by Bella James
Chapter Four:
Love (In the Time of Chemo)
The following few days were a little rough. Mr Raj came to see me the day after my hysterical outburst, said I looked better and seemed like he meant it. He told me they would be reducing my medication steadily over the next few days and that I should be able to go home a week on Friday, but coming off such high doses of medicine would take a temporary toll on my already weakened body. He mentioned nausea, headaches and aching joints, but I assured him I would be fine – Anything to get me out of the hospital for a while.
It had been decided that I would stay with my grandparents while in respite from treatment. I was getting increasingly distant towards my mother, and every time something went wrong I found a way to blame her. This was hardly fair, but I was tired and emotional, and I wanted to be in my grandma’s cosy home with the big oak table, the wood burner, and those delicious smells enticing everyone to the kitchen. Even Lillian had to agree I would hardly regain my appetite over her offerings of microwave meals and endless rounds of toast with various toppings.
Izzy was more than a bit put out, but she had to be at school anyway, so she gave in on the condition that she could come up to visit every evening. So now I had to get through the next few days and I would be free again. Free from the drugs, the drip-stand that followed me everywhere, the probing staff, and the sleepless nights.
***
It was so much easier said than done. I spent the following day drifting in and out of consciousness, going from being hot and feverish to so cold that my bones themselves felt frozen. I finally found sleep in the early hours, but it was panicky, edgy, rather than restful.
I woke up to see a rather tall, incredibly bald man standing in front of me, not looking at all well. He looked old and frail but could not have been much more than twenty.
I couldn’t manage words. My mind felt like cotton wool and I couldn’t work out where I was or what was going on. I fought the urge to laugh at him. When I used to get stoned with a friend from our village it felt a lot like this. My thoughts were floating in front of me, but when I tried to grab them they slipped away.
I may have grunted at him.
‘I’m Michael.’ He was rearranging the contents of my bedside table. ‘I walked past and heard you knock these over. Just thought I’d check someone hadn’t hurt themselves.’
I had no idea what he was talking about. I vaguely remembered that I was in hospital, that something was very wrong, but I could not string anything together to make sense.
I tried to bring this man into focus. No hair. No eyebrows. He looked like he was very unfortunate indeed. I recognised my illness in his drawn and weary features, but there was something strange about the way he was making me feel as I stared harder. He was coming closer, sitting down beside me. Why was he straightening my blankets?
Cancer leaves a recognisable imprint, but it had failed to steal the sparkle from his eyes. He had intense grey-blue eyes in a handsome face with a chiselled jawline Michelangelo may have masterminded. The way he was looking at me was making me nervous. My head ached and I felt weak and wretched. But here was this stranger making me flustered under the cold cotton sheets. ‘Michael.’
‘I’m here.’
My hands flew to my head and I realised I was not wearing my head scarf.
‘Get out of here!’
It came out louder than I intended and he looked taken aback.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’ He started to back away, but before he left he turned for a second and said, ‘I know how this feels.’
I think I fell asleep again. I couldn’t remember what it was like to control when and how I sleep. Something so simple that people take for granted and there I was, one minute thinking and talking, the next fast asleep.
As I opened my eyes it had become dark outside once more and I actually felt (just a tiny bit) better. I felt rested and although my head was still tender and sore, it was not the same pain that made me want to jump from a twelfth-storey window. The painkillers dolefully handed out that morning had offered a welcome reprieve.
In the absence of pain, my first thought was of Michael. God, I’d been rude. Maybe it would have been nice to talk to him for a while.
I realized I had never spoken to another young person who’d had chemo or cancer. Only elderly people, where although it was still cruel and unjust that they were being slowly taken by an illness, people would at least be able to say, ‘Well, he had a good innings,’ or ‘He didn’t want to fight any more, he lived a long and happy life, that’s all that mattered.’ Their funerals would be celebrations of a life filled with love and family, who would tell funny stories of the good old days with a drink in their hand and a tear in their eye.
No one would say that for the young victims. We were meant to be just getting started; we should have had our whole lives ahead of us. No cares in the world until at least our mid-thirties, when we might consider coming home at a reasonable hour, contemplate the thought of marrying the person we share a flat with, hear the tick of the biological clock (or at the very least, get a dog).
It seemed suddenly important that I speak to Michael and apologise. I might have been too self-absorbed to stop myself being incredibly rude to a stranger, but not all strangers have mesmerizingly intense eyes, and no one has ever unnerved me so pleasantly before.
I got up, without too much difficulty I was delighted to realise, and headed for the bathroom to splash water over my face. I got the fright of my life seeing Gollum staring back at me. (Since Dr Braby had made me over I’d asked Isabel to replace the mirror.)
Undeterred, I reached for the Ted Baker bag and repeated her magic as best as I could. I even applied some lip gloss and by the time I fastened the headscarf the way she taught me, I felt a little like Anna again.
A clean pair of white linen pyjamas plus a baby blue ballet cardigan and I was ready to try and make a new friend. I was so used to trailing up and down the corridor with a drip stand attached to me it felt strange to be leaving it behind. But there it was, redundant and lonely in the corner of the room.
