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  THE LIE OF LOVE

  Belinda Martin

  Belinda Martin

  THE LIE OF LOVE

  Kindle Edition Copyright 2014 © Belinda Martin

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  The Lie of Love

  Alistair Jordan’s clinic room always had a strange aroma. Darcy could never quite decide what the overriding constituent was, but somewhere within the layers of smells that made up the whole unsettling fugue she could always detect disinfectant, stale coffee and pine air freshener. Today there was probably a new smell creeping through the synthetically controlled air, and she recognised it coming from herself: desperation.

  ‘The procedure you’re asking me for simply isn’t available in the UK.’ Alistair sat forward in his chair slightly, leaning over the desk to hold Darcy in what he obviously thought was his sincerest gaze. ‘We don’t have a specialist in this country who can perform it…’ he sat back in his chair again, thoughtful for a moment. ‘I think there’s someone in Germany, and I know for certain there is a chap in Canada. If you want my opinion on who is the best surgeon, however, I’m aware of Ted Steinbeck in Florida who has a very good success rate indeed.’

  As Darcy measured her response, her gaze was drawn to his desk. It was littered, as always, with photos of his own perfect brood, as if to remind his patients and their families just what fully working limbs looked like and that he was more than capable of producing offspring who sported them. He had six children of his own, he’d once told her, by two different wives. As Darcy looked at him now, larger than life in every sense, she couldn’t imagine how any woman had the physical strength and stamina required to stay beneath him long enough to get pregnant. The possibility of them being female sumo wrestlers had occurred to her more than once, although one of the photos showed a slim and very pretty Asian woman, whom Darcy presumed to be wife number two judging by the ages of the children pictured clinging to her various limbs.

  Whatever the juicy details of his personal life, Alistair Jordan was an excellent consultant – the best the NHS had to offer in his field – and because of this Darcy had been only too happy to pack her daughter, Sophie, and all her equipment up for the sixty mile round trip as many times as necessary to see him. In the course of Sophie’s nine year life, this had been quite a lot. Before Sophie had been diagnosed with cerebral palsy at the age of nine months, Darcy had already known, with all the unerring precision of a mother’s instinct, that something was very wrong with her daughter. The trouble was, nobody else seemed to see it, not even Ged, no matter how many times Darcy explained the tiny strange reactions that she had never seen in her older child, Jake, and the developmental milestones that Sophie just didn’t seem to be moving towards at the same pace as Jake had done. All children develop at different rates, Ged had told her in the kind of measured and slightly condescending voice that made her want to slap his face raw.

  ‘You’re telling me that nobody in Britain can perform this?’ Darcy asked, a note of scepticism in her voice. ‘Or are you telling me that the NHS isn’t willing to pay for it?’

  He smiled slightly. ‘Perhaps a little bit of both would be nearer the truth.’ Darcy began to speak again but he held up his hand to halt her. ‘I’ve known you long enough now to see there’s an argument brewing…’ He gave a wider, more affectionate smile now, the professional veneer fractured to allow a glimpse into the soul of the man. Darcy had long suspected that he had a bit of a thing for her – it wasn’t arrogance on her part and she didn’t particularly revel in it like many women would, but it was plain and simple intuition. As he looked at her now she saw a flash of that fondness or attraction – whatever you wanted to call it. She had never mentioned it to Ged, of course, who would have been straight over to the clinic with his fists ready. ‘And no amount of research on the internet or logic or cajoling me can change what is beyond my power to change. There are battles you can win with me – and that’s probably most of them,’ he laughed, ‘but this is one battle where you don’t even have a battleground to fight on.’

  ‘So you’re telling me my daughter has to continue to suffer when the surgery exists to ease that?’

  ‘It’s not that simple. This procedure isn’t guaranteed by any means. In fact, there is a very high failure rate, which means she goes through a long and complicated series of operations followed by months of punishing physiotherapy and still might not walk at the end of it.’

