Storm in a B Cup - A Breast Cancer Tale (17 page)

"As far as
I know. Nobody said I couldn't, so I'm operating under the guise of ignorance.
I don't have to cut things out, just be sensible, which is pretty much what I
do already. I’m certainly not going to be one of those survivors who only buys
organic produce and bangs on about Reiki healing."

"But what
if it’s the cause? What if it was your boozing that gave you the cancer?"

"You make
me sound like a raging plonker."

"Sorry. I
didn't mean to upset you. I was only asking. And you're not a plonker, by the
way. That Catherine What's-her-face, you know, Sienna's mother? She'd drink you
under the table. Now there's a plonker."

"Well,
that's a relief."

I put my glass
down on the edge of the planter box.

Hilary frowns.
"Aren't you going to finish it?"

"It's
fine. I didn't want it anyway."

"Because
of what I said?"

"No. I
don't feel like it. I've been a bit off since I started on the medication."

I give a sigh. I
hate talking about it. I hate thinking about it. I hate everyone asking me.
Hopefully, the novelty will wear off soon and we can get back to normal.

"So
DO
you know what caused it? The
cancer?" Hilary probes, taking a huge glug from her own glass. Clearly,
the possibility of catching Breast Cancer from champagne has not dampened her
enthusiasm for a drink.

"Not a
clue. There's no history in my family. I don't smoke and apart from massive
amounts of chocolate, I eat healthily. I could probably ramp up the exercise
but I not sure that's ever been linked to Breast Cancer."

Angela leans
towards me. "Nobody would ever know you've had it. If anything, you look
even healthier than before the diagnosis.”

“It’s the
mastectomy.” I laugh. "Instant weight loss. Guaranteed."

“You’re
dreadful, Sophie.” Hilary cackles. She polishes off the rest of her drink goes
off to do the rounds, promising to return shortly.

“Take your
time,” Angela says. “We’re not going anywhere.”

“Have you met
the people John works with?” Hilary asks, with a snort. “They’re so far up
their own arses they can’t see daylight. I have no intention of talking to them
for a millisecond longer than is necessary to be polite.”

She wanders off
into the crowd as the band begins their set and Angela and I find a spot on a step
at the back of courtyard. It’s a good place to be because the party is
extremely lively for a bunch of 40-somethings. People are doing shots and
showing each other intimate parts of their anatomy. There’s a man demonstrating
drunken hip-hop moves on the pool deck and the servers hired for the night are
having an awful time trying to navigate past his ‘caterpillar’. I’m waiting for
the crowd surfing to kick off.

Down in the
middle of the courtyard area, Melinda has finally appeared. She’s chatting to
Brendan and in her usual flirty way, has her hand on his sleeve. Even though
her lashes are batting at him double-time and she’s flicking her hair over her
shoulder seductively, I can tell they’re discussing me; they keep on looking in
my direction. I hope she’s telling him how guilty she feels for giving me the
cold shoulder, not so much as an e-card came in my direction when I was in
hospital. I hope he’s telling her how sad I’m feeling because of it. I can’t.
Every time I get closer than ten metres away, she disappears or gets a sudden
attack of something contagious I wouldn’t want to catch.

The song
changes to Gary Glitter’s
Rock and Roll
Part One
and
the man with the
blowing hair pushes his way in beside Angela and I. He’s holding a large glass
of red wine high above his head, so it won’t spill. Its vinegary scent is
assaulting my nostrils so I move a little closer to Angela who’s on my left.

The man gives
me what was probably a very sexy smile once, before his teeth started to show
their age. Up close, they’re sort of yellowing but at least they match the
bleariness of his eyes. “Sorry,” he says, his elbow digging me in the ribs.
“There’s not much room, is there?”

“No.” I return
his smile and go back to listening to the music.

The man begins
to jiggle his leg in time with the beat. “I used to love this song when I was a
kid,” he yells.

I continue to
concentrate on the band. They’re really quite good.

“I’m Mike,” the
man says. He leans closer. His glass balances precariously between two fingers.
It’s threatening to spill down my sleeve.

“Sophie.”

I shuffle as
close as I can to Angela. She’s biting on the rim of her glass and trying not
to laugh. “You’ve got an admirer,” she whispers.

“Seems that
way. Is there any room on the other side of you? He’s invading my personal
space.”

“Not unless you
want to sit in the planter box.”

The band begins
to thrash out an AC/DC classic and Mike moves a little closer. I’m physically
trapped between him, Angela and the wall. I want to ask him to move but I decide
it’s easier to ignore him as he seems to have given up trying to chat me up and
is watching the band, an almost smug sort of expression on his face.

Then I notice
why.

Mike, who is
clearly under the influence of too much pinot, is feeling me up. And the main
problem with this scenario, other than I don’t know him from Adam and I’m in a
steady relationship, seems to be that he’s feeling up my fake boob.

No wonder he’s
looking so smug. The poor guy must be thinking he’s in because no sane woman
would let a guy touch her boob within seconds of meeting. And because the
breast is a fake, I have no idea how long he’s been doing it for. He’s probably
counting his lucky stars that I haven’t punched him one and dreaming about the
wild sex we’re going to have in the toilet in ten minutes or so.

I look down to
where his free hand is on my right breast and then I look him in the eye.
 
“Ah, Mike?”

“Hmm?” His sexy
smile is now a bit of a leer.

“If you’re
after a thrill you might want to try the other one.” I indicate his hand,
massaging the silicone. “Because that one isn’t real.”

He looks
bemused.

“It’s fake,
Mike. I only have one breast.”

He appears even
more baffled.

“That one gets
put in a box when I go to bed. I had Breast Cancer,” I yell, right as the music
stops.

