Helen Brown - After Cleo

I’d been writing weekly columns for newspapers and magazines for thirty years. That was long enough.

Being a weekly columnist is perpetual high-wire walking. Dreading going stale or losing my touch, I’d always suffered performance anxiety. If anything it’d grown worse with each year. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d slept soundly through a Sunday night knowing there was a Monday morning column to write. It was time to let go.

I contacted all the editors who ran my syndicated column and said I was taking a break. What I really meant was retiring, though that word had the air of a tomb about it. I was touched by the warmth of the editors’ responses, along with countless emails from readers. The only commitment I decided to keep up was a monthly piece for Next magazine, who’d asked me to write a breast cancer diary.

Louise and Jude at Allen & Unwin, who were waiting on my half-finished Cleo manuscript, were more than understanding. Jude had been through a bout with breast cancer herself just a year earlier. She cancelled the September deadline for the book and said I could re-start whenever I felt ready. In truth, I wasn’t sure I’d ever return to working on it.

The day before I went into hospital, I revisited Susan, the Chinese acupuncturist. The purpose of her needles (in the calves, forehead, scalp and ears) was to promote calmness and stimulate the immune system. Behind a depressing array of faded cartons of herbs and the occasional dead fly in the window, her rooms always appeared empty.

Looks were deceiving, though. Susan had a steady flow of clients stretched out on rows of beds behind floral shower curtains. There was no point trying to hide our problems. We heard them all through the curtains. An old woman was seeking help for her arthritis. A younger man had done something to his back, though it was getting better. I had no idea what they made of my cancer.

‘Close eyes and listen to music,’ said Susan, smiling gently before disappearing behind the curtain. I waited for sounds of ancient China but was disappointed to hear the sort of New Age muzak favoured by the average spa. In the background I heard a microwave ping and wondered if Susan was mixing some exotic herbs. But the sound of cutlery scraping against a bowl confirmed she was having lunch.

Susan and I developed a sort of relationship. She was pleased when I said her needles had a calming effect (though after phone calls from Sri Lanka I usually had to revert to Western-style sleeping pills). Susan said I must go to China and write about it because it’s a very beautiful country. China vs. mastectomy. Tough choice.

Strolling back up Shirley’s dusty steps the day before my surgery, I made up a mantra: Today I have cancer. Tomorrow, with any luck, I will not.

Philip, Katharine and I went out for dinner at a cafe up the road that night. We had champagne too, of course. We laughed when the waiter spilt an explosion of chocolate sauce over our tablecloth. Life seemed gloriously simple and worth celebrating.

A familiar tune started oozing through the loudspeakers – ‘Past the Point of No Return’ from Phantom of the Opera . I’d never liked that song. Now it was reminding me there was no going back. The theatre was booked, the surgeons getting an early night (I hoped) for a big day tomorrow. Nil by mouth after midnight. In a few hours’ time I’d be handing my body over to strangers. I wasn’t brave, just seasoned enough to accept there were no choices.

Back home, I laid out clothes for the next day – the black trousers, green shirt and ankle boots with the scuffed heels. No hat. Same as I’d worn to the clinic that first time. The three blue nighties and a toilet bag were packed, though I’d probably forgotten something.

I glanced at the bedroom clock perched on the smart new bedside table. Five to midnight. Probably mid afternoon in Sri Lanka. I swallowed a sleeping pill. Breathe. Relax (I hated the word relax, I thought. No, I was having a thought about hating the word relax!).

Drifting off, I imagined a giant hot air balloon. Into it I loaded the wedding, the columns, the book writing, my fears about tomorrow, Sri Lanka . . . and watched them float away into the crisp night sky.

As I dropped into a deep hole of sleep, I imagined my hands curved around the warm softness of Cleo.

Reunion

Daughters, like cats, are only ever on loan

‘You’re going to forget most of this,’ said my old friend Greg, his face a halo of light, in the operating theatre. It’s easy to develop strange attachments to people when your survival depends on them.

Next time I saw Greg, he was wearing a red shower cap and seemed extremely perky. I assumed I was having an inappropriate dream about him. Would my hormones never leave me in peace?

‘It went well,’ said Greg. ‘We’re confident the cancer’s been removed.’

Oh. So it wasn’t an erotic fantasy. A stab of pain from an unlikely place, on my left side just under the ribs. Plastic snake. A drainage tube, a voice explained. Soon after, I was being wheeled down a grey corridor, mesmerised by the thousands of little holes in the ceiling. Do hospital architects have any idea how much time patients spend studying ceilings? An oxygen mask sucked like a starfish at my face.

‘Your husband’s waiting for you,’ said a nurse.

Sounded romantic, I thought. What could be sexier than six drains, a drip and catheter with matching oxygen mask? Oh, and legs encased in loud, hissing plastic tubes – something to do with reducing the risk of clotting. I was trussed up like Tutankhamun.

It was good to see the darling man, though he looked tired and worried. The only thing worse than being in a mess is upsetting people you love. I sent him home to sleep as soon as was politely possible.

Back to nothingness.

Drifting in and out of consciousness, I became aware of a new sound over the hissing support hose. A female voice rolling over unfamiliar phrases. The words were musical and soothing. And loving, like a lullaby. Except none of the words were recognisable. A painkiller high. Obviously.

I opened my eyes to focus on a point near the window where Philip had been. A willowy profile and a head, pretty and feminine, was outlined in the shadows. Lydia?! The hospital drugs were playing tricks. I dropped reluctantly into a pool of semi-consciousness again.

Fighting through the haze of narcotics some time later, I looked over to where I’d seen the hallucination of Lydia. To my amazement, the figure was still there sitting ramrod straight in the chair beside the window, her eyes half closed. The words tumbled off her lips and wrapped around me. Chanting.

Lydia slowly became aware of me looking at her. She paused and smiled at me. Radiant light filled the room. Leaning forward, she placed three cool fingers on my forehead. And disappeared. Hospital drugs are so trippy.

Next thing Greg was standing over me comparing breast reconstruction to gardening. In the way a newly transplanted seedling requires water, he said, a new boob needs blood. The next twenty-four hours were going to be crucial. If my irrigation system did its job properly my transplanted tummy fat would ‘take’ and assimilate into its role as my new right breast.

‘And if it doesn’t work?’ I asked in a weak, breathy voice.

‘Then we’ll all have a good cry, wheel you back to theatre and weed it out.’

That took my mind off cancer cells.

A nauseatingly vivid print bore down from the opposite wall. Abstract; a coastal scene. A man’s face was hidden between the beach and the cliff. If I could’ve climbed out of bed I’d have hurled it out the window. Except the windows didn’t open.

A nurse, May from Malaysia, introduced herself and exchanged the oxygen mask for little tubes, one for each nostril – like the ones Tom Hanks had when he was dying of AIDS in the movie Philadelphia. They were surprisingly comfortable and less claustrophobic than the mask.