Sleight of Hand (42 page)

I sigh and sit on the edge of the bed and try to take her hand but she pulls it away.

“I'm worried about you,” I say. “We both are.”

Jenny groans. “Mark. Just … I'm sorry … but … you know … fuck off and let me sleep will you?”

The next day Jenny is still sickly. This is more or less par for the course. But when the following day – New Year's Eve – she is
still
ill in bed, Ricardo beckons me into the kitchen. “It's time,” he says.

“You want to call the hospital?”

“I want to take her in. I want her to see someone.”

I nod in reluctant agreement.

“We go tell her together, yes?”

“OK,” I say, following him to the door.

Jenny is lying on one side facing us as we enter. “Hi guys,” she says. “Both at once huh?”

“We need to talk to you,” I say.

“I know,” she replies. “You want me to call Batt.”

“We want you to go see him.”

She blinks slowly to show her acquiescence. “Bring me the phone,” she says with a sigh. “I'll call him and tell him what's going on.”

Because it's New Year's Eve, Batt is unavailable, but eventually the doctor covering for him phones us back. Ricardo sits with her during the call to make sure that she tells him how sick she has been, and probably because Jenny isn't his patient and as such,
he isn't taking any risks with her, he asks her to come in immediately.

By two in the afternoon, I am driving Jenny up the motorway, and by six I am heading back the other way alone.

When I reach the house I see Ricardo and Sarah through the bay window. They are reading a picture book together, and both look warm and homely by the light of the orange table lamp. I creep up to the window and watch them together for a moment. Ricardo's face looks animated and funny. He looks as beautiful, in fact, as I have ever seen him, and I am overcome by a powerful surge of love for them both, but particularly for him in this new fatherly role.

I rap on the window, and he looks up and his features transform into a no less pleasing, but entirely different configuration – the one he uses when he smiles at me.

He hikes Sarah up and crosses the room towards us. “Chupy!” he says, as he slides open the window. “How did it go?”

“Pretty much as I said on the phone,” I say.

“I mean the drive.”

“Oh fine. I was listening to a thing about eighties music on the radio and no traffic, so yeah, fine. And how are you miss?”

“I'm good,” Sarah says. I laugh at this.
I'm good
, is Ricardo's stock response. Sarah has now picked it up as her own.

“I made some tomato sauce for pasta,” Ricardo says. “Well, we made it, didn't we.”

Sarah nods. “I helped. When's Mummy coming home?”

“On Saturday,” I say. She frowns at me so I say, “In two sleeps,” and she looks into the middle
distance, thinks about this for a minute, and then asks Ricardo, “can we finish the story?”

Once Sarah is in bed, Ricardo and I sit to eat our tomato pasta.

“So,” he asks again. “What did they say?”

“I honestly didn't get much more than I told you,” I say. “They got her to pee on a stick and put her straight on dialysis.”

“So we were right to make her go.”

“Apparently so.”

“And did you ask about the yellow skin?”

“Yeah. They said the dialysis will help.”

“I don't understand that,” Ricardo says, twiddling spaghetti around his fork. “It's a liver problem, not kidney. The liver is why you go yellow.”

“I know,” I say. “I asked Florent for you.”

“He was there?”

“Yeah. He was all over Jenny. I think he's in love with her or something.”

“Serious?”

“No. But he really likes her. Which is great. Anyway, he did tell me but it was a bit complicated to be honest. Something to do with the drug affecting the liver, and enzymes from the liver affecting the kidneys. So dialysis helps. If that makes any sense.”

Ricardo pouts and wobbles his head from side to side. “I guess,” he says. “Everything is connected so …”

“Exactly. Florent said internal organs are like dominos. If you let one fail then they all fail.”

“Right.”

“God, it's New Year's Eve,” I say, checking the clock. “Have we got any alcohol? I could do with a drink.”

“I'm sorry,” Ricardo says. “By the time I remember the shop is shut.”

“You're forgetting the pub,” I say.

