After Cleo

by Helen Brown

  I reached for the earplugs in the bedside drawer and willed myself to sleep.

  Visitation

  Good comes from good

  What does a good man do when he’s worried about his wife freaking out over her daughter going to Sri Lanka and being her son’s self-appointed wedding planner? He takes her to a wellness retreat in New South Wales. Even though Philip would’ve much rather have been in a tent fending off crocodiles, he agreed to succumb to several days of detoxified living with me.

  The wellness retreat was everything I’d hoped for: a combination of luxury, nature and nurture. Grimy after a day’s travel, we climbed the steps to a marble foyer that gleamed wholesomeness. We’d made a pact not to talk about weddings, Sri Lanka, or in fact any of our children for the next few days. This was a perfect environment to forget all that.

  New Age didgeridoo music mumbled over the speakers while fountains chattered over volcanic stones. Staff flashed smiles that implied we too would be young, tanned, slim and beautiful if only we could be disciplined and sensible.

  I sucked my stomach in and bared unwhitened teeth in a middle-aged, overweight, city living way.

  Those health freaks didn’t fool me. I knew the self-loathing it took to look like that. The exhilaration of losing ten kilos a while back had been obliterated by the defeat of stacking them back on again, plus a few extra kilos I didn’t have when I thought I was fat.

  Then there was the revelation that I didn’t actually feel that much better when I was thin(ner). In fact the ‘thin’ version felt worse because I lived with hunger clawing my stomach all the time, and in fear that I was going to get fat again. After years of neuroticism I’d finally understood those who loved me would continue to put up with me fat or thin, and those who didn’t ignored me. As a middle-aged woman I was pretty much invisible anyway. To pass unnoticed through an image-obsessed society is surprisingly liberating.

  Refugees from the land of meat-eating, coffee-drinking and wine-swilling hedonism, Philip and I were made to promise we hadn’t stowed any caffeine or alcoholic contra in our bags. I immediately wished we had.

  The wellness retreat was famed for its week-long boot camp involving dawn to dusk physical challenges interspersed with soul-searching workshops.

  Personally, I couldn’t think of anything worse than a twenty-year-old Bear Grylls clone shouting me through an obstacle course. I wouldn’t have gone near the wellness centre if it hadn’t offered the alternative ‘individual’ package, where you could take part in workshops if you felt like it, and spend the rest of the time being massaged and aromatherapied to a pulp.

  Bands of pink and orange stretched across the sky as our suitcases kerplunked over the gravel path to our villa. Spacious and modern with views over a valley, it was perfect. Oh yes, and the toilet paper was folded into a point and the towels were extremely fluffy. Opening the doors on to our deck, we let the warm night breeze comb our hair.

  A group of kangaroos preened themselves before hopping lazily out of sight. I’d learnt to love the Australian landscape with its giant skies and ancient, crumpled hills. The red earth and silver trees that had once seemed ugly and foreign now possessed unique beauty for me. No longer threatened by the emptiness of this land, and its potentially deadly wildlife, I savoured the scent of eucalyptus gum on hot dry air.

  Is it all right to mention here that we kissed? Not in a creepy, please-don’t-go-there-old-people way, like when an old walrus of a Hollywood star lunges at a cosmetically renovated diva and makes the entire theatre cringe over their popcorn.

  This was simply the kiss of a man and woman who’ve known each other for twenty years, during which time they’ve spent most of their waking hours putting other people first. Who were just grateful to spend time alone together and have a conversation without someone else listening in and offering an uninformed opinion. It was bliss to lie in bed between Egyptian cotton sheets and use two towels each after a shower – none of which had to be put in the washing machine later. Not by me, anyway.

  This place would purify our bodies, soothe our souls. We’d be soaked and stroked, massaged and mentored in methods of healthy living. After five days here we’d return to everyday life happier, more balanced human beings. Our worries would evaporate.

  Wind whistled a lullaby down the valley on our first night as we slid between 1,000-thread counts of indulgence and slept like stones.

