The Lion Tamer Who Lost

by Louise Beech

  ‘Hilda might visit tonight, sweetheart,’ said Sophie, winking at Andrew as she took Lily’s temperature.

  ‘Don’t talk crap,’ snapped Lily. ‘Hilda’s been dead fifteen years!’

  ‘Ah, well, she could come at any time then,’ said the young nurse.

  Andrew looked for Dr Amdahl between watching the clock hands make their too-quick rotations. He analysed passing footsteps. Women in heels clipped past; nurses too, their comfy shoes making hardly any announcement; squeaking wheels heralded walking frames.

  But no sound foreshadowed the arrival of Leo after eighteen months, sixty thousand miles, and still no word for love that wasn’t love. Andrew’s ex arrived with a small bunch of flowers. Andrew stared at them and then his face. It was just the same – tanned, half shaven, too happy.

  ‘Leo,’ he said.

  ‘Andrew.’

  ‘Hilda!’ cried Lily.

  Leo laughed and approached the bed, saying, ‘She’s in the wrong type of hospital.’

  ‘It isn’t visiting hours yet.’

  ‘I sneaked in.’

  The last time Andrew had seen Leo he had been holding a suitcase with a dangling label that read Shanghai, China. Andrew had said he should never come back, that he didn’t want to share him with the world. Leo had yelled on his way down the stairs that Andrew was impossible.

  ‘I’m back,’ he said now.

  He put the flowers on the cabinet. They smelt tart.

  ‘How did you know I was here?’ Andrew wanted to ask why he was here.

  ‘Your neighbour said. Is it your diabetes?’

  Andrew shook his head. He knew Leo wouldn’t be interested in bone marrow; he abhorred physical weakness so much that Andrew had always been surprised he had dated him so long. ‘It’s how you handle it,’ Leo had frequently said. ‘You don’t trouble me with it. I admire that.’ Andrew had liked his lack of interest, never quite loving him enough to want him to fuss.

  ‘Why were you at my flat?’ asked Andrew.

  ‘I wanted to tell you I’ve given travelling up.’ He sat in the chair. ‘I’m settling here. Gonna devote myself to writing – it’s about time. I’ll use my travel experience to have a go at fiction. You always said I should be more creative.’

  Writing was all they had in common.

  ‘I knew you’d want to know,’ Leo said.

  ‘But you love travelling.’ Andrew pulled the cover higher, not wanting Leo to see the bruises.

  Leo had been a hotel inspector for an international chain, mixing work with pleasure and taking full advantage of discount flights and free rooms. He made extra cash writing travel reviews for a newspaper. Many times, he’d invited Andrew along, and though they’d once gone to Prague together for a weekend, he much preferred the space afforded him when Leo was away.

  ‘The world’s all the same when you’ve landed in a thousand airports, spent evenings in bars that could be in any backstreet of any city. I think home could be exciting.’

  ‘That’s nice.’ Andrew didn’t know what else to say.

  It was almost two o’clock.

  ‘You think lots when you’re somewhere else,’ said Leo.

  Andrew agreed: all he’d done on the ward was think.

  ‘I thought about us,’ said Leo.

  I didn’t, thought Andrew.

  ‘It’s good of you to come but this isn’t a good time.’

  ‘I hate hospitals,’ Leo said. ‘I made myself come for you. I could have left a note at the flat.’ He looked like he wished he had. ‘I know it’s been a while, but we’re still good, aren’t we?’

  Andrew could agree that they might have once been defined as good. Leo had been a generous if self-absorbed partner and Andrew had liked this. A man wrapped up in his own needs notices less that your love is a lesser word; they had ambled along in their mostly onesided relationship for almost four years.

  ‘Remember my Aunty Brenda out in Swanland?’ said Leo.

  Maybe if Andrew just let him say what he felt he needed to, then he would go.

  ‘She died.’ Leo’s expression barely clouded. ‘Long illness that I won’t bore you with. Anyway, she left me her house. Great big place off a quiet lane, gravel drive, the works.’

  Andrew watched the door.

