Devil's Choice

by Graham Wilson

  Sometimes she curled up and fell asleep again on the lounge, sometimes she lay on the floor in Amelie’ room. She no longer slept in the bed with Amelie as she did not want to disturb her much needed sleep with her own restlessness.

  The few times she had laid in with her, Amelie had woken her saying, “Mummy, are you having bad dreams? You are moving so much.”

  She loved her daughter’s sweet face as she said it and her evident concern, but it was unfair to Amelie, she need her sleep to build her own strength much more. But if she felt Amelie stirring she would sit beside her on the bed, cuddle and stroke her to try and give her comfort in whatever way she could.

  She knew the outlook for Amelie was becoming more and more desperate. Next week she was booked in for one more round of chemo, and this would be the last one, it was making her so sick it was just no point in keeping going, as the last time the tumours had barely gone away before they started growing again.

  There was no sign of them yet outside, under her arms and neck and in her mouth, but there were still ones inside her that had not really shrunk much after the last treatment.

  They had agreed they would try one more time, to try and shrink them a bit more and then they would try a thing called immunotherapy to try and boost Amelie’s own immunity to fight off the disease.

  Catherine wondered if they should go straight to the immunotherapy thing now, the idea of submitting her poor brave little girl to this awful chemo even one more time seemed both horrible and pointless.

  Yet, not to try seemed to be an admission of defeat, and somehow they had to keep their own hope alive, but then they could not let their own desire for hope cause Amelie unnecessary and pointless suffering.

  She tried not to let the “dying” word into her mind. But somewhere in a deep recess of her mind it was there anyway and she knew they may all have to face up to it soon, that everything modern medicine had to offer seemed unable to save the life of their little girl. But for now, each time the thought tried to rise in her mind, she pushed it firmly back into its buried cave.

  Mathew had become increasingly unreliable in the business. She had stopped rostering him on his own, as on these days that meant it often fell to her, as he just would not come out and serve people until they go really impatient. She did not want to lose custom as she needed to try and keep the business functioning to pay all the bills.

  Instead he would sit out the back reading. He seemed to have an endless stream of books and magazines he was reading, often medical ones. She had welcomed it at first, something to occupy his mind and give him purpose, reading all the latest research on cancer treatments, all the pros and cons of the different options.

  But as it began to occupy ever more of his time she started to wonder what he was really looking for. She felt she understood all the medical options; the problem was they just were not working.

  So she started to pay more attention to what he was reading, wondering why. She noticed an ever increasing focus on the effects of chemicals, sprays like Agent Orange, their effects on exposed people, their long term effects, the potential to cause harm to one’s own children.

  He was starting to talk more and more about how he had been poisoned by these bastards and now the poison was spreading to his little girl. He would say, “I am sick and she is even sicker and it’s all their fault.”

  At other times he would talk repeatedly about how it was his own fault that Amelie had got sick, he had been warned by other Vets that he should not have children. He had ignored these warnings and now his little girl was paying for it.

  Catherine tried to discuss this rationally with him. She did not know if it was true that there were these sorts of effects, the medical opinion seemed divided. But, even if there were, it was pointless to try and blame himself or someone else, they just had to stick together and try and support their little girl and help her get better.

  It was no help to blame anyone, they just needed to focus on her and give her all the love they could.

  But Mathew seemed to have stopped listening to her, each day it seemed that his mind wandered further and further into this maze of blame and recriminations and Catherine was sure it was also part of the problem with all his bad dreams, that he was dreaming these things, sleeping badly.

  Each new day he would wake up, exhausted in mind and body, and then spending further hours feeding his imagination in reading new things of this type before dreaming them all over again in an ever increasing and crazy spiral.

  She wished she knew how she could help him and, if Amelie was not so sick and managing the hotel without him was not so hard, perhaps she could have found some way to connect with him. But now she was just so chronically exhausted herself that her patience with what seemed like his self indulgent escapism was fading and she was starting to snap at him.

  Yesterday she had said. “For God sake put those crazy magazines and books away. Come and help me at the bar.”

  He had done it reluctantly for an hour, but then, after the bar closed, he had stayed up until almost three o’clock in the morning reading this crazy stuff, and almost as soon as he had come to bed he had woken her with another of his dreams, mumbling, “I am going to kill them. I will buy a gun and go and kill those murdering and poisoning bastards.”

  It was awful and it gave her shivers but at least he was asleep, if he said something like that in real life she did not know what she would do.”

  The next morning Amelie’s breathing was quite strained and her gums were pasty. Catherine had a sinking feeling as she arranged to bring her into the doctor for more tests.

  It was breaking her heart, her little girl was so brave, and she was smiling brightly and telling her Mum not to worry, but she clearly was not alright.

  Catherine had tried to talk to her a few times about what was happening but it was very hard, it was as if she both understood and chose not to know.

  It seemed that Amelie now just lived in the moment, most often sitting in her favourite red car with her favourite doll sitting on the seat alongside her. Once there would have been too little space for her and the doll together but now she had grown so thin that the doll fitted easily alongside her.

