by Claire Allan
He sat back down and then gestured to the chair opposite him. “Sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down,” I whispered. When someone tells you to sit down before imparting news to you, it is rarely because they are about to tell you something good. My mind flashed back to my daddy, his face serious, gesturing to me and Ivy to sit down and us giggling as we did, telling him he looked very serious indeed.
I had been thirteen, Ivysixteen. We had been having a perfectly lovely day before then – before he asked us to sit down and told us mum was gone.
I didn’t want to sit down, but I suddenly felt like I had no choice. My legs felt weak below me. I sat. Pushing all memories of my mother out of my head, I didn’t take my eyes off James.
“We could do the niceties,” I said, holding his gaze, “but you know why I’m here, James. You know something, don’t you?”
He lifted his knife, put it down again and lifted his napkin, unfolding it nervously before putting it back on the table.
“I spoke to Mark today,” he said.
“What did he say?”
“He told me you called him last night. Or he thinks it was you. He said you hung up.”
I shrugged my shoulders. Why Mark, or James, would be surprised that I was calling my partner of eleven years after he walks out with nothing more than a sad, sorry little letter to explain himself was beyond me.
“He wanted me to tell you he is okay,” James said sheepishly, looking down at the napkin he had discarded.
“I sensed that by the chipper tone in his voice and the thumping music in the background,” I said, trying to keep calm. It would do no good to shoot the messenger, or poke him in the face with the fork I was currently tapping against the table.
“Shit, Kitty, look, I know this is awful –”
“Did he say why he left?”
James’ gaze remained on the table in front of him and he sighed. “He said he needed some space. He just wanted to find himself. He said he knew that sounded wanky but he had to do it. He said he didn’t know any more who he is or what he wants.”
“Or if he still wants me?” The question stuck in my throat and I felt tears prick at the corners of my eyes. This was not what I wanted, to cry in a public place. I sniffed and tried to steady my breathing. I regretted bringing the car. I could really have done with a drink just about then.
“I couldn’t get him to say much,” James offered.
“Did he say where he was, even?” I needed James to tell me something that I didn’t already know.
“He didn’t. He wouldn’t be drawn at all.”
“Bollocks.” I wiped the tears that were threatening to fall hastily from my face. I took a deep breath. “Did he say if he was with anyone?”
I looked at James, who had returned to staring at his napkin and I could see the flush of colour rise from his neck and up through his face. I felt my stomach twist and my heart sink.
“He . . . he said no, he isn’t with someone. Not now. But, Kitty, there was someone. And he said it didn’t mean anything but he needs to think about what he wants.”
The words washed over me like waves, drowned out by a crashing sense of disbelief hitting me full force. I hadn’t just heard those words, had I? I replayed them, let them echo through me. There was someone. It was over. It didn’t mean anything – except it made him leave. He needs to think about what he wants. Where did what I wanted come into this?
“Who?”
“I don’t know all the details.”
“Well, tell me the details you do know and tell me now,” I heard myself say – surprised at how calm I sounded.
He ran his fingers through his hair and sipped from the glass of beer he had in front of him before looking at me again. “Kitty, you have to realise I knew nothing at all about this. When I spoke to you the other night, I wasn’t lying. This is as much out of the blue for me as it is for you and if it is any consolation to you at all I told him he was being a dickhead and in danger of throwing away the best thing that had ever happened to him.”
“James. Just tell me.”
“It was someone from work. A temp. She’s not even there anymore. He said it was just a couple of times. That it was over before it started.”
James looked distraught – then again I imagine I wasn’t looking my best either. I let the words sink in, glaring at a waitress who walked over to our table to let her know in no uncertain terms that now was not the time. Then I felt like shit because it wasn’t her fault my husband was a cheating bastard. Oh Jesus. Mark had cheated on me.
“Kitty . . .” James started as I stood up, turned and walked away without saying another word. I had wanted to hear more, but now I wished I hadn’t and that I could put the words back into the Pandora’s Box they had jumped out of and close the lid. Mark had cheated on me. And he had left me. And it was down to his best friend to tell me the details. I didn’t look up as I walked out of the restaurant and broke into a sprint as I headed towards the car park. In the distance I could hear James calling after me and I cursed as I couldn’t get my car door open. The tears that had threatened to fall in the restaurant were now coursing down my cheeks and I roughly dried them on the sleeve of my jumper. This was just crap – just utter crap.
Managing to unlock the door, I climbed into the driver’s seat just as James came level with me. It wasn’t his fault, at all, that Mark was a bastard but that didn’t stop me from once again ignoring his calls for me to stay and talk. I drove off.
When I reached the house, I couldn’t go in. I sat there for a while and looked at our home – the home that we had shared together, which we had bought together, which we thought we would bring children home to together. I sat there and wondered what I had done to make it go so wrong. What had I done to push him away? Why did he have to be so utterly clichéd about it – a temp, in work, ‘it didn’t mean anything’? I would have respected him more if she had been the love of his life. It would have hurt but, Jesus, I would have understood shitting all over your marriage if you thought you had found the love of your life. But just someone who worked with you for a bit, who you shagged because you could? I sat there and I couldn’t bring myself to go in, so I turned and drove, without really thinking, to Dad and Rose’s.