  ‘But there’s no point without kids is there? I’m forty-two; you must be almost forty now. I’ve been thinking about it. We’ve had a long break. I know you like your space and we’ve messed about with me going here and there and everywhere, but what do you think?’

  ‘About what?’ asked Andrew.

  ‘Us. Kids. You know. Together. Adopt.’

  Andrew frowned. ‘I’ve not seen you in over a year and you’re asking me to have kids with you?’

  ‘Get better first.’ Leo laughed. ‘Think about it for a few days.’

  And then, at one minute after two, Ben walked in. Two men. One an unwelcome ghost from the past, the other a welcome one from the present, neither of them Doctor Amdahl with news of his future.

  Leo looked Ben up and down as he approached the bed; Ben returned the study with equal fervour. They both turned to Andrew, the same question in their eyes. It was Ben he must answer … calm the orange sparks.

  ‘Ben.’ Andrew patted the bed for him to sit. ‘This is Leo. I mentioned him to you. He came to see how I am.’

  ‘You’re with him?’ Leo heaped mockery on the word him. ‘How old is he?’

  Lily shrieked that the rats had parachutes now.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ said Ben. He didn’t sit in the spot Andrew patted, but squared up to Leo, eye-to-eye, assuming his full height.

  Then Doctor Amdahl arrived, from the future. Stepping between them, he said good afternoon to Andrew and asked in his temperate accent if they might go somewhere less busy to discuss the results.

  ‘Yes,’ said Andrew.

  Leo moved away from the bed, his flowers wilting in the overheated climate. Ben moved closer to Andrew. The doctor said there was a private room up the corridor and he could have someone present. Andrew said he wanted Ben there. He realised now that Ben was no child who needed life painted a pretty way.

  ‘I’d best go,’ said Leo. ‘I only paid for an hour’s parking. I’ll call you Andrew, and you can update me.’

  He left as quickly and soundlessly as he had arrived.

  ‘Shall we?’ said the doctor with a perfect voice for bad news.

  They walked behind him down the sterile corridor.

  ‘How did it go with your dad?’ Andrew asked Ben.

  ‘I can tell you later,’ he said. ‘Now is about you.’

  ‘Did you tell him about us?’

  Ben glared at him.

  ‘Guess that’s a no then?’

  ‘Later,’ snapped Ben.

  ‘I was thinking,’ Andrew said. ‘I truly don’t mind if you go to Zimbabwe.’

  Ben leaned closer, so the doctor couldn’t hear them. ‘Like you wanted that fucking Leo to go travelling so you could be away from him?’

  ‘Not like that at all. I just don’t want you to feel tied to me.’

  ‘I don’t,’ whispered Ben. ‘We chose each other. I don’t have to be here – and you don’t have to have me. But we are.’

  Andrew wanted to kiss Ben, but knew he’d pull away with the doctor there.

  Now they were at the door to the room.

  25

  You Should Have Wished

  Nancy didn’t know what to say when Ben cried.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  Doctor Amdahl opened the door and let them in first.

  Andrew and Ben sat in the stiff sofa shoved up against the wall, and the doctor pulled up the chair and opened the folder on his knee. With the closeness of Ben and the warm air from a colossal radiator, it was hard to take in the doctor’s words. He spoke as though telling a fairytale; the story of leukaemia … that was how Andrew heard it.

  In this story, leukaemia was a cancer of the blood-forming cells tha
t began in the bone marrow and – if not treated – spread to the blood, brain and spinal cord. Andrew’s story was one of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, fortunately a slow-growing cancer that usually appears during middle age and affects white blood cells. The twist in the tale was that his diabetes had disguised most of the symptoms; the tiredness he had blamed on hypos and the bruises that wouldn’t heal after his injections. Luckily the cancer did not appear too advanced, though further testing would determine the full picture.

  Andrew looked at Ben.

  He had kissed his bruises many times. Would he want to now?

  ‘We’ll start treatment immediately,’ said Doctor Amdahl. ‘The prognosis is good; we’ve found it early.’

  Unlike before the procedure, Ben was silent.

  ‘What is the treatment?’ asked Andrew.

