The Amateur Science of Love (10 page)

Dear honesty box,

With regards to the president-servant principle. From that night on its balance became different. The president side was tilted towards Tilda. I was more servant now—it was part of her privileges. No great discord was created by the tilting, not at first anyway. In fact, quite the opposite: I felt privileged myself. I felt important, called upon in someone’s hour of desperation. To be used in the service of someone’s very survival, to have purpose of that magnitude is to have life beyond our own needs: a greater, nurturing cause.

I patrolled her hospital bed once the operation was done. I ensured blankets were over her toes and not so heavily as to cut circulation. I ran ice around her lips to ease her thirst. I read her the newspaper, the arts section if there was one on the day, or else a few pages of the book she’d brought for comfort reading:
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
. I brushed her hair so it haloed her on the pillow. When food was allowed I cut the crusts off her sandwiches.

I dared not touch the tube draining blood from her wound but I did make sure her smock covered it so she didn’t take fright. When Roff paid a visit I was suitably servile. I stood up and almost bowed to his reverent presence. He had the habit of not looking directly at the face of the person he was speaking to. He peeked under Tilda’s sheets to check his handiwork. I offered to step outside the screen as he inspected her but no, he said, he wanted me to stay: ‘We’ll have a little talk in a second.’ This had a forbidding ring to me, as if he had grave news to impart.

It wasn’t news—it was advice. He studied the tube and said, ‘Good drainage,’ and asked if I would take a seat on the end of Tilda’s bed. The operation had been a success, he reported. The cancer was no longer there. He was confident he had got it all. Tilda whispered, ‘Thank you. Thank you,’ though the effort made her wound hurt.

‘Now,’ Roff said to me, as if I was his patient’s translator. ‘A few things. In a day or two someone will come, one of our lady helpers, and she will have a mirror. She and Tilda will look at the scar together. It’s important this is done as soon as possible so Tilda gets used to the sight of it.’

He put his hands in his pockets and strolled towards me. ‘And may I give you this advice…’

‘Colin,’ I prompted him.

‘Oh yes, Colin. On the anecdotal evidence we have, it’s important for Tilda to show you the scar before too much time goes by. Don’t let it drift or it becomes dreaded and affects her wellbeing.’

‘Understood.’

Tilda was muttering ‘Thank you, thank you’ sleepily. Roff nodded his pleasure at her gratitude. He reached down and stroked her hand, her right hand. He stared at the hand, at where a needle was taped to her vein connecting her to a baggy drip with a spirit-level bubble of clear liquid in it. He became agitated. He tugged his cuffs out from under his suit sleeves. ‘Nurse,’ he said with a raised voice. ‘Nurse.’ He flicked the bed screen apart. ‘Nurse.’

He lowered his voice when the nurse arrived, spoke very quietly, but my cocked ear picked up the gist of his complaining. The needle should not be in Tilda’s right hand, it should be in her left. Her right side was the ‘removal zone’ side. ‘For heaven’s sake, did you not check this? It’s basic. Basic.’

He ordered the needle be changed this instant.

The nurse, chin tucked down, cowed by Roff’s gentlemanly anger, hurried past me with a cool ‘Excuse me’ and did as he commanded.

I leant out of the screen. ‘Is there a problem?’ I asked Roff.

‘Nothing. A minor matter.’

Fair enough, I thought. It seemed logical to me that the more status someone had the more minor matters would annoy them. I said as much to the nurse out of sympathy for her.

She had rust-red hair, a thick stack of curls. This ward, 7D West, was not a red hair ward, or a brown hair ward or black. All the patients were blonde. All had breast cancer, all were thin. Not sick-thin but fit-thin, as if they ran miles and ate properly. The blondeness was of the same yellow shading as Tilda’s. In eight beds, eight women, none related but so similar. I almost said something to the nurse, a slip of the tongue about coincidence—‘Is there a breast cancer look?’ But I could tell she was too stern a breed for appreciating whimsy.

It is an honour to be taken into someone’s wounds. Their real wounds, not their emotional gripes. Wounds that cut the body until it is less whole, less human and no amount of healing can make it complete again. To be taken into someone’s wounds is to be trusted to recognise that only their flesh has been ruined. It may be revolting to behold, this wound, but it has not wrecked the rest of them.

