Infidelity for Beginners

by Danny King

  What a nightmare! And one that had an effect on me that of a thousand buckets of cold water couldn’t have matched, dislodging all remaining thoughts of Elenor from my brain. Though these would later come back to haunt me.

  At first, I couldn’t take it in because cancer wasn’t something young school teachers got. Cancer was something hell-raising movie legends got after a lifetime of booze and broads. At the very least, it was something your great Auntie Ada got and was perfectly all right about. “Don’t worry about me, I’ve had a good innings. Just see to it that my cats are well taken care of and I’ll leave you all my money. What’s that? Why yes, I do have an old Hessian sack and a couple of bricks. Why do you ask?”

  But young, intelligent, kind and caring school teachers? What was all that about?

  At first, it was so much to take in that both Sally and I chose to bury our heads in the sand. We didn’t go as far and kidding ourselves that there was nothing wrong at all, but we opted to believe it wasn’t anything serious; a tiny little polyp, small and insignificant, that could be batted away as easily as a fly and wasn’t it lucky we found it at an early stage?

  But until the doctors took a good look inside Sally, we wouldn’t know for sure. And that was probably the hardest part. The waiting. Days dragged their heels like you wouldn’t believe and neither of us dared to speculate as to the extent of Sally’s disease for fear of letting it into our minds.

  It was a terrible week. I decided I couldn’t just sit still, so I got myself down the local library and started reading up on the enemy. Here are a few facts I found out which I want share with you before we go on any further.

  There are four stages of ovarian cancer – stage I being the earliest and stage IV being the last. In addition to this, there are three classifications for each stage – A, B and C (C being the least desirable). Then you have the grades for the tumours themselves – grade I, II and III, indicating what sort of mood the tumour's in and let's not forget the strain of the cancer itself.

  There are six main variants of ovarian cancer; serous, mucinous, endometrioid, clear cell and a couple of others I jotted down, but unfortunately can't read back. I thought I would be able to handle it from an academic point of view but after only half an hour of horror, my handwriting could've passed for Guy Fawkes' final note to the milkman.

  Ovarian cancer on the whole, was the fourth most common form of cancer in women though the survival rate was sadly poor when compared with other cancers.

  See, the thing is, if you caught it early, like with all cancers, you could pretty much root it out and eradicate it with surgery and drugs. But ovarian cancer's tricky because it's hidden away and the symptoms and signals it gives off can be so easily misconstrued. Lots of women dismiss their disease as heartburn or even indigestion. Sally dismissed hers as a baby, something Queen Mary I did too back in 1558, much to her and the newly rejuvenated Catholic England's dismay. As a matter of fact, the most common way in which ovarian cancer is usually discovered is when couples go in for IVF treatment and the scan turns up the reason they’re having difficulties.

  See, the trouble is, there's no screening test for ovarian cancer – unlike pap smears or mamogram tests for cervical and breast cancers, so more often than not the little bastard's already set up home before anyone knows he's in there. Hence the poor survival rate.

  And ovarian cancer’s nickname as the silent killer.

  Look, I think I'm going to stop there, not least of all because I don't want to turn this into The Vagina Monologues. I just wanted to fill in a little detail and put you into the picture as to what sort of foe we were up against.

  We? Okay, Sally.

  *

  “Am I going to die?” Sally asked the doctor.

  “People hear the word cancer and they immediately think the worst, but in reality there are lots and lots of women with quite progressive cancers, who live with their disease for many years,” the doctor replied, sounding half like he meant it too. “Now, we're going to get things moving right away and book you in with the oncologist. This means we’ll need to perform a surgical procedure called a staging laparotomy, just to take a peak inside you and then debulk the main affected areas. We’ll send anything we find away for analysis then consider what further treatment, if any, is required when we get the results back. Okay?”

  This all sounded okay to me, but then again I wasn't the one who was going to die.

  I managed to remove my hand from Sally's long enough to dig out my handkerchief, but she looked up at me in surprise and even managed a smirk when she felt how wringing wet it already was.

  “Sorry,” I coughed, doing my best to run through all the brick walls of emotion to be strong for my wife.

  “Now, if it is only a small tumour on one ovary, then we may have to remove that ovary. If, however, the cancer has spread, then this may involve a hysterectomy, so it’s important that you understand the full implications of this procedure,” the doctor said, as scarily as possible.

  He then went on to expand on the implications and Sally squeezed my hand so tightly that the doctor had to take a quick look at it before we left with all our unvoiced questions still bouncing around our brains.

  “I'm really scared,” Sally said, shivering in my arms in the early spring chill once we were outside.

  “It's okay. Honestly, it'll be okay,” I tried to reassure her, though what I was basing that on was anyone’s guess. Still, it seemed more helpful than rattling her by the arms and screaming into her face, “Me too. Oh God, what the fuck are we going to do?”

  “Why us? What have we done to deserve this?” Sally swallowed, leaning against the car for support.

  “Nothing, love. Absolutely nothing. I don’t think it works like that,” I told her, shaking my head when I thought about all the terrorists, torturers and playboys out there who were walking around smug and cancer-free. “Besides, you heard what the doctor said, there are thousands of women who have well progressed cancers who are still able to live perfectly normal lives.”

