A Taste of Love by Susan Willis Read Free Book Online Page A

get called back from mammograms for all kind of things. Sometimes it’s just because they want to get a better picture, or, if this is a cyst, they might just want to check it out and give you some antibiotics.’
    Karen’s small blotchy face brightened. ‘Oh, do you think so? But what if it’s not?’ she asked. ‘Helen, we are going to have to say the dreaded words – breast cancer – at some stage.’
    ‘I’m not, and neither are you. We’re not saying those words till we know something definite and we see it written in black and white,’ Helen said determinedly.
    Suddenly, the sound of a man’s whistle broke the silence between them and they both looked at each other knowing their father wasn’t too far away. It was the usual tuneless noise that they’d listened to all their lives and the whistle they’d recognise anywhere.
    ‘It’s Dad,’ Helen said. ‘If you really don’t want to go in then you’ll have to think of an excuse pretty quickly and I’ll have to lie to him, which I’m not very good at!’
    Karen grinned. ‘I’ll be okay now. I’ll have to tell him at some stage so we might as well go in…’
    *
    Charles Robinson was seventy, six foot three, with bushy grey hair and still walked proudly with the swagger of his youth. He’d spent the best part of his working life as a manager in a huge laundry in Acton. In the early days of the fifties Acton town had nearly 170 laundries and had been known as “Soap Sud City” because of the soft water – the laundries had served all the hotels and the rich living in London’s West End.
    As the girls climbed out of the Mini he waved to them and Helen could tell at a distance that he sensed trouble as he quickened his pace until he reached them.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, looking from Helen to Karen.
    Helen put her hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t panic. We’re all right – it’s just Karen’s had a bit of a shock and some sad news so we thought we’d just call around and have a cup of tea with you.’
    Charles was staring at Karen’s face and he gently put out his large hands and cupped her cheeks. ‘Come on,’ he reassured her. ‘Let’s get you inside. I’ve got a bottle of brandy in the cupboard…’
    Settled in his small cosy lounge with tea and glasses of brandy Karen sat next to him on the old Chesterfield settee with his arms hugging her tight – she looked about twelve years old. Helen sat in the armchair opposite t them, in front of the gas fire, sipping her tea and looking around the room, which was scattered with photographs of the girls at various stages in their childhood. Framed posters from theatre plays with Karen in costume adorned the chimney breast and her qualifications from stage school stood on the mantelpiece. Karen was quietly telling Charles the events when the telephone in the hall rang and Helen jumped up to answer it. She told the salesman that her father wasn’t interested in double glazing and ended the call but couldn’t stop herself from glancing into the kitchen.
    The room had changed substantially over the years and the old two-bar electric fire, where they’d found their mother lying dead with her hair singed onto one of the elements, had long since gone. But she could remember the scene as if it was last week. In fact, Helen thought, it was hard to remember her mother in any other place than sitting in an old wooden chair staring into the fireplace and rocking herself backwards and forwards. She’d sat in the same position like a zombie for hour upon hour, day after day for most of Helen’s schooldays – not eating, drinking, talking or moving. Although Karen, being four years older, always claimed she could remember her before that in normal happy situations.
    Most of the time she’d been heavily sedated on tranquillisers and antidepressants. It had been on a normal Friday morning, after Charles had gone to work and they’d gone to school, that she’d swallowed a whole bottle of the