Handle Me with Care

by Rolfe, Helen J

  ‘There’s something else,’ he said, and when he spoke again his words hit her like the tram ploughing through the centre of the road opposite the apartment block. ‘I found out last week that I may have cancer.’

  Chapter Five

  The glass door in the foyer zipped open and shut, and they went inside the building. But out of the cold evening air Evan’s announcement wasn’t any less shocking. Without speaking they walked to the lift, and their silence continued as the lift crept up to the seventh floor, not daring to stop on the way.

  ‘I don’t have anything strong to offer you.’ Maddie let the heavy door to her apartment thump closed behind them. ‘I could make us a cup of tea?’

  The atmosphere was stilted compared to only moments ago when they had chatted freely, in the heady phase of getting to know one another. Maddie blundered about the kitchen, pulling out cups, a tub of sugar, milk. Her eyes followed Evan, who took a seat on one of the two maroon sofas separated by a glass-topped coffee table.

  When she sat down she watched him across the top of her cup as she blew the hot liquid. The tea wasn’t quite the healer that so many people made it out to be, but it was a distraction nevertheless.

  ‘I swear I didn’t tell you that as a way to get you to invite me in.’ Evan attempted to lighten the mood, but it didn’t work.

  Maddie realised she was shivering and put both hands around her mug of tea to try and stop her body’s involuntary movement. She thought about how tonight was supposed to be different; different in a good way.

  ‘Say something, please?’ Evan put his full cup back on to the coffee table and the tap against the glass reverberated in the silence between them.

  ‘I don’t know what to say, Evan.’

  ‘You’re using my name when you talk to me. That’s got to be serious.’

  She felt some of the tension flow out of her body. Evan, like Riley, seemed to have the magical knack of being able to put her at ease. Before Riley left for New York, Maddie had been in charge of his cousin Eddie’s eighteenth birthday cake. The pinball machine cake was the most intricate and unfamiliar design she had ever tackled, and she was overwhelmed trying to shape the flippers so they didn’t resemble white sausages, trying to co-ordinate colours; basically trying to make it look realistic. Riley had poured her a gin and tonic – much too large a measure for a girl who was trying to hone her creativity – and patiently encouraged her as she pulled herself together and produced a cake that was a success with even the plunger, a steel ball and ramps.

  ‘You’re shaking.’ Evan pulled the black woollen throw from the back of the sofa, doubled it over and wrapped it around her shoulders before he sat down beside her. ‘I’m sorry to have laid all this on you tonight. Trust me to ruin the best date I’ve had in a long time.’

  ‘It came as a shock, that’s all. I mean, you’d been so – so normal all night. And to come out with that, I just—’

  He leant back and locked his hands together behind his head as he gazed at the ceiling. ‘Please believe me when I say that I had no intention of saying anything to you, especially not tonight. I should’ve kept my big mouth shut.’

  ‘No, it’s fine, really. Stop apologising.’ She couldn’t look him in the eye. ‘I’m just not sure what to say to you now. I don’t think I’d even know what to say to a close friend, let alone someone I barely know.’

  He reached out his hand and grabbed hers, holding it firmly. ‘Then don’t say anything.’

  For a while they sat quietly, hand in hand.

  Maddie spoke first. ‘What sort of cancer is it?’

  He hesitated, exhaled. ‘It’s testicular cancer. God, it’s even embarrassing to say the type of cancer. I mean, I barely know you, and I wouldn’t usually talk about that part of my anatomy on a first date.’

  She noticed his smile. It was a smile that reminded her of how she had tried to mask her own pain over the years. ‘Don’t joke,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry. I’m trying to recover from the clanger I’ve dropped tonight, that’s all.’ The corners of his mouth dropped and his mouth formed a hard line. ‘The only way to find out for certain that it’s cancer is to remove the testicle.’