“But we can't. Not with Sarah.”

“But I can go get something and bring it back here. Wine, or cans of beer.”

“It's a good idea,” Ricardo says. “We can't have New Year without a drink.”

But two bottles of Meadow Creek can't save this particular New Year's Eve. I lay back against Ricardo's chest and we stare out at the frosted beach and sip our pretty-disgusting wine in almost total silence. I'm thinking alternately about poor Jenny hooked up to a dialysis machine for New Year's Eve, and Paloma lost or dead on another distant beach. I used to give her salmon on special occasions like today. I wonder what, if anything she's eating tonight. I wonder if she's still alive.

At midnight, I say, “Happy New Year,” and Ricardo replies with a yawn.

“You too babe,” he says. His voice resonates in my rib cage.

“I hope it's better than last year,” I say.

“It will be,” he says. “I think it will be a good year.”

“I'm tired,” I say.

“It's all the driving.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm tired too,” he says. “Sarah all day.”

I laugh. “I know this is a bit … you know … old married couple … but.”

“We go to bed?”

I laugh and twist my neck to look back at him. “Yeah,” I say. “Can we? Can we forget about New Year and just go to bed?”

Two days later, we have planned to make a “family” trip to London to see the sights and pick Jenny up. But Jenny, who has different ideas, insists that it should be me alone that makes the trip. “I've been thinking,” she tells me on the phone in a clipped officious voice. “Sarah's seen enough of hospitals. I don't want that to be her enduring memory of childhood.”

“Plus,” she adds, in a more ominous tone, “we can talk that way.”

She is looking pale and drawn when I meet her in the waiting room, but I lie and tell her that she looks better.

“Sure,” she says. “Whatever. Let's go.”

There's something rigid about her demeanour, something controlled about her tone of voice that makes me nervous and so I say nothing. But after ten minutes with only the sound of the windscreen wipers and the engine, I can take it no longer. “So,” I prompt, glancing across with a sober smile.

“So,” she repeats.

“Did you see Batt?”

“Na. I saw Stephens.”

“The young guy.”

“Yeah. I'm off the trial.”

“You are?”

“Well, suspended. Pending further investigations or something.”

“Further investigations?”

“Yeah. Blood tests and scans.”

I negotiate a roundabout and then glance across at her. “And how do you feel about that?”

Jenny shrugs. “Depressed. And relieved that I don't have to take any more of those bloody pills.”

“So what happens next?”

“I'm not sure really,” she says. “Nothing much, I think.”

“Nothing much.”

Jenny sighs.

“Look Jen,” I say. “Can you just go through everything they said, because this is turning into a really irritating sort of question and answer session.”

She sighs again, more deeply this time, and looks out of the side window for a moment before clearing her throat and saying, “Sure, sorry. You're right. So. Start again Jen.”

“You have an hour and a half, so …”

“It won't take
that
long,” she says.

“So.”

“So. I'm off the trial. If the blood-work comes back normal in a month or so, and if the tumour starts to grow again then they might put me back on it, but …”

“So the tumour
hasn't
been progressing?”

“No. Not at all apparently. Quiet as a mouse.”

“So that's good news.”

“Yes. I suppose. But they think it will probably start up again now I'm off the chemo.”

“Is that what they said?
Probably?”

Jenny pauses and then says,
“Very possibly
, I think he said. Whatever that means.”

I nod. “And if it does you go back on the chemo.”

“Only if my blood work is OK. But they think my liver and kidneys have both taken a hit, so it probably won't be.”

“And if you can't go back on chemo, then … ?”

“Well if the tumour kicks off again and my blood counts are still bad then basically that's it I think. I croak.”

I wipe the inside of the windscreen, but in fact most of the irritating mist is not on the windscreen but in my eyes. “Shit Jenny,” I say.

“I know. It's shit, isn't it. But for now, I have a month off. No scans, no pills, no visits.”

“Cool. So you get a proper rest.”

