Two months later
He hadn’t seen her at the shop today. Thursday—she should’ve been back by now after having had her third chemo cycle on Monday. The first time she’d gone, she’d been at work the very next morning, looking a little pale but revving as usual. The second time, she’d asked to take the Tuesday off, and she’d seemed a bit tired on the Wednesday when she’d come back. With that kind of progression—they did say chemo got worse the more it went on—he had expected her to take two days off after this past cycle, meaning she should’ve been at work today.
Magnus’ steps took him to Ben&Jari’s in town. It wasn’t a long walk, so he’d left his Ferrari in front of the shop and legged it there. He liked ‘shocking’ people this way, making them see he wasn’t entirely the stereotyped idea they had of him as a lazy, good for nothing playboy. It didn’t happen often, but since coming to Daimsbury on a daily basis for the past weeks, the place had started to grow on him. Instead of perplexed stares, he was met with soft nods by the blokes and gentle smiles from the ladies, a few of the younger girls turning outright flirtatious around him.
Strangely, yes—it felt like he belonged here, no longer a fish out of water.
The pungent whiff of spices on a wave of chippy grease smell hit him head on when he pulled open the door to the restaurant. The girl with the scarecrow black hair—what was her name? Missy!—stood hunched over the booking register at the hostess pulpit, her whole body jerking up when the little bells on the door tinkled. In the process, she even managed to move the pulpit, which he’d assumed to be bolted to the floor. Guess not. With a goofy smile, she righted herself and the standing desk. Yes, she was a calamity, indeed—he remembered she had seemed to trip over her own feet the other day at the bakery. He had righted her just in time with a hand on her arm so she wouldn’t fall flat on her face.
“Can I help you?” she asked in that lilting Southern US accent of hers.
He nodded. “Megha here?”
It must seem odd for him to be setting foot in this place without Megha as an escort. She’d invited him over a few times for lunch, but he’d never come here on his own, let alone to seek her out. It should feel awkward, but it didn’t, and that feeling got compounded when Missy whipped her head towards the far end of the room.
“She in the kitchen?” he asked.
“Uhm, no. Uh … she …” A wave of her hand directed him to the swinging door at the back.
A trickle of cold sweat slithered down his back. From what he’d gathered from Megha, Missy could talk the hind leg off a donkey. To have her tongue-tied spelled nothing good.
With long steps, he strode to the kitchen’s door, pushing the panel and being met with a cloud of spicy steam.
Strong hands settled on his shoulders and turned him around.
“Let’s get you out of here before Ben’s chili hummus cloud asphyxiates you,” Jari Saran said as he pushed Magnus back into the restaurant.
Indeed, his eyes had started to water, almost like being doused with pepper spray. “What the …” he muttered.
Jari gave a bark of laughter. “You don’t want to know. We’re catering a South Indian wedding in the next town, and they asked for the heat to be through the roof.”
His throat seized up when he took a breath, forcing him to cough. A big hand slapped him in between the shoulder blades.
“That’s it. Cough it out. Will do you good,” the other man said, his tone sounding as if he were suppressing a laugh.
When Magnus had finally righted himself again, he looked up into the mature face. Strange how Megha didn’t seem to have taken after her father at all. Jari was definitely a looker, but she must’ve gotten her beauty from her mother. He’d heard she had abandoned her daughter and Jari a long time ago; no one really spoke of that anymore.
“Is Megha here? When she didn’t come to work today …”
Jari’s face grew shuttered. “She’s in London. I thought she asked for the week off?”
“She said she’d be back ASAP, and I assumed— Wait, what do you mean, she’s in London? Is something wrong? Her chemo was supposed to be Monday, right?”
“She had a bit of an infection on Monday, something about her leukocyte count not being right for chemo. They moved it to today.”
She didn’t tell me … But then again, who was he for her to tell him about this? He liked to think they were friends, but maybe Megha saw him simply as the boss. She had surrounded herself with people who cared about her, forming a protective circle that had her back and everything else.
And speaking of that—Jari and Ben were here, so who had gone with her to London?
“One of the twins took her?” he asked. The twins were Finn and Patrick Burley, the local hairdressers and Megha’s best friends.
Jari’s face grew even more ashen. “They’re over in the next town for the same wedding we’re catering.” A sigh escaped him. “Megha didn’t want us to cancel and come with her. Said she had it under control. You know what she’s like by now, I suppose.”
Magnus nodded. He did know. Megha held onto her pride and independence something fierce; it wasn’t cancer that would bring her down.
