by Hatch, Ben
A second camera is manoeuvred into place to take pictures from another angle. A different radiographer is in charge. This guy makes me feel like a glamour model.
‘Over to my side a bit. That’s it. Move your bum out. Little more towards me with the bum. Wonderful.’ Click, flash goes the X-ray. Then, ‘OK towards me, hold that reflecting board up a little more, hips a bit more level. That’s lovely, that’s better and hold it there.’ Click. Flash. ‘Oh, could you just hitch up that paper shirt a little more, can we see the tube please? Nice close up of it. Bum out. Further out. Lovely, great.’
When it’s over I dress and return to the ward feeling violated.
‘The good news is your colon was clear – a little bit of calcification but nothing to worry about.’ The registrar is doing his rounds with the consultant. As for my stone, he tells me, in 70 per cent of cases one the size of mine passes naturally. But because there’s some kidney dilation they want me in another night. They’ll take a further X-ray the following morning to see if it’s moved. If it hasn’t they’ll consider blasting it with a laser. When I explain I’m a journalist writing a book about our trip round England, the consultant says if I were from Leeds he’d advise I stay in at least seventy-two hours for it to pass. But, and he looks at the registrar, if I’m sensible and return to an A & E if I experience pain uncontrollable by normal paracetamol, I can resume the trip. He’ll give me my X-ray to show any consultant I subsequently see but if, after two weeks, the stone’s not passed, I’ll need to return.
Exultant, I call Dinah. ‘Where have you been?’
‘My phone was out of juice.’
‘I’m coming out.’
‘Really. What now? I’m in the bath.’
‘When they’ve given me a copy of my X-ray. You don’t sound very pleased.’ ‘I just got in the bath. How was last night?’ ‘Like something out of M.A.S.H.’
CHAPTER 22
It’s a week later. We’ve zigzagged south through the William Wilberforce attractions of Hull. We’ve seen the John Ruskin paintings in the Sheffield Winter Garden, and crossed the Snake Pass into Manchester, where we spend a day on a City Sightseeing bus, doing a Morrissey tour and visiting the MOSI (Museum of Science and Industry). Now I’m sitting in Gorhard’s office on a swivel chair to the right of Dad with Mary opposite, watching Gorhard, his hair combed into a neat side-parting, wringing his hands asking how Dad is. Dad, in a pink shirt and green trousers, is telling Gorhard how well he feels.
‘Good,’ says Gorhard. ‘The bag has stopped leaking. Good. And you’re mobile. Now,’ and he reaches for a piece of paper with Dad’s liver results on them. ‘Two hundred and eighty-nine,’ says Gorhard. That is good.’
I pat Dad’s arm.
‘It’s halved again,’ says Dad.
‘Yes,’ says Gorhard. He looks at the figures then back at Dad.
‘And how do you feel about chemo?’
Mary looks at me, alarmed.
‘Is that now an option?’ says Dad.
‘Yes, I think it is.’
Mary seems tiny in her chair. She looks like a naughty schoolgirl in the head’s office. Gorhard looks at her and there’s an uncomfortable few minutes where Dad says he’s been given a chink of light and should go for it and Mary, against the idea, says things like, ‘He’s still very weak. A couple of days ago he was as weak as a kitten’ or ‘It’s a quality of life thing. The side effects, you know.’
Gorhard goes through the chemo side effects. Vomiting, but that can be controlled with anti-emetics. Tiredness, although not all patients experience this. He’ll need three courses of chemo for Gorhard to tell whether he’s amongst the 30 per cent who respond. They’ll scan the tumour and after this he’ll know if Dad’s improving. He’ll have his first one in a week or so.
‘And I can stop any time?’ asks Dad, looking at Mary.
‘If it’s too much,’ Gorhard says, ‘of course.’
‘And your hair will fall out,’ he adds.
‘Better to lose my hair,’ says Dad, ‘than my life. Doctor, what would you do?’
‘You may not be responsive but on the other hand if you don’t have it you may look back and think “What if?”.’
‘And if I don’t have it, or I do not respond to it,’ says Dad. ‘How long have I got?’
Gorhard hunches his shoulders. He opens his hands.