“Yes. Well, I still have to take the anti-convulsants, but that's it.”

“A month seems a long time between scans. Are you happy with that?”

Jenny shrugs. “They said that there's no point doing it earlier because they wouldn't see anything. And if they did they couldn't do anything because of my liver.”

“Fair enough.”

“So I want to get some balls rolling.”

“Balls rolling?”

“Yeah. We need money, so I'm going to flog Mum's place.”

“Well we can talk about that.”

“Talk all you want. I've decided. I'm putting it on the market. And we need to get the legal guardian thing signed and sealed too.”

“I'm going to see him on the fifth,” I say.

“That's, what, Monday?”

“Yeah.”

“I'll come. If we can get it all signed and sealed in one go that's better.”

I frown and drive in silence for a moment before asking, “You're not … thinking of leaving us
just yet
are you?”

“I got all the info this time. And it could happen anytime Mark. In fact it could have
already
happened anytime.”

“Jesus Jenny.”

“It might be gradual. Lots of side effects, fits, eye problems … all kinds of shit. Or it could be sudden. I might just, you know,
stop
. Or not wake up one morning. They said that was the most likely.”

“I,” I say. But my voice fails.

“Please don't start,” Jenny says. “And of course, it might not happen at all. But we need to get the paperwork sorted.”

I turn onto a slip road and merge out onto the M23.

“Mark?”

“Sorry, I … I don't know what to say.”

“Are you having second thoughts?”

“About?”

“About Sarah? Because I could still ask Tom.”

“No! Of course not.”

“And Ricardo?”

“No. They get on really well.”

“They do don't they? I'm quite surprised about that. I don't know why.”

“I caught him reading to her the other day. They were so cute.”

“He's all-right really isn't he?” Jenny says.

“Yeah. He is.”

“Not perfect …”

“No.”

“Some quite big faults really.”

“Perhaps.”

“But a big old heart as well.”

“Well yes.”

“But then who
is
perfect?”

“Me?” I ask, glancing at her and smiling weakly.

Jenny wrinkles her nose. “You're not perfect sir. Not by any means. But you're all-right too, I suppose.”

“Thanks.”

She reaches out to put the radio on and then pauses, her hand hovering over the knob. “It's weird isn't it?” she says. “Being able to talk about all this now. You get used to anything really.”

“I'm not sure about
that,”
I say. But I know what she means. Because although my eyes are watering and I have a huge lump in my throat, I never thought I would have been able to discuss a friend's potentially imminent death with the friend in question whilst successfully negotiating the M23.

“You just can't live at that level of intensity,” Jenny says.

“I'm sorry?”

“You can't live at that level for so long. You simply can't run around screaming for months. So I think your brain just adjusts somehow.”

“You're right,” I say. “It does.”

“It's amazing really.”

“You're right,” I say. “It is.”

“Anyway, who cares what the doctors say, huh? Florent did my I-ching. Far more important.”

“The Chinese thing with the sticks?”

“Yeah. Only he does it with coins.”

“Do you believe in that stuff?”

“Not really, but I'd like to.”

“Why, what did it say?”

“Difficulty at the beginning leads to supreme success,” she says.

“Difficulty at the beginning …” I repeat.

“Leads to
supreme
success,” she says.

“I've heard that before,” I say. “I dated a guy who was into the I-Ching. It was
years
ago.” I decide
not to tell her that the relationship with the guy in question turned out to be a catastrophic disaster rather than a supreme success. “Anyway, it sounds good and positive,” I say.

“Yeah,” she says. “I think that's why he's my favourite nurse.”

On Monday morning, we leave Sarah and Ricardo playing with Lego and head off to Brighton to see the specialised guardianship lawyer. It seems, as I drive over the downs and past Cuckmore Haven, as if a lid has been slapped on all of the emotional turmoil that would normally be whipped up by today's fraught programme. I feel cold and efficient, and Jenny looks the same. But it feels as if one false move might result in the lid popping off and both of us collapsing into tears.