The Truth

by Naomi Joy

  I glare at it as I move to standing.

  The bathroom mirrors are steamed up, so I can’t see how bad my reflection is but, judging by the cat in the bin, it’s bad.

  I make a decision.

  I unfurl Anthony’s razor from the bathroom cabinet and plug it in, daring myself to do it, to buzz my hair into oblivion: jarhead style. My hands and feet are white, blood rushing to my central organs as my body initiates survival mode. Not that it’s very good at that.

  I think about Anthony, about his reaction if I do shave my head. I think about how, the night before our wedding, he’d told me to wear my hair down because he didn’t think it suited me in a ponytail.

  How about bald?

  I take a lock between my fingers and run them steadily down it, from scalp to end, psyching myself up. I take a deep breath and hold it so my lungs are at full capacity against my rib cage then I fire up the razor, vibrating obediently into action, its ripples pulsating up my arm, the steady, monotone buzz helping me focus.

  First, I shave off the lock between my fingers, the sound of my hair splitting against the tiny blades filling my head. I run my fingers across the fuzzy, frayed ends: soft. I let out my breath in a gust. That wasn’t so hard, was it? I hold the dead clump between my fingers and bring it in front of my face so I can look at it properly. I stifle a laugh at how stupid it is that society cares so much about hair: this wet clump of cells is revolting.

  I allow my anger at everything that’s happened fire me up and attack the rest of my mop in huge, great, chunks, slicing the strands ferociously with the razor, watching them fall to the floor in a torrid waterfall. Air hits the back of my neck and my head suddenly feels strangely weightless, as though I’ve pumped it full of helium. I don’t hesitate this time as I carve a perfect line from the centre of my forehead, all the way down to my neck. A reverse Mohican. I carry on with the rest, shaving perfect lines as though I’m mowing a lawn. When did I become this person? This crazed woman with a diseased body and a bald head?

  At some point I realise I’m crying. The hair in the sink is wet and my hands are shaking. In the time it’s taken to go from shampoo-advert-worthy mane to bald eagle, the mirror has returned to normal. I stare at the brown orbs looking back at me, at the woman in the glass with the naked head, the woman whose skull you’ll see first when you look at her face, the woman you’ll stare at as you walk down the street, trying to figure out if the bald look is cancer, or fashion.

  I grab a handful of toilet roll and rub my eyes, wiping away the signs of insecurity, washing away all traces of weakness. I get changed, then trudge slowly to the door, opening it. The light from the hallway illuminates my face and head. A halo of light glowing around my hard edges, because that’s all I am now: skin and bone and blood.

  *

  I want to start today’s post by expressing my genuine, heartfelt thanks to everyone who has offered to help with the auction arranged by Lucy. I’ve set up a donations platform via PayPal on my page and I really appreciate any money raised, or offers of things for the auction – I haven’t even decided what to donate myself yet!

  I’m sure all the lovely people at Cancer Research, who I’m raising money for, will be over the moon too. It will make a world of difference to the work that they do and, hopefully, writing about all of this will raise awareness so fewer people will have to go through what I’m going through now. Thank you all so much.

  E x x x

  Blog Entry

  8th January, 9 p.m.

  Clutching a steaming plate of beans on white toast – slightly singed, just how I like it – I prop myself in front of my laptop, floating on my bed-of-air, and watch Anthony move about the bedroom I used to sleep in not so long ago. He’s shaking his head, getting out his phone, about to make a call, I think. I turn the volume on my computer to loud so I can hear him.

  In the days since my voluntary evacuation from Anthony’s life, I’ve found it hard to let go. I think it has to do with the fact that I cannot move on, that there is nothing, particularly, for me to look forward to, no other ‘life’ I’m going to live after this. And it’s all because of him. Now that he’s achieved what he set out to do, I am worthless. Catch, kill, cull. That’s Anthony’s motto.

  ‘Hi,’ he says curtly into the mouthpiece, then laughs.

  I watch through the camera as he runs a hand through his hair, rubbing the whiskers of his moustache, adjusting the sit of his glasses across the bridge of his nose. He looks a little pale considering he’s been away and I hope to myself that he’s been sick, that a good dose of winter flu struck him down so he couldn’t enjoy it.