  It’s hard to write about what happened that night except to say it’s one of the strangest events of my life. I’ve never been particularly psychic, and yet . . .

  Before dawn I woke to the sound of wooden blinds slapping against the window. The wind had worked itself up into a tantrum and the air was hot and restless. Rolling over to find a more comfortable position, I became aware of a human figure sitting in a chair across the room. It was – of all people – Mum.

  My chest melted at the sight of her. Even though she’d died several years earlier, she seemed very much alive, her eyes blazing with love as she looked at me. In front of her a black cat kept galloping impatiently across the floor, moving too fast for me to figure out if it was Cleo.

  Aware that this encounter with Mum might be short, I seized the chance to ask her some questions. The cat zigzagged across the room, as if urging me to hurry up.

  ‘Is there a God?’ I asked, feeling sheepish for being so unoriginal.

  ‘Yes,’ Mum replied matter-of-factly.

  ‘Have you met him?’

  ‘No,’ she answered, with a tinge of regret.

  ‘I miss you so much!’ I cried, overwhelmed by a sudden sense of loss.

  Mum had never liked it when people felt sorry for themselves. I’d sobbed like this once when she was dying and she’d just turned her head on the pillow and stared out the window at her camellias.

  She began shimmering around the edges, her body melting away in the chair.

  ‘What should I know?’ I cried, desperate that she was going to disappear.

  ‘Good comes from good,’ she replied before smiling enigmatically and vanishing.

  Last thing I saw was the cat’s tail melting into the shadows.

  Getting back to sleep was impossible. It seemed melodramatic to tell Philip the moment he woke up. I waited till we’d showered and were on our way to an organic vegetarian breakfast. Philip has a surprisingly open mind for someone who works in a concrete tower.

  ‘Was it a dream?’ he asked as we wandered past the tai chi meeting point.

  It’d felt more real than a dream but that was all I could call it.

  ‘What do you think it meant?’ he asked.

  ‘Maybe it’s about the book,’ I said. ‘If I keep writing from my heart, I think Mum was saying it could do some good – not just for me, but for other people as well. There was something really urgent about it, too. Mum and Cleo were telling me to hurry up and finish it. They don’t want me to waste time.’

  The prospect of running out of time hadn’t occurred to me before. It was something I was about to confront.

  Inner Terrorist

  Mothers and daughters share jeans and genes

  Five days and nights without coffee was enough for me. A detox headache drilled through my forehead. The moment we arrived back at Shirley I scurried across the road to Spoonful. Slurping my first latte of the day, I was grateful to be toxic again.

  Winter had crept in while we were at the wellness retreat. Trees had shaken off the last of their leaves and stood shivering in their underwear against the pale blue sky.

  I’d booked in to have a routine two-yearly mammogram a few days after we got home, but with Lydia due to fly out to Sri Lanka the day after the appointment it had moved to the bottom of my priority list. I’d lifted the phone a couple of times to cancel. Now I was back working on the Cleo book, worrying myself to distraction over Lydia and scouring the web for wedding venues, there was hardly time for hypochondriac check-ups.

  The young doctor who’d done a breast examination a couple of mont
hs earlier had confirmed everything was fine and when I asked for a referral to the breast clinic, she’d said I hardly needed to bother. I could just as easily sign up for the government-sponsored programme. It would mean a longer wait but the service was free.

  I was about to accept her suggestion, but something stopped me. Instinct, maybe. Or one of the mood swings women my age are famous for. The doctor wasn’t my regular GP and too young to understand the torment of middle-aged hormones. Besides, if I didn’t have the mammogram now, I’d end up having to do it later, which would be more of a pain. Still, when I’d insisted on the breast clinic the GP had scrawled a referral with the level of enthusiasm I reserve for vampire movies.

  Unless you’re wired for photographic recall it’s almost impossible to remember what you were wearing on a certain day. Some days are so devastating, however, the brain stores away irrelevant details. I recall, for instance, exactly what I was wearing the afternoon Sam died – a khaki skirt and matching shirt with a red trim. Ugly, but it was the 80s.

