Breathing Love

 Cancer. It's a dirty word, isn't it? It's a word you hear on Corrie, on the news, in the hairdresser's. It's a word that makes you screw your eyes up and pat your chest, makes you go “Such a shame. Never thought she'd go like that.” But it never really touches you, does it? Never sinks in until the doctor looks at you like that. He shuffles his papers and shuffles his feet. He's embarrassed. You look back at him and you know, and now you're embarrassed. You know he must have said the same lines umpteen times this week, and you almost feel sorry for him. When all is said and done, and you assure him that you'll be fine and no, no you don't want a glass of water, you just sit and stare at each other, waiting for someone to break the awkward silence. But he said the dirty word, the magic word, and now things can't be the same anymore.

I decided to walk it back from the surgery. Kevin had offered a lift, but I couldn't face him. Not yet. At least not until I'd told Joe. I knew he'd be in the bookies, I even saw the back of his jacket when I looked in the window, but I kept walking. How do you start that conversation? I carried on past the bookies and nipped into the grocer's. The wee blonde lassie on the counter asked how I was, how was Joe, and the kids, and their kids. Fine, all fine. She's just doing her job, I thought. She didn't really want to know, and anyway the whole Corner would know soon enough. I kept moving through the precinct, bumping into a few more familiar faces, and spinning them the same shite. After half an hour of stopping and talking, I decided to phone Kevin, or rather I asked a nice wee boy in the Co' to phone him. Kevin had bought me a mobile phone, but I couldn't even see the numbers, never mind press them.

“Ma, what's wrong?” Wee Kevin, always the worrier.

“Nothing, son, nothing at all. Just wondering if you could come and get us from the Co'.” I made myself smile while I spoke; for Kevin's sake and for the sake of the wee boy that had dialled the number for me, who was still watching me from the fag counter.

“Aye, no bother, Ma. Get yourself a tea and I'll be up with the car in fifteen minutes. Awright? Sure nothing's wrong?”

“Honestly, son, I'm fine. Just tired.”

The wee boy turned the phone off for me, and he told me his name was Michael, and he was only working part time here because he was at college. I said that was good for him, put a fiver in his pocket and headed to the cafe.

Kevin took his time. I saw the big red car pull up the carpark and began to get up, when I seen her get out of the passenger seat. Jesus, son, no the day. Kevin and Karen had got together two years ago, and she had been doing a line with him behind her man's back for a lot longer than that. Three kids to three different men. With a fourth on the way to Kevin. She climbed out the car that he paid for, wearing the clothes he'd bought and sauntered into the shop like a bloody queen. I didn't like her, and I'd put money on her not liking me, but she came right up to me and planted a kiss on my cheek.

“Hiya, Mum!” Mum. I'll fucking “Mum” ye.

“Hello, Karen. Hi, son.” He came round and picked up my messages and she was already back at the car before he'd straightened up. Couldn't work, according to her, due to chronic arthritis. I ignored her in the car. Don't get me wrong, I was looking forward to Kevin having his first child, but couldn't stomach her spending all his money on maternity clothes and designer prams. When we pulled up to the house she marched right into the kitchen to make coffee, and I sat down in the living room.

“Did you need to bring her, Kevin?”

“Jesus, ma, no this again.”

“Kevin, this is nothing to do with whether or not I like Karen Beattie. You know exactly how I feel about her and the whole lot of them, but I'm no wasting my breath telling you again. It's not about that.” I opened the window because I knew he was getting wound up, and he smoked when he was wound up. Just like his father. And her, she didn't need a fucking excuse.

“Well, what then?” Lighter at the ready.

“I just need to speak to you, and your sister, and especially your father, and I'd rather speak to you all alone.”

“Aye, my fucking arse, ma. Lorraine'll be down here with Mr. Perfect and that wee boy, and you won't bat a fucking eyelid. As fucking usual.” Here we go, I thought. Lorraine was “the favourite”, according to Kevin. Sometimes he was right, I suppose.

“Kevin, grow up, this isn't about Karen, or Neil or any of them. I just didn't know Karen would be here, and I would rather she wasn't for this.” He'd already put one out, and he was lighting another.

“ Grow up? I'm no the one phoning people then not wanting them here, make up your fucking mind, ma!”

“It's cancer, Kevin.” That shut him up.

His sister, Lorraine took it better. She made tea and looked up symptoms on her fancy phone. She was the strong one, had been since they were weans. I told her not to bring Neil and she didn't. It was nothing against the man, and it had been nothing against Karen, even if I did prefer Lorraine's husband. Kevin headed up the road for a pint not long after she arrived, never was one for family pow-wows. Joe still wasn't back, but that wasn't unusual. He wasn't home all that much since he'd been laid off. It was only two years before he was due to retire but Joe would've worked until he died if they'd let him. Nowadays, all he did was go to the bookies, probably hoping he'd bump into one of his old cronies from the shipyard. If he did, they'd take it along the road to the pub. If he didn't, he'd spend his drinking money on the horses and come home moodier than he was before he left.