  Mathew was still sleeping after staying awake most of the night and she knew he would not want to come to hospital and face up to the actuality of what was needed. So she decided, when it was time to go to the hospital, to leave him sleeping away, he may be more rational with more sleep. So she wrote him a short note, telling him where they had gone and left in a taxi.

  Once at the hospital she waited for what seemed a long time until the doctor had examined Amelie before deciding what to do next. He decided they should take fresh blood samples to check her white and red cell levels, to check whether she had become anaemic and also whether her own white cells had bounced back up and how many were healthy white cells versus abnormal cancerous ones. He also wanted to look at the size of the tumours in her chest. Once they had this information they could decide on what further treatment options they should pursue.

  After three hours of queuing and waiting they finally had all the procedures done and the chest X-Rays developed. Amelie was sitting playing with some blocks on the floor of the waiting room when the radiologist and doctor called to her to come in and view the results.

  She asked the receptionist if she would keep an eye on her girl while she went into the consulting room, leaving the door open. The radiologist pointed to the current chest X-Ray and the one taken a fortnight before. It was clear from first glance that the black spaces in her lungs were getting smaller and the white lumps were getting bigger.

  While Catherine knew deep down that this was happening she felt her heart fall through the floor as this clear sign of the cancer starting to overwhelm her daughter. She could feel the tears forming in her eyes and tried to brush them away with the back of her hand.

  The doctor started to discuss the findings, saying, “The blood count is very low, her red cells are barel
y responding. Even though her white cells have not gone up there are more cancer cells and less normal cells than before.

  I think we need to give her a whole blood transfusion, part of her breathlessness is probably from the anaemia as well as the tumours, so she may benefit from some oxygen as well. I think we should hospitalise her for the day while we do that and once we have got her red blood count back to normal we can see how she is.

  Perhaps you need to ask her husband to come in so that we can all discuss further treatment options from here.

  Catherine found herself unable to listen, she could not help crying and pushed a handkerchief into her mouth to stifle the sobs, it felt hopeless.

  The doctor put his hand on her shoulder in a fatherly fashion, saying, “Why don’t you ring your husband and get him to come in? Then we can all sit down and discuss where to go from here.

  “In the meantime Amelie can stay in the hospital and we will start her on oxygen and a blood transfusion.”

  Catherine nodded and the receptionist gave her the phone to use. She rang her home, there was no answer, she rang instead to the bar and the Ella answered, she had just come in and was surprised to find there was no sign of Mathew though she had yet to go upstairs and check on him.

  Catherine asked her to call him to come to the phone, in case he was upstairs and had been unable to get to the phone a minute ago.

  Ella returned saying, “There is no sign of him but there is something really worrying, there is a gun case for a revolver on the table but without the gun, and there is a note with your name written on it, inside a sealed envelope on the table. I have not opened it but perhaps you should come home and have a look.

  Cathy rang Lizzie who was staying with her Gran and asked her to come into the hospital to mind Amelie while she went home. Then she talked to her Gran and asked her to come up to the hotel. Of all the people who knew Mathew she seemed to be the one he listened to best, perhaps because she had known him since he was a boy.

  Lizzie said she would be in the hospital as soon as a taxi could get her there so Catherine told Amelie she had to go home and get her Daddy and in the meantime she should go with the nurse who would put her in a bed and give her a funny mask to put on her face, and that her own Grandma Lizzie would be in with her soon.

  As always Amelie just took it in her stride, giving a bright smile and a hug and kiss and finishing with, “Love you Mummy.”

  Then Catherine walked outside and caught another taxi home. Her Gran was just arriving as she did and they went upstairs together, after talking briefly to Ella who said she had seen no sign still of Mathew, but his car which was normally parked in the back lane was gone.

  Upstairs the scene was just as Ella had described it. She could see that Mathew had showered and put on clean clothes, though there was no sign he had eaten any breakfast.

  She opened the note. It read.

  Dear Catherine,

  I have decided to go and fix those people who poisoned me and now Amelie. It is all the fault of the chemicals they sprayed me with that made me sick and are now making my little girl sick.

  Even now they are still poisoning her with that chemical therapy and radiation they are giving her, and all of it is making her sicker and sicker.

  So I have to find some medicine that does not make Amelie sick and will make her better.

  I know our defence people who work at Victoria Barracks have good medicines that can be used to treat the poisons; they give them to soldiers who work for them to protect them. They could use these to make Amelie better but they are keeping them hidden away, to make sure the rest of the world does not know.

  I am going there to get them to give me the medicines. I may have to shoot one or two of them to get them to listen to me and help me but I am happy to do whatever it takes.

  Someone has to stand up to them and make them do the right thing. So I have taken on this job.