  “I didn’t hear him say thousands,” Sally pointed out.

  “Didn’t he? Well that’s what he meant. I don’t think he would’ve mentioned it if there was only one or two. Look, all you need to know is that these people are experts. They know what they're doing and they’re going to get you better. I don’t even have any doubts,” I promised. I was about to expand on this point but Sally cut me short by burying her head into my neck and bursting into tears.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she just kept blubbing irrationally, over and over again. Several hospital visitors looked our way, but none of them lingered long enough to intrude on the moment.

  “There there. There there,” I muttered, rubbing her back and doing all I could to sooth her shakes.

  *

  Incredibly, Norman absolutely insisted I took a week’s compassionate leave to be with Sally when she went in for her surgery and this was even more astonishing when you considered that he’d already been covering for Tom for the past five weeks. I asked him if he was sure he could do both magazines and Norman assured me that the work load was no problem and that he was actually enjoying getting his hands dirty again after so long in “the big office”.

  I was a little wary of him covering for us both, because I was worried he’d see how little actual work there was to do, but then Tom pointed out that Norman had a full-time job at the company too and no one was covering for him while he was playing in our seats so what could he say?

  Anyway, it was a nice thing for Norman to do and I couldn’t help but feel bad for some of the things I’d said about him in the past.

  *

  The days leading up to the laparotomy were a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. Sally was both anxious about her surgery and frantic to have it done. Every hour she went without treatment was another hour the enemy had to grow.

  Sally wanted it out and she wanted to be free. But most of all, I sensed, she wanted not to be sc
ared any more.

  She felt particularly bitter towards her cancer because of the deception it had pulled. She’d showered her little miracle with love and hope for almost a month before the doctors had told her the truth and the betrayal was nothing short of cruel. It knocked Sally for six and left her helpless as a kitten, so I took it upon myself to be her one-man support network and made sure I was never further than a groan away. As it turned out, it only took me a couple of days to realise why there wasn’t a queue of volunteers stretching around the block for this particular job.

  “What?”

  “Tea. Can you make me a cup of tea?” she flapped wearily.

  “Another one? You had one only twenty minutes ago.”

  “No, I didn’t drink it and it went cold,” she said, pointing to a full cup of tea by the side of her bed.

  “Well, do you want me to put it in the microwave for thirty seconds then? Warm it up?”

  “Urgh no, I don’t like it like that.”

  “It doesn’t make any difference, it’ll just warm it up.”

  “No, it makes it taste funny. Oh don’t worry about it then,” she heaved miserably, her body language lamenting first cancer, now this.

  “No no, I’ll make you one if you want one,” I insisted, finally leaping into action.

  “No, don’t bother. I don’t think I want one now.”

  “It’s all right, it’s no bother.”

  “Just forget it,” she grumbled.

  I bit my tongue, counted to three and went and made Sally a cup of tea anyway. As I was doing so Tom wheeled himself over to see how we were doing.

  “How are you Sugar?” Tom asked, his nickname for her at university. Sally replied by bursting into tears and leaning on his wheelchair so hard I had to grab one of the armrests to prevent them from both rolling out of the house.

  “Not bad,” she finally croaked, a big brave smile across her face. “How are you?”

  “Getting better with every passing day. You’ll see what that’s like soon enough,” he winked.

  Sally’s Diary: March 15th

  I’m having my surgery this morning and I’m scared. I know it’s a standard procedure but I’m still worried. I’m sorry to admit this but I’ve always been a coward when it comes to doctors. I know there are people in other parts of the world that have more to be scared about than me right now but I can’t help myself. Injections, examinations, stitches and operations; they all bring me out in a cold sweat. A few years ago, I cried the morning I had to have two wisdom teeth out. God, I wish I were having two wisdom teeth out today. I’d give anything to be having two wisdom teeth out today. I’m scared of the anaesthetic. I’m scared of the drip. I’m scared of having to just lie there and let a lot of people in masks take scalpels to me. And I’m scared of what they might find when they do.

  I have such a longing to run and hide but there’s nowhere I can run to because the thing I long to run from is inside of me. I’m scared of all of these things and more. But most of all that the cancer has spread. Because if that has happened…

  It’s not fair. It’s just not fair…

  Chapter 14. Hospital Cafeterias and Other Strange Places

  I tried to smother Sally with as much reassurance as I could but I don’t know if any of it got through. Actually I think I just made myself more nervous. Sally looked so small and so helpless amongst all those grown-ups that ten years of lost love caught up with me like a rocket-powered boxing glove. Actually, that’s not true. My love for Sally was never lost, it had just taken a wrong turning a few years back and had got sidetracked looking through lingerie shop windows.

  “Right then, come along. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave us now,” the nurse informed me in a way that made me want to suck my thumb. “Say goodbye and then go and get yourself a cup of tea. Don’t worry, your wife will be fine with us and you’ll see her later.”

  I stopped my bottom lip wobbling just long enough to press it against Sally’s and told her one last time that everything would be okay before I was finally ejected out into the hospital corridor.

