Gwennie's Girl Read online

  ‘I’m guessing without the tests.’

  ‘So guess!’ she demanded.

  ‘Maybe two years but more likely two months.’

  She gasped. ‘Two months? Only two months?’

  ‘I’m guessing, but I don’t like the swelling under your arm.’

  There was silence again. He waited.

  ‘So, what’s Plan B, doctor?’ Lizzie said in resignation.

  ‘You go into hospital tomorrow morning. I’ll do a biopsy tomorrow afternoon. I suggest you have another surgeon accompany me for a second opinion. If it is indeed malignant, I could do the mastectomy immediately.’

  ‘Immediately? Like tomorrow?’

  ‘If I am wrong, you will come out of surgery having had a worrying time. If I’m correct, and the other surgeon agrees, you’ve only had one trip to theatre. However, if you prefer, I can let you know the results and you could have the mastectomy separately.’

  ‘Oh shit, Oh shit. Oh shit.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Where do I find another surgeon by tomorrow?’

  ‘You can get another referral from your own doctor. He’ll ensure that it is not a collaborator, that you do, in fact get two opinions.’

  Silence again. Lizzie could fell the tears coming, and they were insistent this time. He rose and put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘It is a shit. But you’ve taken quick action. Don’t lose courage now. I’ll just see what I can arrange.’

  This is a nightmare. A bloody nightmare. It can’t be happening. Surely, I’ll wake up and it will all be a mistake, a stupid piece of a mistake. Please let it be a mistake. Please.

  But it wasn’t a mistake. Then she was on some sort of macabre conveyor belt passing through certain stops and at the mercy of other people who did what they had to do and passed her along the queue to the next person. It was a nightmare. But it was real. Only shards of memories remained.

  She was being admitted to hospital. She stood almost naked, wrapped in a crackling cotton gown. She was weighed, measured and tagged. A young woman arranged her in front of an X-ray machine. Hands this way. Hands that way. Stand like this. Turn like that. Breathe. Don’t breathe. Whirrs. Clicks. Now, we must do it again. ‘Don’t do it too often. You’ll give me cancer.’ A look of shock on the young woman’s face. She thinks I don’t know.

  One doctor. Two doctors. Three nurses. Four.

  Anaesthetist. Pathologist. Wheel her through the door.

  Lights. Lots of lights.

  Of course, this is theatre.

  Chorus in blue. Stars in white.

  Cadaver on trolley, all blood and gore.

  Fear, fear and then some more.

  Masks and eyes. Some familiar. Some strange. Voices. Lights. Nothing. Waking. I didn’t know I was asleep, Move gently. Hand up to chest Pat, pat. One breast. Pat, pat. Two breasts. Two breasts! It was all a mistake. There are two breasts. Exhale. Exhale. Now back to sleep. It was all a mistake. Serious face. Two serious faces. Doctors. Make a happy face for doctors. Two breasts. All a mistake.

  Not a mistake. Serious faces. You said you would take it, take my breast, if it was bad. You didn’t take it. So I’m OK. All a mistake, right? Needed another pathology test? This one wasn’t sure? Not sure? Then it must be OK. Unusual form. Extremely malignant? Go back tomorrow and take my breast? No, No. Screaming, Screaming. You said it would go if it were bad, and it’s here. It was all a mistake. Screaming.

  A sweet faced young sister. Washing me. All warm and soapy like Nanna used to do it. Wash my back and turn me over. Wash my front. Pat my breast so very gently. A quiet voice and a tender smile, ‘Bye, bye, booby.’ And the sheet is drawn up over my breast. I don’t look again. ‘Bye, bye, booby.’ All gone. All gone.

  Pain. But this time it’s done. I’m OK. It’s all over. All over.

  Friends. An amazing number of friends and flowers. ‘Looks like a funeral parlour, Kiddo!’ Cards. Balloons. Balloons with nipples and poems.

  A good friend of ours found a lump in her tit.

  So the doc. whipped it off her, lickety split.

  Now her décolletage

  Is halved—quelle dommage!

  But we love her and don’t give a shit.

  Will you still be able to float? Or will you keel over to one side? Hey, remember all those statues of Mary at school? She always had one hand over her breast with blue drapes and stuff. Maybe Mary had a mastectomy?