“We'll get you through this, ma. One step at a time.” Lorraine tried to tell me that breast cancer wasn't that bad, and they had all kind of new medicines. I nodded, I played along with her, but I wasn't convinced. I mean really, how many times does cancer end well? You could keep it quiet, and keep it at bay, but you couldn't really get rid of it. It was still there, waiting for your life to get back to normal, so it could show up and mess it all up again. I played along, even if I knew I was going to lose.

Joe fell in the door at about nine o'clock that night. I'd sent Lorraine home to feed her man and the wean, and promised her I'd make myself something to eat. She knew I was lying but she left me alone anyway. She knew I needed time with my thoughts, and I did, but I regretted it as soon as the door shut behind her. The whole house seemed to get smaller, and I couldn't settle down. I made about six cups of tea, and let them all get cold. I could hear Joe stumbling about the hallway, and I knew he must have met the old crowd. I could smell the drink off him from the living room.

“Got something to eat, Maggie?” he shouted from the kitchen. I took a deep breath and stood up. I could hear him rummaging in the fridge, and I knew he could see the defrosted chicken drumsticks, the cold meat, the eggs. What he meant was “cook me something, Maggie”. I'd never complained before and I wasn't starting now. It's just how we worked. I headed into the kitchen and he lit a cigarette at the window. He smoked after a drink, too.

“How was your day, pal?” I asked him. Didn't want to jump right into it.

“No too bad, hen. Won a tenner on the 2.16. Happy Days, that's it's name.”

“Eh?”

“Happy Days! The horse's name was Happy Days.”

“Oh aye, right. Joe, I need to talk to you.”

“Aye, aye, bit of dinner first but, eh?”

“Aye.”

I made him corned beef and chips, and told him I wasn't that hungry. He put on the telly and I still couldn't find the bottle to tell him. He found a bottle though, and drank until he fell asleep in the chair. I decided I'd just go to bed and we'd talk in the morning.

We both woke up that morning with a sore head, and neither one of us was in the mood for talking. He went for his shower as usual, and I made him his bacon and eggs, as usual. As usual. It was our wee routine, and I couldn't see how to break that routine. I watched him read the papers and eat his breakfast, and I felt guilty. Imagine that, guilty for messing up his day.

“Joe, can I have a word.” He lowered the paper and looked at me over his glasses, with that look that said “can't you see I'm busy?” He always seemed to have that look these days, but I knew it was nothing against me. He just wished it was true, and he was busy. Boredom can kill a man, just as slowly and painfully as cancer can kill a woman.

“You know I was at the doctor's yesterday.”

“Aye, that infection's been going round.” He looked back at the paper, bored again.

“Well, aye. But he found something else, too.”

“Oh aye?” He reached for his cigarettes.

“Aye. It's cancer, Joe. Breast cancer.”

He offered me a fag and I took one. The smoke burned my throat and made my eyes water, but that was good. That meant I couldn't see his face.

“Jesus. Did he say if it was...I mean, like...can they do anything?”

“Not sure yet. He said there were some things they could try, but...but my age, you know.”

He got up and walked the length of the living room and back again. I could feel it coming before he said it, I could see what he was thinking as if I could see through the back of his head.

“Sorry, darlin'. Just gonnae head up the road, told Tam I'd be in the bookies for about eleven. I'm so sorry darlin'. I'll see you after.” Like father, like son. I wasn't hurt, I didn't expect much else. He was a good man, really. He just couldn't stand doing nothing.

It moved a lot faster than Shaw thought at first. Within two weeks I was in hospital. Within another two, I was told it had spread elsewhere. They told me that there several options, but most of them were too aggressive. Kevin was there every day, and Lorraine was there every night. They weren't there together all that much. It made me sad but I knew they had their lives to be getting on with, and no one could stand the tension when they were in the same room. Lorraine had went to school with Karen Beattie, and they had never been the best of pals. I didn't mind really, my Joe came up every day. Sometimes he was drunk, and he cried a bit, but he was there, and that was what mattered.

The doctors said that I had the choice of going home, and they would send a MacMillan nurse in, but I said no. At least here, in a hospital, full of sick people and doctors and nurses, it felt real, and I could get my head round it. If they sent me home, with a stranger making my husband's meals, I didn't think I could cope.

Joe told me that my sisters and brother were coming up from England. I didn't see the point in saying no; I knew they'd be here soon enough for a funeral. There was no point praying for miracles at this point. I'd went to Mass every Sunday for seventy six years, and every time I'd knelt down and prayed for my mother, my husband, my son, my daughter. It had never occurred to me to pray for myself. They all descended one Friday afternoon, and Lorraine told me she'd be putting them up. I didn't know how to thank her for that; Joe wouldn't know where to start with making teas and doing washing. I laughed to myself for a while before they came up to evening visiting, remembering Joe and my brother Francis fighting on our wedding day. Francis swore he saw Joe winching Evelyn Murphy, the town bike of her day. Joe of course took the neb and it ended with the two of them knocking lumps out of each other outside the Knights hall in Anniesland. The idea of the two of them under the same roof was ridiculous, but they were civil enough in the hospital; Kevin even told me that Joe had tapped Francis a fag. It might not seem much, but that was like a bloody marriage proposal for those two.

