The Tumours Made Me Interesting (25 page)

“What was that?” asked Arthur.

Fiona held up a scalpel the size of a ceiling fan blade. “I’m going in.”

My whole body from the stomach down began to seize and twitch, threatening the integrity of my binds.

“What are you doing, Bruce?” asked Fiona.

“I’m not doing anything. My tumour on the other hand… I think it’s leaving.”

Her eyes yawned open and for a second, Fiona’s face almost looked human.

“Quick everyone!” she yelled. “Stand around me. If the tumour vacates, I want it caught.”

The others fell in line, forming a semi-circle behind Fiona. I shut my eyes and focused on breathing. I could feel the queen sliding down my bowel. It didn’t feel as large as I had expected. But I knew it wasn’t the tumour itself that mattered, it was what the tumour was taking with it, the size of which could not be calculated. An involuntary strain took me over. I bit down on the wooden gag and felt it crumble and fall down my throat. Then I screamed a scream I’d never heard before. The scream hung above us like a dark cloud and released emotional rain.

“It’s coming!” screamed Fiona, trying to be heard over the developing thunder claps. “Move in. Cover the fucking arse!”

My eyes had lost their primary function. All I could see was swirling ammonia. My skin felt as though it were lifting from my body and the whole table I was strapped to had attained a sense of weightlessness. My bowel clicked like a loaded gun and when I pushed, the tumour fired from my backside in a shower of milky waste. So profound was the sense of relief and lightness in my body that it translated as pain and an urge to pass out. It was the sudden end to a lifetime of existential constipation – it’s not something I imagine you can ever be prepared for. Sound around me was beginning to regain clarity. I heard the sounds of confusion, of calamity.

“What the hell is this?” whimpered Fiona, her guard well and truly down.

“Vince has been injured,” yelled Arthur. “Somebody take his shoes!”

Fiona was repeating my name with growing desperation. I had no idea what was happening. My vision was still an ammonia blur. I felt slaps against my face – back of the hand, front of the hand.

“Snap out of it, you fuck,” ordered Fiona amidst more slaps. “What is this? What the fuck have you done?”

Something cold and wet pressed against my forehead. The blurred vision began to crystallise and I saw the object Fiona held up to my face.

“What have you done with the fucking queen?”

The detail of the object Fiona was holding tugged at the most distant of memories… things I couldn’t remember but had never forgot. Fiona was holding a bronze cigarette lighter, engraved with a picture of a farting aristocrat with stink lines emanating from his backside. .

“If you don’t tell me what the fuck this is, I’m going to slice you open and watch you bleed out all over the fucking floor,” seethed Fiona.

“It’s a cigarette lighter,” I said. “My father gave it to me a long time ago and told me to keep it very safe… to never let it go.”

“What the fuck was it doing inside you?”

“I put it there… that lighter’s the queen.”

Fiona stood still for a while staring at the lighter. Curiosity provoked her to flick the lid and try lighting it, but the flint wouldn’t take and it remained dormant.

“Fucking thing doesn’t even work,” she said.

Her whole body slumped in defeat and she let the lighter drop to the ground where it broke apart on impact. She fell to her knees and then onto her side. Sprawled on the floor behind her was Vince’s lifeless body. A gaping wound on his forehead coughed gore with the frenzy of an elderly smoker. Using my arse as a pistol and the lighter as a bullet, I had inadvertently killed this man. Arthur was at Vince’s feet, trying desperately to remove his shoes.

Fiona lifted herself from the floor and looked right into my eyes. Tear-induced streaks of mascara spread from her eyes and her hair had become so unkempt that a family of guillemots were already establishing a home there.

“How could you do this to me?” she whimpered. “My entire life has been leading to this moment.”

“I really oughta thank you,” I said. “I’ve needed to get that out of me for a long time. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

She picked up a few fragments of the broken lighter and squeezed it in her fist until rivulets of blood leaked through the fingers.

“Keep it,” I said. “I don’t want it any more.”

She let the bloodied fragments fall to the floor. “What am I supposed to do with it.”

