The Lion Tamer Who Lost

by Louise Beech

  The second thing Ben admitted he had struggled with the most.

  ‘I’m going to take the test,’ he said, and paused as though waiting for Andrew to object. ‘See if I’m a match so I can make you well. I know the odds are ridiculous, but I can’t not try. I can’t. And you can’t stop me.’

  Andrew didn’t want to. He was immensely moved that Ben would do such a thing.

  The sun edged across the sky, lingering like a child not wanting to go home for tea. They gazed at one another. Andrew wanted to stay there forever.

  ‘Dance with me,’ said Ben later.

  ‘There’s no music,’ said Andrew.

  ‘You’re the artist. Imagine some.’

  ‘Ben, I’m too tired.’

  ‘Dance on my feet then.’

  ‘Ben.’

  ‘Come on, it’s my birthday.’

  So he did; Andrew danced on feet bigger than his.

  28

  The Butterfly Effect

  Ben dreamed that the car in which his parents died had wings. Snow whirled like detergent dissolving in a washing machine and they flew, over house and hedge and harbour. Wings are better than legs; they do not break so easily.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  Andrew remembered a butterfly on his mother’s wall.

  The insect that once flew over meadow and stream, until someone caught it and killed it, skilfully preserving the long-tailed blue forever, had been passed down the generations. As a child, Andrew touched the glass-trapped butterfly, hoping to rouse it.

  After his mother’s funeral, he smashed the glass. He ran the rigid-winged creature under the tap until it softened and appeared to fly with the rush of water. Then he kept it where he wrote. He held it after Ben said a word that really meant love. When he was prepared to make the greatest sacrifice for him. Butterflies danced in his tummy, sending them spiralling up into his chest.

  It was Ben now who suffered. After a test to check their blood types matched – which wasn’t unusual, as they were both O Positive – the hospital arranged for a stem-cell extraction, preceded by a week of medication that moved Ben’s cells from the bone into the blood. Ben was asleep when they inserted the needle, but Andrew knew it must have hurt him afterwards.

  The scar it left bled at random moments.

  ‘It’s in the exact same place as that ink was,’ Ben said.

  ‘What ink?’ Andrew asked.

  ‘The ink that stained my jeans on the train. Why do I notice all this stupid shit now? What have you done to me, Andrew Fitzgerald?’

  Andrew sank to his knees and kissed the wound. Then they switched roles, just like in their yes and no game.

  ‘Don’t be too hopeful,’ Doctor Ahmed warned in his my-words-make-it-better voice. ‘The odds are still stacked against you being a bone marrow match.’

  They both tried not to think of it while they waited for the results.

  Andrew was cranky. He knew Ben was sore, too, but Ben didn’t have to write. He put on a cap to hide his thinning hair and opened The Lion Tamer Who Lost at the right page. It had been a good week, with the second course of chemo done and a pause before the next one to let blood counts rebuild, but Andrew’s mood plummeted. Ben fussed him so much – making food and fluffing pillows – Andrew told him to go for a walk.

  When he returned, Ben made cheese and pickle wraps and quietly put one next to Andrew. A moth was stuck to the sash window; its mushed wings had been immortalised by time and sun.

  ‘I might explore what would have happened if Book Ben hadn’t been in a car crash,’ said Andrew. ‘If one thing had been different. Like the butterfly effect – a what if scenario.’

  ‘That term comes from Edward Lorenz’s studies of chaos theory,’ Ben said, counting his crumbs. ‘He used a numerical computer to rerun a weather prediction and entered the decimal .506 instead of the full .506127 and the result was a completely different weather scenario.’

  When he talked like this, Andrew felt guilty that he had given up university.

  Ben shrugged. ‘I don’t like the phrase “butterfly affect” though.’

  ‘It’s effect – and I think it’s poetic.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Poetic,’ said Andrew.

  ‘No, you said … effect?’

  ‘Butterfly effect – effect is a noun, affect is a verb.’ Andrew leaned back in his blue swivel desk chair, faded from hours of writing.

  ‘Now you sound like my fucking dad.’ Ben picked the plates up with a thick crunch. ‘He’s stopped criticising cos he wants to keep me quiet about Kim, and now you start.’ Ben walked out of the room

  Andrew felt bad.