Still, a niggling thought settled in his mind and refused to leave. She shouldn’t be alone …
“I … Think I could go see her?” he asked after taking a deep breath. This would be crossing a line; he wasn’t even her friend by her definition.
Jari blinked. “Would you? I know it’s a lot to ask. You don’t have to—”
“Trust me, I want to,” he said, placing a hand on the older man’s shoulder to calm him down. Despite accepting him in town, they all still saw him as an outsider, someone above their stations. It shouldn’t be that way, because he was just a regular bloke. Unfortunately, his name and pedigree always preceded him and muddied the perception waters.
He threw a glance at his watch. Two o’clock. She usually finished her cycles around three, from what he’d gathered. He had just enough time to make it into London and get to her.
“I best get going,” he said.
Jari gave him a nod. Permission? Blessing? He didn’t stop to ponder as he turned on his heel and marched out and to his car. A few taps on his phone and he’d reached George, the family driver. Well, more like the head driver in the Mayfair house staff, but who was keeping tabs? A few short sentences ensured George would pick him up at his flat in Kensington—best be driven into the city where he would be hard pressed to find a parking space for his Ferrari. George could drop him off, circle around, and then pick him and Megha up once she’d be done. He’d make it there right on time, so this should be a walk in the park.
The only Bentley in his family’s extensive stable dropped him at the hospital on the dot of three. Inquiries directed him to the cancer ward, and as soon as he stepped foot there, he just knew something was wrong. Megha seemed to be the only person in the chemo room, and a quick glance at the I.V. pouch showed it was still full, the bright orange-red liquid catching the light in a weird-looking reddish kaleidoscope.
“Excuse me, sir. Can I help you?” a nurse asked.
He turned to her even though his steps didn’t slow in Megha’s direction. “I’m with her.”
“She didn’t tell us anyone—”
“Fuck it all! Not again!” Megha rasped from her chair.
He paid the nurse no further heed as he rushed to her side. “What’s wrong?”
Megha turned wide eyes onto him, and the glimmer of tears in them, as well as the tracks on her cheeks, bade nothing good.
“Magnus … what are you doing here?” she gasped.
The same nurse brushed past him and picked up her arm. “I’m sorry, love. Let me try again, eh?”
Megha bit her lip, and it seemed to him she was holding back something she burned to let out, but wouldn’t in his presence. When the nurse stopped the drip and removed the cannula from her arm, she appeared to choke on a hiccup. As the other woman proceeded to place in a new I.V., Megha held her breath for so long, a tinge of blue appeared on her lips. Finally, the orange liquid was allowed to drip again … and then, right before his eyes, the spot on her arm just above the newly-inserted cannula seemed to swell up and balloon.
“No, no, no,” Megha rasped.
The nurse took her arm and rubbed it a few times. “Don’t understand how your veins are kinking up so bad today, love. It’s not that cold in here. Maybe I should bump up the heating?”
Megha looked on the brink of tears. Should he remove himself from here? She wouldn’t meet his gaze. Still, everything inside him told him to stay put.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
The nurse exchanged a glance with Megha, who nodded softly after a few long seconds. “Her veins keep getting blocked today.”
He looked at her limp arm. Angry red blotches marred the back of her hand and the skin farther up her arm, the new I.V. very close to her elbow. The flesh also looked bloated; he worked out that the liquid wasn’t going in and instead pooling in her arm.
“Can’t you stop it?” he asked. “Hasn’t she had enough?”
The nurse shook her head. “This is just the third bottle in a series of five.”
Blimey. She wasn’t out of the woods. “Switch arms, then?”
“Risk of lymphedema there as she doesn’t have all of her armpit lymph nodes.”
Because they’d been removed during her surgery, to check if the cancer hadn’t spread. She’d told him as much.
And then, suddenly, Megha burst out into tears. Her hand went to the I.V. cannula, and she tried to rip it off her vein.
He rushed forward along with the nurse, his hand reaching hers first to stop her from hurting herself.
Big, angry sobs poured of her by now. “I’ve had it! I don’t want to do this! I just want it to end! I can’t do this …”
The nurse exchanged a stricken look with him. It dawned on him he was the only one who could help. Megha was breaking down; he’d have to ensure she didn’t fall entirely to pieces.
So he squatted by her chair and grabbed her hands in his. They were cold, so he tried to wipe the pads of his thumbs on her skin to warm them up. Then, he remembered the many puncture marks on the one hand, and he stilled the motion, willing the residual heat from his palms to flow into her.
“Look at me,” he said gently.
She shook her head.
