THREE WOMEN
2 APRIL
Nathan’s one-man self-pity party ended when I eventually fell asleep at about ten thirty. Nathan’s hangover party began when I woke up at eight.
You know the old maxim that when you have a bad hangover you just want to die? It still holds true, even when you are actually going to die.
As I spend a constructive ten minutes talking to God on the porcelain telephone, my head thumping harder than a Berlin techno festival, I manage to briefly forget all about my impending doom. I always thought that people got drunk to forget the terrible things that have happened to them, but now I realise that it’s the hangover they’re really aiming for. It’s a little hard to bemoan the fact you’ve lost your job or that your wife has been cheating on you when you’re hugging a toilet bowl and trying to violently retch up your own kidneys.
When the dry heaves finally pass and I can get to my feet again, I make my way down into the kitchen, where some rather wonderful things await me: three ibuprofen, a pint of cold water and another pint of freshly brewed black coffee.
I sit down again at my expensive oak kitchen table and stare once more out of the bifold patio doors as I sip my coffee. This time, however, I do not enter into another overblown appreciation of nature, given that my brain is comprehensively incapable of doing so. About all it can muster at the moment is garden green, sky blue, vomit taste still in mouth, drink more coffee.
It takes my brain a good ten minutes before the coffee stimulates it into any kind of coherent thought. When it does, however, I instantly wish I could just get good and drunk once more and forget everything again.
The full horror of yesterday’s diagnosis hits me.
. . . swiftly followed by the hideous realisation that I now have to start telling other people about it.
I can’t just keep it to myself, can I? At some point I’m going to have to let the cat out of the bag, just so people aren’t surprised when I drop dead right in front of them. That would just be rude.
There are three people I definitely have to tell today. Sienna certainly deserves to know why I kept comparing her vagina to a root vegetable, and my cousin Eliza would kill me before the tumour has a chance to if I don’t let her know as quickly as possible.
But before either of them, I have to tell my mother . . . and that is going to be awful.
Right now, she’s probably pottering around in the aesthetically pleasing junkyard she calls a back garden with no idea that her youngest child is facing an early grave.
My heart heaves.
I can’t do it. I can’t do that to her.
It’s taken her a good nine years to recover from my father’s death from cirrhosis – how the hell is she going to take the idea that her son is likely to die very soon as well?
You don’t have a choice, my conscience reminds me. This thing isn’t going away.
No, it’s not.
I blink back the sudden and unwanted tears that have sprouted at the corners of my eyes and rise slowly from the kitchen table, knowing that I have a horrible job to do today – three times over.
Trying to shake off the feeling of overwhelming dread, I head upstairs to get dressed.
I elect for something slobby and comfortable, because I quite frankly deserve slobby and comfortable today. Normally I wear what any self-respecting musician would adorn himself with on a day-to-day basis: fashionable ripped jeans, a rock band T-shirt and a black leather jacket – with my shaggy hair at least combed into some kind of submission. Today, though, I feel about as creative as a large sack of horse manure, so the tracksuit bottoms and hoodie feel entirely appropriate, as does the wild tangle I’ve left my hair in.
I end up listening to Radio 4 on the drive to Mum’s house. I’d normally be shuffling through my enormous iPod music collection, but for some reason I’m finding a report on new efforts to provide arable irrigation to Sudanese farmers extremely soothing this morning.
I pull up outside Mum’s expansive cottage just as Kate Adie is wishing me a good day, which is very nice of her.
As I ring the doorbell and step back, I take a deep breath, thinking about how I’m going to do this.
I’ve decided that it’s best to just get the news out as quickly as possible. As soon as Mum opens the door, I’m going to give her a kiss, lead her into the kitchen and tell her. Then we’ll have some time together so she can let it sink in and I won’t have to—
The door is thrown open with a bang, startling me out of my train of thought.
My mother, hair unkempt and a wild look in her eyes, sees me standing there, grabs my arm and pulls me into the cottage before I so much as have a chance to say hello and give her a peck on the cheek.
‘Mum? What the hell’s going on?’ I enquire in confused fashion as she slams the door behind us.
She gives me a look that is part incredulity, part towering rage. ‘Nathan! Thank God you’re here! They’ve stolen my Botti!’
‘Pardon?’
‘They’ve stolen my Botti, Nathan! My Botti!’
