In Darkness, Shadows Breathe

by Catherine Cavendish

  The walls had been whitewashed, but so long ago most of it had peeled away. She knew the heavy wooden door would be locked from the outside, but she checked anyway, moving on unsteady feet and trembling legs. Her head throbbed with agonizing force and she put her hand to it, finding rough bandages.

  The drill. They had used a drill on her head. Penetrated her brain. Her left hand felt weak. When she lifted her arm, she had poor control and no strength. The left side of her face felt numb, as if the nerves had been damaged. Her vision in her left eye seemed oddly blurred, as if the lid was stuck half open, half closed, and her unsteady gait resulted from dragging her left leg.

  They have crippled me.

  Memories returned in short blasts. Disjointed and out of order. Were they even her memories?

  The door unlocked and Arabella Marsden entered.

  Carol tried to make her mouth work, but her control was limited to the right side only. “What…do…you…want…from…me?”

  “You are no longer of any use to us. You weren’t suitable. Too damaged. Here.” She tapped her head.

  “I…don’t…understand. Suitable?” The strain of trying to speak proved too much. A trickle of saliva traveled down her chin.

  “The spirit that lives inside you lived inside me for a time. An ancient soul, restless and full of wrath. She is known as the One and the Many. Her handmaiden, Hester, brought you to us and she entered you, but—”

  She was interrupted by the doctor who entered, his white coat stained with blood flecks. Hers?

  “Everything is ready,” he said, dispassionately. “Bring her.”

  An orderly wheeled in a creaking wooden chair and roughly positioned Carol onto it. He wheeled her past a silent line of women. He opened a door and inside were two beds – one surrounded by instruments, rubber tubes, strange and unfamiliar machines. The other bed was occupied.

  The orderly unceremoniously hauled Carol out of the wheelchair and she fell to the floor. The woman in the other bed rushed to her aid.

  “I…know…you,” Carol said, her mind fumbling for a name.

  “Nessa,” the woman said. “I’m Nessa. We’ve met before.”

  Part Two

  …Shadows Breathe

  Chapter Nine

  Vanessa…Vanessa….

  The voice echoed from far away. I couldn’t reach it. I knew I had to somehow, but I couldn’t. My feet moved like lead weights, barely supporting my body. My nightdress brushed my ankles and darkness shrouded me except for a faint glimmer of light dead ahead.

  I expended every effort of my clouded brain to force my feet to move forward. One step…two…no. The next step wouldn’t come. But it had to.

  Vanessa….

  The voice seemed ever farther away. I had no idea how. Slow I might be, but I was moving forward. A little. Tiny faltering steps, but forward.

  The light grew dimmer. Somehow, against all reason, it was moving away from me.

  Don’t leave me.

  It flickered once. Twice.

  Out.

  My screams echoed off walls, reverberating round and round. I must be in a tunnel. An echo chamber. I reached out my hands and touched something cold, solid, slippery. I ran my fingers up and down. Not one ridge. Maybe steel. Not wood. Satin smooth. Stone? I was too confused to make sense of it.

  No other sound reached my ears. The voice had gone. Only my breathing and my tortuous efforts to move forward remained. Or was I going backward? Maybe the light hadn’t moved away from me. I had moved away from it. Where was this place anyway? Why couldn’t I remember coming here? So many questions and all the while my body didn’t seem to belong to me anymore.

  It had let me down. Betrayed me. Ever since….

  No, I wouldn’t think about that now. Concentrate. I must get out of here.

  One step…two…for God’s sake, move.

  Left hand sliding along the wall an inch at a time.

  Then

  Clamor.

  Voices. All speaking at once. Cutlery clattering. Or maybe instruments. Not musical. Medical. That made sense, although for the life of me I hadn’t a clue why.

  The light blinked on. Closing in on me.

  “Vanessa…Vanessa. Can you hear me?”

  The voice. A woman. Unfamiliar. The name. My name.

