Pig Island (28 page)

“I’ll be getting a second opinion before I share my thoughts.”

“Mr Radnor?”

“No. Someone here, I expect.”

He shovelled the X-rays away, but that grey and white and black image stayed in my head. A ghostly imprint of a human. I looked round at Angeline being arranged on the MRI table. The radiographer asked her to move her feet forward and as she did the gown moved a little and I saw behind her calf a fat, sausage-coloured slab of flesh, the skin slightly hardened like a cuticle. She realized what had happened but she didn’t try to hide it. She was staring blankly at the glass window. She didn’t even seem to register me—there was this thoughtful, distant look on her face. I turned back to Guy Picot.

“I know why you won’t let me see. I know.”

He shook his head, opening his nostrils and continuing to watch Angeline, as if I was a fly bothering him. But I wasn’t going to be put off. “I can read an X-ray, you know—I’m not imagining what I just saw. I saw calcium. In the growth, I saw a mass of something and I’m sure it was calcium, and that means—‘

“That means?”

“Bones,” I said. My voice wasn’t much more than a whisper, because something vague and distant was going through my head.
Ectoderm, endoderm, mesoderm
… a few half-remembered words from the journal. There was a long silence while I looked at Guy Picot without blinking.
Heterogeneous elements…‘

“But it can’t be,” I murmured. “It can’t be.
She should be dead…
.”

Chapter 2

In retrospect, I can see it was right after the hospital appointment that Oakesy’s behaviour, as if it wasn’t bad enough already, took a turn for the worse. The next morning, when I was still half asleep, he leaped out of bed as if he’d been bitten, disappeared into the bathroom and stayed there, in the shower, for almost an hour. When he came out he looked awful, just
awful
, his skin all grey and damp as if he had a virus. He wouldn’t speak to me, just slunk around looking really shifty, pale and uncommunicative, finding every excuse to keep a distance from me and Angeline, not meeting our eyes, sitting at breakfast with an uncomfortable, drawn-up look on his face, shutting himself in his room upstairs the moment he had a chance.

“What did the doctor tell you?” he asked me, later that night. We were in bed. “What were you talking about? When you said you saw calcium on the X-ray, what did that mean?”

I tipped my head sideways and frowned at him. It was almost the first thing he’d said to me all day. He was staring at the ceiling, really unhappy seeming, moving his tongue around as if he’d found something foreign in his mouth.

“I don’t know,” I said. “There’s only one thing it could be.”

“What?”

“A tumour. But the only tumour I know that’s got bone in it is …‘

“Is?”

“A teratoma. And if it was that she wouldn’t have survived. They go malignant, teratomas. I’m sure I remember reading that somewhere—they go malignant.”

“Then what? What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You must have an idea.”

“No,” I said.

“But you must.”

‘
No
,“ I said, irritated. ”I haven’t got a clue.“ Up until now Oakesy couldn’t have cared less what was wrong with Angeline. Now all of a sudden he was showing this interest? And expecting me to have all the answers? ”I just told you,
I don’t know
. We’ve got to wait for Mr Radnor to call.“

It wasn’t until much later, when he’d gone to sleep and I was lying awake listening to that ghostly wind coming across the playing-fields and rattling the windows, that it dawned on me what was going on in Oakesy’s head. I rolled my head sideways on the pillow and looked at him, hunched up, the duvet pulled over his head as if he wanted to shut out the world. He must have seen the growth, like I did, in the MRI room, with its slightly unreal, rubbery-looking skin. Suddenly everything made sense—the way he’d gone around all day yellow-faced and distracted, the way he couldn’t meet Angeline’s eyes. I stared at the bulge of his shoulders, the duvet rising and falling as he breathed, and I pushed out a dry, irritated laugh. How typical of a man. How
bloody typical
.

Overnight a wind came up from the Irish Sea and pounded the west of Scotland, blowing round the house, rattling the windows and shaking drifts of leaves from the trees at the edge of the estate. When I went downstairs in the morning the kitchen was dark as if winter was already here. Out of the window, rain pelted the road, dark clouds trailed long fingers down to stroke the roofs and the flame-effect gas-fire in the living room barely took the chill off the air. In the night someone had left a shopping trolley on the pavement outside the boarded-up house opposite. It just sat there, occasionally moving a few inches in a gust of wind, the chain at the coin slot dangling back and forward.

