by Freya North
‘The continuation of family,’ Django said quietly, ‘that’s what it’s all about.’ And he felt appalled that his family were continuing without him. And he felt appalled that the purpose of this trip was not to visit family but to see Dr Mr Pisani. And he felt extremely disconcerted that the emotion this raised was fear.
I am seventy-five years old. I am frightened.
At Leicester, a young girl came and sat opposite Django, smiling politely before burying her nose in a novel with a candy-coloured cover festooned with illustrations of handbags, high heels and squiggly writing. So squiggly that Django had to squint hard to read the words, wondering which was the author, which was the title.
‘Sandwiches, snacks, cold drinks, tea and coffee.’
The refreshments trolley was announced in robotic monotone by the stewardess, who was less trolley-dolly, more sturdy dinner-lady. Django had a good look at what was on offer because he could not believe that food could appear so un-appetizing. The girl sitting opposite bought a can of fizzy something, tapping the ring-pull sharply before opening it.
‘So it doesn’t go insane,’ she announced and Django realized he must have been staring. He felt a little awkward. Does aluminium have sanity to lose? Is this a technique that everyone knows about, instilled in all teenagers along with the importance of condoms and just-say-no when it comes to drugs? Why don’t the manufacturers do something about the design, if drinks go mad unless tapped sharply? Django knew his thoughts were meandering excessively so that his mind could be diverted from Dr Mr Pisani. He rummaged around in his old canvas knapsack, the one that Pip, Fen and Cat had each clamoured to use at some point or other during burgeoning teenage trendiness. He took out a Tupperware container and regarded the selection of sandwiches he had packed. The fizzy girl was looking too.
‘Carrot, cheese and Marmite,’ he told her, ‘or tuna, piccalilli and tomato.’
She looked at him as if he might be one of those dreaded loonies that seem to inhabit every carriage of every train journey one ever takes. Django showed her the sandwiches. ‘Would you like one?’ he offered. ‘They’re mostly organic.’ She shook her head though her gaze remained fixed on the sandwiches, intrigued. ‘Go on,’ said Django, ‘they’re easy on the calories and whatnots.’ She smiled meekly and shrugged, peering into the container and asking which were the carrot and cheese. Django felt a sense of triumph that she took one and, though she nibbled gingerly at first, finished the whole thing, inch-thick crusts and all. She offered Django a Malteser but he declined, saying forlornly he was watching his weight, which made her giggle.
‘I’m going to see my nan,’ she told him, unprompted. ‘She lives near Luton.’
‘I’m going to see my girls,’ said Django, ‘and their offspring.’
‘Are you a granddad then?’ asked the girl.
Django nodded proudly.
‘My granddad died when I was small and I don’t remember him,’ the girl said with regret, ‘though I tell my nan that I do, of course.’ Django didn’t want to talk further on this. He was now worried he’d tempted Fate and tampered with Fortune with his white lies to the girl. But what was he meant to say – that he was going by himself to St John’s Hospital so that Dr Mr Pisani could put a finger up his bottom?
‘Your beads are cool,’ the girl was saying.
Django touched the nibs of tiger’s eye and turquoise, strung on leather around his neck. ‘There’s a story behind them,’ he said. ‘It starts in New Mexico.’ And he set off on an extravagant elaboration of the truth which saved him from ruminating on whether or not he’d see his girls and their offspring ever again.
‘Ta for the sarnie,’ said the girl, as she disembarked at Luton, ‘and have fun with your family.’
‘Thank you,’ said Django, ‘you too.’
The train shuffled into St Pancras a quarter of an hour late. Django felt agitated; which was itself exacerbated by the unfamiliarity of the emotion. He observed people in his carriage, making calls on their mobile phones to alert whomever to the train’s delay. Django would have liked to have warned Ben, but he didn’t have a mobile phone. He thought of Pip offering him one as a birthday present and remembered denouncing them as preposterous, invasive and unnecessary. How his girls had laughed at him. Cat had said, Nonsense Django, you won’t have one because you know you won’t know how to make it work. And Fen had said, Yes yes, the apotheosis of mobile communication was via smoke signals at the reservation in North Dakota so do tell us the story featuring you and Chief Lone Hawk for the umpteenth time. And Pip had said, But Django, why don’t you have one just for emergencies. And he’d been comically huffy while they teased him relentlessly and laughed. They all laughed. How they laughed. Always laughter when his girls were around.
