by Glover, Nhys
‘So, let’s say the most anyone has lived after seeing Hawk is a little over a week,’ Marnie said, trying to pull them back from the darkest of their speculations, not that her approaching demise was that much lighter as far as Cassie was concerned, but one death was a lot less overwhelming than hundreds of thousands to contemplate.
Hawk had gone very quiet, curled in on himself, even though outwardly his shoulders were still back in the formal casualness of the military the world over. She studied him. He’d left his jacket and cap in her room and removed the collar from his old-fashioned shirt. His braces were quaint. The top button of his pristine, white shirt was undone and she could see a few dark hairs peeping out from beneath it.
From the dream, she knew exactly where those chest hairs were scattered. They were quite dense across his pecs, with a few scattered up toward his neck. Then they ran in a scattered, delicious line down to his crotch. Her mouth became dry just remembering him naked.
Men of his generation didn’t do a lot of body sculpting and weight training, so his frame was not muscular. Instead it was lean, with broad shoulders covered by natural muscle tone and little-to-no fat. His belly was flat, too, but there was no six-pack to be seen. Neither were there ribs on display. It was the body of a runner, and it appealed to her as no muscleman ever would.
‘It seems obvious to me, then, that Cassie is not going to die of her disease. Even if the chemo didn’t catch all the cancerous cells, it would take at least another year before they’d grow to be life threatening again. And even then, there’d be more therapy to…’
‘That’s good,’ Cassie interrupted the litany of possibilities for her disease. She didn’t want to think of the cancer coming back and what that would mean. It was a cruel, prolonged method of death that would have suited the inquisition just fine.
‘That’s good?’ Hawk snapped, suddenly coming back to life furiously. ‘That’s good that you don’t have at least another year to live? Tell me how that’s good?’
‘What would you prefer?’ Her own voice was louder and angrier now. ‘To go down in flaming glory, or lose a couple of limbs and live out the next year or more in overcrowded hospitals with not enough morphine to dull the pain completely?’
He blanched, turning his gaze away so she couldn’t read his thoughts. ‘I think you know the answer to that.’
‘I do. So forgive me if I prefer my end to be quick rather than prolonged. You have no idea what it’s like to… It doesn’t matter.’ She tried to tamp down the fury that was rising.
‘Yes, it does. Tell me.’
She gritted her teeth preparing to open that sealed box, because in this moment she was just angry enough to be able to handle it.
‘They took both breasts first. The op wasn’t too bad, but ripping out the tubes they left in for the drainage was. I nearly screamed the hospital down. After only a few days, I’d lost the ability to raise my arms over my head. I had to walk my hands up a wall over and over again to get my mobility back. I felt like a cripple.
‘Then they decided to put a shunt in my chest; that’s a little gadget that goes directly into the jugular. It’s supposed to make it easy to administer injections if it works properly. It doesn’t hurt like having cannulas put directly into your arms time and time again, unless the doctor somehow positioned the shunt poorly so it sits on a nerve for the next six months or so, causing you intense, chronic pain. They only took that out last week after they’d finished chemo.
‘Then there’s the chemo itself. The chemicals they pump into you are poisonous. The nurses all wear protective clothing when they set you up, and you have to be careful about using the same toilets as vulnerable people until the toxins have washed out of your system. Do you have any idea how terrifying that is to know you are volunteering to have that kind of poison injected into your bloodstream every three weeks?’ She shuddered, getting lost for a moment in the memory. When she went on it was more forcefully.
‘It kills all the fast growing cells because cancer cells are fast growing, so that means cells like hair follicles die and all your hair falls out. Not just on my head… everywhere else. And then it brings on menopause, so I’m an old lady before I’ve ever had kids. And I can’t take hormone replacements because that can bring back the cancer. And I have to take a drug that inhibits oestrogen production, so my skin will get old, I’ll get old, in lots of little ways.
‘And then my immune system was compromised, so I had to repeatedly inject myself with more poisons a few days after each session to boost up my white cell count again or I wouldn’t have been able to have the next round.
‘And then there are the side-effects of the chemo. I was sick for the first week after every session. Vomiting, nausea type sick. Even my vision kind of went dark around the periphery, as if I were looking down a tunnel. And I’m sooo tired, so f’ing tired all the time.
‘So maybe having limbs amputated during a war isn’t a fair comparison. That would be a lot worse, I imagine. But for me, the idea of having to go through all that again… and then maybe having that disease eat my body from the inside out anyway? No thank you! If I’m going to die, let me do it quickly. We put injured animals down out of kindness, and yet we won’t do the same for our loved ones? If I have to die, let it be fast and comparatively painless, okay?’
The silence that filled the kitchen when her tirade was complete stunned her. She looked from Hawk to Marnie and immediately regretted her outburst. Hawk looked shell-shocked and Marnie was crying, silent tears trickling down her paper-thin cheeks.
How could she have been so cruel to this wonderful old woman who had done everything in her power to make this challenge as pain-free as possible?
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Marnie said, swiping at the tears with the back of her hand.
