by Rick Wood
What he saw stiffened him.
Was that Mum?
How the hell did she look like that?
She was just skin and rags. Pale. Lifeless.
She was nothing of the vibrant woman ready to kick cancer in the butt that she was when he’d left.
Maybe he should have come home for a summer instead of staying at his girlfriend’s.
The sound of the front door opening and closing wasn’t enough to stir her. A familiar person walked through, his tracksuit bottoms and plain t-shirt and his tattooed hands and baggy eyes the same as they were three years ago.
Luke pressed a hand against Mum’s forehead, his palm then the back of his hand.
Gray couldn’t decide: should he make his presence known? Should he hide?
Then what?
He couldn’t hide forever.
He banged on the window.
Luke looked up. His face curled, twisting and morphing and writhing and contorting into aggression.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” Luke demanded.
“Luke, please, just let me in.”
“Let you in?”
“Come on, I’ve come home to see Mum. To see you.”
Luke looked back, his face a conflict of reactions. He looked unsure whether to open the door or smash it down.
“Please, Luke,” Gray said. “I’m sorry.”
11
When arriving home, Amber had expected to find her mother, asleep again, her head lolling to one side.
She expected to find emptiness.
She expected to find silence.
This was far from what she found.
“I was trying to do something better for myself!”
“And you couldn’t wait until after she died!”
“It’s not what she would have wanted!”
“But it’s still what’s right you soddin’ bellend!”
The shouting voices halted at the sight of Amber entering the room. She looked upon red faces of Luke and Gray, head to head, Gray towering over Luke like he always had.
The two of them were the definition of contrast. Luke with his tattooed arms, tracksuit and t-shirt, greased up hair – standing opposite Gray, a sweatshirt over a shirt, hair parted to the side, his voice sounding just like someone who had returned from three years of university.
And, behind them, their mum.
Her head laid on her shoulder, but her eyes were open. Which was unusual, but even though they were open, they were empty. Yet, behind that emptiness, she could see what was hidden, and it looked like shame.
She looked between them, hands on her hips, biting her lip.
“You had to do this with her there, didn’t you?” she said to both of them. Barging past them, she reached her mum’s side and lifted her head, holding it up. Mum’s eyes lifted to Amber’s. They were tired, weak even.
“We didn’t mean to–” Gray went to object.
“Shut up!” Amber snapped, surprising herself at her hostility. “This is the only day this week I have come home to find her not asleep. I wonder what was keeping her awake, huh?”
“This lanky prick started it,” Luke blurted.
“Oh, lanky, what a smart insult, you degenerate little–”
“Enough!” Amber snapped once more. “I have to get her to the hospital.”
“I thought that was yesterday,” Luke said.
“It was. We have another one today.”
“Oh, Amber, I keep saying–”
“This is the last one. And it’s different.”
“How?”
“I’ve gone private.”
Luke stumbled over a few words before he finally managed to speak.
“How the hell did you afford that?”
Amber looked Luke up and down. For all the grief Luke had given Gray, he still lived on his friend’s sofa and never gave any of his drug dealing money to the cause.
Probably because he spent it all on more weed.
“I spent the last of my savings.”
“Oh, Amber, you shouldn’t–”
“Well we were hardly going to use your savings, were we?”
“That ain’t fair.”
“Fair?” Amber put a cushion behind her mum’s head and paced toward the other two. “What about this is fair? Huh? What?”
Luke sighed and reluctantly nodded.
“Sorry, sis’.”
Amber turned to Gray and looked him up and down. He looked so… healthy. So educated. It made her sick.
“And what’s your excuse?” Amber demanded.
“What do you mean?”
“Why are you here?”
“I’ve finished uni, I thought I’d come back to see you. To see mum. Even to see this knob.”
Amber didn’t know what to say. She didn’t blame him for going to find a better life, but she did blame him for his absence, however contradictory that may be.
“We need to set off now anyway,” Amber said. “It’s three bus stops.”
“It’s fine, I’ll take you,” Luke volunteered.
“Yeah?”
“I was going to go out with Mikey, but this is more important.”
“I’ll come,” Gray spoke, his voice a mixture of fear and assertiveness.
“You what?” Luke began to object.
“Enough,” Amber said. “If he wants to come, he can. Wherever he’s been, it’s his mum too.”
This gave them enough time to have tea. Amber managed to find a way to make two cans of beans and half a loaf of bread from the freezer into a few plates of beans on toast.
She could feel Gray’s disgust at the meal, but he kept quiet. She was ready to get really mad if he didn’t. She asked him about university, about his friends, his course, his plans for teacher training – the whole time, feeling the heat from Luke on the other side of her.
By the time Gray had turned to Luke and said, “So what have you been up to while I’ve been gone?” Luke was ready to snap.