  The wall slipped away. I felt nothing with my left hand. I raised my right, stretched it around me in a wide arc. Nothing. Then….

  “Time to wake up now, Vanessa.”

  The tunnel vanished. I struggled to open my eyes. A nurse smiled down at me.

  I tried to speak but my throat closed up. Stinging pain like the worst sore throat I could remember.

  “Don’t try to speak yet unless you feel comfortable. You had a breathing tube in so you’ll be a bit sore for a day or two. I’ll get the doctor to come and see you.”

  She patted my hand. Exhaustion overwhelmed me as my memory returned. Hospital. The Royal and Waverley, with a reputation as one of the best cancer treatment facilities in the country. I had had an operation. Oh God, yes. The operation.

  A smiling young man appeared in my field of vision.

  “Good to see you awake, Vanessa. How are you feeling?”

  I tried to answer him, my voice no more than a frog-like croak.

  “That good, huh?” He grinned. “You’re one of Miss Gavras’s patients, aren’t you? She’s tied up with someone else right now but she’ll be along to see you as soon as she can.”

  “How…did…it…go?” I managed and didn’t like the split-second shadow that passed over his face.

  “Miss Gavras will explain everything when she sees you. Try and get some rest. There’s still anesthetic washing around your body.”

  Yet another wave of fear grabbed my nerves and sent acid shooting up into my throat. More bad news. Well, that was nothing new. I had experienced this countless times in the past year or so. That was the trouble with my condition. It was unusual and didn’t behave within usual parameters.

  Enough anesthetic remained inside me to send me back off to sleep. Mercifully, dream-free this time.

  I awoke to someone gently shaking my arm and opened my eyes to see the serious, compassionate face of my consultant oncologist, Maryam Gavras.

  “How did it go?” I asked, my voice a little stronger than earlier, but my throat still burning. The accompanying nurse handed me a beaker of water with ice floating in it. I drank and it soothed the rawness.

  “Not too much all in one go,” the nurse said, gently taking the beaker off me and placing it on the bedside cupboard.

  I didn’t like the half-frown on her face. When she took my hand, I knew bad news was imminent.

  A younger nurse, bearing the logo of the local university on her pale blue and white striped uniform, brought two chairs and left, after closing the curtains around my bed. They only did that for examinations and imparting bad news. The other patients – no more than five of them if the bay was full – would probably guess something was up. I heard the clatter of knives and forks. By the smell of it, cottage pie was on the menu today. My stomach clenched. I wouldn’t be eating any of it.

  Maryam and the nurse sat on either side of me.

  “I found something I wasn’t happy with,” Maryam began. I swallowed, ignoring the gravel and broken glass in my throat. “I stopped the operation I was due to perform and we switched our attention to your vagina. So I haven’t performed the scheduled vulvectomy today.”

  That should have been good news, but I knew worse was coming.

  “I have performed a mapping biopsy of your vagina and sent the tissue off for analysis. I wish I could give you better news, Nessa, but I’m afraid we are going to have to schedule you for a much bigger operation. We need to perform a vaginectomy, full hysterectomy and vulvectomy and you will need vulval reconstruction. I am
proposing to bring someone in from Moreton Grange to do that because they’re the best. You will have the most experienced and talented people working for you, Nessa. I can promise you that.”

  I knew of Moreton Grange. It specialized in plastic surgery and had a burns unit, along with a reputation as world class. Yes, with the team here and someone from Moreton Grange, I would have the best.

  But with the operation, I would lose so much. No vagina. No more sex. Ever.

  I struggled to concentrate. “I have to have a full hysterectomy, so that’s ovaries, cervix…the lot?”

  Maryam nodded. “To be honest, the hysterectomy is nothing to worry about in terms of your recovery. We should be able to perform that through a laparoscopy – keyhole surgery. It’s the vaginectomy and, of course, the vulvectomy, that will need time to heal, but we’ll be with you every step of the way.” She squeezed my hand.

