by Lucy Dawson
Caroline stops short suddenly. ‘You haven’t already been diagnosed with something and you just haven’t said anything to anyone, have you?’
‘No!’ I say, now completely bewildered. ‘Of course not!’
‘Well, then, they will come back negative, Sal, because they are all really rare. That’s entirely my point.’ Then she adds gently, ‘Are you quite, quite sure that you don’t remember a single thing between going to bed on Friday night and waking up on Saturday morning in Cornwall? Literally nothing?’
‘Yes, I’m sure, Caroline.’
My tone must be terse, because she adds quickly, ‘I’m not saying you know what happened, or you’re trying to be dishonest about it, Sally. I’m really not. I’m simply asking you if you remember anything. I am making no judgement whatsoever, so please don’t be alarmed. You’re quite safe and everything is OK.’
I look down at the floor, starting to feel sick. Why is she talking to me like that? As if I’m a patient? ‘Well, then, in answer to your question, no, I don’t remember anything at all,’ I repeat for the hundredth time, as calmly as I can, before reaching for Theo and getting to my feet shakily. ‘Could you hold him for a minute? I just need a moment.’ I take a couple of steps over to the table and hold him out to her.
‘Of course,’ she says, concerned, taking him. ‘Where are you going?’
‘Only to the downstairs loo,’ I say. ‘That’s all.’
‘You’re sure you’re OK?’
‘I’m fine,’ I lie. ‘I’ll literally be five minutes.’
Closing the door behind me, I sit down on the loo lid and, pulling out my phone, I type brain lesions and tumours.
Brain lesions (lesions on the brain) refers to any type of abnormal tissue in or on the brain
reads the first article, running alongside a deeply incongruous sidebar advert for ‘the perfect floral skirt’.
Major types of brain lesions are: traumatic, infectious, malignant, benign, vascular, genetic, immune, plaques, brain cell death or malfunction, and ionizing radiation.
Well, that all sounds really shit.
I swallow anxiously, and read on.
Q: What are the symptoms of a brain lesion?
A: Headaches, vomiting, vision changes, changes in mood, behaviour and concentration, memory loss or confusion.
Jesus Christ. So, pretty much exactly how I felt when I woke up in that taxi. I try to stay calm. What did Caroline say the other physical causes of memory loss were? I pull up the main NHS site.
Memory loss can be a sign of something serious and should be checked by a GP, but if you’re reading this because you’re worried you have dementia, rest assured you probably haven’t. A person with dementia won’t have an awareness of their memory loss.
Didn’t I already read this last night? I frown. I’m sure I did… I can’t remember. Matthew would think that was me trying to be funny, but I’m not laughing.
Common causes are head injuries or a stroke. Less common are an underactive thyroid gland, alcohol misuse, bleeding in the brain, transient global amnesia (problems with blood flow to the brain, which causes episodic memory loss) or brain tumours.
Tumours again. Theo begins to cry in the kitchen, but I stare at the words on the screen, finding myself unable to move. I can’t have a tumour. I just can’t. Theo’s crying becomes louder. I get to my feet automatically and unlock the door.
My baby is rubbing his eyes crossly when I reappear in the room, and as he sees me, he begins to whimper again and holds out his arms to be taken.
‘Tired already, I’m afraid,’ Caroline says. ‘I’ll put him down for you, if you like?’
‘It’s OK, I’ll do it.’ I reach out for him, desperate suddenly to hold his reassuringly solid and wriggly little body. ‘But I just need to make that appointment first.’ I feel awkwardly in my jeans pocket for my phone, balancing Theo on my hip, and start to search for the number of the surgery in my contacts list.
Caroline says nothing, just gets up and begins to pour water from the kettle into the two mugs.
I have to hit call-back several times, but I get through eventually and arrange an emergency same-day appointment for 2 o’clock. I’m just hanging up when Matthew walks into the kitchen holding an empty mug.
‘Oh, hi Mum.’ He feigns surprise at the sight of Caroline. ‘I didn’t know we were seeing you today.’
‘Sally’s just made the doctor’s appointment,’ Caroline says quietly, making no effort to play along with the pretence. ‘It’s at 2 p.m., right, Sal?’
