Storm in a B Cup - A Breast Cancer Tale (4 page)

There’re kids
running everywhere and a line of parents with wound down windows behind me who
are looking like they want to string me up the school flagpole for having the gall
to get a flat in the drive-through. To add to the indignity of trying to figure
out which tool will undo wheel nuts in front of the entire school community, I
have Miss Butterworth, the Head of Primary, breathing down my neck. Her hair,
like a steel wool scourer, is casting a fuzzy shadow on the wheel. Her face
looks pinched at this imposition to her orderly queue.

“Do you need
a hand there, Ms. Molloy?” she asks.

I know she’s
not saying it to be helpful. She doesn’t like chaos and I’m creating it. Cars
are trying to swerve around me. People are honking. Oncoming traffic is being
narrowly missed. There’s cursing but that’s mostly me.

She taps her
foot. “We really should keep the line moving.”

“I know,” I
pant, as I attach the silver thing to the nut. “I won’t take long, I promise.
I’m really sorry.”

“You might
like to jack the wheel up before you try to take the tyre off,” she advises.

Like I
didn’t know that. If she weren’t breathing down my neck I would have remembered
to do that. I locate the jack and place it under the car. I begin to wind.

“And you did
put the car in gear before you started?” she enquires, as if I am a complete
car imbecile. I wish she would shut up and let me finish the job. I wish she
would go away before I burst into tears in the middle of the queue. Can’t she
see I have things to deal with that don’t involve changing tyres? Not that I’m
thinking about
that
. Because I’m not
nervous. My hands are shaking because I’m flustered, that’s all.

“Yes, I
did.” My reply is somewhat terse and I can tell she’s annoyed by it. I pick up
the wrench — that’s what it’s called. I try to calm myself but my hands
are gripping the metal so tightly my knuckles are going white and I can’t fit
it onto the nuts, let alone loosen them. Probably because I’m using the wrong
end.

And at that
moment, when I feel like I might be going to have a crying fit over a tyre,
Harris Farmer’s dad, Hugh, appears around the side of the car, a saviour in a
Volvo and an Armani suit. He rests a large hand on the bonnet and gives me that
friendly Farmer grin. All straight teeth and soft lips.

“Need a
hand, Soph?”

I feel the
tension leaving my body. It’s funny how certain people have that ability.

“Please. The
nuts are super tight.”

Hugh looks
over to where Miss Butterworth is drumming her fingers impatiently on the other
side of the car.

“How about
you direct the traffic around us, Marg? I’m sure we can get Ms. Molloy out of
your hair quite quickly if you do.” He slips his suit jacket off and hands it
to Miss Butterworth who takes it in bemusement. His look says he won’t take no
for an answer.

Miss
Butterworth steps into the fray and takes up the role of traffic warden.

“You’re a
lifesaver,” I whisper to Hugh, who’s undone the nuts at the speed of light and
is now putting on the spare tyre. I bet he has a Superman outfit under that
suit.

“Anything
for a damsel in distress.”

His grin
makes me blush and for a second I forget about the thing that I’m not thinking
about.

“Did you get
your chocolates sold?” he enquires casually. “Harris and I had to go up and
down the street. Nothing like begging with the neighbours to lower your opinion
of yourself.”

The boys’
school is having a chocolate fundraiser and Rory’s class, in particular, has been
very competitive. It seems every family wants the title of ‘Highest Sales’ and
the prize that goes with it.

“I didn’t
sell any.”

He looks at
me.

“I ate the
lot. Three cartons full. Rory’s going back for another today if they have any
spares.”

Hugh Farmer
laughs so hard, he almost drops the wrench. “Three cartons? That’s seventy-two
bars of chocolate? It’s a wonder you don’t look like the side of a house.”

I’m positive
I see his eyes cast a meaningful glance at my legs, hidden only by thin,
expensive pantyhose.

