Infidelity for Beginners

by Danny King

  “No, my actual wife. We were married seven years ago,” I told him, my mind drifting back to that gloriously hot summers day.

  “Good,” he approved. “A lot of people don’t these days so you can never tell. You remember those words; for better, for worse, in sickness and in health and all the rest of them?”

  “I do,” I replied. The old fella smiled.

  “Well, you just have to do your best to live up to that vow. For richer, for better, in health? These are the easy ones to live up to, but for poorer, for worse and in sickness? They’re what marriage is really all about. To be there for each other.”

  At this point, a sniff turned into a blub, which turned into a shudder, which turned into tears and before I could slam on the brakes, the boo-hoo express was pulling into the station. Everything was on top of me. Everything. Sally’s pain. What the doctors might find. My uselessness.

  And my shame over what had almost transpired with Elenor.

  “It’s a difficult thing to be strong for someone else,” my elderly friend said. “You just have to try. You just have to be optimistic.”

  “It’s not that,” I finally admitted, barely able to look him in the eye.

  “What is it then? Tell me.”

  But I couldn’t. He was a decent, kind, old man, who’d clearly been best friends with his wife their whole lives, whereas I was the scum of the Earth who’d almost hopped into bed with my secretary while my wife had been stricken with cancer (not that I knew it at the time).

  Eventually I got this off my chest, if only to necessitate the scorn I duly deserved, but the old boy simply nodded some more.

  “I see,” he said again.

  He handed me a napkin and I wiped my eyes and blew my nose until I could almost breathe in silence again then he told me I shouldn’t take on so.

  “You didn’t go with this girl then, this Elenor, did you?” he asked. I shook my head and told him I hadn’t. “Have you ever been unfaithful with any other woman?” he then asked. Again, I told him I hadn’t. “There you go then. That’s good, very good in fact. Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

  “But that’s not the point. I almost did and that’s the thing I can’t get over.”

  “You can’t beat yourself up over every little thing you almost did, young fella,” he said. “It’s hard enough coping with the things we actually do without piling on the pressure of the things we almost do as well. I mean if you think about it, it’s better to be tempted and pass temptation than to never be tempted at all.”

  The old boy thought for a moment then leaned in a little closer.

  “You know, I almost killed my daughter one time,” he said, making me stare up at him in horror. “Oh it was an accident and everything, but it would’ve still amounted to the same thing,” he sighed, shaking his head forlornly. “I was up on the roof see, replacing a couple of broken slates. I was a bit sprightlier back then of course. I was also a bit more impulsive. I had all my tools and materials up there with me and once I’d finished I started clearing everything away. So, what did I do? Like an idiot I started throwing the old slates and bits of baton and even my tools into the lawn below, hammer and screwdriver and saw and so on, to save myself a couple of trips up and down the ladder. Naturally, I’d called down to make sure no one was below, but the kitchen door was open and my calls lured my six year old out to see what all the fuss was about.”

  The old boy paused and blinked a couple of times in disbelief.

  “One of the broken slates brushed her head by fractions of an inch. It came so close, in fact, that the corner actually took the tiniest little nick out of her scalp. That was how close I came to killing my daughter,” he said, staring back at the memory. “Still makes me shudder,” he puffed, blowing out his cheeks and shaking his head. “All to save three or four trips up a twenty foot ladder.”

  “Was she okay?”

  “Oh right as rain, except for a little cut in her hair. She works in London now, something to do with the interweb or something, I don’t know.”

  “But that was just an accident,” I said.

  “No, it was almost an accident,” he corrected me. “Actually, I like to think of it more as a lucky escape; miraculous even, and one I’ve said thanks for every day since. I know it might not seem like the same thing but think about it anyway.”

  “I will,” I promised him, trying to sound like I meant it.

  “I’ll tell you another thing, I don’t throw bloody crap off the roof any more either,” he laughed. “Righto, well it was nice to meet you Andrew. I really hope your wife gets better. She sounds like a smashing young lady. Well, all the best.”

  The old boy rose to leave when I suddenly realised I’d been so busy talking about myself that I hadn’t even bothered asking him his circumstances.

  “Me? Oh I’m here with the wife too. In-growing toenails. Can you believe it? At her age? I told her not to wear those shoes.” And with that, he gave me one last smile, then disappeared off into the labyrinth of hospital corridors.

  A nice old man.

  With more slates than he knew.

  Sally’s Diary: March 17th

  Too sad…

  Chapter 15. Test Results

  It was the news we’d been dreading and it pushed us beyond emotional pain barriers we never even knew existed.

  Sally’s cancer had spread.

  Tests and the staging laparotomy confirmed that it was stage II B grade I ‘Serous’ ovarian cancer, for those of you who like to get technical about these sorts of things.

  I’m able to give you the full name for it now because I’ve had time to get over my initial shock and actually take some of it in, but at the time it was just a jumble of words. Scary algebra for doctors and it left me on the floor when we were told the results.

