Handle Me with Care (5 page)

‘What else would you like to know?’

She wondered whether he was going to say ‘everything’, but instead he said, ‘You mentioned that you have a sister.’

‘That’s right. Jennifer. She lives overseas, in London.’ She felt a jolt of electricity as Evan moved her in front of him to let two elderly gentlemen pass as the pavement thinned. ‘Jennifer loves the London vibe, and her job in events means she’s with a young, energetic crowd.’

‘How long has she been over there?’

‘It’s coming up to two years now.’

‘Do you miss her?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Jennifer had been there alongside Ally when Riley died and had shown such strength for a girl whose sister had fallen apart in front of her. Jennifer and Ally had held Maddie up for long enough so that eventually she took her own steps back into the world.

‘We chat over the iPad when we can, we text, and she visited last April.’

‘Have you been over to London?’

‘I’m busy with work these days, but if she’s stays on much longer then I’ll think about it. Mum and Dad are thinking of going over there soon, now that they’ve both retired.’

‘I bet they miss having their kids around though. I know my mum did when we first left home.’

‘I’m not sure about that. They’ve downsized and moved up to Palm Beach, and I think the beautiful location probably makes it bearable.’ She grinned. ‘They’ve never had so many hobbies since us girls left: hiking, Mum has taken up yoga – Dad refused and got more into his golf – and the latest is pottery classes, which sound amusing. Dad says his creations are an embarrassment, but I bet they’re not. He’s always been good with his hands right from when I was a little girl, and he made me the best doll’s house ever. He was so proud of it, said it was the best thing he’d ever done with his free time.’

‘Do you still have it?’

‘It’s stored at my parents’ place for now. I don’t think I’d ever get rid of it.’

It felt like the right time to mention it. ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, Evan, but how old were you when your dad died?’

‘Eight.’

‘I’m sorry.’ She looked up at him as he passed beneath a street lamp. She didn’t need to ask how much Evan missed his dad; she could hear it in the catch of his voice, see it in the tension of his jaw.

‘It was a long time ago,’ he said.

‘That doesn’t matter, I bet it still hurts.’

‘Whoever said time is a great healer was right, but the wound never completely heals over. It’s like when you fall down and cut your knee badly – there’s a lot of pain and blood, a decent scab for a while, and when it falls off you’re left with a scar that fades in time but is always there, always remembered.’

Maddie wondered what stage she was at after more than thirteen years had passed since losing Riley.

She waited for a tram to rattle its way past. ‘So to continue the quizzing game from the restaurant, what would you say would be the best thing you’ve ever done?’

‘Ah, we’re back to that again are we?’ His grin tugged at her insides. ‘I don’t think I can come close to the creation of a doll’s house, like your dad.’

‘It doesn’t have to be something you made … it could be something you did.’

‘Well, that’s easier.’ He thought for a moment. ‘I ran a marathon in Copenhagen in 2010 to raise money for leukaemia research.’

‘I’m impressed.’ She looked sideways at him to take in his strong profile and towering presence. ‘I love running, but a marathon is quite something.’

‘It was an awesome experience. We raised almost fifteen thousand dollars.’

‘Good on you!’

‘My mum was a teacher too, and a little girl in her class was diagnosed with leukaemia when she was nine. It was different back then. Thankfully medical science has come a long way since.’

Maddie was sure she hadn’t mistaken a wobble in his voice as he pulled on his jacket when the autumn chill crept in. She wondered if, perhaps, he had known the little girl, or maybe it was his profession that made the situation all the more real.

He nudged her. ‘So come on then, your turn. What’s the best thing you’ve ever done?’

‘This is going to sound unbelievably selfish – and I’m thinking in a different way to you here, which I’m not sure is painting me in the best light – but the best thing I ever did was to do a bungy jump in New Zealand.’

It was Evan’s turn to stand and stare in awe. ‘Now that’s impressive. I’d never dare do that … which makes me sound like a complete wimp and that’s not the impression I want to give
you
.’

They chanced the next set of lights, running across as the red illuminated man flickered urgently.

‘So was it the big bungy, or the teeny-tiny one on the teeny-tiny little bridge?’ Evan asked when they were safely across.

