Handle Me with Care

by Rolfe, Helen J

  He noticed Maddie stifle a laugh.

  ‘I’ll worry about you on your own now.’

  ‘I’ll just go and pay, Evan. Thank you again, Maddie.’ And with no reference to Evan’s suggestion, and perhaps because she knew she’d been sprung with her engineered injury, Jem scurried over to the reception desk.

  ‘That’ll teach her to mess with me,’ said Evan when Jem was out of earshot. ‘The looming threat of – heaven forbid – accepting some help and moving in with Mum will teach her for trying to throw us together again.’

  ‘She’s a lovely lady, Evan.’ Maddie smiled, her cheeks flushed. She spoke softly. ‘You’d be surprised at how many elderly patients come in with ailments that really don’t need attention from a physio. I think some of them are just lonely.’

  He wished she weren’t so nice; it would be easier to walk away then. ‘I don’t think Jem has that excuse. She has loads of people around. But it’s nice to see you anyway.’

  ‘And you.’ He saw her swallow, hard. ‘Does she know?’

  ‘That we went out on a date?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Ah, you mean the dreaded C word? No, haven’t quite got around to that yet.’ He wondered again what made it easy to tell one person and not another. ‘I probably should’ve kept my big mouth shut the other night too.’

  Maddie looked distracted as another patient pushed through the doors. ‘I’m glad you were so honest with me, Evan. Not every man would be quite so bold.’

  Or quite so stupid, he decided.

  He cleared his throat nervously. ‘I suppose what I’m really sorry for is that we hadn’t had more dates before I told you. I would’ve liked to get to know you better.’

  ‘Can I ask you something, Evan?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Why did you go out on a date with me when you knew that you could have cancer?’

  The truth was that ever since he met Maddie, he couldn’t imagine not asking her out. Women had come and gone from his life over the years, but she was the only one who had ever stayed in his mind long enough to consider more than a casual encounter with. And it had thrown him.

  ‘I didn’t know before I asked you out in the supermarket that day. I probably did what most blokes do and hoped that the problem would go away by itself. I still can’t believe it didn’t.’

  He watched her chew on her bottom lip. She had no idea how sexy that was. All he wanted to do was to put his arms around her, breathe in the smell of her hair and feel her body against his.

  ‘I hope it all goes well for you, Evan.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He took a deep breath and then said, ‘I need some time to get my head around this, you know?’

  ‘I should go.’ She put an end to their encounter and any hint at another date later down the track. She turned, waved to Jem, who had kept her distance, pretending to be engrossed in the pamphlets on the front desk, and showed her next patient through to the treatment area.

  What he didn’t want was Maddie’s pity. He wanted her to fancy him, to look at him as though she couldn’t get enough. He wanted her to see him as the dependable strong man he had always been, and he didn’t want her to be witness to his weakness – what kind of a wuss would he be then, ball or no ball? No, when it was all sorted out, that’s when he would make his next move.

  Chapter Twelve

  After school came to a close on Friday, Evan went over to Jem’s place to sort out her garden. It had been three days since she’d pulled her stunt and taken him to see Maddie, and he knew he couldn’t wait any longer to tell his grandmother what was going on with his health.

  Evan folded in the wing mirror of his Audi TT so it didn’t get sideswiped outside Jem’s place – it had happened twice before in the skinny road – took a deep breath and clicked open the wooden gate. After he rapped on the door, he stood back so Jem would be able to see it was him through the peephole he insisted she use. He made the obligatory crazy face with his tongue hanging out to one side, cross-eyed and a big frown on his forehead, a tradition between them that he never grew tired of when it was met with laughter from his grandmother when she opened the door.

  ‘Evan, come in!’ She pulled him into a hug, his large frame enveloping her.

  ‘How’s the wrist? I’m surprised you didn’t call me before today.’

  ‘It’s much better. Your Maddie worked wonders. And I can manage perfectly well on my own, young man, have done for years.’

  Jem had no idea how much he wished Maddie was ‘his Maddie’.