I resist the urge to stare at my mother’s posterior. It wouldn’t be right. ‘What on earth are you on about?’
‘My Botti! The statue Giuseppe Botti made especially for me when I was in Venice last year!’
Aaah . . .
Now I’m starting to understand.
‘You mean the angel with the hard-on?’
She gives me a withering look. ‘The seraphim does not have a hard-on, Nathan. He is sculpted in the Renaissance style, where the male genitalia is presented in a very specific way to denote a certain level of inherent sexuality.’
‘Yes. It’s got a boner, Mum.’
‘No! Stop it!’ My mother pauses, remembers that her son has finally come to visit her and stands up on tiptoes to plant a kiss on my cheek. ‘It’s such a nice surprise to see you! How are you today?’
Oh God. Here it is. The moment I’ve been dreading. ‘Mum, I’ve got something I need to tell you and—’
‘I can see him up the tree!’ Mum shrieks, looking past me down the hallway, through the kitchen and out into the garden beyond. ‘He’s climbing up Horace the Oak!’
Without another word, my parental unit barrels past me down the hallway, leaving me standing with my mouth agape. It appears I’m going to get nowhere until I’ve resolved this current and latest act of internecine warfare between her and the long-suffering next-door neighbours.
I pursue my mother through the rear kitchen door and out into the single most ridiculous back garden you’ve ever been in.
My mother has been a sculptor all of her adult life and has always been good enough at it to make a decent living. What she is not good at, however, is knowing when to stop. Her back garden has, over the years, become a dumping ground for every piece of sculptural work that she’s been either unable or unwilling to sell. And she’s not one for obeying the classics when it comes to the type of statues she makes. Anything and everything is fair game as far as she’s concerned.
If you can imagine a large and rather overgrown garden strewn with stone statuary, featuring everything from naked men embracing on a clamshell to an uncannily good depiction of Vladimir Putin eating a watermelon, then you’re starting to get a good idea of what we’re dealing with here.
If the garden stopped at just the statues it wouldn’t be too bad, but my mother is the type of person who thinks that the lily should be gilded as much as possible – preferably with fairy lights and solar-powered music boxes that play Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’.
You’re probably feeling a great deal of sympathy for Mum’s neighbours right about now. I can’t say that I blame you. But she is my mother, so I’m going to have to climb up the oak tree at the bottom of the garden in pursuit of Mr Billingswade before he can steal the sexually aroused angel that has, up until now, taken pride of place on a five-foot pedestal, leering at him over the garden fence.
‘You give that back, Alan Billingswade!’ Mum roars as she pokes a finger up at him.
For a man who must be in his sixties, Alan Billingswade is doing very well to shimmy his way along the lowest and thickest branch of the oak tree with the undoubtedly heavy small stone statue under one arm.
A stepladder is propped up against the branch where it overhangs his garden. I can’t see her thanks to the fence, but I know damn well that Gloria Billingswade will be standing at the bottom of that ladder, willing her husband on. After all, she’s the one who’s taken the greatest exception to the horny angel – which probably says as much about their sex life as it does her aversion to pornographic stone effigies.
‘Alan, please give it back,’ I entreat at the shimmying pensioner as I arrive at the base of the old tree.
‘No, Nathan! We’ve had it up to here with this! Your mother is completely unreasonable!’
‘Hah! I’m not unreasonable in the slightest!’ Mum argues. ‘You’re just unable to appreciate good art when you see it!’
Alan’s face crumples. ‘It’s an angel with its willy out!’
‘It’s a commentary on human sexuality and religious belief!’ Mum counters.
‘It’s disgusting!’ I hear Gloria cry from over the fence.
‘You’re a prude, Gloria Billingswade!’ Mum roars.
‘And you’re a bloody maniac, Tamsin James!’ Alan exclaims in his wife’s defence. He wobbles rather precariously on the branch as he does so. I’d better step in and resolve this latest battle of Wilberforce Row before it ends in hospitalisation.
‘Alan, if you just hand the statue over,’ I say, ‘I will make sure it’s placed somewhere out of your lovely wife’s eyeline.’
‘Filth!’ Gloria can be heard exclaiming over the larchlap.
Alan Billingswade appears to think about it for a moment. ‘All right,’ he eventually says. ‘If you promise we don’t have to look at it.’