  As Evan continued to explain, words such as ‘pathology’, ‘chemotherapy’, ‘operation’, whirled in front of her eyes, and all she could think was that, with every step she took in a relationship with him, the pain of the unknown would get worse: the waiting, the wondering, the uncertainty of what lay ahead. Maddie knew what it was like to be so consumed in a relationship, so in love with the person who was your world, that when they were taken away from you the world stopped turning. When she was with Riley she knew herself, but when he died it took her a long time to find out who she was supposed to be without him. Did she have the strength to go through all that again? Could she go on, day to day, wondering whether Evan would be alive at the end of this?

  Evan’s shoulder was comfortably wedged against hers as they both sat staring ahead at the blank television screen, tall roman candlesticks on either side. Maddie heard the distant sound of a tram’s bell ding as it moved away from the stop, she heard faint footsteps from the apartment above, she heard voices as people passed by in the corridor outside, shushing each other at this time of night. She listened to life carrying on all around them and wondering if hers ever would. She wished she could catapult herself back in time, back to the restaurant with Evan sitting across from her, each of them smiling while in that exciting getting-to-know-you phase that was so addictive, so exhilarating. Right now they should be sharing a first kiss; their only concern should be where to go on their next date.

  But that Evan wasn’t here now. The Evan who could die was sitting right next to her on the sofa, and all she wanted to do was to curl up in a tiny ball and for the fear to go away. She glanced up at him when he took the mugs over to the sink, turning the taps to rinse them. He looked strung out, fraught with worry, and Maddie didn’t feel ready to help him. She watched him pick up his jacket from the back of the dining chair and his wallet from the coffee table.

  ‘Goodnight, Maddie. I’m sorry for laying all this on you, I really am.’

  She shook her head to stop his apologies, but no words came out as he crouched down next to the sofa where she still sat.

  ‘I’ve had a great, great night with you. I’d love to see you again,’ he said.

  Maddie looked at him grasping his jacket tightly as though it could persuade her to give him another chance. It was a standard end-of-a-first-date thing to say, yet she felt numb, unable to give a response, like she had felt at Jem’s party when he first asked her out.

  Without waiting for an answer, Evan brought his face to hers to kiss her lightly on her cheek. She closed her eyes at the feel of his lips: soft and warm with the hint of more to come. She breathed in long and hard, hoping that the smell of his clean, crisp aftershave would linger long after he left her apartment.

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said.

  The door clicked shut behind him, and Maddie listened to the faint ping of the lift arriving and the doors sliding shut, and she knew he had gone.

  Chapter Six

  The giant penis lay there in all its glory. The chocolate testicles were growing at an alarming rate until the right one became distorted and the chocolate turned as black as liquorice. The light bounced off a silver machete as a masked man sliced it down through the air and swiped both testicles away in one go and then attacked the penis until it was one splattered mess.

  Evan jolted himself awake. His back was drenched with sweat, his mouth dry. He peeled off his T-shirt and, gasping for air, staggered to open the window. As he breathed in, breathed out, he watched trucks at the Exhibition Centre make early morning deliveries, the world continuing as though everything were normal.

  It was funny how people took things for granted until they were forced to face up to their own mortality. Evan had never worried about his health, assuming that it wouldn’t be a concern until he was old and gr
ey. But Jem’s comment the other day had been enough to convince him to get that lump checked out – a lump the size of a large grape that he had found on his right testicle a couple of weeks before but hadn’t done anything about. He had done the usual reconnaissance via his good friend Google, of course, but contrary to his own hopes, the lump hadn’t just magically gone away on its own accord. Rather than have the doctor examine him and tell him not to worry, send him on his way, he had faced a barrage of tests with a urologist. There’d been full bloods, a testicular ultrasound – the pretty, petite blonde operating the Doppler hadn’t helped him maintain his feelings of masculinity – and when the results were reviewed, they indicated the high probability that it was testicular cancer. When a CT scan came back normal, Evan had assumed the next step would be a needle biopsy, but there was a risk the scrotum could be cut accidentally, making the cancer cells more likely to spread to other parts of the body. And that had left him with no option but to have the orchidectomy. An orchidectomy meant the removal of the testicle, but the only translation Evan understood was ‘castration’.