I was about to be taken into Tilda’s wound. I was about to witness the ultimate nakedness. I waited outside our bathroom door until I was called. We’d been back in Scintilla four days. It was time to get my first viewing over with. She told me to wait until she showered and gathered her courage. She warned me that her right side was like a breast without a nipple at the moment. This was because swelling remained on her. The idea of that swelling pleased her. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the swelling never went? A nippleless swelling is better than flatness and poky ribs showing.

I tapped on the frosted glass door. ‘Your audience awaits.’ I could see Tilda’s shadow moving about in there, shuffling this way and that. I supposed she was deciding where best to stand.

‘Okay,’ she called. ‘I’m ready. Careful what you say, won’t you?’ A nervous giggle parenthesised the request. She whistled a few tuneless bars. I could have been inspecting a new outfit she’d bought. I finger-brushed my fringe out of the way like I was going on a date. The death-awe returned to me. Death was about to show me its true face, the face of the god of disfigurement. I was determined to look it in the eye and not blink or turn my head or gasp. I may not be a crier when it’s required of me, but, honesty box, this was my finest hour of intimacy.

I turned the knob and eased the door open, making the steam mist swirl out. Tilda had wrapped a towel around herself like a long bra. Her wet hair was furled in a bob and she had brushed blueness onto her eyelids. She smiled with a mouth of purple lipstick, though I could tell it was more scared grimace than smiling. She stood up straight and adjusted her bony shoulders back and forth, unsure of their correct setting for this occasion. Forward made her bust too concave, she said; the other way made it stick out too falsely. ‘Here goes, then.’ She closed her eyes, held her breath and let the towel drop.

It was just as she had described: a breast without a nipple. And yet not exactly a breast. More a bulge of pale pink skin with a thin scar running horizontally through it. Darker pink where the scar stopped in the middle of her chest. Whiter pink where it trailed into her underarm. The effect of the scar and the bulge together was like a pair of large lips pursed and permanently sealed from ever parting. I said as much to Tilda and she looked down and felt across herself. ‘Lips?’

‘Lips.’

‘Yes. I can feel lips all right.’ She remarked how the pain was so slight, the skin so smooth and so firm and so silky. ‘Lips. Come and kiss them. Come and kiss them.’

I thought she was testing me, wanting me to prove I was still attracted to her. Yet there was no mistaking the other meaning in her voice, the groan which was caught in her throat and making her gulp. It was one of her usual pre-congressing mannerisms.

I did not hesitate. I placed my hands on her hips, bent down and kissed. I started at the centre of the scar, kissed along to the right of it, then back along to the left. I kissed into her armpit’s bristle. The taste there was soap and cotton. The scar’s taste was faintly metallic, the kind that blood leaves when a fresh scab is healing.

She turned around to have me kiss while she watched in the mirror. Was she checking if I was doing it under sufferance? I was not doing it under sufferance. There was ecstasy in this wound-kissing. It was the
more
factor making a comeback.

In the city you are anonymous. You can walk down the street and no one says hello. Country life is a different proposition. You can’t turn a corner and not be recognised, greeted, watched. Which is fine if you want to live in public. But what if you want to avoid people’s eyes?

Tilda wanted to avoid them after the cakes and casseroles began arriving. There they were at the back door with well-wishing messages:

Our thoughts are with you, Tilda. From the Croft family (your neighbours over the rear fence). Hope you have a speedy return to good health.

Thinking of you at this time—Pamela from the bakery. P.S. These Neenish tarts were made with my hand. They are not bought ones.

Hector and Filipa Vigourman left a tin-foil parcel of quiche.
We have both had family members touched by your illness. We know what you are going through. The Lord only gives burdens to those who can bear them.

How did anyone know? ‘Have they been spying?’ Tilda railed. ‘Has this town had its eyes pushed to our keyholes?’ How could she walk down the street now? They’ll be looking at her for defects. She always liked getting looks from men. She guaranteed being titless would disqualify her from being perved at.

I confessed it was me who let the word out. On the day I rushed to Melbourne to be with her I couldn’t disappear without telling the
Gazette
; it would make me look unreliable. I took Gail at the office into my confidence. I asked her to pass on my apologies to Hector Vigourman: I couldn’t write more articles for a while. I did mention cancer as the reason but I didn’t say
Tilda
and I didn’t say
breast
. I said
biopsy
and
woman’s problems
and I suppose Gail guessed the rest.
In confidence
must mean
spread the word
in Scintilla.

