by Sue Woolfe
But then she remembered it was a Sunday. Magdalena felt she couldn’t ring the emergency number on a Sunday only because of a headache. Why, people had headaches all the time. The pain got worse in early evening, but still she didn’t ring. Ringing on a Sunday evening was worse than ringing on a Sunday.
The weight of the pain was exhausting. When she woke, the flat was dark but someone had left the radio beside her, so she switched it on. There was music playing, and the combination of music and pain made her doze off again. She woke again to the fanfare of a news broadcast and still she waited for the time to be announced: ten thirty. Could she ring a doctor at ten thirty on Sunday evening, if she couldn’t ring him in the afternoon? Shouldn’t she sleep now, and if the headache continued in the morning, ring him then on a proper working day, on a Monday?
This madness would’ve continued but suddenly her phone rang. It was Greg.
‘I’m sorry if I woke you,’ he began and then they both said together:
‘Is everything all right? ‘
‘That’s what I was ringing about,’ he said. His voice seemed high and tight. ‘I had a feeling – probably silly – of dread. As if you were calling me …’
There was a long silence, so that Greg kept saying: ‘Are you there? Are you there?’ In that silence, Magdalena, who’d never imagined that Greg would commune in ordinary life, wanted to cry, except that somehow her headache wouldn’t allow it. So she told him about the pain.
‘It’s like a warm animal shifting around in my head.’
Telling him that seemed to cross some boundary. All she’d ever done was move with him, and never in all that time had she talked about her feelings.
He made a sound of surprise, for talk about having animals in the head made her seem like someone who could listen to the strangeness that he feared was inside him.
‘It’s one thing to be independent, but I’ll get Nadina to ring your doctor,’ he said. ‘I doubt he’ll be happy about this warm animal.’
Her doctor rang within minutes.
‘Come immediately,’ he said. ‘You must not wait. Why did you wait so long?’
Of course she took this to mean he was angry because she’d woken him, and she apologised for the late hour.
She got herself into the apartment lift by feeling her way along the walls, and pressing every number of every floor until she reached the ground floor, and stumbled out into the street, which seemed full of flashing lights. Her phone rang but she assumed it was Greg and promised herself she’d ring him as soon as this nightmare was over. She put up her hand every time she heard the noise of an approaching shape, and soon one appeared with a blur of light on its roof. She gave the address of the surgery, for that had been emblazoned on her memory since she’d first gone to the doctor.
The taxi pulled up at the row of buildings. A shape was hovering there. The shape came over.
‘Come in, come in,’ her doctor’s voice said, leaning in her window. ‘Where’s your carer?’
‘I can’t pay the driver,’ she said.
She showed him her wallet and he picked out the right note, paid the driver and helped her out.
‘I came alone,’ she said, expecting a reprimand.
There was none.
She tried to glance at him, but she could only see a shape.
He said nothing, but as he ushered her inside, he explained that the pain was caused by pressure inside her eye, and if the pressure was high for too long a time, the eye would go blind.
‘Has it been too long?’
‘We’ll see,’ was all he said.
He led her to his room, sat her down, put drops in her eye, waited, then tested it.
‘The pressure is very high,’ he said.
‘Can you save my sight?’
He said nothing, tipped her face back and put more drops in her eye, waited, put more drops, waited, put more drops.
‘We’ll try,’ he said. ‘But the structures of your eye are tight. You do a lot of exercise?’
‘I dance,’ she reminded him, reminded herself.
‘Of course, the dance. There’s not much …’ He hunted for an ordinary phrase. ‘Not much room in your eye. So you are at risk.’
He let her face drop. He paced around the room and fiddled with files. They waited. The minutes did not merely creep by, they seemed to stop. She tried to distract herself by thinking of Singapore and the performance, and then of Greg, but there was only a blank where her thoughts should be.
He tested her eye again. She could see little of his face, but because she was used to communing, she sensed that his anxiety matched hers.
‘Is the pressure coming down?’ she asked.
‘If it’s going to, it’ll take its time.’
He made her sit there for another half hour and wandered in and out of the room. There was a clock ticking somewhere, measuring her terror, perhaps their shared terror. The ticking faded when he left the room, and she realised that it must’ve been the sound of his watch.
Eventually he tested her again.
‘Is it coming down now?’
‘A little,’ he said. There was no relief in his voice. ‘But it may shoot up again.’
‘What will I do?’
He bundled up four bottles of drops, all with different coloured labels, and wrote down in huge letters how often she should take them through the rest of the night.
‘Can you read that?’
‘No, but say it again. I’ll remember it.’
He went over it several times, with her repeating it.
‘You must do exactly what I say. Go home and sleep now. You must relax. I won’t give you a sleeping pill because you might sleep on the wrong side. I operated on your right eye so you must sleep on your left.’
She didn’t think the nurse had told them this, but she so didn’t like to say so in case it sounded like an accusation.