Now he felt anxious. Leaving the train, stressed passengers bustled and shoved. Django did not like London, the pace of it all intimidated him. He felt apprehensive about taking the Tube to the hospital, with two changes of lines and escalators and people rushing and being underground. And he was already fifteen minutes late, at least, though Ben’s ticket had afforded him plenty of time. He kept to his regular walking pace and attempted to wear an expression that said I know where I’m going, I’m savvy, don’t shove me – and there’s no need to stare.
When did buskers become beggars? I busked with Flint Maystone in Paris and we had a following. We made music. We were respected. I would go so far as to say we were the precursors of skiffle. But this isn’t busking, it’s begging and it’s threatening and how can someone so unkempt and unsightly dare to stare at me?
But the chanting, ranting beggar wasn’t the only person to stare at Django. Everyone who passed him gave him more than a passing, smileless glance. You’d’ve thought Django would have been more of a talking point, an eyesore even, in the calm backwaters of Derbyshire, than in the swirl of London where his physical eccentricities shouldn’t raise an eyebrow or bat an eyelid. However, right from the start, when he moved to Derbyshire in 1969, hirsute and kaftan-clad, with beads clanking and pony-tail flowing, they welcomed him for bringing moccasins and Pucci neckerchiefs, Astrakhan waistcoats and voluminous, embroidered flared denims to their dale.
However, on the Victoria line decades later, people steered clear of Django, as if he might bark, in case he smelt. To his consternation, he realized they held him in the same regard as they held the ranting stinking beggar on the platform. He hardly felt that a Liberty shirt, suede waistcoat and green linen drawstring trousers warranted such suspicion. Yet it made him suddenly fret that perhaps protocol dictated the wearing of a suit to see a consultant. Soon enough he was embarrassed, ashamed even, of his apparel, denouncing himself a stupid bugger and feeling miserable. Would Ben be disappointed? Would Ben have to apologize on his behalf? If he had a mobile phone, Django supposed he could have forewarned Ben of his sartorial gaffe. Perhaps Dr Mr Pisani would decline to see him. And then he could go straight back home again.
But Ben is delighted to see Django, mainly because he’d been quite convinced that he would not appear. He’s been loitering around the hospital’s main entrance and silently praises Django’s dress sense for holding him aloft from the crowd; a beacon of colour walking awkwardly amongst the drab bustle of everyone else.
‘How was your journey?’ Ben asks, guiding Django through hallways and corridors to his own office. ‘Would you like a drink?’
‘Scotch?’ Django asks hopefully. Ben laughs. ‘Is the tea plastic?’ Django asks. ‘Do you press a button for it?’
‘No,’ Ben assures him, ‘Marjorie makes it in a teapot. She insists. It’s why I gave her the job – that perfectionism.’
‘I should like a cup of tea,’ Django says and Ben calls through to Marjorie.
‘How are you feeling?’ Ben asks.
‘Oh, you know – a little like a fish out of water,’ Django confides. ‘I don’t like this town at all.’
‘And how are you feeling otherwise,’ Ben asks, ‘in yourself?’
/> ‘Oh, you know,’ Django dismisses any gravity, ‘rather good for a gent of seventy-five. Can’t complain about a rickety hip, gammy knee and mischievous waterworks.’
Ben nods and smiles. ‘I didn’t know you have a gammy knee and rickety hip,’ he says conversationally, though privately this concerns him.
‘All that thigh-slapping to Lonnie Donegan,’ Django says, ‘all that toe-tapping to Namesake Reinhardt.’
‘Ah,’ says Ben. ‘I made the appointment under Django McCabe.’
‘Bless you,’ Django says quietly.
‘But do you know under what name your GP has you listed?’ Ben asks.
‘Well, Dr Sutton always called me Mr McCabe in the surgery and Django at the Rag and Thistle,’ Django tells him, ‘but that new young girl called me D. McCabe. So it could be the one, or the other.’
‘OK,’ says Ben, ‘don’t you worry. I’ll handle it.’ Ben looks at his watch. ‘Do you have any questions? About the appointment? I’ll come with you – all the way, if you like.’
