another station I might never have thought of her again. I might have gone on with my comfortable life till my teeth fell out. Instead I found myself approaching the help desk at the general hospital and asking if they could tell me which ward Jacky Pitt was on.
‘Sorry. We can’t give out that kind of information,’ a bored young man informed me.
Not knowing what else to do I started checking each ward I came to and struck it lucky at the second attempt: Turner Ward. The name meant nothing to me. It gave no clue as to what might be wrong with Jacky. I’d bought some flowers on the way in to look the part, pretending all over again. I never intended to see her. My plan, if it could be called that, was merely to ascertain that she really would be ‘out of hospital in no time at all’.
I had to duck into a toilet inside Turner Ward, fearful I was about to vomit. The feeling passed as soon as the door was shut behind me. I looked in the mirror and asked the blank expression staring back at me what the hell I thought I was doing, but got no reply. Why, after all these years, did I feel so concerned? I had jumped out of her life and now, equally without warning, I was about to leap back in. What was I playing at?
Someone shook the toilet door handle and my heart accelerated to a drum beat in my ears. What if that was Jacky, taking a stroll or even on her way home? I would open the door and there she would be, a sneer of contempt cornering me in this tiny room, and behind her a burly new boyfriend and her parents and everyone who once counted themselves as my friends shaking their heads in disgust.
But I knew that could never be. Jacky would not be walking anywhere again. That was why I could not sleep, why my food would not stay down, why I clutched a bottle of pills with the desire to swallow the lot. There was something in the D.J.’s voice that hinted he knew more about the circumstances surrounding Jacky Pitt’s heath than his listeners were aware of. That was why I had allowed myself to gravitate to the hospital, I realised: to confirm my worst fears.
I splashed water on my face, flushed the toilet and headed back onto the ward.
‘Can I help you?’ a young nurse asked brightly. Only God can do that, I thought.
‘I’m a friend of Jackie Pitt’s,’ I said - just not the sort you’d wish for.
The nurse smiled awkwardly. ‘She’s asleep.’ Now it was her turn to be cost-effective with the truth. No one could put this much effort into hiding good news. ‘But you can go and sit with her if you like.’
I was led to a side room at the end of a long corridor. I looked at other beds and saw nothing but stiff linen symmetries mocking rest. I passed a fellow male visitor stifling a sob in his handkerchief. At length we stopped walking, and when the nurse looked into my face her expression was firm and staid.
‘I don’t know how much you know, but Jackie has been like this for several weeks now.’ I nodded and said I had spoken to John, Pauline and Andy. They sent their best wishes. ‘There really is nothing much we can do for her now except make her comfortable. She went downhill very suddenly. This type of cancer is so hard to treat unless you catch it early.’
I thanked the nurse and said I only wanted a few minutes alone with Jacky. To say goodbye again. I stood staring through the glass panel in the door for an age before quietly turning the door handle and slipping inside.
Once she had been plump, well-built, buxom. Now I could barely recognise her waxed, sunken cheeks and thin colourless lips. Cheeks I had cupped in my hands; lips I had kissed till they bruised. Beneath the bed linen her once ample body was barely discernible, more like a collection of folds and flaps in the sheets than a body per se. But the greatest shock was that her eyes were half opened and staring at the ceiling, as if they expected it to rip apart to reveal a great universal truth from the world beyond. Those eyes never flickered the entire time I was there. Hers – like mine - was the sleeplessness of the damned.
I sat down in the chair by the bedside cabinet, noting as I did so the indentation someone had recently left in the padded seating. At least I was not her only visitor; not that that was any kind of consolation. I laid the flowers on the cabinet. Was she even aware of the outside world? I dared not risk that she was and kept myself outside the periphery of her vision. If she was conscious she might be wondering who it was who visited without speaking. I hoped she was not feeling any pain, then shuddered at the thought that when she came to it might be to a world of nothing but pain.