I nod, and Matthew blushes guiltily. ‘OK, well – that’s good. I can drive you, if you like? I’ll get back to work now, then, if I’m going to take some time off this afternoon. See you both later.’ He vanishes, clearly embarrassed. Or at least he seems to be. I barely notice.
I’m remembering how it felt to be age twelve, not that much older than Chloe, scared and sitting in the hospital corridor with Mum, watching Will playing with one of his Star Wars figures, when a doctor emerged from a room to our right and said solemnly to Mum – who had gripped my hand – ‘Mrs Tanner, I’m afraid your husband has had a heart attack.’
I hold Theo tightly to me, that image now being plastered over with the words brain tumour, brain tumour, brain tumour, brain tumour… I try to blank my mind and push the thought away – only for it to begin to play on an increasingly loud loop instead, deep inside my head.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In the car on the way to the doctor, both Matthew and I are quiet as he drives. Thank God he isn’t able to read my mind. He’d crash immediately.
I cannot believe Caroline asked me if I’ve already been diagnosed with something. She obviously believes it could be an explanation for what happened on Friday.
So she thinks I went to kill myself to spare everyone the pain of losing me slowly to a serious illness or life-threatening condition?
Well, first off, if I’d been told I had something like that, I’d have definitely told Matthew. I’d also cling to any chance at all to stay with Chloe and Theo, for as long as I possibly could. What parent wouldn’t? I’d want to help prepare them for losing me, particularly Chloe, so that she felt safe about it, and understood what was happening. I’d want to explain that I was going to heaven, but that it was a very long way away and I wouldn’t be coming back. That no one really knows what heaven is like, and we only go there once we die, because sometimes – not often – people get ill and the doctors can’t make them better. I’d want her to have a chance to say goodbye.
My eyes fill with tears, and I have to turn to look out of the window so Matthew can’t see. Until this morning, it hadn’t occurred to me that there might be something physically wrong with me. I try to swallow down my distress and stay calm. I know Caroline says it’s all very rare, but rare isn’t impossible, and suppose— Jesus! Another horrific thought slips into my mind, unbidden – suppose I have already been diagnosed with something like a brain tumour, only I can’t remember it? No, that really is lunacy – and surely that’s not even possible? Who could forget something as hideous as that? And it’s not as if I’ve experienced any other memory loss – it’s just those ten missing hours on Friday night. I take a deep breath. I have to try to relax. The GP will know. I’d have gone to him or her in the first place with any worrying symptoms… And as Caroline pointed out, they’d have referred me onto a specialist. There would have been tests and scans, which in turn would have been documented. I can ask to see my medical records when we get there, and make sure for myself.
I close my eyes for a moment, and lean back on the seat, suddenly completely overwhelmed. Everything is jostling for space in my mind: memory disorders, tumours, Kelly, missing money, Matthew crying, Liv, bottles of paracetamol, suicide notes, taxis, Chloe looking up at me with those big blue eyes, saying, ‘You weren’t there when I woke up, Mummy’. It’s all a tangled, frighteningly confused knot, which feels like it’s getting bigger and bigger.
‘You realize this
is the first time we’ve been out on our own since before Theo was born?’ Matthew’s voice cuts through the confusion, then he adds carefully, ‘When everything has calmed down a bit, I’d really like to take you somewhere. At least we know Theo can go to sleep for other people now. We could go for dinner or something.’
‘That would be nice.’
He glances across at me. ‘How are you feeling about this?’
‘What, the doctor’s appointment?’ I look out of the window. ‘Um, pretty scared.’
He frowns, hesitates, then reaches out and takes my hand in his. ‘I’ll be there, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you. This is about you being supported, not caught out. She can’t just make an arbitrary decision about your future, Sal – you do know that, don’t you?’
He thinks I’m scared of being sectioned again. I can see Caroline’s right – Matthew very clearly has no idea of what’s actually to come. I don’t correct him, but think instead about the first time he took my hand like this – eight years ago now – and how desperate I was for him to touch me.
