by Susan Lewis
‘You want to discuss it in front of them?’ she shouts. ‘Is that what you want? Well I don’t want to discuss it at all, so just sod off . . .’
‘Let’s go in the other room,’ he says.
‘Leave me alone!’ she snaps, shrugging him off. ‘I don’t want to talk to you. If you can’t listen to what I’m saying . . .’
‘I am listening, but you can’t just not go, Ed . . .’
‘I can do what I bloody well like, thank you very much. Now, you heard what I said, you two, up to bed.’
I’m still looking at Dad, but I can see he’s not going to stick up for us again. I wish he would, because if they’re going to have a row I want to be here to stop them. ‘Come on, I’ll give you a piggyback,’ he says.
Mummy’s face shows that she won’t put up with any more arguing, so I get up from my table and go over to kiss Gran goodnight. It’s not fair. I always have to go to bed earlier than everyone else anyway, and now I have to go to bed even earlier than me.
‘Dad,’ I say.
‘Susan, you heard your mother. Now off you go.’
I want to cry and hit him, because he was on my side just now. ‘You said you’d give us a piggyback.’
‘That was before you started answering back.’
‘I’m not answering back.’
‘You’re doing it now.’
‘I’m not putting up with any more of this,’ Mummy suddenly shouts, and grabbing my arm she drags me out of the room and throws me down the passage. ‘Up those stairs now and make sure you’re in bed by the time I come up to tuck you in. And that goes for you too, Gary Lewis. Bed and no answering back.’
I can see he’s about to cry, so I take hold of his hand and walk up the stairs with him. I want to cry too, but I’m the oldest so I can’t. ‘It’s all right,’ I tell him when we reach his bedroom door. ‘You can sleep in with me tonight, after they’ve been up to turn off the lights.’
‘It’s not fair, we didn’t do anything,’ he says.
‘I know. They’re just wicked and anyway, they’re not our real mum and dad. They stole us from kind people when we were born.’
‘No they didn’t.’
‘Yes they did.’ He’s starting to look a bit worried so I say, ‘Why don’t we run away and find our real mum and dad?’
‘I don’t want to run away.’
‘Don’t be such a baby. We’re going to see if we can get on a boat and go to an island where no grown-ups are allowed. I read about it in one of my books.’
‘I don’t want to go on a boat without Daddy.’
‘Then don’t come. I don’t want you to anyway.’
I walk off into my bedroom, leaving him on the landing. It’s not long before he follows me in though. ‘You’re not going to run away, are you?’ he says.
‘I might.’
He goes on standing there, watching as I play with my dolls. ‘I’m going to tell Mum,’ he says.
‘If you do I’ll smash your brains in.’
‘I’ll smash yours in.’
I snuggle my dolls down in their pram and button on the cover.
‘I’m going to put my pyjamas on,’ he says.
‘Go on then, goody-two-shoes.’
‘You’ll be in trouble if you don’t put yours on too.’
‘See if I care.’
By the time Mum comes up I’m under the covers and facing the wall. She goes in to Gary first and I can hear them chatting, but can’t make out what they’re saying. I bet he’s telling her I’m going to run away.
His light goes off, his door closes then she comes in to me. ‘I hope you’re not sulking,’ she says.
I don’t answer.
‘Yes, I think she’s sulking. Well I’ll give her a kiss goodnight anyway.’ She kisses the back of my head. ‘God bless, sweet dreams,’ she says.
I still don’t answer.
‘You’re a proper little madam and you can stay up an extra half an hour tomorrow night,’ she says. ‘Will that make you happy?’
I nod.
‘So do I get a kiss now?’
I turn over and put my arms round her neck. I feel like I want to cry, but I don’t because there’s nothing to cry about now. When she’s gone I don’t go and listen over the banister. I’m not sure why, I just don’t.
