A Poison Tree (Time, Blood and Karma Book 3) (27 page)

40

DAVID

Somehow we made it to April 2001.

If 1999 had been characterised by suspicion and a sensation that all our old certainties were withering, 2000 was the year of the unwelcome surprise. Its milestones served as hard lessons for our family, reminders of the fragility of existence.

First there were the questions from Katie.

“Mum’s going to be all right, isn’t she, Dad?”

Of course.

“Do you need me to come home?”

No, we’re fine.

“Can I talk to her?”

She’s just resting now, sweetheart.

Then there were the statements from Claire.

“I’m going to beat this.”

Of course you will. We will. Together.

“I’m fine, I just need a lie down.”

It’s OK, don’t worry.

“I’m sorry I’m being such a nuisance.”

Don’t be silly, you’re not.

Expert beyond experience.

Let’s all pretend together.

And when the weariness comes and the nights are sleepless, we will tell each other stories of heroism and hope. We will feed on the memories of better times to fill our cold,
empty bellies. We will strive to maintain the fiction of the journey without end, even as we see, in the distance, our final destination.

Cancer is not one disease but many.

We
stuff it into a single box as if that somehow makes it more understandable, more controllable, less threatening. It is by this same magical logic that we imbue death with a personality and recognisable form, as if by our so doing his character becomes tractable and susceptible to reason. But neither death nor cancer negotiates. They cannot hear our pleas and silent prayers because they lack sentience. And because they lack sentience, they cannot feel compassion, and neither can they make allowances. Abstractions cannot experience, they just
are
. We may as well ask the night to be day.

Rationality will not, however, prevent us from seeing cancer as a spectre – a modern-day
boogeyman – whereas its true self lies in dispassionate Aesculapian definition: a collective term for various types of abnormal cell growth. But that is not dramatic enough for us. We speak in hushed tones of the “emperor of all maladies”, a phrase eloquently coined by a surgeon in the nineteenth century.

Some cancers are more virulent than others
, I have learned. In the United Kingdom, lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer deaths in women, and in Claire’s case, its unforgiving presence in her body announced itself shortly before Jenny’s birth. Thus, as a debit entry was made in the ledger of life, a corresponding credit entry found its way into the shadow ledger.

I was the one who smoked. Claire was the one who contracted lung cancer. Fate no doubt
considered this hilarious.

Survival times vary significantly, although two to five years is often cited
, albeit with reluctance, by members of the medical profession. This range conceals a host of other statistics until eventually the numbers become lost in a mist of unknowing.

The reluctance of oncologists to be quoted on this matter lies in the many variable factors
inherent in each incidence of the disease, but all will tell you that early diagnosis and treatment are essential to longevity. Therein lies the problem.

One of the reasons lung cancer is such an efficient killer is that there is no test to reveal how long it has been growing or indeed when it started
. What is more, it tends to be fast-growing and it spreads early – especially if it is of the ‘small cell’ variety. It can take several years for a lung cancer to attain the size at which it can be detected on a chest X-ray. Symptoms may not be obvious, and diagnosis, therefore, late. That is why the prognosis is so poor.

With Claire, the symptoms manifested themselves in shortness of breath, minor chest pains and fatigue. It didn’t seem like anything serious. But it was.

Expert beyond experience. Knowledge I could have done without.

New terms. “Adenocarcinoma”. “Metastasis”. “Distant recurrence”. “Lymph node involvement”. “Tumour grading”.

Old terms.
Disbelief. Fear. Pain.

“It’s bad tonight, David.”

“I know, darling, I’m here.”

Spasms. Claire took a deep breath with difficulty and caressed my face. “You look so tired.”

It
was of no consequence to me how tired I looked. “It’s Saturday tomorrow. No work. We can have a lazy day.”

“I love you, David Braddock.”

“I’m pretty fond of you too.”

More spasms and retching. Some blood.

“Oh, Christ.”

“Claire,
it’s fine.”

“Look at the mess.”

“I’ll get a cloth.”

A visit to the GP for what we expected to be a routine matter in the spring of 2000, led to further referrals and tests that revealed a shocking diagnosis. Claire’s cancer was advanced and urgent chemotherapy was required to reduce tumour size prior to surgery. Post-surgery pathology of the diseased tissue confirmed the cancer had spread to other parts of her body.

The treatment reduced her in a short time from a fresh-faced, lively woman to a shrunken old lady, devoid of energy. Claire’s oncologist was grim-faced about her prospects.
Her form of the disease was aggressive. But the treatment continued.

Our reaction was to circle the family wagons, become closer. My concerns of the previous year appeared trivial compared with what
now faced us. I started smoking more. It was a practice that Claire abhorred – not surprising given her condition – but after a while she ceased to comment on it. I guess she knew I needed some way to relieve the tension and worry, even if it was a stupid way to do it.

When autumn
came, it arrived as another meditation on
anicca
– impermanence. The disappearance of the leaves from the trees was a marker, an aide memoire of the transience of life. The days grew darker.

“
Cancer is a long goodbye,” Anna said to me on one occasion.

She came to
Bewden often – as did Natalie – bringing Jenny with her. On these occasions, my wife never failed to rally. We drank lots of tea and coffee.