  In the bathroom now, Evan splashed cold water over his face and let it trickle down over his chest, the temperature helping to wipe away the nightmare. He shuddered when he thought back to how he broke the news to Maddie last night. He would never forget that look on her face: shock, denial, fear even. What the hell had he been thinking? He tried to imagine how he would have felt had one of his dates, whom he barely knew, pulled the same stunt with him. He would’ve run a mile. Heck, his past dates had never done anything quite so shocking, and he had still been disinterested in going for round two.

  Evan wondered what it was that made you desperate to tell one person something so huge, yet not tell others. Was it a sign of trust? Love, perhaps? Or sheer stupidity? He couldn’t say why, but he was drawn to Maddie, had been from the get-go. She was extraordinarily different in a way he couldn’t describe, and if he tried, he knew his words wouldn’t do her justice. He could see her clearly in his mind: sexy, long layered hair with teasing waves and strands of chestnut and gold, sometimes caramel depending on how the light of the day or night chose to present it. He loved long hair on a girl, always had – not that he didn’t like short hair of course. Demi Moore in Ghost had been the sole reason to go and see that particular chick flick – but on Maddie long hair looked so right. She had a strong personality too, from what he could tell, and he suspected that she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, even if it was uncomfortable doing so. And underneath all that, Evan saw a certain vulnerability that showed Maddie wouldn’t be immune to life’s reality and the crap it could sometimes deal out.

  What was Maddie thinking this morning? Was she even thinking about him? He hoped so, but more so he hoped she didn’t pity him; he couldn’t stand that.

  He tugged the sheets from the bed and bundled them into the washing machine. He filled a glass with water from the fridge after stacking it with ice cubes, listening to them crack when the water made contact. He leaned against the fridge and watched the dust motes dance in a stream of sunshine coming from between the venetian blinds that hung in front of the balcony doors. His mind drifted back to his school days and a boy in his class, Stephen, who flew under the radar most of the time. Stephen had earned himself the nickname Womble, and for years Evan hadn’t understood the joke – in his innocence he had thought that Stephen looked nothing like Uncle Bulgaria or Orinoco – but one day after footy training he had overheard some of the lads talking about it. Apparently Stephen’s nickname derived from only having one ball.

  Evan tipped his head back and let an ice cube tumble into his mouth. He never had found out why Stephen had one ball, or indeed whether the rumour was even true; kids could be unnecessarily cruel sometimes.

  He opened the balcony door and leant up against the frame as he watched the clouds sauntering lazily across the sky. If this was cancer then it could mean chemotherapy following the op, which would mean going bald – and not only on his head. It would mean spending days and nights on end praying to the porcelain god. It would mean being bloody useless and about as masculine as a chorus line girl.

  He idly flicked the door catch up and down and hoped that whatever happened, he would be able to kick the cancer’s arse into the middle of next week. Then maybe, just maybe, he would still have a chance with Maddie.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ Ally’s coffee failed to reach her lips as Maddie sat across from her in Jerimiah’s café and told her about her date with Evan, or more importantly, how it had ended. ‘No wonder you look like you haven’t slept a wink.’

  Maddie stared into the froth of her own skim cappuccino and watched the sprinkled chocolate powder hover on top, daring it to sink into the milk so it was as low as she felt.

  Ally’s blonde chiselled bob swung sideways as she shook her head in disbelief. ‘You wouldn’t wish the Big C on anyone. I’d say he’s either gutsy for telling you after your first date or a little bit crazy.’

  ‘He’s not crazy.’ Maddie ploughed her spoon across the chocolate-covered froth.

  ‘What sort of cancer is it?’

  ‘It might be testicular cancer, but he told me that the only way to be sure is to have the testicle removed.’