Chapter Eight
Eddress
The kids is back at school after the Easter holidays, and now here I am at the hospital, me backside going numb as the wood it’s parked on, I’ve been waiting so bleeding long. I’m telling you, me patience is getting as thin as the new nets I put up in the front room yesterday. Nearly fell off the ladder while I was doing it, I did, would have ended up crashing right through the bloody window, and that would have been a fine state of affairs, wouldn’t it? I’d have been through that bloody door there a lot quicker than I’m getting through now, that’s for sure. Come to think of it, I’d rather be in here for that.
Eddie’s with me. He’s looking a bit smaller than normal for some reason, maybe because the doctors are all so grand and he’s so humble and respectful. I told him we can’t afford for him to keep taking time off work, but he wouldn’t listen. I think he’s making sure I come, that’s why he’s here. Don’t know what bloody odds it makes to him whether I turn up or not, but that’s his business, not mine. It’ll be mine when we haven’t got enough to see us through till the end of next week though, won’t it? It’ll be me who has to make the pennies stretch to Friday so we’ve got food on the table and coins for the meter. It all comes down to me in the end, which is how it should be, I’m the wife, it’s my job to run the home, I’m just saying, that’s all.
When we got here they had me straight in for X-rays, but that was three hours ago now. Ever since we’ve just sat here, watching everyone come and go, reading the paper or having a little chat now and then. I have to pop outside to have a fag, because they don’t allow it in here. Bloody nuisance, but I have to have one, because it’s got me all on edge waiting about like this. I hate hospitals, always have. The smell’s enough to put you off, and all that creeping about and talking in whispers gives me the bleeding willies.
A nurse comes through the swing doors into the waiting room, but it turns out she’s not here for us. The old woman who’s hardly breathing over by the fish tank goes in next with what must be her grandson. Everyone else looks as fed up as I feel as they settle down to wait again.
Last night I let Eddie examine the Cyclops, which he didn’t seem to mind a bit. He was more thorough than I was when I did it, but he didn’t find anything either, so we know there’s nothing to worry about there. The scar on the other side’s almost healed up completely now, and I feel as fit as a fiddle, so there’s nothing to be getting worked up about. Nothing at all.
To get me mind on other things I ask Eddie how his dad was when he went up there yesterday. The old man’s all right, he says, but he wishes Eddie’s two sisters would speak to Beat, his new wife. Harmless little soul she is, Beat, gentle as a lamb and never wants to do anything but please. Course, they was devoted to their mam, those sisters, and don’t want to see anyone take her place. I think Eddie was a bit upset when his dad married again too, but him and Bob still go to see their dad, which is only right. And think how those sisters are going to feel when he goes, knowing how they’ve turned their backs on him now.
I think about asking Eddie if he’d ever get married again, should anything happen to me, but it might upset him so I don’t. He’s worried enough, I can tell, even though there’s nothing to worry about. It’s all this bloody waiting around what does it. It gives you too much time to think, too much time to scare yourself to death.
I reckon I’d get married again if something happened to him, but there again, there’s no-one else in the world like Eddie and I wouldn’t want anyone who’s not like him. We’re not all soppy and romantic like some couples, but it don’t mean we’re not close, because we are. Course, we have our differences, and I know I’m not always t
hat easy to get on with, but let me tell you, nor is he. When he’s got his dander up about some Union thing, or some injustice in the world, like the blackie, Nelson Mandela, being sent to prison (you should have seen him then, I thought he was going to go and storm Downing Street all on his own – as it turned out thousands of others went with him), or if he thinks I’m being too hard on the kids, he’s down on me like a ton of bricks. But no-one ever sees that, except me. He’s got good principles and a soft heart, has my Eddie, so it makes me bloody mad to think he’s got to sit here now, waiting and worrying, because some bleeding stuck-up doctor thinks his time is more important than ours.
‘Tell me a poem,’ I say. He’ll like doing that. It’ll take his mind off where we are, stop him worrying about things that don’t need worrying about.
‘Which one would you like?’ he asks.
‘Something by Robbie Burns.’
He thinks about it for a minute, then starts on one of the ones I love best. He keeps his voice low and leans his head into mine so only I can hear.
