Chapter 9
"Is there anything that you want, love?"
"I want my husband to come and sit at my side for a while," said Elsie.
Charles had just popped his head round the door to see his duty was done, she thought to herself. But she wanted more than duty from him right then.
He was always the same whenever there was a stressful situation. More than anything in the world he wanted to be there for his family but he was not the sort of man who found it easy.
She found men in general did not find it easy but it seemed she had married a particular man in this case.
But when asked, he would.
It was not as if either of them had had an easy day. He had taken her to the hospital. After the referral from Doctor Turner, she had been called into the hospital fairly quickly. He was not one to hang around.
And so she had had a biopsy. After an ultrasound which showed there was a mass in her breast – well it had been the sensible thing to do.
"You cannot dwell on this for the next week or two endlessly, you know. The kids – they are going to know something is up and I do not want to know anything about this if it turns out to be nothing more than a scare. If that was the case, then there was no need."
"Does it make make a coward that I wish had their protection from this?" he asked.
She shook her head. "I think it makes you very human," She said as she took his hand.
"I should not be putting this on you," he realised as he turned to her. He should be the one who was protecting her.
"It doesn't matter." She felt as if she was much more able to cope with it. Maybe because she knew it was not absolute yet.
There was a chance she had cancer. But it was just a chance for now.
And if it came to it then she had no doubt he was going to be there for her every step of the way. He was going to fight this fight with her as the two of them had always fought every fight together.
She thought back to the very first they had had to fight when they had been so young.
"We have seen worst days than this one," the worst day of her life was always going to be the day she had given up their child.
She had thought it was going to hurt less as time went on but if anything it hurt more.
Looking back she was sure she had been sure at the time. Her reasons for giving up the baby had been sound even if now she wondered if they were selfish.
Should she have given up work? Would she have been happy as a mum?
Now she had had the experience of raising the other kids… she thought maybe she would have been.
But had she needed one for the others to turn out as they had? Giving up Shelagh had made her siblings more precious in a way. And if she had not, would she even have made it to have William? Would 'her three' have been Shelagh, Thomas and Anna? Or would she have conceived during another month of the year she had been carrying the others and missed out on these children all together?
It was a cruel hard fact that she was never going to get the answers to those questions.
When she had found out that she was carrying Thomas, Elsie had been overjoyed. It was a chance to put things right….
And she had done all she could to always make sure things were right for the children she had been able to raise. But there was the nagging thought that there was always the one who she had not.
That she was out there somewhere.
Maybe she needed her, maybe she did not. But either way she had not had her mother. Not Elsie.
And there was always going to be that regret in her, somewhere. It was never going to go away.
"Yes we have," Charles agreed and sounded very far away from her just then. She squeezed the hand she was holding. If she had been younger or more naïve she might have asked them if they had done the right thing – she had done so a few times over the years – but now there did not seemed to be a lot of point to it.
They had done what they had done and there was nothing else to it.
She put his head on his shoulder and shut her eyes. What was going to be was going to be. And they were going to face it head on.
X x x
Beryl Mason was not one to beat about the bush.
"So what is up with you then?" she asked as Elsie came in to sight.
"And a good morning to you too."
They were standing in the grand foyer at the Abbey. A half hour remained until opening to the public and Elsie had decided to come and have a measure up. She had to get going if they were going to be ready for this anniversary party in time.
"I had our Anna up here asking all manners of questions about you yesterday so there is no use in denying it," Now Anna was that bit older, mother and daughter were more like friends than parent and child. So there was definitely something up if Anna could not get it out of Elsie.
"Anna is imagining – " she begun but did not finish. Her daughter was perceptive, and she knew it. She was not going to insult her intelligence, neither hers nor Beryl's.
If the kids were young then it would be easy to hide all this from them. Or easier at any rate.
"Well, you are well aware something is up I do suppose I can hide it from you now."
"If I had known you less time it might be worth a go." But she had not. She had known her nearly her whole life, or that was how it felt.
Beryl grinned. It was the same old story as with the kids thought Elsie.
Seeing there was no longer a way out of this Elsie sat down.
"I have found a lump in a place where there should not be one."