  I nodded, trying to hoist myself up in bed, feeling the multiple stabbings of needle-like pain emanating from my much-biopsied vagina. Irrational thoughts went through my head. At least that won’t hurt much longer. It’ll be out soon. In the meantime my body will go through the motions and wasted effort of attempting to heal it. Save your energy for when I really need you.

  “Please will you do me a favor?”

  “Of course,” Maryam said softly.

  “Paul will be in….” I glanced at the wall clock. “He’ll be here any second to see me. Please could you tell him what you told me? I may get it wrong. It’s a lot to take in.”

  Maryam smiled. “Of course I will. And, yes, it is a lot to take in. I’ll make sure he understands the implications and extent of your condition and the surgery we need to do to cure you.”

  Cure me? “So I will get through this?”

  “Oh yes. We’ll know more when we get the results back, but I believe we have caught this early enough so that with appropriate – if radical – surgery, and possible radiotherapy afterward, there is every chance you will be fine. I won’t deny you are in for a few uncomfortable months, but, as I said, we will be here for you every step of the way.”

  “Thank you,” I said and a tiny part of me felt reassured. Only a tiny part. But it was a start.

  * * *

  Paul’s ashen face told me Maryam had headed him off and spoken to him.

  “You know?” I asked.

  He nodded, tears filling his eyes. He sat on the chair recently vacated by Maryam. “We’re going to get through this,’ he said.

  “I know,” I said.

  He kissed me on the forehead and then on both cheeks.

  “You know my vagina has to go,” I said.

  He nodded. “It hasn’t been doing much for you recently anyway, has it?” His attempt at levity almost worked. Not quite.

  “It’s been so painful. Every time we tried…. And the bleeding. It was only a few spots and I thought it was the menopause. What do they call it? Vaginal atrophy. The first consultant I saw agreed with me.”

  “Until he thought it was something else as well.”

  “Lichen sclerosus. The symptoms fitted the bill. I know. I looked them up.”

  “But it wasn’t that, was it? Weeks and months have been wasted on the wrong diagnosis.”

  “Don’t get angry, Paul. It won’t do us any good.”

  The look on his face wrenched my gut.

  “I know. I’m sorry. I just want to do something. I feel so…powerless, I suppose.”

  “Me too.”

  “Your voice sounds awful. Water?”

  I nodded. “I have to sip. It was the breathing tube. It dried my throat out well and truly.”

  “Poor kid.”

  “Hardly a kid at fifty-seven.”

  “You’ve aged well.”

  “At least I shall be able to say that there’s less of me than when you married me – as long as I don’t specify in which way.”

  Paul leaned over me, kissing my head. I smelled his aftershave. That familiar warm scent of Armani. Tears welled up in my eyes and I willed them not to spill over. I would not cry. I would not give cancer the satisfaction of crying over it. I would not be a cancer sufferer. I would be a cancer survivor.

  A tall, slim woman approached us, a friendly smile lighting up her pixie-like face.

  “I didn’t want to interrupt but I did want to introduce myself. You saw my colleague when you came in for your pre-op and she told you she was standing in for me because I was away on holiday? I’m Sandra, your Macmillan Specialist nurse. I’m here to help you through the next few weeks and months, both in hospital and when you go home after your treatment. You know you’ve got a great team of oncologists and clinical nurse specialists here in the hospital, looking after your medical needs, but I’m here to help with the other stuff; when you need someone to talk to, or if you need any financial or other practical advice.”

  “Lovely to meet you, Sandra. This is Paul, my husband.”

  He extended his hand and she shook it. “Pleased to meet you, Sandra.”

  “May I sit for a moment?”

  “Of course.” I indicated the vacant chair and she sat down.

  “Maryam has brought me up to speed. I’m so sorry it wasn’t better news.”

  “We’re trying to come to terms with it,” I said.

