When Bill keeled over in the back garden while picking runner beans one sunny afternoon and died, the distraught and lonely Elsie was only too glad to have someone to lavish her affection on, so it wasn’t long before she allowed Mary back into her life and her home. It made the pain so much easier to bear, not waking up in a house that rang with emptiness. Angela was delighted to have a reprieve. At last she could have a social life again. Soon she was dropping Mary at Elsie’s on a Friday night and, still yawning from her weekend’s revelry, collecting her on a Sunday afternoon. Half terms and holidays, Mary was there all the time, and was much happier riding her bike up and down the lanes of Honeycote and eating her granny’s home-cooked food than cooped up in a flat with an endless supply of chicken nuggets.
When Mary was eleven, Angela persuaded Elsie to let her use her address in Honeycote so she could apply for a place at the secondary school in Eldenbury. The school Mary was due to go to on the outskirts of Cheltenham was rough, with shocking exam results. Angela was no academic, but she knew she could use Mary’s education as a lever on her mother. Before Elsie knew it, Mary had been enrolled at Eldenbury High, and spent most of the week at her gran’s - the travelling got to her, explained Angela, and by the time she got home she was too tired to do her homework. Elsie knew she was being used, but she didn’t mind. And neither, which was more to the point, did Mary.
By the time she was fourteen Mary lived at her grandmother’s virtually full time, for she and her mother disagreed on everything. They were polar opposites. Mary was compassionate, always rooting for the underdog. Angela was ruthless and self-interested. As Mary became more opinionated and sure of herself, putting the two of them in a room was like slinging two pit bulls together. Angela bewailed her daughter’s behaviour, claiming she was out of control, rude, antagonistic. But Elsie found Mary perfectly obliging and sweet-natured. It was just that Angela brought out the worst in her, perhaps because she sensed her mother’s neglect of her when she was young. Perhaps she had felt her mother physically recoil when she held her? Perhaps she remembered Angela thrusting her tiny body at Elsie, shouting ‘Take her away from me. I can’t stand her!’
Perhaps babies weren’t quite as forgiving as one might think.
In some ways, it broke Elsie’s heart that the two of them didn’t get on. But in other ways it gave her a new lease of life. She loved having Mary around. She was lively, sparky, bright. A rebel with hundreds of causes. It didn’t worry Elsie that Mary dyed her hair any number of colours and wore outlandish clothes. She knew she had a reputation as a bit of a wild child. She had become a party animal, no doubt about that. Many times she’d waved the girl off on the back of some motorbike, dressed in leather and fishnet, her black hair back-combed and her eyes dark with kohl. But Mary had always phoned Elsie just before she went to bed at ten, to tell her she was all right, that she’d got a lift home arranged and if she wasn’t back not to worry. And she was always back home the next day, to help around the house, never seeming to suffer from a hangover or sleep deprivation. And when Elsie had rather timidly tried to talk to her about birth control, Mary had hugged her and said, ‘Don’t worry. I’m not going to make the same mistake as Mum.’
One day, Angela and Mary had the most terrible argument, during which Angela had slung the cruel fact that she’d hated her so much as a baby that she’d been given a temporary name.
‘I didn’t even want to give you a name. I didn’t choose Mary. Your grandmother called you Mary, because she didn’t want to call you “it” any longer. And I never bothered to change it because I didn’t care.’
Mary had spent the weekend in her room, trying to come to terms with the shock, and had emerged with a new identity. It was the spring bank holiday, and she took that as her inspiration.
‘This is the first day of the new me. I’m going to have nothing more to do with that woman. If she couldn’t even be bothered to name me, I’ll name myself. From now on, I’m going to be known as Mayday. I like the rhythm. I like the way it rhymes. And May’s my favourite month. It smells of blossom and sunshine.’
Elsie thought it was a strange choice, and wondered about the wisdom of naming yourself after a distress signal. Nevertheless, the new pseudonym suited her grandaughter. Mayday was a strong individual with a dress sense designed to shock, no fear of authority and a well-developed sense of what was right and wrong, which often got her into trouble. She was no sheep. No one was ever going to tell her which way to go.
