She took my arm. “Let’s get you back to your bay now. It’s very late.”
“What time is it?” I croaked.
“About four. It will be breakfast time in three hours. You’ll be shattered. What were you doing out here? Going to the bathroom?”
I hadn’t been aware of it but my bladder now gave a lurch. “Yes. Yes, I need to go to the bathroom.”
The nurses exchanged looks. One of them moved away. The other took my arm. “Come along then, I’ll walk with you.”
Walking still presented some difficulties. I felt about ninety years old, shuffling along.
“Don’t worry,” the nurse said. “You’re bound to be a bit shaky after the anesthetic. You’ll be up and about again in no time.”
I sat down on the toilet and waited, bracing myself. Sure enough, as I started to pee, a feeling of being shredded by broken glass hit me. When I finished and patted myself dry with toilet paper, I noticed spots of bright red blood. I mentioned it to the nurse as I emerged from the bathroom.
“Don’t worry. That’s perfectly normal. There are so many blood vessels down there. If it gets any heavier, let us know, but what you’ve described is only to be expected. It’ll pass within a few hours.”
One tiny relief in my increasingly baffling world. “Is it normal to have vivid nightmares? I mean ones that are so real you can feel the cold and texture of a surface and of the floor you’re standing on, and then you wake up and you’re actually there?”
She looked at me curiously. “Is that what happened when we found you in the corridor?”
I nodded.
“I have had patients complain about having nightmares after their operations and others who have described beautiful dreams. What was yours about?”
I described the tunnel, the strange light. “And I saw a figure, silhouetted against the light. I couldn’t make her out. She never spoke but I do remember she had a shaved head and for some reason she seemed familiar.”
The nurse’s face grew paler as I described the apparition, if indeed that was what it was. “Are you all right?” I asked her.
“Yes, it’s weird, that’s all. A colleague of mine on another ward told me that a patient a few weeks ago described exactly the same dream as you’ve done, right down to the woman you saw.”
A chill swept through me. “How extraordinary. Is she still in the hospital?”
The nurse shook her head. “Now, come on, you must get some sleep.” I wanted to ask her more, but we had entered my bay and the other patients seemed to be sleeping. I didn’t want to disturb them.
She pulled the sheet and blanket over me and left. The next thing I remembered was waking up to the rattle of teacups and the clanging of a metal trolley.
* * *
All thoughts of nightmares and strange figures deserted me as I concentrated on getting ready to go back home. Paul would be along at two o’clock when we hoped I would be discharged.
Maryam came in on her rounds late morning. This time she was smiling. “You have a lot more color in your cheeks today. How are you feeling?”
“Oh, I’m okay.” I hoped I sounded cheerier than I felt. It seemed to work.
“Good. I’ll see you in my clinic on Wednesday. They’ll give you an appointment card when we discharge you later. Try not to worry too much and keep off the internet. You’ll only see bad stuff there. Everyone’s cancer experience is different and it’s important to remember that.”
“I’ll try. I’m certainly not going to do any more internet research. I frightened the life out of myself when I looked up lichen sclerosus.”
Maryam’s grin lit up her face. “I’m sure you did.”
* * *
Back home, I carried on pretty much as usual. Once I had become ill I had opted to apply for early retirement from the university where I lectured in Modern History. I still hadn’t heard if my application would be successful and, meanwhile, remained signed off sick. Without my work, a void had opened up in my life. I brooded and couldn’t settle. My active mind had to focus on something and, in the absence of my job, concentrated itself on my cancer to the point where all I wanted to do was scream my head off. I hadn’t realized how much of myself had been defined by my career up until then.
Searching for something to fill my time became a priority. If I didn’t have another interest to concentrate on, the horrors of what lay ahead swept in like a tsunami, threatening to overwhelm me. I couldn’t allow that to happen. Paul was doing his best to keep it all together and I had to do my part.