The following Tuesday, the wee lassie doctor came into my ward and pulled the curtain round. She must have been eighteen if she was a day. She drew the curtain round the bed, and sat down right close to me. Her wee lassie face looked scared and upset. Obviously, she wasn't like old Dr. Shaw. Obviously, this was the first time she was telling a woman that she was about to die. I took her hand before she took mine, and once again I felt guilty. This was harder for her than it was for me, I knew that. I'd made my peace with it weeks back, but she was young, and when you're young you believe in miracles. You believe in wonder drugs and coming back from the brink. I was an old woman, I had seen it all, and I knew that God didn't waste miracles on old Irish women.

“Mrs. McAndrew, I'm afraid it's what we expected.” She squeezed my hand and stared at her wee clipboard. She looked like she was hoping something would jump out it at her, like she'd missed something. I told her it was okay, and that I would tell the family when they came up that night. I asked her not to phone Lorraine, because I thought it was better hearing it from me. She looked so sad and frightened, and I just wanted to give her a cuddle, but I didn't. I let her pour me cup of water, and when she stood up to finish her rounds I asked her to leave the curtain shut.

It was Lorraine that told me I didn't have long left. The wee lassie doctor had explained it to me that afternoon, but it didn't feel like she was talking to me. She didn't sit on the bed, or take my hand like before. She just stared at her clipboard and recited the words on the sheet. I suppose it made it easier for her. Lorraine said in words I could understand, compared it to people it had happened to, as if that would make it all click. They let me have a few more nights in the ward with the other women. Some would make it home, some wouldn't. It didn't matter anyway. The five of us in ward 6A all had breast cancer, we were all over sixty and we all knew that the cancer would kill us one day, and somehow that made it easier to talk about it, even laugh about it. After the first month we had all seen each other being sick, losing hair, cried in front of each other, so it was easier. I cried harder than I ever had when they moved me into the room by myself. I'd watched them take Morag from the bed across from me away, and I knew, just like she did, that she wouldn't be coming back. When she was gone and we'd started to joke again, I said that we were like the old, smelly dugs at the pound that noone came for, so they got taken into the back room and put to sleep. They all laughed at that, and I felt better because I still knew how to make people smile. I thought about my joke when the door closed behind the porters and I was alone in the room on the seventh floor, and it wasn't funny any more.

*

One Sunday afternoon, Joe came up by himself. I worried at first, thought him and Francis had had another blow out, or Lorraine had finally stabbed Karen Beattie. He took his hat off when he came into the room, and drew his chair up to mine. I hadn't seen Joe do that since I'd gave birth to Lorraine. Any other day he'd be staring out the window, trying to think of a way to get out onto the balcony for a puff. But this Sunday he took my hand and put it against his face. I breathed in, trying to see if I could smell whisky from behind my oxygen mask.

“How are you pal?” I said. I tried to lift my own hand to touch the hard skin of his fingers, but my arm wouldn't lift that high.

“I'm alright darlin'. How you keepin'?” He tried to smile and a tear broke loose. I wished he would look me in the eye but he still had my hand at his face, and he kissed my fingernails, my knuckles, my rings. “What you smiling at, doll?”

I had begun to cry too, but I was happy. I was thinking about the night he had gave me the ring on my third finger. He caught my eye then, and I knew he could see the memory too. He had never been much of a dancer, my Joe, but I said yes the night he asked me to dance. The lassies I was with all laughed at him, he was that clumsy. But I didn't mind. It was enough just to let him put his hand on my waist and put my chin on his shoulder. He didn't need to twirl me about or impress me. I liked things the way they were, just turning on the spot. It wasn't long before he asked me another question, and I said yes without a minute's hesitation. From that night I said yes to whatever he asked me.

“You were that clumsy, Joe.” I said. He laughed and wiped his wet eyes with my hand.

“You made me look good though, hen.”

“Aye, so I did.” We laughed and talked for another few hours. And he never let go of my hand. It was at the back of my head that the nurses never chased him away or even came into the room. I knew they didn't let you away with that until the very end. But I tried not to think about that. The clock in the nurses station told us it was eleven o'clock, and I said maybe he should go home, but he refused. I moved over in the hospital bed and he got in beside me. We laughed like weans, thinking about the time he sneaked into my room a few nights before we got married and he nearly got caught by my da. Nothing happened; Joe knew better than that. It was just nice to lie there, breathing in the cigarette smoke from his shirt. Tonight felt like that, him lying behind me, cuddling into me with his big arms. I thought about the kind of boy he was, and the man he became. He was a good man. He had hurt me once or twice, but we were happy. We'd never been rich, and we'd never got out of the Corner, like we planned. We had never went back to Ireland. I had been meaning to get Joe a wee dug to keep him occupied, but it had never been a good time. There were lots of little things we'd never got around to, but that didn't matter. I had Joe, Joe had me.

The clock in the hall told us it was half twelve. I told Joe I loved him, and breathed in the familiar smell of families, cigarettes, regrets and love. As last breaths go, they could be a damn side worse.