Australian Love Stories (30 page)

I read in the armchair, back twisted, keeping my distance from the chemical waste bin mounted on the wall, wary of the blood and fluids that have splashed against the rim on entry and dribbled down the sides. You don't have to be here, he says. I'm here because I want to be. Maybe he is a dickhead.

Then he is home and an infection like that never returns. We watch
Breaking Bad
and cancer-ridden Walt runs all over town, has empowered bad guy sex with his wife, sports a lusciously thick moustache, thinks clearly on his feet. And I am jealous. His wife is pregnant, and I am jealous.

Old friends call, and gossip has been less efficient than I thought. I have to start the story from scratch, and it's so convoluted that I leave bits out, wash over them with wry chuckles and sighs. They do nothing. People do nothing, except Steph, who brings small portions of freeze-able and microwavable meals, and I wish I had more friends who aspire to housewifery. I want someone to make us a meal roster. I want people to tell me how hard everything we're going through is, and how brave we are. I want gifts and cards and sympathy.

We're given a voucher for a couple's massage, but he doesn't want to be touched. We're given an aromatic candle, but the smell irritates him.

He tries mineral water with lemon slices, oven-baked zucchini, meatballs as the chemo plays havoc with his taste buds. On the first day of a new chemo cycle, he is ravenous and we try to find a pub that can cook us a parma on a Monday at midday. It's just not possible, and he deflates.

He has no eyebrows and no eyelashes, and he looks like a mole.

Then it's all over, nine weeks over, and he slowly recovers. The bad taste in his mouth disappears, we go for a run and he tears ahead of me and I sulk. His hair comes back, downy soft, and my book club gathers round to stroke it.

We see the oncologist, rotund and jolly with plump little hands and a reassuring manner, and he tells us the good news
but
. The good news being that the tumour markers in the blood are down and the cancer is gone. But. Invasive surgery is needed. But. You'll spend a few months on a waiting list. But. A whole month's recovery after the fact. But. This just isn't over.

So he sits and stews for months. In one of his better moments, he bargains his way up the waiting list and finally it's his turn. We discuss what's to be done with his ashes, just in case, and I can't imagine negotiating these details with my mother-in-law. He is out cold for eight hours, slit open from sternum to lower abdomen. They dig around between organs and take out forty-two lymph nodes, then he's sewn up, with a swollen belly like a pregnant woman. I watch the highlights of someone else's surgery on YouTube and flinch as they snip away at the guts. Retroperitoneal lymph node dissection retroperitoneal lymph node dissection retroperitoneal lymph node dissection. Few surgeons are skilled in this procedure, because few men are this unlucky. His surgeon's sidekick visits on rounds. He has a stylish satchel and a melted ear and is quietly confident in a strapping manly way. He still has all his lymph nodes.

The hospital is so good that he doesn't want to come home. The surgeon's sidekick says probably Sunday. He argues back
that Monday would be better. He's not a dickhead, I tell myself, he's just been through hell.

And I am grimly satisfied as the doctors send him home on the Sunday. Back to normal. We buy him a walking stick and he eats jelly and cup-a-soups and we watch more
Breaking Bad
.

With time, he can run and swim. No weights yet, but he gets to a point where he can hoist up his backpack, so he disappears for a while. He comes back and the pencil scratches on the Sudoku pad in the wee small hours, keeping me awake.

And now we sit, back on the couch, no hamburgers this time. Just protein and raw vegetables, pennies pinched and life ongoing. He has no work, just his thoughts. The future is promising sometimes, ordinary sometimes, mostly bleak. No cancer now. Just me and him.

Joe Roberts

TONY BIRCH

Joe woke lying on his back with his arms resting at his side. The creaseless white bedspread covering him resembled a shroud. He looked up at the ceiling, across to the window and the half-drawn blind. It was pitch-black outside. He turned to the bedside clock. It was just after three in the morning. He got out of bed and hobbled across to the bathroom. The instructions from the hospital ordered him to fast from midnight after drinking two litres of water. Joe took a slow piss, flushed the toilet, washed his hands in the sink and went back to bed. He lay awake for the next hour or so until finally drifting off. At around six in the morning he woke again and sat upright in bed, startled and short of breath, his heart thumping and the bed sheets drenched in sweat.

He lay in the dark awhile before getting out of bed and studying his face in the bathroom mirror, massaging the bristles on his chin and flattening his unkempt head of silver hair. A woman's voice drifted from the bathroom window above as she sang in the shower. Joe had just enough time for a quick shave and a shower before leaving the flat for the train station.

The road was greasy from the night rain and the morning sky was a washed-out grey. Joe buttoned his battered pea jacket, lifted the collar to warm the back of his neck and buried his hands in his pockets, annoyed he'd left his gloves on the kitchen table. He crossed the street to the footbridge over the freeway and walked the ramp to the station. It was deserted. He ran a
finger down the timetable and studied his watch. Only a five-minute wait. He paced the length of the platform to keep himself warm. When ten minutes had passed and the train had not arrived he walked to the edge of the platform and searched the line. It was empty.

Joe heard a barking cough behind him. A girl staggering from the shadows of the unlit waiting room, wearing a denim skirt and black singlet decorated with gold sequins. She dangled a pair of shoes from one hand. As she walked forward Joe saw she had a tattoo above one breast, a pair of dice, a five and a seven. Good luck—supposedly—he thought to himself. She had cuts and bruises on her shoulders and upper arms and mud smeared on her clothes. When she held out a begging hand Joe noticed two broken fingernails and a gash sliced across her palm.

It began to rain.

‘You got any cash? Please. I'm chasing a feed.'