I did not have to look very far for Michael because he was sitting on the bed in the side room opposite mine. He was wearing a beige cowboy hat and playing a guitar. Perhaps I was still dreaming.
***
I tap quietly on the door. ‘Hello?’
He looks up at me and before he looks quickly away again, I catch it in his eyes. He is pleased to see me.
‘Hi.’ He shrugs casually.
‘I wanted to say I’m sorry for shouting. I’m not quite myself these days. Well, I can be a bit moody but honestly, I don’t normally bite strangers’ heads off like that. But you said you know what it feels like so I just thought …’ I feel I’m rambling and my voice starts to trail off. I don’t have a blonde mane to flick flirtatiously over my shoulder as I usually would and I feel somewhat at a loss. ‘So … sorry,’ I turn to go but his voice stops me.
‘It’s OK, I do know. I’ve heard you yelling at most of your visitors these last few weeks. I should’ve been more prepared.’
I look at him, horrified, until he starts smiling. I reach out my hand to him.
‘I’m Anna.’
‘Michael.’
He tries to shake my outstretched hand but his IV won’t pull that far. I step awkwardly round his things and find myself plonked in his visitors’ chair – How forward. We finally shake hands.
We talk for a little while. I find out he likes country music, that he had been born in America and now runs an American-style riding centre north of Northampton with his father. He likes everything to do with being outdoors and has a dog called Lincoln. (I naturally wonder if he has a thirty-something wife.) I tell him I like dogs and horses, which is true, but I neglect to mention the fact I hate doing anything with my spare time other than lazing around with Jules watching trashy television shows. We had barely left the house at weekends since she’d had Sky installed, unl
ess a Saturday night out beckoned and we recorded everything for a further laze fest on the Sunday.
I do not want him judging me for some reason. I am not normally one to care a great deal for what people think of me and could often be found boasting about the weekend we watched thirty-four back-to-back episodes of Geordie Shore. I want Michael to think I have more depth. He does look a little older than me; it is quite hard to tell because this illness (I’m sick of the C word) makes everyone look so much older. I wouldn’t lie to him exactly, but if he asks how I spend my spare time I will have to think of something more worthwhile than endless parties and duvet days.
‘How long did you live in America?’ I ask, feeling it might be better to keep the spotlight over there for now.
‘Like I say, I was born there, but my mom left when I was young.’ He pauses for a second and looks down at his hands. ‘She left after my little brother died and my dad raised me alone.’
‘I’m so sorry, Michael.’
I want to put my hand over his, but he moves them before I have the chance and the moment passes.
‘We had our own riding centre where tourists would come out and ride round Western-style. A taste of being a cowboy, they loved it.’
‘So you had a Dude Ranch, that’s so cool.’
He looks impressed. ‘Exactly, a Dude Ranch. Anyway, a few years later one of the tourists caught Pops’ eye and they fell in love. My stepmom, Caroline, didn’t want to leave her family in England so we sold up and moved over here. I was only ten and we didn’t have much family to leave behind, so we set up the business and it’s been doing pretty good since. They got married nearly ten years ago and spend most of the time travelling; they wanted to retire, so I was running things; ready to take over ‘til I got sick.’
It is the first time either of us has mentioned being ill, and it hangs in the air between us. I’m not ready for it yet. I love listening to him; he is so open and confident. Maybe I do worry too much about what other people think, but I am terrified he will find me transparent and boring while I find him so original. Let’s face facts, I do not exactly have my looks to fall back on.
‘So you’re, like, twenty?’
‘Nineteen. And you?’
‘I might look a hundred and eight but I’m actually seventeen. And a half,’ I add quickly, in case he thinks I am too young. ‘Seventeen and a half.’
He smiles but it’s more like a little laugh and he starts strumming on the guitar in his hands, singing jauntily ‘She might look one hundred but she’s only seventeen.’
‘And a half!’ I try to say crossly, but I’m laughing too.
The night goes on like that, we laugh and share stories and I thank God I feel OK. I’m not rushing to the bathroom to throw up every five minutes. I just feel young and happy for the first time in a long time.
‘Your scarf looks pretty.’
I blush furiously, feeling horribly self-conscious. ‘Two months ago I had blonde hair.’
‘Like a Palomino.’ He’s doing that half-smile, half-laugh thing again. It makes me disintegrate.
‘What’s a Palomino?’ I ask him, holding his gaze.
‘I might tell you one day.’
I smile at Michael, delighted at the thought that we might have another day, but I can see he suddenly looks tired.
‘Are you OK?’ I ask, and help him set his guitar down so he can lie back on the bed.
‘I will be. They came round this morning and said the treatment’s worked. I felt like that alone would kill me but the tumour’s small enough to remove.’
‘Where is it?’
‘At the bottom of my back, near my spine. A dangerous place and it was too risky to operate, but now I’m all set for Wednesday. Prospects look good considering a while ago they thought I might not be able to walk again.’
