Sleight of Hand (18 page)

“Oh.”

“Yes,
Oh
. But you can try to guess
why
if you want.”

“Oh. God,” Jenny sighs. “Do I have to?”

“I bet you can.”

“Hitting someone?”

“No. Try again.”

“Drinking and driving?”

“Bingo! Actually he did hit someone too. Hit and run. Driving on a ban. Drunk.”

“Jesus. How long did he get?”

“I don't know. Does it matter?”

Jenny doesn't reply, and so I drive on in silence. It's a full twenty minutes before she speaks again.

“I just needed to know,” she says. “Just in case.”

“Sure. But I still don't see why,” I say. “In case of what?”

“In case I die, stupid,” she says. “God, you're thick sometimes.”

“Because if you die, what Sarah needs is Nick?”

“It might be better than nothing,” Jenny says.

“Might it? A violent alcoholic father in prison? Someone to visit on Wednesdays?”

“Well no.”

Another five minutes pass before Jenny says, “I can't believe that idiot is in prison again.” Her voice is weak, on the edge of tears.

“I can,” I say.

“Yeah. I suppose I can as well.”

“He's a drunk. He'll always be a drunk.”

“Yeah, I know. I was thinking though, and don't jump down my throat for this, please don't …”

“No.”

“No, never mind.”

“No, go on.”

“Well, I was just thinking that maybe if he knew. Maybe if he found out that Sarah needs him that
would change things. Maybe he'd sober up. For her.”

“Wishful thinking,” I say. “Very wishful thinking.”

“You think?”

“He kicked her when she was still in the womb,” I say. “You do remember that right?”

“Yes.”

“You could have lost her.”

“OK. Don't.”

“But you need to …”

“OK!” Jenny shrieks. “Just stop!”

I sigh. “If you promise to leave Nick out of it, I'll stop.”

“I promise.”

“It would be so irresponsible to get involved with him now.”

“Right,” she says. “I agree.”

“Good.”

“I just … I'm just … you know. I'm trying to find options.”

“Nick's not one of them.”

“No.”

“Staying alive is.”

“Yes. But what if I can't …”

“You will.”

“But if I don't … If I die. What happens then? What happens to Sarah?”

“Well what doesn't happen is that she gets to live with Nick.”

“No. But what
does
happen? I mean, it's not as if Tom's going to look after her, is it? And it's not as if you could.”

“Tom!” I say with a laugh. “Imagine!”

It's a diversion, a distraction from the second half of her question.

“I know,” Jenny says. “Imagine!”

And I wonder if she has noticed that I haven't replied for myself. And I bet that she has.

Once in London, I leave Jenny at the hospital and head off in search of a pub with free wifi. As ever, these days, big thoughts require Ricardo's input. I seem to have lost the ability to chew over complex issues on my own.

We chat for a while about life, the weather, London, money, and Ricardo's work, before he asks, “So? Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“What's worrying.”

I laugh. “Am I that transparent these days?”

Ricardo laughs. “It's what you do Chups. You talk about everything else first. And then if you don't hang up, there's some big thing.”

“OK. Good call. Well, it's Jenny. Or rather Sarah.”

“Sarah.”

“Yeah. It's difficult really. But what happens to Sarah if … you know …”

“Jenny is dying.”

“Well yes. Exactly.”

“You
think
she is dying?”

“No. She's fine. But it could happen.”

“Of course.”

“And Sarah's not even five.”

“You want we take her?”

“Ricardo!”
I laugh.
“No!
I just want to talk about what happens to kids who lose their parents.”

“Oh, OK. Well Jenny have no family now, right?”

“No.”

“No cousins? Uncles?”

“I don't think so, no.”

“Nephews, nieces?”

“I don't think so.”

“I can't imagine such a thing.”

“No, I bet! Not with your lot.”

“And the father?”

“Nick? He's horrible. Alcoholic. Violent.”

“Yuck.”

“Yes, yuck.”

“It sound like a TV documentary Chupy.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“That girl has bad taste in men, babe.”

“She chose
you …”

“Exactly.”

I laugh. “She tried to contact him – Nick, the father – but I persuaded her not to.”

“Well maybe it's better than nothing.”

“It isn't. Honestly. I know him. He's horrible. And he's in prison.”

“Prison?”

“Yeah.”

“So what does Jenny say?”

“She's terrified.”

“What did she
say?”

“Well nothing really. She just said that Tom obviously wouldn't.”

“He wouldn't? But I thought they were friends.”

“Well, they are. But this isn't like adopting a cat …”

“No. So that leaves …”

“Well no one really. Except me.”

“Us. Yeah.”

“But obviously I couldn't.”

“I think we should.”

“How can you just say that? I can't see how you can just say that. As if it's so simple.”

“OK. Calm babe. So what is alternatives? She can go to an
orphelinat?”

“An orphanage? I don't think they exist anymore. No, she'd go to a foster family I suppose.”

“They might not be nice. You read stories.”

“Yes.”

“Maybe violent too. Maybe worst than the father.”

“I know. I mean, I suppose people watch them. Social services and stuff.”

“Pff! You trust social service with little Sarah?”

“Well, not really.”

“Then it's us,” Ricardo says.

I pull a face at my phone. I can't believe that Ricardo is being so matter of fact about this. His reaction strikes me as simplistic, childish even. He once again strikes me as completely alien.

“You should tell her,” Ricardo says.

“Sarah?”

“No, Jenny. She must be worry. You should tell her that we make sure Sarah is OK if anything happens.”

“I think it needs a lot more thought babe.”

“OK.”

“And she's fine at the moment anyway.”

“OK. You know best Chupy. But you know, I have no problem with it. Now I have to go to work babe.”