  It aches but I’m OK. It wasn’t so bad. Now I just need to get out of here and forget it and get on with my life. The man has been friendly. Maybe things will be better now. It’s done. It’s done.

  Chemotherapy. No. You didn’t say anything about chemotherapy. That wasn’t part of the deal. You said surgery. I’ve done that. No. Nothing more. Nothing more. No. It’s done. It’s all over. Please.

  ‘The lymph was badly infected. This is very dangerous. We took all the affected nodes, and we think we may have got it but we aren’t sure. Chemotherapy attacks anywhere in the body where it might have spread. Six months treatment; then we can tell.’

  You mean, even if I have chemotherapy, it might not be gone? It might still be there? Don’t you know? What if I have it, and it doesn’t work? You must know. Tell me, you fuckers, for shit’s sake, tell me. Will it work? You must know. You must know whether it will work or not. I can’t bear not knowing. Don’t you understand that? Don’t you get it?

  Another hospital. Big. Hundreds of walking dead. They all have cancer. I can’t make eye contact. The eyes are all dead. All dead. I will not be like you. I am not going to die. Not yet. Not like this. I will not. I will not die like this.

  My first chemotherapy treatment. What will happen to me? What do you do? Does my hair all fall out immediately? Tell me what you are going to do. Tell me, you fuckers, tell me. I stay in the hospital, this hospital, now? You didn’t tell me that. I haven’t even brought a toothbrush. I want to go home. I don’t want to stay. What are you going to do to me? Injections. A hospital gown. Nighttime. Fear. I am all alone. Gwennie! Gwennie, where are you? Mum. Nanna. How can you let this happen to me? Help me.

  Morning. More waiting. What happens next? Please, don’t just leave me here. Tell me what happens next? A young male nurse giving out prescriptions. What is this for? What is going to happen to me? Tell me, please, tell me. You are sitting down. You will tell me. Each month for six months I come back here, but I don’t have to stay—it’s just for a day every couple of weeks. Blood tests. Examination. The drugs through a drip in my arm. What happens? I might feel nauseous—probably I will feel nauseous. I must stay positive. That really helps—not just how I will feel but it can help me survive. Stay positive. Live one day at a time. No one knows what is going to happen. You, my male nurse, could fall and break a leg tomorrow. You don’t know. You and I must live one day at a time. That’s what life is all about. Stay positive. Live one day at a time. Live. I am going to live. I will not die like this, not now. I’m not ready yet.

  More waiting. Into a wheelchair. Why? Into a wheelchair clutching this skimpy hospital gown around me. Through the public halls, no privacy, just a disease, not a person, Park me in a corridor next to other wheelchairs. Waiting. Waiting. A chair beside me. My male nurse with his leg in a support. You were late after talking to me and you fell. You might have a broken ankle. Oh fuck, that’s funny. I’m sorry. It’s not funny but I can’t wipe the smile off my face. Worth it for the smile? You are a good young male nurse, you know that?

  Months of treatment interspersed with desperation.

  Won’t you help me, please help me? I am scared and I want to live. I don’t want to die.

  Keep working. That will help. Keep working. That will help. Keep working. Going bald, losing my hair, becoming a nude-nut, whatever the fuck you want to call it.

  ‘Oh that,’ the oncologist shrugs. ‘Nothing. I see it bothers you but most women don’t mind. They just get on with it. Wear a wig or a scarf or something.’

  ‘THEY DON’T CARE
’? DO YOU EVER LOOK, EVER OPEN YOUR EYES WHEN YOU WALK AROUND THE CORRIDORS? THEY CARE. THEY BLOODY CARE. MOST OF THEM ARE JUST TOO NICE AND YOU MAKE THEM TOO POWERLESS TO TELL YOU THEY CARE. LOOK OUT THERE. LOOK AT THEM!’ She was shouting.

  He was shocked.

  I can’t wear the wig, can’t bear to touch it. Memories of Gwennie, my beautiful mother, and her blue bedroom, her beautiful hair all gone. Just the wig on the dressing table, I cannot wear a wig. Walking down the street. Bald. Head covered with a scarf but it is windy. Scarf comes off. Two boys look and laugh. Can’t sleep. The drugs are doing this. In the night, wander around the paddocks like a mad woman. Scream. Swear.