‘You’ve been reading too many kids books about teeny-tiny things. And would you do the teeny-tiny one?’

‘Ah, you got me there.’

‘For your information, it was the big one,
The
Nevis.’ Her insides clenched as she remembered being on that platform, ready to shuffle her feet closer to the edge and plunge head first over the magnificent Nevis river.

His hand rubbed across the stubble of his jaw. ‘I’m impressed. No, I’m floored. So was it the absolute thrill that made it the best thing you’ve ever done?’

She thought back to the nausea she felt that day, the tears that pricked at her eyes as she fought the urge to back down at the last minute. ‘I think it was more the fact that I didn’t want to do it and once I did, well, it made me think anything was possible.’

She hadn’t shared the entire bungy story with him of course. The New Zealand holiday had been a getaway a year after Riley died, and it was almost as though she wanted to free fall from that great height, head first, to remind herself that she still had a life to live; she was the lucky one to still be alive with a future ahead of her. The bungy had been the single most defining moment since Riley’s death and the point at which she felt she had at least started to gather up the fragments of herself that had shattered all over the place like a smashed Christmas bauble.

‘Is it much farther?’ Evan’s voice broke into her reverie.

‘One more block.’

She wasn’t sure, but she thought she heard him swallow, nervously, before he said, ‘So, what’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?’

When she looked up at him he was staring straight ahead rather than down at her, as she had caught him doing so many times tonight.

She hesitated because she knew the exact answer, but confessing all the details on their first date wouldn’t be right. ‘I had a friend who died suddenly.’ It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the full truth, either, and she felt guilty.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Evan.

‘Thanks.’ Maddie stopped outside her apartment block with lit up square windows dotted about like open doors on an advent calendar. She dug around in her bag for her keys. ‘So what’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to you?’

‘I’m not sure it’s happened yet.’

‘Oh come on, that’s against the rules of the game. You have to share.’ Her hand shot to her mouth just as she found her keys. ‘Oh no, your dad. I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking.’

When he remained silent, she said, ‘That was your answer, wasn’t it?’

He leant up against a concrete bollard, unconcerned about the ivy which covered it and more than likely the creepy crawlies that inhabited it. She definitely hadn’t mistaken the nervous gulp this time, and she watched the deep brown of his eyes search the night sky. They darted to her own and then away again.

‘There’s something else,’ he said, and when he spoke again his words hit her like the tram ploughing through the centre of the road opposite the apartment block. ‘I found out last week that I may have cancer.’

Chapter Five

The glass door in the foyer zipped open and shut, and they went inside the building. But out of the cold evening air Evan’s announcement wasn’t any less shocking. Without speaking they walked to the lift, and their silence continued as the lift crept up to the seventh floor, not daring to stop on the way.

‘I don’t have anything strong to offer you.’ Maddie let the heavy door to her apartment thump closed behind them. ‘I could make us a cup of tea?’

The atmosphere was stilted compared to only moments ago when they had chatted freely, in the heady phase of getting to know one another. Maddie blundered about the kitchen, pulling out cups, a tub of sugar, milk. Her eyes followed Evan, who took a seat on one of the two maroon sofas separated by a glass-topped coffee table.

When she sat down she watched him across the top of her cup as she blew the hot liquid. The tea wasn’t quite the healer that so many people made it out to be, but it was a distraction nevertheless.

‘I swear I didn’t tell you that as a way to get you to invite me in.’ Evan attempted to lighten the mood, but it didn’t work.

Maddie realised she was shivering and put both hands around her mug of tea to try and stop her body’s involuntary movement. She thought about how tonight was supposed to be different; different in a good way.

‘Say something, please?’ Evan put his full cup back on to the coffee table and the tap against the glass reverberated in the silence between them.

‘I don’t know what to say, Evan.’

‘You’re using my name when you talk to me. That’s got to be serious.’

She felt some of the tension flow out of her body. Evan, like Riley, seemed to have the magical knack of being able to put her at ease. Before Riley left for New York, Maddie had been in charge of his cousin Eddie’s eighteenth birthday cake. The pinball machine cake was the most intricate and unfamiliar design she had ever tackled, and she was overwhelmed trying to shape the flippers so they didn’t resemble white sausages, trying to co-ordinate colours; basically trying to make it look realistic. Riley had poured her a gin and tonic – much too large a measure for a girl who was trying to hone her creativity – and patiently encouraged her as she pulled herself together and produced a cake that was a success with even the plunger, a steel ball and ramps.

