Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (5 page)

Except for one wall which was completely covered by books, the shop was furnished with clumsy old mahogany and plate-glass display cases. There was a glass bell-shaped jar on the counter half
full of barley sugar lollipops and the shelves were lined with bottles of vitamin pills, homeopathic and Bach flower remedies.

The woman behind the counter was standing on a ladder and holding a heavy-looking black leather-bound account book from which she was checking items off against a list. She looked as if
she’d always been old. Her tinted hair was falling out of its perm, her shoes were plain and sensible and the white doctor’s coat she was wearing fell well below her knees. She’d
stuffed a thick woollen sweater that had a roll collar underneath the white coat which made her head look smaller than it should be and her chest much bigger than it could have been. Everything
about her was out of proportion. She looked slightly deformed.

‘Hello,’ I said and moved up close to the counter.

The woman didn’t reply but turned towards a closed door that led to the back of the shop. It opened and out came a man, also wearing a white coat, who was about the same age as the woman.
He looked at me suspiciously, as if he was signalling to somebody else behind my back, but I was the only customer.

‘I’m just looking around,’ I said.

The man carried on staring at me as if there was something very wrong. I quickly checked my person for defects. Had I forgotten to put socks on, things like that? Everything seemed to be in
order except that I was wearing my horrible old overcoat, and I hadn’t had time to shave and, because it was raining hard, my hair was stuck to my face. I must have looked a mess. The man
looked at the woman, the woman looked at me and then they looked at each other. I edged to the back of the shop and began to go through the books, hoping that Joe and Jessie would arrive soon.

Besides
Let’s Get Well
, which Gloria had specifically asked me to get her, I found lots of other books about illness, its prevention and cure. I turned to the sections on cancer and
studied each one carefully.

There were many varying opinions but most of the writers agreed that cancer was a disease characterized by body cell growth gone completely haywire. One author thought it was a social problem,
not a medical one. His opinion was that the health of the nation was in the hands of the food industrialists who made big money out of food production and distribution. The government was
responsible for causing cancer, he thought, by allowing the food industrialists to spray crops and vegetables with chemicals, rather than making them fertilize the soil naturally. It was also up to
the government, he said, to encourage people to alter their attitudes towards food and diet. The man’s argument made absolute sense to me but I wasn’t comforted by his words of wisdom.
I didn’t have the time to lobby politicians. I wanted a solution now.

In his book
Victory Over Cancer
, Mr Cyril Scott came to the conclusion that one of the primary causes of cancer is a deficiency of potassium in the blood and he advised taking a teaspoon
of crude molasses every day to help towards prevention. Again, his words were convincing and his argument very plausible, but Gloria already had cancer. I wanted to find a miracle cure.

Mr Scott went on to say that he thought orthodox treatment of burning cancer growths away with rays or cutting them with a knife wouldn’t achieve a thing because another growth could
easily form. It occurred to me that maybe Gloria had read this book and that was why she was determined not to have an operation, why she didn’t want to go back to hospital, because she
didn’t want to be cut up. ‘Mom likes to heal herself,’ that’s what Paulette had said to me on the telephone, so I must make it possible for her to do that. I must help
Gloria to find a natural health cure.

I took down from the shelf Dr Kirstin Nolfi’s book
The Raw Food Treatment of Cancer and Other Diseases.
This lady cured herself of cancer by fasting on vegetable juices for thirty
to forty days.

‘I’ll follow this advice,’ I thought. ‘I’ll supervise Gloria on a fast.’ Then I realized that I didn’t have forty days to spare. I had to get my mother
to Australia by the middle of the next week. In the meantime she would think that I was trying to murder Gloria rather than helping her to get well if I put her on a lunatic fast for a month.

I was confused and distraught as I read up on other suggestions for curing this horrible disease. Then I found Mr Frank Wilson’s book
Food For The Golden Age.

‘The capacity of the body for healthfulness is truly immense,’ he wrote. ‘There is always the chance of letting nature have a go though one cannot expect miracles.’ He
went on to say, ‘If a disease like cancer is diagnosed, have it operated on and removed if it is not too late . . . to rely on nature to cure in a monstrously unnatural situation is to court
certain death in many cases. With nature cures, cancers do heal – at times – but one would have a much better chance if one had the cancer removed and then followed it up on the road to
health with nature.’

