Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Gamble

I finished the red wine and decided it was time to head home.

Going home to Claudia had always filled me with excitement, raising the pulse a fraction and causing things to stir down below. But now I was hesitant, even frightened of what I might find, of what I might hear, of what I might see.

Claudia was at home when I arrived and she’d been crying.

She tried to hide it from me, but I could always tell. The slight redness of the eyes and the streaky mascara were dead giveaways.

“You could have phoned me,” she said crossly as I walked into the kitchen. “You should know better than to sneak up on a girl.”

I’d hardly sneaked up, I thought. This was my home, and I was arriving back from the races at six-thirty on a Saturday evening.

“You can’t phone on the Tube,” I said.

“You could have phoned on the train from Sandown.”

That was true, but the reason I hadn’t was because I didn’t want my call to go straight to voice mail again. That alone sent my imagination into overdrive. It was much better not to know if Claudia’s phone was turned off.

“Now, darling, what’s the matter?” I said, putting an arm around her shoulders.

“Nothing,” she said, shrugging me off. “Just my back hurts. I’m going up to have a bath.”

She walked briskly out of the kitchen, leaving me standing there alone. She had complained of backache a lot recently. Probably from too much lying on it, I thought somewhat ungraciously.

I mixed myself a large, strong gin and tonic. Not really a great idea after two glasses of wine at Sandown, but who cares? I wasn’t trying to make a riding weight for the next day’s racing. More’s the pity.

I could hear her bath running upstairs and, quite suddenly, I was cross. Did she think I was a fool? Something was definitely not right in this household, and, painful as it might be, I had a right to know.

I thought about charging upstairs and confronting her in the bathroom, but I was frightened. I didn’t want to lose her. And I’m not sure I could bear it if she said she was leaving me for someone else.

I walked through into the living room and flicked on the television, but I didn’t watch it. Instead I sat in an armchair feeling miserable, and drank my gin.

In due course, I heard the bathwater draining, and, presently, Claudia came downstairs and went into the kitchen, closing the door.

I really didn’t know what to do. Did she want me to go in to her or not? “Not,” I thought, or she would have left the door open.

I stayed where I was in the living room and finished my drink. According to the clock on the mantelpiece it was twenty past seven.

Was it too early to go to bed?

I sat in the armchair while some teenage stick insect warbled away on the screen in a TV talent show, going over and over in my head what I needed to say to Claudia. Doing nothing was no longer an option.

If our relationship was dead, so be it. Let me mourn. Anything was better than remaining in this state of limbo with my imagination running wild and my emotions in turmoil. I loved Claudia, I was sure of it. But, here I was, angry and hurt, accusing her in my mind of deceiving me and sleeping with another. It was time for the truth.

When I walked into the kitchen, she was crying openly and with no pretense this time that she wasn’t. She was sitting at the kitchen table in her blue dressing gown, her elbows on the table, a glass of white wine in one hand and her head in the other. She didn’t look up as I went in.

At least, I thought, she’s not leaving me with a dismissive wave of the hand and not a single glance back. This breakup was going to be painful for both of us.

I went over to the worktop beside the fridge and poured myself another stiff gin and tonic. I was going to need it.

“Darling, what’s the matter?” I said, but without turning around.

Perhaps it would be easier for her to talk if she couldn’t see my face.

“Oh, Nick,” she said, her voice quavering slightly. “There’s something I have to tell you.” She gulped. “And you’re not going to like it.”

I turned around to face her. Maybe I didn’t want to make it too easy for her after all.

She looked up at me.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

I could feel the tears welling up in my own eyes. All I wanted to do was to hug her.

“I’m so sorry,” she said again. “I’ve got cancer.”

How could I have been so wrong? And so stupid?

“What?” I said.

“Cancer,” she repeated. “I’ve got ovarian cancer.”

“How?” I said foolishly. “I mean… when?”

“I’ve sort of known for about two weeks, but I found out for certain on Thursday.”

“So why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.

“I was going to, but, to start with, you were so busy at work. Then I was going to tell you on the night of the Grand National, but there was all that Herb Kovak business. I thought you had enough of your own troubles. Then on Thursday…” She gulped again. “Thursday was an awful day. When I left the hospital after the doctor confirmed everything, I was sort of numb, couldn’t feel anything, didn’t even know where I was going.” She paused and wiped a tear from her cheek with the sleeve of her dressing gown. “It was while I was walking aimlessly down Tottenham Court Road that Rosemary called to tell me you’d been arrested. It was all dreadful. Then you were so angry at having your name in the papers that somehow I couldn’t tell you that night, and… well, yesterday seemed so fraught between us, and I thought it best to leave it because you had so much else on.”

“You silly, gorgeous girl,” I said. “Nothing is more important to me than you.”

I went around behind her and put my hands on her shoulders and rubbed them.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

“I’ve got to have an operation on Tuesday.”

“Oh,” I said. Suddenly, this was very real and very urgent. “What are they going to do?”

“Remove my left ovary,” she said, choking back more tears. “And they might have to remove them both. Then I’ll never be able to have a baby.”

Oh, I thought. Too real and too urgent.

“And I know how much you want to have children,” Claudia said. “I’m so sorry.”

The tears flowed freely again.

“Now, now,” I said, stroking her back. “Your current health is far more important than any future children. You always said children were troublesome anyway.”

“I’ve been desperate,” she said. “I thought you’d be so cross.”

“Don’t be so silly. The only thing I’m cross about is that you didn’t tell me straightaway. It must have been dreadful for you, bottling it all up, with no one to talk to.”

“My doctor has been wonderful,” she said. “He gave me the name of a cancer counselor.” She produced a crumpled business card from the pocket of her gown. “And she’s been an absolute rock. I’ve called her so many times now, I know her number by heart.”

I looked at the business card. The number was the much-called one I had copied from her mobile phone bill.

How, I asked myself again, could I have got things so wrong?

“Tell me,” I said, “what did the doctor say?”

“I first went to my GP because I didn’t feel very well, and I could feel that my tummy was bloated.” She smiled. “I actually thought I might be pregnant, but I’m on the pill and I’d just had my period.”

“And?” I prompted.

“He asked me if I had any back pain, and I said yes, so he sent me to see a cancer specialist who did some scans and other tests and they came back positive.”

Back pain.