‘We promise . . . don’t we, Mum?’ I give my mother a look. ‘Don’t we, Mum?’
‘Yes, yes,’ she intones, flapping her hands dismissively.
‘Ask about the bloody Beethoven!’ Gloria snaps at her husband.
I grimace.
‘There’s nothing wrong with a little classical music in the great outdoors!’ Mum shrieks, in a manner suggesting that this is not the first time these two women have come to blows on this subject.
‘There is at three in the bloody morning!’ Gloria roars.
‘Look! Everyone! Can we just settle one thing at a time, please?!’ I shout, trying to end this secondary argument before it can get properly started.
‘Yes, please,’ Alan agrees quickly. I can’t say I blame him. Every moment that passes makes his position on that branch look more precarious. He is a man in his pensionable years, after all. I doubt his body is up to sitting in a tree holding a heavy stone statue for more than a few minutes.
‘Here, Alan, let me take that thing,’ I tell him. As I do, I step up on to the small wooden bench that sits at the bottom of Horace the Oak (a name I gave the grand old tree when I was six) and hoist myself up on to the lowest thick branch that juts out from the trunk. Bracing myself, I hold out both hands. Alan shuffles back a bit to let me take the statue.
As he hands it over, we both momentarily lose our balance as the weight of the statue is transferred. Our combined grip slips, and the stone angel clips the side of the tree trunk.
Mum lets out an audible gasp as the penis snaps off.
Oh dear.
‘My Botti!’ she cries in horror.
‘My back!’ Alan Billingswade exclaims in pain.
From somewhere unidentifiable in the undergrowth of Horace the Oak, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony roars into life. The timing is exquisite.
‘Turn that bloody music off!’ Gloria Billingswade shrieks.
‘Call me an ambulance!’ her husband wails, clutching at his back with one hand.
‘You snapped off my penis!’ Mum roars at poor old Alan. She has managed to retrieve the broken member from where it came to rest in the compost pile behind Horace’s hoary old trunk and is now pointing it vociferously at Alan Billingswade.
I am probably at least half responsible for the instant emasculation of the little cherubic bugger, but Mum has her sights set only on her next-door neighbour, given that I am her son and can therefore do no wrong.
I take a deep breath and ponder how I’m going to defuse this rather idiotic situation before it gets any worse. Compared to handling this, breaking the news of my brain tumour to my mother will be a piece of bloody cake.
I climb out of the tree, plonk the damaged angel statue on the ground and return to help Alan down. This takes a good ten minutes, as he moans in pain with even the slightest movement. Once he is back in his garden and being helped up the path by his red-faced wife, I climb back over to the other side to find my mother disconsolately trying to push the penis back on to the statue.
Now the immediate crisis is over, it’s probably time to broach the subject of my diagnosis, before anything else has a chance to interrupt.
‘I just need to mix up some epoxy adhesive in the studio and I should be able to stick it back on okay.’
‘Mum?’
‘I might have to put some filler in the cracks, but it should still look decent once it’s repaired.’
Mum gets up and starts back towards the house. Her studio is in the converted garage off to the right-hand side and it’s this she makes a beeline for, stone penis clasped in hand.
‘Mum!’ I call after her in hopes of getting her to pay attention, but once my mother’s mind is set on something, it’s very hard to get her off track.
With a sigh, I take off after her, catching up as she moves to the back of the studio to rummage around in a collection of plastic boxes on shelves along the back wall. I move past her latest half-finished creation, which appears to be a porpoise playing a banjo. The porpoise should probably be happy that it’s developed enough advanced motor skills to play a banjo, but it inexplicably looks decidedly worried about the entire venture instead. This is probably Mum making some kind of profound comment about Darwinian evolution, but I don’t have the inclination to ask her about it now.
‘Mum?’ I begin again as I move hurriedly past banjo porpoise.
‘Now where did I put that epoxy?’ she mutters, placing the petrified willy down next to her.
‘Mum?’ I repeat a little louder.
‘Was it with the resin? Or did I put it next to the plaster?’
‘Mum?’ I try again.
‘Oh bother. Perhaps I didn’t order any more from the stonemasons. I’ll have to—’
‘Mum! I’ve got something I need to tell you!’ I have to shout, otherwise I’ll never cut through all this business about epoxy and resin.
