Forever Is Over (53 page)

“
There she is, Constable! Get her!
”

I was under no illusion that the police were visiting the McGordon
’
s
to invite them to a social evening at the Civic Hall. They had been
away and now they were back and the police were no doubt checking
if they had heard anything when Mum toppled to her unsavoury end.
Unless they were both deaf or very heavy sleepers, our statements would
be blown out the water. I crossed back over, hiding behind the police
van at first, then crawling on all fours under it and keeping horizontal
below the wall at the end of their garden. I could now pick up their
conversation.

“
Would it be possible we could come in Mr. & Mrs. McGordon?
Just to take some further details, perhaps?
”

“
Of course, please come in.
”

Everything was collapsing around me. I knew exactly what was
happening. This was God
’
s way of punishing me. I had ended a life
and he was making sure my sins would find me out. I was getting what
I deserved. Jemma and Richie were obviously in love, that was evident
from the tenderness they were displaying, I was just an unwanted
obstacle in that love triangle now and if I didn
’
t act quickly, it looked
like I would soon be heading to jail for my mother
’
s murder. Next
door must have heard me screaming as I ran at my Mum and then the
sickening thud that followed when she hit the tiled floor. They were
probably telling the police officers that right now.

With the McGordon
’
s door closed behind them, I gathered myself
up from my cowering position, ran up our path, went in through the
front door, up to my room, threw as many random objects of clothing
as I could into a bag, dug out my passport, Yorkshire Building Society
passbook and any cash I could find, stuffed them into the side pocket
of the bag and bundled the bag down the
stairs. I crept out the front
door, checked that no-one was emerging from the McGordon
’
s a
nd
then shuffled along in a lopsided run, down the path and all the way
down to Ormskirk train station. The Merseyrail train to Liverpool
was already on the platform when I arrived. I bought a single ticket
to Central, rushed on board, avoiding the smoking carriage and bade
Ormskirk farewell.

My stay in Liverpool was a short one. I decided to get off the train
at Moorfields, went across to the Yorksh
ire Building Society in Castle
Street and closed my account, withdrawing every penny I had. I then
went to the bottom end of Lord Street, re-investing some of my cash in
a flight to Amsterdam. I wanted to go that evening from Manchester
Airport, but there were no flights out of Manchester that I could book
on to that night other than to Arecife and Palma and now was not
the time for a suntan, so I ended up booking a flight from Heathrow
to
Amsterdam. It was an ideal destination, as I knew you had access to
most other airports in the world from there. Having booked my flight,
I walked up to Lime Street station a
nd booked myself on to a train
to Euston. From there, I went on the tube, taking the Southbound
Victoria line to Green Park and then swopping on to the Piccadilly line,
westwards, all the way to Heathrow. By 10.30pm, I was in Amsterdam.
My life as a fugitive had begun.

             
Richie

“
It
’
s not good news, I
’
m afraid, Mr.Billingham. The test results
show that the tumour on your testicle is cancerous. What we need to
do now, is look at how we are going to treat it
………
..
”

That
’
s as much as I remember hearing. The talk continued but it
never reached my brain. There was no point kidding myself any longer
that it would all turn out to be something and nothing. This was my
reality now. My cancerous reality.

As I left Ormskirk hospital after my second meeting with the
consultant urologist, Mr.Davenport, within a week, my mind was
everywhere. As promised by Dr.Whiteside, my initial appointment had
come through within a fortnight. The date of the appointment though,
was another four weeks down the line. Initially, I had forgotten all about
it, but as it crept ever nearer, I struggled to keep up the pretence that
everything was OK. I suppose the easiest solution would have been to
tell Kelly about it, but I just felt that I would be burdening her with too
much after the death of her Mum. I opted to tell Jim instead, but all he
responded with was,

“
It
’
s about time. Hope it all works out OK for you, bruv.
”

Jim was pleasant enough but he was not designed to provide emotional support. At least Jim knew though and if my behaviour
was short tempered or erratic, he understood. With Kelly, it was more
difficult, I had no justifiable reason to take any of my worries out on her,
so just found myself starting to avoid her.

In the six weeks between the GP appointment and urologists
appointment, I wanted to develop a better understanding of the beast that
lay within. If it was cancer, I wanted to know exactly what cancer was. I knew it was a serious killer, up there in the causes of death league with
heart disease, but that had been the extent of my knowledge. I went to
Ormskirk library and took out six books on cancer and testicular cancer
and spent several evenings over the next month trying to comprehend
what could possibly be going on with my genitalia.

