Crash, page 7
The Bad News Clinic, I thought, looking at the bent heads of the women. If anyone spoke at all it was in a whisper. One couple held hands. I held my own hand, very tight, and pressed down on my stomach to push the fear away. It returned in my legs, like a viral shiver, and I stretched down to rub my ankles.
Fear made me think of Carl’s mother, Beatrice. There had been no contact with her for so long she held no terror for me now, but my first meeting with her had been petrifying. We were still sharing a flat, Carl, our friend Euan, and me, and it was almost finals. Beatrice was giving a talk to the biochemistry postgraduate students, which finished at midday, and I’d been instructed to make lunch for us all. It was the first time we’d met and I knew almost nothing about her. I was already pregnant with her first granddaughter Ella. Carl and I had planned a tiny wedding at the Leicester Registry Office and this was his chance to tell his mother.
I’d made a fish casserole with expensive haddock from the fish market but the fish had disappeared into a pulp. My nerves meant that I didn’t pay enough attention to the rice and it ended up as overcooked sludge. Everyone forked politely at their pile of white mush and almost everything was left. Euan poured wine as if he had been born to a life of drinking expensive French wine at lunchtime, and tried to shower his natural charm upon Beatrice’s immovable carapace. He was so used to winning even the most recalcitrant over to his charms, it took him sometime to notice that no one was even looking at him.
‘Sorry, Ma,’ Carl said, his unsmiling eyes fixed upon my face. ‘She’s got a lot to learn in the housekeeping department. Perhaps she’ll get better after we’re married. Since she’ll have nothing better to do, practice might make perfect.’
‘Nonsense,’ Euan bellowed, ‘it was delicious!’ His irony always struck me as more hurtful than Carl’s criticism and in my embarrassment, I felt my lips twist with the ominous threat of tears.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Beatrice snapped. ‘You can’t marry her. I mean, who is she?’
Carl feigned boredom, slouching further into his chair, and took a deep swig of wine. ‘It’s all settled. We’re getting married on the fifteenth of August. You’re welcome to attend, if you’re not too… busy.’
Beatrice stood up, glaring at me. ‘I need my coat,’ she snapped.
‘It’s in the hall,’ I said, heading towards the tiny, damp space that separated our front door from the rest of the flat.
She squeezed beside me in the small entrance and snatched at my wrist, pressing hard on the bones.
‘I can see what’s going on here,’ Beatrice hissed, peering at me so closely I could count the black hairs sprouting from her chin. ‘If you have any sense, young lady, you’ll make a run for it. He’s no good… you won’t be able to save him.’ She poked at my belly. ‘Take this child with you, if you know what’s best.’
A nurse called me into a cubicle. I was reminded of the order of the day, in case I had forgotten my letter, or had not understood my letter or had torn up my letter in anger and dismay at the sheer, utter, unfairness and cruelty of it all. I was told there would be more tests so I would need to get undressed. ‘Once you’re ready, just wait out here and you’ll be called,’ she said, passing me a basket and robe. ‘Can I call you Alice?’
Back in the waiting area, I felt fear creep back into my fingers and shook them as if they were wet. A woman across from me looked up and smiled, then quickly turned away. A nurse brought round menus for us to choose our lunch. Of course, I thought, today we are patients. This is our first day. I ticked lamb stew with dumplings, which I knew I wouldn’t eat, followed by rice pudding. The other women were also now in robes, their baskets neatly stored under their chairs. Their men looked out of place, overdressed and hot.
My nurse… how soon I felt possessive of her… came and sat with me, her feet tucked around the chair legs and her hands folded in her lap, holding my plan. ‘We’ll take some blood and then you’ll have a CT scan because Mr Wales needs to see right inside you. After that, you can dress and have your lunch.’
‘Will I talk to him in the afternoon?’
‘Yes, but I’m not sure when. There’s not many of you in today, so not too late I think.’
‘I need to get away to check on my husband, he’s unwell.’