  It’s clear from these adjustments that the voice down the line has answered. Anthony’s shoulders shudder with appreciation – apparently something’s very funny. Anthony doesn’t laugh very often. I find my own lips curling as I watch him.

  ‘Absolutely!’ he exclaims. ‘Fucking nightmare, to be honest. She’s lost it this time, well and truly. Kitchen was a bomb site.’

  A short pause.

  ‘Oh, I know, I should call the police, have them check it out but it’s just so tragic, isn’t it? It’s so sad.’

  I twitch under my sheets, orange sauce dripping from my lip. I try to shake his words off – I don’t care what he thinks, he’s in the wrong, not me – but my face falls as Anthony’s beams, illuminated by the backlight.

  ‘Something like that, yes.’

  Words I can’t hear follow.

  ‘Well, Christmas was something of a test run, see if we can make it work.’

  Then half a conversation I find myself filling the gaps for.

  ‘It’s going to be a big adjustment.’

  I watch as he puts his hand in the small of his back and stretches out, sighing.

  ‘No, I don’t know, she’ll get bored eventually.’

  *

  I wake up in the dark, sometime past three, my stomach curled and twisted tight, my neck tense and sore from clenching through the night. I roll to my side and swipe my finger across the trackpad to turn on my computer. I see through the screen that Anthony’s awake too, the fierce glow of his bedside light beside him, his long fingers flicking the pages of a book. He sits to one side – the left – which is funny, I think, because I am not on the right any more. I sigh. He is a creature of habit, certainly. But he lies on the left because it’s what he knows, not because of some distant hope that I’ll go back.

  I sweep away a collection of dust, spat out by the vent in the middle of the opposite wall, wafting towards my airbed. It leaves a grey stain in the curve of my palm as I bat it away and a tiny, scuttling beetle emerges from the dirt. I jump, then sit up straight, rod-like, but the force of my movement leaves me dizzy and my stomach lurches, my throat descending with it. I gag. I retch. I stagger to the bathroom and spray vomit into the toilet. I remember the nights Anthony would stay with me, his hands rubbing against my back, his palms gripped round my hair, pulled tight to a ponytail, waiting for me to finish.

  Blog Entry

  10th January, 12.45 p.m.

  Today marked my second round of chemotherapy. It was miserable – my body had had an immediate reaction to the drugs. Turns out your blood, much like an elephant, never forgets, so, despite the anti-nausea medication, I had a horrific time of things. Again. In fact, I don’t remember much about the chemo itself, I spent most of it passed out over a toilet bowl. At least I have support group to look forward to later today; I told Mishti she doesn’t need to come, this is something I need to do by myself.

  Blog Entry

  10th January, 2 p.m.

  I’m sitting with Lucy, waiting for the session to begin. We’re both a little early.

  ‘I’m sure she doesn’t mean to intentionally hurt my feelings, obviously—’ pause for breath ‘—but we’re all counting on each other so much—’ pause for breath ‘—that it’s just unfair—’ pause for breath ‘—because I went to her bake sale, she raised five hundred pounds, it went in The Courier along
with a picture of her and her rainbow cake—’ pause for breath ‘—and she hasn’t even bothered to give me a piece for the auction I’m organising.’ Cancer support groups, though moral and worthy and brilliant in so many ways are not, it seems, free from mean girls. ‘There’s a lot of pressure on me for it to go well.’

  ‘Have you talked to her?’ I ask. Lucy’s nice enough – gossipy, yes – but a useful confidante in navigating the rest of the support group, in finding out who’s in and who’s out, who turns up to your fundraising events and who doesn’t.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure if she’d have the time.’

  Annette, the subject of Lucy’s wrath, is standing at the table, lipstick stains on a plastic tumbler filled with lemonade.

  ‘So interested in herself, Miss La-di-da over there.’ I zone out of Lucy’s rant, and observe Annette, chuckling while a bag of crisps splits from top to tail as Nick – group leader – over-zealously cracks them open.