At work, I made some changes to allow m
yself more time to spend with Claire. I moved Harry to Leicester, even paying for his relocation, so that he could assist with my duties and also take over the Leicester showroom, where our general manager had been poached by a rival. This unexpected promotion delighted him, even though it meant he had to sell his house. We shored up Coventry with a new hire. For once, my father made no comment and smoothed the process.

Last month – a
few months after I moved him – Harry got himself into a scrape with his wife over some young woman he had started seeing. But that blew over, and I had no complaints about his work or commitment. Given what had happened to Mark, one might have thought Harry would have been more circumspect about playing around. But then, that was Harry all over. As a gambler, he could never resist the long odds.

I think I became a little manic
, at least on the inside. Externally I maintained calm, while the strain of performing so many different roles fractured my personality. I swear I could have attended group therapy sessions on my own. I sought refuge in philosophy to relieve both Claire’s and my own anxiety on matters of mortality, re-reading Epicurus and some of Nietzsche’s more accessible aphorisms. It didn’t really help. I couldn’t get beyond the intellectualising, which seemed a poor defence against the emotional maelstrom threatening to overwhelm us. On a more practical level, I dug out all my old study material and course notes on hypnotherapy, and used interventions to help Claire to relax, although my efforts at assisting her with pain control were unsuccessful.

“We need to think about a holiday,” I said. “How about Bali?”

“Let’s just get Christmas over first. Then we’ll see.”

Impractical suggestions, graciously declined. Our world was contracting.

Whenever Katie came home, Claire was meticulous about her makeup and overly optimistic. She wore a wig over her bald head and became adept at concealing the agony chewing away at her body. These weekend visits always exhausted her. The play-acting was not sustainable for long periods. Katie, of course, was not fooled. But we all joined in the game. I realised for the first time how tough-minded my daughter was. In spite of our family drama – or perhaps because of it – she continued to excel in her studies. It was a point of principle for her to do well, not only for herself but also for us.

Our children form a large part of our Immortality Project. This is one of the reasons a child’s death
cuts so deep; some of the future dies with them. Through them and their descendants, part of us lives on forever, just as it does in the friends we touch and the ripples our actions cause in the world. All these effects are conscripts, earthwork defences against the finality of extinction.

For my part, I had no desire to live forever. But if I could have bestowed eternal life on Claire, I would have signed Mephistopheles’ contract without hesitation.

I wrote letters to my wife explaining how important she was to me, how she had made me a happy and contented man. I never intended to give them to her. They were scripts for speeches I could never deliver. The mawkish sentiments expressed would have worsened an already overcharged situation, and drawn more attention to the approaching end game.

Besides, “I love you,” is all that is necessary when it is said with honesty.

We visited Daniel’s grave a few times, at Claire’s insistence. These were no longer upsetting occasions for me, more like a routine. I had lost my connection with my dead son. It had only ever been an imaginary connection anyway. How could it be anything else? My only preoccupation now was with my dying wife. The idea that Claire would join Daniel in the darkness was anathema, as was the notion that one day soon I would have to compose a suitable inscription for her to be etched on some cold slab of marble.

Where death is, I am not
.

Flowers, silence, departure.

The Christmas holidays came and went.
We made the decision to end further treatment. Claire’s cancer was too belligerent, too hostile to be mastered. It had put out its pestilent branches deep into her, and they continued to grow.

Palliative care was all that remained
.

Claire’s body showed itself to be contrary. While it surrendered readily to the disease, it proved resilient to the drugs designed to ease the pain. This had been a problem ever since the cancer had taken hold. She suffered constantly from background pain and, as matters progressed,
more and more from flare ups – breakthrough cancer pain, or BTCP – which arrived unannounced.

The flare ups became more frequent. Weakened by nausea and diarrhoea, Claire no longer possessed the resilience to rise above her condition. She was stripped of both ease and dignity. Lacking energy to exercise, her muscles wasted. Her eyes sunk further into her head and her skin
became the colour of papyrus. With the arrival of spring, my beautiful wife entered her autumnal phase, and April saw her back in hospital.

“Can’t you give her more drugs?” I said to Linda, the nurse who tended to Claire.

“We can’t, Mr
. Braddock.”

“Why not? She is in so much pain.”

We were sitting in an empty side room. Linda looked at me with sad eyes. She must have had this conversation many times before.

We had come to know each other quite well over the months. Linda was, I suspected, sweet on Claire’s oncologist,
Dr. Dudley, and from what I had observed the feeling was reciprocated.

Linda
explained with gentleness that since the notorious Dr. Harold Shipman’s conviction for murdering patients through intravenous injections of diamorphine and other strong analgesics, the spotlight of officialdom was trained on any practices that might smack of euthanasia.

In this atmosphere, legal
issues, politics and bureaucratic conservatism trumped concern for patient suffering. The strong opioids that Claire needed were top of the list of substances under scrutiny.

“We have to be careful these days,” she said. Linda’s sympathies lay on the side of mercy, but her hands were tied.

“David?” The effort of sitting up caused Claire to gasp.

“Yes?” I grasped her hand. It felt like paper.

“I’ve said all my goodbyes. I can’t take any more.”

She had been drifting in and out of consciousness for days, becoming insensible only when the cadence of fatigue took her. Each time she reopened her eyes the pain was evident.