I felt depressed. I wanted to help her but I didn’t know how.

‘Just what can I ever do to make her get better?’ I said to myself and put my hands to my head. ‘What can I do about my mother getting to Australia? I don’t want to spoil
her holiday. Where’s Joe? Where’s Jessie? I need Joe and Jessie.’

The tiredness and the hysteria of the last twenty-four hours had caught up on me. I realized that I was slumped with my head against the bookshelves talking to myself out loud. I was gabbling.
The people behind the counter must have thought that I was cracked. I was certainly behaving as if I was. These books were not going to help me to help Gloria.

‘What are you doing in here?’ The voice sounded hard and aggressive.

I turned towards the counter. It was the man in the white coat. Both he and the woman were looking at me as if I were a dangerous madman. I was overcome with embarrassment and felt the redness
rise in my cheeks.

‘What are you doing in here?’ the man repeated.

‘I’m looking for a cure for cancer,’ I replied.

‘Well you can look elsewhere,’ the man barked.

‘But I want to buy some apricot kernels and I’m supposed to meet my brother here at eleven o’clock.’

‘We don’t have any apricot kernels and you can wait for your brother outside.’ He pointed to the door. ‘This is not a waiting room, it’s a shop.’

‘I can’t do that,’ I said. ‘It’s raining.’

‘Right!’ The woman turned to the man. ‘Let’s call the police.’

‘That’s a bit ridiculous,’ I protested. ‘A friend of mine is very ill. I’ve come here to try and help her. I’m just waiting for my brother, and I have to buy
some grape juice.’

‘Buy your grape juice somewhere else. Just get out of this shop!’

‘I’m trying to help someone who is very sick with cancer,’ I emphasized. ‘That’s why I’m looking through your books. Don’t you understand?’

‘Get out!’ the man shouted. ‘Clear off out of my shop!’

Suddenly I was in a fury.

‘You shouldn’t be allowed to run a health food shop. You’re not concerned about anybody’s health. You should be struck off a list!’ I raged. ‘This is not a
healthy shop. It’s an unhealthy fucking shop!’

I was in the middle of a slanging match, assaulting the man with every insult and foul word that I could think of, when Joe and Jessie arrived. I’d made myself so angry that tears were
rolling down my face. The incident had let loose all the emotion I’d been holding in. The couple behind the counter huddled themselves together as Joe dragged me screaming from the shop.

Outside on the pavement my brother was laughing so much that he was making the same groaning and whining noises that I was. Then the Labrador dogs in the window of the pet shop next door started
to do the same. Joe, Jessie and myself ended up standing in a fit of uncontrollable, helpless laughter in the rain. The two white coats were looking at us through the glass panel in their shop
door. They were horrified. Jessie realized that we might not be able to buy the things we needed anywhere else, so she went back to try and make peace with the man and the woman, but as she
approached the door they bolted it and pulled down the blind.

We went to do the shopping somewhere else.

The kitchen was empty when we arrived back home with the shopping; not even Candy was there, lying as she normally did in front of the gas fire. But there was a note from my
mother: ‘Gone to Tesco’s’ it read.

The day was brighter. It had stopped raining. A stream of sunlight projected across the room, holding in suspension a constellation of dancing dust. An unexpected calm filled the room.

‘There’s no need to worry about that tree.’ Joe stood by the window looking out. ‘I think it’s going to be all right.’

‘Oh, I hope it is. I’ve always liked that tree, I don’t want it to fall down,’ Jessie said as she put on the kettle.

For a few moments it seemed just like any other afternoon.

Then in an instant we realized, it was as if we’d almost forgotten: Gloria was in the middle room. There was no one else in the house. She was alone.

There was no need for panic.

‘I’ve been trying to make a plait.’ Gloria was sitting up in the bed trying to twist strands of her hair together with one hand and holding the piece of broken mirror with the
other. ‘Didn’t you see
“10”
, the movie?’ She gave me a quizzical look.

Gloria was animated and chatty, creating a party-like atmosphere in the room. As she laughed we relaxed.