  ‘But it might stop the spasms and the constant pain?’ Darcy asked.

  ‘We can do our best to keep that under control through other means.’

  ‘They don’t work!’ Darcy paused, aware that her voice was getting higher and louder. Sophie hadn’t been due a review for a few weeks but Alistair had agreed to see Darcy in between his other patients to discuss this. The last thing she needed right now was to erode his goodwill and even in her agitated state she could see that shouting might just do that.

  ‘Darcy,’ he began, apparently not phased at all by her outburst, ‘I understand more than you know how distressing this condition can be for the parents and I understand how desperate you must be to do everything in your power to help. But there is no cure, no matter what doctor you see, and you know that. We must do everything we can to manage it, but managing is all we can do.’ He folded his arms and leaned back in his chair as he regarded her thoughtfully. ‘If you want to have a chat with Ted Steinbeck I can give you a contact email. He can explain the procedure to you and you can make a more informed decision as to whether it’s something you want to pursue. But I’m warning you now that I know two families who have gone down this road and they’ve gone to enormous lengths to find the funds. It’s by no means an easy option and particularly stressful on the family as a whole, not just the child undergoing the surgery.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ Darcy said, relief coursing through her. She had expected more of an argument from him, if she was being honest, but she had gone determined to get something from the meeting. This was nothing more significant than an email enquiry, but at least it was a start.

  Ged chewed a mouthful of pasta slowly, glancing across the table at Sophie and Jake in turn, and then returning his gaze back to his wife. ‘So, it wasn’t really worth going all that way to see him?’

  ‘That’s not what I said,’ Darcy replied, trying, for the second time that day, to keep her temper in check. ‘I said that the NHS couldn’t help us, but I didn’t say that help wasn’t out there.’

  ‘In Florida? How’s that help? We can’t afford to go to Florida for three weeks, not to mention the huge medical bill we’d run up whilst we were there having this magic fix done.’

  ‘No, we can’t. But I’ve been researching –’

  ‘Oh… here we go,’ Ged cut in, ‘bright ideas from the internet again. I ought to rip that cable out and maybe we’d have some peace around here. Or maybe you could get a job so you wouldn’t have the time to prat around on the internet all day…’

  ‘Other people have done it – raised the money,’ Darcy continued, ignoring his jibe. ‘If others can do it, why can’t we?’

  ‘I’m not putting this house at risk by securing a loan of that size on it.’

  ‘That’s not what I meant. Of course I wouldn’t ask you to do that. I’m talking about fundraising, like raffles and stuff.’

  ‘Sounds a bit of a pain if you ask me. And one hell of a lot of raffles to raise sixty grand… which, by the way, sounds like the sort of figure plucked from the air anyway.’ Ged shoved another forkful of pasta into his mouth. Darc
y glanced across at her children. Jake was reading a comic as he ate, clearly oblivious to the conversation his parents were having and Sophie was staring out of the window. Darcy couldn’t tell whether she was listening or not and most of the time she was so quiet and secretive anyway that Darcy wondered just how much of what was discussed at the dinner table ever went in. There was simply no way of knowing.

  ‘You would say that.’ Darcy swiped savagely at a fly that had been droning in lazy circuits of the dining table. ‘If it takes a bit of effort you never want to know. And as for the plucked out of the air figure, I’ve done my research.’ Darcy enunciated the last word forcefully and crooked her fingers into the air as mock speech marks.

  ‘That’s unfair. My job is demanding enough and the tiny bit of free time it affords me is precious.’

  ‘More precious than your daughter?’ Darcy shot her husband a confrontational stare.

  ‘What you’re asking for is more than a bake sale at the village hall. What you’re asking for is full on months and months of commitment. I don’t think you have any idea of the magnitude of this task you’re trying to get us all signed up to. Have you forgotten that you also have another child who doesn’t get enough time from us as it is?’