‘Two, maybe three months.’
‘And if it all works well?’
‘An extra year,’ says Gorhard.
A few weeks before the stent operation Mary wanted for it to be over quickly. I felt the same. I didn’t want it drawn out like it had been with Mum. But now, an extra year on the table, I want to shout, ‘Do it, Dad.’
I pat his shoulder. Mary looks at the floor.
‘I’ll do it,’ says Dad.
On the way back to Dad and Mary’s I keep patting Dad’s shoulder when Mary isn’t looking and I want desperately to call Pen and Buster. Back at the house I do, hiding at the bottom of the garden. Both Pen and Buster can’t understand my subdued voice.
‘But that’s great news!’
‘I know. I can’t shout.’
Both guess.
‘Bugger that,’ says Pen. ‘I’m going to ring him up now and say well done. That man! That liver of his! Bloody hell!’
‘I’m a realist,’ says Mary, in the kitchen later when Dad’s asleep. ‘We’ll see,’ she says.
‘I know, but imagine what he might have said.’
‘We’ll see,’ she says.
The next morning when I say goodbye, ‘Enough money?’ asks Dad.
‘Plenty.’
‘I love you, my son. Now stay out of hospitals.’
‘You too,’ I say.
And I have no idea when I climb into the taxi to the station as he waves goodbye on the doorstep, legs akimbo, hands on his hips, like a captain on the bridge of his ship, that the next time I see my dad he’ll have three days to live.
CHAPTER 23
Draft Copy for Guidebook:
The city of Lincoln is famous for its fourteenth-century cathedral and its castle where ne’er-do-wells in the nineteenth century were hanged to death on weekends from its ramparts, huge family crowds gathering from miles around to drink ale, munch venison snacks and comment on the speed and efficacy of strangulation like they might do an Olly Murs X Factor solo today. The broader county of Lincolnshire has some lovely unspoilt towns, one of which isn’t Skegness (the Fens’ answer to Blackpool Pleasure Beach) and two of which include the birthplace of Margaret Thatcher, Grantham, and Stamford, the town we have to thank/curse/burn to the ground and slaughter the inhabitants of for the current proliferation of BBC costume dramas on telly. The corporation were set to quit screening them in the early 1990s but did one more for the road. Middlemarch, much of it filmed in Stamford, sold to virtually every English-speaking country in the world. That said, the town is so scrumptiously pretty, clean and well kept that you half want to wrap the streets in greaseproof paper, sprinkle them with sugar and see what they’d taste like topped with almond shavings. Attractions nearby include Burghley House, used during filming of The Da Vinci Code, and
the Grantham Museum, which focuses on its other famous onetime resident, Sir Isaac Newton, featuring several low-level child-friendly interactive exhibits that enable you and your wife the time and luxury of rewriting Newton’s Laws of Motion as applied to a toddler, these being as follows:
Newton’s First Law of (Toddler) Motion – If a toddler is standing still, to make it move you must apply a packet of chocolate buttons. Once the toddler is moving it will continue to move at the same speed and in a straight line unless another force acts upon it. This force is known as ‘seeing a sibling with more chocolate buttons’.
Newton’s Second Law of (Toddler) Motion - A moving toddler moves even faster when a packet of Mini Eggs acts upon it. The toddler accelerates in the direction of the Mini Eggs, the amount of acceleration depending on the exact number of eggs and t
heir perceived chocolatey-ness.
Newton’s Third Law of (Toddler) Motion - If a toddler is pushed or pulled it will push and pull to an equal extent in the opposite direction until somebody is in tears and all the Mini Eggs are scattered on the floor of the museum and the curator is staring at you and it is time to leave for Peterborough.
We ducked into Lincoln and cruised Rutland Water. We rode the Jellikins rollercoaster at Fantasy Island in Skegness. And we’re now outside the National Parrot Sanctuary in Friskney, near Boston, on the western edge of the Wash.
‘The parrot is apparently the first thing to go,’ Dinah’s saying into her mobile. ‘They’re a very good bellweather of the economy. Parrots cost four times as much as dogs. Their toys are four times as expensive, vet bills are the same. Last year they rehomed 335. This year it’s already 490.’