So now I knew: Jacky was terminally ill. But surely I had known that all along and was here as a penance for my guilt. Could it be that my tearing her heart asunder ten years earlier had precipitated a domino effect of depression, stress and self-neglect that ultimately led to the proliferation of abnormal cells in some dark, corporeal backwater? I took a deep breath. Yes, I had come to say goodbye again, as if saying it once – like saying sorry – was not enough. Only this time I could only say it in my head, lest she recognise my voice.
I stood up; again careful not to move too closely to those unwavering eyes that reminded me of a fish laid dying on the riverbank. I said my silent goodbye and did so without tears this time.
The nurse swept back in, her vigour contradicting her assertion there was nothing she could do. ‘I’ll have to ask you to leave her for awhile, Mr…?’
I smiled and moved towards the salvation of the corridor outside. ‘We have to do some tests, you see. You can come back in ten minutes,’ she added helpfully.
But I was already stepping through the door, thinking about Elaine and my son and the rest of my life. ‘Oh, shall I put these in some water for you?’
‘Yes, thank….’
I turned back to stare in horror at Jacky’s wasted form. Had she heard, had her head moved? Was there a spark of recognition in her eyes? From my position by the door it was impossible to say. At a great distance I heard the concerned voice of the nurse asking if I was all right, but I was already running through the ward. I pounded down the stairs, heading for the nearest exit, and did not stop running until I reached the car. I sat behind the wheel, dark thoughts spinning through my brain, just as Jacky had surely done outside my flat three thousand nights before.
Three thousand nights without sleep; perhaps that would be my penance. Could the body and mind cope with such deprivation? Or would the combined fatigue and stress precipitate a domino effect that ultimately would lead to the proliferation of abnormal cells in some dark, corporeal backwater? No. I was going to have to live with this for the rest of my natural life. I turned the ignition and slowly drove away.
So here I stand in the darkened living room at one o’clock in the morning. I cannot sleep. I don’t eat. This terrible thing won’t let me. Jacky is dead but it wasn’t me that killed her. How did I believe that I could have such power?
I fell in love with someone only to learn that I loved someone else more. It broke Jacky’s heart, but her disease was precipitated by genes not grief. I married Elaine and moved to the city, only to jack in my career to keep an eye on sick relatives and run a health food shop. Why? If I don’t feel well I have a coffee and a fag. But it was Elaine’s dream and so I stood by her. Again why? Because I’m a decent bloke, a good hubbie? Or has my guilty conscience been pulling the strings through these past ten years without my realising it? I gave up a job with prospects to drive a delivery van full of organic vegetable boxes and talk to middle class housewives about good sources of antioxidants. Who am I? Whose is this well-maintained reflection I see staring back at me from the living room window, this market trader of ambitions for obligations?
I don’t feel anything anymore. I talk about love and duty and desire, but they’re just words, dry and lifeless like fallen leaves. I used to be passionate, dedicated and full of ideas. People used to come to me for advice and guidance. I was alive, in love with everything life offered.
I used to be someone. I used to be shit hot. Now I’m just shit.
What happened to me? I’m a fraud, a charlatan; clean, respectable and comfortable, but comfortable in the manner of someone in a
coma waiting to die. All that remains is the passing of time and the white sheet pulled up over my face…
It really is very cold down here now. The central heating will click on at six-thirty but I have no intention of standing here until then. It is time to return to bed, put these bloody pills back in the bathroom cupboard on the way. Elaine won’t stir; she never does. So I’ll lay there, thinking, and staring at the ceiling with my eyes half open, unable to go back, incapable of moving forward. But I know of a way out.
Tomorrow I have to take some deliveries over to the coast. It’s a long drive. But I need to stop off halfway. Her husband’s away on business, so there won’t be any awkwardness. He eats organic due to his lupus, she said. But it’s affected them both, to be honest. She says I’m a good listener, patient. I never used to be. That’s what she looks forward to every Wednesday, she said last time, not my spring onions and Savoy cabbage. The younger me, the fool of yesteryear giggled ‘you’re in there, mate!’ But maybe this is an opportunity of a different kind. There are two or three other women customers who share their woes with me, too. I’m all ears now, where I used to be all mouth and trousers. Is that ‘growing up’, growing wise or just growing older?