“Megha …”
“Don’t want to,” she replied, sounding like a petulant child as she turned her face the other way and burrowed into her shoulder.
He gave a soft sigh, not of impatience, but of helplessness. “Megha, you got this. You’re the strongest person I know—”
She whipped her head around so fast, he was afraid she’d get whiplash.
“What?” she spat. “Because of the bloody cancer? Because of that fucking parasite? Come on, Magnus. I don’t have a facking choice here! And don’t you dare tell me I’m brave! I’m—”
Okay, so this was a pity party. Lord knew she was allowed to have one, but now didn’t seem like the best time for this. He had to take charge here.
“Okay, fine,” he shot. “So you’re a damn coward, then.”
This stunned her, but only for a second.
“The bloody cheek of you!”
Her free hand shot out to hit his shoulder, and he let her land a blow. Getting her focus off the I.V. was paramount right now. If that meant he better be target practice for her, then so be it.
“And you’re just gonna let it win? Take you like it has taken everything else from you so far?” he continued.
“Oh, piss off!”
He shook his head. “Not gonna happen. You’re going to look this in the eye, Megha.”
“I don’t want to! I’m done!”
“Fine. Get the hell up, then. I’m taking you to your father’s place. Where he’ll have to watch you withering away because petulant Megha decided she’d had enough and threw in the towel. Doesn’t matter that he’ll lose his only child, right? You’re the only thing that matters here.”
The nurse kept watching the scene with stricken eyes. Yes, he was pushing it really far right now, but he needed to jolt Megha out of her doldrums and show her she had something worth fighting for.
Standing, he started turning away. “What you waiting for, then?”
“You—” she started, but the rest got clogged as she made a strangled sound.
He moved towards her again, lowering to her side, when she suddenly tipped forward and threw up all over the front of his jacket. The vomit smelled of acrid bile, with a reek of medicine, though he wasn’t sure to ascribe that to the room they were in. It smelled worse than sterile in here. In fact, it might almost smell like death, or a harbinger of it, anyway.
Tears now coursed down Megha’s cheeks, but the fight seemed to have left her.
“I can’t do this,” she muttered, but all the petulance and spirit of before had gone. She appeared broken now, and this made his heart clutch.
Magnus drew closer, then paused to look at the nurse. He gestured towards the recliner, and she seemed to understand what he was asking. When she nodded, he took that as his cue to shed his filthy jacket and then gently lift Megha before sliding in on the squeaky low-grade leather of the seat.
As he pulled her to him, she came without offering any resistance, and he settled her in the crook of one arm, holding her to him with extreme gentleness so as not to hurt her already bruised arm. With his free hand, he started to softly rub the area just above the I.V. cannula, hoping the heat from his palms would stop her veins from kinking due to the cold and her own low body temperature.
“You got this,” he murmured close to her ear.
“I don’t want to,” she sobbed.
“Shhh …”
She didn’t protest any further, instead letting go, burrowing into his side as she unravelled and her body grew limp against him.
When he looked up, the nurse was giving him a tremulous smile. He nodded in acknowledgement, glanced at Megha, then turned his eyes to the pouch of orange liquid.
A bubble of strange silence wrapped itself around them as the medication dripped down at a steady rate. The sack emptied, to be replaced by another, something with a rheumy yellow tint. Thank goodness Megha wasn’t looking at the meds right then; just watching them and smelling them had made him queasy, but he manned up and kept himself in check. Megha was counting on him to be the silent strength. He couldn’t let her down.
Then it was time for the last pocket, clear liquid that the nurse said would simply wash her veins, after which the session would be over. He watched that one go down drop by drop, until finally, it had emptied, too. The cannula was removed, a white dressing placed on Megha’s arm. Was it a trick of the light, or did the veins in that arm seem to be getting darker, almost black?
She’d remained unusually quiet through the whole process, and he’d even wondered if she might’ve fallen asleep at some point. Though he doubted that. That I.V. had looked painful. He remembered having been dehydrated once during a really hot summer in Cancun and he’d been given fluids intravenously at the hospital. That needle in his arm had hurt like a mother …
“Take her home now,” the nurse—he’d found out her name was Siobhan—told him once she’d finished the dressing.
He nodded, then eased himself off the seat, being careful to not jostle Megha. Siobhan produced a wheelchair out of thin air, and he picked the limp body up and placed her in the seat, then grabbed his dirty jacket.
“Let’s get you home,” he murmured close to her ear.
As he was standing, she reached up and clasped his hand on her shoulder.
Her lower lip actually trembled when she looked up at him.