I’d attended several work meetings with Matt Le Bonk (slightly unoriginal moniker, given we were an ad firm), after all of which I told myself – and several trusted colleagues – that it was totally inappropriate to have personal relationships with clients… But oh my God, he looked good in a suit. In spite of everything, I smile briefly at the memory of me trying to concentrate on discussing tedious campaign details in various dull boardrooms, Matthew nodding with careful consideration and taking copious notes. Both of us, as it turned out, trying not to imagine ourselves in bed with the other.
‘What’s funny?’ Matthew asks, putting the indicator on and turning left onto the street where the surgery is.
‘Hmmm?’ I look across and almost tell him, but oddly, I feel shy and awkward. We’re so out of practice at this. ‘Oh, nothing.’
I turn back to the window again, picturing the client launch event on a preposterously glamorous hotel rooftop overlooking London, where everything changed. The evening was a huge success. We had a little too much to drink, which led to… walking through Hyde Park, him taking my hand, then us kissing. Dinner out. A cinema date. Dinner at mine. Dinner at his. Sex. Sex. Sex – several weekends spent almost completely in bed. Introducing him to my friends. Introducing him as my boyfriend. A first weekend away, learning to surf in Cornwall – me trying to prove I could be sporty and outdoorsy. A luxury weekend in Paris – me giving up on the pretence and admitting I preferred galleries and cocktails. Meeting families. Disastrous weekend in Scotland. First huge row. Beach holidays. Skiing holidays. Moving in together. Promotions. Buying the flat. Buying furniture. Proposal in Cornwall at the hotel where we had the first weekend away. Wedding venues. Wedding dress. Wedding food. Wedding, everything all about the bloody wedding. Sick of wedding. Never want to see another invitation or band playlist ever again. Hen weekend. Lovely, incredibly fast wedding; immediately want to repeat it. Honeymoon spent mostly asleep and dimly aware of probably never looking that good in a bikini again. Pregnancy test. Panic-buying whole of John Lewis baby department. Exhaustedly and bewilderingly watching Matthew hold Chloe for the first time. Lots of daytime property shows. Routinely arriving for the last ten minutes of numerous expensive baby classes. Holiday in Cornwall, returning after two days with ill baby. Mind-numbing toddler groups. Return to work. Crying a lot: miss Chloe horribly, tired, guilty, doing five days’ work in three. Start to go out a bit more in evenings. Attempt to get back into gym routine. First hot holiday. Fall pregnant. Look enormous very quickly. Realize will never wear bikini ever again, full stop. Sell flat. Buy house. Pack. Unpack. Get crib out of new loft. Smugly wash saved baby clothes, as convinced new baby is a girl. Shock as midwife holding my hand the right side of the screen tells me I have a boy. Watching Matthew finally introduce a shy Chloe to a tiny Theo lying in a plastic cot, while thinking I have never felt so lucky and happy.
OK, maybe a lifetime already spent together, but it’s not enough.
Matthew takes his hand away to change gear, and I place mine back in my lap. We haven’t even had a chance to get over Theo’s birth yet. I know who we were, and how we got here, but I don’t recognize what we’ve become. We need time to find ourselves again and learn how it all fits into life’s new shape… or what I thought was life’s new shape. I close my eyes briefly. I can’t be seriously ill. I just can’t. Theo and Chloe can’t afford for me to let them down. There’s no other option. This has to be OK.
‘Here we are.’ Matthew jolts me back as we pull into the surgery car park and, miraculously, straight into a space. I try to steady myself as he switches off the engine and turns to me. ‘I’d like to come in with you, if that’s all right? Unless there’s stuff you want to tell the doctor that you’d rather not say in front of me? You know, your night at university, that sort of thing?’
I hesitate. Should I tell him he has to wait outside and protect him from everything until I know for sure what diagnosis I’m dealing with? But he already looks so worried, it’s not fair to keep him completely in the dark, even if I’m trying to do it to be kind.
‘It’s OK to come in,’ I say. If the shoe were on the other foot, I’d want to be told immediately, even if there was a chance he might be seriously ill. This is something we ought to face together. ‘But can we just talk about what they might be going to tell us quickly?’
He looks at his watch. ‘I don’t want us to be late.’