“My father told me to keep it safe, but I don’t care what you do with it. It’s not my problem anymore.”

Fiona gazed into her sliced palm and her whole body began to heave. Strings of drool fell from her lower lip and sweat began to bead across her face. With a piercing screech, she lunged at me and locked her hands around my throat. My body began punching at my airways, craving release from the buildup of carbon dioxide. I could feel my eyeballs protruding unnaturally from their sockets and drying in the air. I wanted to cough, but each cough bounced back down my throat.

“I was depending on this,” she screamed. “Your tumours were everything I’ve been looking for and you fucked it up. I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!”

Despite the oxygen deprivation, my brain still processed her contention as accurate. I could feel my body shutting down. It didn’t have enough strength left to fight this final assault. If it hadn’t been for the giant arm which fell onto Fiona from the ceiling, I’m quite sure I would have died. The elbow at the centre of the giant arm connected with the crown of Fiona’s head, knocking her out. All of those coughs and splutters made their escape now – one followed by (and sometimes on top of) the other. After my coughing fit, I sucked at the air, taking in the oxygen I needed, gaining my sense of consciousness. My mother had literally dropped from the sky to save me. Fiona remained pinned beneath her bulk. She kept Arthur and the person I thought was Belinda’s mother at bay with her shaking fist. Having had enough, the two of them escaped, but not before Arthur finished forcing off one of Vince’s shoes, which he tucked safely in his trouser fronts.

I stared at my mother and she stared back at me. A smile crept across her face. Her entire bicep was flexing in a way I didn’t think was possible.

“How” I croaked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied.

The room began to slowly churn around me, building speed until it was a vomit-coloured blur. I passed out soon after.

7.

I
awoke in my mother’s bed with pain thumping every part of my body. I didn’t realise it was my mother’s bed straight away. Disorientation was wreaking havoc with my brain. When my eyes first opened, I didn’t even register myself as existing. My cognisance was lacking to such an extent that I couldn’t attach myself to the physicality of the situation. Clarity crept back in like tiny pieces of an enormous jigsaw. The first bit of reality that tugged at me was the smell of the room. My mother’s house possessed a deeply earthy smell that I’d never forget. Next I became aware of the idiosyncratic way daylight spilled through the windows. Light didn’t shine in my childhood home as much as it suggested itself. It manifested as a rich, pink hue that cloaked everything, injecting safety into the shadows. As if being granted permission, all the other details began to flood into me. I knew where I was and I knew I was still alive.

I’d never been in my mother’s bed like this. I mean… I’d been
on
my mother’s bed more times than a computer could calculate, but now I was the centre of the bed’s attention. It was the strangest, most comfortable feeling in the world. The room was still in a state of disrepair following the recent events that had plagued us. But the bed itself was a sanctuary against all the woes in the world and I was at its core, feeling safe and warm.

I heard a shuffling sound approach the room and cast my attention toward it. The door edged open with a nostalgic creak. There was my mother, pulling herself by her giant hand and holding a plate of food in her mouth. I had no idea she was capable of this level of mobility – I suspected, until now, she didn’t either. She worked her way toward me and carefully sat the plate down on the bedside table. It smelled delicious.

“Oh, Bruce! You’re awake, my love!” she proclaimed through tears. “I was so very worried about you. You’ve been asleep for so long.”

I smiled at her and then at the food. The plate possessed so many of my childhood staples. Profiteroles, dandelion pie, beggar’s crumpet, steak paste, jellied noblets, powdered wang and harps. I reached out for a jellied noblet and slammed it in my mouth. The taste sent shivers down my body that were immediately followed by tears. My mother leaned forward and pressed her lips to my cheek.

“What’s wrong, my love?” she asked.

“He was an arsehole,” I replied.

“Who do you mean, dear?”

“Dad… he was a fucking arsehole…”

My mother gave me a slight nod of solemn understanding. She struggled her way onto the bed and stretched out beside me. We both stared at the ceiling.

“You father wasn’t always like that,” she eventually said. “But yes… he did slide somewhat toward the end there. The man who left us was not the man I married.”