It was Daddy who answered the door, who pulled me into a hug and didn’t ask any questions while I sobbed – just letting me rid myself of every tear in my body. We sat together on the sofa, him rocking me back and forth while Rose held my hand and made soothing sounds. I was grateful they didn’t ask questions. I couldn’t bring myself to say the words just yet. I felt humiliated to the very core of my being. Every molecule in my body hurt and when I was finished crying – when I simply could not cry any more – Rose guided me to my old bedroom and pulled down the covers, allowing me to climb in, still fully clothed bar my shoes, and she stroked my hair until I fell into a restless sleep. I let her because it felt nice, and I needed her to mother me. I needed to know she cared. I needed to know someone cared.
Chapter ten
Erin
“It’s not the best news, but it’s not the worst news either,” Dr Carr had said as I sat beside Paddy who was recovering from his op and had in fact spent the previous evening sitting with a bag of frozen peas nestled into his crotch. Paddy looked pale and tired. I looked pale and tired. Even Dr Carr looked pale and tired and for a moment I felt sorry for him. It must have been truly pants to spend your working career telling people they had cancer. No one would welcome that news. No one would thank you for it. No one, I would think, would even be able to take in all the nice things you may say afterwards about treatment options and positivity and getting the best care possible because the big old cancer word would be hanging there in the air.
Paddy and I hadn’t really used the word. We had spoken very openly about the fact that he was having an operation. We had secretly enjoyed the look of uncomfortable queasiness spreading across the face of male friends when we described the procedure h
e would undergo. But we didn’t really explain why. I’m sure people knew. One or two even asked if it was, you know, cancer. But we just parroted what Dr Carr had told us over his large moustache when we met him. No diagnosis had been made. This was just a test. One of a few tests Paddy would undergo. More blood tests. Paddy joked he was losing so much blood his Guinness intake would have to increase, purely for medicinal reasons of course. He couldn’t be going into surgery with a low blood count, now could he? He had CT scans as well. Scanning every inch, inside and out of his body to see if there was cancer elsewhere. That scared me more than the operation if truth be told, even though Dr Carr had told us that this was standard practice.
“Stay away from Google,” Jules had warned as she spoke to me one lunchtime.
I, of course, was sitting in front of my computer, Googling testicular cancer as if my life depended on it. Which it kind of did.
“There’s a ninety-five per cent survival rate,” I said.
“That’s good,” Jules said.
“Do you think so? Really? Because the way I see it, that’s a one in twenty chance it won’t be good. And that sounds pretty shite to me.”
“Think of that as a nineteen out of twenty chance that he’ll be okay,” she said softly.
But I knew she was mentally counting the people around her and imagining one of them just dropping dead.
“You have to wait until you know the full facts. You have to wait until you find out exactly what you are facing before you start talking about odds and the like.”
“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t be thinking about the odds if it were you?” I asked.
“Well, of bloody well course I would, and you would be telling me to calm myself and not to jump to conclusions before I knew the full facts.”
She was right of course, but it didn’t stop me worrying.
I knew that I was probably heading for hell when I walked in on Paddy watching Bridal Boot Camp on Wedding TV and had to stop myself asking him if he was sure they had only taken one testicle in the operating theatre and hadn’t actually made off with every part of his masculinity. I did stop myself, however, and snuggled down beside him, handed him a cold beer and asked him could we watch Match of the Day instead?
“I’m a bit wedding-obsessed, aren’t I?” he asked, smirking as he switched over. “Or maybe this was all an elaborate ruse all along while you were out of the room to get you to turn over to the footie without any fuss?” He winked at me and I kissed him.
I couldn’t resist, even though his breath smelled vaguely of beer and garlic from the pasta we had eaten earlier. “You are a sneaky one.”
“I’ll try anything,” he laughed. “I mean, look at the lengths I’ve gone to, to finally get you to marry me. There aren’t many men who would lop their bits off.”
“In fairness, it was the doctor who did the lopping.”
“But it was me who supplied the faulty gonads!”
Once again I realised that I would be hell bound, because I wanted to shout: “Can we please not talk about your balls for just one night, thank you very much?”
It wasn’t that I didn’t care. It wasn’t that I didn’t admire the fact he could laugh about it – it was just that for six weeks, since the day when it became a reality and not just an operation and a maybe, it had been part of every decision-making process, every conversation and the first thing I thought of every morning. It was Saturday night. I was chilling with a beer. I wanted to not think about it – the big Cancer in our lives – and instead just enjoy my beer and football on the TV and kissing Paddy.
So, because it would be cruel to shout at the cancer patient while he talked about his faulty bits, I pushed all my negative thoughts to one side and tried to strike up a conversation about some player or other with over-gelled hair kicking a football off side, or something.
“I’m a bad person, aren’t I?”