  ‘If anyone is there…’ I am not going to die, Do you hear me? I am not going to die. Won’t someone help me, please?

  The agapanthus are in flower outside my bedroom window and in the rain, the drops hang from the blue pendants. When his car comes in, the lights set the drops glistening. The agapanthus will die soon. I will not. I will not.

  An older woman visits one day when despair has taken over. ‘I can’t do this, Betty. I can’t go on.’ A stern look. ‘Yes, you can. You just bloody have to, you can’t go back now. You’re half way into the desert. No point in giving up.’ The only time I ever heard her swear.

  The man wants to sell the house. Take his money and run. Why do I cling on? Why do I want more time in my house, with my horses and trees and paddocks and garden?

  He hits me again because he wants to go but he can’t take the initiative. I know that, ‘You’re a freak,’ he says. ‘Who would want you now?’

  I’m going crazy. In a rage, I up end furniture, break a window, ‘Help me. Help me. Help me!’ I know he can’t. He hits me again, My rage is all-powerful. Now I could truly destroy him.

  ‘If you ever do that to me again, if you ever hit me again, even once, I shall kill you. Not when you are looking; I’ll get you when you are asleep, but I’ll get you, you bastard, if you ever hit me again!’

  I mean it. I think he knows I mean it. He never hits me again. He is afraid because I am crazy. I am crazy. But I will not die.

  I keep working. It helps. And I need the money. Bills for the hospital, for medicine, for doctors. I hear the story of one woman who thought she was dying. She borrowed thousands of dollars from the bank and travelled the world, doing all the things she could never afford. Then she didn’t die, and she owed a lot of money. I am travelling around the country, talking to lots of women’s groups.

  ‘Check regularly. Take rapid action. Try not to die.’

  Tell them over and over again, in newspapers, on television. Talk about it. Don’t die in secret.

  Fighting with the doctors and hospital administrators. Don’t treat us like this, we are intelligent human beings. Talk to us. Tell us what you know about our bodies because it’s our information not just yours. The sixth treatment, so now what? You still don’t know if I am going to live or die? What sort of fucking science is this that you practise? Anytime in the next five years. Wait and see. Take it a day at a time. Don’t slip in the corridor. Don’t die. I will not die.

  My hair is growing back again. First, it is just stubble, then it is a short haircut. Never again complain about “a bad hair day”. Any hair is good. I am human again. They can re-construct the breast. What does that mean, not silicone or something? No. Take my spare roll of fat from my gut and take it up to make a “bump under my jumper”. It won’t be pretty but it means not worrying about being lopsided, not worrying about a prosthesis. Do it. They draw lines on me as though I am a side of beef going to be butchered.

  Oh shit. This is painful, so painful. It hurts more than it did having one removed. Oh shit, what if I die next month and I have been through this for nothing? Oh shit, it hurts. It hurts.

  Invitations to travel to the US and Europe. Stop whinging. Do it. The decision is made; the house will be sold, my beautiful house, my horses, my trees and garden, the smells, the sun on the grass, the agapanthus that bloom every year. All gone. I asked the bank to lend me enough money to buy it from him. They won’t. It is all gone. My beautiful house. All gone, like Ahmed.

  Ahmed

  Not even Ahmed had known that fear was so entrenched in Lizzie’s spirit. Perhaps that was why she had said no. She had convinced herself it was because she still believed in vows, chastity, loyalty, morality and all that crap from her childhood but perhaps it was because he hadn’t realised about the fear. She certainly hadn’t felt frigid with Ahmed. He was such a beautiful young man, younger than she was, and the sort of man whom the female students all noticed. Sitting in the central Agora on campus one day, she had overheard an exchange.

  ‘Wow, look at that!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Over there, by the bookstore.’

  ‘Yes, that’s nice.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘No such luck, but I know who he is.’

  ‘Who? Who?’

  ‘Control your racing libido, darling, and wait in line.’

  ‘Come on, who is he?’

  ‘He’s an Arab.’

  ‘I don’t care if he’s a Martian. Who is he?’

