by Luke Allnutt
“Hello,” she said frostily and with a thick Slavic accent. Then she looked wistfully at a group of young people on the other side of the room.
“This is Rob,” Scott said.
“Uh-huh,” Karolina said, and I expected her to say something else, but she just nodded to herself.
“Look, Scott, I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve had a lot going on, some family problems. But I was hoping we could meet to talk...”
“I’m going to sell, Rob. I’ve made up my mind. I just asked you for one thing...”
“I know, I’m sorry. But it’s not as simple as that...”
Scott took a deep breath, looked into the mingling crowd. “Rob, let’s talk tomorrow. I’m not going to bother to ask you to send the code because I know you won’t. As I said, I’ve made up my mind.”
We stood in silence for a moment, picking at our food. “Have you tried the food, Karolina?” I said after a while.
“It’s okay,” she said without looking at me. “Nothing special.” I nodded, swallowed, trying to think of something to say, when Jack and India came running up.
India was eighteen months older than Jack. When she was little, she used to call Jack her doll. She would play with his hair, putting his curls into bunches, trying to fashion his locks into a ponytail. Jack was besotted by her, the older sister he never had.
“Hello, Uncle Rob. How are you?” India was six, but spoke like a twelve-year-old.
“I’m fine, India. How are you?”
“Very well, thank you.”
“Are you both having a nice time?”
Jack nodded enthusiastically. “There was a spider on the floor, so we came here.”
“Oh. Do you think it’s still there?” I asked.
“I think it’s gone now, Jack,” India said, and Jack blushed a little, just like his mother.
“Shall we go and see if my mommy needs any help?” India said.
Jack nodded so vigorously his ears wobbled.
“Did you see Mommy, Jack?” I asked. “She said she was coming to find you.”
Jack shook his head. “No. Maybe Mommy’s gone home.”
“No, she’s here somewhere,” I said, looking around again.
“Come on, Jack.” India took Jack’s hand in hers and led him off to the play corner. I could hear her telling Jack about the nutrients, how the food was much cleaner this way.
“Is that your children?” Karolina asked, when I turned back to her and Scott.
“Just the boy. The girl is Lola’s daughter.”
“Who’s Lola?”
“She’s the host, babe,” Scott said, checking if anyone had heard. “The raw-food woman.”
“Oh, her,” Karolina said. She turned to look at me, and I found her intense, unnerving. “He looks tired, your son.”
It was a strange thing to say, and I didn’t know how to respond. “He probably is a bit,” I said, a little flustered. “It’s been a long day.”
“He’s got these—how you say, Scottie?” She turned to Scott, and with her finger made half-moons under her eyes. “These black krug, circles, here.”
“Yes, well, he is a bit tired at the moment,” I said, trying to temper the annoyance in my voice.
“Sometimes it means problem with liver or kidneys, it’s connected,” Karolina said.
“Excuse me for a bit,” I said, and as I walked away, I could hear Scott raising his voice.
I went to the bathroom and sat inside a cubicle and Googled “brain tumor dark circles” on my phone. One million two hundred fifty results came up in 0.59 seconds. Shaking, I clicked on one, The 5 Warning Signs of Pediatric Cancers. There it was. The neuroblastoma symptoms to watch out for: bulging eyes, dark circles, droopy eyelids.
I sat in the cubicle listening to the dripping of a pipe. Outside in the gallery, I could hear the sound of speeches, of Lola on the mic. I Googled some more, clicking on link after link. There were other symptoms—glassy eyes, a worsening stutter, sensitivity to bright light. Jack didn’t have any of those things. I was just getting myself worked up, so I took a deep breath and headed back to the party.
Lola was still on the mic at the other end of the gallery, but I couldn’t see Anna. I looked around and then found her outside, sitting in the car with the light off.
“I’m sorry, I know I’m being rude. I just can’t be in there right now,” Anna said. “I just keep thinking about it, and I can’t smile and pretend that everything’s normal.”