‘Yes, thank you, Ben,’ Django says with a light laugh that belies the slight tremor of his hand when he raises the tea cup to take a sip. ‘Will you tell Dr Mr Pisani that you are my personal physician and anything he says to me he can say to you too? I’m no good with medical jargon.’
Ben nods.
‘Thank you,’ Django nods back.
‘Cat is well,’ Ben tells him, ‘but she doesn’t know you are here.’
‘Thank you,’ says Django.
‘And Fen and Pip are well too,’ says Ben.
‘Thank you,’ says Django.
Ben glances at his watch. ‘Well, I think we’ll mosey on over now,’ he says and Django is so thankful that he has Ben with him today.
Mr Pisani’s appearance surprises Django who had envisaged an elongated Frankie Dettori. The consultant is in his late fifties, short and round with a very shiny pate ringed by a smile of neatly slicked grey curls. He’s wearing a suit with an orange tie, has a wedding ring on his plump finger and looks like a bank manager. His accent is Scottish and his voice is quiet. Django likes him immediately though the imminence of the examination dampens much banter on his part.
Notes are taken. Information is given. Django tells Mr Pisani that Ben is his personal physician. Ben nods but also offers to leave the room, anticipating that Django might play down his symptoms if he is there. But Django says, Please stay, and he furnishes Mr Pisani with a host of details – apologizing intermittently about whether they are relevant or not. He admits that perhaps his hips and knees aren’t so much rickety or gammy as really fairly painful. His lower back too. And he adds that he has steered clear of beetroot so yes, he’s fairly sure it’s blood in his urine.
‘Prostate problems are common,’ Mr Pisani smiles as if Django has something akin to a simple cold of the gland. ‘Today, I’ll be determining if your prostate is enlarged. And if it is – which I expect it is – what the reason may be. Most chaps over the age of fifty have an enlargement, you know, and mostly it’s simply a benign condition. I’m going to take blood too. With those results – and the findings of the examination – we’ll be able to see what’s what and what to do.’
‘Righty-ho,’ says Django, looking to Ben for the nod and smile which he gives.
‘I think Ben has alerted you to the procedure?’ Mr Pisani asks with a sympathetic raise of his eyebrows. Suddenly, Django is concerned about the plumpness of Mr Pisani’s fingers, and wishes for a tall thin Frankie Dettori. ‘It may be uncomfortable – but it shouldn’t be painful.’
‘Django?’ Ben asks, noting the colour has drained from his face.
‘You will stay, won’t you?’ says Django.
Ben tells Django fascinating anecdotes about his time with the professional racing cyclists; he speaks quickly, jauntily and in great detail, maintaining eye contact with Django who is lying on his side. And, without asking, Ben takes his hand at the opportune moment, holding it firmly yet tenderly, talking at Django the whole time.
‘Thank you, Mr McCabe,’ Mr Pisani says eventually. ‘I’m done. Do dress. There are tissues there. Take your time.’
‘Can I help?’ Ben asks Django.
‘No, that’s OK,’ says Django. Ben sees he has a tear coursing its way down his nose.
‘You did brilliantly,’ Ben tells him as he pulls the curtain around to afford Django his privacy. ‘Take your time.’ Ben takes a seat and glances at Mr Pisani who raises his eyebrow and busies himself with his notes.
Oh Christ, thinks Ben.
‘Now,’ Mr Pisani says chattily when Django reappears and takes his seat, ‘generally speaking – generally speaking – an enlarged prostate ought to feel firm and smooth. Yours feels rather hard and knobbly.’
‘I see,’ says Django, though he doesn’t know quite what he’s meant to be seeing, or what Mr Pisani was meant to be looking for.
‘This may suggest something a little more serious than prostate problems,’ Mr Pisani continues, ‘which is why the blood test is important.’
‘OK,’ says Django. ‘You can take an armful, if you like.’
Mr Pisani smiles and nods and says a test tube will be plenty. ‘Now, you see the symptoms of both a benign enlargement and a malignant tumour are similar. And you have presented those symptoms. But a malignant tumour feels rather different to a benign enlargement.’
‘A malignant tumour?’