  ‘But sometimes a wrong word completely changes the meaning,’ Andrew called after him. ‘You know that the slightest change in a sum would have a huge impact on the result.’

  ‘Don’t speak to me like I’m fucking nine,’ Ben shouted back from the kitchen.

  ‘Well, don’t act it,’ Andrew snapped back. Then despite himself, he said, ‘Grow up and tell your dad about us, like you said you would.’

  Ben appeared in the doorway. Blood seeped through the pocket of his jeans. ‘I am going to tell him. I haven’t been there. I’ve been looking after you! Getting tests done, for you!’

  ‘You’re bleeding,’ Andrew said, pointing.

  ‘What?’ Ben looked at the pocket. ‘Fuck!’

  He went to the bathroom and slammed the door. The lid fell off the Wish Box. Inside, a Post-it stuck to the rim. Andrew had finally wished. He took the new Post-it from its silvery bed and whispered it aloud.

  I wish that Ben will be sufficient a match, so it makes it worth him enduring the pain, so I recover, and he’ll know it was because of him.

  He could hear Ben clattering about in the bathroom, running water, cursing.

  Andrew only kept wishes that he still hoped would come true. There were two in the box, his latest and the one on a grey piece of paper, written in childish scrawl. He didn’t need to read that one. He knew it by heart.

  Perhaps it was time to let it go.

  Perhaps after thirty years, wishes died.

  He almost picked it up, prepared to finally tear it in two, when the phone rang. Ben came out of the bathroom and answered it, his voice too low for Andrew to hear what he said. Then he came into the room wearing only shorts. ‘They want to see us at the hospital about my test.’

  ‘Already?’ Andrew’s mood lifting at the sight of Ben’s body, at the damp hairs trapping light on his chest.

  ‘Aren’t you nervous?’ Ben asked.

  Andrew shrugged.

  Spying the Wish Box, Ben said, ‘Did you…?’

  Andrew put the lid back on. ‘I did.’ He paused. ‘Will you believe in wishes if you’re a match?’

  Suddenly exhausted, Andrew closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them Ben was right in front of him. He kissed Andrew with lips cold from splashed water and put a warmer hand inside his shirt.

  ‘Remember the first day we took our time,’ he whispered.

  ‘Of course.’

  Andrew bit Ben’s lower lip and tugged it as though to steal his words.

  ‘Do we have time now?’ Ben asked.

  Did they have time? Andrew gave the answer Ben always loved: No. His irises flashed traffic-light amber, the pause between stop and go. Ben hooked a finger under Andrew’s belt, pulled him nearer and said, Yes.

  And they made time.

  Afterwards Ben said, ‘I’m happy.’

  ‘For now,’ said Andrew.

  ‘For now?’

  ‘You’re basking in a post-sex glow. Happiness that lasts is much rarer.’

  ‘Don’t you think we could make it last?’ Ben frowned.

  ‘I think you need to be … honest.’

  ‘I will,’ said Ben. Andrew could hear exasperation in his voice. ‘Let’s just get these test results, and I’ll tell him about us.’

  ‘Then you’ll be happy,’ said Andrew. ‘Because th
en you can really be yourself.’

  29

  The Biggest Mis-Word

  Even on his worst day – and there were so many, often in painful succession – Ben could not regret what had happened, because then he wouldn’t have slept next to the lions.

  Andrew Fitzgerald, The Lion Tamer Who Lost

  Andrew and Ben went to the hospital in a taxi. The dashboard clock said it was just after four. Andrew noticed because his last blood test had been 4.1 and he had eaten a bar of chocolate, despite wanting to throw up. The driver chatted to them non-stop; an official card said his name was Bob Fracklehurst. Andrew remembered that too because it was such an odd name. Andrea Bocelli was singing heartily in Italian.

  ‘How can anyone listen to songs without knowing what the words mean?’ Ben said grumpily, and Andrew knew he was nervous about the test results.

  ‘It’s the way Andrea sings them,’ said Bob, clearly having heard.

  ‘So what’s this one about?’ asked Ben.