It’s something we’ve done a few times on the trip to make ends meet – sold stories to the nationals. Dinah’s speaking to The Daily Telegraph news desk.
‘Tell them about Derren Brown’s parrots,’ I remind her.
Dinah flaps her hand at me.
On a tour of the sanctuary, home to more than 1,400 rescued birds, owner Steve Nichols revealed how the recession had prompted an unprecedented number of parrot rescues. They weren’t just coming in with poorly feet, damaged air sacks and cancer, but through the financial trouble of their owners. The magician Derren Brown’s parrots were even here, although this was more because he was so busy and a trustee of the place.
I write on a page in my notebook: ‘Derren Brown’s parrots, Figaro and Mephisto. Rehomed. He obviously failed to control their minds.’
Dinah takes the notepad from me, reads it, smiles and hands it back.
Phoebe starts to say something. I put my finger to my lips.
‘Oh, OK then,’ she says, into her mobile. ‘Not to worry.’
Dinah hangs up.
‘Ner,’ she says. ‘They’ve got two age-of-austerity stories already for tomorrow.’
‘You didn’t tell him the Derren Brown joke.’
‘He wasn’t interested.’
‘If you’d made the joke, though…’
‘Trust me. If the parrots had done their own sleight of hand card tricks he wouldn’t have been interested.’
‘Maybe it’s more tabloidy.’
‘Let’s give it up,’ says Dinah.
‘We just need a pun.’
Phoebe asks when we’re going.
‘Help us, pops. What do parrots make you think of?’
We go through the possibilities.
‘Beaks.’
‘Pieces of eight.’
‘Who’s a pretty boy then?’
‘Pirates,’ says Charlie.
‘That’s a good one, Charlie. Shiver me timbers – parrot keeping is on the wane.’
Dinah laughs. ‘Shiver me timbers. That’s awful, Ben.’
‘Bright colours,’ says Phoebe.
‘Another good one.’
‘What about something about the credit crunch and millet. Crunching millet.’
‘Crunching millet! And you dared to criticise shiver me timbers!’
‘OH, I KNOW. I KNOW!’ shouts Phoebe. ‘MUFFIN! Muffin from 3rd & Bird. He’s a parrot. He is, Dad.’
‘Another good one, Phoebe.’
‘What about the dead parrot sketch?’
‘Parrot-keeping has ceased to be,’ says Dinah.
‘It is an ex-hobby. Parrot keeping is dead.’
‘That’s it.’
This time I call the Daily Mirror and after I mention Derren Brown’s parrots I’m able to sell the story as a 100-word news-inbrief for £40.
We’re staying in Peterborough, where I took my diploma in journalism more than twenty years ago on a floor above the Peterborough Evening Telegraph building. We’re staying in two rooms above a pub, just off the main square near the Guildhall, and with the kids asleep, Dinah and I are watching TV in bed by ourselves when Dinah says, ‘Ben, can I tell you something without you going mad? You know I told you when you were in hospital that I went to the Thackray Museum?’
She peers round to look at me.
‘Well, that was a lie. I went shopping in Leeds.’
‘Oh.’
‘And the reason I haven’t got any pictures of the Royal Armouries? It wasn’t because I couldn’t work out the automatic flash. I didn’t go there either. And I also took the kids for a meal in the Corn Exchange I didn’t tell you about.’ She bites her lip. ‘And to a movie. I didn’t even take the blue folder out with me.’
She holds the duvet up over her face.
‘Both folders were together?!’
‘Yes.’
‘I see.’
I turn back to look at the telly. She lowers the duvet and continues. ‘You kept ringing me up. The reason I didn’t answer was in case you made me go and visit somewhere.’
‘And now you feel bad because I had a kidney stone that according to several websites is the only male pain equivalent to that of childbirth?’
She nods.
‘Are you angry with me?’
She pulls a frightened face.
‘We haven’t had one day off since we left, Ben. Even in Center Parcs we went to that doll place. I just wanted one day off. Will you forgive me?’
‘No.’
‘If I let you listen to Billy Joel’s greatest hits in the car tomorrow?’