It was first thing on Tuesday morning and I was whispering down the phone to Jules while Paddy slept upstairs.
“What makes you say that?”
“For getting impatient and annoyed and not wanting to think about cancer for a while?”
“I think that makes you human,” Jules soothed.
“But it’s not like it’s me that has cancer. It’s him. If he wants to talk about it, if he wants to joke about it and all, surely it’s my job to gee him on? It’s not that I don’t want to be supportive, it’s just . . . well . . . it’s not bloody funny, is it?”
And I realised, with a thump, it wasn’t funny at all and it was scary. It wasn’t that I had never realised I had been scared before but now, three hours away from when I was due to go and order my wedding dress, I realised just how scary it was.
The night before his surgery we had sat holding hands and chatting and Paddy had remained his usual positive self. “Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” he had said. The thought that it could have spread, that it could require more treatment . . . we didn’t want to go there. The doctors had tried to warn us, but Paddy remained resolute that we would be thelucky ones.
“We’ve done everything right,” Paddy said, “and I’m young and fit and we will be fine.”
“Of course you will be,” I said.
“At the end of the day, if you’re going get cancer, this is the kind of cancer you want to get,” he said, mimicking Dr Carr.
But he looked pale and, even though he was smiling, I could see the fear in his eyes. It was a far cry from three nights before when he had decided to have a farewell party for his testicle. “I’m not ashamed to have this bad boy out,” he had said, as he called his friends one by one and invited them round for drinks and shenanigans before the big op. He had been the life and soul of the party, which had started awkwardly as people didn’t really know what to say, or even where to look. Not that he had his bits hanging out, or anything, but I just knew people had a morbid fascination about what he was about to go through.
Jules had travelled from Belfast for the party and afterwards had helped me put a blanket over Paddy and a pillow under his head when it was clear that there was no way we were going to get himmoved from where he was sleeping. She had helped me clean up after the last guest had gone and, as we sat in the fug of stale smoke and the stink of warm wine, she had asked me how I was.
“I’m fine, sis, honest.”
“Honest?”
“Well, as fine as I can be. I’m okay. It’s not me having surgery, is it?”
“You are still allowed to be not okay. You don’t have to be strong all the time, Erin.”
I snorted. “Of course I do. He needs me.”
“He is strong himself, you know. Sure wasn’t this party his idea? Does that sound like a man struggling?” She smiled, but she also gently put her hand on my knee, which was her way of letting me know that it was okay to turn into a blubbering mess.
I was kind of surprised that she didn’t know me well enough to know that I didn’t do blubbering mess. Not any more anyway. No. I was to stay strong, which is exactly what I did as Paddy was wheeled away from me towards the operating theatre and I was left with a bitter coffee to keep me company while they sliced and diced him.
And I stayed strong when they told us the cancer was a Stage II and would require a dose of chemo to try to kill it off. That it had spread, just a little, thankfully, and that meant it was one of the more aggressive forms of testicular cancer. But it wasn’t in his lungs or organs and that was a good thing. But the thought of it spreading – those sneaky wee poisonous cells sliding around inside his body, sneaking into his nooks and crannies, invading his healthy areas and making them black and manky and rotten made my skin crawl. The doctor repeated again that the chances were goodbut my brain focused on the words “try to kill it off” – I didn’t like ‘try’, I liked definites. Still, I had promised to stay strong so I had patted Paddy’s hand and tried not to throw up and said sureit wouldn’t be a bother to him at all and what was a wee dose of chemotherapy among friends.
> But that was then and this was now and, talking to Jules on the phone, I didn’t want to be strong any more.
“I don’t think I can do this . . . this wedding,” I said. “I don’t think I can keep smiling through it all. Standing there knowing everyone is watching us, knowing what is going on in our lives and knowing the battle he is fighting.”
“Of course you can. Remember it’s a ‘big party’. You can do a big party. Sure it won’t beat the big testicle farewell bash, but it will be good.”
I laughed, limply, because it was expected of me.
“And you said the dress was stunning?”
“It is.”
“And sure at this point you are only ordering it and you said the girl in shop was lovely, so you have nothing to fear about that at least.”
I made a nondescript kind of a noise, neither a yes nor a no and certainly not a ‘you know the funny thing is I never thought I would trust another man again to want to marry one and now that I do I’m well aware I could be a widow before our first anniversary’ kind of a noise.
“I suppose,” I added.
“Look, if this is all too much for you and if taking Mum with you is even more too much for you, then wait until Saturday. I’ll come down for the day and go with you, and this is not being all altruistic by the way, this is me wanting glimpse of the frock.”
“Okay,” I said, “although scary Fiona at the hotel says we’ve left it much too late and I’ll probably end up getting married in something off the peg because there is no way a wedding shop can deliver a couture gown in less than six months or something.”
“You’ll have a dress, and you’ll be stunning. Put your mind at rest if you must and call The Dressing Room and talk to them about it. But, Erin, it will be okay. I’ll be there. I’ll hold your hand. You need your hand to be held sometimes, you know. Now, on you go to work and try not to freak out.”