CHAPTER 48
The seats were uncomfortable, as always, but in differing ways. Most of them were hard plastic chairs, that gradually sent your arse to sleep, with the occasional comfy-looking armchair bearing a beguilingly padded seat that was actually worse. You sat on the thick cushion, and the air trapped under the vinyl cover slowly farted out through the holes in the plywood base. With a sigh, you gradually descended to a perch on the base board, the frame digging into the backs of your thighs as the trapped sweat began to soak them.

It did help, though, as the discomfort drew my thoughts away from what was happening with Mam. This was new technology, apparently, a way of looking at the whole of a body part rather than trying to put together a picture from a side view X-ray and another taken at right angles. I will admit that I understood very little of what was involved, but I was still anxious for the results. Peter and Carol were muttering something rhythmic and almost hypnotically repetitive under their breath, and I assumed it was some equivalent of prayer.

I had no god; I left that to our friends, while, perhaps hypocritically, hoping that it could somehow do the trick.

“Mr Petrie?”

Dad looked up, seeming a little shocked as he was pulled out of his own world of contemplation and, perhaps, prayer.

“Yeah? I mean, that’s me”

The nurse nodded, smiling in a way that seemed rather forced.

“Doctor will see you now”

“Could our daughter come in as well? Think my missus would like that””

A quick measuring glance from her seemed to be an assessment of my age and adulthood, and she nodded.

“Not a problem. If your friends want to wait it would probably be better in the Friends’ Café rather than here. More comfortable seats, for a start, and Doctor might take a while”

Oh shit. Carol just nodded to her own husband, and after a round of hugs, they were off down the long, green-painted corridor. Dad took my hand as we stepped through the door the nurse was holding open, then followed her along a shorter corridor to an office with a large screen on one wall. Mam was sitting in one of the ‘visitor’ chairs, an obvious doctor with one of those Pancho Villa moustaches behind the desk. He smiled at the nurse.

“Thank you, Betty. This is…?”

“Mrs Petrie’s daughter, Doctor”

“Ah! Thank you. Could you please find another couple of chairs? Mr Lloyd should be along shortly”

“Right away, Doctor. Um, pardon my cheek, but if this is going to be a long meeting, would you like me to get one of my girls to sort some teas?”

“You are an angel, Betty! How do you two take it? Betty knows me too well”

We gave our orders, but mine was from the side of my mouth, as I was staring at my mother, whose face was drawn, eyes rimmed with red. The Doctor was making small talk, but I wasn’t listening; Mam was hurting, and that would never be something I could allow. Ten minutes of that, and a tray of teas arrived just as a much taller man swept in, wearing a suit rather than a white coat, and carrying a large envelope. ‘Our’ doctor looked up.

“Ah! Ladies, Mr Petrie, this is Mister Lloyd, our surgical consultant. Just in time for tea, Harvey. You must be able to smell it”

“Finely honed sensitivities, Eammon. Now, who is who in our little group?”

Dad held his hand up.

“Ken Petrie, my wife Lorraine, and our daughter Debbie”

“Fine, fine. I am Harvey Lloyd, and for my sins I am the surgical consultant in our little section of the NHS. Dr Fry here has asked me to give my expert opinion on the images we have obtained from our new toy…”

He trailed off, suddenly looking a little tired, then raised his eyes to us once more.

“No. Not the time, nor the place for levity. Mrs Petrie, Mr Petrie, Debbie… this is not an easy matter to discuss, so please forgive my earlier breeziness. We all have our ways of coping. I will not dress up the situation with said levity, nor obfuscate with too many technical details. Mrs Petrie, as I am sure you will have guessed, all is not right inside your head. The new toy I mentioned allows us to see these things a lot more clearly than was previously possible, which not only saves you from the pernicious side-effects of too much exposure to X-rays, but facilitates a much, much quicker diagnosis”

He paused. Just for a second, then resumed speaking, his eyes this time fixed firmly on his hands, which were holding the envelop across his lap.

“I will not try to make this anything other than accurate, but I will be as open as I can. This is not good news. In fact… in fact, Mrs Petrie, it would probably be best if you were to begin setting your affairs in order”

He looked back up just then, his eyes moist.

2I have been doing this for many years, and it would be unnatural if it failed to affect me, so I can only apologise. Mrs Petrie, you have a tumour, and it is not an agreeable little bastard. I suspect it has spread its influence beyond what I have already seen, and it would normally be a sensible course of action to carry out further scans, just to be sure. In my view, that would be needlessly distressing for you”

Mam spoke, for the first time since we had entered the little office.

“I’m a nurse, Mister Lloyd, or at least I was. You are saying it’s a tumour, it’s malignant, and that it’s inoperable. Am I right?”

He made a sort of half wave with the envelope, before simply nodding. Mam started to weep, as did Dad, and I just sat there watching them, a hollow place where my heart had been as the teas cooled, untouched by any of us.

Fuck it.

“Doctor Lloyd?”

“Mister”

“Whatever. You say it can’t be cut out, aye?”

“Not without causing so much damage to surrounding tissue that Mrs Petrie would be as good as… The process of removing the beast would almost certainly result in such damage that, even if your mother were to survive, it would not be in any meaningful way. I am sure you will agree that there is more to being alive than maintaining a heartbeat. I would be unwilling to take on such a procedure, as it is well beyond the capabilities of any surgeon I am familiar with”

I glanced at Dad, willing him to speak up, but he simply looked lost. In the end, the idea was an obvious one/

“Mister Lloyd, I know a surgeon. In that London, on Harley Street”

“Oh? Who might that be?”

“Charles Hemmings”

Mr Lloyd’s eyebrows went up, as he looked at me far more intently than he had so far done.

“Ah! I see… not to worry, Ms Petrie. He is an eminent surgeon, but not someone the NHS could ever call on”

“I have money. I can pay. All I ask is if you can let him see those scan things if he says OK after I ask him”

Mam looked round sharply.

“That’s your money, love, for, well, it’s for YOU!”

“Oh fuck off! What’s important here? Who saved my life, who gave it back to me in one piece? What are we if not family?”

Dad reached out for my hand, as Lloyd smiled, sadly.

“I would be more than willing to let Mr Hemmings see the results, Debbie. More than willing. The only caveat I would add is my advice not to build up hopes that may be dashed. I am aware of his reputation, as I am of one of the areas he specialises in. Please, please await his response before you assume success. I am sorry if I come across as an Eeyore, but this is a time for realism. That said, I will be more than willing to work with all of you to explore any avenue that may promise a happier outcome. Doctor Fry here can make arrangements for transferring the results, if Mr Hemmings is amenable. I am afraid I must myself apologise, as I have another family I am due to speak to, as of ten minutes ago. I will merely wish you the best of luck, paltry sentiment though that may be”

After a round of handshakes, he was off, leaving me to steer a silent mother and a stumbling, weeping father back to where our friends were waiting. Not a word was said by any of us on the drive back home, but we stopped at a supermarket to buy more than a little booze. I could read Mam’s mind as we loaded the boot of the car:

“Doesn’t matter anymore how much I drink”