  ‘It’s a miracle.’ He smiled. He had to admire her persistence in throwing them together, even when she knew nothing about their date nor about the bombshell he had dropped at the end of it. After the physio appointment the other day, Evan had called Jem and quizzed her enough to find out that she had phoned several physiotherapists in the city before she found out where Maddie Kershaw worked.

  ‘I’ll get started.’ He made his way through the house and out into the rear courtyard – gardening first, explanations later.

  ‘Don’t you want a cuppa first?’ Jem called after him.

  ‘Best not.’

  The tiny courtyard showed signs of neglect: the agapanthuses on the far wall were in a bad way; the small patch of camellias had seen better days. The entire courtyard looked as though it felt sorry for itself, much like Evan, and he vented his frustration in the small space now that the morning rain had stopped.

  His emotions had ebbed and flowed this week from the thrill of seeing Maddie to the misery of adjusting himself in his running shorts that morning and feeling the lump. He took his frustration out on the spent purple agapanthus, ripping off the heads. He tore out the debris from the terracotta pot in the far corner of the courtyard and wrestled with wisteria vines.

  ‘Don’t you get rid of too much of that,’ warned Jem, stepping over to the lavender flowers that grew from the vines littering the back fence. She leant in, closed her eyes and inhaled the fragrance.

  ‘You should get rid of all of it.’ Evan forced his foot hard on the spade to push it into the soil of the flowerbed that ran down one side of the courtyard.

  ‘Fuck!’ His hair caught on a vine that looped low. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered without looking at Jem. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and knelt on the ground in the middle of the dead plants and mud that was strewn all over the place.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Don’t.’ His voice barely a whisper, he wiped the stinging tears from his eyes.

  ‘What’s going on, Evan? Is everything okay at work? Is it Maddie?’

  He wished it were quite so simple.

  Jem lowered herself into the wooden chair beside him in the courtyard. ‘What is it, Evan?’

  He didn’t look at her when he said, ‘I need to have an operation.’ He felt a papery hand on his own. He knew Jem was trying to instil confidence, but her hand shook as much as his heart pounded.

  ‘What sort of operation?’

  ‘They think I’ve got testicular cancer.’

  He heard her gasp, and when he looked up her eyes were filled with tears. Neither of them spoke when Jem pulled him closer, and he felt as comforted as when he was a child who’d grazed his knee and sat on her lap.

  ‘I don’t understand, Evan. You’re so … you’re so young, so fit and strong.’

  He ducked inside the back door and came back with a box of tissues. Jem took one as he said, ‘Whenever the next vacancy comes up, I’m having an operation to remove the testicle. It’s the only way the doctors can see what’s really going on, how serious it is. I was going to wait to tell you, until after the operation was over with. But I knew that if you found out I’d kept it from you, you would’ve had my other ball on the chopping block.’

  She was smiling now, albeit through tears. Jem had always kept her family close, and for him to keep this a secret would’ve crushed her regardless of the prognosis.

  ‘Listen, Jem. Let’s not wo
rry until I know what I’m dealing with. Okay?’ He grabbed both of her hands in his own, her cool skin vulnerable beneath his. ‘The best case scenario is that it isn’t cancer at all. But I’m afraid that the bloods and the ultrasound strongly suggest it is, so the next best thing is that we’ve caught it early enough that it hasn’t had the chance to spread.’

  Had he been indoctrinated into talking like the specialists?

  ‘Have you spoken to Martha?’ asked Jem.

  He hated seeing the pallor that replaced his usually rosy-cheeked grandmother when she spoke.

  ‘I’ve decided not to tell Mum for the time being.’

  ‘Oh, Evan, are you sure that’s a good idea? She’d want to be here for you, you know she would.’

  ‘Yes, and I know how great a time she’s having in Canada and the U.S. She’s had this travelling planned for such a long time, and she deserves the chance to see it through. She worked long and hard for us kids, especially after Dad died. Now it’s her turn to do something for herself. Her racing home won’t change the outcome.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it will. So if it’s cancer, what happens then?’