  ‘It’s called “Canto della Terra”,’ said Bob. ‘That means “Song about the Earth” – but it’s really about love. Aren’t all the best songs?’

  Andrew glanced at Ben, but he was looking out of the window.

  Over the soaring Italian lyrics, Bob whispered the English meaning – ‘You and I are together briefly, for just a few moments, in silence as we look out of our windows and listen to the sky, and to a world that’s awakening, and the night is already far away.’

  ‘Isn’t that beautiful?’ Andrew said.

  ‘Beautiful,’ Ben replied quietly.

  It was strange to not go for chemo; they almost went to the outpatient unit. Instead they headed for the general waiting room.

  ‘Cross your fingers,’ said Ben.

  ‘I don’t believe in silly superstitions,’ said Andrew.

  ‘How is wishing not a superstition?’

  ‘It just isn’t.’

  Doctor Amdahl came to the waiting room for them and took them to a private room, but not the one where they found out Andrew had leukaemia. This was perhaps his own office because there was a desk with family pictures on it and a large mirror that looked like some sort of family heirloom. Andrew wondered if the doctor looked in it and checked his tie. It made him smile, despite the butterflies in his stomach.

  ‘Please, sit,’ said the doctor.

  Andrew and Ben sat on padded chairs opposite the desk and Dr Amdahl stroked his tie. It was the same blue as the wall behind them. The room was warm. Andrew noticed that Ben’s top was buttoned up the wrong way and remembered their frenzied kisses only an hour earlier.

  ‘Well, the good news is that you’re a match,’ said Doctor Amdahl.

  ‘A match? Seriously?’ Andrew couldn’t believe they had beaten those huge odds.

  Ben grinned. ‘A one in twenty thousand chance. Jesus. We did it. That’s incredible.’ To Andrew’s surprise, even with the doctor there, Ben grabbed his hand. He squeezed it back. ‘So does this mean we can do the transplant thing?’

  ‘Yes.’ The doctor paused.

  Andrew realised he had said that the good news was that they were a match. Was there bad news, too? Andrew felt sick. Had they found something wrong with Ben? No. God, no.

  ‘There’s something else, isn’t there? What is it?’ he demanded. Is Ben okay?’

  ‘Yes, yes, he’s fine,’ insisted Doctor Amdahl. ‘Very healthy.’

  ‘But there’s something?’

  Ben squeezed Andrew’s hand more tightly.

  ‘You’re a close match,’ said Doctor Amdahl.

  ‘I know. You said. This is good.’

  ‘For the transplant, yes. But your index numbers are too high to be merely incidental.’

  ‘Can you say that in English?’ asked Andrew, irritated.

  ‘We need that taxi driver to translate,’ laughed Ben. ‘Sorry,’ he said to the doctor. ‘You had to be there.’

  ‘HLA markers – or human leukocyte antigen – are these protein molecules on the surface of cells in the body.’ Doctor Amdahl stroked his tie again. ‘These molecules play a role in recognising cells that are your own from those that are foreign.’

  Something warm and uncomfortable began to fill Andrew’s chest. Something that made him frown and listen harder, try to understand faster, try to keep up with the words so they would explain the awful feeling of déjà vu, of sensing something before it comes, like the day he collapsed in Ben’s kitchen.

  ‘HLA markers are inherited,’ said Doctor Amdahl. ‘There are six HLA markers they look at for transplantation purposes, and we inherit three from our mother and three from our father.

  Andrew looked at Ben. Remembered how thrilled he had been that Andrew so loved his face. Remembered Ben saying some girl at uni had said his face didn’t quite work. And Andrew thought then that all the wrong things put the right way were perhaps better than all the right things in the wrong way.

  Ben’s face was all the right things in just the right way.

  ‘You share three HLA markers,’ said Doctor Amdahl. ‘This means you must be related. Closely.’

  Andrew felt as if he had become Ben now. He could not stop counting. The number of Doctor Amdahl’s nasal hairs. The number of times he fiddled with his pen. The number of paper clips in the small box.

  ‘It’s highly likely you are brothers who share one parent,’ said the doctor. ‘Or perhaps first cousins. But definitely immediate family.’

  Ben had said so many mis-words over the last few months. But the biggest mis-word was the one the doctor said now.