Mum looks startled. I rarely speak this loudly around her.
She gives me a worried look. My mother knows me very well and can instantly tell something is wrong. Maybe it’s the fact that I can feel tears pricking the corners of my eyes.
‘Let’s go in the house,’ I say, putting my arm around her shoulder. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea and we can have a chat.’
‘Okay, son,’ she replies. All the anger and passion have gone from her voice. Thoughts of broken penises have been forgotten.
On shaky legs, I escort my mother back into the cottage and put the kettle on. Once I’ve brewed us both a cup, I lean against the kitchen counter, take the deepest breath I think I’ve ever taken and begin to tell my sorry, sorry tale to the one person in the world I would rather keep in the dark more than any other.
‘Nonsense.’
‘I’m sorry, what?’
‘A load of nonsense.’
My mouth hangs open. I had expected tears and much gnashing of teeth. I didn’t expect flat-out denial.
‘Mum. It’s not nonsense. Mr Chakraborty was quite clear about what I have.’
And I’ve been as clear as I possibly can in relaying the information to my mother over the last fifteen minutes. I’m quite proud of the fact that my voice didn’t waver once.
Not that my detailed and level-headed explanation appears to have done much good.
‘You’re not going to die!’ Mum exclaims.
‘I kind of am,’ I argue.
‘No, you’re not! You said it yourself . . . he doesn’t know if the tumour is going to grow any more. You could be fine.’
‘Mum,’ I say softly, ‘the odds of the tumour not growing any more are very, very slim. The odds of surviving are even worse.’
‘Well . . . you will!’ Mum insists, before lapsing into a tight silence.
‘I won’t, you know,’ I reply in a quiet, miserable voice.
Mum’s eyes narrow. ‘Now, look here, Nathan James. I had nearly thirty years of your father’s defeatism, I won’t have it from you as well!’
My father was a writer – an unsuccessful one, commercially speaking – and as such was prone to bouts of deep depression on a monotonously regular basis. When he wasn’t writing he was miserable because he couldn’t think of any good ideas, but when he was writing he was also miserable because he thought the story he was working on was terrible. It was like living with an ambulatory rain cloud duct-taped to a typewriter. He was always searching for the ‘great novel’ – that one defining story which would catapult him into the ranks of the bestseller.
Sadly, all the cigarettes and cheap brandy he consumed while waiting for that great novel to come along got the better of him before he’d actually written it.
I wearily give my neck a rub. ‘This isn’t the same thing, Mum. I’m not being a defeatist – I’m just accepting reality.’
Mum shakes her head. ‘No. You’re being like your father. He could never look on the bright side of things. Like father, like son.’
I open my mouth to argue with her, but judging from the expression on her face, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Mum appears to have convinced herself that I’m not as sick as I think I am and won’t hear any argument from me – instead deciding that I suffer from some kind of hereditary negativity passed down by my father.
I should stop her thinking like this, but right now I just don’t have the strength.
‘Okay, Mum,’ I say to her, placing a hand over hers. ‘We’ll just see what happens, eh?’
‘Yes, we will,’ she replies firmly. ‘You’ll have a good, long life, my son, believe me. You’ve done so much with it already with The Foodies, and now you’ve handed them over, I know there’s so much more to come from you.’
I groan.
Ah yes. The ruddy Foodies. A bunch of dancing, talking foodstuffs. I could have been a rock star or a celebrated session musician or an Oscar-winning film composer. Instead I created ambulatory fruit and veg with the ability to sing loudly at small people about such edifying topics as going to the toilet, taking a happy trip to the seaside and being nice to animals.
I didn’t even set out to create The Foodies. I was just asked to write a song for a children’s show about tackling climate change, and it escalated from there.
I blame Taylor. He’s the one who played ‘The Sun Makes Us Shine’ to the head of a record company specialising in children’s music. From that moment on, I was stuck on a path that I’ve literally only just managed to jump off.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I own a nice house and car thanks to Libby the Happy Lemon and her consumable friends, but when I was at the London College of Music, I had slightly grander ambitions for my career than educating the children of today via the means of melodic fruit.
‘The Foodies aren’t really that great, Mum. In fact, they’re a bit shit, when you get right down to it. I didn’t accomplish much by creating them.’