  I also remember what I wore to the breast clinic that day in July 2008. To be honest, clothes are a source of frustration. I try to make an effort with my wardrobe. Sometimes, if a shop assistant gives the illusion of being helpful and isn’t a complete liar, I can be talked into buying a few bits and pieces. I might even wear them for a day or two.

  But my wardrobe inevitably gets whittled down to one pair of pants and a couple of tops that look okay and don’t pinch in too many crevices. As long as they match the footwear worn the last three years in a row this, regrettably, becomes my uniform.

  The weather was so cold on the morning of my appointment I dragged out my ankle boots with the wedge heels. They were so old I couldn’t remember if I’d bought them the first time they were fashionable, or during their retro rebirth. The new velvet black pants compensated for scuffs and stains on the boots. As for the green shirt with embroidered shoulders in homage to John Wayne, it was the only thing I could find that was half ironed.

  Anyone who’s had a mammogram, or in fact any examination involving women’s bits, knows to wear a skirt or trousers and a top that can be easily removed. It gives you negotiating power to keep at least half your clothes on. The John Wayne outfit was ideal.

  I tried on the red hat that makes me look exactly like my mother. From what I can remember my grandmother had one a similar shape, a female version of the Homburg favoured by Winston Churchill and Colin Farrell. There aren’t many hats that suit the facial features of the females in our family, with our prominent noses.

  There’s something comforting about the thought of hundreds of forebears wearing the same hat shape through the centuries. No doubt my daughters, after experimentation with berets and floppy brims, would eventually do the same. I no longer minded looking like a carbon copy of Mum. Did this mean I’d finally grown up? A grey day could’ve done with a splash of red. But a hat meant hat hair. I put it back on the wardrobe shelf.

  After scanning the obligatory trashy magazines in the clinic waiting room, I was summoned by the radiographer. ‘Relax,’ she said as she lined me up for the mammogram. ‘Stand naturally. Not quite there. A little to the right. Put your shoulder down. Relax. (Couldn’t she stop saying that word?) Move forward. Drape your right arm over the top of the machine. Hold that handle. No. Move back. That’s it. Relax,’ she said, flattening my right boob between the equivalent of two paving slabs and running a garbage truck over them. ‘ Take a breath. Don’t move. Now hold.’

  She repeated the ritual three times and bustled back five minutes later apologising, saying the images were underexposed and we’d have to do them again. I was surprised she was so incompetent. Alternatively, she could’ve been faking incompetence to lull me into a false sense of security. Soon after, she shepherded me into the ultrasound room.

  Unlike the radiologist, who hardly talked at all, the ultrasound woman had verbal diarrhoea. She spread warm goo over my boobs and ran her scanner over them. Usually I like to ask questions to draw these scientific types out of themselves. But I couldn’t wedge a word in. She talked about her children, her grandchildren, the drought and where she lived and wasn’t it wonderful these breast-scanning services were available these days?

  ‘You deserve a treat when you get home,’ she babbled. ‘No, you deserve four treats.’

  I wondered what was wrong with her. She wiped the goo off my breasts with paper tissues, helped me into a towelling robe and sent me off to sit in a vestibule.

  I’m not a fan of confined spaces. The vestibule area was deserted apart from another stack of magazines, these ones mainly of the home decor variety. Thumbing through them, with their white kitchens overlooking improbably blue seascapes, I gradually became aware that the other patients had all gone home.

  I’d been shut away, abandoned. I hadn’t felt like this since primary school when the teacher locked me in the chalk cupboard one playtime. I was always in trouble for talking. Unease closed in around me in the breast clinic vestibule. All I wanted was to get dressed and go home.

  ‘Oh there you are!’ said an Indian radiologist in a white coat. An earnest gleam in her eye, she escorted me through a door labelled Assessment Room to inspect images of my right breast. The white blobs, dozens of them swirling like stars through the Milky Way, were calcification, she explained. Possibly an indication of irregularities in the cells. Careful language.

