Authors: Tammy Robinson

Charlie and Pearl (19 page)

BOOK: Charlie and Pearl

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After nearly 3 months and 6 treatments I felt worse, not better, which I knew would be the case but then they did some more scans and tests and told me that the cancer was so much more aggressive than they first thought and the treatments had had no effect at all, in fact it had spread to the rest of my lymph nodes.

“We’re so sorry” they said. “If only it been caught earlier.”

That’s when I realised that there was no escaping this; it was actually going to kill me. So I did some research (who needs to see a doctor when you’ve got google right?) and even though I didn’t tell Gran I did go and get a second opinion, I drove for 3 hours to Auckland to the best cancer specialist in the country and the result from both was the same.

“I’m sorry” he said, “the disease it to
o
aggressive, t
o
o widespread.”

If only it had been caught earlier, the internet informed me, I might have stood a chance of survival.

Yeah, if only.

So I sat at home for a few weeks just staring at the wall and thinking about all the things I would never see, never do,
never taste, never experience. All the men I would never kiss,
the songs I would never hear.
T
he
technological advances designed to improve our quality of life; I would never be old enough to
be happily
confused about them
, a pensioner’s right
. I mulled over all these things and t
hen I decided that I might as well improve the view while doing so, so I went to the
Beach house
.

And then I met Charlie. And somehow, without any intention, I let him into my life at the same time as my body was checking out.

S
orry about that Charlie.

I told him everything.

And when I finished I closed my eyes and lay my head back on the pillow and waited for the sound of him leaving.

He didn’t.

When I opened my eyes he was still there, looking at me with love, and a horrible gut wrenching sadness. Sadness that irrationally made me want to slap him. If I didn’t allow myself to be sad about it then how dare he assume he had the right?

“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?” he asked.

“I couldn’t” I gulped, tears bubbling up, washing
the regret from my eyes
. “I just wanted to feel normal again, like someone with a future, someone with a real past. I haven’t done anything! I haven’t made any impact on this world at all!”

And he held me while I cried and he stroked my hair and he wiped my tears away with his fingers.

CHARLIE

She was wrong because she had made an impact on me.

I stayed strong in front of her because I knew that’s what she needed, but inside I was
a mess, a
crumbling
man
.

She had been through so much. How
had
she even smiled at all the time I had known her, laughed, joked, with the knowledge she had of what was coming?

I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone braver in my life.

I held her while she cried. She was Pearl. My Pearl. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that deep inside her body alien evil things were happening. Things that no matter how much I loved her I couldn’t fix.

It was too much to think about. When she fell asleep again I went for a walk, even though I didn’t want her to wake up without me there. I made the nurse promise to phone me the second she stirred.

“Tell her I’ll be right back” I said.

“Ok”

“Seriously, like, I’ll be a minute away
.
I can be right back in a flash”

“
Ok
”

I hesitated, she looked at me.

“What?” she said asked.

“Promise
you’ll tell her
?”

“Oh god will you just go already, I promise!”

I walked around the grounds of the hospital, past the smokers at the front door, sucking on their ciggies right beside the big red and white signs saying ‘NO SMOKING ON HOSPITAL GROUNDS’. There was a garden, with box hedges and huge oak trees and a pergola in the middle. No one was around so I went and sat in there, kicked a few dead leaves, drew patterns in the dirt on the floor, scuffing my shoe.

I had no words. No comprehension. Numb.

It wasn’t real.

It certainly didn’t feel real.

If it didn’t feel real...then was it?

Crazy man sitting in a pergola kicking dirt and arguing with reality in his mind.

That was me.

PEARL

Charlie called my parents
.
Against my express wishes I might add.

When I was asleep he went through my phone for their numbers and he called my mum, and of course she called dad and now they are both here, standing around my hospital bed and the air in this room is thick with years of pent up anger and tension because, apart from the time when I was 14 and I broke my arm falling off the back of my friends farm bike (long story), this is the first time we have all been together in the same room. Which might have been bearable except my dad has, with typical male stupidity, brought the very woman he left my mother for with him, and she is standing over by the window flicking her blond hair (bleached) with her long nails (fake) and checking her Cartier watch (also fake) and sighing a lot. Loudly. I want to tell her to fuck off if she has somewhere better to be. She and I have never gotten along, never even tried. That would have required effort on her part and forgiveness on mine.

