The Man I Thought You Were

by Leah Mercer

  Tears blur my vision and I nod my head against her shoulder, hoping – praying – she’s right.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Anna

  I’m tucked up in Sophie’s spare bedroom later that night, every muscle throbbing with fatigue. My head is buzzing and I know I should sleep, but each time I close my eyes, all I can see is Mark’s face on the day he left, so pale and tense. I wish I had held on to him now – I wish I had somehow stopped him going. But how could I have known he was leaving because he was ill? If only he’d told me . . .

  My mobile jangles, and I grab at it so fast it skitters off the bed and bounces across the floor. Cursing, I lunge for it and say hello into the receiver breathlessly.

  ‘Anna, it’s Margaret.’

  Oh. My heart sinks as I recognise the voice of our university department head. I’d hoped it was someone returning an earlier call, or something to do with Mark. ‘Hi, Margaret.’

  ‘Just wanted to ring and make sure everything is all right. I can’t remember the last time you were off sick.’ Her tone is warm and concerned, like the mother you always wanted to have. In a way, she is like a mother . . . at work, anyway. A staunch feminist, she’s determined to help other women succeed in the male-dominated world of the university. When I was an undergraduate, she took me and several other women on the course under her wing, doing everything she could to propel us forward. It’s thanks to her support that I made it to where I am now. Without her encouragement, I might have opted out of the academic life after my undergraduate degree – to do what, exactly, I didn’t know. I just knew I wanted to do something – to live.

  Back in my early twenties, I’d felt so alone. My parents had set up camp on an island off the Scottish coast – they didn’t have a phone signal half the time, and I wouldn’t have known what to say to them anyway. Our relationship had been reduced to birthday cards and a phone call at Christmas . . . if I could reach them. Sophie was busy enjoying the hectic life of an intern in a Soho ad agency, and although I still saw her regularly and I knew she’d be there in the blink of an eye if I needed her, she had a whole new world that was separate from me. Meanwhile, I was in my last year of an undergraduate degree, living in a tiny, cramped flat with three other girls after answering an advert for a ‘quiet person – no party animals allowed’.

  The three were in medical school and if they weren’t in hospitals or labs they were furiously studying. While I didn’t aspire to be a party animal – not by a long shot – it would have been nice to hang out in the kitchen with a mug of tea at night, or even have a few drinks together. Instead, I felt even more alone. Hadn’t Sophie promised uni would be the best years of my life? Where were the pub crawls, the boozy student union nights, the men? I didn’t envy Sophie’s hit-and-run relationships, but having someone to lean on would have been lovely . . . someone to trust.

  The ratio of women to men in my English classes was pathetic; the lone male was sure to be paired up within days of the academic year starting, if he wasn’t already taken. I did register with a few dating websites under Sophie’s duress, just to give them a try and to get out every once in a while. But the men I met seemed unsure of what to say and how to behave – from the one-kiss/two-kiss dance at the beginning of the date to the ‘Can I see you again?’ at the end. I wasn’t going to entrust my heart to someone who dithered over whether or not to split the bill.

  Life rolled on and, thanks to Margaret’s encouragement, a few years later I’d almost finished my doctorate. I had a studio flat of my own, a few articles published in reputable journals and a roster of students who seemed to enjoy my first attempts at lecturing. After a long and intensive campaign Asher finally convinced Sophie to marry him, and despite her attempts to pair me up with his best man, I remained single. I got a post-doc position and loved my job, I was happy enough and, although I was starting to give up hope on finding someone, I wasn’t about to compromise. Better to be alone than with a man who’d hurt me.

  Then I met Mark.

  It sounds so clichéd, but Mark was such a bright light in my life he put everything else in shadow. I still enjoyed work, of course, but the intensity I’d put into it – the hours in the office, the seminars I’d attended – diminished. I caught up with Margaret less and less, until our relationship became mainly a passing-in-the-hallway affair, unless she wanted to speak with me specifically. London’s attractions receded into the background, since we stayed in most of the time . . . usually snuggling up in the cosy confines of my tiny place because I had to be at work much earlier than Mark. Nothing else mattered, nothing but us and this wonderful connection we’d somehow managed to find. Nothing would change that.