‘Because it would just have made it worse for you. I know how hard this has all been on you. I’m not even a relative, and yet you took me in and cared for me as if I were. I didn’t want to repay all that by whinging about what I was going through. Why would I?’ Tears were stinging Cassie’s eyes now and she shook them away.
‘Do you know the cancer will come back?’ Hawk said slowly.
‘No… of course I don’t.’
‘Then saving you from whatever will threaten your life in the next few days does not assure your death from cancer.’
She began to contradict him but stopped herself. It was true. If she didn’t die in the next week, she might well live to a ripe old age as a prematurely aged, unfeminine eunuch unable to have children. Mentioning those concerns would only be twisting the knife for Marnie.
Until that dream, she hadn’t realised how much her breasts had meant to her. They were a source of sexual pleasure, attractiveness and would have one day nourished a baby. Now she had nothing but ugly red scars running the width of her chest. Ugly… concentration-camp-survivor ugly. She couldn’t bear to look at herself in the mirror.
‘What did he say?’ Marnie bleated.
Cassie tried to bring her rioting thoughts back into order. What had he said? Oh, yes, saving her now didn’t mean she would not die later. It wasn’t the either/or situation she’d set up. She parroted off Hawk’s words, knowing he’d correct her if she tried to misquote him.
‘Absolutely. You aren’t a coward Cassie M, even though it might feel like death is the easier option than living in this moment. It isn’t. If Hawk thinks he can save you, then let him. He hasn’t been hanging around here for the last sixty odd years for nothing.’
Cassie shrugged, defeated. How could she withstand these fierce guardians? They would keep her alive no matter what she wanted.
‘Okay, but how does he keep me alive? He’s a ghost.’
‘I don’t know, but we start with all the obvious possible means of death. In the next week, maybe two to make sure, you’re not leaving this house. You don’t operate electrical appliances other than the computer or your phone, don’t handle sharp implements or take baths, and we put d
own non-slip mats on the bathroom floor and in the shower cubicle. You chew your food extra well and maybe stick to fluids like soup so you don’t choke accidently. You take the stairs carefully, always holding onto the banister. And didn’t they say that you have a higher risk of heart failure now? So, no more getting worked up… “calm blue oceans”…’
Cassie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Did Marnie have any idea what she was suggesting? And tying it all together with The Simpsons’ stressed out teacher’s quote just made it that much more ridiculous.
‘Maybe she should stay in bed and have a sponge bath?’ Hawk said with an evil twinkle in his eye.
‘If you could handle a sponge, I might give you the job,’ she said acidly.
‘I can move small objects around now, so I cannot see that being a problem.’
Cassie couldn’t do anything but laugh, a riotous, belly laugh that seemed to take the edge off the heaviness of the last few minutes. When she had exhausted herself, she noticed Marnie’s concern.
‘Hawk is offering to keep me in bed and give me sponge baths. Isn’t he a helpful little bunny?’
Marnie’s face was suddenly very pink and she cleared her throat. ‘I don’t think we need to go quite that far.’
‘I have this image of a wet sponge running up and down my leg on its own…’ Cassie said, another burst of laughter taking over until tears trickled down her cheeks.
‘This is serious, young lady. Your life is in danger. This is not a joking matter.’
‘Still in danger you mean. Okay, I’ll be serious, but I will not comply with all your requirements. Although I guess I can stay in the house for the next few weeks. I didn’t have any plans to go out anyway. How do we make sure a plane doesn’t crash into the house or an earthquake knock it down?’
‘As I cannot see Hawk, we can assume my life is not in danger. So the house must be safe enough.’
‘What about the supermarket delivery man? He might decide I’m too gorgeous to pass up and rape and murder me.’ Cassie tried to keep her face serious.
‘We’ll ask for a woman delivery person,’ Marnie said in all seriousness.
‘Well, you better make sure she’s not a gay or bi delivery woman. And that she has no history of violent mental health issues.’
‘Gay or bi? What is that?’ Hawk asked, trying to follow the conversation with less and less success. He didn’t even ask what a supermarket was.
She leaned over and gave him a kiss on the lips. ‘You have a lot of catching up to do, handsome, so I think afternoon TV viewing is the next thing on your educational program.’
‘TV viewing?’
‘He just asked what a TV is, didn’t he?’ Marnie said, getting into the humour of the situation at last.
‘Yep. Crash course in twenty-first century living coming up. Isn’t this fun?!’
‘I am also going to work on my poltergeist skills.’
‘Okay, but let me warn Marnie before you start moving the furniture around. I also think you should see if you can go outside the house and garden. Ghost stories always say that the ghost is limited by their location.’
‘Not in Ghost Whisperer. They pop up everywhere.’ Marnie seemed to be really getting into the mood now.
‘Ghost Whisperer? Really? Marnie, I would have thought better of you!’
‘Better than After Life. Now that was scary and dark.’
‘What about Ghostbusters? “Who you gonna call?”’
‘Enough, enough! You win! Go and take Hawk into the parlour and watch some daytime soaps or US crime shows.’
‘Corrie or Home and Away?’ Cassie stuck her tongue in her cheek.