  Doctor Amdahl explained that chemotherapy was the main remedy and it could be taken orally or through a needle. A hospital stay wasn’t necessary; Andrew could recover at home. He said that radiation was another option, but they would discuss that. For now, they would proceed with chemo.

  ‘The best treatment,’ he said, ‘is a stem-cell transplant, whereby donated cells rebuild a good supply and boost the immune system.’

  Andrew frowned. ‘Someone donating their own healthy cells?’

  ‘Yes,’ said the doctor. ‘This would be from a relative where there’s a good chance you’ll be a close match. Unrelated donors are sometimes matched but it’s rare to find one.’

  Andrew thought about his lack of family.

  ‘The success of a donation depends on the recipient’s age and health. You’re young in terms of cancer. Your diabetes need not cause problems if we monitor it closely. In all regards you’re healthy. Is there a relative who might donate?’

  Andrew shook his head.

  ‘Can I donate?’ asked Ben, animated at last.

  ‘You’d have to be tested to see if you were a match,’ said Doctor Amdahl. ‘The procedure is pretty painful, and the chances of being a match are not high.’

  ‘It’s fine, Ben. I’ll just have chemo.’

  ‘What are the chances of someone random being a match?’ Ben asked.

  Doctor Amdahl said that there was a one in twenty thousand chance of someone matching a stranger. Ben’s face fell.

  Still he said, ‘Then it’s not impossible.’

  Andrew looked at him. ‘Ben, they’re awful odds.’

  ‘You won that writing competition last year and fifteen thousand people entered.’ Ben seemed excited to have found numbers to justify his plan. ‘Those were tough odds and you did it.’

  The radiator clinked behind them, and the doctor uncrossed his legs. ‘Do you have any more questions?’ he asked. ‘Would you like time alone?’

  Despite Ben trying to hide it, Andrew knew the doctor understood their relationship.

  ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but I’m sure I’ll have loads to ask later.’

  ‘We have a great counselling team here for the questions I can’t answer, and I can put you in touch with various cancer organisations.’ The doctor stood. ‘This is a lot to take in, so I’ll leave you alone.’

  The door closed after him with a heavy click. Andrew looked at Ben, more nervous now than he had been on their first proper date. He thought about it, about how they had met up at the pub near his home, both just looking at one another, wearing the same jeans and speaking at the same time and then laughing and telling the other to go first.

  Now Ben said ‘Andrew’ at the same time as he said ‘Ben’. Then there was nothing else to say.

  Ben’s voice was that of a boy when he said, ‘You should have wished.’

  Andrew put a finger over his lips and shook his head. ‘That isn’t how it works.’

  ‘But you … should have … tried.’

  Andrew couldn’t speak. A strange thing filled his throat; not words, not air. Though with Jonathon Edwards he had been brave, now with Ben he could finally not be. Now he felt the pain of those biting, stinging nettles. Now he scratched where once he’d been determined not to.

  Now he cried.

  And Ben held him.

  26

  Dancing on Feet Bigger than Ours

  Ben liked his wheelchair when it meant he could avoid dancing. At the Christmas school party, he watched the others sway and stamp and stumble. Nancy, however, danced like a ghost, flickeringly, swishingly, beautifully.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  ‘Tell me a happy memory of you and your dad,’ Andrew asked Ben during his second cycle of chemotherapy. The words rattled with ice cubes. Coldness numbed a mouth made sore by drugs. ‘You’ve only ever grumbled about him. Pick something from your childhood and don’t skip over any of it.’

  For three weeks Ben had been recalling memories. At first he said, ‘What am I, answers-dot-com?’ Even his most resourceful answers had Andrew coming up with more questions. Just as Andrew sought physical pain in pleasure, now in emotional pain he sought Ben’s happy days.

  ‘I do remember dancing with him,’ Ben said, after considering a while.

  They sat on Andrew’s bed, surrounded by pain-relief drugs rather than clothes and after-sex blankets, Ben at the top end and Andrew near the pillow, like reflections on either side of a mirror.

  ‘Shouldn’t we test your blood?’