  And until Mark left, nothing did.

  Margo’s gravestone floats into my head, accompanied by the endless list of questions about Mark’s past. I shove the thoughts away, reminding myself that I need to focus on finding my husband because whatever is in his past, he is just that – my husband. He is still the man I married, the man I pledged heart and soul to . . . until death do us part. My mouth goes dry as I realise I don’t know how much time he – we – have left.

  ‘I need to take a leave of absence,’ I say to Margaret.

  The words leave my mouth in a rush and silence falls on the line. I cross my fingers, hoping that Margaret will be all right with me taking time off. Despite her motherly persona, she rules our department with an iron fist. She’ll defend you to the end if you’re in her good books – which, thankfully, I’ve managed to be – but if you’re not . . .

  ‘I know it’s sudden,’ I continue. ‘But Mark, well . . .’ I take a deep breath, knowing I’ll never – not in a million years – be able to get these words out easily. ‘Mark has cancer, and he needs me.’ Whatever he thinks – whatever he’s doing – I know that much is true.

  ‘Oh, Anna.’ Margaret’s voice is so laden with sympathy that my eyes tear up. ‘I’m sorry. Please take the time that you need. I’ll get in touch with the HR department and let them know. Just keep me updated on everything, all right? Is there anything I can do to help?’

  I wish, I think, but I shake my head. ‘No, thanks.’ I squint and try to think about my work, which seems so far away from me now. I should care; I’ve worked so hard to get to where I am. But right now, it’s faded into total insignificance. ‘My lecture notes are all on the desktop, organised by date, and—’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ Margaret’s voice cuts me off. ‘I’ll do the lectures myself if I need to. You just focus on what you need to do, all right? And take good care of yourself,’ she adds. ‘Cancer can be a tough road . . . for the family, too.’

  ‘Okay,’ I say, although I couldn’t care less about my well-being. What’s good for me is what’s good for Mark: being together.

  ‘Give my best to Mark,’ Margaret says warmly, and I remember just how much the two of them liked each other when they first met. Margaret’s been trying to convince Mark to do a degree at uni ever since that day, saying his mind is wasted at the bank.

  ‘I will.’ I say goodbye and hang up, then I huddle under the duvet and close my eyes, desperately wishing that, when I open them, Mark will be by my side again.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mark

  A few days have passed since I was last out of bed . . . apart from crawling to the toilet to throw up, that is. The doctors didn’t know how I’d react to the chemo. ‘Let’s just see,’ they said, as if I was an exotic slab of meat that might emerge golden brown or black and crispy. I feel more soggy than crispy, I have to say. Every muscle is heavy, as if my body has been welded to the sweaty bedsheets. And despite the anti-nausea drugs they gave me, my stomach has been emptied so many times it’s actually concave.

  This is the first of three chemo cycles I’ll endure over the next ten weeks and – I wince as the incision for the catheter throbs – I pray that it works, that it gives me the extra months I may need to find this child. I won’t even know if it is working until they scan me when all these cy
cles are done, but I’ll take my chances. I’ll do whatever is needed to track down the baby.

  The room swings around me as I sit up, but I force myself to stand and teeter to the bathroom. I’ve wasted enough time now, and I need to get moving, to do something to continue my search – not that I’ve had much success. So far, I’ve spent hours on the Internet and phone, trying to figure out where to start, which direction to turn in to find this child. I’ve tried the Adoption Contact Register, but you have to be eighteen to register, and the child I’m looking for would only be thirteen. I’ve called councils and social workers, left endless messages on robotic answering machines . . . nothing.

  For the first time in my life I wish I watched more reality TV. You know those shows where people track down long-lost family members so quickly and easily? How the hell do they do it? Maybe if I’d tuned in for some mind-numbing telly instead of chatting with my wife – bodies entwined on the velour sofa that felt like we were lying on clouds – I’d know where to go from here. I’d make a great show, actually: dying man seeking long-lost baby, a final punt at life. Even I’d watch that.

