The size of a mandarin orange, he said. It’s there. It’s really there. And yet Sarah had done everything to put off the inevitable, to ignore the nagging pain, the extreme tiredness. She had pushed the idea from her mind whenever it occurred; whenever she could – or should – have put it into words. But she had to face it now. It was there. It was real.

A mandarin was huge and insignificant at the same time, she thought. The disease had taken her by surprise, just when she least expected it. The tumour was malignant, devious, it had gone about its work silently, in the shadows, preparing to strike.

Sarah listened to the doctor, watched his lips move, but his words seemed incapable of reaching her, as if she heard them through a thick, soft blanket, as if they weren’t really anything to do with her at all. She would have felt anxious for a close friend, horrified, distraught. But strangely, for herself, she felt nothing. She listened to the doctor in genuine disbelief, as if he was talking about someone else, someone outside her world, a complete stranger.

When the consultation was over, he asked her if she had any questions. Sarah shook her head and smiled the smile she knew so well, the one she used for all occasions, the one that said: don’t worry, everything will be fine. It was a decoy, of course, a mask behind which her sorrows and questions and fears clustered. The truth was, she was a mess inside.

Sarah’s smile was smooth, gracious, perfect. She didn’t ask the doctor what her chances were, she refused to see her future summarized in a statistic. Some people wanted to know, but she didn’t. She wouldn’t let the figures seep into her consciousness, her imagination. If she let them, they would spread like the tumour itself, and undermine her morale, her confidence, her healing process.

In the taxi back to the office, she reviewed the situation. She was a warrior. She would fight. Sarah Cohen would handle this case like she handled all the others. She, who never (or hardly ever) lost in court, was not going to be scared by a mandarin, however malignant it might be. In the case of ‘Sarah Cohen v. M.’ – because that would be the codename, she decided – there would be attacks and counter-attacks and low cunning, too. Her enemy would not admit defeat easily, Sarah knew that: M. was vicious, the trickiest adversary she had ever faced. The trial would be lengthy, a war of nerves, a succession of hopes and doubts, and other moments when she would fear everything was lost. She must stay the course, give as good as she got. Wars like this were won over the long term, Sarah knew that.