"Oh my god!"
Tough Beryl might be, good under pressure she was not.
"There is nothing we know for sure yet so I do not need any histrionics!" she said grimly.
If she had to deal with it at home with Charles then she was not going to deal with it at work too.
"What – I mean, what are you doing about it?"
"You mean, 'what have I already done about it?' Charles and I went to the doctors –Doctor Turner has refereed me so until we get the results back from the hospital that is all we can do. And I don't know any more than that yet."
"Which is why you're not telling the children yet."
"There is no need to worry them – not if there is nothing there."
This was a stress for her and Charles but if that was all it had to be, then that was for all the better. She knew what people thought. She knew what she thought. She heard the word cancer and then there was a death sentence behind it.
But it did not have to be that way… there were so many treatments…
Still, better to be sure before she panicked anyone without needing too.
"Have you had some tests done?"
"We have. We have been to the hospital and now all we can do is wait."
Beryl looked as if she wished she was in the kid's position and she did not now, much as Charles had admitted he would like to be.
But then that was her way – and she could and would push through it to be her friend as she always had been.
She took her hand.
"Well, we are just going to have to wait to see what hand the lord has given us and then we will play it as best we can," she said holding on to Elsie hands tighter. "You'll be ok. Well mange it together."
"I have heard that one before."
Beryl had been there when she had had all of her kids. She knew things about her no one else did. And she had not forsaken her yet.
So Elsie allowed herself to be comforted for just a moment. And to believe it was all going to be ok.
X x x
Charles was the one who had answered the phone call but Elsie had known who was going to be on the other end of it before he had so much as picked it up – like she had a sixth sense.
The call had come too soon. The hospital wanted her back in.
Then she worried.
X x x
Cancer.
X x x
It was a testament to how concerned her father was about her mother that Charles made no comment when John got to the house that night.
After the three Carson kids had taken the news in, having been sat down by their parents they had all chosen to deal with it in very different ways. It seemed to have knocked William out of the slump he had been in strangely.
Suddenly, whether or not Daisy liked him was the least of his problems. In fact, if she never did then he was not going to worry. Not anymore. As long as his mother was going to be ok then he was sure he was going to be able to face anything else.
Thomas, true to form, had gone to work. That was his way of coping and for that Elsie thought he was rather his father's son. She hoped they were not going to see a regression in him.
She had always known who he was – he had never been camp in the way that she thought many people thought gay people were but she had known. Just a mother's instinct. He had taken a long time to accept that about himself. And then a long time to come and talk to her and Charles about it which had upset her as she knew it had to hurt him not to talk about it.
Charles hadn't seen it coming and in hindsight she wished he had dealt it better for Thomas' sake than he had at the time… but there was no way to undo the past and both father and son were getting on better these days. She was sure she had even heard them talking about how he and Jimmy were the other day.
She just hoped he was not going to pull back in to himself.
As for Anna as soon as she had heard the news her mother had cancer, she had wanted to do two things. She had wanted to hold her mother and then call the love of her life.
She had done both.
"You know me. I am going to be just fine, my bonny girl."
Her mother was a pragmatist and so Anna was sure she was just saying all things she wanted to hear for the sake of her children… though Anna was eating them up all the same.
Then she had rung her boyfriend.
Her mother had retreated to the living room where she was intending to have a quiet, peaceful evening with her father as much as they could – she and John went upstairs.
"How are you doing with all this?" he asked as the two of them sat on the edge of her bed, putting an arm about her.
"I feel as if I am going to wake up in a moment. I feel as if I have to wake up."
All of them were going to fall apart if the worst happened. Their mum was the very centre of their family and always had been. As much as they all loved their dad, it was their mum they went to when things went wrong.
She kissed it better; she wasn't the one who was meant to get sick. She knew how selfish all of those thoughts were but she could not stop them just then.
"Your father said they caught it early though. That is a good sign."
"But it is not a guarantee." She said as her chin wobbled and tears threatened.
She knew she should be thinking positive.
And she was going to, she told herself. In the morning she was going to be bright and bonny and everything her mum was going to need her to be. But right then she was going to have her moment.
