Don’t you just love teenagers? They are so predictable.
Scooping my loot into my bag, I scuttle past my classroom and hotfoot it to the boiler room, the last known gathering place of the secret smokers at Sir Bob’s. One emergency cigarette, one last weep about James and some serious worrying about the lump is the order of the morning.
Safely ensconced in the boiler room, I take a huge drag on the cigarette, but even the lovely nicotine rush fails to lift me. There’s just too much to deal with for one morning. Too many thoughts and far too many questions that I’ll need to find answers for. And there’s one question that is looming far larger than any other.
I flick ash on to the floor and square my shoulders. What on earth is this lump all about? Should I ignore it? Or do I do the sensible thing and get it checked out? That’s what all the women’s magazines would advise. Nine out of ten breast lumps are benign. I know all that stuff.
But what if mine’s that one out of ten? The way things are going for me lately, it would hardly be a surprise.
Is not knowing it’s cancer worse than finding out something awful? Would I rather know that James has installed a new, slimmer, more beautiful girlfriend in the flat than just bibble about in ignorance? Is it better to know I really do have a lump than to pretend that I never found it, wander into the staff room and as usual fritter away my free lesson drinking coffee and surfing the internet? Should I ring the doctor and do the sensible thing?
The trouble is, I’ve always been crap at being sensible.
Maybe now is the time to start.
The doctor’s surgery is overflowing with patients, all of whom are spluttering and snuffling, and the phone rings endlessly. We’re all crammed into a small room lined with very narrow chairs, and some patients even have to lean against the walls or wait over by the reception area. It’s like there’s an attempt to beat the world record for the highest number of sick people shoved into one small space; all we need is Roy Castle to appear and we’ll probably do it. Somebody is sniffing meatily. Someone else has a hacking cough and I can practically see the germs multiplying and squabbling over who they get to land on next. This little surgery in West Ealing could be a very successful weapon should Britain ever decide to use germ warfare. I’ve only been sitting here for half an hour and already my throat’s sore.
‘Katy Carter,’ says the receptionist. ‘Dr Allen, room five.’
I put down my dog-eared copy of Hello! and pick my way over various stretched-out limbs towards the consulting room. A dozen pairs of eyes swivel resentfully in my direction. I ignore them; after all, I’ve waited for over an hour, time during which I have diagnosed myself with every conceivable ailment from terminal cancer to scabies.
‘Watch it!’ whines a ten-year-old, over whose foot I go flying. ‘You tread on me and I’ll do you for GBH, you stupid bitch.’
Don’t you just love kids? Given the mood I’m in, the H would be so G that he wouldn’t live to tell the tale, and I’m just about to tell him so when I catch the eye of his mother.
Maybe not. She looks like she eats small ginger people for lunch and picks their bones clean for supper. The average Sir Bob’s parent then.
The doctor looks up and smiles as I open the door. ‘Please come in. What can I do for you today?’
I open my mouth to tell him but no words come out. I am so not getting my tits out for someone who looks like my grandad. No way! I’m just about to tell him I’ve made a mistake, but it’s too late. He’s shutting the door and guiding me towards a seat.
‘Please, sit down.’ He gestures to the yellow plastic chair next to him and glances at my notes. ‘A teacher? What is it? Stress?’
Stress doesn’t even start to describe it, matey.
‘It’s my breast,’ I say at last, and my mouth feels like it’s got half the Gobi tipped into it. ‘I’ve found a lump.’
‘There’s no need to jump to the worst-case scenario,’ Dr Allen tells me. ‘It’s very unlikely that it’s anything unpleasant in a woman of your age. We’ll just do an examination, though, to make sure. Hop on to the couch and slip your jumper off.’
Hop? That couch is almost as high as me. I bounce feebly for a few moments before finally heaving myself on. And by the way, when did I become a woman? I’m a girl, aren’t I? I like funky shoes and pink stuff. Women wear sensible shoes and pay their bills on time. Women are old. I’m not old. I’m nearly thirty.
Oh God.
Nearly thirty? Whatever happened to twenty-five?