  “And that’s why you’ve got me. I’m your support service. Your wingman if you like. You can contact me at the office and I’ll be popping in while you’re here. When you go home, if it’s all right with you, I’ll ring you the day after you’re discharged and then keep in touch a couple of times a week until you come back in for the operation. But if you need to talk to me in the meantime, don’t wait until our next scheduled call, just ring the office and they’ll get a message to me. Whatever you do, don’t sit at home brooding and worrying. You can ask me anything. I’m here for you.”

  “Thank you.”

  * * *

  Tiredness finally overwhelmed me again. Sandra left and when my eyes wouldn’t stay open any longer, Paul slipped away, promising to return the following day to take me home.

  I managed a couple of spoons of ice cream, which soothed my burning throat a little, but I couldn’t face anything more substantial, even though they told me I could eat. My stomach had tied itself in knots and my brain ached with the crashing thoughts slamming through it.

  Sleep came hard that night. The bay was mercifully quiet, my neighbors preferring to keep to themselves, for which I was grateful. I didn’t feel like making any small talk. I discovered I had four fellow patients and gathered a couple of them at least were wrapped up in their own personal misery. The occasional muffled sob being a dead giveaway.

  Finally, I drifted off, but not into a peaceful dream world. I was back in the tunnel.

  A ghostly light, misty and silvery gray, swirled around me. In the distance, indistinct voices murmured – chanting, like plainsong but more fractured. I touched the wall to my left, smooth as I remembered it and cold to the touch. It gave off a dull sheen. I concentrated, willing my right foot to take a step forward. It obeyed. Now my left. It too moved a few inches, but the effort drained me of my already depleted energy. Needles of pain stabbed at me from inside my diseased vagina.

  A shadow moved in front of me, partially blocking out the light. A figure, in silhouette, backlit. I couldn’t make out any features, but I knew she was female even though she appeared to have shaved her head for some reason. She seemed familiar, as if I’d met her somewhere before. She stood silently, watching me, but I couldn’t see her face.

  “Who are you?” I asked. She didn’t move. Statue-like, she continued to stand as the light behind her expanded and contracted.

  It’s breathing.

  But I couldn’t tell if she was or not.

  “Please tell me who you are.”

  Nothing. Still the light faded in
and out. In and out. In and out.

  I took another shaky step forward, leaning against the icy wall for support, feeling again the shards of pain. I imagined my skin cells already multiplying in an ultimately futile attempt to heal my wounds.

  Without warning, the figure turned to one side and winked out. One second there, the next…gone.

  The light settled back to its swirling fog-like transience. I resumed my struggle forward. I had to get out of this tunnel. I looked up but only blackness greeted me. To my right, a few feet away, another wall – the mirror image of the one I now clung to – soared upward.

  The chanting voices stilled. Inch by agonizing inch I drew closer to the source of the light. Surely the end of the tunnel.

  The light snapped off as if someone had thrown a switch. I held my breath.

  Then I felt it.

  Feathery. Hardly there at all. But it stroked my arm, raising goosebumps. It moved up to my neck and caressed it, before moving onto my face. I closed my eyes. The sensation of being touched in such a tender and sensuous way contrasted so sharply with the terror of being trapped alone in the dark.

  But not alone. Something – or someone – had joined me.

  “Who are you? Please tell me.”

  A ghost of a breath on my cheek. The faintest hint of a kiss.

  And it was gone.

  I opened my eyes. The light had come on. Brighter than before. Or…somehow I had moved much closer to the source. It grew so bright I shielded my eyes from it, letting go of the wall in the process. Taking care to avoid the worst of the glare, I looked around me. I stood on a floor I recognized from the hospital. The shiny walls had been replaced with those of a corridor, like the one on my ward. Above me, fluorescent lights. One a little farther down flicked red slightly then steadied itself. The corridor was deserted.

  And then it wasn’t. Two nurses thrust open double doors at one end. I stood stock-still, not knowing if I was dreaming or this was reality, and if it was, how had I arrived here? I should be in bed, asleep.

  Then I realized that was exactly what one of the nurses was saying to me.