She frowned in sympathy. ‘He’s got to look at all your test results together, which might take a little while, but you can count on being away by half past three because he has to collect his little boy from nursery at four.’ We smiled, sharing an unspoken thought about important men caught up in family trivia.
I picked up a magazine and flicked through the pages, feeling shivers squeeze my stomach and bowel. I tried to focus on recipes and holidays. One by one the other three women were taken for their investigations. The men vanished, a little too hastily I thought, but who could blame them? I was given a cup of viscous liquid to drink and told that my turn would come soon. I watched the nurse draw deep red blood from my vein, laying the phials in a neat row across a white cloth. My blood pressure was high. ‘Only to be expected, nothing to worry about.’ My weight was less and my height remained the same. We laughed… I hadn’t shrunk!
I was left alone. I took out my phone to text Dan but changed my mind. There was nothing new to say. I turned to a clean page in my notebook and wrote down the heading Cervical Cancer which I underlined twice, then a subheading Treatment Plan, which I did not underline but followed by a colon. I left two blank pages and created a new heading: Options for Tom’s Future. I wrote a list of numbers down the side of the page. I would write down each idea in turn as it occurred to me. When I felt a tap on my shoulder, number one was still blank. Half an hour had passed.
I had to lie very still while the machine hummed and whirred across my pelvis. The nurse had squeezed a liquid into my bottom before she and the radiographer rushed behind a screen. I felt desperate to empty my bowels. It was like being a child again, an infant child new to school, having to wait outside closed toilet doors, desperate not to have an accident.
I was rushed to a cubicle with a toilet alongside. The water exploded from me and I curled over as I heaved and retched in painful spasms. I dressed slowly, my trembling arms and legs forcing me to sit down and breathe deeply after each minor triumph of tights and sleeves.
A nurse came to collect me and I joined the other women in the clinic. The men were still absent. Our lunches arrived on a trolley and gave us a reason to talk. We wouldn’t mention our cancer but we could safely talk about hospital food. I ate my rice pudding, the comforting sweetness settling my stomach, but I could not eat one mouthful of the lamb stew, which smelled of farmyards and school dining halls. We left almost everything.
The men returned from their own solitary lunches in the hospital cafeteria and I was called first to see Mr Wales. I hoped this wasn’t chance and felt proud of my nurse.
He was waiting for me and looked up, gesturing that I sit down on the chair next to him. He angled his own chair to face me but kept his body turned towards the desk so that he could read the papers in front of him. He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes and I thought how old and tired he looked, grey hair, grey skin, grey suit. I wondered about his nursery-aged child. Was it a second marriage or a late baby?
‘Mrs Williams, I’m not sure if it’s wise that you have no one here with you. It often helps, not least because the patient so often forgets what is said. Do you want me to ask one of the nurses to sit in?’
I shook my head. ‘I think I know what I’m going to hear. I’ve known all along. I’ve brought a notebook so that I can write down what you say. Do you mind?’ He shook his head and I searched my bag for my notebook and pen, turning over keys and mobile phone, purse, and tissues, feeling my hands shake and my head tighten. A band gripped my throat.
‘Take your time, there’s no rush.’ Mr Wales spoke softly. I looked up at his weary eyes and thought that next to Dan, he was now the most important man in my life. I opened my notebook at the page and held my pen, as if ready to take dictation.
‘You have cervical cancer, as you suspected, but the good news first. It is a Stage 2 tumour which means that the cancer has spread but not too far. The bad news is that you have Grade 3 cells. These will move fast if we don’t get rid of them soon.’
Mr Wales was at work. It was an obvious thought but it struck me as very profound, like the moment when I first truly understood that I would die, that death didn’t happen to everyone else except me. He is at work. This is my life but he is just working. I ticked the heading Cervical Cancer and wrote underneath, watching my hand shake as I tried to control the pen, ‘Stage 2’. Below that I wrote ‘Grade 3’. We sat in silence for a few moments then he continued. ‘Is there anything you want to ask at this point?’
‘What do you mean when you say the cancer has spread? Where to?’