“Magnus, I … I can’t go there.” She lowered her eyes and stared at her lap, her next words hard for him to make out. “I can’t let them see me like this …”
He figured out what she’d said and paused. He could take her to his place—Kensington wasn’t far from here. But then he recalled a very important meeting he had to attend the following morning concerning the setting up of the clinic. She’d be alone in his flat, and he’d heard—not from her—that the first day or two after a chemo cycle made her incredibly sick. She shouldn’t be left unattended.
As the realization dawned in him, he figured best not to pause to think of the consequences or the ramifications. Yes, he’d have some explaining to do, but he could put up with that if it meant she’d be well cared for.
As he pushed her wheelchair out, he reached for his phone and dialed George.
“Meet us in front. We’re going to the Mayfair house.”
***
It was all a blur to Megha. She remembered only enough to know she had woken up maybe twice from the sleep of the dead to throw up in a basin on a small table beside her bed. Could’ve been her delusions, but had said basin been fragile, antique porcelain? And had it been clean every time, smelling of gentle lavender?
There had also been that feeling of a cool cloth being pressed to her forehead and cheeks, dribbles of warm water flowing through her parched lips to quench the dryness in her mouth. Who had it been helping her out? She didn’t recall the person who’d been there by her side.
She blinked when she opened her eyes. Darkness swathed the room, not one sliver of light peeking in to diminish the gloom. Great—her father had found how to add black-out curtains to the shades already present over the windows in her attic flat.
The softness under her forced her to reconsider, though. This wasn’t her bed; her sheets were never this buttery soft. Try as she might, she still held on too much to her thrifty Indian roots to splurge that much moolah on thousand-thread-count sheets. She made do with the two-hundred count, which suited her just fine. But this? Nowhere close to what she was used to. It was even better than the stuff in the luxury hotel she’d stayed in during a trip to India.
Where the hell was she?
As she sat up in the bed, she frowned at the sight of the pajamas on her. Wait a second. There were tiny cotton shorts edged in soft, frilly lace, the sleeveless top in the same fabric, with the lace straps running up to join as a racer-Y-back lying flat between her shoulder blades.
She never wore nightwear like this. Too frilly and again, expensive for her simple tastes. An old T-shirt suited her perfectly. And whose clothes were this? Whose house was she in?
As she pushed the covers back, a weird, metallic taste in her mouth registered, and this prompted her stomach to lurch. No sign of the basin anywhere, so she hastened out of the gigantic bed, rushing to the closed door on the side. She hoped it was a bathroom, and she let out a sigh of relief, with her hand still clamped over her closed lips, upon spotting the toilet seat at the back. Rushed steps took her there, where she fell to her knees and chucked her guts out.
Pausing to gather her breath, she then stood and flushed. Again, no light in here, but the porcelain with the gold trim gleamed so much in the dark, it wasn’t hard to make out where everything was. There seemed to be a gold-etched switch on the wall next to the open door, and she shuffled there to turn on the light.
Okay, where on Earth had she landed? This bathroom looked like the kind of immaculate picture that graced lifestyle magazines or super-sophisticated Pinterest boards. Who even had bathrooms like these in real life?
The light spilling over the threshold illuminated parts of the bedroom, and Megha gasped once again. This place looked like something out of the Ritz, with its opulent carpet and tasseled velvet curtains, gold trim on the walls, complicated wallpaper, and luxurious furniture.
People lived like this? Unless she was at a hotel? But what would she be doing at such a refined establishment, she of the lowly origins? She wouldn’t be able to pay for this kind of place in the UK even in her dreams.
A sudden urge to pee prompted her to go to the loo again, and she made the mistake of looking down at the water before flushing. There, against the stark-white bowl, lay a reddish-orange pool. The smell of bitter medicine floated up to her nostrils, but just the sight of that dreadful colour—doxorubicin wasn’t called the ‘red devil’ for nothing!—proved enough to make her stomach churn once more. Prompted to her knees again, she dry-retched for a moment until the feeling had passed. With her eyes closed, however, she flushed the toilet and then got up to go to the sink.
Goodness, she could play a zombie extra without needing any makeup, if the reflection from the lit mirror was anything to go by. A splash of cold water on her face did her good, as did washing out her mouth.
As she traipsed back to the door, sounds coming from the room stopped her in her tracks. Female voices. Light also seemed to bathe the space even more—they must’ve opened the curtains.
Standing by the wall, she leaned forward and peeked into the bedroom. Three blonde Amazons lay sprawled all over the bed. One of them lifted her head and caught Megha’s eye.
Drat, she was screwed!