‘You two men can leave us alone now,’ Jessie said. ‘I’ve bought Gloria a nice nightdress to wear and she wants to put it on, don’t you, Gloria?’

‘I sure do,’ she replied.

As we closed the door to the bedroom we heard Jessie and Gloria laugh.

‘She’s going to pull through,’ Joe said as we went down to the kitchen. ‘I’ve got a very strong feeling that she is definitely going to pull through.’

He searched round the kitchen for something to eat, opened the fridge and found a kipper.

‘Just what I fancy,’ he said and tossed the kipper into the frying pan.

While it sizzled away, its delicious smell wafting around the room, I sat in the armchair in the corner, hoping, like Joe, that everything was going to be all right. Maybe the worst was over,
maybe the tables had turned. Even the tree in the garden looked friendly for once, instead of alarming. Then Jessie burst into the room.

‘Gloria wants a kipper. She can smell it in her room. It’s coming up through the floor. It’s the first thing she’s wanted to eat. Maybe she’s getting better. Oh
Peter, isn’t it wonderful! Gloria wants to eat a kipper!’

We were excited, ecstatic, high on kippers, and ran round the kitchen bumping into each other in a race to find a knife and fork, some bread, butter for the bread and a tray to arrange
everything on. Joe folded two squares of kitchen roll to make them look like a napkin and Jessie ceremoniously carried the tray holding the kipper, the amazing kipper, the life-saving kipper, up to
the middle room. Joe and I followed behind in attendance.

Gloria, looking sweet in her new nightgown and her attempted Bo Derek hairstyle, squealed with delight when we brought the kipper into the room. Joe and Jessie sat at the end of the bed. I sat
at the side and we waited for her to take the first bite.

It was awful; it was obvious that she couldn’t do it. Gloria tried to swallow but she just couldn’t eat. She pretended that it didn’t matter, and yet it must have been agony
for her.

The house was gloomy again.

My mother was in the kitchen. She had quietly returned from Tesco’s and was putting the shopping into the cupboards. She didn’t say anything, only glanced at the
kipper as it was carried over to the sink. She was still wearing her coat but her headscarf had fallen about her shoulders as if she didn’t care, as if she was in a daze.

‘I’ve bought some boiled ham for a sandwich. It’s there if anybody wants it.’

‘I don’t fancy anything,’ Jessie said. Then holding the kipper up on the plate she added, ‘We cooked this for Gloria but she couldn’t eat it.’

‘Oh,’ my mother said. ‘Oh, poor Gloria. And the smell of kippers lasts for ages.’

‘What’s wrong with you, Mam, you look a bit fed up? The kettle’s been on, I’ll make a pot of tea.’

‘I’m all right, Joe,’ my mother replied. Then she sat down at the table and dropped her head into her hands. It wasn’t her usual dramatic gesture but much more subdued.
‘A doctor’s been on the phone from Lancaster.’ She looked up at me. ‘He wants you to call him back. He’s left a number.’

‘What did he want?’ I asked.

‘He wanted to tell us,’ she said, ‘that Gloria’s got forty-eight hours to live.’

Then she started to cry.

‘Oooh,’ the woman said. ‘I’m afraid that you’re stuck.’

‘Well how do I get unstuck?’ I asked. ‘You’re the area health authority. The doctor from Lancaster advised me to telephone you. He told me you’d be able to
help.’

‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘Not really. No, I don’t think I can. From what you’ve just explained it seems to me like a catch 22 situation.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘You’ll have to speak up, dear. I’ve got a crackle on my line.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I repeated. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘Well,’ she said, ‘let me put it this way. If your friend is refusing to go to a hospital and you, or anyone else, try to take her to one against her wishes, then you, or
whoever it is, could be charged with an assault. It’s a criminal offence. Also, let’s say for instance that if she happened to have a heart attack, or catch pneumonia, or died of
fright, or anything unfortunate happened to her on the way to the hospital, well, love, you could easily find yourself up for a manslaughter.’

‘Oh no,’ I said.

‘Oh yes,’ she asserted. ‘It’s a very tricky one because on the one hand if you don’t get anyone to take a look at your friend, if you don’t have any medical
help at all, well . . .’ She paused and tut-tut-tutted. ‘I hate to think but I imagine that there would be a hell of an inquest.’