‘The CT scan shows that it has not gone far, just into the upper part of the vagina. Before your surgery, we will look more thoroughly when you are under anaesthetic, but I’m as confident as I can be that this is still a locally advanced cancer.’
‘If I hadn’t missed my last smear, it might have been caught?’
Mr Wales scratched his eyebrow with a thumbnail. ‘In my experience women always try to blame themselves for this particular cancer and it’s part of my job to stop you doing that. It doesn’t help. For what it’s worth, the smear before the one you missed was completely clear. I’ve checked it again. You have a fast-growing cancer. It could easily have been overlooked, even if you hadn’t forgotten the appointment.’
Silence again. Just the ticking of a clock and footsteps from the corridor outside. The air felt thick and sounds were muffled.
‘Take a few minutes to think about what I have said. Take as much time as you need.’
I watched Mr Wales read through my notes. He had tufts of wiry hair growing from his earlobes and his hair lay grizzled and untidy over the collar of his shirt. I had already decided that he was divorced and wondered about his first wife and whether she was coping. Had he met his new partner at the hospital? Had she been married before? Once I knew him better I would ask.
‘No more questions?’
I shook my head.
‘Okay let’s talk about the treatment plan. I want you to try to hear this bit very clearly. I’m telling you that recovery is our goal and is a very realistic outcome. You will be free of this cancer in six months, but we have a hard journey ahead of us.’ He looked at me without blinking and I saw that his eyes were grey too. I nodded. I heard the rest, but it was just words. What I understood was that I trusted him.
‘I’ll operate in a couple of weeks, on the third of October. I would have liked to do it sooner, but I have to go to a conference in Copenhagen on Friday. Write down the date and time in your notebook so that you can tell your family tonight, but we’ll send you a letter anyway. Now, if you will just bear with me a minute, I’ll dictate a letter to your GP. I want you to hear what I’m saying to her so that you’re confident I’ve held nothing back.’
The fear and waiting were over. We had a plan and I was no longer alone. I felt safe.
Again, Mr Wales turned to face me. ‘One last thing. I don’t want you to be alone for your surgery. Who will you bring?’
I knew the answer to this. ‘I’ll try to bring my eldest daughter, Ella. She’s a doctor, just qualified.’ Mr Wales nodded and stood to shake my hand. When I rested my hand in his, he placed his palm over mine and pressed down firmly. This man will do, I thought.
The other women, still waiting, raised anxious, careworn eyes as I passed through the clinic. I smiled at them, feeling an inexplicable sense of relief and joy. I would fight for my life. I would deal with Tom and Carl… I would manage Oliver. I would live.
TEN
TUESDAY 16TH SEPTEMBER
My euphoric mood didn’t last. The prolonged heat wave gave us another shimmering morning, but everything seemed too bright. My eyes hurt, the colours weren’t right. The sky was too pale, washed with a brush of thinning cloud and any leaves still hanging on to tree branches were crisped and jagged in the unseasonal warmth. When I reached the city, it was a relief to find the landscape brown, littered and clotted with pollution. If I had to die, maybe leaving all of this behind would be okay.
After I’d dropped Tom at school, I went to work. The arrival of Carl’s team would feel like an intrusion and I had nowhere else to go. Arriving late at the university meant that I couldn’t find a parking space. When an attendant turned me away from the third car park I tried, I started to cry. A kindly man, he was distressed by my tears, but could not create a space for me. There are some things that can’t be changed, like cancer.
I emailed Dan from David’s desk. I need to see you. Five minutes later my secret mobile rang.
‘I’ve been worried,’ he said. ‘You didn’t text me after the hospital. Are you okay?’
My throat hurt, and my chest ached. ‘Can we meet?’ No more words would come.
He said my name, soft on an exhaled breath. ‘Alice…’
‘I thought I could manage this. Today I can’t. I’m sorry.’
‘I’ll be with you in an hour… are you in David’s office?’
‘Yes, but what about your work? You can’t drop everything. Don’t come.’