  Gazing into the mirror, I do look like a dying man, although my ghostly pallor could be due to the terrible fluorescent light above me. Grey stubble covers my cheeks – I haven’t had the energy to shave. My face is pale and sweat beads on my brow. My T-shirt is wrinkled and stained and I’m not even wearing pyjama bottoms.

  But none of that is what makes me look different – or at least feel like I look different. It’s my eyes: they’re dull and flat, as if the sheen has already gone out of them . . . as if I’m already dead.

  I step into the shower for the first time in days and make the water as hot as it can go, hoping the warmth can reach right into the very heart of me where it feels so, so cold. I clumsily remove the soap from its soggy paper wrapper, cursing when it slips from my grasp. I lean down to grab it, dizziness swamping me again, and I fall to my knees. Water beats on to my back, and anger kicks in my gut, too. I can’t even have a bloody shower now without falling over? Shit.

  And this is nothing, I remind myself. This is one cycle of chemo, which the doctors don’t even know will work. This isn’t the litany of horrors that dying from this disease will entail . . . the pain, the swelling, the wasting away.

  This isn’t death. Not yet.

  I close my eyes and a yearning for my wife’s cool hands on my clammy head – for her tender voice as she guides my shaking limbs back to bed – grips me with such force that a cry escapes from me. I miss our creature comforts, yes – the wonderfully firm bed, the thick carpet underfoot, the pillows that wrap themselves around me – but it’s her I miss a trillion times more. I miss her so much that my heart feels like it’s on fire, consumed with longing and love.

  The claustrophobic confines of this room remind me of Anna’s studio flat, the place where we first made love. I had an actual bedroom that wasn’t bordered by a hotplate on one side and a minuscule loo on the other, but my place in Finsbury Park was too full of memories . . . and none of them were good. I was still sleeping on my sofa at that stage, unable to even touch the bed, and I didn’t want to take Anna there. I couldn’t bear to have our two worlds mix: the fresh and hopeful colliding with the dark, draining remnants of the old.

  Anna felt like a gift to me, a chance to begin again. I grabbed on to that with all my might, blotting out everything that came before her. And luckily, she didn’t mind my hazy past, seeming to be just as keen to build a life together. We fitted perfectly – we didn’t have many extraneous bits that would clash, anyway.

  That first night we made love, I unwrapped her slowly. We were both nervous – a little reticent, I guess, to be so exposed, so vulnerable. I took deep breaths as I peeled off her layers, trying to calm myself down. It’d been ages since I’d had sex . . . ages since I’d dated. My life outside that flat barely existed.

  This was my chance to live, finally, and I sensed that Anna felt the same. When we were both naked, I let my eyes slide over her body. Slender but curvy, she was almost luminescent in the glow of the streetlights outside. I couldn’t wait to bury myself in her, to become one.

  And now . . . now, we’ve been ripped apart.

  The empty pages lie by my bed and every day I turn towards them, composing lines in my head, trying to explain to Anna why I left. This letter is my one remaining connection to my wife, even if she won’t read it until after I’m gone. I’ve yet to write a word, though. I can’t bring myself to. It’s as if penning the letter will seal my fate – seal the fact that I won’t see her again – and I’m still desperately struggling to accept that. I love her so much that the thought of not touching her – of not kissing her neck or seeing her smile – is like another death in itself, and every bit of me strains to rush back to her.

  But then . . . but then I remember. I remember how disease sucks light from everything, even memories. When I’m forced to think of that terrible time – when the images crowd in and the only thing I can do is retreat into myself and try to bear it – all I can see is hollow eyes and freckles so dark they look like splotches of black paint against pale skin. Hair dropping out on the pillow, the dull rust colour a sharp contrast to its former vivid red. Wasted arms and legs, so different from the strong limbs that pumped beside me on our runs, matching my pace and even forcing me forwards. The voice that had chattered and laughed now barely a croak, the smile looking more skeletal than happy.