‘You’re shaking.’ Evan pulled the black woollen throw from the back of the sofa, doubled it over and wrapped it around her shoulders before he sat down beside her. ‘I’m sorry to have laid all this on you tonight. Trust me to ruin the best date I’ve had in a long time.’

‘It came as a shock, that’s all. I mean, you’d been so – so normal all night. And to come out with that, I just—’

He leant back and locked his hands together behind his head as he gazed at the ceiling. ‘Please believe me when I say that I had no intention of saying anything to you, especially not tonight. I should’ve kept my big mouth shut.’

‘No, it’s fine, really. Stop apologising.’ She couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘I’m just not sure what to say to you now. I don’t think I’d even know what to say to a close friend, let alone someone I barely know.’

He reached out his hand and grabbed hers, holding it firmly. ‘Then don’t say anything.’

For a while they sat quietly, hand in hand.

Maddie spoke first. ‘What sort of cancer is it?’

He hesitated, exhaled. ‘It’s testicular cancer. God, it’s even embarrassing to say the type of cancer. I mean, I barely know you, and I wouldn’t usually talk about that part of my anatomy on a first date.’

She noticed his smile. It was a smile that reminded her of how she had tried to mask her own pain over the years. ‘Don’t joke,’ she said.

‘Sorry. I’m trying to recover from the clanger I’ve dropped tonight, that’s all.’ The corners of his mouth dropped and his mouth formed a hard line. ‘The only way to find out for certain that it’s cancer is to remove the testicle.’

As Evan continued to explain, words such as ‘pathology’, ‘chemotherapy’, ‘operation’, whirled in front of her eyes, and all she could think was that, with every step she took in a relationship with him, the pain of the unknown would get worse: the waiting, the wondering, the uncertainty of what lay ahead. Maddie knew what it was like to be so consumed in a relationship, so in love with the person who was your world, that when they were taken away from you the world stopped turning. When she was with Riley she knew herself, but when he died it took her a long time to find out who she was supposed to be without him. Did she have the strength to go through all that again? Could she go on, day to day, wondering whether Evan would be alive at the end of this?

Evan’s shoulder was comfortably wedged against hers as they both sat staring ahead at the blank television screen, tall roman candlesticks on either side. Maddie heard the distant sound of a tram’s bell ding as it moved away from the stop, she heard faint footsteps from the apartment above, she heard voices as people passed by in the corridor outside, shushing each other at this time of night. She listened to life carrying on all around them and wondering if hers ever would. She wished she could catapult herself back in time, back to the restaurant with Evan sitting across from her, each of them smiling while in that exciting getting-to-know-you phase that was so addictive, so exhilarating. Right now they should be sharing a first kiss; their only concern should be where to go on their next date.

But that Evan wasn’t here now. The Evan who could die was sitting right next to her on the sofa, and all she wanted to do was to curl up in a tiny ball and for the fear to go away. She glanced up at him when he took the mugs over to the sink, turning the taps to rinse them. He looked strung out, fraught with worry, and Maddie didn’t feel ready to help him. She watched him pick up his jacket from the back of the dining chair and his wallet from the coffee table.

‘Goodnight, Maddie. I’m sorry for laying all this on you, I really am.’

She shook her head to stop his apologies, but no words came out as he crouched down next to the sofa where she still sat.

‘I’ve had a great, great night with you. I’d love to see you again,’ he said.

Maddie looked at him grasping his jacket tightly as though it could persuade her to give him another chance. It was a standard end-of-a-first-date thing to say, yet she felt numb, unable to give a response, like she had felt at Jem’s party when he first asked her out.

Without waiting for an answer, Evan brought his face to hers to kiss her lightly on her cheek. She closed her eyes at the feel of his lips: soft and warm with the hint of more to come. She breathed in long and hard, hoping that the smell of his clean, crisp aftershave would linger long after he left her apartment.

‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.

The door clicked shut behind him, and Maddie listened to the faint ping of the lift arriving and the doors sliding shut, and she knew he had gone.