‘I’ve got a tutorial, but I’ll cancel. Unexpected sickness; that’s the truth.’
‘Dan?’
‘Alice, I’m coming… wait for me.’
I stayed in David’s room, the door ajar so I could hear Dan’s tread. The habits of an affair are hard to break, even when one of you is dying. It still mattered to me that we shouldn’t cause any gossip. A department secretary passed the door, then leaned backwards to speak.
‘Didn’t think you’d be in today, Alice, with the Prof away.’
‘I thought I’d take the chance to organise things a bit, you know what he’s like.’
‘Are you okay? You look terrible.’
I shook my head. Tension throbbed at the back of my eyes and twisted in my throat so that I had to cough. I couldn’t look at her and clutched the desk in case I floated away. She hurried towards the desk and lifted me up by the elbow, gently steering me along the corridor. I could smell her body, her early morning shower gel or shampoo. There was a roar in my ears, like the rushing sound from inside a seashell or an ebb tide sucking away from the shore.
‘Think you had a little turn back there,’ she said, easing me into one of the chairs in the staff room. ‘I’ll make tea with sugar. That’s good for you if you’ve fainted.’ I shook my head. No sugar. But I drank the hot, sweet tea anyway, letting it scald my tight throat.
‘Should you be at work? Can I call someone for you?’
‘I’m not well,’ I whispered. ‘It’s cervical cancer.’
‘My sister-in-law had that, three years ago. She’s fine now.’
‘Is she?’ I reached for this, grasping at good news. ‘How far gone was she… when they found it?’
‘Quite bad, I think. Stage something or other. I can’t remember now. She has to have checks and things, but she looks better than me these days.’
‘Did she… what treatment did she have?’
‘Surgery, chemo, radiotherapy, you name it. Who’re you seeing? Who’s your consultant?’
‘Mr Wales.’
‘Same as Paula, that’s my sister-in-law. He’s lovely. You’ll be okay with him.’
Traffic sounds drifted in through the open window. An ice-cream van played a tune I knew but couldn’t name. I swallowed the tea in deep gulps.
‘I do feel better. Thank you, you’ve been very kind. You must have loads to do.’
‘Do you want me to take you home?’
I shook my head. ‘I’m waiting for a friend.’
Dan and I walked through the park behind the university. There was a small café near the war memorial favoured by street drinkers. The fossil lodged in my throat would not allow me to speak and Dan kept silent, reaching for my hand as we left the open grass of the playing fields for the shady, mottled light of a small copse of trees. Dan was easily diverted, particularly if he saw the chance of sharing some knowledge. He stopped to look at a signboard badged with the city council logo which reminded us the trees had been planted in honour of the Queen’s silver jubilee. Dan touched the bark, remarking how tall they had grown in only thirty years. His wife and daughters must have grown bored of this habit, years ago, but one of the things he loved about me was that I was still interested. I loved this man, his unshakable interest in detail.
The path led to a bench outside the café, and we sat down, still in the shade from the trees, listening to squirrels click and whir as they darted and tumbled along the narrow branches. A group of men sat in a circle on the grass, surrounded by cans and bottles without labels. They listened intently to the one talking, who jabbed the air, his fingers stabbing his points home. I still couldn’t speak because if I let go of the stone, I was afraid of what might follow. I rested my head on Dan’s shoulder and could sense the scuff of his hair on mine.
‘Why did I tell all that to someone I hardly know? She’s one of the department secretaries but I can’t remember her name. She knew mine… it’s embarrassing.’
Dan shrugged and I felt his shoulder lift. ‘Embarrassing because you don’t know her name or because you told her your medical history?’ He didn’t wait for me to reply. ‘Because it’s easier to talk to strangers, I suppose. Maybe we have to practise the words first, like a dress rehearsal. Try to get them right before we tell the people that really matter. I don’t know, I’m just guessing.’
‘Dan, I have cervical cancer, I’m sorry.’
‘Christ, Alice, don’t apologise. I should have noticed that something was wrong. What made you think there was a problem?’