For the first week I cleaned the apartment, polishing surfaces, scrubbing the kitchen, emptying all the cupboards and washing down everything within an inch of its existence. I cooked Paul a meal from scratch every evening and explained away my own poor appetite by saying I had eaten at lunchtime and wasn’t hungry. I don’t think he believed me.
Still I cleaned. I took down curtains, washed, ironed and put them back up, wincing as the forbidden stretching threatened the stitches, which were surely by now already dissolving. Thankfully no more blood appeared. I hadn’t done myself any more harm than had already taken root inside me.
Considering the turmoil in my mind, I slept remarkably well. No nightmares or strange apparitions to bother me. Probably all that physical activity was wearing me out each day.
When the last curtain was washed and put back up, all that remained was the day-to-day housework stuff. Not enough to occupy me. I turned to our heaving bookshelves. Forty or more books that I hadn’t yet read. I started by devouring Bill Clinton’s weighty autobiography in a day, followed by a mixed diet of historical fiction, horror – where I rediscovered my love of Ramsey Campbell’s work – biography, Barbara Erskine, Martin Millar and a collection of cozy crime novels I had picked up at a charity book sale five years earlier. I had always been a fast reader and the forty books dwindled all too quickly. They provided me with much-needed escapism and entertainment but, after a further ten days, I was down to the last few and in no mood for light, frothy romances I couldn’t even remember buying.
The days moved swiftly on. My visit to Maryam produced an appointment for the operation. The next day that was brought forward. Clearly I was being treated as a priority case. Good in one way, but in another, this added to my teetering list of worries. If I was so much of a priority they had brought the operation forward, that must mean they were seriously concerned about my deteriorating condition.
And I knew I was deteriorating. Despite the soothing lotion I applied twice a day, the angry red rash had spread so that it covered almost every morsel of skin on my vulva. At first it had itched, then it had stung and now it burned, and I found I needed to change my dampened panties up to four times a day. At home, I sat with legs wide apart, and my days of wearing jeans were over, the friction being too great. I constantly fidgeted, trying to get comfortable, to gain some relief from the relentless discomfort. Showering helped, for a few minutes. Directing the shower head onto the rash brought some margin of relief.
Paul laughed at my accompanying gasps of, “Oooooh…aaaah.”
He stood at the partially open bathroom door. “Are you having fun in there?”
I threw a sponge at him and missed. His laugh became a guffaw. It lightened the tension.
We had never had children. It simply did not happen and we were both so wrapped up in our careers anyway. Right now, I was glad. I had no idea whether what I had could be genetic. If it was and I had passed it on to my progeny…. It didn’t bear thinking about. Thankfully, that was one worry I didn’t have.
One morning, two days before I was due to go into hospital, I stood staring out of the bedroom window, over the sand dunes to the Irish Sea. A dramatic sky, laden with rain clouds, and a few people out walking their dogs. A container ship bound for the docks nearby sailed steadily past. What lay in those containers? Furniture made in China perhaps. Machine parts, tractor
s, cars. The ship sailed out of my line of sight. An excited dog – a Golden Labrador, I think – leaped up at his master. Or maybe his mistress. Hard to tell with the hoodie and jeans.
Normal life.
Life that, up until a year or so ago, I had lived. Before the first signs that something was wrong and the ensuing medical appointments and failed treatments. Before someone mentioned the dreaded word.
Cancer.
When we first moved here, I used to enjoy walking along the promenade, leaning over the railings and tasting the salt in the air, feeling the wind through my hair. Somewhere along the line I had lost the habit. Now I would rediscover it. Who cared if it might pour down any moment? I had no idea when I would be able to walk any distance again.
I grabbed my coat, thrust my feet into my trainers and pocketed my keys. Five minutes later, I was strolling along, hearing the waves break on the shore. I deliberately walked against the wind so I could feel its icy coldness slapping my face, the November wind chilling my cheeks and freezing my lips. Salt crusted my mouth and I crunched grains of sand. As I ventured farther from home, the wind picked up to almost a gale, whistling and whipping up more sand. On the beach, people with their dogs scurried, eager to escape the oncoming storm.