He catches the look of fear that flickers across my face for only a second.
‘Anna.’
‘Michael, I’m happy you’re going to be OK, I really am. But I should go. It’s getting late and Nurse Ratched will have a ding dong if she finds me in here.’ I mimic her raspy voice, ‘“Visiting hours are eleven ‘til one, and six ‘til eight. Not a minute before or after. Patients need rest.”’ I wagged my finger at him. ‘“Rest. Rest. Rest.”’
‘Anna,’ he says gently.
I shrug and wrap my ballet cardy tightly around me, self-conscious once more. ‘My chemo didn’t work. They have to operate anyway, but it’ll be a much higher risk. They never really put you in the picture properly but I forced them to. The tumour is growing too fast for the chemo to touch. It will, without a doubt, kill me very soon, so they may as well have a go at the operation. I’m going home to rest for a few weeks then I’ll be back to face the music. I suppose I’m really going home to spend some quality time with the people I love before I die. It’s got to beat living the rest of my life in this place, I guess. Mr Raj is trying to keep me positive, and even though I’m definitely quite stupid, I’m not stupid enough to believe he can pull it off and my life will go back to normal.’
***
There. I’d said it. I had told another person that I knew I was going to die. I had known it from the day I sat in the Alice in Wonderland chair and the black cloud appeared to loom patiently above me.
It felt good to share with him, but it pretty much put an end to any romantic thoughts I may have had. Before, we were simply Michael and Anna, holding one another’s gaze for beautiful drawn-out moments. Now he was just another patient, except he would get better and I wouldn’t.
‘Come here.’
He moves across the bed and holds his arms out to me. It feels like the most natural thing in the world to lie down beside him. This man I have known for a few hours holds me in his arms and tells me everything will be OK. And d’you know something? For the next hour and half everything is perfectly fine.
Sometime later I wake in my own bed, having crept back across the corridor in the very early hours of the morning; I can hear the nurses chatting quietly at the night station but no one seems to have noticed me. I still have butterflies in my stomach. Michael has changed everything, and all I can think of is him.
Does your mind ever race ahead of itself and create scenarios for the future? I had envisaged a thousand different roles. How we will both overcome our illnesses and spend our lives together riding horses and wearing cowboy hats.
Now the early morning light is creeping through my side room window, I am beginning to have my doubts. I feel sick again – Emotionally and physically drained. I reach for my diary and see it is Sunday already. I am going home in a little over a week.
So how can anything ever happen for us? We will be miles apart. Michael will recover from his operation and I have yet to face mine. I am truly disheartened and manage to convince myself that he will not care either way; he will focus on getting well again and finding a girlfriend with hair. I find this more depressing than my current life expectancy.
I close my eyes and relax my mind until I consciously will myself to fall asleep. It isn’t too hard, I don’t feel I have much to stay awake for. Maybe I imagined this connection with Michael to distract myself from the awful things I should have been trying to face. I have to contemplate what is left of my life, concentrate on how things should be handled with my family. Here I am thinking of how it will feel to be with a man I barely know, when something deep down tells me I am probably the farthest thing from his mind.
At least I have been honest, I think sadly. He can feel free to feel sorry for the poor girl he shared a few hours with once. I can see him in the pub with his friends in years to come, telling them about the girl in the room opposite his who didn’t make it. They tell him he was one of the lucky ones and he smiles and goes back to chatting up the barmaid.
A nurse with those damn stomach injections brings me round again, but she looks really young and nervous so I don’t shout at her. I even nearly smile a little.
‘Sorry, Anna,’ she says. ‘I�
�m Rebecca. This is to help prevent blood clots when you’re lying down so much. They told me to try and let you sleep.’
‘Did they say I was scary?’
She just laughs. ‘I’d shout at people too if they kept coming at me with needles.’
‘Have I had any visitors?’ I try to sound casual.
‘Yes, your mum and sister were here at little while ago, but you were fast asleep so they’re coming back in an hour.’
‘No-one else?’
‘I don’t think so. Were you expecting somebody?’
‘Not really, I just sleep so much I barely know where I am or who’s been to see me.’
She picked up my headscarf from where it had fallen by the bed.
‘You like horses then?’
I must have looked confused because she pointed to the scarf again. ‘Horseshoes, and the picture by your bed.’
I look to where she is pointing and my eyes fall on a picture of a pale blonde horse, with a flowing mane that shines like 24-carat gold, propped against my bedside lamp. I try to contain myself until she’s left the room, then fall off the bed in my haste to reach it. The picture shows an orangey red sky and a majestic horse reared defiantly up towards it, as though she knows even the sunset cannot compete against her beauty. It is called ‘The Palomino’. I look at it for a few moments then turn the card.
Meet me in Day Room One when you wake up, my beautiful Anna.
X
That is the moment I fall in love with Michael Torino.
***
We spent what was left of Sunday (six hours and forty-five minutes) sitting alone together in the day room – And every day for the next eight days. We talked about our childhoods. Though he didn’t want to talk much about his brother, he did say he was called Benjamin, or Benji.