She tried to think about him, rather than her fear. There was a blur of brown in front of her eyes. Perhaps he wore a brown suit at night. He was altogether too formal to wear pyjamas at any time.
She said: ‘Do you ever sleep? It’s as if you never stop working. I hope you sleep nearby.’
They were both standing, her glossy head level again with his breast pocket, now without its pen.
She managed again:
‘Why—do you care so much about a total stranger?’ She was waving her hands in the air, to take the place of words.
She watched his brown blur rise to its full height, an almost military drawing up.
‘I am,’ he said, ‘a retinal surgeon.’
Between them, there seemed nothing more to say.
‘Thank you,’ she said, holding her hand out in front of her.
He was surprised at how smooth a hand could be, like, he imagined, holding a downy bird with fragile bones.
‘Call me if the headache doesn’t go,’ he said. He led her out of the surgery and opened the street door. ‘Tell me immediately, this time. Any hour. I’ll get you a taxi.’
He propped the door open, leant her against the building as if she were a doll, crossed the footpath and hailed an approaching light.
‘Lucky,’ he said.
He opened the back door of the taxi, shut it when she was safely inside, and waited till she’d given the driver her address.
She gave the doctor her wallet again, and he leaned in towards the driver, and pre-paid him, including a tip.
‘Please escort her right to her front door,’ he said in his clipped voice. ‘She cannot see, and falling could blind her.’
The driver kindly helped her open her apartment door, and reached his hand inside to switch on the light.
‘It’s no problem, no problem,’ he kept saying. Magdalena was astounded that he should bother.
At twelve thirty a.m., the headache hadn’t abated. Should she have more of his drops? How much more? Should she ring him? He’d given her his mobile but how could she see it? Your sight is at stake, she thought a
nd the chill came over her.
Then the phone rang.
‘Cheryl? Doctor Liu. How is the headache?’
Again, the difficulty of words. She tried to describe the animal in her head, the way she’d described it to Greg. She blushed. She wished she could see things in the way other people seemed to. Her description didn’t make much sense to him. An animal inside the head? He wanted a number out of ten to rate the pain. She couldn’t tell him that, her mind didn’t seem to work anymore. He brought the discussion onto more reliable ground.
‘Not better?’
‘I don’t think so.’ She wanted to please him, but her sight was at stake.
‘Not worse?’
‘No.’
‘We may have stabilised it.’
They both made a sound that could be described as a sob of relief.
‘Take more drops. Have you got someone to give them to you?’
‘No.’
He sighed. This case was proving to be far more difficult than he’d imagined.
‘Then I’ll talk you through it.’ And step by step, while she obeyed, he instructed her how to angle her head, how to hold the little bottles, how to squeeze the tear ducts, how to keep her head back afterwards.
‘Okay?’
She couldn’t say yes, not this time, despite not wanting to be a nuisance.
‘What if I’ve given myself just half a drop?’
‘Did your eye feel full of liquid when you took them just now?’
‘I think so.’
She couldn’t trust any apparent certainty.
‘Then the pressure will start to go down soon.’
‘How will I know?’
‘The headache will ease.’
‘That’s the measure?’
‘That’s the measure. Lie down and sleep now.’
She lay down on the sofa as soon as he rang off, forgetting for the first time in her life to be grateful.
She woke at three a.m., the headache still so insistent the small animal inside her forehead was now shuddering. Should she take more drops? Had she been truthful when she’d said her eye felt full of liquid? Had she just wanted to please him?
The phone rang.
‘Cheryl—Doctor Liu. How’s the headache?’
She had to admit it.
‘The same.’
She worried that it sounded like a complaint.
‘Take more drops. The same way. Do you want me to tell you how to do it again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do it while I talk you through it.’
She obeyed. Slowly, one by one, the drops were administered.
‘Lie down now and go to sleep.’
Like a child, she obeyed again and slept.
At dawn, she woke alerted by a sudden stillness inside her head. It was as if the animal had left, padding back to the cave where it belonged.
She slept again, and woke in bright sunlight to the phone ringing.
‘Cheryl, has the headache gone?’
She was unable to keep the joyful sunlight out of her voice.
‘Completely!’
‘Ring me if it comes back.’
‘Anytime?’
‘Anytime. This is important.’
Despite himself, he shouted:
‘We’ve saved your sight!’
At nine in the morning, he rang again.
‘Cheryl—How’s the pain?’
‘It’s gone.’
She was beginning to like the sound of her own name, the soft way he said it.
‘Good. I want you to get a relative to sit with you. A cousin, a sister.’
‘I live alone.’
‘You must not fall. Find a neighbour, anyone.’
‘I’m a dancer, I don’t fall.’
‘At the moment, you might.’
She always said later that she meant to ring Nadina to tell her that she was alone, but Greg rang again.
Later, she considered why, in tango, the woman always seems to be about to fall but it’s an artifice; in reality, she’s completely balanced by her own strength. Magdalena had seemed about to fall ten thousand times. Her partner on the dance floor always seemed to catch her. It was just a pose.