I found out cancer is just the name given to loads of different diseases
all over the body. They are grouped together as they are all abnormal
growths of cells acting in an uncontrolled way and sometimes spreading.
What I discovered my lump could be was a malignant tumour of the
testicle. Testicular cancer, to a great extent, is a young man
’
s illness,
with the majority of those diagnosed being under forty. I was certainly
not unique in suffering from this illness
at my age. By the time I went
to see Mr.Davenport, although I had read most testicular lumps are
not cancerous, I had diagnosed myself as a testicular cancer sufferer. I
suppose, to an extent, I was playing mind games and was opting for a
worst case scenario, in the hope of being proved wrong, but that did not
happen. All Mr. Davenport did was confirm my assumption.

On the basis that I had already assumed that I had testicular cancer,
I don
’
t really know why I was in such a head spinning state of shock
when I left Ormskirk hospital late that Thursday morning. I guess it was
down to the fact that Mr. Davenport had now eradicated all doubt and
it was perhaps that element of doubt that I was clinging to. I walked
through to Ormskirk town centre in a daze. I don
’
t really know where
I was heading, perhaps sub-consciously I was heading to Woolworths,
to see Kelly, to reveal the background to my peculiar behaviour. In an
attempt to shield Kelly from my troubles, I had already alienated her, as she had concluded that my separation from her illustrated a diminishing
interest in our relationship. Nothing could have been further from the
truth, but how was Kelly supposed to know that? All Kelly was aware
of, was a boyfriend who was keeping his distance.

I never reached Kelly. It was market day and Ormskirk town centre
was jam packed. You needed your wits about you to manoeuvre through
the throng, but I had left my wits back at the hospital. Solely due to a
lack of concentration on my part, I collided with a lady who had just
bought a cheese filled baked potato from a van on Moor Street, that had
parked up next to the market stalls. The potato and its cheesy contents
were knocked from her grasp and landed upside down on the concrete
flags below.

“
YOU STUPID IDIOT! Why did you not look where you were
going? I
’
ve just spent ten minutes queuing for that!
”

             
I looked at the enraged woman. With typical misfortune, I had
only managed to walk straight into Jemma Watkinson! That pretty
much summed up a miserable day! I was in bits. I put my left hand up
on to the top of my forehead and into my hair and just stood there for a
moment, silently. By this time, I was on auto-pilot. I could not control
my hands. My left hand brought itself down to cover my face and then
my right hand joined it. The tears then came. Jemma, unaware of the
background, probably thought this was more than a little dramatic
following the death of a cheesy potato!

“
Richie! Are you OK? What
’
s going on? Sorry, I over-reacted! It
’
s only a potato! The world
’
s full of them. The potato famine is no more! Richie! Richie! What
’
s the matter?
”

I took my hands away from my face. I needed someone to talk to
about this. Not Jim and not Kelly, but someone else. I wasn
’
t sure Jemma
was the ideal candidate, we had never exactly hit it off, but sometimes
fate intervenes in your life in mysterious ways.

“
I
’
m OK!
”

I said as I kneeled down in a vain attempt to salvage Jemma
’
s potato,
before realising it was a lo
st cause and standing back up.

             
“
Are you sure you are OK?
”
Jemma enquired again.

             
“
Actually I
’
m not. Do you have a few minutes to spare, Jemma? I
have a problem, I really need to talk to someone about it.
”

             
I think people just ask if you are OK to seek their own personal re-
assurances. They want you to say yes so they can get along with the rest
of their day, guilt free. My negat
ive response caught Jemma out.

             
“
I
’
ve got the time, Richie, but is it something you really want to be
sharing with me? We hardly know each other. Is it something Kelly
knows about? Maybe she
’
d be a better option?
”

I shook my head.

“
No, no, I don
’
t want to drag Kelly into this.
”

“
But you don
’
t mind dragging me into it?
”

Jemma smiled. I did not like her much but she had a beautiful smile.

I smiled back.

“
No, Jemma, I don
’
t like you nearly as much so I
’
ll quite happily
drag you into anything!
”

I said this in my dry, sarcastic way but there was more than an
element of truth in this statement and both Jemma and I knew that.

Jemma must have sensed I was desperate. She gave me a half-hug, one of
those uncomfortable hugs that two thirteen year old boys would do.

“
I thought that was the case!
”
she said.
“
I tell you what, you buy me
another baked potato with cheese, buy yourself something too, then
come down with me to Coronation Park and we can sit in the sunshine
on the grass. We can talk through your troubles there. How does that
sound?
”

It sounded fine to me, so that is exactly what we did. I bought
Jemma another baked potato with cheese, bought another with a
tuna mayonnaise filling for myself and we headed off to Coronation
Park. Once there, I related the whole story of the lump, from initially
discovering it right through to the diagnosis. I was pleasantly surprised
by Jemma
’
s capacity to listen and to empathise. For a bigmouth with
a prat of a boyfriend, she listened attentively, just throwing in the odd
pertinent question from time to time.