A Kennedy - Serious Sweet

A childhood in sunshine, classical inheritance, the roots of European medicine. That could all be an asset for us both. Cheery thoughts. Wherever he’s from I would like him to be cheery. Please.

And he has clean hands and neat nails. Two tidy-handed people looking after me, both of them possibly used to better weather.

Breathe in fear.

No.

Breathe in faith.

No.

No.

No.

He asked about her physical regularity and fitness.

This part left Meg feeling inconsistent and unwell. As usual.

Then it was time for the nurse, for Kate.

The nurses were trained to call you by name and bond with you, because what would happen next was degrading and they didn’t want it to upset you. It would upset you, no matter what they said, but they made this effort to improve the theory of your situation. The nurses never asked the questions, not unless they were nurse practitioners.

Or, really, they just asked the questions that weren’t important enough to be written down.

Nobody asks the important questions.

And now it was time to stand and walk to the next chair — the one in the corner, behind the curtain.

Kate offered, ‘How are you?’

‘I’m fine.’ Meg’s voice came out dry and half-swallowed, resentful. ‘Hello.’ Which wasn’t fair on Kate who was being actively kind.

And this was only Meg’s early-morning-and-get-it-over-with kind of check-up which was no cause for alarm. It shouldn’t be missed, but needn’t make her stressed.

It’s hardly any kind of a procedure and I don’t have to mind it.

I do, though, I bloody do. I can’t forgive it.

Kate ushered Meg over towards the curtain, the chair, still smiling, ‘If you undress below the waist and maybe pop your sweater off, too, because you might get hot. And then you wrap one of those sheets around you before you come out.’

Meg proceeded as she was told and did not deviate and this was a relief, this lack of choice. She wanted to smile, as if she was happy two women could get each other through something horrible. There was no mirror so she couldn’t tell, but she felt as if her face was mainly looking savage.

The nurse left her and Meg drew the curtain — although why bother when everyone was going to see everything soon? Why was undressing allowed to be delicate when nakedness incurred an immediate audience?

Beyond the dull mauve and green of the drapes, Meg could hear that the specialist had arrived. He told his colleagues that he’d needed to take a call and check on something … the something was inaudible. It was of concern.

Meg bent to remove her shoes, blood distantly roaring in her ears at the unexpected upset. Her body had decided to be nervy and easily unbalanced. This wasn’t her fault. Then her jeans went, then her pants — she folded them on to the chair in a small stack, innermost item closest to the top, as if she might get extra marks for being tidy. There was this sensation of childishness in her fingers which, because she was in an adult situation, made her stomach tick and become wary. She slipped off her sweater as instructed, even though she knew what happened next would make her cold for the rest of the day. Every time, it was the same.

Still, around her waist with the strange, unwieldy sheet — so white and yet also a bit second-hand-feeling — and then out from behind the curtain she stepped in stockinged feet. It took four five six steps to reach the final chair, the one with the dressing pad laid out ready across what there was of its seat. Then she set her body to the thing, shelved herself, found the foot rests, the knee rests, dealt with the awkwardness of one size not fitting all.

I would rather not. Today I would rather not. This is not a cause for any drama — but today I would rather not.

And when this is suggested, you loosen the sheet until it’s opened and simply resting across your outspread lap as a rug might if you were reading at some fireside in some cosy evening on some other day.

It’s good to imagine that.

It hides you from yourself, but no one else.

The gynaecologist appears wordlessly, glove-handed, positions the instrument tray, pats the sheet so it dips, less taut, between your legs and covers you more completely. This seems an automatic gesture. He is either preserving your modesty for another ninety seconds, or would rather not look before he has to, not at you, not there.

Yet surely he’s used to it. Staring into women. Bored of it.

I would be glad if he was bored of me as a person, while being interested in me as a condition, my condition.

He will be exploring me as a doctor does and not as a man does. He will not be touching me as a man does.

As a man, he is calm and projects a straightforwardness you can find as pleasing as anything would be for the next few minutes, ten minutes, maybe fifteen or twenty at the most. Tick, tick. And it might as well be him as anyone who asks you those last important questions — all of which are repeats of the previous important questions, in case the student hadn’t asked them right — and if you could please move a little further forward and that’s excellent and now he is raising your chair and adjusting your legs so that he can see and see and see.

I would rather not.

Through the first insertion — which is undertaken by the student — the nurse stands beside, stands on guard, and sometimes says, ‘You all right?’ And this is a pathetically necessary question, although your answer won’t be written down. There is pain. It is a not manageable pain: it is a racing away and running and lunging pain.

You say, ‘I’m all right.’Your voice emerging in a state that proves itself untrue.

And the student comments on the way you are constructed, which is imperfect, and the insertion of the speculum doesn’t quite work and has to be done again. The gynaecologist takes over and you realise that you haven’t been able to check his hands and so you don’t know if they’re clean, or nice, or anything. His face is ruddy, beefy, butcherish and so perhaps his hands are also coarse and to do with meat. And this worries you — as if you could stop him now, or say anything about it, even if you did see and see and see something you don’t like.

And your eyes are closed, but there is a trickle of ridiculous crying that breaks across your cheek, tilting back into your ears and you remember being a kid and lying in bed and reading a worrying book — some silly book — and having this exact same sensation of prickling, progressing sadness.

You have cried since. But the tears have taken other directions, or you have perhaps not given them your full attention.

The gynaecologist tries to open you again. ‘You’re very tense.’

The procedure isn’t usually this clumsy.

You feel at fault.

‘If you could relax.’

You grip the armrests as if you are falling and try to breathe at all.

The crying continues.

Deep.

The gynaecologist attempts a factual distraction. ‘It’s from the Greek, you know: kolpos — vagina — and skopos — to look.’ He tries again and manages less badly.

‘You tend to the left, you know.’ This in a voice which is almost fond. Bizarrely fond. ‘I am sorry.’

You hear yourself say, ‘It’s OK.’ And it is not OK — and especially not today — and your lying about it makes this worse and there is a sob.

Deep.

He dips his head — balding, that pink tenderness of a balding crown: you should focus on that …

He looks through the eyepieces of the instrument, equipment, device and there is a video screen that is — at the same time — showing you to the student with the quiet eyes and the long name which might be from the Greek also. The student is trying not to be there and he is almost succeeding — he is ashamed for you. He is, nevertheless, staring at the screen and the shades of pink, the glistening which is you, deep in where no one can normally find you.