“Bring it on,” I yelled, my voice shipped away by the wind.
I clung onto the railings as the gale buffeted my body and threatened to knock me over. My eyes teared up and mingled with raindrops which quickly gathered momentum. That’s when I knew I should go home.
“Fuck that!” I cried. Too soon I would have to do what I was told by doctors, nurses, all and sundry. If this was to be my last day of freedom in God alone knew how long, then let it be like this. Alone. Me and the elements. The raw wind and the majestic sea.
An urge to scream hit me and this time I gave in to it, screaming loud, long, hard, all my anger, frustration, pain. The injustice of cancer. Why me? Fear I had suppressed for months shot up to the surface and I screamed it out. The harsh wind grabbed it all, greedily wrenching it out of me, tossing it out over the sea, into oblivion, cleansing me, a sense so addictive I didn’t want it to end, or to go back home to reality, to Paul’s sadness and fears. To my own. A part of me wanted to ride on that wind. That old Doors song came into my mind. Jim Morrison’s husky baritone…. ‘Riders on the Storm…’
“You should go home now.”
The unfamiliar voice, right behind me, came unexpectedly. I jumped and spun round to face a stranger, muffled in a warm parka, the fur-trimmed hood half-covering her face, yet for some unaccountable reason I felt I knew her.
“I’m sorry, have we met before?”
The woman didn’t answer. Without another word, she moved on. I wiped my rain-misted eyes and saw her fade into the distance. Yet floating back from her, I could have sworn came the words, “You’re next.”
* * *
The night before the operation arrived all too quickly. A chilly one, clear skies and a bright full moon cast a ghostly, silvery-white glow across the water. I hugged myself as I stood at the window. In the bedroom, Paul slept on, gently snoring. My thoughts jumbled together like tangled octopus tentacles. Between my legs, the rash burned like some raging monster, my body battling against itself – an unholy war waged for control of my most intimate parts. I attempted to reassure myself it would all be over soon. One way or the other.
Getting comfortable had long been a thing of the past. If I sat for more than a few minutes I had to shift position. Lying in bed, if I didn’t fall asleep immediately, the old familiar feeling of needing to empty my bladder persisted. I knew nothing but a trickle would emerge and every drop would sting and ratchet up the pain. Even here, standing up, what I had at first taken for chronic cystitis gave me no peace and sent me off to the bathroom on a fruitless mission. I sat down, gritted my teeth, clung onto the sink and let the few drops disperse. I swear someone took razor blades to my vulva.
Tomorrow someone actually would – or at any event a scalpel.
I checked my watch. Just after eleven. I wouldn’t be able to drink anything after midnight. I wandered into the kitchen and made a cup of tea. What would I feel like tomorrow? After they had taken away most of what made me female? Strangely that part of it didn’t upset me nearly as much as I would have imagined. By now, in so much discomfort and actual pain, I wanted all those diseased, and potentially diseased, parts out of me.
I sat carefully on the sofa, trying as far as possible not to set up a fresh wave of burning. As usual, it didn’t work. I sipped my tea and contemplated switching on television. If I kept the volume low I wouldn’t disturb Paul. I flipped through the TV guide. Nothing took my fancy. These days, I had the concentration of an agitated gnat anyway.
I finished my tea. Now what?
Solitaire, or Patience as we used to call it when I was a child. I must have been around five or six when I learned how to play the game. My parents had thought it a fun way to help me with numeracy. I asked my mother why it was called Patience.
“Because you need the patience of a saint to keep going until you get out,” she said, laughing. I never did find out the true origin. Now there are so many variations of Solitaire, but I always fell back on the original version. I fished out a much-used pack of cards from a drawer in the sideboard.
I sat at the glass dining table in the window, with the curtains drawn back so a little of the moonlight could filter in, casting its spectral glow.
Game after game I played as the hours ticked by, until a faint pale-yellow glow in the sky told me morning was approaching.