  In fact, when I first heard these words an icy hand gripped my heart and squeezed it with such force that I thought I might black out. And I probably would’ve done too had it not been for the fact that I was meant to be there for Sally, not the other way around. With everything else on her plate, the last thing she needed was me falling face first into the tiles to sidetrack the conversation.

  Still, at least we now knew its name. As it happened, Serous is the most common variant of Ovarian cancer, so this was something at the very least. Well, if you’ve got to get cancer it's probably best to get the most common form of it rather than the extremely rare type that only you and really fucking unlucky foothill pigmy's get, don’t you think? The most common and the most widely researched.

  The doctor went on.

  While they had successfully debulked a considerable proportion of the affected areas, subsequent tests showed that further treatment was going to be needed.

  This meant chemotherapy.

  A few strides had been made in recent years with regards chemotherapy. A new drug had come over from America called Taxol which when administered alongside other drugs gave for a better survival rate.

  I didn’t like the words, “survival rate,” but I quickly came to realise these were the terms in which cancer was spoken. Survival. Five year to be precise.

  That didn’t mean that the doctors would help Sally live for five years then that was her lot.

  “All done, off you go, you’re on your own.” It was just a scientific way of measuring the immeasurable and as good a way as anyone had come up with thus far.

  Commonly, for women with Stage I ovarian cancer, there was a seventy-eight per cent survival rate. For women like Sally, with Stage II, this dropped to fifty-nine per cent. Stage III dropped even further to twenty-three per cent and for women with Stage IV, only fourteen per cent would still be with us in five years.

  Naturally, like with everything in life, there were no concrete equations and you had to take into account a myriad of considerations with each individual case but by and large Sally had roughly a three in five chance of surviving until she was forty.

  Fortunately for Sally, she had a number of fac
tors going in her favour. She was young and she was strong, so the doctors were optimistic that she’d respond well to the chemo, though this was going to be a testing ordeal for her.

  These were powerful drugs and they were going to make her pretty ill. I mean chemotherapy is basically a poison. Localised and targeted, it’s poison nevertheless, which is used to stop a part of your body that’s growing out of control in its tracks. This is what chemotherapy boils down to.

  “So, you’re going to have to build up your strength. Diet is very important, as are plenty of rest, exercise and support.”

  Then the doctor looked at me for some reason.

  “Family and friends have never been so important as they are now. I can get you some literature on the subject that’ll help you help Sally,” he said.

  Unable to remember which words I was supposed to use at this particular juncture in my life, I just nodded and expressed as much unhappy gratitude as I could.

  Sally barely looked up.

  See, while the news was positive as far as her survival chances were concerned, there was more to it than that. The cancer had spread to her other ovary, her fallopian tubes and her uterus.

  The doctors had cut it all out and were happy they’d caught it in time.

  But Sally would never have children.

  Sally’s Diary: March 18th

  I don’t know how to describe what I’m feeling today because it’s too big an emotion to deal with. It’s too huge. Too all consuming. There’s hardly anything of me left. I’m almost completely gone. Too much. Andrew’s coming later.

  Sally’s Diary: March 19th

  No appetite. And not just for food, but for anything. I can’t read or watch TV or listen to music or make conversation. Everything is a horrible irritation.

  I’m going to try to put into words exactly what I’m feeling because I’ve never felt anything like this before and both the nurses and Andrew think it might help. I don’t know about that but it’s marginally more preferable to spending the day staring at my bottom lip.

  Feel sick.

  I’ve never known anyone who’s died before. A girl who was in the same English class as me at school did and both sets of grandparents have passed away but I don’t think I ever spoke more than six words to the girl at school (they were “are we in this classroom today?”) and I was too young to remember my grandparents so I’ve never experienced mourning before. But that’s what this feels like – mourning. I’m mourning my babies. I’m mourning their loss. I’ll never see their faces or hold them in my arms or tell them that I love them or…

  Got a headache.

  The nurse brought me a cold flannel for my face and it felt so good that for a minute I forgot about everything except that flannel. I got another one for my stitches and lay beneath them groaning until the novelty wore off.

  Sore.

  I’m full of emptiness. Choked to the point of bursting and there’s nothing I can do to relieve the pressure. I know I should eat something but I can’t. Managed some soup but brought it back up little on.

  I always thought I’d have children one day. I always thought that. Like rain during a long hot summer. The weeks might stretch on and on and on but you know that it’ll rain one day. It will because it has to. One day. You just take it for granted. But now it won’t. It’ll never happen. How has this happened?

  Andrew sat with me this evening and brought me magazines but I can’t fix my eyes on the words. Nothing’s soaking in. Can’t focus and don’t have the energy to try.

  So tired.

  Sally’s Diary: March 20th

  This day looks a lot like yesterday only it’s raining outside. It’s lashing against the windows in thick, whipping sheets and drawing everyone’s eyes. It feels like the sky is crying and reflecting my mood with its great black clouds. It’s miserable outside and it’s miserable in here. Everything is black and white. Andrew’s coming later. That’s all I have to say about today.