Mum looks horrified. ‘They are not shit, Nathan! You should be proud of them!’
‘I’m proud of the cash they’ve made me,’ I reply flippantly. ‘I just don’t want them turning up at my funeral.’
‘Stop talking like that!’ Mum exclaims with irritation – and then instantly looks horrified. ‘I’m so sorry, son. This must all be so hard for you. You don’t need me snapping at you like that.’
I give her a morose look. ‘Can I . . . can I have a hug, Mum?’ I ask, trying very hard not to let my voice crack.
‘Of course you can!’ she replies, and gets up from the kitchen table.
Mum then embraces me in the fiercest hug I can remember ever getting from her. It’s a hug full of warmth and love – but I can also feel her shaking ever so slightly against me.
When we part, I can see the underlying fear in her eyes. It’s exactly the same fear I see in mine when I look in the mirror.
Two hours later, I find myself in another kitchen telling somebody else I love about my diagnosis over a rapidly cooling cup of coffee. This one is no easier. In fact, in some ways it’s far harder. Eliza is in a fragile emotional state at the moment, and I’m about to add to her troubles.
‘Oh my God,’ she says in a voice barely above a whisper when I’ve finished speaking. ‘I don’t . . . I can’t . . .’ She looks at me, eyes wide with shock and sadness.
I take Eliza’s hand, much the same way I did with Mum’s. ‘It’s okay, Elsie.’
‘And your surgeon was certain? There’s no chance he’s wrong about it? Or that the tumour won’t be quite as bad as he says?’
I shake my head. ‘No. He sounded very sure. This Strzlylikik bloke did a huge amount of research into the disease when he discovered he had it. That’s why I know how bad it’s likely to be.’ I give Eliza a plaintive look. ‘Nobody gets out of this one alive, kid.’
Eliza looks heavenwards. ‘Oh fucking shit.’
‘Yep.’
‘Fucking hell!’ she exclaims angrily, slapping her hand down on her kitchen table as she does so. ‘Ow.’ She winces, looking at her reddened palm.
Kitchens always seem to be the place where both good and bad news are generally imparted, have you ever noticed that? Must be something to do with being in such close proximity to the teabags.
‘I’m so sorry to do this to you,’ I tell her.
She looks confused. ‘What the hell have you done to me, Nate? You’re the one with the tumour!’
‘I just meant . . . because of how things are for you . . . what with Bryan leaving and everything.’
Eliza gives me a look of disgust. ‘Don’t be so silly, Nate! I threw that cheating piece of shit out myself. He didn’t leave. And none of that should affect you being able to tell me about something like this! You’re my family, for fuck’s sake, and a far better man than that twat ever was!’
Eliza has always had a large and obvious temper on her at the best of times, but she can hardly be blamed for carrying around a great deal of barely supressed fury at the moment, given that her husband has been having an affair with their son’s support teacher for the past few months.
‘How did your mum take the news?’ Eliza asks.
My face screws up. ‘Not well. She refuses to believe I could die.’
Eliza nods. ‘I’m not surprised, Nate. She’s the same as Dad. Neither of them take bad news well. Like brother, like sister.’
I rub my eyes. ‘I know. I just hope I can get it through to her properly, before . . . before I . . .’ I just can’t bring myself to say it. ‘How’s Callum doing?’ I ask, changing the subject for all I’m worth.
Eliza grimaces. ‘He’s not good. The split has been hard on him . . . and we were just starting to make some real progress. Children on the spectrum don’t deal well with change, so losing both his father at home and his favourite teacher at school is affecting him horribly.’
‘Oh no. That’s . . . that’s awful,’ I say, before falling into an uncomfortable silence. These are things I should probably know about, but I haven’t been around much recently, thanks to work . . . and Sienna.
‘So, what are you going to do?’ Eliza asks me, changing the subject back to my problems.
. . . which is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
I am hideously reminded of last month’s press conference when Katie from the Daily Mail asked me what I was going to do with my life after I’d handed over The Foodies to Brightside. I didn’t have an answer for her then, and I sure as hell don’t have an answer for Eliza now, either. Of course, the difference is I had plenty of time to play with back then – but now I have virtually none.
‘I don’t know, Elsie,’ I reply in a small voice, before looking at her forlornly. ‘I’m completely lost.’
