That Elusive Cure

by Lisa C Hinsley

  “Hey what’s up?” Jimmy answered on the second ring.

  “Sal’s in a bad way. I think I’m going to have to stay the night.” I peeked in the kitchen. Peter had taken out chips and fish fingers and put them on a baking tray. The oven was heating up.

  “You sure you’re up to that? You’re not even a week out of chemo.” He’d stopped typing and was listening properly, a sure sign of concern.

  “Sal’s in there alternating between comatose and crying while she talks about dying.” The kids were in the living room watching cartoons. They were as lively as their mother. My heart ached for them.

  “Maybe she needs to be somewhere else, where there are professionals who know what they’re doing.”

  I sighed. “I can’t do that to her. What about the kids? A half-working Sally is better than a foster home. I guarantee it. I can’t cope with them full-time right now - maybe in a few weeks when I’ve recovered from the last cycle. I’m getting a break, the docs said they’d give me three months to recuperate, I could look after them then… if Sal can just hold on a little longer.”

  “We can’t have the kids. Are you an idiot? How are you supposed to get better if instead of resting you’re looking after a couple of kids?”

  Still thinking I had a chance of getting better. Poor Jimmy. He was as deluded as Sal. I was going to slowly get worse until they gave me morphine and called time on my treatment.

  “Look, I’m staying the night, and that’s that. You know where I am.” I hung up, staring at the phone for a minute, willing Jimmy to ring back, tell me he loved me and supported me, but the phone remained silent.

  I stood in the hallway, torn for a moment as to who to go to first. The familiar dull ache had started up in my liver. So much for my magic machine. I decided to go to the kids, tell them their Auntie Kathy was staying the night, but the tears took me by surprise before I had the chance. For a long time I stood in the hall sobbing. Crying for Sally, for her kids, for the life that was being stolen from me, for the life Sal didn’t want, but mostly for the machine that was never going to save me.

  Sal stayed in bed all evening, leaving me to concentrate on the kids. Thank God I had this mystery boon of energy – whether placebo or actual – it was welcome and frankly necessary. I got the kids off to school the next morning and after waiting to what I judged to be the reasonable hour of ten o’clock, I ventured into Sal’s bedroom bearing a tray of toast and orange juice.

  “Come on, you. Time to shake the funk off.” I opened the curtains and sat in the arm chair. I felt like I was on a repeat of the day before.

  It was a few minutes before Sal even moved. I’d almost nodded off as well, her rhythmic deep breaths sending me towards a nap.

  “It’s not a funk.” No hello, no good morning, no how are my kids today. But I hadn’t expected any of that. I’d prodded her on purpose. Years of dealing with her had given me tools to help. Sal’s sister used to come around more and when Sal got like this Wendy would use the kids and throw a guilt trip on Sal about her lack of mothering skills. All that did was send Sal even further down the rabbit hole. The best way, at least for now, was to make her defensive. Not angry, just defensive. It was a knife’s edge. Get her too angry, and I’d be cleaning up a destroyed house after she went on a rampage.

  “Yes Sal. You’re in a funk.”

  “It’s not a fucking funk. Stop being a bitch.”

  I shrugged. “Suit yourself.” I went to the kitchen and boiled the kettle, getting the meds she needed ready as the tea brewed. “Here.” I was back in her bedroom. I put the mug of tea on the side along with her tablets. “As it’s not a funk you need your meds.”

  Sally gave me a dirty look, but I’d made my point and she took the pills without argument.

  “You getting up today?”

  Her bed was a mess, the sheet half off so she was lying on the mattress. The whole room stank of stale, sweaty human. The open window simply wasn’t helping enough.

  “We could go for a walk down by the beach.” I got up and stared down her garden. The grass needed mowing and the patio was almost hidden by the weeds growing in the cracks.

  She wasn’t biting. Sally had thrown the bed covers over her head and was lying perfectly still. Playing dead. The phrase popped into my mind and stuck. Seemed horribly appropriate given what was probably going through her mind.