  ‘Of course I haven’t! I do nothing but remember him. I spend my days feeling torn and guilty that I don’t pay him enough attention; that he suffers because Sophie needs such a lot of care. And some days I want to run a knife across my wrist because I blame myself for the way Sophie turned out.’ Darcy jabbed a finger at her husband. ‘You didn’t carry her… you don’t wonder whether every tiny thing you did while you were pregnant could have been the thing that caused her disability. She’s in constant pain, she’ll never have a normal life, and it’s all my fault.’ Darcy drew a deep breath to compose herself as the wide eyes of both her children were now fixed firmly on her. ‘Can’t you understand that I just need to do something… anything, to make it right?’

  ‘For God’s sake, we’ve been over this, Darc. I’ve told you it’s not your fault, the doctors have told you it’s not your fault, your counsellor has told you it’s not your fault… what do you want, a bloody certificate or something?’

  Tears sprung to her eyes, tears she didn’t want to shed, not in front of her children. She felt the lump burning her throat. Sophie watched her carefully through huge blue eyes that appeared too large for her tiny frame – Ged had always joked, with somewhat bad taste Darcy felt, that his daughter looked like the archetypal Dickens’ waif, but as Darcy looked at her now that description had never seemed so fitting. Her long hair had been loosened from school so that it fell around her shoulders, swamping her already thin features and her clothes hung from her, as they always did. It was part of her condition that Sophie was thin, but it was just another thing that Darcy saw as somehow her fault. As these thoughts ran through her head, Sophie continued to regard her steadily, seemingly without comprehension of the situation, only an attuned instinct that her mother was distressed.

  ‘Please…’ Darcy croaked, turning her gaze back to Ged. ‘Please let’s at least try. If it looks bad, if we get so far and it looks as if we won’t make it, we’ll stop. Whatever we’ve raised up to that point we’ll give to charity and I’ll never mention it again, I promise.’

  Ged paused. He looked at the children, both hanging on his every word now, and then back at Darcy who was doing the same. He clearly knew when he was beaten.

  ‘Alright,’ he sighed. ‘But I’ll hold you to that promise. We need to impose a timescale on this, a point at which we call it a day if we haven’t reached the goal.’

  ‘Typical architect, all deadlines and work schedules,’ Darcy laughed, relieved that she had finally got him to agree. In the end, it had been easier than she had feared it would be. Perhaps that was because the children had decided to pay attention and Ged secretly wondered whether this one, pivotal conversation would stay with Sophie into adulthood, whatever the outcome of it was. Darcy certainly didn’t believe for a moment that her speech about guilt had been the decider – he had never been all that interested in her feelings before. Whatever the reason he had for giving in, she was glad of it. She thought quickly, running rudimentary and very instinctive calculations through her head. A year… that was roughly twelve thousand pounds a month. Could she do it in a year? It would take an enormous amount of help, practically everyone she knew and then some. It would also take plenty of creative thinking and Ged was right about one thing: a few raffles at the village hall was not going to cut it. ‘How about we give it a year?’ she asked.

  Ged seemed to be stifling a grin. ‘Sixty grand in a year? That’s a big ask.’

  ‘We need to get it together quickly,’ Darcy replied defensively. ‘The older Sophie is the harder it will be for her to go through the surgery and rehab, so setting a time limit of a year makes perfect sense to me.’

  Ged picked up his fork again and turned to his dinner with a wry smile. ‘A year it is. Good luck – we’re all going to need it.’

  Summer was a noisy season in Lyme Regis. Traffic up and down the steep and wickedly twisting roads increased to the point where any hidden corner could incite a road rage riot as holidaymakers tried to negotiate routes that were a world away from the dart-like carriageways of their concrete home towns. With it came the revving of engines and the blasting of horns, the drumming of footsteps in and out of the pastel-windowed boutiques and dusty fossil shops displaying remnants of a long-dead age, the chattering of families, the screaming tantrums of children, the squealing laughter of a race to the beach, the steady crash of waves on shingle, the screeching of gulls on the hunt, keen eyed, circling over the humans on the look out for their next chip or pastie meal. And it smelled more in summer too: petrol fumes, ice-cream, every other shop front a bakery or restaurant pumping out enticing aromas, the tang of salt on the air at high tide. Where many of Darcy’s neighbours had moved into the town from surrounding counties, Darcy had lived here all her life. Perhaps that was why she saw the annual transformation differently than they did. Where they mostly saw income and life, Darcy saw the soul of her beautiful town eroded, diluted by the influx, changed into a curiosity that people came to gawp at, people who pushed and shoved and littered and forgot that other people had to live with their mess long after they had left.