Not long after her mother’s brutal revelation, Mayday left school without bothering to do her exams. She’d been predicted good grades, especially in English, which she loved - she always had her nose buried in a book, whether it was Jackie Collins or Virginia Woolf. But, she told Elsie, she wanted to stand on her own two feet. She didn’t want to live with her mother, yet she didn’t want to be a burden to her grandmother, either. Mayday was proud, independent . . . and stubborn. Despite Elsie’s protests that she could stay with her as long as she liked, all the way through university if she wanted, because she was clever enough, Mayday had begun work as a barmaid at the Horse and Groom in Eldenbury. She became so popular that she was soon working nearly every shift and was given her own room at the top of the pub, becoming as much a part of the fixtures and fittings as the long, low oak bar and the inglenook fireplace.
Angela, in the meantime, without the encumbrance of her daughter, had calmed down, and met and married Roy, a market gardener from Evesham. Not long after, her two sons, Mason and then Ryan, were born. Perversely, Angela became a natural mother overnight, doting on the two boys and tending to their every need. Elsie, rather bewildered by this volte-face, came to the conclusion that Angela simply didn’t like other females, viewing them as competition for the male attention she craved.
Now, looking back, Elsie felt in need of a large slug of Bill’s rhubarb wine. There were still half a dozen bottles lined up in the larder, the labels inscribed in his felt tip capitals. She didn’t have the heart to throw them away, and she knew the thick, syrupy sharp-sweetness would take the edge off her feelings, the regret, the guilt, the wondering if she should have done things another way.
Suddenly, she missed Bill more than ever. He’d been a man of few words and a creature of habit, but he had always had a way of reassuring her. Without Bill there to tell her she was being silly, Elsie didn’t feel quite so sure of her own mind. She couldn’t peel a potato, open a letter, put on a pair of tights. Simple everyday tasks. Maybe she should go into a home . . . ?
She felt tears spring to her eyes. She missed Bill so much. It had been over ten years, but the grief could still catch her breath and take it away completely. She missed him, with his silly flowerpotman hat, his thick brown jumper with the holes in the elbows, the armfuls of fresh vegetables . . . she rarely had fresh vegetables now. It was all she could do to get a bag of free-flowing frozen peas and carrots out of the freezer and pour them into the saucepan. She was useless.
One thing was certain. Rhubarb wine wasn’t the answer. Besides, she probably wouldn’t be able to get the cork out. She moved over to the range and shifted the kettle onto the hotplate by hooking her whole hand through the handle and lifting it with her wrist. Everyone was happy enough now, she told herself. Mayday and Angela kept out of each other’s way for the most part, only meeting occasionally and managing to be civil. Mayday was still ensconced at the Horse and Groom; Angela doted on her boys. Elsie was the only real problem, and she would manage.
The next minute she sat down heavily at the kitchen table and put her head in her arms, sobbing. A new box of teabags sat on the side unopened. She had tried and tried to pick at the blue tape that would unravel the cellophane. But she couldn’t get at it, not with her useless crippled fingers. She’d meant to ask Angela to open it, but had been so upset by her suggestion that she had forgotten.
After five minutes’ sobbing, Elsie fell into an exhausted slumber. She’d slept badly the night before, because of the pain in her legs. As
she slept, the kettle bubbled merrily away, not seeming to mind that no one had noticed that the water had come to the boil ages ago.
The doctors’ surgery in Eldenbury was always full to bursting on a Monday morning, harbouring all the gripes and complaints that had gone untended over the weekend, both real and imaginary, and providing a haven for all those who couldn’t face going into work. Elderly gentlemen and prune-faced spinsters sat alongside belligerent toddlers and weary pregnant mothers, everyone in their own bubble of self-absorption, totally uninterested in anyone else’s plight.