I am old.
‘Just lie back,’ says the doctor, rather worryingly rolling up his sleeves. ‘Raise your right arm above your head.’ I adopt a Kate Winslet in Titanic pose for him and try to pretend a total stranger isn’t prodding at my boob. What shall we talk about? The weather? And why did I choose today to wear my grottiest bra? Greying lace and fraying strap are so not a good look.
‘I’ve probably imagined it,’ I say, as after a few seconds he’s still poking silently at my flesh. ‘Sorry to waste your time. Shall I go now?’
I’m all for leaping down from the couch and running as fast as my short little legs can carry me. He’s a nice doctor but he’s older than my dad and here I am with my boobs out. I take my hat off to Jordan; it’s some crazy way to make a living. Maybe there’s something to be said for teaching after all? Year 11 may be shits, but at least I don’t have to get my tits out to keep them entertained.
Although it’s probably only a matter of time.
‘In fact I’m sure I imagined it.’ I’m light-headed with relief. The stress of the last few weeks has got to me. I’ve probably pulled a muscle in my boob from lugging that sodding laptop around all day long. Or maybe this is a bizarre side effect of all that physical activity that Ollie has subjected me to. I always knew exercise was bad for you. From now on I will be the ultimate couch potato. I will make the Royle Family look energetic. I will—
‘Ah yes. There it is,’ says the doctor.
I feel the blood drain from my head and whoosh right down my body to the tips of my toes. For a hideous moment I think I’m going to pass out.
‘It’s a fairly small, smooth lump,’ he continues, his fingers probing in time with each word. ‘I’m going to refer you to the Daffodil Unit for tests.’
‘The Daffodil Unit?’ I squeak. I’ve seen women standing in the mall rattling collecting tins with the daffodil symbol on them. I’ve put a pound or two in, then rushed on with my shopping, never imagining that I might have to go there myself. ‘But that’s the…’ My words dry up. I can’t — I daren’t — say it aloud.
‘The oncology unit.’ The doctor returns to his computer and taps in some notes while I remain frozen in my Titanic pose. ‘They’ll do a biopsy,’ he continues. ‘Then we’ll know more.’
There’s more to know? Whatever happened to ‘It’s nothing, go home’? I stare at him aghast.
‘Do you think it’s cancer?’ I whisper.
‘It’s probably nothing to worry about, but we certainly can’t rule out any possibilities at this stage.’ He smiles kindly at me. ‘We need to be sure. It could be a cyst. That’s the most likely cause in a woman of your age. It could even be a fibroadenoma.’
A what? How can I have something that I can’t even spell?
The doctor roots around in his desk for a wad of leaflets, which he hands me with a flourish. I take them in my clammy little paws and am struck by how pretty they are — all pinks and girlie pastels. What is this? Make Cancer Cute?
‘Read this literature through,’ he says. ‘It explains it all. And try not to worry too much.’
Try not to worry? Is he mental? How would he feel if he’d found a lump on his willy and I told him not to worry? Of course I’m going to worry! I’m one of the world’s champion worriers. I’m practically Olympic standard. I even worry if I have nothing to worry about!
I pull my sweater back on. I seem to have done nothing else but get dressed today.
‘You should hear from
the hospital within fourteen days. I’ll write the referral up this afternoon.’
‘Fourteen days!’ I gasp. ‘That’s two weeks!’
I sound like Tony Hancock in ‘The Blood Donor’. It may only be fourteen days to you, mate, but that’s a whole fortnight to me! I’ll go insane. I’ve only known about this lump for a morning and already it’s driving me demented. I can’t wait two weeks. I’ll be a burbling wreck. I’m the world’s most impatient person. I’m a crap gardener because I can’t resist digging up the seeds to see if they’ve started growing. And as for unwrapping my Christmas presents early… I’m a master at that. I will never manage to wait two weeks to see a specialist. I’ll explode. I’ll be so wound up I’ll start to tick.
Basically, I’ll go nuts.
And God help Ollie, who’ll have to live with me.