  ‘The doctor says that if we’ve caught it early enough, then a single round of chemotherapy should be all that’s needed to eradicate the cancer cells.’ He just hoped they were right, but reciting those words to Jem actually helped – without those words he would go crazy with the possibilities of what could happen.

  ‘Listen to you.’ Jem clasped both of his hands in her own. ‘You’re counselling me when it should be the other way round.’

  ‘It’s funny. Out in the courtyard I was so angry—’

  ‘I did notice.’ She managed a smile.

  ‘Telling you calmed me down in a way, and putting the whole story into words somehow helps to rationalise what’s going on in my head.’

  He didn’t discuss the ins and outs of the operation. If it were a different cancer, then he probably would have done, but he couldn’t sit and talk about his testicles with his grandmother. She was pretty liberal, but he drew the line at that.

  Evan began piling the garden debris to one side. ‘It’s made me think about the future, Jem. I never gave much thought to long-term, but now all I seem to be able to fixate on is meeting the right person, settling down and having a family. All the normal things in life.’

  The smell of damp grass and foliage hung in the air as he busied himself with the rest of the courtyard. ‘This Winter Daphne will produce white flowers eventually.’ He smiled over at Jem as he emptied potting mix into an enormous terracotta pot. He’d already lined it with a piece of plastic fly wire to prevent the soil from seeping out when it was watered.

  Jem reached out to run a hand along the vines of the wisteria that had moulded to the fence over the years. ‘You know, Bernie and I planted this when we first bought the house.’ She didn’t look at him when he stopped to listen. ‘Oh, we were in a terrible panic that it would never take. Neither of us knew a thing about gardening, but we both had visions of a beautiful oasis out here where we could relax, be together. And look at it now.’

  Evan looked around the tiny rear courtyard Jem had put her mark on over the years; he looked up at the thin, weatherboard house that had as much character as she did with its signs of determination to beat whatever went on around it.

  ‘I’m sorry for snapping at you to get rid of the wisteria.’ His comment got the smile he was hoping for and Jem squeezed his hand reassuringly. He calmed when he felt her familiar, cool skin. No matter how warm it was outside or in, Jem’s hands always felt the same.

  ‘Bernie and I were lucky, Evan. We married young, had three beautiful children and we got to enjoy our grandchildren and now great-grandchildren. I realise how lucky I am, but only because I’m so old that I have time to sit around and contemplate what life has thrown at me. I’ve done pretty well dodging any curveballs.’

  He chuckled at Jem’s modern saying that had to have come from watching too many American sitcoms or movies as she tried to stay in touch with the times.

  ‘Is that what you think the cancer is, a curveball?’

  ‘I think sometimes we can get swept away in the business of everyday life, and we forget about the big picture. Think of it as a problem that must be overcome, a bit like the wisteria.’

  ‘You’re comparing wisteria to cancer?’

  ‘Of course not, but Bernie and I pulled together with that wretched wisteria. We had no idea about gardening, but we had our future dream. The wisteria represents something we had to learn about, to work our way through to get to the good stuff – the oasis we envisioned when we bought this place. What I’m saying is that you shouldn’t let cancer have the last word as to what your future will be. Never, ever give up on what you want, Evan. The chances are you’ll get it, cancer or no cancer. You’re a Quinn, after all.’

  Evan grabbed the broom propped up against the house and swept up the debris, piling it into the garden waste bin.

  ‘I don’t want to speak out of turn,’ Jem began.

  ‘But you will,’ he teased.

  ‘I was wondering whether your sudden frustration is about more than the cancer, whether it has something to do with Maddie. I saw the way you two were with each other at the party and at the physio the other day. Is she the reason you’ve suddenly started thinking about the future and what could have been?’

  ‘Has Holly been talking?’

  ‘She may have mentioned that you two went on a date.’

  ‘We did, and I went and told her about the cancer.’ He pushed the last of the debris into the bin and swiped a beetle surreptitiously creeping up his forearm. ‘I want to see her again, I really do. But I don’t want our time together to be tainted with talk of losing a testicle, having chemotherapy, a recurrence of cancer.’