She puts an arm around me. ‘Oh, I wish I could help you, Nate. I really do.’
‘Yep. Me too,’ I reply, giving her a half-hearted smile.
Eliza thinks long and hard for a moment. ‘You definitely need something to keep you occupied,’ she says. ‘I know it’s hard, but if you don’t keep your mind busy, you’ll drive yourself crazy.’
‘What do you suggest? Some kind of hobby? Maybe knitting?’
She slaps my shoulder. ‘Don’t be an idiot. I mean . . . you can’t just sit around, Nate. You can’t just sit around and wait for . . .’
She trails off, not wanting to say it.
‘. . . the spectre of Death to start body-popping naked on my coffee table?’
‘What?’
I shake my head ruefully. ‘Never mind.’
Eliza’s phone starts to ring. She gives me a kiss on the cheek, gets up and goes to retrieve it from the hallway. As she answers the call, I look down at my left hand and slowly clench it into a fist. I remember how it shook that night at home with Sienna, which further reminds me of how my mother’s whole body shook with fear as I hugged her earlier today.
What do I do now? What do I possibly fill my life with now that I know it could end at any moment?
You haven’t done much with it up until now, dickhead, I hear a horrible little voice in my head say. Why should anything change?
Eliza comes back into the kitchen, a distressed look on her face. ‘I’m so sorry, Nate. I have to go to the school. Callum’s . . . Callum’s playing up again.’
‘Oh no. Do you want me to come along with you?’
She gives me a doubtful look. ‘No. That’s okay. Probably best I handle it on my own.’
I’m not quite sure how I should take that, to be honest.
‘I promise we’ll talk again soon, though,’ she adds. ‘Feel free to stay and finish your coffee. Just lock the place up when you’re done.’
Eliza gives me a swift hug and a kiss on the cheek, before disappearing up the hallway and out of her house, slamming the front door with a loud bang.
I sit there for a moment in silence, staring down the hall at the front door.
Strangely, I feel a little bit hurt that Eliza has just run off like that in the middle of our conversation. It’s quite a ridiculous thing to feel, but I can’t help myself.
. . . people’s lives do go on, though, don’t they?
Just because mine is likely to come to an end very soon, it doesn’t mean that anybody else’s is.
What a horrible thing to realise.
Sienna’s swish apartment is in the centre of the marina just outside town and is the type of place that only catwalk models and utter wankers would live in.
As I approach her front door, I can hear pop music blaring out of the apartment at a decibel level that must be delightful for the neighbours. Sienna is twenty-five and beautiful, so can probably get away with this kind of stuff better than the rest of us.
I have to knock on the door so loud it makes my hand hurt before she answers it.
‘Hey, sexy!’ she exclaims when she sees me standing there.
Sienna is wearing a tiny crop top and a pair of equally tiny white knickers. Neither of these are going to help me break the news of my terminal diagnosis to her. It’s very hard to be serious and forlorn when you’re stupid horny.
Sienna grabs me by the hand and pulls me into the apartment. I can see and hear MTV blaring out of her fifty-five-inch flat-screen TV as she drags me into the living room.
‘Dance with me!’ she orders, before beginning a strange process of sticking her limbs out at random angles in time to the music.
Sienna is many things. Many sexy things.
What she is not is a good dancer.
It’s like watching a stick insect get electrocuted.
‘I need to talk to you about something, Sienna!’ I shout over Ed Sheeran’s latest catchy number. ‘It’s important!’
‘But I’m dancing!’ she complains, thrusting both arms out. It looks more like she’s directing air traffic than having a boogie.
‘Please, Sienna! Can you mute that bloody TV?! I have something I need to tell you!’ I wail, wincing at the volume she’s got the UK Top 40 playing at.
Sienna pouts. It’s something she’s very good at. ‘But I really want to see who’s at number one.’
I rub my eyes. ‘Just . . . just turn it off for a few moments.’
She rolls her eyes, but does as I’ve asked, throwing the remote control back down on to the couch with a huff once the sound has been muted. ‘What is it?’ she asks sullenly, slumping on to her sofa and folding her arms.
I come to sit down next to her. ‘You know I went to the neurosurgeon yesterday?’
‘Did you?’
