The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill Page B

certain I am that you are making the wrong decision, the greater my support and help have to be. OK?’
    ‘Sorry. I’ll need you.’
    ‘You will.’
    ‘I didn’t think that you’d be so against the alternative way.’
    ‘I’m not – in some circumstances, quite the contrary. I send patients to Nick Haydn for osteopathy,and to Aidan Sharpe who does acupuncture. He works miracles on a few stubborn conditions. Just now I sent a bereaved lady who can’t sleep and is in a generally anxious state to look through the relaxation tapes in the health shop … and an aromatherapy massage is a lovely thing. But none of them are cures for cancer, Karin. The
most
complementary therapies could do is help get you through the propertreatment, make you less sick maybe and relax you generally.’
    ‘So why don’t I just get a facial and have my nails done?’
    Karin stood up. Cat knew that she had upset her and put her back up, and she was furious with herself. She walked with Karin towards the door.
    ‘Promise me that at least you’ll think hard about it.’
    ‘I’ll think. But I won’t be changing my mind.’
    ‘Don’t burn your boats, don’tclose any doors. It’s your life we are talking about here.’
    ‘Exactly.’
    But then Karin had turned and given Cat another warm and accepting hug, before walking, calm and confident, out of the surgery.
    ‘You can’t go along with it, for God’s sake.’ Chris Deerbon faced Cat across the kitchen table, as they sat drinking mugs of tea late that night. He had just come in from a call.
    ‘You mean I shouldask her to change GP?’
    ‘No, I mean you have to try much harder to make her see why she can’t go down that road … it’s not an option, you know that … she hasn’t the luxury of choice.’
    Chris was totally opposed to any form of alternative treatment, with the exception of osteopathy for his own bad back.
    ‘It worries me, of course it does, but she was very adamant and you know Karin.’
    ‘She probablyhasn’t taken it in properly yet.’
    ‘I think she has. If I’m going to support her I’m going to have to do some research … at least steer her clear of the real cranks.’
    ‘I don’t think you should encourage her even that far … she has got to have surgery and chemo. What’s got into you?’
    ‘Just Karin, I suppose.’
    Chris got up and put the kettle back on the hob.
    ‘There’s too much of it about. Allthose loonies up at Starly Tor.’
    ‘Oh, they’re just New Age airheads … crystals and ley lines.’
    ‘Where’s the difference? Let Karin McCafferty loose and she’ll be dancing round Stonehenge at dawn.’
    When Chris had left on the next night call, Cat had a bath, and then got into bed, propping her laptop on her knees. ‘
Cancer
,’ she typed into Google. ‘
Therapies. Alternative. Complementary
.
Gerson
.’

    An hour and a half later, when Chris came in from dispatching a teenager with acute appendicitis to hospital, she was deep into a research article discussing the effects of a sustained programme of meditation and visualisation on cancer patients in New Jersey.
    She had filled several pages of a notebook on the pillow beside her. The least she knew she could do for Karin McCafferty was take herseriously.

The Tape
    When I speak to you here it is like being in the confessional. I am shriving myself by telling you everything. The difference is that I am not asking you for your forgiveness. It should be the other way round.
    But I will feel better once you know everything. Some of the secrets of the past have become a tiresome burden to carry alone, though it is not guilt that has weighed me down,simply the knowledge.
    What I am going to tell you today was a secret I did not carry alone. From the beginning, I shared it with Aunt Elsie. She went to her grave with it, as she had told me she would. Uncle Len knew, of course, but you know how meek he was, how he would have said nothing unless she told him to.
    It happened one of