  “We could have a joint funeral.”

  Finally. Words. I’d all but given up.

  “I’m not planning on going anytime soon. So I guess you won’t be either. Best get out of bed and try to live a little before the end.” I was impatient. In the back of my mind, the pod teased me, distracted me. I needed to be there for Sal, completely, not with my mind still in a filthy old church in Birkenhead.

  “It’s easy for you to say. I have this darkness on me. It’s like an oily blanket and I can’t get out from underneath.”

  “You should try a wash then.” I regretted the words the minute they left my mouth.

  I heard a sound and realized she had started weeping. “Don’t you think I would if it was that easy? Everything is so hard. Moving is hard. Eating is hard. Feeling is hard. I keep thinking it would be easier if I just snuffed out, but with you being ill I don’t know what would happen to the kids, and it’s the only thing keeping me here right now.”

  I couldn’t cope today. All the words I wanted to say were geared to hurt, to dig, to force her into action, any action. Sal had gone emotionless again. She’d sat up in bed, tears drying on her cheeks. Morning had gone, the afternoon bringing the sun. I watched as the light crept across the carpet. Jimmy had rung, telling me he loved me, just like I’d wanted but inside I felt as numb as Sally did. I felt like I was here for duty, not love like I normally was. The ache in my liver wasn’t so bad, less than it had been a week ago. I told Jimmy who said thank God the chemo was working. The business with the pod had built up inside me. I wanted to confess, to tell Jimmy what I’d done, where I’d gone. I didn’t care if he called me insane. But I didn’t, I kept it quiet and told Jimmy I thought I might come home today.

  School leaving time, and I still hadn’t got Sal to move. I picked up the kids, their disappointment in seeing me painful to bear. My patience at an end, for a moment I thought maybe I should call in the professionals, but my feet were too fast, and suddenly there I was, standing at the end of her bed, hands on hips.

  “Enough wallowing!” I shouted at her.

  Sally all but fell out of bed in surprise.

  “You’ve got two kids out there who hated that I picked them up from school. They love you and need you. I’ve got an ache in my belly that needs my pain pills and I’m too afraid to leave you and go get them. You’re being selfish holed up in bed and refusing to move. Either get moving or I’m calling for back up.”

  “Bitch,” she spat the words at me. “You’re no better than Wendy.”

  That hurt, but I wasn’t backing down. I’d pandered to her and that hadn’t worked. “I can bugger off if you like. Let your little boy play carer. Is that what you want?”

  “Why are you being such a bitch to me?”

  “Because look at us. The sick looking after the sick. Jimmy wants me home so I can rest. He still thinks I’m going to get better, and that weighs on me, it bloody crushes me. I’m never getting better. I’m on the slow road to death. I don’t get an option. I had plans to live to one hundred years old. I was going to celebrate my centennial with a book about all the big changes in the world during my life. Instead I’ll be lucky if I see forty-five. And then there’s you, with a perfectly good body wishing yourself dead. Do you know how jealous I am of you?” There, it had come out. The words I’d never intended to share.

  The kids had heard the shouting and were standing in the hall outside the bedroom door. Christ, they did not need to hear this.

  “I’d swap bodies with you if I could. In a heartbeat.”

  Her words triggered a wave of shame. My anger disappeared in an insta
nt. “Oh Sally, I’m so sorry.” I sat on the edge of the bed. “I shouldn’t have said those things.”

  “I don’t want to go to the headcase hotel.” Sal didn’t tear up, she didn’t frown, or stare wide-eyed and knowingly at me. Her face didn’t give away any emotion. She simply lay there staring at me, her expression bland.

  “I won’t let them section you again.” I touched her arm, unsure if she was ready for human contact.

  Sally nodded at me, the first proper emotions breaking through, her eyes glassy as she put her hand over mine. We stayed like that for a long time. I knew she’d get through this episode when she finally got up out of that bed and went to the shower.

  As I changed her bed clothes, self-loathing came over me. Instead of thinking about Sally and her kids, and the breakthrough I’d made in simply getting her to wash, my mind was fixed on that damn machine and how I’d get another session in two days. Sally was right. I was a bitch.