I grit my teeth. ‘Yes, Sienna. I told you about it, remember? Along with the other three appointments I’ve had in the past couple of weeks?’ Sienna looks doubtful. I look dismayed. ‘After what happened the other night around my house? The potato thing and the blackout I had? I wanted to find out what was causing it?’
Sienna cocks her head. ‘Oh yeah, I suppose I remember . . . you went to see someone yesterday, then?’
‘Yes, Sienna.’
‘So what did they say?’ she asks. I can see that she’s only half paying attention to me. She keeps looking sideways at the TV.
I close my eyes briefly and take a deep breath. ‘I’m afraid it’s bad news.’
‘Is it?’ Sienna is now barely listening and continues to sneak looks at the television.
I choose to soldier on regardless. ‘Yes. I have . . . I have a brain tumour. It’s very big, and might well kill me at some point in the near future.’
‘Yes! Woohoo!’ Sienna bursts out in excitement.
‘What?!’ I snap in disbelief.
Sienna clenches her fists in triumph. ‘Sean Paul is at number one! Nevaeh is in the video for this song, Nathan! Oh, I’m so pleased for her! She worked so hard to lose that extra stone!’
And with that Sienna is back on her feet. The volume goes back up on the TV and she starts to dance around like a thing possessed. The stick insect is getting a good four hundred volts put through it.
Quite clearly news of my impending doom is less important than watching a middle-aged man cavort around with a bunch of semi-clad girls in an empty swimming pool.
I sit and watch in thunderstruck silence as Sienna gyrates around in front of me in her very small pants.
I should probably be feeling incredibly upset at her complete and total lack of interest in my news, but to be honest, I knew what kind of girl she was when I started dating her. She’s the kind of girl that sticks three fingers in her mouth in public and can breathe through her ears. This tends to forgive a lot of sins – up to and including having the attention span of a stunned mayfly.
‘I think I’m going to leave you to it,’ I shout at her as I stand up. Today has been an exceptionally draining day. I just don’t have the strength to keep this conversation up any longer. With any luck, I’ll be able to catch Sienna in a less excitable moment at some point in the next few days and tell her then. Either that or I’ll make a pop video about my incipient demise and rap about it to her from a disused septic tank. That might get her attention.
Sienna watches me turn to leave. ‘Are you going?’ she shouts after me over Sean Paul’s middle-aged wittering.
I yawn. ‘Yeah. It’s been a long day.’
Sienna pouts again and turns the volume back down. ‘But don’t you want to stay and play with me?’ she says, once Mr Paul is again silenced.
‘Um. I’m not sure, Sienna. I’m not really feeling . . .’
She takes off her crop top in one swift and well-practised movement. My penis – hitherto completely uninvolved in proceedings – wakes up and starts metaphorically poking me in the ribs.
This is completely inappropriate. Today was supposed to be about breaking the worst news I’ve ever had to the people I care about most, not getting a shag.
The tiny pants have now come off as well.
I look down at my crotch. ‘You are a stupendous idiot,’ I tell my penis, who chooses to completely ignore me and instead directs my body back towards the naked twenty-five-year-old model standing in front of me.
Later that evening over Thai food, I eventually managed to tell Sienna about the tumour.
Her response?
She looked sad for about four seconds, before asking if I thought Channel 5 might want to do a documentary about it.
For some strange reason, I actually preferred this response to Mum’s or Eliza’s. It was easier to deal with.
Things are very simple when I’m with Sienna.
She’s self-involved, I’m self-absorbed and the sex is tremendous. Anything complicated like emotion or empathy is almost entirely absent. Any effort I make to keep her happy is purely sexual or comes directly from my wallet.
You see?
Simple.
My whole life was simple until yesterday. Now it’s become so hideously and irrevocably complicated in every other way, it’s nice that at least one thing hasn’t changed.
Sienna is Sienna.
All of my other relationships will be changed forever by the news of my diagnosis. I’m never going to be treated the same by anyone.
The fact that Sienna seems not to care that much should hurt – she is my girlfriend, after all – but instead all I feel is a great sense of relief. It’s almost as if the tumour doesn’t actually exist when I’m around her. If she doesn’t care about it, then why should I?
As long as Sienna keeps being herself, then I have something from my old life to cling on to.
My. Old. Life.
I talk about it like it was something that disappeared a decade ago . . . rather than just yesterday.
Good grief.