“Chocolate
is a food group in our house. Besides, it’s good for you. It releases
endorphins. And I didn’t eat the lot. Rory had a few. And he sent two in the
mail to his Grandmam.”

“Hmm. That’s
still sixty or so bars.”

I am fully
aware that I have taken the term ‘comfort eating’ to a whole new level this
past week but I’m not about to tell him that.

Hugh sits
back on his haunches. “All done. Don’t suppose you’ve got a rag so I can wipe
my hands?”

I rush to
the back of the car
and hand him one of Brendan’s gym shirts.
Brendan won’t care. I’m sure he’s forgotten it’s even there. “Thanks so much. You’re
a lifesaver,” I repeat.

“All in a day’s
work.”

Hugh hands
the shirt back to me and I roll it in a ball and toss it in the car. I pick up
the bits and pieces from beside the car and stow them in the back, too. “Thanks
again,” I say, waving as he gets into his car behind me.

“My
pleasure, Sophie. You have a nice day.”

And that’s
when it hits me. I might have had my last nice day for a while.

*****

The traffic
is steady and somehow I manage to catch every green light — a small
miracle in itself — so I reach the shop about ten minutes later. I know
they say you shouldn’t play where you work but seriously, the traffic in Perth
is so ridiculous, I actually give thanks that our house, Rory’s school and the
shop are within a few minutes of each other. When he’s old enough, I plan for
him to ride his bike. He can take the backstreets and cross at the lights and
I’ll be able to head straight to work. I think he’d like that. Being a big boy.
I’d like it too.

It’s 8.50 a.m.
when I unlock the back door and dump my stuff in the small space I’ve designated
as the staffroom. Lani’s nowhere in sight, so I put down our coffees and get
out the price tags and the list I’ve generated for the pricing of the new
stock. Lani managed to return those hideous bags from last week and reorder
what I actually wanted in the first place, so I
perch
myself on
a stool and sip and tag alternately.

When I was
at school, I never dreamed that one day I would own my own shop. I wanted to
design things — well, handbags, to be specific — but that was as
far as my future was planned. I didn’t think I’d be selling other people’s
bags, but that was how it ended up. I got pregnant with Rory in my last year of
Art School. I had to feed a baby. I had no family to help me out. Fluffy dreams
were replaced by practicality.

After the discovery,
I put my dream aside and went to work at
Heather’s
Hats And Bags,
a tiny glass fronted shop in West Perth. Heather sold the
most amazing hats, some designed by herself, some she imported. People used to
stop in the street to look at her zany window displays. From one week to the
next you never knew if the hats would be decked out like flying saucers or balanced
on top of stuffed parrots or something. They were a talking point up and down Hay
Street. And her collection of handbags was enough to make a grown woman drool.
I did. Often.

I loved
working for Heather; she was like a second mother to me and, after Rory was born,
she let me bring him to work. She set up a playpen and a cot out the back, so I
wouldn’t have to pay for childcare. She let me start late and finish early to
suit his nap times. She taught me how to order and who to order from. She let
me borrow her collection of vintage hats for a promotion idea I came up with.
It was fun.

Then one
morning — it was Rory’s second birthday — she arrived at the shop
with a battered leather suitcase, a huge smile and a fox fur stole draped
around her neck. She announced that the man she’d loved for forty years had returned
and wanted her to run away with him. He was going to marry her and take her
around the world. They were going to visit the exotic places they’d spoken of
when they were twenty. He was hideously rich. Then, she said, if I could keep
the shop afloat for six months, without her help, I could have it. I was
practically family and she wanted to retire anyway. It was certainly a windfall
I never expected. But that was how I came to be here. Not the grandest of
starts but among the most interesting, I’ll bet.

As the hands
on the wall clock — a sunburst remnant from the seventies — click
over onto nine, I dig in my bag for my phone and search my contacts for the
doctor’s number. My knees are trembling, more than the day I found out I was
pregnant. I dial and listen to the ring tone. Deep down, I already know what
they’re going to say but I’m clutching to that sliver of hope.