Then something occurs to me.
‘Hang on, is that why you switched your phone off that night?’
‘I didn’t switch it off.’
‘OK, purposely didn’t recharge it?’
She laughs. ‘I knew if I visited you, you’d ask me what I’d done and I wouldn’t be able to lie. Sorry.’
‘So what did you do that night?’
‘I had a takeaway Pizza Hut pizza and watched What Katie Did Next on ITV2.’
She holds her head, shakes it with shame and I laugh.
‘So did you pay for the meal in the Corn Exchange or play the Frommer’s card and get it complimentary after promising to consider them for a 200-word review?’
‘We paid. Sorry.’
‘One day without me, and you turn into a muggle.’
She laughs and I order her as a punishment to get up and fetch me the rest of the Kettle Chips from the cool box and I’m channel surfing, eating these later, slapping her hand whenever she tries to grab one, when we stumble on it. It’s a news report about a cocaine factory in the Colombian jungle. There’s a photo on the screen of the reporter whose words we’re hearing. I don’t recognise his face, partly as it’s been twenty years and partly because he’s shaved all his hair off. I recognise his voice, though.
‘Bloody hell.’
I lean closer to the telly.
‘It is. That’s Karl.’
I read the caption at the bottom of the photo and I’m right. It’s Karl Penhaul reporting for CNN.
‘Who?’ says Dinah.
‘Karl Penhaul. I studied journalism with him. We were on the EMAP training course together. We shared a house for six months.’ I turn it up. ‘That’s so bizarre. We lived down the road from here.’
Karl’s talking via a satellite phone. He’s in the jungle, embedded with a gun-toting gang of drug dealers who are in the middle of boiling up several kilos of cocaine. It’s part of a series of special reports he’s filming on cartel drug wars.
‘And he works for CNN now?’
‘He must do. How weird is that? We were actually based up the road from here in the EMAP training centre.’ I point up the road towards the ET building. ‘I can’t believe it.’
The report ends with Karl whispering that the gang has been snorting coke for quite a while and that he thinks now it’s time to make his excuses and leave. When the report ends, I’m still slightly shocked.
‘Don’t you think it’s funny that we’re in Peterborough now?’
‘Yeah.’
‘And I used to get better marks than him in every e
xam,’ I tell Dinah.
‘Did you, love?’
‘In law, public administration and shorthand. We had to make up our own dummy Peterborough Evening Telegraphs. They were really big on news gathering. We had to go out one afternoon a week and come back with news stories. I always scooped him. I came back with some belters.’
‘Well, he scooped you today,’ says Dinah, laughing. ‘He’s undercover filming a cocaine factory…’
And now I realise what she means. ‘And I sold a story about Derren Brown’s parrots.’
Dinah looks across at me, spluttering with laughter.
‘Ahhhh,’ she says. ‘Do you wish you were embedded with drug dealers in Colombia, my love, instead of eating Kettle Chips in your pyjamas in bed with your wife at nine-thirty?’
I used to give Karl a lift into college each morning. I picture us now in my Renault 9, parking down River Lane, arriving at the training centre. I remember the way Karl used to talk. The way he always gesticulated Kenny Everett-style with his thumb and forefinger, pointing them, when he spoke, like they were guns. I picture his wispy hair that he’s now shaved off.
We start to watch something else.
‘He’s my Sarah Smith, isn’t he?’ I tell her later in the bathroom.
‘You’re not still on about him, are you?’
‘I just think that was so weird.’
And in bed I say to Dinah: ‘Did I ever tell you the story about me and Karl? How I fell out with him? It’s quite funny. I was staying at his parents’ house. I think it was in Hunstanton. Somewhere like that. It was the summer after the course finished and it was Julie’s birthday the next day.’
‘The Julie you went out with before me?’
‘Yeah. The one from the course. I was really stupid. You know what I was like then and he was quite a strange guy, Karl, weirdly self-righteous even then. But always quite admirable, too. He always used to stick up for the gypsies, I remember. The Evening Telegraph often wrote stories about them. He had arguments with the lecturers about the tone of the coverage. He even became friends with the boss of the gypsies. I shouldn’t have done it.’