A noise from the bedroom. Paul was stirring. I put my cards away and he appeared at the doorway, dressing gown on, feet bare, yawning and in need of a shave.
“You’re up early.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” He needn’t know I had been up all night. “Anyway, I’ll be doing plenty of that later.” I forced a smile on my face and Paul returned the gesture.
He turned quickly and headed for the kitchen. “Are you still allowed water?”
“Not until I come round.”
Half an hour later, we were on the road, headed for the Royal and Waverley. We spoke little; our thoughts preoccupied with the unknown that lay ahead.
The next few hours passed in a blur. We were shown into the same ward I had occupied previously and to the same bed. A pleasantly smiling nurse called Joyce drew the curtains around us and I undressed and put on the hospital gown she gave me. Then I climbed into bed, onto a surprisingly comfortable mattress.
“I’m sure this is thicker than the last one,” I said.
“You’re the star turn,” Paul said. “Remember Maryam said most of the doctors and nursing staff had never seen an operation like yours before. Three surgeons no less.”
“The viewing gallery, or whatever it’s called, is going to be packed. I wonder if they have an interval and serve ice creams.”
Paul squeezed my hand. “You never know, but when you come around, I’ll be here.”
Bloods were taken. “My arm’s like a pin cushion these days,” I joked. Blood pressure. Temperature. All were taken and duly noted. Apparently I was within normal parameters. At my pre-op appointment they had checked all this, plus weight, body mass index, swabs to check for MRSA, lifestyle questions. Okay, I fudged a bit on the alcohol side. Hell, I had to have one vice, didn’t I? I quit smoking twenty or more years ago, never did illegal drugs, and sex? Not me, guv. Not anymore.
Joyce inserted a cannula in the back of my left hand. “This way you’ll stop being a pin cushion.” I smiled. She left us alone for a few minutes before reappearing, accompanied by a tall, slim woman with a cheerful smile and a clipboard.
“Vanessa. This is Anita and she is your anesthetist.”
“Please call me Nessa. I keep thinking I’m back at school and in trouble again.”
Joyce grinned, nodded and left. Ani
ta sat on a chair next to me, opposite Paul. I introduced him.
“I just need to go through a simple checklist and then I’ll leave you in peace,” she said and proceeded to ask me a series of questions. Then concluded with, “I’ll be monitoring you all the way. All you need to do is have a nice sleep and dream of somewhere lovely.”
“I’ll do my best,” I said and my brain went into autopilot while it searched around for some suitable location. I could dream I was on a vacation, visiting fabulous sites with Paul. Egypt maybe. Or Paris…. Anywhere as long as it wasn’t that bloody tunnel.
After Anita had left us, Maryam arrived. She was her usual calm, reassuring self. “We’ll be ready for you in about an hour. I will be leading, Mr. Waring will perform your hysterectomy and then Mr. Shah from Moreton Grange will perform the reconstructive surgery. He is an expert in his field so you are in the best possible hands.”
“How long will the operation last?” Paul asked.
“Difficult to say. Maybe four hours, up to six perhaps. Probably best if you go home and we will call you when Nessa is back on the ward. She will be very sleepy.”
Maryam left us and minutes later, Joyce appeared with a packet. “These are your lovely stockings,” she said, with heavy irony as she removed a pair of restrictive-looking, blue-green pressure socks. “They’ll help your circulation while you’re not terribly mobile.”
She proceeded to tug them on.
“You need muscles for those,” I said.
“It’s all in the wrist action,” she said and gave them a sharp yank over my heels, before rolling them up to my knees. “I guessed your size,” she said, standing back and admiring her handiwork. “Spot on.”
At least they didn’t hurt but I certainly wouldn’t have liked to try and get them off by myself. “I don’t think they’ll make the cover of Vogue anytime soon.”
Joyce laughed. “Nor the Nursing Times either.”
Two burly orderlies appeared in the doorway. Joyce acknowledged them. “You’re on,” she said. “See you when you get back.”
In Darkness, Shadows Breathe Page 12