Mike snatches
his hand away, as if my boob has suddenly caught fire or something. His face turns
the colour of his wine as the entire crowd turns to check out what mischief Mike’s
got himself into this time.

He looks at my
breast, mutters something unintelligible and flies off into the crowd so fast
he’s almost airborne. I knew it wouldn’t be long before the crowd surfing
began.

“What’s his deal?”
Hilary nods into the cloud of alcohol fumes Mike has left in his wake. She has
returned with a tumbler full of champagne, having got sick of refilling or
someone pinching it every time she put it down.

“He discovered
one of my boobs is not like the other.” I giggle.

“Seriously? He
was feeling you up?”

“Yep.” I relay
the incident, as Hilary stands with her mouth open.

“Only you,
Sophie.
 
It could only happen to
you.”

Chapter 17

I think Brendan
is suffering from the effects of a big night this morning. Even though Rory is
staying over at the hotel with Mum and Colin, he was up as soon as the sun
peeped through the curtains. I heard him stumble into the ensuite, barely
missing the wall in the semi-darkness. I heard him rifling through the drawer
where we keep the headache tablets and then I heard him turning on the tap.
There was a groan after that, then everything was silent. For a very long time.

“Feeling
seedy?” I ask, when he emerges sometime later, like a bear with a sore head. Literally.

“What do you
think?” He’s standing in the doorway between the bathroom and the bedroom. His eyes
are bloodshot and his hair is mussed. The curtness is a sure sign he’s hurting.

“Why don’t you come
back to bed for a bit, then?
 
I’ll
make us some tea and toast. We can read the paper.”

“I don’t want
to come back to bed.”

“Is something
wrong?”

I sit up and
stare quizzically across the room at him. He looks angry. His hands are folded
across his chest, defensively, as he leans on the doorjamb.

“Was that Mike
guy chatting you up last night?”

So this is why
he’s grumpy. Brendan might not have truly accepted the physical change in me
but deep down his feelings haven’t changed. He’s jealous.

“In a fashion.
Where were you anyway? You disappeared as soon as we got in the door.”

“What the hell does
that mean?”

“It means, if
you’d been by my side, maybe it wouldn’t have happened. Who said he was
flirting with me, anyway?”

“Uh… I was talking
to John on the phone. He said that Mike guy felt you up and everyone at the
party saw. John was pissing himself laughing about the whole thing. Why didn’t
you do something?”

I could ask why
he was talking to John on the phone in the loo but I don’t.

“Because I
didn’t know he was feeling me up, Brendan. I was listening to the band. He
spoke to me. I only answered to be polite.”

“Don’t be
bloody ridiculous.” He strides into the room and reaches for his folded track
pants on the table next to his side of the bed.

“I’m not. I
didn’t know what he was doing because he was playing with my prosthesis. In
case you haven’t noticed, it’s not part of my body. It has no sensation.
Therefore, if someone touches it and I’m not looking, I won’t be aware.” I feel
like I’m talking to a five-year-old. He’s certainly behaving like one. He’s
practically pouting.

Brendan looks
at me as if I’m lying. Then, suddenly, something changes and his face softens. He
tosses the pants back to the floor and crawls into bed beside me. Maybe he knows
he’s behaving irrationally. I would never let a guy do that to me under normal
circumstances.

“Did you say
tea and toast?” he asks.

“Yep.”

“Can you make
it strong and sweet? And raspberry jam on the toast. Lots.”

I lay back,
arranging the covers around us. I put my head on his chest. His heart is
pounding harder than it normally does. I rub his side and tickle the skin in
the crook of his elbow. I haven’t given up on the idea that he might want to
have sex. A hangover has never been a deterrent in the past.
 
And it’s been over two months.

“Aren’t you
making tea?” he says, shuffling his body away from mine.

“In a minute.”

I reach up and
kiss the soft skin on the side of his neck behind his ear. I nip his earlobe.

“I have a
fucking hangover, Soph. If you’re not making tea, I’m going for a run.” He
moves to get out of bed and I jump up, throwing the covers back.

“Stay there,” I
say, wondering why the hell I bother. Seriously, I
am
beginning to think he has a personality disorder.

I stand behind
the kitchen bench in my little white knickers and my white singlet top.
 
I dangle the teabags and watch the
toast and, all the while, I can’t help but think it’s not jealousy that has
made Brendan behave the way he has this morning. Any other time, he would have
been all over me like a rash, ripping my underwear from my body because another
man had paid attention to me, but not now. As I watch the tea swirl in the mug,
I have this overwhelming feeling of dread and it’s telling me that Brendan
doesn’t want me anymore. But that can’t be true, can it? He was so nice to me before
we went out last night. He was really trying to be compassionate.

Later in the
morning, between Brendan going for a run and Mum returning Rory, I give Lani a
call. I tell her about the boob incident of the previous evening and she
laughs.
 
“I wish I’d seen it,” she
says. “That’s priceless.”

“It was pretty
funny.”

“I bet that guy
never tries to cop a feel again.”

“Nope. I think
I’ve cured him of that. Everyone was laughing so hard, the poor bloke, his face
was scarlet.”

“Serves him
right.”

I go on to tell
her about Brendan’s reaction to the event and his subsequent behaviour.

“He doesn’t
want me, Lani.
 
He’s repulsed by
the way I look. It’s written all over his face.”

“The cancer’s
been a big adjustment for him. You have to give him time.”

“Isn’t two
months enough time?”

“There’s no
rulebook for this type of thing.”

“But he won’t touch
me unless I’m fully clothed and since the mastectomy, he’s avoided everything
between the navel and the neck. I may as well have had the other one chopped
off too.”