  My last glimpse of Sally was of her nervously unbuttoning her cardigan as the nurse busied herself around the bed. When the door finally clicked shut I stared at it for about a minute and suppressed the urge to start barking. But then the door opened again and I almost collided heads with the nurse when I tried to look inside for another quick peak.

  “Come on now, shoo, shoo, off you go,” she insisted, pushing me back away from the door and verbally clipping me around the ear. “Your wife is in the best of hands. Now go and get yourself a cup of tea.”

  A cup of tea was possibly about the last thing in the world I wanted but I knew I had to get out from under their feet, so I decided to play ball and go and do the thing we English did best in times of crisis.

  “Where do I get a cup of tea from?” I asked the nurse.

  “From the cafeteria. Down the corridor and turn left, through the doors, down the stairs and follow it round. You can’t miss it,” she replied, though twenty minutes of blundering around the corridors of the hospital proved she was no judge of orienteer.

  Still, at least it gave me something else to think about and for that I was marginally grateful.

  As I searched for this mythical cafeteria, I couldn’t help but wonder at how brave Sally was being. I’d never liked hospitals myself. I mean, who does? But they’d always scared the bejesus out of me in particular. In the movies, hospitals were usually crisp, clean places, where concerned doctors outnumbered the patients five-to-one and dramatic music and beeping life support machines conveniently glossed over the cacophony of coughing and constant buzz of unanswered telephones.

  Outside of the movies, hospitals were frighteningly real places. In fact, they were the most real places on Earth. And the long, bright corridors and cold, hard fixtures just underlined this every blundering footstep of the way.

  Radiology. Anaesthetics. Cystic Fibrosis. Diabetes. Dietetics. Special Care Baby Unit. Teenage Unit. Physiotherapy. Intensive Care Unit. Accident & Emergency.

  Cancer Unit.

  These signs were posted in every corridor and on every stair well and they all scared me to tears although the scariest of these had to be Chaplaincy. About the only sign they didn’t have was Cafeteria, so I kept on searching until I found an equally lost sole staring up at a big board of signs.

  “Excuse me, but do you know where the cafeteria is?” the old boy asked as I stopped to examine the board myself.

  “Hopefully somewhere near Frimley,” I replied, this being Frimley Park Hospital.

  “Yes, it’s a bit tricky isn’t it,” the old fella agreed.

  By lucky chance, my new friend managed to snag a passing nurse and we squeezed a new set of directions out of her, which seemed to involve returning to Go and starting again.

  “Do you think they’ve actually got a cafeteria here?” the chap asked, as the clatter of the nurse’s brogues faded down the hospital corridor.

  “Perhaps we should’ve got her to draw a map,” I replied.

  “Hmm, yes. Well, do you want to see if we can find it together?” he offered and to my surprise I found myself saying yes.

  The old boy looked almost twice my age but good with it. His shirt was ironed, his shoes were polished and his jacket was pressed. He was also clean-shaven and combed, whereas I was none of these things. I had four-day stubble, flyaway hair, a jumper that looked like it had last been worn by The Thing and a jacket that had less of an idea where the dry cleaners was than I did.

  I guess one of us had been in the army when we were younger. Or at least, had come from a generation whose Sunday dress was Sunday best, not tattered old jogging bottoms and an egg-stained T-shirt.

  “This looks the ticket,” he said, when we finally spied a Cafeteria sign. We followed subsequent signs through one last corridor before finally locating the tinkle of cutlery and the squeaking of chairs.

  “Can I get you a cup
of tea?” he offered before I had the chance to do likewise.

  “Please, thank you,” I replied, and found us both a table.

  He brought us back a tray of all the various bits and bobs they give you whenever you buy a cup of tea in a cafeteria and we settled either side of each other and poured the contents all over the table.

  “I can never get the hang of these blasted tin spouts,” he replied, frowning at his little metal pot and mopping up the worst of the spillage with a napkin. “Are you here visiting someone?”

  “Yes, I’ve come with my wife,” I replied, then almost choked when I said the words, “she’s got cancer.”

  “Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that,” he sympathised and even though he didn’t press I ended up telling him all about her condition and all about her operation until all the tea was gone. “I see,” he said.

  “I just don’t know what to do,” I ended up sniffing.

  “Yes, it’s difficult,” he agreed, then thought for a moment. “You just have to do what you can I suppose. You’re not a doctor I take it?”

  “No.”

  “Or a, what do they call those chaps, a radiographer?”

  “No.”

  “And you certainly don’t look like a nurse,” he pointed out, also pointing out the attitudes of the decade he seemed to have wandered in from. “So you just have to do what you can,” he said. “It might not seem much at first, but it’s the little things that make all the difference. Look after her. Take care of her. Cook her dinner. Bring her flowers. Make her feel special. Your wife, what’s her name?”

  “Sally.”

  “Sally needs a friend right now and the best friend a woman can have is her husband.”

  “And vice versa?”

  “Without doubt,” he nodded. “Without doubt.”

  His eyes sparkled a moment to suggest his thoughts were elsewhere and I was about to ask his own circumstances when he got in first and asked me if Sally was my actual wife, or whether she was just my common-law wife.