“I’d love some. Pizza Express was a thousand years ago.”
“You know what I’d love.” Adam dealt out some crackers. “For someone to call me first thing tomorrow and say, ‘Adam, Adam, there’s a huge reporting emergency.’ And then I could escape for twenty-four hours—to somewhere much more relaxing than my birthday with my mother. A train derailment, maybe. Or a terror attack.”
“It would have to be a pretty big disaster—if they’re calling up a podcast host.”
“I’m an author and a broadcaster!”
He wasnotan author yet. The advance for his biography of London’s unconventional and popular Tory mayor had been minuscule. The research was arduous, the legal red tape fearsome. Most upsettingly, barely any jokes made by Adam would be as funny as the quotations from Boris. It stung.
“I’m going to pop up to check on Zora again,” Coralie murmured.
“But the snack platter!”
“It’ll just take a sec—she’ll be asleep.”
She was.
•••
Before she’d gone to bed,Coralie had texted Daniel for any new details about their mother’s cancer treatment. Despite never having met any members of Coralie’s family, and being a retired GP (with a special interest in sexual health) andnota surgeon or acancer doctor, Anne Whiteman couldn’t accept “No better, no worse” or “Hanging in there!” as an answer to “How’s your mum?”
Key to defusing Anne’s bombardment was giving her a confident, factual early response. So when a knock came at the door before 10 a.m. the next day, hours before the GGs were expected, Coralie was chanting her mother’s new chemo mix under her breath: “FOLFIRINOX, 5FU, cetuximab! FOLFIRINOX, 5FU, cetuximab!”
“Anne! Sally!” she exclaimed. “You must have set off at the crack of dawn!”
“Up for hours,” Anne said. “Did five miles before we set off.”
“Five miles…”
“LSE! Long, slow, easy.”
“But was it a run?” Coralie asked. “Not a swim or anything?”
“I wouldn’t put it past her to swim it.” Sally heaved her bulging tote higher on her shoulder and gestured at a laundry basket full of gifts. “Sorry, where shall I…? They’re for Zora.”
“Come in—sorry. Adam’s taken Zora for a hot chocolate.”
Coralie lugged the basket into the front hall. She’d been hoping to get ahead on the little jobs that seemed to fall to her at this time of year as the Woman of the House, like wrapping the presents she’d bought for Zora—the ones from her and the ones “from” Adam. She’d also bought his present for Anne, a book about the science behind “extraordinary athletic performance.” Sally had kindly taken her aside the year before: “Don’t worry about anything for me,” she said. “And I won’t get anything for you.” Such a restful presence. Coralie wished for Adam’s sake that Sally had been his biological mum—or at least that she’d come into his life a bit earlier.
Anne was wearing wide-legged black wool trousers, a tucked-in gray merino jumper, and brogues. She had a sharp, short haircutand, courtesy of her orthorexia, a very defined jawline. Her similarity to Adam was quite uncanny. Adam would look great in Anne’s glasses. “Yes, we’ll take a tea,” Anne said.
“Come through!” Coralie filled the kettle at the tap. “But, Anne, it must have been so dark when you went out this morning.”
“Got a running light. For my head. A head torch.”
Coralie gasped and turned it into a throat-clearing cough.
“And how’s your mum doing?”
“Not too bad—thanks, Anne. She’s got a new chemo mix….” Coralie took a deep breath.
“And what is it?”
“FOLFIRINOX, 5FU, cetuximab!”
“FOLFIRINOX? I thought that was for pancreatic?”
“I don’t know, but I think Mum sort of…has it everywhere now.”