“You know,” I said, when Oakesy came down for breakfast. It was just the two of us: Angeline was still asleep, her door closed tightly. He sat opposite me, not meeting my eyes, pretending to be reading the proposal he’s putting together for Finn. “You know it would behove you to hide your feelings a little better.”

He looked up at me. His pupils opened and closed a couple of times, as if he was struggling to take me in. “What did you say?”

“Oh, come on.” I gave a short laugh. “I know you so well. You’re really upset. And it’s not just because of Malachi Dove. It’s her.” I jerked my head in the direction of the stairs. “It’s her too.”

He stared at me then, as if I was a complete stranger, as if I was someone who had just wandered in off the street and sat down opposite him at the table.

“Don’t look so embarrassed, Oakesy. I do
know
. I know
exactly
what’s going on in your head. I’m not stupid.”

He kept looking at me—so hard that a vein in his forehead rose and began to pulse steadily. “Lexie, I know you’re not stupid, I never thought you were, and I…‘ He trailed off. There was a pause, then he said, ”What’s going on in my head?“

“You’re disgusted.” I laughed. “You don’t like even sitting in the same room as her.”

“Disgusted?” he repeated, like a mantra. “Disgusted.” Slowly, not taking his eyes off me, he laid down the manuscript and stood up, rather woodenly. He went to the sink, turned on the tap and scooped some water into his mouth.

“There’s one basic rule, Oakesy,” I said to his back. “One fundamental guideline for decency not only for medical professionals but for all human beings. You should try as much as possible to conceal your disgust.
Especially
from the person you find disgusting.”

He straightened then, his back still to me. He took several deep breaths, as if he was trying to control himself. Water ran down his arms and dripped off his fingers on to the floor. Just when I was about to speak he raised a foot and slammed it into the cupboard door, sending a crack shooting down to the bottom.

“For God’s sake.” I stood up, stunned. “What
on earth
do you think you’re doing?”

He didn’t answer. He stood there, arms dangling, head down, staring at his toenails where lines of blood had appeared at the edges. He turned, not meeting my eyes, and came to the table, dropping into his seat. He sat there in a heap, shoulders slumped, staring dully at the coffee-pot. He looked terrible.

I sat down cautiously, a little knot of anxiety tying itself in my stomach. He knows something, I thought. He knows something about Dove. “Joe? What is it? What’s going on?”

“Alex,” he said, not looking at me. “I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. ‘
What
? Well—yes. Of course I know. What’s that got to do with anything?“

He breathed in and out, very, very slowly, as if the effort of just sitting upright was too much. For a long time he didn’t speak. The only noise was the sound of rain pounding against the window. “Nothing,” he said eventually, in a strained voice. “Nothing’s going on. I just want you to know that I love you.”

Well, that was it—he wouldn’t say any more. He went upstairs and locked himself into the third bedroom, leaving me sitting at the kitchen table and looking in stunned silence from the broken cupboard to the stairs and back again. Now, I thought, putting my hands to my head, now I know the world has gone mad.

Oakesy
Chapter 1

If I’ve got my hand on my unreconstructed heart, when I met Dr Guy Picot—he pronounced it the French way
Ghee Peeko –
I didn’t like him one bit, with his wide, sculpted neck and these big kind of classical lips, and curls that looked like they’d been carved out of soap or stone or something. Adonis of the Gorbals. It’s a mystery to me how anyone can get through the day dressed like a Versace model and not feel a total prat.

He didn’t say anything to start with—just hello—then sat us in a line on the other side of his desk, watching Angeline as she settled down, taking her in from toes to head, staring particularly at her feet. Lex was anxious. She kept asking Picot who he’d got the referral from, was it directly from Mr Radnor. If I’d been thinking a bit clearer I’d‘ve noticed this. But good old Oakesy, he of the concrete head—never do listen to the important stuff, do I?