My poor mother is radiating with emotion; anger, betrayal. Well, I’m dying, and I guess it should come with some privileges.

“Excuse me” I smile at the blond home wrecker. It is the smile of a wolf.

“What?” she eyeballs me, like she expects me to ask her for a kidney.

“I would like to be alone with my family”

“So?”

“So you’re not family”

She bristles, “Are you going to let her talk to me like that Andrew?” she asks him.

My father is torn. She is his wife; she has the ability to make his life hell. However I am his baby, and I am dying. I win.

“Kathy” he says, and shrugs helplessly. She flounces out, my mother smiles.

With her gone they both relax a little, even make small talk. They have plotted something I know it but I am waiting for them to tell me, I’m not going to ask.

Finally it comes.

“Pearl” my mum says, and looks at my father.

He clears his throat. “We want you to come home” he says. “Back to the city. We thought you might like to stay with both of us, week on week off, something like that”

“What am I, 5?” I say.

“Don’t be like that Pearl” mum says, her voice breaking.

“We just want to spend some time with you” dad says.

“Why?” It’s mean I know. But if I wasn’t dying they wouldn’t be proposing this
.
It’s amazing what death changes. “You both work” I say, “and you both know me already, so I rather give the family time a miss if you don’t mind.”

“Oh Pearl, you can’t stay at the
Beach house
until...”

“Until what mum? Until I die?”

She starts crying, gulping sobs, her whole body shaking. My father watches her awkwardly for a few moments then walks over to her, puts a hand on her shoulder.
It rests there lightly, the fingers twitching nervously like he’s not sure if touching her is the right thing to do.

I’m bored with grief. They can grieve when I’m gone. “Where’s Charlie?” I ask.

“He’s gone for a sandwich in the cafeteria”

“I want him back”

“He’ll be back soon”

“No, I want him back NOW” I lean forward,
throw back the sheets and
make out as if I’ll get up and get him myself.

They look at me; I’m not the girl they remember. I stare back defiantly.

“I’ll go and get him” my dad finally says, and leaves.

“Good” I settle back on my pillows. “Good”.

CHARLIE

Pearls dad is not
at all
what I expected. When she told me about her family history, sometime around our third ‘date’, I imagined him to be a suave man,
with sideburns and shiny pointed
shoes. In reality he has thinning hair and wears woollen sweaters, at least the two days I’ve known him he has. He has kind eyes and clearly loves Pearl, although he doesn’t seem to know quite how to show it. His wife is cold, clearly not happy to be here. She doesn’t seem to know Pearl nor like her very much. I have to resist the urge to tell her to get lost.

Pearl is not happy I called them, but really, what choice did I have? A
lthough since her fainting
episode she seems to have come right again, back to the Pearl I know. She is itching to get out of the bed so today when her mum was back at the hotel and her dad and his witch (sorry, wife) were in town for lunch I smuggled her out into the garden, to the pergola. There’s nothing keeping her here in the hospital really.

If you think about it.

What can they do that they haven’t already tried?

“I never liked winter much” she said, her leg thrown causally over mine, her hand on my inner thigh
,
her fingers idly tracing circles.

“Hmm, me either” I say, although it’s not true. I’m not sure why I agree with her. I quite like winter; I like the thought of travelling to the snow and learning snowboarding. I’ve thought about i
t every year since I was ten
but I haven’t done it yet. It’s on my To Do list.

“
Do you have a bucket list?” I ask Pearl.

She
is
surprised
by the question.
“Yes” she says
after a pause
, “I do. Rafting was on
e of the things on it
” she adds.

Ah, it makes more sense now, her random act of
insane
adventurism.

“What else
is on there
?”

“Just stuff”

She doesn’t want to tell me, she’s gone shy.
I know I shouldn’t push but I’m curious.

“
Like what?
”

“Stop asking me Charlie”

“Why don’t you want to tell me?”

“I don’t know, it’s private
I guess
”

“OK”
.
I let it go. If there’s one thing for sure I’ve learned about Pearl
,
it’s the more you push her, the harder she resists. Like a stubborn mule digging its heels in the dirt.