To look at him, Keith had no visible signs of complaint. He looked like a perfectly healthy man in his early fifties, with no running nose or hacking cough or weeping sores. Only the white of his knuckles gave a hint that anything was wrong, as he gripped the side of his orange padded seat and waited for his name to flash up on the screen overhead. This was a recent innovation, replacing the bored tones of the receptionist whose job it had been to announce the next patient. Somehow, seeing one’s name emblazoned in red letters seemed even less discreet than having it bellowed around the waiting room. It was there for everyone to see and mull over until the consulting-room door was reached, when one’s name was replaced with an anodyne ‘Good morning - welcome to the Eldenbury Practice.’
Keith had seen six names flash up already. He was fifteen minutes early for his appointment, which he knew was totally pointless as the surgery always overran by at least five minutes, even if you were first in the queue. But somehow being in the waiting room represented positive action. He was trying to make up for the fact that initially he had been so negative. He was compensating. Or should that be over-compensating? He didn’t know. All he knew was that the situation was out of his control.
He tried to take his mind off things by gazing at the fish tank. There were four fish in there, gliding round in ever-increasing circles. Last week, he was sure there had been five. He clenched his hands. The last thing he needed reminding of was mortality, whether his own or that of a fish. He was just thinking that the practice manager might have been tactful enough to replace it, when he noticed that the fifth fish was there after all. It had been nestling amongst the pebbles at the bottom, just behind a rather garish plaster sunken ship. His heart gave a little skip. Maybe this was an omen; a reminder not to lose hope.
To be honest, all he really wanted was a straight answer. If he knew what he was dealing with, then he could take action. That was how he had always done business, after all. But somehow he suspected that it wasn’t going to be as straightforward as that. It wasn’t how health worked. In business, you could look at the figures, see them in black and white, and work out exactly how much trouble you were in. But he was already discovering that bodies were not bank balances. It took a frustrating amount of time to elicit information, and in the meantime you had no idea whether you had a clean bill of health or were looking at choosing your funeral hymns.
He sighed heavily, earning himself glances from several other patients ranging from agitated to startled. It didn’t do to show emotion in the waiting room, as if anxiety was somehow contagious and might set off mass hysteria. But Keith had kept his emotions in check for long enough. His stomach was tied in knots. All night long, he had vacillated between calm and panic, playing over every possible scenario in his head. He imagined Dr Keller’s pleasant, round face as she imparted the diagnosis, wondering if she had a different expression for each degree of severity, or if she remained the same regardless. How did doctors do it? Was it part of their training, not to let their features give anything away? They couldn’t let it get to them. After all, it was common enough.
Cancer. Everyone knew about it. Loathed it. Feared it. But the mere sound of the word changed as soon as it became personal. Or even just a possibility. Keith wondered how exactly it was that you were singled out. There were all sorts of contributing factors, of course. Genetic predisposition. Diet. Lifestyle. Unwitting exposure to some deadly carcinogen. Or flagrant dicing with substances known to cause it. But why did some sixty-a-day smokers die peacefully at ninety, while seemingly clean-living innocents could be struck dead within days of their initial diagnosis? There must be some element of fate, some all-powerful finger flicking a little switch that set the cancerous cells multiplying regardless of how you lived your life. Had that switch been flicked in him, or was he suffering the intense paranoia that comes from any unexplained lump, bump, swelling, ailment or feeling of malaise when you reach a certain age?
It had taken him weeks to pluck up the courage to visit Dr Keller. And before that, it had been some time before it had occurred to him that something might actually be seriously wrong. An increased need to pee in the middle of the night wasn’t instant cause for alarm, after all. He was getting on, and it was one of those things people joked about, middle-aged men bobbing up and down for a slash. But then there was the other symptom.
Erectile dysfunction. The butt of many a comedian’s joke, but actually, it couldn’t be less funny. Keith’s penis had been pretty obedient for most of his life. It popped up and down as and when he needed it, rising up obligingly when the moment was appropriate, and not rearing its head when it wasn’t wanted. But for the past few months there had been nada.