Tilda called me stupid and naïve. ‘You really are just a boy, aren’t you? You had no right to say a thing.’

I apologised with over a dozen
sorrys
, but
sorrys
become like tears and smiling: you just do them to have the argument over with.

I did have an inspiration, though. What’s the best way to deal with a rumour? Put out a counter-rumour. Get tongues wagging in the way
you
want, I said. Don’t shut the door on the town, don’t hide yourself away—it only feeds gossip. Step out, be bold and stroll down the street like you’re Princess Di, chest out, not hunched up, big grin on your face. Tuck a soft sock or one of my old singlets down your blouse for a substitute mound; it should do until your scar is ready to have a proper prosthetic rub against it.

‘Yes’, Tilda said. ‘A counter-rumour. What a brilliant idea!’ But forget socks and singlets. She’s a good carver, not just a drawer and painter of things. If she had some rubber sponge it would be an ideal material—the thick green sponge they use for fragile packing.

I fetched a dozen bricks of the stuff from Hobbs’ Timber, Tacks and Twine, and Tilda sat down to carve with a Stanley knife and scissors. Three breast moulds as trials until she got the dimensions accurate. The finished article matched up perfectly in the mirror, tucked in her bra. ‘Can you tell the difference?’

‘No. It’s like you have two normal breasts.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Both exactly matching?’

‘Yes.’

And so we stepped out together, promenading like we hadn’t a care in the world. Tilda had tanned herself with a makeup mixture to cover her pallor—her own invention of facial powder and ochres from her studio palette. Turps, ochre, cinnamon, face powder and tea. She looked Indian if you didn’t get close up to spot the fakeness. Her teeth flashed Indian white as we saluted
good mornings
to cars and pedestrians, shopkeepers through their windows. I wouldn’t have blamed people if they thought us strange; I expect we overdid acting happy. We stopped people we’d never even met and remarked how the sun had a fair kick in it today but we certainly could do with rain.

The false bonhomie turned real in us. We arrived home laughing and hugging. All problems should be solved like this—a dab of colour on your skin, a few
good mornings
down the street. It doesn’t last but it’s a holiday for the heart. Tilda admired her carving so much she left her bra on as an experiment and wondered, ‘Can a woman be alluring if she never takes off her bra? What do you think? Am I alluring enough?’

‘You are.’

‘Truly?’

‘Of course.’

‘Prove it.’

We congressed.

I have become more protective of this document. Eventually I had to run out of architrave and that’s what has happened—there is not a skerrick of space left. I’ve tried speeding up getting this thing written, secretly adding to it at work, pretending I’m typing up good rural copy. I smuggle the pages home and past Tilda by stuffing them down the back of my trousers. But I can’t fit any more sheets behind the dry wood areas. There are damp wood areas on one wall where my nook abuts the bathroom but that would turn the paper to mushy mould. I am too far gone now to bother with fixing leaky pipes and sealing bad plaster.

Fortunately our hot-water system is permanently on the blink. It is a gravity-fed arrangement in the roof cavity, so ancient a system its tank is rusted and the ballcock lever doesn’t shut off properly. Water drips through the ceiling and lands
plop
on the lino in front of the toilet. Up I go every third day, squeezing through the manhole to bend the ballcock arm down so it trips the water level to stop filling. I empty the tank’s tray of smelly slime by bailing it into a bucket and climb back down, dangling my toe until it reaches the ladder. Normally I would get the plumber in but I have thought up a use for my ballcock routine. Tilda thinks I’m too stingy to pay tradesmen. I am actually hiding pages.

It is not too dark up there when daylight pours in. The roof holes are like stars, creating an outer-space effect. I can see every cranny. I can lean across beams and misty cobwebs and architrave my testament safely. Tin foil and Gladwrap should keep out the rodents. At the Salvos I found a metal briefcase and slung it through the manhole when Tilda was at the dentist. It should provide extra preservation.

But preservation for what? For whom? I own nothing of any worth. I have only this story. And in thinking that very sentence I have my answer! This story is my most valuable possession. Nothing is more valuable than squaring your soul.