When she heard Greg’s voice, she was unusually assertive.
‘Greg! Could you come and sit with me? I must not fall.’
He said without a pause:
‘I knew it. I’m leaving for the airport right now.’
‘Oh – I didn’t realise – you’re still in Singapore?’
He’d already rung off.
When she woke, it was dark again. There was a line of light under the bedroom door, a light on in the kitchen. She stumbled out. Nadina was making dinner and told her to go back to bed.
‘I’m filling in till Greg gets here. Why didn’t you tell me you were in trouble?’
‘I didn’t know I was,’ said Magdalena, holding on to the bench. Somehow she couldn’t summon up the energy to apologise. There had always been so many apologies inside her and they’d never required energy to slide out before.
‘Why are you all so kind?’ she managed to ask.
‘You just need to ask for help,’ said Nadina.
‘Help,’ said Magdalena.
Nadina led her back to bed so gently.
The next thing she was aware of was Greg’s face bending near hers, peering at her. He was sitting on her bed, making a dip in it. He seemed glossy with airports and importance.
‘You’re awake,’ he said. ‘I’ve been longing for you to wake up. I have something to tell you.’
She fought her way through a fog in her head, in the room.
‘I’m so hungry,’ she said. The dip in the bed was making her fall towards it.
‘Nadina left dinner for you.’ He passed a plate over from the bedside table. ‘Want me to feed you?’
She grabbed the food with her fingers, unable to do anything but behave like an animal, like the animal that had been in her head.
‘I’ve broken it off with Janette.’ Greg was talking as if she were of sound mind. ‘On the train I mentioned a complication. I’d made a promise to her mother.’
‘Don’t sit up,’ he interrupted himself because she was doing just that so that she could swallow. Her hand was sticky with gravy, but she didn’t know how to tell him.
‘I’m not going to keep that promise. I want to marry you.’
All she could do was wipe her hand surreptitiously on the sheet.
‘Could you make me a cup of tea?’ she asked after a pause.
‘Oh—’ and he was off, clattering in the kitchen. He imagined that she wanted time to think. She knew he’d think that.
But in those few minutes, she couldn’t think. Later, she remembered that her mind seemed to be looking at white sheets stretched out on a washing line, like the sheets Nadina had tucked her into. Stretched rectangles of whiteness. Like a long side step when your body makes the beat never end, time never end. She just existed between beats. Think, she commanded herself: Consider. But there seemed nothing to consider.
Greg returned with a rattling tray.
‘I remembered you like sugar,’ he said, pleased with himself.
She murmured a thanks. She never took sugar.
‘When you flew out of Singapore, it was as if the bottom dropped out of everything,’ he said. ‘The spirit. When we’re dancing together, you take me deeper than anyone ever has. I glimpse depths in myself, depths that I had when I was a child, that I’ve lost. You give me back my real self.’
He stirred his own tea. He always had two teaspoons of sugar, always stirred ringingly to emphasise his thoughts.
‘That’s why I was frightened about this. I thought, if I lose you, I’ll lose that, and I might never find it again. The only way out is to marry you. So I’ll never lose it at all. Do you see?’
The stretched sheets of whiteness.
‘That last dance showed me how deeply I felt for you,’ he said, himself stumbling now, beca
use she wasn’t helping at all.
She wanted to murmur that it was the dance, not the dancer, but it took too much effort.
A word came up out of the depths.
‘Caló,’ she reminded him.
‘I know. It was Caló who made me realise this. Because of Caló, I’ve come a long way. And you, of course.’
She realised he meant emotionally a long way, not the distance from Singapore to Sydney. She was quite proud to have made this deduction. Perhaps her mind was returning. They sipped their tea. She liked an ice block in hers to cool it down, but asking seemed impossibly difficult.
‘I’ve always had that feeling with you but I didn’t realise it till this happened,’ Greg’s voice was going on. She might’ve fallen asleep during a pause, but he didn’t seem to notice.
‘I got you into the troupe, you know, because I wanted that feeling when I dance with you. You can thank me for your inclusion.’
He took a gulp.
She thought a thank you was demanded, but couldn’t manage more than a nod.
‘This last performance, the last song, the feeling took over me, so strongly, it was …’ He was lost for words. ‘And then, you abandoned me to go to hospital—’
‘Abandoned?’ she repeated, knowing something was expected of her and pleased that at least she could repeat the sound.
‘I lost my mum like that, under the knife.’
Understanding shot through her like a torchlight, that this was the proposal she’d imagined she’d wanted, in what seemed an aeon ago.
They drank their tea in silence. Magdalena noticed there were little sluicings and burbles from behind his lips, so she could imagine the silver saliva bubbling between his teeth around the pink gums. She’d have liked him to open his mouth so she could see this interesting sight, but of course, even if she asked, she would be able to see very little at all.