Not that he and Ginny were at it like newlyweds, exactly. But there was a soothing rhythm to their relaxed rather than frantic bedroom activity, when they demonstrated their affection for each other, both emerging satisfied. There was nothing experimental; they had both wordlessly accepted that they knew what worked for each other and they didn’t need to enter into forbidden territory, even though if you read the Sunday papers most couples donned rubber masks or wielded multi-headed dildos on a nightly basis.
Suddenly, however, Keith had found himself incapable. No matter how he tried, with internal fantasies or external manipulation, his knob was not interested. Keith was mortified, and agonized that Ginny would somehow think she was responsible for his inert member. But he couldn’t find the words to express how he was feeling. And so he withdrew, so to speak. After several weeks of surreptitiously trying to nudge himself into life under the sheets, he gave up. Perhaps if he stopped trying it would get bored of playing dead, and would leap up again triumphantly, as if to say ‘Ha ha. Fooled you!’
Ginny, being Ginny, didn’t say anything about the lack of bedroom activity. They had just sort of drifted into mere companionship. Keith studiously avoided synchronizing bedtime, either scuttling up after the news and making sure he was fast asleep by the time Ginny slipped under the duvet, or waiting till she was slumbering before he climbed in. Then, of course, he lay there for hours, wondering if she was feeling rejected, but not quite able to say what was on his mind.
What he couldn’t decide was if he was in any pain or discomfort, because once you were trying to establish that the merest twinge became a searing pain. A full bladder became agonizing and disposing of it felt like white-hot needles, but Keith was sure it was all in his mind. Having a pee felt no different than it had done all of his life, he kept telling himself firmly.
In the end, he had to pluck up the courage to sit in front of his pretty little GP and mutter his ailments, as if speaking them quietly meant they didn’t exist. Her response, to Keith’s horror, was to slip on a pair of latex gloves and ask him, politely but firmly, to bend over.
Her verdict was neither reassuring nor an immediate cause for alarm. Yes, he had a slightly enlarged prostate gland, but that could mean a number of things. There followed a list of possible explanations, some of which Keith remembered from his tentative trawl around the internet. He’d gone online at the office, even though he knew that was the quickest way to self-diagnose a terminal disease and find several more you hadn’t thought of.
To pin it down, Dr Keller had explained at his first visit, he would need a PSA test. ‘PSA is a protein produced by the prostate, which gets released into the bloodstream. When there’s a problem with the prostate - for example, but not necessarily, prostate ca
ncer - more and more of this protein is released. With a simple blood test, your PSA levels can be easily detected. And we can decide where to take it from there.’
‘Let’s do it, then,’ Keith had said, with false jollity. He didn’t mention that he couldn’t stand needles, because he suspected that this was probably the beginning of a number of painful procedures, and a blood test was probably the least invasive. He’d stuck his arm out bravely, and Dr Keller proved to be extremely gentle.
He was here today to get the results. Keith heard the buzzer indicating it was time for the next patient, and looked up to see his name. His stomach lurched, and for a moment he wanted to turn and walk out of the surgery. Perhaps it was too late? He’d heard stories about people who were riddled with cancer, walking around completely oblivious until they’d gone in with an inconsequential symptom and discovered the awful truth.
He stood up, telling himself not to be neurotic. It might be nothing. Or it might just be the early signs, in which case something could be done. It was irresponsible to bolt. He threw back his shoulders and went to meet his fate.
Dr Keller was typing something into her computer as he walked into her room. She gave him a perfunctory welcoming smile as he sat down, then finished off whatever she was typing. He wondered what was going through her mind, if she had looked at his notes yet, if she was debating how to break the news or if she hadn’t yet had a chance to see what card fate had dealt him. Probably not, if you believed what you read in the papers about how overstretched the NHS was. She was probably used to picking up a patient’s results and giving it to them straight.
Just a Family Affair Page 7