‘Your choice, dear, your choice.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
The television Cassie introduced him to was a wonder. It appeared on a small screen like in a picture theatre but had no projection device. The slim screen itself projected the images, he was told. And to him those images were almost lifelike.
The “commercials” or “ads” were more entertaining than the “show” itself, although the clothing of the characters was eye opening. Nothing about the way the people looked was familiar and their topics of conversation were often startling. How could one talk so freely about an abortion or interracial marriage? He’d met some American Negroes amongst the fliers, but from what he’d gathered, if one of them had been seen with a white woman, no less married one, a lynching would have been in order. But now, from the “TV”, it seemed like such things were common occurrences.
He leaned back on the lounge chair with Cassie at his side. She unconsciously pressed into him and he revelled in the contact, insubstantial as it was.
After about an hour of the viewing, Hawk felt he’d seen enough. The cars and planes, the amazing trains run on electricity, not steam… everything was just too much to take in.
‘Can we turn it off now?’ he asked her, closing his eyes to tune out the visual overload.
‘Sure. I’m sorry. Too much, huh?’ Without moving from her place, Cassie turned the machine off using a small black box she held.
‘What happened after the war?’
‘Maybe we should Google it so you get the facts. I’m no historian. I’m a biologist.’
‘Biologist?’
‘Hmm. Not much more than a highly qualified lab assistant actually. That was, up until I kinda fell apart after Fran died. Then I had to leave my job. I ended up as a receptionist at a spa. It required a lot less brain power and concentration.’
‘You took Marnie’s granddaughter’s death hard.’
‘Very. She was all I had. Everyone I ever loved died suddenly like that. From then on, I got really anxious about everything. Nothing could be trusted; everything could be taken from me in the blink of an eye. I guess the cancer diagnosis was just the final step in that belief.’
‘You have lost so much. I wonder if my family lived. I heard nothing of them during the war. It felt like I had lost them just as you have lost yours.’
‘We could look them up? Or maybe track them down through one of the government organisations?’
‘No. Even if they survived the war, they would not be alive now. What happened to Poland and my people? After the war, they were free, yes?’
‘Actually, no. The USSR got Poland. Well, not officially. It became a communist country and was more of a satellite state of the Soviet Union until the end of the eighties, I think, when it became a democracy. Then later it joined the EU. The European Union. The UK is part of the EU, too.’
‘And Germany?’
‘Got cut up and part of it went to the Communism. There was a big wall built right through Berlin, which became a symbol of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain. When it was knocked down the world changed. Now, Germany is a very economically powerful country in the EU.’
‘All sins forgiven?’
‘I think people have stopped seeing any one country as the baddy. Blaming and punishing the losing side of any war only leads to more bloodshed. We can look back at the rise of Hitler and see that the crippling reparations forced on Germany after the First World War probably led to the Second. I don’t know… I don’t think about it. These days it’s the fundamentalist Muslims who are the baddies… we have a “War on Terror” going on. Sometimes I wonder if we humans will ever get our act together.’
Hawk heard the defeat and disillusionment in her voice. She sounded like a war-weary pilot. How could a young woman in this new world feel so jaded by life?
‘But Fran went to work in Germany?’
‘Yes, Munich. A multi-national pharmaceutical firm hired her straight out of Uni. I thought she loved her work. What Marnie said really worries me. If things weren’t going well for her, why didn’t she tell me? I was her best friend. She could have told me anything.’
‘Maybe she was afraid you might get hurt, too, if she told you. If Marnie is right and someone pushed her off the platform.’
‘But that makes it murder. Things like that don’t happe
n to people like us. That’s the stuff of TV and movies. It’s more likely to have been an accident. It’s just a coincidence that Fran was nervous about something going on at work. She might have been sexually harassed or something, and before you ask, these days women are equal to men, but they sometimes are treated badly in the workplace. We call it sexual harassment and it’s illegal. In fact, discrimination based on race, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation or disability is illegal.’
‘That’s a lot of ways to discriminate,’ Hawk said with a laugh.
‘Yes, and I probably missed a few. We are very politically correct these days.’
‘So you would rather think Fran was just having a difficult time with a male employer than something more sinister?’
‘Yes. But then if that were all it was, she would have told me. None of this makes sense.’ Cassie began to fiddle with the locket around her neck.
‘Is that the locket?’
Cassie looked down at her hand. The small gold locket was heart-shaped and elaborately worked with filigree and Art Nouveau flowers. ‘Mmm. I wear it all the time. Helps me remember her. Helps me keep her close. And I find it pretty. I’m not as fashion-conscious as Fran. As Fran was.’
‘You look tired.’ Hawk stroked the side of her face, trying not to feel disappointed by how little sensation he experienced from the gesture.
‘I am. I’d like to have another nap but we might end up hooking up again,’ she gave him a tired little smile, her imp too exhausted to do more than twinkle in her eyes.
‘Hook up?’
‘Have sex.’
‘I had a feeling that was what it meant. I will stay awake while you sleep. That will make sure there is no hooking up, all right?’
‘Hey, it’s your idea we refrain. That was the best sex I’ve ever had, even if we didn’t get to orgasm.’
Hawk couldn’t disguise the shock he felt at her explicit description. She laughed.