Elaine understands. I told her - this time. It’s only my feelings I keep secret from her. She wants to rename the business ‘Cauliflowers and Counselling’. We laughed about that. It was the first time I’d laughed in weeks. She says I’ve got a heart of gold.
Maybe that’s why it feels so heavy.
Suddenly Autumn
The verdict from the consultant’s lips was absolute. There would be no benefit from treatment, no point in seeking a second opinion. Dr. Morgan was an experienced professional. He did not make mistakes. His eyes were not failing him; he knew what a tumour looked like. His conclusions were unequivocal.
Christian Cheever stared into the mirror, mouth open, mimicking shock. He tilted his head back to allow the maximum amount of light to penetrate. For three months the lump had grown on the inside of his left cheek: uncomfortable at first, inconvenient for the most part, unbearable until his G.P. prescribed stronger painkillers and a special mouthwash. Now this: the judgement from the oracle of oncology.
But Dr. Morgan was right. You didn’t need an X-ray to see what had happened. Yet still Christian pulled and prodded at his cheek until his jaws ached. What would he tell his wife? His friends? Would they accuse him of lying, of playing practical jokes in bad taste? But the truth was staring him in the face - his face - and every time he opened his mouth now that truth would reveal itself to everyone without his uttering a word.
‘I was never afraid of dying,’ he told the mirror defiantly. ‘I ought to go home, break the news.’ He shut his mouth with an audible click: case closed. ‘The good news.’
He turned to leave the gents, heading for one last drink at the bar. He’d been drinking a lot recently, nurturing a self-pity the justification for which had been excised by unseen hands. Because there was to be no more bad news, no death sentence, no duel to the end with a pernicious disease.
For when Dr. Morgan had examined him, Christian Cheever’s tumour had vanished.
The front gate squeaked a welcome to its master. Christian always maintained that it would deter burglars, but in truth he could never be bothered to replace the dud hinge. There were a lot of neglected jobs around the property like that, he knew. The security light over the back garden needed a new bulb, the path needed levelling, an apple tree needed cutting back. He always promised to find the time; but that day had eluded him thus far. Staring at the house today he felt mildly embarrassed. It looked shabby, unloved, a place to eat and sleep in rather than somewhere to live. And love.
Inside the hall he added his shoes to the sprawl of footwear inching along one wall. When was the last time he’d decorated? And the carpet was worn and faded. He hung his coat on a mass of others clinging desperately to three hooks. They could do with a coat tree, one that you could put umbrellas in the base of. There were piles of boxes at the top of the stairs. The hall lampshade was grey with dust. The kitchen door handle was loose. All familiar faults in the geography of family life, but only now did they seem to matter.
From the lounge came the ubiquitous babble of the television. Christian stood by the door, ready but reluctant to push. He felt his stomach turn, a sign that he had taken one drink too many - perhaps.
He stepped forward, or rather back, into family life. His youngest son, Kyle languished along the length of the settee, hands clasped nonchalantly behind his head. He did not look up, but his mum, Samantha did. Christian stared into her eyes, uncertain of what he saw there. Fear? Worry? Pity? Yes, all those things; but lurking beyond that was something less predictable.
He knew she cared. It wasn’t that. But the look seemed to say: Listen, whatever it is I’ll help you deal with it - just like I cook your meals and wash your clothes. It’s my duty. Cancer, which they had both assumed it was, was nothing more than another marital obligation, a task to be dutifully tackled without complaint: washing-up, ironing, shopping, chemotherapy. All in a day’s work. If he’d announced it was terminal there and then, would she merely have shrugged her shoulders and adjusted her timetable accordingly with an icy formality? His stomach churned again.
She got up quickly and led him into the kitchen. They had agreed not to tell their two sons until after the consultation. Now there would be nothing to tell.
‘What did he say?’ she asked softly. ‘Tell me everything. I need to know.’ I have a schedule.
There seemed no alternative to telling her the truth, yet the telling felt somehow unnatural. Sam seemed quite calm and composed, given what he should be about to say. Though she said the right things it was like listening to a ham actor impersonating a worried spouse in a radio play. Had it ever been different? It was a struggle to remember how she might have been years ago. Hadn’t they always been together?