“I know,” I said, putting my hand on Anna’s shoulder. “Why don’t we leave? I can make some excuse.”
“Would you mind? I just can’t go back in there.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll make something up.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come. It was a mistake.”
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll go and get Jack, all right?”
“Thanks.” Anna looked broken, as if she was shrinking into the seat. I went back inside and told Lola that Anna wasn’t feeling very well and went to look for Jack. He was sitting with India under the champagne table. They had taken their shoes and socks off and had laid some paper plates out on the ground.
“We’re having a picnic,” Jack said, pretending to drink out of his shoe.
“I can see that. It looks yummy.”
“Can we play more, Daddy?”
“We have to go, I’m afraid. Mommy’s not feeling very well.”
“Oh, Dad-dee.”
“But you’ll see India very soon.”
Jack reluctantly put his trainers back on and then kissed India goodbye.
“Bye-bye, Jack,” India said formally. “I enjoyed playing with you today.”
As we were leaving, Jack kept turning around to see India, to see if she was still waving goodbye. He fell asleep as soon as he got into the car. We drove home in silence, listening to the hum of the tires on the tarmac.
“Are you okay?” I said as we pulled into the drive.
“Yes, sorry. I know I’m being unpleasant, but I just can’t stop thinking about it.” Anna checked that Jack was still sleeping and lowered her voice. “Thinking what if, what if, and I know it’s stupid but I can’t...”
“I know,” I said, wanting to tell her what Karolina had said, but I knew it would only worry her more. “You can’t think like that, you just can’t,” I said, putting my hand on her leg.
We took Jack up to bed when we got home. He was sleepy, but we managed to stand him up, so we could get him in his pajamas and brush his teeth. When Anna had gone to get him some cream for a rash, I looked into his eyes to see if there was a droop, if his eyelids were bulging, the symptoms I had read about online. I looked from both sides, turning him toward the light, but I couldn’t see anything unusual.
We tucked him in together, putting his things—the cookie-tin lid, Darth Vader’s ripped cloak—on the end of the bed and then putting his favorites—Little Teddy and flashlight—next to his head, so he could find them in the night.
I sat on the end of the bed, looking at his photos and the pictures of skyscrapers on the wall. Sometimes, after I had kissed him good-night, I watched him through the crack in the door. He would lie on his back and then shine his flashlight on the pictures, whispering the names of all the buildings, the places he had been, the skyscrapers he was planning to climb. Tonight, though, he was quiet. Tonight, he just slept.
7
We did not speak in the taxi to Harley Street nor in the waiting room. Anna sat upright in her chair. She did not move, or read or check her phone. A woman, covered by a burka, was sitting opposite us. I knew she was ill. I could tell by the way she gently rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, the way her husband paced, his prayer beads wrapped round his knuckles.
The secretary called our name and led us through to Dr. Kennety, a small man sitting be
hind a large desk, like a child wearing his father’s clothes.
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Coates,” he said, clearing his throat as we sat down. “Thanks for coming. Did you come from far?”
“No, just Hampstead,” Anna said softly.
“Oh, lovely, I live quite close.” He looked at us and then down at his papers. “So let’s talk about Jack’s scans. Before we start, please bear in mind, I am just one doctor. Another doctor may well see the situation differently, and I always advise my patients, and the parents of my patients, to get a second opinion.” The doctor looked at us, raised his eyebrows, and I didn’t know if he expected a response. “So that’s my usual preamble. Now, from looking at the scans, it does seem clear that Jack has what we call a glioma, which is a type of brain tumor.”
I could hear a car alarm, hushed talking in the waiting room. Out of the window, a pigeon walked along a shit-splattered sill. The doctor paused, waiting to see if we would react, but we were still, silent. It was as if the doctor’s words were being spoken to someone else, as if we were watching a drama unfold on the stage. I stared at a Disney World paperweight on his desk that contained a photo of a child wearing a Finding Nemo T-shirt.