  Andrew shook his head vigorously, impatient. ‘Ben, for fuck’s sake they tested me five times at the hospital.’ The diabetes meant he was monitored more closely than other chemo patients in case he needed extra insulin via a drip. He had been given anti-sickness drugs to help him eat too. ‘You’re avoiding the story.’

  ‘I’ll tell you. But shouldn’t we talk about today first?’

  ‘What’s to discuss?’ Andrew snapped. ‘Chemo’s fucking chemo and it’ll go on until I’m better.’

  It was the same every time – blood test, wait for result, hope white blood cell count was good so treatment didn’t have to be delayed, chemo prepared, chemo taken.

  ‘So where did you dance with your dad?’ Andrew asked.

  He wondered if his hunger for answers was a side-effect as powerful as the weight loss, as the strands of hair he stuffed in the bin when Ben wasn’t there, and the nausea that made it hard for him to eat the so-necessary snacks. Or did he want to know as much as possible in case it was his last chance to ask?

  ‘In the front room. Sometimes at Christmas when all the relatives came over. My mum had heaps of them, and they visited if there was a big celebration.’

  Andrew loved the big-family stories best. Sometimes, when Ben talked, he made notes in his book. Now he rummaged in the bedside drawer for it and scribbled with a pen until it worked.

  ‘Dad liked dancing with me best,’ said Ben.

  ‘Why you?’

  ‘Because I was little,’ said Ben.

  ‘But he’s quite tall,’ said Andrew. ‘Makes no sense.’

  ‘He had me stand on his feet.’ Ben moved his feet, left then right, as though dancing with a young child perched on each. His toes tickled Andrew’s waist and he smiled. ‘When he danced, I did too. He’d always had a drink, but it was one time I didn’t mind.’

  ‘And he just did that with you?’

  ‘Mike’s three years older and was chunky, whereas I was like a bit of string. Dad used to call me Stringy.’

  ‘That’s cute actually.’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘We all need to dance on feet bigger than ours sometimes,’ said Andrew.

  ‘Did you ever dance on anyone’s feet?’ Ben asked.

  ‘No,’ said Andrew, feeling a small prick of sadness. ‘I’m tired now. Shall we play Cheaty Chess?’

  It was a game they had created because Andrew had never learned to play chess; it was a mixture of snakes & ladders and chequers, with some random rules thrown in. He had no energy for their yes/no game, though on good days he still liked Ben to make slow, wordless, unwarlike love to him.

  ‘Yo
u’re tired but you want to play Cheaty Chess?’ Ben nudged Andrew gently with his foot. ‘I think you should sleep a bit first.’ He moved across to Andrew’s side of the bed and gathered up magazines and put them on the cabinet. ‘Don’t stay awake cos I’m around. I’m not here to keep you occupied, just to make sure you get better.’

  ‘And I thought you were here to pleasure me.’

  ‘Stop it,’ said Ben.

  ‘Kiss me and I’ll go to sleep.’

  ‘I’m not going to kiss you,’ said Ben.

  ‘Fighting talk.’

  ‘No, it’s resting talk,’ Ben insisted.

  Andrew was exhausted. He knew he should sleep, but he didn’t want to admit he was scared that he wouldn’t wake up again. Ben made him lie down, brought biscuits just in case, pulled the covers to his chin, and sat in the spot where he usually slept when he stayed over.

  ‘Talk to me until I go,’ Andrew said, feeling drowsy.

  ‘No questions.’ Ben moved a strand of thinning hair to the side of his face.

  ‘Unless you have any.’

  Ben only had one: ‘Have you been wishing?’

  Andrew should have known.

  ‘I don’t know what to wish for,’ he said.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘But you have to be careful, you know that. I might wish to be well and there could be a price if it’s not supposed to happen.’

  ‘I’d pay any price,’ said Ben.

  Andrew sighed and closed his eyes. ‘I wish for you to be here when I wake up.’

  ‘That I can do,’ said Ben.

  And he was.

  27

  The Second Thing

  If bad things came in threes, did good things? Ben wondered.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  The next day Andrew handed Ben a birthday gift and watched him unwrap it far too slowly.

  Then Ben told him three things.

  First he told him he wasn’t going back to university.

  Last Ben told him he would tell Will about them.