  9

  Second Session

  After judging Sally safe enough to allow me to make a run home, I gathered my medicines and a change of clothing and stayed one more night. The next morning I left Sal as she stood in the kitchen trying to work out what to make for lunch, with the kids in front of the telly watching the Saturday cartoons. Exhaustion was catching up with me. This was proper chemo exhaustion. The type that turned me into the walking dead.

  I got back home and dropped my overnight bag, shoes and coat as I walked up stairs. The scattered trail would tell Jimmy where I was because I hadn’t the energy left to even speak. I was lucky to have managed the drive home at all.

  The rest of the day passed in a haze. Fall into bed. Get up, use the loo. Drink the tea Jimmy left for me. Turn the telly on and close my eyes because watching the television hurt them. Doze, fade in and out of scattered conversations as Jimmy checked up on me. Ignore the anger in his voice when he mentioned Sal. Change into pajamas as the night draws in. Sniff at the soup Jimmy brings and sit up long enough to drink it before falling unconscious again. Feel the kiss placed lightly on my lips as he climbs under the covers. Then night came again and a darker, denser sleep took me, a chemo sleep.

  I woke on Sunday feeling better, but still tired. It wasn’t until almost noon that I remembered the machine and that I was due my second session. Butterflies alighted in my stomach. Jimmy was in his study, probably on his computer scanning the headlines. Somehow I needed to get away from him and to the church. Janie had said a day late didn’t matter, but a need grew in me, almost as if my body believed in the cure more than my mind. To get away from Jimmy on a Sunday would take planning.

  “I’m having a quick shower then I’m off to my mum’s for a cup of tea.” The lie slid out far too easily.

  “You sure you’re up for that?” he called out from his study. “Maybe you should cancel. Why can’t you see her tomorrow?”

  “I promised her. Dad’s away on one of his old-boys’ weekends. She’s all by herself.”

  Not wanting to hear any more reasons as to why I shouldn’t go, I locked myself in the bathroom and had a quick shower. Jimmy was still in his study as I came out. Minutes later I was dressed and tiptoeing down the stairs. I grabbed my key to the church and handbag as I called up to him, “See you in a couple of hours, I won’t be long.” I didn’t wait for his reply and ran out the door.

  Twenty minutes later I pulled up into the tiny car park beside the church. The key was in my hand already, my palm damp with anticipation. The day was warm, and the streets busy with people. I tried not to look conspicuous as I got out of the car and slipped the key into the lock. The key wouldn’t turn. I took it out and pushed it back in, rattling the doorknob and turning the key harder. Still nothing. Then I remembered Janie’s advice about jiggling the key. A moment later I was inside the church.

  I’d half expected the machine to be gone, that I’d find it had never existed. But there it was, in the middle of the room, at odds with the dirt and dust coating everything else in there. The machine stood out, shiny and new-looking.

  Wasting no time, I sat on one of the few righted pews and took off my shoes, leaving my handbag on the seat. The pod called to me and I could believe it was going to cure me. Even if it didn’t, would it hurt me so much to believe just for a little while? To have a few days where I felt like I might make it through this, that the rest of my days on this earth wouldn’t be filled with treatments and drugs?

  The foam grew around me and I lay down, my hand already placed on the pad in the lid. My heartbeat quickened as the lid eased down. I wasn’t scared this time, I was excited. A possible future was growing before me, and I couldn’t feel better about it.

  “Patient recognized. Heartbeat and blood pressure raised. Antihypertensive being administered.”

  Fine, not a problem. Excitement built in me. Two more sessions after this I’d be whole again. No more cancer beasties eating me from the inside out. The machine did its thing and I felt my heartbeat calm.

  “Scan initiating.”

  Initiate away, I thought. It was probably for the best that I was alone and enclosed in the pod as I was sure the smile of a lunatic was pasted across my face. Maybe I was more tuned in, but this time I felt a slight sensation beneath me. It reminded me of a much more advanced version of an MRI scanner.