“Good
morning, Dr. Jackson’s rooms. Maryanne speaking.”

The
receptionist sounds rather pushed for time. I tell her I’m after my test
results.

“One moment
please.”

I hear her
shuffling papers and clicking keys on the computer.

“Dr. Jackson
wants to see you.”

Shit. They
never ask to see you if nothing’s wrong. It’s only when there’s a problem.

I say
nothing because, well, I can’t. My lips feel as if they’ve been welded to my
teeth.

“Are you
there?” Maryanne asks.

“Yes.”

“I can make
an appointment for you next week,” she adds, cool as a cucumber.

Is. She. Kidding?

Suddenly, my
voice remembers its job. In a really loud aggressive sort of way that’s not me.
“No. I need it
this
week. TODAY.”

“Doctor has
no slots available today.”

Clearly
she’s dealt with a tone like mine before.

“You have
emergency slots.”

Can’t she
throw me a bone? It must be fairly obvious I’m becoming hysterical.

She sighs.
“Yes, but they’re for emergencies. I can do Monday, 9 a.m.”

Now, I
am
hysterical. The emotion I believed wasn’t
there, that I was hiding so well, comes bubbling to the surface.

“So Breast
Cancer isn’t an emergency? I’ve already waited a week for the results. I’m not
waiting another week for her to confirm them. I could be bloody dead by then.”

There’s a
telling silence on the other end of the line. I think I may have made my point.

“I can squeeze
you in at eleven on Friday. Don’t be late.”

Oh for
fuck’s sake. She had to have the last word.

I hang up and
sit for a moment. My mind is racing but it’s racing in a spiral that’s getting
tighter and tighter. It’s twisting my brain so hard I can’t think. The only
thing that’s making sense is that I have cancer.

I. Have. Cancer.

It’s like
the world has stopped. Everything is frozen in time. I look out the shop
window. The cars have halted. People on the footpath are staring at the lights
waiting for them to change but the traffic lights are larger than life icy
poles. They flash green, no wait — red? — and instead of saying
‘WALK’ they’re flashing ‘YOU HAVE CANCER.’ That wakes the street up. A man winds
down his car window and is shaking his fist at the lights and everyone else frowns
at each other in confusion. Then, as if hit by the realisation, they turn and
look through the window at me with a look of pity in their eyes.

The shrill
of the phone makes me jump.

Jesus. I
need to get a grip. That was some hallucination.

I check the
caller ID and, even though I know I’m not prepared for this, I take a steeling
breath and press the answer button.

“Hi Mum.”

“Hello, darling.
What’s new?”

Mum lives in
Melbourne. She’s lived there since she and Dad split up, shortly after I turned
eighteen. For some reason, they both felt the need for a new start and moved to
opposite ends of the country. A capital city with a population of two million
wasn’t big enough for the both of them. Neither of them considered I might need
them. Not that I did. I’ve always been independent. Mum said I was like that
from the moment I could walk.

I swallow. “Not
much. Rory got a certificate at assembly. He’s doing well with his reading.”

“I can’t
believe he’s at school already. Time flies.”

“Sure does.”

She talks
for a few more minutes about the usual crap. I can’t get a word in but that’s
nothing new. Mum could talk a used car salesman out of a job. Then she says, “And
how’s things with you, honey?”

I wonder if I
should tell her. I mean, it’s not official; I shouldn’t panic her yet. “I went
for a mammogram and ultrasound last week. They found something suspicious. I’m
seeing the doctor on Friday for the results.”

Bum. I
hadn’t meant to blurt that out. I don’t even know why I did. It’s like I lost
control of my mouth for a second.

“Oh.” Rather
large pause in the conversation. “Well, I wouldn’t worry. There’s no history of
cancer of any kind in our family. The women have very lumpy breasts. It’s
genetic. And nine out of ten scares turn out to be nothing.”