I close the bathroom window and hold a towel over my mouth to quieten the noises I’m making as I retch. It falls to the floor when the vomit rises and I spew into the toilet. I cock my ear but I don’t think Debbie has heard me from the bedroom. Twice more it happens before I study what’s come out. The blood is bright red, and there’s much more of it today than there was yesterday.
My bones and muscles ache and I don’t need a doctor to tell me the cancer is spreading from my stomach to the rest of my body. I need more painkillers, but the last time I saw Jakub on site he explained his contact was searched by customs on his return from Poland and all his medications were confiscated. I’ve yet to find a new supplier. I have a half-full bottle of bourbon tucked under the passenger seat of the van. It’ll do as a temporary fix.
Debbie knows nothing of my illness. I’ve kept it to myself. I watched as my wife was made to jump through hoops for months before the doctors told us she had Motor Neurone Disease. I’m not going through what she went through when I already know what I have. Every website I’ve visited lists my symptoms as stomach cancer. I don’t have time to spend recovering from an operation or laid up in a bed for months sick from the chemotherapy, radiotherapy or any other kind of therapy they want to throw at me. I’ve had months to come to terms with it but I
have no intention of telling Debbie that I’m slowly dying before her. She has enough on her plate without adding me to her list of worries. I can’t watch as her heart breaks.
I climb into the shower and rinse away the sour, metallic taste with mouthwash. The sound of a jet of warm water offers a brief respite from overhearing Finn and Mia’s arguing. Last night it was unbearably humid and we could even hear them above the noise of the fan on its highest setting. We tried not to listen but it was impossible not to.
I dry myself off but can’t see my reflection in the bathroom mirror to shave, so I wipe it then open the window again and let out the steam. As the fog lifts, I catch my appearance from the neck down for the first time in weeks. I look worse than I remember. I’ve lost a lot of weight yet my belly has developed a prominent paunch and I don’t know if the cancer or alcohol is to blame. Debbie has mentioned my weight loss and I’ve blamed it on skipping lunch breaks and more manually intensive labour. I’m not sure if she believes me.
When I’m changed I find Debbie in the lounge playing with Sonny. His hand fits neatly inside hers and they couldn’t look more at peace despite the war raging between his parents.
I’m glad that Sonny is with us and not them. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of hearing my parents at each other’s throats and hurling abuse or objects at one another, like balls in a coconut shy. When Mia reluctantly agreed to let us look after him, I noticed something pass between her and Debbie; a new, much deeper layer of animosity than I’ve ever seen before. Months after their truce, something has changed and it’s more than what Finn has been doing behind their backs. Debbie denies they’ve had words but I know when she’s keeping something from me. However, I’m going to pick my battles, and this morning, I’m too tired to start one.
‘Look how well he can hold his head up.’ She beams at him. ‘You’re coming on so well, aren’t you, my little man?’ She turns to me. ‘Is world war three still raging out there?’
‘It’s quieted a little. There must be a ceasefire.’ ‘What do you think they’ll do?’
‘I don’t know,’ I reply. ‘I really don’t know.’
Debbie doesn’t have to say it for me to know how she hopes this will play out. Finn’s lies have knocked the wind out of her sails. She has spent her life keeping him up there on the pedestal she’s built for him, believing he can do no wrong. She assumed they had an honest, open relationship. It’s a shock to learn he’s been keeping secrets from her. And especially something as monumental as this. So naturally, she is just as hurt as Mia is by his deceit. The two women in his life finally have something in common, yet they appear further apart than ever.
I’m conflicted over how I should be feeling. I pity Mia for what Finn has done. I’d like nothing more than to tell her how sorry I am for having such a stupid, selfish lad. But I can’t, because she has brought this all on herself. By poking around in my business and my childhood, she left me with no choice but to interfere.
Finn never confided in me about Emma and Chloe. I found out about it by chance. A couple of years or so after she and Finn separated, he borrowed my van while his was undergoing repairs. My vehicle is linked to an app on my phone that informs me of every journey it makes. And four times he visited the same address on an estate where I knew he wasn’t working. The only way I can protect my family is if I know what they are doing, so when he returned the keys, I drove to the semi-detached house with a ‘Let By’ board in the garden. I arrived to see Emma opening the front door and lifting a pushchair outside. Even before I spotted the little girl’s dark hair, I knew who her father was. Birth certificates are public records so it was easy to check the online register office, which listed Finn’s name as Chloe
Jones’s father. A former client who owns a property-letting agency confirmed the house was rented in Emma’s name.
I held back from telling Debbie what I had learned. Finn’s silence was his own decision. If he wanted to be with Emma and Chloe, he would be, but he chose to remain with Mia. It was not my place to interfere. So I kept quiet. At least until a few days ago, when I contacted the news desk of The Sun on Sunday to tip them off anonymously about Finn’s double life.
I’m not proud of what I’ve done, but it will give Mia something else to focus on instead of me. If I have sacrificed her marriage to safeguard myself, then so be it. It’s the lesser of two evils. And it will be something else to add to the long list of things I shall learn to live with.