  Brother.

  That’s what he was saying. He’d said something about maybe cousins, too, but that wasn’t what Andrew heard repeating in his head. He jerked his hand away from Ben’s.

  Doctor Amdahl looked at them both. Said this was just an indication. For absolute results, they would have to test further. He said they were definitely related, closely, but a blood test between the two of them and whichever relative might link them would tell them how.

  Andrew didn’t want definite.

  He wanted to say, Thank you, but we’ll get on with the donation ourselves and go home now, okay?

  But he couldn’t.

  Because he knew.

  Dr Amdahl’s phone rang, and he said he had to pop out, but could they wait, and he would explain what happened next with the bone-marrow transplant. The door slammed after him.

  Andrew couldn’t look at Ben.

  ‘You’re my fucking brother,’ he whispered more to himself.

  ‘We don’t know that. Not definitely. He said cousins too. That’s okay.’

  ‘Okay?’ Andrew shook his head frenziedly. ‘Okay? None of this is fucking okay!’

  He felt sick. Put his head between his knees for a moment. Ben touched his back, and he pulled away as though his hand was hot.

  ‘It isn’t cousins – I know it’s brothers. Christ.’

  ‘How can you know?’

  ‘I just do.’ Andrew’s voice was a high squeak.

  He stood, paced the floor. Ben joined him, in step.

  ‘Stop it!’ cried Andrew.

  He dragged Ben roughly to Doctor Amdahl’s huge mirror.

  ‘Look at us,’ he hissed. ‘Look at my eyes. Look at yours! I can see it now. Fuck, I can see it! Can’t you?’

  ‘No. I don’t see it. The test could be wrong. That happens,’ said Ben. ‘Let’s get them to do another. They probably mixed it up with someone else’s. That’s what it is.’

  ‘So I’m some other fucker’s brother?’

  ‘Could be the way they did it. They miscounted those markers. Did something wrong in the lab. Why are you just accepting this? Hospitals make mistakes all the time!’

  ‘Because I…’ Andrew picked up Doctor Amdahl’s plastic bin, thinking he would be sick.

  ‘Those odds were too ridiculous. I see that now. So this result can’t be true! The chances … the chances are too great. It’s maths…’

  Andrew retched, but nothi
ng came up.

  ‘Look, even if we were related,’ said Ben, ‘we were us first. If we don’t take any more tests, if we just ignore it, then no one need ever know.’

  ‘I know,’ cried Andrew. ‘And that fucking doctor knows!’

  He wanted to cry. This was his fault. His fucking fault. Ben looked so lost that he wanted to comfort him. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t.

  ‘You reckon you know,’ said Ben in a quiet voice. ‘But I know they must have made a mistake.’

  ‘You know fuck all,’ whispered Andrew.

  ‘It’s just blood. Just these little HLA marker things stuck to our cells. Maybe it got stuck wrong. Maybe it’s … Maybe it’s…’

  Andrew reminded him that the doctor had said if they were siblings they only share one parent. ‘Have you thought who that must be?’

  Ben looked as though Andrew had slapped him.

  ‘My fucking dad,’ he said. The denial was draining away. The realisation was pale on his face.

  ‘Yes,’ said Andrew. ‘Your fucking dad.’

  ‘It can’t be.’

  ‘Who else is it? We definitely don’t have the same mother.’

  ‘I told him he would ruin someone’s life one day!’ cried Ben. ‘I told him!’

  Doctor Amdahl came back and said if they wanted to go ahead with it, they would begin the donation after Andrew’s next course of chemo. They would filter Ben’s blood with a machine and feed it directly into Andrew. Wordlessly, they both left the stuffy room. Along the corridor, they walked out of step, letting other patients pass between them. Bob Fracklehurst picked them up outside the hospital. Andrew was grateful for Andrea Bocelli. For words he didn’t understand.

  Back at the flat, Andrew tried to swing the door shut after him; Ben had to stop it so he could follow him inside.

  In the living room, Andrew said, ‘I won’t take your blood.’

  ‘Why not? It could save your life!’

  ‘I want you to go.’ Saying it was agony. It wasn’t what Andrew wanted, not really, but he needed space. Time. To get his head around it.