‘Most prostate cancers grow very slowly indeed, Mr McCabe.’
‘Cancer?’ Django stands up and looks at Ben in bewilderment. ‘Who said anything about cancer? It’s my waterworks. I’m just old.’
AL AND THE GIRL FROM PURLEY
Despite all manner of skewed rationalization, Fen felt uncomfortable and at a loss. In the past, at such times, there was always Derbyshire to escape to – even if only in the realms of her imagination – but now not even that seemed an option. She was hardly likely to phone Django, nor did she consider the cause of her discomfort an appropriate topic of discussion between sisters. What was she meant to say? She told herself her sisters wouldn’t understand – they’d go on about rocky patches and she didn’t want to be judged or lectured.
Fen had long had an idiosyncrasy of looking from one hand to the other when weighing issues which irked her, to assist her in making a choice. Some saw it as an affectation, but it had proved a fail-safe method for her. For the second time in his life, Matt unknowingly was being held in Fen’s left palm. Four years ago, a man called James Caulfield had been in her right palm. For a while she fought against having to choose, railed against her sisters’ accusation of immorality, disputed their allegation of duplicity. She’d made her choice only when she realized the love she felt for Matt was more ordinary, thus somehow deeper and more true. And she has never looked back, never wondered What if, never doubted her decision. But now Matt is unwittingly back in one hand, and this time Al – whose surname she doesn’t even know – is in the other; yet this time they weren’t unsuspecting pawns competing for Fen’s love. Love wasn’t coming into it at all. On the one hand, Fen feared love was lost from her relationship. On the other hand, she feared the lure of lust. Left, right. Love, lust. Right, wrong. Her scale of values was unbalanced and tipping dangerously in favour of Al.
The easiest way to keep guilt at bay and to give her feelings for Al credibility, was to blame Matt for the irritation she felt increasingly towards him. She begrudged his freedom to go to work but also resented him for not being around more, for not helping enough, for not spending quality time with Cosima. Yet when he did, his ways got on her nerves, he got in her way and ultimately, she didn’t trust him to be doing things quite right so she brushed him away, did whatever it was herself, felt put upon, then resented him. In Fen’s eyes, Matt couldn’t win, and she felt that this was his fault. She didn’t like the sound of him eating and yet she’d never noticed it before. At night, she slept with a pillow half over her head because the incessant sound of Matt sleeping kept her awake. She didn�
��t like the monotony of their communication; his daily question of ‘And how are my girls?’ set her teeth on edge – Fen didn’t like it that he lumped her and Cosima together, that he only half listened to her answer anyway while he opened post or checked the television listings in the newspaper. He didn’t seem to notice if Fen’s hair needed a wash and she was wearing stained clothing, or there again if she’d made an effort with mascara and had changed before he arrived home. She was aware that her friends and sisters would proclaim her lucky indeed to have a man who never judged her on her looks but Fen interpreted it as Matt not really noticing her at all.
Left hand, right hand. Good, bad. Right, wrong. Harmless, dangerous. Fen’s scales appeared to be peculiarly calibrated at best; at worst downright faulty. On the one hand, the marks Fen placed against Matt became blacker, on the other hand the warning signs she’d seen in Al became fainter. Taken together, their collusion was dangerous and deluded, exacerbated by the fact that it had been almost a week since she’d seen Al and she’d heard nothing. Al’s desirability increased the longer the message box on her mobile phone remained empty. The less he appeared to want her, the more she wanted to pursue him. These last few days, during which she’d consulted her phone with frustration and growing insecurity, and analysed the palms of her hands with increasing regularity, Fen had reinvented Al and invested him with much more bearing than his actual gaucherie. She reassessed his shared living arrangements in deepest darkest Camden as funky and intriguing, and in her mind’s eye he’d become far more buff and beautiful. She had transposed her previous image of him as a fairly nondescript young bloke, into a vision of an arresting enigma. When Matt attempted to travel his hands over her body last night, she’d initially flinched but then an image of Al’s hands came into view and even all the silver rings suddenly seemed achingly sexy. So she fucked Al while Matt made love to her. She squirmed away from Matt’s post-coital cuddle and then she’d put the pillow over her head to block out the warning bells as much as Matt’s breathing pattern.