Amber placed a hand on his wrist and squeezed it gently, and he stayed calm, and he spoke through gritted teeth.
“Not much. Just this and that, you know. Same old.”
And that was the extent of the conversation.
The car ride to the hospital was much the same. Awkward silence. The only real conversation was either between Luke and Amber, or Gray and Amber. Gray attempted a few questions at Luke, but he either grunted a short answer or turned up the radio.
As much as she had disliked the silence up to now, she was grateful for it as they sat in the waiting room.
Their mum, the one thing they all had in common, was going through all those tests as they just sat there and waited.
Waited for the final confirmation that there was no chance.
After almost two long hours – about an hour and twenty minutes longer than any other doctor had ever taken – a secretary came out and called their name.
A secretary, not the doctor.
“Elsie Michaels?”
“That’s us,” Amber answered.
“You will be in room three with Doctor William Chesser. Would you like any water or coffee or anything before you go in?”
Water and coffee before finding out your mum is going to die.
Now she knew she was in private.
“No, we’re fine,” Amber said.
“Right then,” the secretary responded, with a smile a little too big for her face. “If you’d like to follow me.”
And as Amber walked, followed by her two brothers, she finally understood what was meant when a priest talked about walking through the valley of death.
12
They sat in the three chairs before the desk like a bad panel on a talent show. Amber, as ever, in the middle, Luke to her left and Gray to her right.
Doctor William Chesser sat opposite them, clear skin and gleaming smile. Even his white jacket made him look good. His hair was slicked back, his demeanour deliberate and confident, and everything about the way he
spoke was somehow reassuring.
Looking around his office, Amber saw lots of framed certificates of his qualifications – but, unlike the last office she was in, there were no pictures of family placed between them.
“My name is Doctor William Chesser,” he said, “But please, you can call me Will. How are we all today?”
Amber looked to her brothers either side of her. She’d never been asked this by a doctor before. Normally it was straight to the terminal illness or ramblings about how she needed support – no one had ever actually directly looked at her and asked, how are you?
She knew Will was asking all of them, but she also knew her gormless brothers expected her to be the one who interacted.
“Okay,” she spoke uncertainly.
“Well, if you are doing okay,” Will said, his voice like he was speaking in an advert, “Then fair play to you. In fact, if you are doing okay, then that is amazing. But I have a sneaking suspicion that you are not.”
“Well, you know…”
“Yes, it isn’t easy. Terminal illness is horrific to experience first-hand, but it’s also horrific to experience in someone you love.”
“I guess…”
“Your mother must be an amazing woman to inspire such love. And, even if she doesn’t say it, she must be very proud of her children for fighting so hard for her.”
She felt herself unwillingly gushing. His charm made him all the more endearing and she felt, even if only for a moment, that someone actually, finally, understood her.
He took her lack of response as a response in itself and smiled, clicking the lid of his pen as he readjusted position.
“So, I suspect you want to know what we could do for your mother.”
“Yes please.”
“Have you been to any other doctors before us?”
“Yes. You are the fifth.”
He pursed his lips, narrowed his eyebrows, and sucked in a breath to indicate his understanding of what a horrible situation that must be.
“Fifth in how long?” he asked.
“About six weeks.”
“Jeeze. No wonder it’s been tough. You seem like you’re really doing all you can.”
She looked to her brothers, whose eyes were directed at their feet, as if they were feeling shameful that they weren’t the ones to be trying to so hard; at least that’s what she assumed.
She nodded at the doctor.
“Well, I’ll cut to the chase then. As I’m sure you’ve already been told four times, there is little to nothing that can be done for her medically.”
Amber let a breath go she wasn’t aware she was holding and dropped her head.
“Her body is shutting down, it’s spread throughout her – another aggressive round of chemotherapy would only exacerbate things.”
She gave an unwilling nod.
“But I’m sure you’ve already been told that.”
“Yes. Yes, I have.”
Life drained out of her.
Her last hope diminished. The flicker of optimism burnt out and faded into smoke.
“There is, however, one thing that we can try.”
She didn’t react, at first. She assumed he had just given her another sentence about her mum’s awful condition.
Then the words registered, and she promptly lifted her head.
“What?” she asked, feeling her brothers’ heads lift too.
Will clicked his pen a few more times, taking a moment of thought, then took a leaflet from his drawer. He opened the leaflet on the table and leant toward them. Without having any idea of the relevance to this leaflet, she leant forward to peer over it.
“Have you heard of a drug called Coloperol?”
“No.”
“Well, I imagine you wouldn’t. It’s not been taken to market yet. It’s still in the early stages, but it’s a very promising drug, one that the medical community is very excited about.”
“You think this drug could help?”