Seeing this and knowing her as he did John put his arms about her.
He would be there for her no matter what as she had proved more than once she was always going to be there for him.
She was so strong willed.
And so much of that came from her mother. Elsie and Anna were both going to get through this and he would make sure that was the case in any way he could.
"I am going to get tested for the cancer gene," she said very quietly.
He did not need to be as freaked out as she was right then - that was not why she had told him - but he did need to know she was taking precautions.
She felt his hls on her tighten.
And if she was found to have the gene she thought to herself? What was she going to do then?
A small voice in her head said she was going to cross that bridge when she came to it – if she came to it.
And not before.
It was only then Anna realised there was another side to this that none of them had considered.
Maybe it was understandable as the immediate family were yet to take the news in but they had to deal with as soon as they could.
She got out of John's arms and went down stairs.
"Anna?" he asked. But she appeared to be on a mission. She only slowed her pace when she got to the living room.
Her mother had her head on her father shoulders and her eyes shut and if the truth was known then Anna was loathed to disturb her.
And if she had felt able to wait then she knew she would have…
Her father caught her coming in to the room first.
"Anna, what is it?" her mother's eyes opened having felt her husband move.
"I know the last thing you need is any more stress in your life right now and that is not what I am trying to do, but… I think we need to get in touch with Shelagh."
She had been told she had to be the tested because she was her mother's daughter.
And that was because she was her mother's biological daughter. And if she had to be tested and then so did her older sister.
They owed it to her to find her now.
Elsie sat up. She had been so worried about the way this news had affect her three youngest that she had not yet given a moment's thought to the way it was going to impact on her eldest.
She felt Charles stiffen at her side but when she turned to face him she saw his face was full of hope.
"Then some good might come out of all of this."
She had known he had always wanted to find her deep down. She had too but after giving her up felt they had had no right to seek her out. No, if there was going to be a reunion it had to be because it was what she wanted…
If she knew Shelagh wanted her back then she would have found her yesterday.
But she had no right to go upsetting her and going back in to her life with news such as this was the last thing she wanted.
'Hi, I am the mother who gave you up and also possibly gave you breast cancer.' She said with a shake of her head.
This disease she had thought when she looked into the faces of the children she had raised could not get any crueller.
But it turned out it could. And as much as she hated it… she knew she was right, they were going to have to find her. She could not leave her be now, to carry on with a sword dangling over her head when she knew nothing about it.
She shut her eyes and could feel the weight of that little girl in her arms. Still she could smell her, feel her soft and new…
What if she was the one who had left it too late already?
"Alright." She said looked from Anna to John to Charles.
Let's do it.
X x x
Sitting in the garden, Elsie took a sip of her cup of tea.
It was fresh from the pot and brewed just how she liked it. It was the little things – the smallest ones which did not matter normally that she knew were going to keep her sane in the days to come.
She only hoped it kept her husband sane as well.
He had been the one who had made the tea but she was more concerned with keeping him focused on the kids.
She knew it was just a distraction from her own state of mind but still…
The four of her loved ones she had closer were not the ones who mattered right then.
The one who mattered was the one she did not have near her…
Yet since Anna had stated the obvious, Shelagh had been on her mind. At the very forefront of it.
She tapped the pen on the piece of paper she had in front of her. Though they were yet to find an address for her eldest daughter, she had a feeling that tracking her down was not going to be as hard as writing this letter.
She had thought before about what she would say to her if she got the chance but it always seemed as if it was quite a frivolous thing as she had no plan to get in contact unless that was what Shelagh wanted.
She could never have guessed these were going to be the circumstances.
She knew she had to get into the letter all the love she felt for her. The regret – the hope that she had done the right thing for her when all was said and done.
And then there was the concern she felt for her right then.
But there had been a span of twenty eight years from the day she had given her up to the one where she sat in the garden and tried to write the hardest letter she ever had.
It all depended on how her daughter had grown up as to what happened next.
What if she just burnt it?
What if she poured everything in to this and then it was not even read?
Well… that was just a risk you are going to have to take Elsie Carson, she thought to herself.
It was the risk she owed it to her to take.
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