  Sally’s Diary: March 21st

  A new woman arrived this morning and they put her in next to me. She tried to strike up a conversation but I didn’t feel like talking so she spent the entire morning talking to the lady in the bed opposite. The nurse asked them to keep it down but they carried on regardless. I can’t help but soak it all up in absence of any other sort of distraction and now I know everything there is to know about her; where she lives, what her husband does, what her children are called, what programs she likes on TV and what sort of carpet they have in their living room. She just goes on and on.

  The moment she saw me writing she asked me what I was doing and then spent the next twenty minutes telling me about how she used to keep a diary when she was a little girl and how her mother found it and so on until I fell asleep. I actually fell asleep while she was talking. She looked hurt when I woke up and has left me alone since. I want to go home. I want my own bed. I want to be with Andrew.

  Sally’s Diary: March 22nd

  I keep wondering if something can be done. If there hasn’t been a mistake. Pinpricks of hope keep tricking me into grasping at beautiful straws because I can’t bring myself to believe the reality. It’s too cruel. And I fall for it every time. Because I want to fall for it. Because I don’t want it to be true. “Great news Mrs Nolan, it’s a one in a hundred shot but with the technology we’ve got today it is just possible we could…” etc. But no doctors have come with such news and I don’t think any doctor’s going to. Because there is no way back. And all the technology in the world isn’t going to fix me. I expect in fifty years times they’ll be able to do something about it but that won’t help me. I’m here, I’m now and I’m all alone. At least until Andrew comes tonight.

  Sally’s Diary: March 23rd

  This should be my last day on the ward. The doctor is coming to see me a little later on and hopefully he’ll let me go home. I’m trying to eat all my meals and put a smile on my face but it’s difficult. Thoughts occur to me at my lowest moments that I know I shouldn’t entertain them but I can’t help it.

  See it’s easy to forget that while this has happened to me, it’s also happened to Andrew too. He’ll never be a father. He’ll never kick a ball with his son or hold his daughter’s hand. He’ll never know what it is to have a family. And like me he’ll always wonder what might have been.

  What must Andrew be going through? What must he be feeling?

  Because of course this only applies if he stays with me…

  But what a terrible thing to think about one’s husband! That he could do such a thing. But if he did what would it say about me if I tried standing in his way?

  This is such a cruel disease. The doctors did their best to cut it all out. But it’s still with me, playing its malicious games of deceit.

  Chapter 16. All Woman

  “How am I meant to make sure she eats properly when she’s hardly eating at all?” I asked Tom as I cleared out the last of the kitchen cupboards. I put all the unwanted jars, tins and packets in a box and let Tom take what he liked – which was everything. “Saves me a shop,” he explained.

  He was particularly taken with the four bottles of red wine I was throwing out and suggested we opened one now and had a drink.

  “But what if she needs me for something?”

  “Fuck me mate, I said a drink, not a drinking contest. Christ come on, stop staring at the stairs every five minutes and have a cup of wine. If ever I saw a man who needed alcohol, I’m looking at one right now.”

  Tom fished one of the bottles of Merlot back out of the box and opened it up (although not the nice one I noticed). He poured us two generous glasses and raised his to Sally, who’d come home this afternoon.

  “To Sally,” I repeated and we drank to her health.

  “So, she’s not allowed any alcohol at all then?”

  “Alcohol’s a poison too. And she’s having to put up with enough of that already, what with the chemo, so it’s total detox all the way.”

  “Cheese as well?” he
said, picking out a packet of stilton.

  “All dairy products really. And red meat. Big no-nos. See, digesting this stuff uses up enzymes that are needed for fighting the cancer,” I explained, flipping through one of the many leaflets the doctor had given me and pointing to the paragraph to prove I hadn’t just made this up.

  “Yeah, but why are you chucking it out? You ain’t got cancer.”

  “Ow come on, what am I going to do, sit here getting legless and eating cheese on toast in front of her while her hair falls out?” I told him.

  “So, what’s in and what’s out?”

  “Basically everything we’ve ever eaten up to now,” I sighed, frowning at my empty cupboards. “Red meat, white bread, black tea, coffee, sugary drinks, salt, curry, white rice, sweets, chips and pretty much anything processed, plus vitamin E, ginseng, alcohol and tap water.”

  “I bet you’re gutted about the ginseng, aren’t you?” he nodded.

  “The things we’re able to eat; as much fresh fruit and vegetables as we can, preferably organic, brown rice, wholegrain bread, pulses, beans, and seeds. A bit of free-range chicken, though not too much, organic fish, again a couple of ounces, plus garlic, a little bit of soy, the odd egg here and there and lots of water.”

  “Bottled?” Tom speculated.

  “Well, it’s not ideal. I mean, who knows how many nuclear power plants the lorry driver’s driven past on his way over from France. No, they recommend you fit something called an osmosis water filter to your water system and boil it all if you can and make it pure and all that, for best results.”

  “And are you?”

  “Should be here at the end of the week,” I said.

  “All this stuff must be expensive. You know, water pumps and organic food and all that.”

  “Yeah well, let’s just say we’re dipping into the kids’ college fund with a clear conscience these days.”