  Your ever loving husband

  Mathew

  Catherine felt terror grip her. If he tried to shoot someone they the police or military would shoot him instead. Then he would be dead. That was no way to help her daughter. But most of all he was the one thing apart from Amelie that remained really precious in her life. Sure he had gone a bit crazy with the pain, but she believed she could help fix that when there was time.

  Patsy was standing next to her, looking at her with concern, her own face tense.

  She passed her the note, watching her face as the comprehension dawned.

  “Oh my God,” was all her Granny said.

  Then she came and put her arms around Catherine, saying, “You poor darling. He is a good man, but now, with the grief and anger of what has happened, something inside his mind has gone. We must call the police and ask them to look for him before he hurts someone else or gets hurt himself.”

  Catherine could not stand it anymore; she sat on a chair, holding the note, her whole body shaking with sobs. It was all too terrible for words; she could not bear to lose Mathew too.

  She watched her Gran pick up the phone and dial the police, In five minutes two constables were there with her, reading the note and looking around at the evidence. Her Grandmother briefly explained what had happened to Amelie, her sickness, and then of Mathew’s mental state, imploring them to be careful, both for their own safety and for his too.

  Then the police were on the phone calling for backup and giving the base details to get officers to the Victoria Barracks front gate, and also to ring the Barracks to give a warning.

  As these arrangements were being made Catherine sat, only half listening and unmoving. As they were leaving, they said to her, she was to wait here for now.

  It brought her to life; an image came unbidden to her mind of a crazed Mathew walking towards a police man and a soldier pointing a gun. Then the policeman shooting Mathew dead, claiming it was self-defence.

  She knew she must try to stop this, she grabbed at the policeman’s arm, saying, “I have to come, I have to see him and make him stop.”

  The policeman went to brush her off and pushed past her to leave, walking towards the front door.

  Now her Grandmother, who was standing closest to the door, put her own body in the way, blocking the door, forceful but measured.

  “Officer, my granddaughter is right; we have to come there too. Mathew knows us and will trust us whereas he will just see you as a threat. We have to try and stop one tragedy becoming an even bigger tragedy. My granddaughter’s own daughter is gravely ill of cancer. This man, Mathew, is the little girl’s father. He is a good man but driven mad with grief. It will help no one if he gets shot in the process. We have a much better chance of stopping him if we are both there to try and talk and reason with him, to get him to give up his gun and go and have treatment for the illness which has taken over his own mind.

  “Many years ago I failed to act when I should have and my own husband died of my stupidity. I will not let it happen a second time with my granddaughter’s husband.

  “So officer, I insist that you bring both me and Catherine with you and give us the chance to talk to Mathew first before anyone else does something foolhardy. If you try and stop us coming any consequences will be on your head.”

  Reluctantly the officer gave way and motioned for them both to come with him.

  In a minute they were racing across the city towards Paddington, sirens blaring. The police car pulled to a stop in Oxford Street in front of Victoria Barracks. There were six other policemen and the same number of soldiers in position, all armed and guarding the gates. There was no sign of Mathew.

  They all piled out of the car, the police ran over to join their fellow officers.

  Catherine looked around wildly. She glimpsed Mathew, across the road and hiding unobtrusively in a shop entrance, something in his hand tucked out of sight.

  She ran across the street, heedless of the screeching and honking traffic, determined to shield him, Mathew, with her body. That way they would shoot her bef
ore they shot him. Then she was in front of him.

  He had a mad look in his eyes and the gun was in his hand. He looked up at her, saying, “Catherine, what are you doing here, you need to get out of the way and let me do what I need to do, I have to make them give me the medicine.”

  She looked over her shoulder, several police men were following close behind with their guns drawn and trained on them both. She pushed her body towards Mathew, determined to keep her body between him and them. He tried to step to one side, she moved with him.

  Suddenly a clear voice spoke out from behind her, it was her Gran. “Mathew.”

  He looked up, temporarily frozen. Her Gran stepped up around Catherine until she was standing directly in front of Mathew, the pistol pointing at her own belly.

  Wordlessly she reached out and took the pistol by the barrel, turned it to the side and removed it from his hands. She passed the gun back to Catherine.

  She wrapped her arms around Mathew, saying, “My boy, my poor boy, this won’t help anyone. We must find another way to help Amelie. I need you to help me do that by first putting this silly thing away, then helping me look for something that really will cure her.”

  Something in her words and tone got through to him when nothing else had; he nodded and the mad gleam slowly faded from his eyes.

  The police came over and put handcuffs around his wrists, then led him to the back of the police van. Catherine was pleased to see he was being treated gently, almost kindly by the officers who had taken him away.

  She realised she had not moved, frozen in place, with the gun still in her own hands. She wanted to move to run after him and hug him, to say it would be alright.

  But another part of her was shaking with rage and she found herself unable to move. How could he have been so stupid.?Yes he was upset, but this was so stupid. But for the quick thinking of her grandmother he could be lying dead on the pavement now. It made her so mad that he could allow his life to be wasted like that for no point, part of her wanted to hug him but another part of her wanted to hit him for his stupidity.