O, my love is like a red, red rose
That’s newly sprung in June
O, my love is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass
So deep in love am I
And I will love thee still, my dear
Till all the seas gang dry
It’s lovely listening to him, and marvellous how he remembers all the words. He even does the Scotch accent. Soft bleeding ’a’p’orth I am, got tears in me eyes now. Fine bloody spectacle I’ll make of meself, won’t I, blubbering in the hospital waiting room when I haven’t even had the check-up yet.
The nurse comes in again and this time it’s my turn.
I stay sitting where I am, so Eddie stands up.
‘Are you Mr Lewis?’ the nurse asks him.
‘Yes.’
‘If you could wait here for the moment, thank you,’ she says. ‘We won’t be long.’
‘I’m not going in there without him,’ I tell her. ‘He’s got to come too.’
‘It’s all right,’ he whispers. ‘I’ll be here.’
‘There’s nothing to worry about, Mrs Lewis,’ the nurse assures me. ‘It’s just a routine check-up. It won’t take long.’
So Eddie stays in the waiting room while I follow the nurse through the double doors to a cubicle with a curtain across the front. She leaves me to take off all my clothes and put on a gown that opens down the back. There doesn’t seem to me to be any point in taking my skirt and knicks off, when it’s my upper regions he needs to look at, so I just remove my cardigan, jumper, brassiere and falsie and cover meself up with the gown.
Can you believe the bloody waiting starts all over again? I just sit there, on the edge of a trolley bed, staring at pictures of the human anatomy, or reading posters on different kinds of health care, while nurses’ shoes squeak up and down the corridor and the odd siren wails in from outside as an ambulance rushes some poor bugger into the emergency ward.
When Dr Michaels, who did my operation, finally turns up the nurse is right, it don’t take long. He just prods and pokes me around a bit, sticks the heartbeat listener, as our Susan calls it, in his ears to listen to my chest and asks me a few questions like how I’m feeling, and if there’s any discomfort where my other bosom used to be. I can put his mind at rest on everything, except when he asks if I’m experiencing any ‘undue tiredness’ or ‘loss of appetite’. My appetite’s all right, but I do seem to get a bit tired now and then, in the day. I don’t tell him that though, I just say everything’s normal, otherwise he’ll end up finding something else that’s wrong with me and before I know it I’ll be back on the bloody operating table having more bits removed in another experiment for the NHS.
‘Right, you can get dressed again now,’ he says with a pleasant little smile. ‘Is your husband with you?’
‘Yes, he’s in the waiting room.’
‘Good. Then perhaps you’d both like to come through to my office when you’re ready and we’ll have a little chat.’
No, we wouldn’t like, I feel like shouting after him. Talk about scaring the living daylights out of a person. What’s there to chat about? He’s done the check-up, I’ve told him there’s nothing wrong, so why can’t we just go home now? All this bleeding fuss. Honest to God, if it weren’t for Eddie, I’d tell Doctor bloody Michaels where he can stick his little chat.
By the time I’m dressed Eddie’s waiting in the corridor outside the cubicle. He’s looking a bit pale and as worried as I am that we’re being called in.
‘It’s all right,’ I say, giving him a wink. ‘He just wants to tell us when the next check-up is, I expect. Probably won’t be for another year.’
‘That’s what I thought,’ he says.
‘Ah, Mr and Mrs Lewis, you’re ready,’ a nurse calls from along the corridor. ‘This way please.’
I keep thinking now about the blood Dr Tyldesley took a couple of weeks ago, that I never told Eddie anything about. I was only there for one of me regular check-ups, so I’m not sure why he took it, he just said he was sending it off to some laboratory, and at the time I didn’t think any more of it. I can’t get it out of my bloody mind now though. What if they’ve found something? I should never have let him take it. I won’t next time.
Dr Michaels is wearing his nice pleasant smile again as he asks us to sit down on the chairs in front of his desk. The nurse leaves, closing the door behind her. Eddie’s holding his cap in one hand and my best black handbag in the other. Silly sod, looks a right bloody fairy.