He stroked his chin and considered this for a moment.
“There is a medical trial in two weeks’ time. They are looking for subjects with a condition similar to your mother’s. She could be a good candidate to try this drug.”
She sat on the edge of her seat, her leg bouncing, hands flexing over her legs, practically giddy with excitement.
“We couldn’t promise anything, of course, but I think it could be the best hope she has.”
“Well, yes, of course!” she said, her words a mess, practically unable to contain her excitement. “Yes! Let’s do it!”
“There is a cost, of course,” Will said.
Ah.
A cost.
Of course.
Screw it.
Whatever it was, they’d find it, they’d scrimp and save and do whatever it took, they would find the money and they would pay it.
Yes.
This is it.
By God this is it.
She looked at her brothers beside her. Both sat forward, smiles burdening their faces, weakly creeping up on their previously feeble dispositions.
Her mum could be saved.
Their mum could be saved.
“We’ll do it,” Amber insisted. “Whatever the cost.”
Luke could find a few hundred from dealing. Gray could find a few hundred from a summer job. She could get a few hundred from doing a few extra shifts.
They could manage it, surely.
“How much is it?” Amber asked.
“It is thirteen thousand pounds.”
Amber’s leg stopped bouncing. Her hands stopped flexing, and her excitement ended like it had been executed.
“Thirteen thousand?” she repeated, her voice a whisper without an echo.
And, just like that, the temporary hope she felt was gone.
And the realisation that her mum was going to die due to money set on her like a potent stench she could never shake off.
13
A few searches on her phone and Amber could already see what people were saying about Coloperol.
This is a revolutionary drug!
Ridded my mother of cancer.
Once they get this drug right it’s going to change everything…
Could it really be that good?
These weren’t just medical professionals saying this – it was people who’d been through the previous drug trials or known people who had.
What would be the chances it would save her mum?
Hell, if the chance was even one percent, she’d take it. But it seemed like the chance would be far greater than that.
Revolutionary. Ridded of cancer. Change everything.
She closed her eyes and ran her hands through her hair. Shaking her head. Willing the money to just appear. Willing it to just magically snap into physical form.
Is there a God? Doesn’t he perform miracles?
If he did exist, the money would appear. Surely. No one would make a young, hopeful eighteen-year-old woman endure this.
She opened her eyes.
Nothing but leaflets about mortgages and savings.
“Miss Amber Michaels?”
“That’s me,” she said, picking up her bag and meeting the banker’s open hand with hers.
“My name is Clifton, it’s lovely to meet you. Right this way.”
He guided her to a computer cordoned off from the other computers and indicated the chair opposite himself to Amber. She took it, leaning forward, hands on her lap, trying not to be too hopeful.
Trying.
Really trying.
“I understand you are here to talk about a bank loan, is that correct?”
“Yes, yes it is.”
“May I ask what the loan is for?” asked Clifton, clicking the mouse, not averting his eyes from the monitor.
She wondered whether to tell the truth.
Then she wondered why she wouldn’t.
“Medical bills,” she said. “My mum’s. She sick, and we are trying to get her into a drug trial.”
“Thirteen thousand.”
“Okay, let me just take a few details.”
She told him where she lived, how much she earned and where she worked – a slight flicker on his face as she did. Just like everyone, she presumed that he thought she was a stripper, and she didn’t bother to correct him.
Strippers make big tips, and maybe that would help, as if the more money she potentially made the more likely she would be to acquire the loan.
“Okay, let’s see what the computer says then,” he said, clicking a final icon and awaiting the computer’s verdict.
Unable to see the screen, she watched him intently, hand curled in front of her mouth, waiting, just waiting, a seemingly meaningless decision to the bank that could decide whether someone lives or dies.
“Okay,” Clifton said, clicking the mouse a few more times.
She wished he would just tell her.
Then she wished he hadn’t.
“I’m afraid the bank is unable to give you a loan at this time,” he stated.
She ran through his statement numerous times in her mind to make sure she’d understood, to see if there was any way she could have misconstrued, that he hadn’t meant what she was sure he had.
“Can I ask why not?”
“Your income does not reflect what you can pay back. If you wanted to try for a lower loan, then we could try that.”
“How much?”
“I imagine, say, three thousand?”
She scoffed. Covered her head with her hand.
She didn’t want to take anything out on this man, but she hated how little he cared.
“Thanks for your time,” she grunted, getting up and leaving before she said anything she would probably not regret.
She stepped into the street. It was raining, and quite heavily. She hadn’t an umbrella, but it didn’t matter. She could get wet. The rain could drench every part of her for all she cared.
Then she saw it. That same Mercedes, driving down the street with its engine roaring and its speed excessive.
Soaking another load of unexpecting innocent members of the public at the bus stop.