  ‘But anyway, have you got something for me? Perhaps from your history days – you must have some interesting artefacts?’

  I look at her, thoughts percolating. ‘I do,’ I say, thinking of the treasures in Anthony’s glass cabinets, of the wonders he’s amassed over the years. And then of something in particular that, at this moment, I realise is perfect.

  ‘I have a necklace, actually. It’s very special. Anthony gave it to me. It’s worth tens of thousands of pounds, I have no idea where he got it, though, I think from a collector in Rome.’

  From the bottom of a dig site in Kent. Illegally.

  Lucy’s lips suck inwards for a moment, as though she’s savouring my offering.

  ‘That would be wonderful, Emelia. A rare antique, wow, that would really get the community talking.’

  The pain in my abdomen flares, weak, a firework that deploys but fails to reach its full potential. I imagine the necklace, Anthony’s necklace, picture how it used to hang round my neck, its thick diamond sparkling. It would steal the show, I mean, really.

  I show Lucy a picture on my phone.

  ‘It’s gorgeous,’ she puffs, drawing close, eyes aglow.

  Revenge, revenge, revenge. I want to raise the roof with this offering, get his name out there – loud and clear – have him answer for what he’s done.

  Auction night can’t come soon enough.

  Blog Entry

  15th January, 10.45 a.m.

  I roll into the day, but my head pounds, hard, starting somewhere deep in the coils of my brain then raging down my neck, my spine, through the bones in my legs right down to the floor, anchoring me. Occasionally I’ll cough, like a cat ejecting a hairball, and blood will spew out, modern art on my palms. My lungs are giving up, succumbing, on fire, and I can barely breathe through the pain.

  It’s been five days since my latest round of chemotherapy and I’ve spent all of it holed up in my studio watching Anthony live his life increasingly from the confines of his home. He is thinning, his hair is greyer and his muscles lithe. I’m not the only one fading.

  Lucy’s left a voicemail on my phone and I bat my fingers across the keypad lazily to listen.

  ‘Emelia,’ she pants, in her tell-tale stilted style. ‘Haven’t heard from you—’ pause ‘—if you could let me know about the necklace—’ pause ‘—you’re planning to auction, I have the paper interested—’ pause ‘—they’re going to come along with some big shots from the auction houses—’ pause ‘—don’t let me down, OK?’

  The thought shocks me awake and I realise, then, that I have completely neglected my fundraising duties.

  I have a check-up at the hospital in a couple of hours, but that’s just enough time to head to Anthony’s. He owes me this. He owes me more than this. Besides, the necklace is mine; he gave it to me, it’s not right that he still has it.

  *

  I slip my key into the lock of Anthony’s front door and hesitate for a moment before turning it, relieved to find it still works. I pad through to the lounge, knowing that Anthony’s sleeping in the bedroom – I’d checked the cameras on my way over. He used to rise early, but recently his mornings have started later and later.

  I creep, an intruder in my own home, and head for the glass cabinets. I find the key located, as it always was, behind the central tapestry on the wall, and manipulate the lock to open. I tease the necklace from its position, clutching the cool metal in my palms, then dip my top low and drop it into my bra. It’s safest close to my chest. As I go to leave, tiptoeing on my way out, I hear a noise from his bedroom, a groan, a feeble mumble and I pause, frozen, my heart quickening.

  ‘Hello?’ his voice cracks from behind the door. Is he too sick to get up? Good. Karma’s a bitch, Anthony. I race quickly to the front door.

  *

  I haul myself to the hospital for a check-up and they inspect me as if I were at the vet’s. A lumbering animal of a woman, decaying flesh laid bare for them to poke and prod and experiment with. They push instruments into my ears, lights in my eyes, thwack mini-hammers against my joints, wrap slimy, gloved hands round my neck, feeling for my glands, then down to my groin, checking for lumps.

  ‘Let me know if this is painful,’ they say as they press down on my stomach, my breath momentarily taken from me, unable to speak, unable to scream, as bright-white flashes explode gunpowder-like in front of my eyes.