Michaels is reading a file in front of him, his half-glasses perched on the end of his nose. Eddie and I just sit there, waiting. Michaels picks up some X-rays and goes to hang them on the wall. I can’t make head nor tail of them myself, but he looks at them with his hands on his hips, as though he’s reading them like words.
‘Mm,’ he says.
My heart’s thudding like a bleeding drum now. What the bloody hell’s that supposed to mean?
Michaels walks back to his desk, sits down and starts reading his file again. ‘You say you’re feeling fine, Mrs Lewis?’ he says to me. ‘No unusual loss of energy or appetite that you’ve noticed?’
I shake my head.
‘What about bathroom functions? Everything all right there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Breathing? Do you find yourself short of breath at all?’
‘Only when I’ve been running,’ I joke.
He smiles and gives one of those doctorly nods. ‘Still smoking?’ he asks.
If it weren’t for Eddie I’d say no, but I can’t with him sitting there, can I, so I just nod.
‘How many a day?’
‘About twenty.’
It’s more and Eddie knows it, but he doesn’t give me away.
‘Have you tried to give up?’
If I have to come again, I’m going to come on my own. ‘Not really,’ I answer.
‘Then you should. It’s extremely bad for you, and though we can’t actually say that it caused the problem in your breast, it most certainly will have aggravated it.’
I shift a bit in my chair.
‘Will smoking make it come back?’ Eddie asks.
‘Let’s put it this way, it most certainly won’t make it go away.’
‘Does that mean it’s still there then?’
‘Not necessarily. The area around the right breast, where we performed the mastectomy, and removed several lymph nodes, appears to be clear. However, there are some irregularities in the results of your blood test that I’d like to investigate further.’
I knew it! I bloody well knew it!
‘What does that mean?’ Eddie asks.
‘It’s all routine,’ Michaels answers. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about, but we would like to be on the safe side, make sure it hasn’t got into any other parts of the body.’
I start going all hot and cold. What other part of th
e body? ‘How can it do that if you took it all out?’ I demand. My voice is shrill and I feel like punching him. After all I’ve been through and now he’s telling me it might be somewhere else.
‘I’m going to be in touch with your GP,’ he tells me, ‘to let him know when we can admit you. It should be in the next couple of weeks.’
‘What do you mean, admit me?’ I cry.
‘I’d like to have you in for a few days, so we can run all the tests at once. As I say, it’s all routine. I’m sure everything’s all right, so please don’t worry. This often happens, a little side complication that can be sorted out in no time at all.’
A little side complication that might just mean . . . I don’t know what it might mean, but I don’t want to bloody well find out either. ‘I’ve got two children,’ I tell him. ‘I can’t go in hospital just like that, who’s going to take care of them?’
‘It’s all right, we’ll manage,’ Eddie says.
I feel like hitting him now, but then I see how worried he is so I don’t say anything else.
The doctor stands up, so we do too.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he says, holding out a hand to shake. ‘If you make an appointment to see your GP some time next week he should have heard from us by then.’
Some time next week? Why so fast? I feel sick and dizzy. I want to run away, but where would I go, without the bleeding thing coming with me?
‘Thank you, doctor,’ Eddie says politely.
‘Thank you,’ I echo.
When we get outside I link my arm through Eddie’s and we walk out of the hospital grounds to the bus stop. Bloody car let us down again this morning. Hardly any point having the damned thing, if you ask me. Eddie’s going back to work now, until six, to try to make up for some of the hours he lost today. I’m going to our mam’s to pick up Gary.
We have to wait for buses on opposite sides of the road, because Eddie’s going one way and I’m going the other. We look at each other across the street. It gives me a strange feeling that I don’t like at all. I give him a little wave because I know it’ll cheer him up. He waves back.
His bus comes first. I watch him get on, and look out the window at me as it pulls away. As soon as he’s out of sight I light up a fag. I have to wait another ten minutes for my bus to turn up, bloody thing, lucky it’s not too cold, or raining, today.