  “Diagnosing.”

  The smile on my face dulled as I waited for the results. Would it be the same as three days ago? Could more tumors have grown in that time? My liver had begun to ache again, and that just couldn’t be a good thing. What if the machine said I had some completely different illness? Could be the first time was a fluke or really was set up by Janie. I tried to dismiss the doubts, but two years of the cancer journey had taught me never to expect the best case scenario. It was simply too painful when the news didn’t live up to the hope. And the news never lived up to the hope.

  The female voice began speaking again, “Thirteen tumors found in the liver ranging from 1mm to 30mm. Two tumors found in the left lung, one in the right ranging from 9mm to 14mm.”

  That was a huge change from the last scan. Amazing! I wanted to escape the pod and dance about the church. Scream and shout and holler, kick up the dust and celebrate how good life can be when it wants to.

  “Heartbeat and blood pressure raised. Antihypertensive being administered.”

  The antidote or whatever it was really got me this time. The need to run about eased and suddenly I was close to sleep.

  “Session two of the four recommended.”

  I breathed deeply. Calmer by the second. I allowed myself to restore a little more faith in the machine.

  “Shall I begin the session?” the voice asked me.

  I was ready for the question this time. “Yes,” I said and relaxed into the foam, waiting for the machine to work.

  Vibrations started at my feet like before, working their way along my body until the pod was still once more.

  “Session complete. Next session in three days’ time.”

  The lid opened and I lay there a while, not moving from the pod, comfortable and close to sleep.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” A man’s voice came from somewhere behind me.

  I leapt from the machine. I’d forgotten to lock the door! Oh my God, a rapist or a murderer could be in here with me. How could I be so stupid as to forget to lock the frigging door behind me? I spun around and tripped backwards into a pile of pews. The back of my skull bashed against one of the benches and silver stars rained down, blurring my vision. The man was coming over, and my body wouldn’t move, wouldn’t obey my desperate orders to flee.

  “No, please. Don’t hurt me.”

  The man came into focus as he loomed over me, and I knew him.

  “Jimmy?” I said, and then fainted.

  I came to in the pod. Jimmy must have picked me up and put me there. He was sitting on a pew he’d dragged nearer to the machine.

  “Kath?” Jimmy jumped up and came over. “You’ve been out
for a couple of minutes. Any longer and I was going to call for an ambulance.” He stroked my head gently. “See if you can sit up.”

  I did as he said, the back of my skull tender to the touch, but not too painful. “I’m okay, really,” I said as he stared intently into each of my eyes.

  “How many fingers do you see?” He held two fingers up.

  “I’m fine, Jimmy.”

  He backed off, giving me a little space while I stood up. Thinking better of it, I sat down again.

  “So what the hell is this?”

  Here it comes, all the questions. I shrugged and rubbed the back of my head. Truth was, my thoughts were a bit jumbled from the bump. I couldn’t think up a story that might satisfy him when I couldn’t even string two thoughts together.

  “Come on, Kath.” He slapped the machine. “What is this, a tanning booth? Why would you have it here? And what about the church? Are you taking out loans I don’t know about?”

  “It’s not a tanning booth.”

  “How much debt have you racked up? Don’t you think I do enough for you already?” He walked around the machine.

  I didn’t know what to say. Shame filled me. How could I not have told Jimmy? I should have been honest with him from the start.

  “If I hadn’t needed some things from the hardware store I wouldn’t have been this end of town and would never have seen your car.” He paced back and forth, kicking up dust.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t say anything because I thought you’d tease me and call me a fool.”

  That made him stop. “What are you talking about?”

  “The machine, this thing.” I ran my hand slowly over the smooth metal. “My new friend Janie, she showed it to me and gave me the key to the church. It’s from the future or something. It fixed her, made her cancer go away.”

  Jimmy sat down on the pew and put his head in his hands. “And you think this machine will do the same to you.” He didn’t sound angry anymore, just so, so sad.