  ‘Stop,’ I wheeze, protesting like an injured animal, and they turn me onto my side, tears sticking to my face.

  Blog Entry

  17th January, 7.30 p.m.

  Only a splattering of vacant seats are still available at tonight’s long awaited auction as I let myself in through the community centre’s front door. I’m here thirty minutes early and there’s already a buzz about the place. It’s been transformed from dreary all-purpose venue with the help of circular linen-topped, candle-lit tables complete with smart cast-iron seats, cotton cushions on each. Fairy lights hang in semi-circles from the ceiling and a makeshift stage has been erected at the front.

  This is my first evening out for a while and I’m giddy with it. A wig, brunette – slightly scratchy – is perched on top of my head, my lips coloured maroon, my cheeks blushed princess pink. My wrists smell like juniper berries and, on the outside at least, I look the part.

  Lucy appears by my side, puts an elderflower soda in my hand and grips my forearm excitedly.

  ‘The paper want to grab a few words with you before we start!’ she squeaks, pulling me towards a man in a crumpled shirt and tie, eager to absorb my story word for word.

  *

  The auction begins to a muted audience, polite chatter over cocktails coming to a close as the compere begins apace.

  I sit back, listening as the opening bids fly in, but nothing grabs my interest. I remind myself that all the money raised tonight goes to fantastic causes, so – though I don’t have much of my own, I at least want to look like I care – so I raise my hand for a few items, coming perilously close to closing on a weekend in Tuscany, which I’d never be able to use, or afford, and try to hide my relief when I’m outbid at the last gasp.

  I nurse a second glass of soda as Lucy, all aflutter by my side, interrupts our conversation to bid on an item that’s stalling to ‘keep momentum going’. So far, her good intentions have won her a sailing lesson in Weymouth harbour and an hour in a flotation tank in London – neither of which she’ll ever be able to use.

  Time ticks by and the auction nears its close, the penultimate lot closing. This means one slightly terrifying thing: I’m up next and, as the room reaches its maximum capacity, every seat occupied, overflow guests standing at the back, I hear my name.

  ‘To introduce this item properly – the real jewel of tonight – Emelia Thompson!’

  Applause begins as I rise from my seat, going to flick my fringe from my eyes just as I remember my wig doesn’t have one. I blush, then hurry, making my way to the raised platform at the front, my heart racing, nervous energy twitching through me, a sort of pre-show adrenaline I’v
e never felt before coursing from limb to limb. I didn’t think I’d feel so nervous. I’m handed the microphone by the orange-faced compère and the applause dies down just as I turn to thank him, my sudden backward movement causing a kick of feedback, sending hands over ears and groans from the hearing-aid wearers in the crowd.

  ‘Sorry!’ I shout, too loud, my voice reverberating round the four walls, echoing. I try to steady myself, look at the rows of faces, no bright lights to drown out their features, straight lips and bored eyes staring right at me. A girl with translucent skin in the front row, teeth bared, who, in my paranoid state has a weird resemblance to Holly, encourages me to continue. I shake her out of my head, look away.

  ‘Hi, everyone,’ I say at last, hands shaking. I clench the microphone tight so as not to give myself away. Why am I so nervous? Is it because I know this item will get Anthony into trouble?

  ‘This piece,’ I announce to the quiet room, wishing there was music, or something, anything, to lighten the atmosphere, ‘was something my err, husband…’ I pause, he is technically still my husband, I suppose. ‘Something my husband gave to me, and, though I never knew where exactly it came from, part of its allure was in that mystery.’

  I cough, wipe the sweat from my brow.

  ‘He actually proposed to me with this piece and, knowing that I wanted to auction it tonight, I’ve done some research into its origins. So, this is an authentic Roman artefact, uncovered from the pit of the Mithras Cult, a truly remarkable and rare piece of history.’ I pause, inhale, flutter, sealing his fate. ‘My husband worked at the site, in fact, so I know it must have come from this area, and I want to auction this today because, as the old saying goes, you can’t take your money – or treasure, in this case – with you, so it may as well go to a good cause. I had it independently valued and it’s worth in the region of fifty thousand pounds.’