  ‘Guest of the English department for six months. Single. Moslem. Charming. Every female he meets is convinced he thinks she’s marvellous and special. He’s got a way with him, you might say.’

  ‘He could have his way with me any day.’

  ‘As I said, darling, wait in line.’

  It was true, of course; he did make Lizzie feel marvellous and special. She realised that was his way when he seemed to warm to her at that orientation meeting, but she didn’t care because she had been so nervous and so desperately relieved to find someone with whom she could talk and relax. She reminded herself of all that, later, as their friendship grew. It had been the free time, that hour at lunch time she dreaded most when there seemed no point in going to the library because by the time she found a book it was time to leave and the cafeteria was intimidating, full of so many young ones, and they all knew each other, and she felt sure they wouldn’t welcome the intrusion of an oldie and a housewife.

  There was an artificial waterway running through the campus generally called the moat. She discovered a small grove of citriodora, those graceful lemon-scented gums, in a corner behind the Arts Building and usually retreated to this green place because at least her solitariness wouldn’t excite any attention there.

  Then one day, Ahmed was there too, eating his lunch of flat bread and honey, so they talked and became friends. He told her of his childhood, of falling from the balcony near the beggar and of his mother’s despair that her youngest son would die. He had six older brothers, and he smiled when he spoke of their love and indulgence of himself as the baby. They had all married, gone into good jobs and contributed to each other’s well-being, lifting the standard of living of their parents and each in turn helping with the younger ones.

  He spoke with special affection of the oldest son, that honoured position which brought with it much responsibility and influence in family affairs. He had been a pilot, been shot down and Ahmed had been devastated and angry.

  His own military service had begun at fourteen when called away from school. He had been sent to help at an outlying military post that was short of manpower for a few days. All he had to do was help on guard duty so that the men could rest before resuming active duty. There was a rueful humour as he told of his fear. It was the first time in his life he had slept away from the family home. He missed his mother, there were wolves howling, and when it was his turn to watch he kept slipping into sleep and then waking full of fear and guilt. When it was his time to sleep, he couldn’t. What if the other young guard slept and the wolves or Israelis caught him out there?

  He was not a good soldier, he said, so he became a school teacher, continued his study, won a chance to travel, and the family supported him. There was no surprise that they should, just grateful acceptance. He didn’t really know what it was like to feel truly alone. They
spoke of religions. To him she was a Christian—sects didn’t seem relevant, terms like Catholic and Protestant were just exercises in pedantry. Eventually, she confessed her disillusion with any sort of god and her feelings of resentment that there was no purpose, no pattern in the universe and the lives of people. After that, there seemed a special warmth between them as he spoke of his sureness of purpose, the rules that governed his behaviour and made him a man, a creature of worth in his own eyes.

  One day, he asked her to accompany him to the city to choose a gift for his mother so Lizzie cut lectures and went. She didn’t tell her husband. It was one of those blustery, wet days that could happen in autumn in Melbourne after a succession of sunny days that had almost convinced you that summer was still with you. Her denim skirt clung around her legs, and her hair was whipped about in all directions. As they turned the corner towards the tram shelter, they saw a tram just ready to pull out.

  ‘Come on!’ he yelled through the wind.

  She grabbed her bag tightly, and they ran together. Even in the rush, she realised he was holding her hand. Laughing, gasping and wind-blown, they landed in the tram, and the conductor smiled indulgently at the energy and exhilaration they brought with them.

  ‘Calm down, folks! I’ll be back for your tickets when you’ve caught your breath,’ he loped off to chat with other passengers.

  ‘Oh, help, just look at me! Ahmed, you’re mad! What must we have looked like?’

  ‘You look beautiful.’

  Very lightly, he took the strands of her hair and slipped them back behind her ears. She couldn’t move. She was even afraid to breathe in case she broke the moment which wasn’t real or lasting or any of those things but she didn’t want it to pass. She wanted to suspend all that reality and stay balanced like this with him looking at her so lovingly. She felt so conscious of him, of the texture of his skin, the pale fullness of his lips and his eyes holding her so objectively and yet wanting her. And she wanted him.

  ‘You are too transparent for a public place.’