Picot asked Angeline some questions—mostly about her feet, for some reason. Then he put his pen down, looked at her carefully and said, “Angeline.” He got up from the desk and pushed back the screen. “I’m going to give you a gown and I’m going to ask you to get undressed. Are you OK with that?”

She didn’t answer straight off. We all turned to look at her. She was staring at her hands, moving them round and round compulsively, breathing hard in and out. The rash round her mouth had cleared up, I noticed, and she’d put on some of Lexie’s makeup, but it didn’t stop you seeing the blood pumping round her face.

“Angeline, would you like to—‘

“Yes.” She stood abruptly, her eyes wide. “Yes.”

It was awkward—her limping away behind the screen, the sound of her undressing—and for a while there was a silence in which none of us could meet each other’s eyes. Lex and me both picked up a magazine and pretended to flick through them. Then Angeline called, “Ready,” and Picot went behind the screen, pulling on his gloves.

It was an old-fashioned screen, with green fabric strung over the frame, like something from a
Carry On
film. There was a slit in both sides and Lexie tilted her chair back as far as it would go, craning her neck to look through the gap and see what was happening back there. After a moment or two she put down the magazine silently and crept, very carefully, towards the screen. She stood, side on, her chin drawn into her neck so she could just peep through the slit.

“Hey,” I said, kind of disgusted by her. She shook her head, put a finger to her lips and was about to step closer when, from the other side, Picot tugged the screen closed with an impatient noise. She froze for a second, not looking at me, colour gathering in her face. I thought she was going to say something, be pissed off with Picot, but instead she made a little huffing sound—like ‘These doctors’re all the same’—snatched up the magazine from her chair and went to the window at the far end, standing with her back to the room, staring out at the car park.

I watched her for a bit, then went back to my magazine. I wasn’t reading it: I was thinking about Dove, about that bridge. Spectacular. “My death will be spectacular.” I glanced up and saw that when Picot had moved the screen he had accidentally opened one of the slits nearest to me. I could see part of what was happening in there.

I didn’t move. I sat totally still, hardly breathing. I could see obliquely along one side of the table, could see the little toe on Angeline’s right foot poking out from a heavy white sheet, her hand holding the side of the table, and Picot standing next to her, his gloves pulled over his shirt cuffs.

“Now, I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, his head on one side, looking down to where her face must be. “I’m just going to look. Is that OK?”

I shot a glance at Lexie. She was still staring out of the window, tapping her nail on her teeth, not interested in me. Behind the screen, just out of my eyeline, Angeline must’ve nodded because Picot was folding down the sheet. “I’m going to feel your spine and …‘ He stopped and I sat up a bit, watching his expression. He was staring down at Angeline’s lower half, just out of view, and you could tell he didn’t know what to say. There was a moment’s more hesitation, then he must have sussed Angeline was looking at him, because he put his shirt-sleeve briefly to his head and said, ”Yes, good. Just—uh—let me see now. Turn a little—this way. That’s it. On to your side.“

There was a long, long silence, when no one spoke and no one moved, and the only sound was the distant clatter of trolleys in the hospital corridors. Then he cleared his throat. “Right,” he said. “Angeline, I’m looking at your spine. OK? I’m just going to run my fingers down it…‘ He swallowed and took a step towards the head of the table, bending sideways and moving both hands just out of sight, drawing them downwards, his tongue between his teeth. ”OK. Now, can you shuffle towards me a bit? That’s it—no, stay on your side. I want to see how strong your ankles are.“

Angeline moved, and suddenly, into the small space between the screen and Picot’s shirt front came the yellow underside of a foot, and then, when she’d shuffled a bit more, the section of her back that extended from her shoulder-blades to her knees. I was looking up the length of her body. The growth had arranged itself away from her legs so it lay straight down the table towards him, and I could see the exact point where it converged with her spine. I could see the eye-shaped crevice neatly creased between her thighs, just like any other woman, and I could see further up to the point of the eye, to the junction where the growth began, widening away from her coccyx. I blinked. This was weird. I put my hand to my chest. My heart was thumping hard under my shirt.