays quietly with them for hours. She wants a house for the mouse family to live in next, but there are a few other things that I know she’d like. There’s a Father Christmas mouse too, with a little tree and parcels – that looked fun.’
‘You can show me on the internet, and I’ll order something. You’re coming up to Sticklepond to stay with Martha for Christmas, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, and bringing all the ingredients for festive fun with us, as usual, because Ma wouldn’t bother otherwise. I do love going up there and I know that Ma, for all her reclusive ways, loves Stella.’
‘We all love Stella, she’s bright and delightful – she read her Meg and Mog book to me last night,’ Celia said. ‘And then she said if she knew a witch she would get her to do a spell to make her heart better.’
‘I only wish I knew one. She’s so tiny for nearly three and a half and she gets tired so easily that we still have to take the buggy everywhere. She doesn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive and any slight infection is dangerous …’ I sighed. ‘Well, we’ll see what the treatment plan they’ve drawn up for her at the hospital for next year is.’
‘They did say she might need another operation, didn’t they? Perhaps it will be the final one, so she can live a normal life,’ Celia said optimistically.
But there didn’t seem to be an ongoing treatment plan – or not one leading in a positive direction. I was shocked when the consultant told me there was nothing more they could do and gave me to understand that Stella’s long-term outlook was poor and she was likely to go slowly downhill as her condition increasingly put a strain on her body, until finally she succumbed to some infection.
‘Of course, we would like her to gain weight so that she has the reserves to fight infections, but then again, as she grows, that will also put a strain on her organs …’ he explained.
‘When I asked him if they couldn’t operate again, he said no, because no one in the UK was doing the kind of complex surgery she needed,’ I reminded Celia later, back in the flat, when Stella had gone for a nap and we were talking it all over. I was still shell-shocked and tearful, but Celia suddenly seized on what I’d just said.
‘So he did! But maybe that means they are doing it in another country, like America? I saw a newspaper article about a child who’d gone to America for life-saving surgery, though it cost thousands and thousands of pounds, so they’d had to do a lot of fundraising to pay for it.’
I stared at her blankly. ‘But – wouldn’t the consultant have mentioned it, if there was anyone else capable of helping Stella?’
‘Not necessarily, I don’t think, if it was another country. Come on, it’s worth a go – Google search.’
And that’s how we found Dr Rufford Beems’ experimental programme over in Boston, and a fresh spring of hope.
We emailed the hospital in Boston straight away and after that things just seemed to snowball, so by the time Stella and I finally set out for Christmas with Ma in Sticklepond, I’d had Stella’s medical information sent over to Boston, a very kind and detailed response from the surgeon, and a reluctant agreement from my consultant that it was currently Stella’s only option, other than settling for palliative care.
‘Dr Beems says it would be best to do the operation before Stella’s fifth birthday, but the sooner the better,’ I told Celia when I called her to give her the latest update. ‘I’ll need as much time as possible to raise the money, though, because it’s going to be phenomenally expensive.’
‘Nothing is too expensive if it can cure her,’ Celia said. ‘We can do it.’
‘The surgeon is going to waive his own fees, since it’s still experimental surgery … and when he says experimental, my heart goes cold,’ I confessed.
‘Yes, but his success rate is already excellent and the alternative isn’t to be thought of,’ she pointed out. ‘It’s the best option. So now we need to work out a fundraising plan over Christmas. I’ll bring Will across and we’ll put our heads together.’
‘I … am doing the right thing?’ I asked her.
‘You’re doing the only possible thing,’ she assured me, but it suddenly felt as if Stella and I were drowning and someone had thrown us a lifebelt: I wasn’t quite sure how I could get my arms through it without letting go of her, but I’d have to give it my best shot.
I drove Stella up to Sticklepond a few days before Christmas with a boot full of hidden presents, the cake, turkey, mince pies and pudding – in fact, most of the ingredients we’d need for the festive season. Left to her own devices, I’m very sure Ma wouldn’t treat the day any differently from the rest of the year, but she went along with it all.
As usual, I had the emergency numbers for Ormskirk Hospital and Alder Hey (the big children’s hospital in Liverpool) just in case – but I hoped we wouldn’t need them, because I was determined that this was going to be the best Christmas yet.
‘Toto has very sharp elbows,’ Stella said from her child seat in the back, as the dog adjusted himself into a sort of meagre fur lap rug. ‘Did you remember to bring his presents, Mummy?’
‘Yes, they’re in the boot.’
‘Will Father Christmas remember we’re staying with
