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‘Magda! You’re out early this morning.’
Stan smiled and waved from across the store. He was sitting at the till, serving Florence with a large cabbage and a box of washing powder. Most people used laundry liquid these days but Stan, ever thoughtful, kept powder in for Heaven’s Cove’s older residents who were set in their ways.
‘What brings you into the store?’ he asked, after bidding Florence goodbye. ‘Run out of beans again? I’ve never known someone get through so many.’
‘No, actually, I don’t need anything. I was passing and thought I’d call in to see how you are.’
‘Checking up on me, are you?’ A cloud flitted across Stan’s face, then he smiled. ‘There’s no need to make a fuss about what I told you the other day, Mags. I’m feeling all right at the moment and might be for a while. There’s no point anticipating trouble before it gets here, is there.’
‘As Penny would say.’
‘As Penny often did say.’
Magda smiled, remembering how Penny always knew which words to use when life got tricky, which words would bring comfort to the distressed. She swallowed, keenly feeling the absence of her good friend.
‘Are you after a cuppa?’ asked Stan, leaning forward to push the till drawer shut.
A muscle was moving beneath the skin of his upper arm, and Magda watched in horrified fascination as his arm began to ripple.
‘Muscle twitches,’ said Stan curtly, pulling down the sleeve of his jumper. ‘One of the many symptoms I’m likely to encounter. Though I dare say you’ve googled it already.’
Magda shook her head. She’d deliberately stayed away from the internet for fear of coming across statistics about Stan’s illness that she’d rather not know.
He tutted. ‘Jack’s been doing nothing but googling, of course, and coming up with various treatment options. He wants to know all the whys and wherefores, but that’s always the way with him.’
‘I’m glad you’ve told him.’
‘I had no choice seeing as you bullied me into it, though it’s best he knows.’ He swallowed hard. ‘You will look out for him, won’t you, Mags? When I’m not here to drive him mad myself?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Magda pulled her lips tight to stop them from wobbling. ‘I promise to drive him mad on your behalf.’
‘You’re a good friend, Mags. Penny would be so grateful.’
‘Mum would be so grateful for what?’ asked Jack, at the top of the cellar stairs, his arms straining beneath boxes of tinned soup.
Stan shot her a warning look before she replied. ‘Grateful she didn’t have to read the latest misery memoir suggested by the village book club. She always preferred a good psychological thriller.’
‘She certainly did,’ said Jack, looking between the two of them.
He wasn’t daft and clearly knew she was lying. But Magda realised that this was how it would be from now on: people trying to protect one another from harsh reality. Secrets and subterfuge in the name of compassion.
Penny had taken it to extremes by not telling anyone, not even Stan, how ill she was until she could hide it no longer. But at least Jack knew the truth about his father’s ultimate prognosis.
It was definitely better to know, thought Magda, so you had time to prepare. Though how could anyone ever be fully prepared for losing someone they loved?
‘Cheer up, Mags,’ said Stan, giving her shoulder a gentle shove. ‘It might never happen, you know.’
He started chatting about Rosie’s wedding, and Magda managed to make five minutes of small talk before a group of tourists came in and she made her escape.
She’d only gone a few yards down the road when Jack came running up behind her.
‘Auntie Mags, hold on. Are you all right?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, with Dad’s news. I know you’re good friends. He relies on you, to be honest, and it’s all so’ – he closed his eyes briefly – ‘grim. It doesn’t seem fair, does it? First John and then Mum, and now he gets ill.’
When Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the ground, twenty years fell away and Magda saw again the serious schoolboy attempting to make sense of his world as it fell apart. He’d had so much death and tragedy to navigate in his relatively short life.