Dr. Kennety looked up from his papers, a stray hair protruding from one nostril. “Should I give you a minute?” he said.
I tried to speak, but my throat wouldn’t open, as if it was clogged with soot. I didn’t know what Anna was doing. I could only feel her stillness, the sound of her breathing, next to me.
“I’m sorry,” the doctor said. “I’m sure this is quite a shock. However, it does appear—and this is the good news—to be slow growing.”
I managed to sit up in my seat, to catch my breath again.
“Now, some of these tumors don’t grow. They are essentially benign and just sit there for years, and you’d never know about it. On the other hand, some of them start off benign and can then turn nasty. In Jack’s case, it does appear to be in the early stage, but we would want to take it out, to prevent it from growing into anything unpleasant.
“Here, look,” Dr. Kennety said, taking a scan of Jack’s head out of his folder. Anna and I both leaned in. “Can you see this lighter part here?” We bent over and nodded. I had expected the tumor to be more spherical, better defined, but it was just an amorphous shadow, as if a photograph had been overexposed.
“It looks like Jack has a tumor called an astrocytoma, and his more specific type is called a pleomorphic xanthoastrocytoma. Quite a mouthful I know, so we call these PXAs.”
The room started to spin and I wanted to rewind, to play the doctor’s words back, because nothing he was saying made any sense.
“Let’s talk about the next steps,” he said, writing something on his pad. “Now, I do want to focus on the positives—and there really are many positives here.”
Dr. Kennety pulled a plastic model of a brain out of a desk drawer. “So,” he said, putting it down in front of us. “Here are the two temporal lobes on the side. And here on the left side is where Jack’s tumor is. Now, the harder-to-reach tumors are much deeper in the brain, but that doesn’t appear to be the case here. That means it will be much easier for the surgeon.”
“So he will need to have an operation?” Anna asked, the first words she had spoken.
“Sorry, yes. I’m jumping ahead of myself here. Yes, surgery to remove the tumor.”
“And would that be it?” I said. “He wouldn’t need any more treatment?”
“Hopefully, that would be it, yes,” the doctor said. “In the cases where there is a complete resection—meaning where the surgeon manages to get out all of the tumor—we’re looking at a cure rate of 80 or 90 percent.”
Eighty or 90 percent. One in five, one in ten.
“And if the surgeon doesn’t?” Anna said, her voice clinical and clear.
“Well, that gets a bit trickier, but let’s not think about that now,” he said, clasping his hands together. “From the scans, it looks like it would be no problem getting it all out.”
“That’s good,” I said, and it was, but the words still felt like razor blades in my throat.
“I know the waiting is horrible,” Dr. Kennety said, “but we’ll know so much more after the operation.”
We both nodded because what else could we do?
“I’m going to book you an appointment with a neurosurgeon. Her name is Dr. Flanagan, and she’s really the best in the business. Of course, you’re welcome to do your research and find someone else, but this is who I would recommend. And I will of course need to see Jack to give him a thorough neurological exam.”
Dr. Kennety looked from side to side, demonstrably making eye contact with us. “Okay then,” he said softly, and I watched his hands, small and childlike, pecking at his keyboard like a hen.
* * *
We walked quickly down Harley Street toward Oxford Street. I crossed the road without looking, powering ahead of Anna. You didn’t normally notice life going on around you—it was just a hum, a murmur in the background. You could unsee it, push it from your mind. But suddenly, now, it was shrill, like a dog whistle in my ear. Schoolgirls in split skirts eating potato chips, swigging from Coke cans; delivery drivers shouting instructions, angry that something was late, that someone was in their way; a slick of Soho advertising types guffawing outside a wine bar.
We just kept walking, quick strides, as if we were racing, but we didn’t know where. My head was full of numbers, percentages, 80, 90—the chance of my son staying alive.
“Can you wait? Can you please wait?” Anna said.
I stopped. We were standing on Cavendish Square, in the gardens under a bronze statue, and it had started to rain.