‘If you have private health insurance I can refer you to the Nuffield,’ Dr. Allen offers, fingers poised over the keyboard. ‘They should see you within three days.’
Oh yes! Thank you, baby Jesus! Or maybe I should thank James, who’s got an all-singing, all-dancing Bupa package? No NHS for James. When he had his wisdom teeth done last year, it was all hot and cold running nurses, plasma-screen TV and fresh coffee and papers delivered to his bedside. I was practically ready to move in myself. Yea, the Nuffield! Bring it on! I’m just about to say yes, my fiancé has health insurance and please refer me at once, when I remember that now I’m single this no longer applies. James is not about to race in and save the day.
This is turning out to be a seriously bad morning.
Clutching my wad of literature, I stumble out of the surgery and wander on to the high street. Outside it’s a glorious sunny spring day. The sky is duck-egg blue trimmed with scudding white clouds so pure and fluffy they could have been borrowed from a Philadelphia advert. The park across the road teems with office workers taking an early lunch; they lounge on the grass enjoying the unexpected warmth or sit on benches munching their sandwiches. The shrill shrieks of children split the air as they race around the play area, tearing down slides and spinning giddily on the roundabout. Over by the pond, a mother and toddler are busy feeding the ducks, which are so stuffed with bread it’s amazing they still float. I watch as the child laughs and is scooped up by his mother, fat little cheek pressed against hers and chubby arms wrapped tightly around her neck. Everything is so beautiful.
My eyes fill with tears, which I dash away angrily with the back of my hand.
What is the matter with me?
I don’t particularly want children.
I don’t even particularly like children — I’m a teacher, for God’s sake — but I’ve always thought that maybe one day…
With the right man, obviously.
And without cancer.
Stop it! I tell myself angrily. Get a grip! It could be nothing.
Or it could be something, whispers an insidious little voice.
I shove the leaflets into my pocket. I’ll read them over lunch and then I’ll tell Ollie. He’ll know how to cheer me up. It’ll probably involve getting hideously drunk in some skanky pub, but right now oblivion seems like a pretty good space to occupy.
With a sigh, I head back up the high street. It’s a bad sign that I feel no desire whatsoever to go into any of the shops and burn plastic. The window displays are crammed full of beachwear, flowery flip-flops and pretty sarongs all calling out, ‘Buy me! Buy me!’ and usually I’d be straight inside playing with my credit card. But today I feel like somebody has placed me inside a bubble. I’m looking at it all but it seems miles away, as though I’m wading through treacle rather than sauntering through the shopping centre on an unexpected bunk off school. Even the golden arches of McDonald’s fail to tempt me in, which is a very bad sign indeed.
Fourteen days of this?
I’m going to starve to death.
I don’t want to shop and I don’t want to eat. I’m getting less sex than Mother Teresa, and she’s got the excuse of being dead. My fiancé has replaced me. My novel’s been torn into ribbons and there’s a lobster living in my shower.
What sort of a life is that?
But at least it’s my life.
I just hope I keep it that way.
Chapter Nine
You know how they say that a watched pot never boils? Well, I’m discovering the same is true of watched telephones. Not that I’m expecting Ollie’s phone to boil. I’m waiting for it to ring. And I’ve been waiting since lunchtime, pretending to watch the telly and trying to grade a stack of coursework, but the phone’s so silent it makes Trappist monks seem noisy. It always rings when I’m in the bath or watching EastEnders but never when I need it to.
Sod’s law strikes again.
‘Why don’t they ring?’ I ask Sasha, who’s lying next to me on the sofa. Between us we’ve demolished a packet of HobNobs and a bag of Bonios. All this waiting is hungry work. Now the biscuits are gone, I’ve set to work on my nails. There’s no need to grow them for my wedding, so I figure I may as well indulge in a good old chew. After all, it’s not every day that a girl waits for the phone call that will tell her whether or not she has breast cancer.
‘Are they telling the people with bad news first?’ I wonder. ‘Or are they saving that until last?’