‘I don’t know what to say. How to tell you.’ Because you might just say, ‘Oh, that’s all right, then’.
‘I need to know, Chris.’
Because she was having her hair done next Tuesday? He took a deep breath. ‘It’s good news, Sam. It’s not cancer.’
Was she going to cry? Throw herself into his arms and suggest they go out for a meal to celebrate? Run around the kitchen naked, punching the air in delight? No. Instead she merely smiled, and squeezing his hand said, ‘You really had me scared there.’
He let out a sigh as false as her smile. That icy formality grinned back at him.
‘But there will be treatment, right? An operation?’
‘No need,’ and he efficiently recounted Dr. Morgan’s diagnosis: about how in some exceptional cases tumours went into remission or simply vanished altogether. He omitted the bit about how cancerous cells could still resurface elsewhere later on; not because he did not want to worry her, but because he could not bear the threat of more indifference.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ she smiled again, giving him a limp hug.
‘Sure,’ he answered. ‘I need the loo first.’
He fled upstairs, heart hammering, sweat standing out on his temple like dew. He made it to the toilet bowl just in time, his stomach still shuddering for a minute afterwards. It wasn’t fear or relief or even the alcohol that had turned his stomach. It was something deeper, some revelation that lurked intangibly behind the mask of Sam’s smile, the peeling gloss paint on the banister and the broken handle on the chest of drawers. I should have fixed things years ago, before they became irrevocable.
Suddenly, his prognosis didn’t feel much like a let off.
He flushed the toilet. Delayed euphoria, a type of shock; that was what it must be. He had survived a near death encounter, after all. He imagined it was quite a common and normal reaction. Not that he had ever felt that certain of his own demise. In the jaws of illness he had resorted to that most trusted of ego defences: denial. But this was shock, nonetheless. It would take him time to readjust;
which was why he would go on drinking too much and feel suffocated on his own.
Air turbulence didn’t have to bring the plane down to make you fill your pants. He flushed the toilet again and walked out.
Initially, no one noticed the man of the house busying himself with odd jobs. The boys especially were predictably unaware of his efforts; but at length Sam brought him a mug of tea whilst he was sanding down the banister and asked as casually as she could:
‘What’s brought this on, then?’
‘Oh, you know…’ he began uncertainly. ‘The place looks a bit run down. I’ve been dragging my heels of late.’ Late being about ten years.
‘Right. Only…’ There was something on her mind. She looked around the hall as if trying to find it. ‘You don’t have to.’
He thought she would be pleased. Weren’t women supposed to be house-proud? Not if they lived with Christian Cheever. Then he realised: she was worried he might be overdoing it.
‘It’s all right now. You’ve seen for yourself, love. It’s gone. I’m fine.’ He felt annoyed and uneasy, though. ‘I feel like a new man!’ he declared, and gave Sam a peck on the cheek. She left him to it without further comment.
His wrist was aching before he had been painting an hour. Why had he left things so long? Sam had almost winced at the touch of his lips. She was trying to hide her emotions but deep down, he knew, she was adjusting to the shock too.
‘Blast,’ he muttered, noticing that the bristles were starting to fall out of the old brush he was using. He made his way to the shed to find a replacement.
The interior of the shed was a total mess. His neighbour, Eric had an immaculately organised garage with labels and shelves and hooks and storage in the roof space. And he could still get his hatchback inside. But over the years Christian’s shed had become a dumping ground. Still, he had a rough idea where some more paint gear might be buried. ‘At least I won’t be the only thing dug up round here, then,’ he whispered.
Why were the boys still at home? he wondered, picking his way through the chaos. Kyle was twenty-three and Jason only three years off thirty. Still, that was the way these days; it was cheaper for them to stay at home. And in truth he hardly noticed they were there anymore, except when one of them had his music on.
‘Death Metal!’ he sniggered.
Something caught his eye. He thought it might be a coffee jar, and it was, but an empty one. Maybe I ought to tidy this place up one day. He’d focus on the house first, though. Pulling away from where the jar stood his foot caught on something hard.