“I just can’t believe it,” I said. “I don’t understand. Does he look like he’s got a...”
“No,” Anna said. “No, he doesn’t.” She shook her head, and her chin began to dimple and then quiver and then, in the afternoon drizzle, she began to cry.
“I wish it were me, I just wish it were me,” she said, and I put my arm around her and pulled her closer, and she rested her head on my shoulder and we stood like that, her tears wet on my shirt, listening to the sounds of the city, the sounds of other people’s worlds.
“We should get back,” Anna said suddenly, her face a ghostly white. The rain was beating down now, gasoline rainbows in the gutters, a dark blanket of cloud suffocating the city.
I needed to see Jack. To take him in my arms and feel his warm skin on mine. I didn’t want him to be alone. Once, when he was three or four, he said that he was sad because Peppa Pig didn’t want to be his friend. It broke my heart. I could not bear to imagine Jack’s loneliness, like the feeling, as a child, of wetting the bed in someone else’s home.
* * *
Jack ran toward us when we got home. I picked him up and swung him around. He looked so alive that evening, boisterous, oversugared by his grandmother.
Anna’s mother could see it in our faces. “So how was it, any news?” she said.
“We can talk about it later,” Anna said quickly. Janet narrowed and then widened her eyes, like a puppy wanting a treat, and I wanted to scream at her, can you just wait, can you just fucking wait.
“Well, Jack has been a very good boy,” Janet said, ruffling his hair. “We’ve been reading stories.”
I resented Janet being here, in our home, in London. A woman who had spent her life between rural Suffolk and Kenya, who always said that city life wasn’t for her. After Anna’s father had suddenly upped and left for his beloved Africa, Janet said there was nothing for her in Suffolk anymore. Her husband’s abrupt leaving, a month before Jack was born, was rarely discussed. He had a calling, Janet said, a desire for solitude, to be closer to God. A desire to be closer to the village girls, Anna said, although she could not say such a thing to her mother.
The church arranged the flat fo
r her. A little place above a Lebanese barbershop on Praed Street, just a few doors down from the drop-in center where she served goulash to the homeless in return for a book of prayer. She tried, but she could not hide her pain, her shame at being abandoned. You could see it in the slight hunch she had developed in her shoulders, the sag of skin on her face that had nothing to do with age.
“We did a story about Daniel,” Jack said, “and they throwed him in with the lions but they didn’t eat him because they would get in troubles.”
I didn’t like Janet teaching Jack Bible stories but now wasn’t the time. “Ooo, I know that one about the lions,” I said. “That’s a good one.”
Janet smiled at me approvingly.
“Right, beautiful,” I said. “Let’s get you to bed.”
We took longer that evening with Jack’s bedtime routine. We both read Shark in the Park, and then we tucked him in, doing snug as a bug in a rug, once, twice, three times. How could I reconcile all this, the way he lay down, clutching Little Teddy and his flashlight, tucking his knees up to his chest, with what we had just been told?
When I got downstairs, Anna and her mother were sitting in silence, rigid, their familial response to crisis.
“I am very sorry to hear the news,” Janet said, looking up at me.
“Thank you, Janet.”
She shook her head. “Poor little mite,” she said. Little mite, like a helpless Victorian child, Tiny Tim but worse.
“I will be praying. For you all, every day,” Janet said, looking down into her lap. Anna remained still. She had not moved a muscle since I entered the room.
“I don’t think Jack needs prayers right now,” I said. She was acting as if he was dying. “This is something that can be cured. That’s what they’ve said.”
Anna’s mother nodded sympathetically, but there was something robotic about her reaction, a rote response, as if she was counseling a wayward drunk at the drop-in center. She kept shaking her head. “Of course, of course, but what a terrible thing. And so young. Just a child.”
I couldn’t listen to her anymore and left the room, taking refuge in the office upstairs. There was something about her response, a smugness, almost as if she had always known this was going to happen. Poor little mite, as if Jack was forsaken, done-for already.