Joe looked from her bleached blonde head of hair to a face smudged with mascara and lipstick. She had to be around sixteen, maybe younger, although Joe couldn't be sure as the girl had been knocked about. She stepped forward, balanced on the platform edge, spread her bare arms, closed her eyes and stood still as a statue. A cold southerly wind cut through the station. The rain shifted near horizontal. Joe heard a whistle in the distance. The dull yellow eye of the train rounded the bend.

Worried that the girl might fall onto the tracks Joe rested his hands against her shoulders and gently pushed her away from the edge. She staggered under the force and slipped to the ground. Joe offered her his hand.

‘Can I help you?' he asked.

She rested her head back and smiled up at him.

‘Help yourself to what you want, old man. But you got to pay.'

He turned to the open train door and left her.

It was warm inside the carriage. Joe unbuttoned his jacket and looked out the window at the girl. She turned on her side and tucked her knees into her chest. Her dress was soaking with rain and clung to her slight figure. He took a step toward the door, changed his mind and took a seat. He kept his eyes on the girl until the train rounded the bend up ahead.

Joe got off at the station for the hospital, took the letter from his pocket and read over the details while walking. At the Admissions entrance two men with a shared deathlike appearance passed a cigarette between themselves, sitting on a stairway in their pyjamas talking to a third man leaning on a pair of crutches and puffing away on a cigarette of his own. They were laughing and throwing their arms around, no different than if they were in the front bar of their favourite pub. Another patient, supporting a mane of grey hair halfway down his back, was attempting an escape in a wheelchair, chased by a security guard with more braid on his jacket than the Police Commissioner.

Joe walked through the crowd and took the lift to the fourth floor. He followed a blue line around several corners until he reached the Radiology Clinic. The room was full, mostly with men around his age. He filled out the necessary paperwork at the desk and found a spare seat on the end of a vinyl bench opposite an elderly couple. The man was wearing a pair of grey pants and a blue-checked flannelette shirt under a handmade woollen vest, dressed as if he'd strolled out of his suburban vegetable patch.

The women seated next to him had a pair of rosary beads draped from her hands. Speaking loudly to each other their conversation shifted from Italian to English and something
in between. The man smiled, leaned across to his wife and whispered something in her ear. She rested her head on his shoulder and softly laughed. When the man's name was called the woman helped him to his feet and guided him to a cubicle where a be-speckled and balding doctor was waiting. She opened the palm of her hand and gently massaged the centre of her husband's back.

Joe sat in the waiting room for close to another hour before his name was finally called:

‘Mr Joseph Roberts to room four.'

Joe nervously walked across the room and knocked at the door.

‘Come in.'

He was surprised to hear a woman's voice. The doctor was a slim tall woman with dark hair tied into a bun. She shook his hand—‘Joseph, I'm Dr McGee'—and asked him to take a seat. She placed a second chair alongside his and sat down quite close to Joe. He could smell her perfume, a mild scent of citrus. She quickly flicked through the sheets in his file.

‘So the urinary bleed you experienced three weeks ago. Can you tell me something about it, Joseph?' she asked, in a thick Scottish accent.

Joe shifted in his chair.

‘Well…I got up one morning and went to the toilet and it was…well…I was bleeding when…'

His voice trailed off.

‘Had you been to the toilet during the night? For a wee?'

‘Well…not that I can remember. No.'

‘Are you sure?'

Joe wasn't sure at all sure.

‘Yes. I'm sure.'

‘Good. Tell me about the colour of your urine?'

‘The colour? It was, you know, like blood. It was red.'

‘Yes, Joseph. But we need to consider how much blood there was. A description of the colour may help us. So, if your urine were a wine would you describe it as claret? A dark red? Or would it be a rose? A lighter colour? Pink perhaps?'

Joseph thought for a moment, capturing again the fear that gripped him when he'd looked into the while toilet bowl and saw that he was pissing blood.

‘It was dark. Like you said. A claret.'

She tapped him on the knee and smiled.

‘Good. And have you had a bleed since then, the night you came into Casualty.'

‘Yes. Once. Two days later.'

‘And any pain when you have to wee?'

‘No. I've had no pain.'

Each time the doctor asked a question she moved a little closer to Joe, which made him feel nervous. It had been a long time since he'd been so close to any woman, let alone one so young and beautiful. He involuntarily massaged his potbelly stomach.

She stood up and moved across to an examination table covered in a white sheet.

‘In cases such as yours, and in consideration of your age, we'll need to give you a series of tests over the next few weeks, commencing today with a scan, which will give us a good look at your kidneys in particular. We need to find out what caused the bleed. Each test we do will help with our diagnosis, largely through a process of elimination. But firstly, I need to examine you.'

She patted the table with her hand.

‘Strip down to your underwear and sit up here for me.'

‘Pardon?'

‘I need you to take your clothing off, Joseph. I need to examine you.'

Reluctantly, Joe dropped his pants around his ankles.

‘And your top, please.'

Joe stripped to his underwear and lay down on the table. While the doctor checked his blood pressure, heart rate and general health Joe concentrated on a poster on the wall by the end of the bed, outlining the benefits of annual cholesterol tests. The doctor had her stethoscope pressed against the left side of Joe's chest when she noticed the small circular scar on his side, between his two lower ribs. She looked closer at the scar and ran her fingers over a raised area of disfigured skin.

‘What caused this, Joseph? Would it be a .38 or a .45?'

Joe said nothing and continued looking ahead. She gently prodded the scar with a gloved fingertip.

‘You were shot here. Some time ago. I'd guess it was a .38?'

‘Yeah. A .38.'

Joe could not curb his curiosity. ‘How can you tell the size of the bullet?'