Sasha knows as much as I do about this. She thumps her tail in sympathy and I attack my right hand. If the consultant doesn’t call soon, I am likely to be down to my elbows.
‘Just bloody ring,’ I tell the phone. But it remains stubbornly silent. If phones could flick V signs at people, then that’s what it would be doing. I turn my attention back to my thumb and gnaw away.
The time that’s passed since I found my lump have been the weirdest of my life. It’s as though all the things I worried about before have faded away into insignificance. Not that they weren’t meaningful once, but in comparison to knowing that inside me there could be something malevolent, growing by the second and stretching out deadly tentacles, their power to move me has totally dissipated. The break-up with James is like a distant memory. I still miss him, I’m still hurt he’s replaced me so easily, but it no longer matters like it did.
Mads was right. This really isn’t a dress rehearsal. I just hadn’t counted on the fact that my performance could be a short one. I mean, we take it all for granted, don’t we? All the things we put off for later, all the places we’ll visit one day and all the things we mean to do. I’m always in such a hurry. I race to work, I scurry around school like the Tasmanian Devil on speed, bells chivvying me from one place to another, and I eat my lunch on the hoof before racing off to my next lesson. Then I run for the bus, whiz round Sainsbury’s, scurry home, mark books and fall into bed. The next day I wake up and do it all again.
Stop the merry-go-round. I want to get off.
Why exactly am I working so hard and tearing around at a million miles an hour?
‘What’s it all about?’ I wonder aloud. What have I got to show for the past thirty years apart from an addiction to glossy magazines and a serious credit-card debt? What exactly have I done with my life?
Frittered it away, that’s what. I sigh and fondle Sasha’s soft ears. I’ve never really taken the time to think about what I actually want. I’ve fallen into a career that I never really wanted, I’ve wasted years on a man who never loved me the way I deserve to be loved, and I’ve been too cowardly to take a chance with my writing. Like everybody, I spin myself little dreams about what I might do one day, which makes the present a little bit more bearable, but what do I actually do about it? Absolutely nothing.
Twenty-nine years old and I’ve nothing to show for it.
It’s a sobering thought.
I don’t mean to be depressing. I’m not really depressed. I’m more in a contemplative state of mind. Finding this lump has really made me think about everything. Reassess and re-evaluate things I’ve taken for granted. If it wasn’t for this sneaky mass of cells lurking under my flesh, I’d no doubt be merrily ca
rrying on as usual, worrying about how many calories I’ve eaten and whether or not my love life is a failure. Not that I need to ponder that one any longer when the answer’s so glaringly obvious.
‘Tell you what, though,’ I say to Sasha, ‘whatever I find out today, things are going to change around here. I’ll buy your master a beer for a start, because he’s been brilliant.’
You certainly know who your friends are when the chips are down.
‘No way,’ Ollie breathed in disbelief when I told him about my horrific morning. I went back to school in the end because sitting in the house was a fast-track approach to suicidal thoughts. At school I don’t have time to pee, never mind brood about things.
At three thirty, Year 11 thundered out of my room and I was left to restore order to a scene that equalled Beirut on a bad day. Posters flapped sadly from the wall, at least two chairs had a drunken list and copies of Macbeth were scattered across the tables. Ollie, who’d come in to tempt me out for a quick smoke, soon found himself fetching tissues and chocolate.
‘You went through all that on your own?’ he asked, breaking off a chunk of Galaxy and shoving it into my mouth. ‘Didn’t you think to call somebody?’
I refrained from mentioning James and Alice. Ollie was likely to go round and smack him.
‘Nobody else to take.’
‘What about me? I’d have come with you. Anyway, what did the doctor say?’
‘He says it’s probably fine,’ I said. ‘I’ve got all these leaflets saying lumps are really common. Nine out of ten are benign, apparently. But what if I’m unlucky? What if—’
‘Don’t even go there!’ Ollie said, folding me into a big bear hug right there and then in the middle of my classroom. Two passing Year 11 students whistled and one called, ‘Sir fancies you, miss!’
Katy Carter Wants a Hero Page 12