  Darcy eased her car into what she called her ‘secret space’ (on account of it being obscured by overhanging trees from a nearby garden and therefore missed by the casual observer scanning the streets for a free parking spot) and yanked on the handbrake. Killing the engine, she pulled the rear-view mirror towards her and applied a thin pep coat to her lipstick and smoothed her eyebrows. It wasn’t that she was particularly vain, but Amanda’s critical eye picked up the slightest sign of lack of sleep, not enough water, not enough fruit, too many take-away dinners in front of the TV, like a seismograph picked up distant earth tremors. It was then the job of her even more critical tongue to chastise Darcy at the earliest opportunity, making her feel like a five year old again. Today, Darcy just didn’t need it and was determined not to afford her best friend the opportunity. Today, she just needed to focus and gather as much help and support for her plans as she could. Amanda could be bossy and overbearing, but those were the qualities that would make her an excellent campaign manager. Darcy knew that as soon as she mentioned the very grand sounding title that she was offering in exchange for her friend’s more OCD skills, Amanda would be clapping her hands with glee.

  Early June still but the sun was fierce, burning onto Darcy’s dark hair as she strode down to the newly regenerated sea front where Amanda insisted on meeting, even though it would be crowded with visitors and getting a seat in a decent café would be far easier in one of the many quirky backstreet places around the town. She was dressed head to toe in black – skinny jeans and a slouch t-shirt with her strappy sandals – and she was beginning to regret her reticence to wear more summery colours even in high season. But whenever she bought any
thing remotely bright or pastel, it would quickly get resigned to the back of the wardrobe no matter how good her intentions to wear it and how much Amanda chided her. Darcy was slim and some would say had a great figure, but somehow she was never happy with it. She preferred to draw as little attention to her curves as possible and black always seemed to be the solution to that problem.

  The Sugar Cube café was aptly named. It was housed in a small, perfectly square prefabricated building; brightly coloured walls and laminated wood-effect flooring made it a welcoming space with primary coloured dining furniture completing the trendy look. From its huge windows, the resolute grey mass of The Cobb could be seen, snaking out to sea. On a sunny day like today, its winding pathway would be crawling with people, wandering the famous grey cobbles as so many generations had done before them.

  Darcy pushed open the door of the café, wiping a fine sheen of sweat from her brow and aware of the make up sliding from her face even before she had taken a seat in front of her judgmental friend.

  As always, Amanda was already seated, looking cool and immaculate. Her outfit appeared to be effortlessly thrown together, giving the impression that she couldn’t care less and just happened to look amazing by sheer happy accident. Darcy knew the truth – that she would have chosen it with great care for maximum effect. She gave Darcy a radiant smile, rising to plant an affectionate kiss on her cheek.

  ‘It feels like an age since I’ve seen you,’ she purred, her smile slipping into a pretend frown. ‘Has that great lump of a husband been keeping you tied to the kitchen sink again?’

  Darcy laughed as Amanda sat and she took a seat across from her. ‘We’ve been a bit snowed under… you know, with this and that. Usual family stuff.’

  ‘So…’ Amanda caught the eye of the waitress and nodded for her to come over before turning her attention to Darcy again. ‘What’s this huge, grand plan you want to talk to me about? Do you have any idea how jittery your cloak and dagger conversations make me? You could have told me on the phone last night and saved me a lot of insomnia.’