  ‘Evan Quinn. Since when have you been afraid to take a chance? Right from a little nipper you were all about taking a risk and dealing with the consequences later. Do you remember your first athletics carnival when you were nine years old?’

  He squinted as the sun crept above the rooftop and fully graced the courtyard.

  ‘Well I do,’ she continued. ‘You weren’t the slightest bit nervous. Your friend Jack was in a terrible state, worried he would come last, worried he wouldn’t be able to finish the longer races. I can remember you standing there, sipping from your drink bottle, telling him that he would never know if he didn’t at least try. You told him to stop being such a big girl’s blouse – admittedly Martha and I were in fits of laughter at that expression coming from a nine-year-old – and you told him to get over to that start line.’

  ‘I sound like a bossy girl.’

  ‘You’re not so different to Holly, you know.’ Jem chided. ‘My point, Evan, is that you won’t know how Maddie feels if you don’t give her a chance to tell you, a chance to react and deal with what’s going on.’ She puffed out her cheeks and exhaled. I knew that girl was meant for you the second I saw her.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Okay, enough of this chit-chat.’ She headed back into the kitchen, calling over her shoulder, ‘The rest of this can wait. You need a cup of tea and something to perk you up, and so do I.’

  He very rarely needed a cup of tea. In fact, he mostly drank it to humour Jem, who he could have sworn had tea running through her veins like blood. But Jem’s baking? Now that was another matter entirely.

  How had he not detected the smell seeping from the pan on the stove? He must have been in another world when he arrived. The smell filled the kitchen, wrapping a cloak of familial love around Evan as he took a scrubbing brush to his hands and fingernails.

  ‘What’s cooking, Gran?’ he asked.

  Jem gave him a don’t-mess-with-me look.

  ‘Sorry, “Jem”.’

  ‘That’s better.’ The smile that could light the way for a thousand ships reached her eyes and reminded Evan she hadn’t always been this age. The photograph on her bedside table was testament to tha
t: a slip of a woman on her wedding day standing next to his grandad Bernie, looking beautiful, happy – her life ahead of her just as his should be now.

  ‘Is this what I think it is?’ Evan’s eyes widened as Jem carefully lifted the pudding basin out of the water – no sign of any problem in her wrist, he noted – and untied the baking paper lid secured by a string.

  ‘Syrup Sponge.’ His mouth watered as he looked at a deep golden sponge, his childhood favourite.

  Jem ran a knife gently around the edge of the pudding basin and then tipped it out on to the waiting serving plate. She warmed extra syrup in a milk pan and then tipped it over the top of the golden sponge, letting it ooze through the air bubbles. She cut a thick slice and placed it in a bowl in front of Evan.

  He shut his eyes at the first mouthful, couldn’t speak on the second, but managed a few words after the third. ‘I still remember coming home from school on cold winter days, and you’d pull out a syrup sponge from the pan on top of the stove, cover it in extra sauce and finish each serving with a great big dollop of vanilla ice cream.’

  When he finished, even though they were alone, Jem lowered her voice and said, ‘Go on, I won’t tell.’

  He picked up the bowl and used his tongue to lick anything leftover. When he resurfaced he saw the sparkle in Jem’s eyes and they both dissolved into fits of giggles.

  ‘Mum always hated that you let me do that,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t care. I wanted to see my grandson happy today.’ The coolness of her hand met with his cheek, and he inhaled the familiar Lily soap she had used since he was a kid.

  ‘I thought the cancer was bad enough, Jem. I thought having an operation and chemotherapy would be the worst thing that could happen to me, but it’s not. It’s the uncertainty of the future.’ His voice wavered. ‘I’m scared that the cancer will be my last journey, Jem. I’m scared I won’t get all the normal things in life that I’ve always taken for granted.’

  ‘As I said before, don’t let it dictate the future. The doctors sound positive, so for God’s sake stay positive yourself. Thank goodness I’ve never known cancer, but from what I’ve heard, you have to choose to fight it.’