The conversation over, I sit in slightly stunned silence and nurse my Coke and try to analyse what has to be the strangest conversation I have ever had with Ricardo.

I'm touched, as ever, by his unstinting projection of
us
into the future. An
us
he apparently sees as solid enough to welcome a five year old.

And then again, his simplicity of view strikes me as childish and irresponsible. For in truth, he knows nothing about how long this thing he so easily calls
us
will continue to exist. Sarah will be dependant for at least another thirteen years. And thirteen years, especially thirteen
gay
years, is a long, long haul.

Is it the faith issue again? I have had this thought somewhere before, though I can't quite remember where or when. With Tom maybe. And look what happened there.

But maybe Ricardo is right. Maybe what you have to do in order to stay together for twenty years is simply talk the talk and walk the walk. Maybe you just have to project that it
will
happen, and weave a life that is so rich and complex that it can't be pulled apart. That's certainly what heterosexuals do with their kids and their pets and their mortgages.

But the truth of the matter is that it terrifies me. The idea of being tied to one person, let alone tied to
two
people for a decade or more, is just about the scariest thing I can imagine. Maybe Ricardo
isn't
the one who needs to grow up here. Maybe it's me.

The arrival of my all-day-breakfast distracts me momentarily because it's the smallest cooked breakfast I have ever seen. A single fried mushroom, and single half a tomato, a tiny fried egg, a slice of toast and about ten beans. When I call the barman back to complain, he simply shrugs.

“But it says mushroom-
zz
on the menu …” I point out. “And tomato-
zzz
. Those are plurals, they mean more than one. They certainly mean more than a half.”

“Well we ran out,” he says, simply, with another shrug.

“And it says a vegetarian sausage.”

“Yeah. Like I say, we ran out.”

In a state of some annoyance, I eat my breakfast, but when I come to pay, I balk at the total of almost eleven pounds for a coke and a mini-breakfast, so I hand him a fiver.

“No, it's
ten
-ninety-nine,” he says.

“Yeah. Sorry about that,” I say. “You ran out of food, I ran out of money.”

Amazingly, he simply shrugs again.

“That's bigger, isn't it?” Jenny asks as Professor Batt clips Jenny's latest scan to the illuminated board.

“You always say that,” I point out, even though something in the professor's solemn manner is making me nervous as well.

“I'm afraid this time you're right,” he says. He runs his finger around a vague halo to the right of the grey dumpling on the scan. “All of this is new growth,” he says.

“So the radiation hasn't killed it?” Jenny asks.

He moves behind his desk and clasps his hands. It strikes me that the desk is protection for him against our reaction to whatever he's about to say. I hold my breath.

“The fact is that neither therapy seems to be having much effect,” he says.

I hear Jenny suck air sharply through her nose.

“Though of course, we don't know how fast the tumour would have progressed without treatment,” he continues. “But no. This is not a success story.”

“You said before … I mean, I think … you said before …” she says stumblingly.

“Yes?”

“Well, didn't you say that if this failed there weren't any other options?”

“There aren't many,” he says.

“What
are
the options?” I ask, turning back to face him.

“Well we can carry on with this treatment. Perhaps adjust the dosage.”

“But you don't think that will work,” Jenny says.

“It hasn't so far. And I'm worried about your liver function if we up the dosage of the chemo.”

“It's worth a try though,” Jenny says.

“You've been really ill on the chemo,” I point out.

Jenny glares at me as if I have revealed some great secret that's going to stop her becoming school prefect.

“I know that,” the professor says. “I can see from your blood work.”

“Are there other options?” I ask. “Surgery or …”

“No, I'm afraid we can rule surgery out entirely.”

“So basically, that's it?” Jenny says with an incongruous laugh.

I look out at the plummeting October rain and wonder if Jenny will be here to see springtime. I wonder if she is thinking the same thing.

“There is a clinical trial we're participating in,” the professor says. “A new drug, nitomazatab. We're combining it with temazilimide to see if it can slow this type of tumour.”

“OK, let's do that,” Jenny says.

“It might help, and it might not.”

“Sign me up,” Jenny says lightly.

“But it's a new drug. With all the attendant risks that implies.”

“I don't care,” she says.

“Well you
need
to care,” Professor Batt says. “People die in clinical trials.”

“Like those guys who swelled up,” I say. “On the news.”

“Indeed. This isn't the same type of drug at all – that was a novel type of gene therapy – but yes, bad things happen.”

“But without it I croak anyway,” Jenny says.

“You really don't seem to be taking this seriously,” the professor says.

“Oh I
am,”
Jenny says. “But I don't have any other options, do I? Or
do I?”

“The other thing is that it's a double blind trial.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning half of the group get the new drug …” he says.

“Half?” Jenny says.

“The other half get a placebo,” I explain.

“Exactly,” Batt agrees.

Jenny frowns. “But I don't want a placebo.”

“Well no. But it's how drug trials work. Otherwise we can't tell if the drug is working or not.”

“God,” Jenny says. “If I slip you fifty quid can you make sure I'm in the right group?”

“I'm afraid no one will know, not even me. It's randomised. That's the point.”

“A hundred?” Jenny says.

“No …”

“So it's fifty/fifty,” Jenny says. “I get it. But that's still better than no hope at all.”

“Well, it's fifty/fifty that you get the new drug or placebo. And it's perhaps fifty/fifty that it works for your tumour. And that's
if
we can get you into the trial.”

I frown. “Why wouldn't you be able to get her into the trial?”

“There are criteria. Blood counts have to be within limits. We need to stop your current regime and see if your red blood-cell count goes back up.”

“And will it?”

“Hopefully. And you need to not be pregnant of course.”