Page 5 of All the Things We Never Knew

‘Right, okay.’ I perched on one of the stools at the counter, half-turning towards him. ‘I thought we could have a nice dinner together. You know – catch up. Do the Valentine’s Day thing, since we haven’t in a while, even though it’s a day late. But if you’re not feeling up to it…’

He shook his head. ‘I’m not feeling up to it. Sorry, Anna.’

An apology – I wondered if it was the last one I was going to get that night.

‘That’s okay. It’ll keep. The kids can have it tomorrow.’

‘Where are they?’ He glanced around, almost as if he was afraid they might come charging in at any moment, Lulu with her headphones round her neck, Barney carrying a reluctant Augustus.

If he’s about to tell me he’s leaving his family to shack up with another woman, I bet he’d be afraid of them.

‘Out. Barney’s gone to the pictures and is staying over at Marcus’s. Lulu’s bowling and then going on to some dodgy dessert bar. I told her to be home by ten.’

‘Right,’ he said again. Then he took another gulp of his drink.

I turned now so I was fully facing Gray. One of the spotlights above the kitchen island was casting its light directly down on to his face, and I could see shadows beneath his cheekbones that I was certain hadn’t been there just a couple of weeks ago. He’d lost a load of weight over the past three years, but it looked like he’d lost even more quite recently. I wasn’t sure when I’d last seen him naked, and it had been at least a year since he’d stopped complacently reporting back to me after his weekly stand on the bathroom scales, but I saw with shock that he didn’t look healthily slim now, but gaunt.

‘I want to talk to you, Anna,’ he said.

‘Sure. I mean, I wanted to talk to you too, tonight. About something.’ But abruptly, I found I didn’t want to talk at all – not about what I’d planned to ask him, and certainly not about whatever it was he wanted to tell me. I felt cold dread rising up from my stomach, and my fingers gripped the sides of my glass so tightly the nails turned white.

I didn’t want to talk. I wanted it all to stop.

‘Why don’t you go first?’ he said.

But, looking at him, I found I couldn’t do it.

‘No, you go,’ I managed to say.

Looking down into his glass instead of at me, he said, ‘I went to hospital today.’

‘What? You never told me you had an appointment.’

‘I didn’t. I went to A&E.’

‘Shit. Why? Are you okay?’

‘Doesn’t look like it.’ Now he raised his head and met my eyes. ‘They’re going to do some tests, but they think I’ve got cancer.’

Dumbly, I stared back at him. Cancer. The dreaded diagnosis. The big C. Something that happened to people who were old, or didn’t take care of their health. Something that happened to other people.

‘Wait, say that again.’ I was struggling to make my lips and tongue form the words.

‘Cancer.’ He said it gently, like he’d been practising making it sound less deadly.

I stood up, walked over to the sink and found a Tupperware container in the adjoining cupboard, tipping the potatoes into it and putting them in the fridge. I turned the flame off under the cast-iron casserole dish, leaving it where it was on the stove because my arms felt too weak to lift it. I put a plate on top of the bowl of salad and put that in the fridge too.

I fetched the bottle of gin and put it on the countertop next to Gray’s whisky.

Then I sat back down. He’d been watching me while I cleared up, his eyes steady and his face still.

‘So you went to A&E today,’ I said slowly. ‘Why?’

‘I’ve not been feeling great. Tired, sick, I’ve lost half a stone, although I’m not trying to any more.’

‘But that could be anything,’ I objected. ‘It could be nothing. Indigestion or something. A bug.’

‘That’s what the GP said when I saw her two weeks ago.’