‘Matthew, no doctor ever runs on time.’
‘Well, it’ll be sod’s law they do today if we’re sitting out here. Come on, you can talk to me once we’re in there.’ He climbs out and closes the door firmly.
We’re in the waiting room, listening to several old people with hacking coughs, and watching a three-year-old happily empty several holders of leaflets about giving up smoking and signs of strokes, when he turns to me and says, ‘So what did you want to say about this?’
I shake my head. ‘It’s OK. Don’t worry.’ I can hardly talk to him about it now, and in any case, I’m actually starting to feel very nervous indeed.
Matthew takes my hand again and squeezes it. ‘This is going to be OK, Sal,’ he whispers, then leans over and drops a kiss on my forehead. ‘Try and relax. You’re allowed to feel anxious, but everything is going to be all right, I promise you.’
Oh, Matthew – please God you’re right. I try to take my mind elsewhere. ‘I hope Mum’s going to be OK with getting Theo down for his afternoon nap.’
‘She’ll be fine. He actually slept better over the weekend, didn’t he?’
‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘Which I have to say I think is grossly unfair of him.’
Matthew snorts gently. ‘Yeah, it was. But I know how bloody hard you’ve worked all this time, Sal. I’m so annoyed with myself that I didn’t step in and try to break the cycle of him needing you to get back to sleep sooner, though. I should have done. I’m sorry.’
‘Well, you say that, but we were only a month away from properly sleep-training him. We would have got there if… events hadn’t overtaken us.’
‘You think?’ he says, after a pause.
‘Of course! Things weren’t that bad. In any case, he was up to his old tricks again last night. I had to get up with him at—’ But my words die on my lips as a buzzer goes, and over the head of the receptionist, a sign flashes up: Appt Sally Hilman. Dr A Sawyer, room E.
I inhale sharply. ‘That’s us.’
Matthew gives me a look of concern. ‘Sally, this is going to be fine. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.’
As we walk into the small room together, having knocked politely, a woman about the same age as me turns and gives us a friendly smile. ‘Hello. I’m Dr Sawyer.’
‘I’m Sally Hilman and this is my husband Matthew. I’d like him to stay, if that’s all right?’
‘Of course!’ She stands up and pulls over another chair. ‘Please, do sit down, both of you… So, Sally,’ she turns to
me. ‘I’ve actually received your discharge information from the Crisis team since your call this morning. You’ve had a rough couple of days?’ She looks at me sympathetically.
‘Not my best, no.’ I try to smile.
‘How are you feeling now?’
‘Er, pretty frightened, to be honest.’
Matthew takes my hand.
‘What’s particularly bothering you?’ Dr Sawyer asks calmly.
I try to clear my throat. ‘I don’t know how much the Crisis team have told you, but I went to bed on Friday night as normal and woke up in the back of a taxi on Saturday morning three hundred miles away on a clifftop. The hours in between seem to have just vanished. I’ve had a complete mental blackout. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. At first, for a number of reasons, everyone was concerned that I was attempting to commit suicide, but I’m convinced that’s not the case. I am obviously very concerned about why I can’t remember what happened to me, however. I was sick on the Saturday morning when I woke up in the taxi, and my vision was blurred. I also had a very bad headache. I’ve been excessively tired recently, and I also think it’s fair to say I’ve been quite irritable and short-tempered.’ I pause, take a deep breath, and squeeze Matthew’s hand tightly to brace him. ‘I’m aware all of that could be symptomatic of a physical condition like a brain tumour.’
Matthew, who up until now has been listening carefully while focusing on a spot on the floor, immediately jerks his head up and looks at me in shock. Oh God, I should have made him wait and discuss this in the car with me first. I can see exactly why Caroline was worried now.
‘In fact, there’s something else I just need to clarify, if I may?’ I ask quickly. ‘There isn’t anything in my medical records at the moment to indicate I’ve already been diagnosed with something, is there?’
Dr Sawyer blinks in surprise, then turns to her screen and scans it. ‘No, there’s nothing here at all. You can read for yourself, if you like. The last record I have for you is for a post-natal checkup back in January?’