  A primitive being inside me withdrew to the window ledge and watched the scene warily.

  The doctor made an appointment for me to see a surgeon and have a biopsy the following afternoon. She asked me to bring a support person.

  Am I dying? I thought, suddenly numb to the core.

  At the same time, I seemed to split into several people, each with their own perspective. The primitive creature shadowed me, stumbling into the elevator, crossing the road and climbing into the car. She watched curiously while I examined the backs of my hands resting on the steering wheel. With their prominent blue veins inherited from Mum, they were unmistakably part of me. Life pulsed through them now, but maybe not for much longer.

  My fingers trembled as I punched Philip’s number into my phone. He slid out of a meeting to answer the call. His voice was light and tender. Of course he’d be my support person tomorrow.

  I wanted him to sob and say he didn’t want to lose me; that I wasn’t allowed to die – something to make it real.

  But I was trying to stay calm for his sake, and vice versa. He asked if I wanted him to come and get me. Yes, yes! Take me away. Save me! But a cool, logical voice said no thanks. My car would end up stranded in the city.

  Only minutes had passed but I was already imagining how the family would cope if I moved on. It would be new territory for Philip. Apart from his grandparents, he hadn’t lost anyone close before. I concentrated on being strong for him.

  I knew that one person would understand. Rob and I had been through so much together. We’d grieved in different ways for Sam, and in some ways still were. We’d found distraction and delight together in Cleo, the black cat who’d remained a living connection with Sam for nearly a quarter of a century. Having suffered ulcerative colitis and having his colon surgically removed at the age of twenty-four, Rob knew exactly how it felt to be alone and frightened inside your own skin.

  When he answered his phone and heard my news the emotional connection was immediate. His words were cautious, but I could tell he was living and breathing it with me.

  ‘It’s nowhere near as bad as what you went through,’ I said. For the first time since the ominous mention of irregular cells, I was back inside my body being honest. We both understood what the clinic was doing, drip-feeding information to prepare us for the worst when the test results came in tomorrow.

  Clicking the phone off a while later, I felt surprisingly serene. Maybe some kind of chemical had kicked in, but talking to Rob had put things into perspective. Even if it was worst-case scenario and I was about to choose music for my funeral, it didn
’t seem too terrible in the scheme of things. Losing Sam had been far more harrowing. A life snuffed out before it’s barely begun. That’s tragedy.

  I switched the car radio on. Liquid jazz folded into the four o’clock news. A train crash in northern Egypt had killed forty-two people; a chunk of ice seven miles square had broken off Canada. Nothing like listening to the news for reassurance things could be worse. That’s not even thinking about the ones who don’t warrant a story – children stricken with serious illness; people who live with bitterness or despair.

  The last news item announced that the Sri Lankan military had captured a major town in the northern district of Mannar from the Tamil Tigers . . . Sri bloody Lanka.

  If there was one platinum lining on this cloud, I thought, it was that Lydia would have to cancel her trip. No way could she trail across the world to sit on a mountaintop now. I thanked God/Buddha/Mother Earth for ‘irregular cells’.

  As the car followed the curve of the river under a steely sky, I considered other possible upsides. The clinic people hadn’t found a lump so it couldn’t be too bad. On the other hand, they were taking a more than casual interest in our family history. My sister Mary had undergone a mastectomy a few years earlier, and two aunts had died of breast cancer.

  Another good thing sprang to mind. If it was serious, I finally had an excuse to give up my twice-weekly personal training sessions.

  The girls were in the kitchen when I clattered down the hall and dumped my bag on the table. My babies, my daughters, were practically adults. They deserved the truth.

  ‘Looks like I might have some irregular cells,’ I said, bright and firm, like a schoolteacher announcing extra homework. The words bounced off the walls. Subtlety had never been a strong point of mine. ‘But it’s all right.’

  What a lie. The girls’ faces were oddly expressionless as they hugged me. Did they think I was faking it? Maybe I was, or it was a dream. The other me observed the scene from a spot above the fireplace.