  ‘Bloody hell – imagine how he must be feeling. Obviously we can’t as we don’t have balls, but you know what I mean. It’s like … one of us losing our breasts.’ She looked down at her own as though she could suddenly see their value. ‘It would be devastating.’

  ‘I feel like such a heartless, selfish cow.’ Maddie held up her hand before Ally had the chance to mollify her. They had been best friends ever since they met at a taxi rank when Maddie first came to Melbourne, and Maddie knew Ally always gave her the benefit of the doubt. ‘Let me finish. When he told me I immediately thought how awful it must be for him, but then my mind just started ticking over thinking about what it meant for me. We’d had so much fun on the date that all I kept asking myself was whether I’ve got the strength to deal with Evan, whether I’ve got the strength to cope with the possibility that I could lose Evan like I lost Riley.’ She looked up at her friend. ‘Now tell me that doesn’t make me a heartless, selfish bitch.’

  ‘I think it makes you human.’ Ally gripped her friend’s hand across the table. Ally had known Maddie before that devastating September, had known Riley, and more importantly she had known them together as a couple. And that was what made her more than qualified to be Maddie’s go-to person in a time of crisis.

  Maddie had thought about Evan non-stop ever since he had dropped the bombshell that had blown open the wounds from Riley that had never healed over properly in the first place. ‘I really like him,’ she said.

  ‘Well it’s about time. One-nighters and casual sex don’t suit you,’ replied Ally.

  ‘Thanks … I think.’

  ‘And for your information, I’d never think you were a selfish bitch, so stop being so hard on yourself.’ Ally checked her watch. ‘Now, I’m going to be late for a lecture if I’m not careful, and I was late this time last week because I overslept, so today I can’t even miss it on compassionate grounds.’

  Ally finished up her coffee and shrugged a rucksack on to her back. She paused to grab a takeaway muffin on their way out. ‘I need to keep my concentration up in the lecture,’ she justified. ‘We mature medical students need all the help we can get.’

  Maddie shook her head at the offer of food on top of the coffee; the thought of anything more in her stomach was plain unsettling.

  ‘Anyway, back to Evan.’ Ally pushed open the door to the café. ‘Apart from the fact that the man has cancer—’

  Maddie went to protest at the flippant comment as she held the door open for another customer, but Ally continued.

  ‘Apart from that one factor, how was the date? You know, before he told you?’ She took a bite of the muffin.

  Maddie’s grin widened for the first time that morning.

&n
bsp; ‘Okay, so now I want details.’ Ally pulled her sunglasses down from where they sat on top of her blonde, bobbed hair as the Australian sun came out in full force.

  Maddie regaled the story about the dinner, the simplicity of the evening, the instant attraction to Evan both physically and emotionally.

  ‘I haven’t felt that way about anyone since Riley. Other guys have always been fun, good looking … but Evan is different. I knew it from the first moment we met. He’s the cliché tall, dark and handsome, he’s fit and sexy and, well—’

  ‘Well what?’

  Her smile disappeared, and as the clouds blocked the sun, she felt a tiny shiver creep its way across her neck, down her arms. ‘Well, perhaps he was too good to be true.’

  ‘Maddie, you’ve been through more than most when it comes to love and loss. Not to mention all the shit that went down with Riley’s parents cutting you out of their lives after the memorial. You’re stronger than you think.’

  ‘So why haven’t I moved on by now? I still can’t even manage to watch the commemorative events every year. I find no comfort knowing that other people have suffered the same loss. And now, just when I think there’s a man for me, he goes and announces that he has cancer.’

  ‘Evan must see something special in you to share what he did last night.’ Ally placed a reassuring hand on her friend’s shoulder. ‘Imagine how secure he must’ve felt with you to do that. Unless …’

  ‘Unless what?’

  ‘He wasn’t wasted, was he?’ She pulled a face.

  ‘No, he wasn’t wasted at all.’ They had both consumed enough wine, but his strong body combined with the food would’ve left him clear-headed enough. And if it hadn’t, his confession would have been like an icy bucket of water to sober him up.