“What happened?” I asked, for the first time in my life.

“When I met your father he was a brilliant gravy maker. In gravy-making circles, he was a bona fide celebrity. Back in those days, gravy was a pretty big deal – a darn sight bigger than it is now. That instant stuff all the kids drink today was only available in back alleys and abortion parties. He was gravy man of the year back in ‘62. He could have had his pick of the gravy groupies that followed him around like bad smells. These women were attracted to the fame… their loins inflamed at the taste of your dad’s gravy. At the time I wasn’t much into gravy. I was working as a gravy boat model at GravyCon’s International convention in ’63. These conventions were huge back in the day – attracted scores of enthusiasts. Your father was the star attraction that year. I remember when he entered the building. His hair was slicked back like a woodshop teacher and he wore the most stunning set of glittered overalls you’d ever seen. As you’d expect, the ladies swooned and threw themselves at him. Your dad though… he wouldn’t have any of it. His eyes were glued to one thing from the minute he set foot in that place… the T-model Excelsior Gravy Boat I was modeling. He couldn’t take his eyes off that thing. He sought me out after the convention and asked to look at the gravy boat. It had been carefully packed away for the next leg of its international tour at this point and your poor dad was so dejected. I offered to take him out for dinner to try and cheer him up. Well… he accepted, we got to talking, fell madly in love and were married minutes later.”

As my mother told this story, the most content smile I’d ever seen sat on her face. My eyes drank this up and I felt something within that resembled strength.

“So we were very happily married for several years,” she continued. He taught me all about the art of gravy and never once did he let his lifestyle interfere with our love. He was so caring… so considerate.”

“When did that start to change?” I asked.

“Shortly after your older brother was born,” she said with a sudden distance in her eyes. “Your father wasn’t really cut out to be a father I’m afraid. He didn’t understand children. He would spend hours just staring at your brother trying to figure him out… became obsessed with it. In his daft mind, he was sure that children were entering the world with the soul purpose of sullying gravy. He reasoned that each generation ensured a weakening in the sanctity of pursuits from generations prior. So although he didn’t know how, he looked at your brother and saw a gravy botherer. And it didn’t matter what I said. He’d just accuse me of sabotage and storm out. He’d go away for weeks at a time and come back with dried gravy all over his body. Then I became convinced he was fooling around with gravy groupies. When I confronted him about this, he flew into a rage and punched the wall with his gravy making hand. He suffered nerve damage that prevented him from making gravy up to a standard he was accustomed too. He turned his back on the whole lifestyle and became a completely different person. When you were born, you met a different man. And yes… your new father was an utter bastard. He was already convinced children were responsible for his problems and by the time you were born, you were, as much as it kills me to say it, an enemy. And when I got sick shortly after your birth, he was convinced you were responsible and in possession of great evil. He would stay up at night plotting ways to get rid of you, which used to send me into a panic. And it was only due to that tiny ember of love he still had for me that he didn’t try anything stupid. He never discussed his plans to leave with me, but I guess he couldn’t take it anymore. Your father was a profoundly damaged man, Bruce.”

I wanted to feel angry as my mother’s story concluded, but I couldn’t. My father had just been painted as such a deeply pathetic man that I felt a crude, patronising sympathy for him.

“Before he left… he told me that it was my fault. That I’d made you sick. There hasn’t been a day gone by since that I haven’t believed that.”

“Oh, Bruce… darling,” replied my mother, as she snuggled in closer behind me. “You can’t believe something like that. It’s not healthy.”

I felt my mother’s body, exuding warmth, comfort and understanding. In this space, nothing mattered and the guilt that dictated my life didn’t feel important.

“It’s hard not to believe I’m responsible,” I said. “You started getting sick the minute after I was born.”

“Let me tell you something, Bruce… The seeds to my illness were sewn long before you were born. Life is the illness. The mere act of breathing and putting yourself out there is hard on the soul. The only way to prevent illness is to have never been alive. There can never be one sole arbiter of our pain and heartache. It’s a process that develops and has more parts than we can possibly fathom. Whether you were born or not, I was already sick, Bruce.”