  And finally . . . I screw my eyes shut, even though I know it won’t help, because the longer I’m away from my life, the more memories tumble out, playing in awful Technicolor instead of a muted black-and-white.

  I don’t want Anna to be haunted like this. I don’t want her to play the role of the carer, her world shrinking down to nothing but the person dying and the disease that will claim them. I’ve lived the half-life of waking in the morning and wondering if the person you love is still alive – checking their chest for the slightest hint of movement. It’s a slow death for both of you, the carer and the patient, and I can’t – I won’t – expose my wife to that.

  I love her too much to damage her that way . . . the way I’ve been damaged.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Anna

  A couple of days later, I’m still caught in this terrible place: a place without my husband – a place where my husband is ill and I can’t help him. No one ever thinks their loved one will get cancer, of course, and I’m still not sure I’ve fully absorbed it. I know Sophie’s right and that many people survive . . . but I can’t quite wrap my head around the idea that Mark would pack in his life if he knew he’d be okay. I hope with every fibre of my being that he will be fine, though, and our life together will continue.

  And even though I tell myself it’s not important now, Margo’s face continues to invade my dreams . . . the one place I can’t control my thoughts. She marches through my subconscious, taunting me with a grin and holding up Mark’s hand from within her grave, as if she’s claimed a trophy. I jerk awake each night drenched in sweat, mouth dry and heart pounding. I know Margo is dead, but somehow her presence in our present feels very real.

  Thank God for Sophie’s constant reassurance and her unwavering faith that Mark and I will get through this – that we’ll find him. Because despite all our efforts, we aren’t any closer. A curt response came in from Mark’s mother saying she hasn’t heard from her son in years, but there’s still no answer from his father. Sophie and I spend hours together at her kitchen table, our voices intermingling in the silence as we make our way through hundreds of telephone numbers, dialling hospitals, cancer centres, private clinics on Harley Street and every hotel and B & B within a three-mile radius (and you won’t believe how many of those there are!). But we find . . . nothing. Nothing except receptionists who could really use some training in customer service.

  I’ve left my name and number with countless people across the city, just in case, but no one has called and no one has heard of my husband.
And while part of me knows this is an exercise in futility, I can’t help the jet of hope that spurts up at every ‘Hello?’ on the other end of the line, thinking that this could be the one – this could be the call that uncovers my husband, that puts an end to this nightmare, or at least brings us together. But it never is.

  My mouth stretches into a giant yawn and I throw off the duvet, pulling on the jeans and jumper Sophie lent me. I haven’t been back to our flat since the day I found out Mark has cancer. I can’t bear to be there alone, without him – to wrap myself in the sheets that once held us, knowing he’s sleeping somewhere else, ill and alone.

  I roll my neck and open the laptop to check my email, the first thing I do each morning. I log in and click on to my inbox, a process I can almost perform with my eyes closed. I brace myself for nothing but junk mail, but this time it’s different: Richard Lewis’s name shows up on the screen in black, bold letters.

  Mark’s father has responded.

  My heart starts pounding and, with shaking fingers, I click to open the message.

  Dear Anna,

  No, I haven’t heard from Mark. Should I have? If something is wrong, I’d like to know. I might be able to help. Please call or, even better, come and see me.

  I blink at the phone number and the address below this message, taking deep breaths as disappointment crashes through me. I knew it was unlikely that Mark would reach out to his parents, given how little they know of his life now. But with no other direction to search in . . . I run my eyes over the words, wondering if Richard could help somehow. Margo’s name pops into my head yet again, as if she’s just loitering there, waiting for a chink in my mental armour. I let her linger for once, tilting my head as I stare at the screen. I know Mark left because he has cancer, but could there be something in his past with Margo to explain why he kept his illness to himself – a past that his father may know better than me? I don’t know if it will help me find Mark, but right now, I have nothing to lose.