Sleight of Hand (15 page)

“Can you just call Tom and tell him then?” I ask.

“I'd rather not,” Jenny says, leaving the room.

“Text him maybe?”
I plead. But Jenny is already climbing the stairs.

“She's feeling poorly,” I tell Sarah who is standing staring at the now-empty doorway. “Don't worry, she'll be back down later. Now, if you can just finish your breakfast Miss,” I say, patting the seat of her chair.

As she continues eating her breakfast, I sit and finger the phone.

I think that I could text Tom, but he would just phone me back, furious. I could maybe email him, but then he might not see it – he might turn up anyway.

“Is uncle Tom coming?” Sarah asks.

“No. You heard Mummy say she's too tired for visits today, right?”

Sarah looks up at me and nods, giving me a better idea.

“Well how would you like to phone uncle Tom and tell him?”

Sarah nods again, simultaneously emptying a spoonful of rice-crispies onto the table.

“You can tell him all about your new doll as well.”

“Tom doesn't like Polly Pockets, he says they're boring.”

“Well you can tell him all about them anyway.”

Sarah spends a good ten minutes rambling on about her dolls before announcing, rather brutally. “Mummy says you can't come. She says no visits today.”

But Tom presumably takes this information better from Sarah than he would from me, because Sarah is still smiling when she hangs up.

I shower her and dress her and we spend the morning in the park. It's a grey old day but thankfully dry. I spoil her a little with chocolate from the refreshments kiosk and another round of her obsession – alphabet spaghetti – in an attempt at making up for her mother's pain-induced insularity.

And then I park her in front of the television and call Ricardo.

He tells me excitedly that he has found a reasonable deal for an iPhone and that he's heading into Santa Marta to pick it up later this morning.

“It's a double deal Chupy, that's the only thing, so I have to change the landline number as well,” he says.

“Isn't that Federico's though? Surely, the landline isn't ours.”

“I checked with him, and he doesn't mind.”

And then he tells me what he has found out about pontine gliomas. “Statistically she's going to die,” he says with Colombian brutality.

“Jesus babe, don't say that.”

“But you need to know. As far as I can see it's the worst prognosis of any kind of brain tumour. I'd say she's lucky if her chances are one in fifty.”

I glance at the door to check that Jenny is out of earshot. “God, I can see why the surgeon didn't want to discuss probabilities.”

“But don't tell her,” Ricardo says.

“Well, no, of course.”

“And I might be wrong. It's not my speciality, babe.”

“No.”

“But everything I can find says that it's usually fatal.”

And so, Sarah happily mesmerised by the
Teletubbies
, I sit and try to process this new information, this new concept … That Jenny, currently asleep upstairs, may not be around for that much longer. And I try to work out what that means, for her, for her daughter, for myself.

But there are no answers to be found.

Tuesday is the day everything changes. I'm not sure if Jenny is paralysed by fear or drugged to her eyeballs, but she remains entirely unemotional as Professor Twat describes the problem and his proposed treatment schedule. This he does with all the tact of a plumber describing fixes to a failing central heating system.

The tumour, he tells us, is grade three. Once I convince him to stop using technical terms which no one understands, he explains that this means that it
is
cancer, and it
is
growing, but at least not as fast as a grade four. He tells us that they would generally use radiotherapy and then follow on with chemotherapy if required, but that because Jenny's is so big, and because of where it's situated, and because she has already had seizures they intend to use both treatments at once. “The advantage,” he tells us proudly, “is that we double the chances of actually slowing the bugger down.”

“And the
disadvantage?”
Jenny asks – the only thing she says during the consultation.

“Well if it fails, there aren't a lot of other options,” he says. “But we can cross that bridge if and when we get to it.”

And then he sits and draws Jenny a calendar of the next three months.

Seeing as her new schedule involves radiotherapy every afternoon from Monday to Friday, plus extra appointments at the end of each month for chemotherapy consultations and progress scans, this clearly is going to be
my
timetable as well.

I don't
want
to spend the next three months driving back and forth between Camberley and London, and, if I were to analyse it, it wouldn't even seem reasonable considering my relationship with Jenny that it should fall on me to do so. But there simply isn't any other option, and so I don't think about it. I think instead,
“Oh! I had better tell Ricardo that I won't be coming home.”

Jenny maintains her icy calm during the entire consultation and conserves it as we negotiate the corridors of the hospital.

She even expresses some relief, saying bravely, “Well at least we know. At least now we have some idea.”

“Right,” I say.

“I mean, at least they're planning for, you know, three months. That's something,” she says.

“Yes,” I agree.

As I lean over to open the door of the hire car for her, I say, “You know we're going to have to sort your Mum's …”

“Sorry?” she asks, opening her door, fully.

“We're going to have to sort the Nissan out – insurance and stuff.”

Jenny climbs in and buckles up. “What do you mean?” she asks.

As I pull out onto the main road, I explain, “Well, if you have to come
every weekday
for
three months
, that's like … sixty trips or so. You can hardly rent a car every time. And you certainly can't take a hundred and twenty taxis.”

“No,” Jenny says. “But you know they took my licence away, right? Because of the seizures. I told you I got a letter from the DVLC?”

“Sure.”

“And I doubt I'd be up to driving anyway,” she says.

“Not
you. Me
. We need to get
my name
on the insurance.”

I'm fully occupied for a minute or so with the mess of traffic around the hospital, but once I get onto the A4 I realise that Jenny has gone very quiet. When I glance over I see that she's staring out of the side window, but that tears are streaming down her cheeks.

I check the mirror and pull into a bus stop.

“Oh babe!”
I say, stroking her shoulder.

“I didn't know,” she says. “That's all. And I was too afraid to ask.”

“You didn't know what?”

“If you'd stay. I didn't know if you'd be able to stay here.”

“Of course I will,” I say, squeezing her shoulder. “Of
course
I fucking will.”

Oh Chupy, what am I to say? Life should be so simple but others work with such devotion to make things complicated!

Though I was missing you like crazy, I started to be relieved as well that you weren't coming back too soon, because as your story with Jenny got complicated over in England so did mine here in Colombia.

Once she had my mobile number, there was no stopping her babe. Her texts flowed like blood from the wounds of Christ, first in drips, little
Sweet dreams
texts at night, or sometimes a
have a beautiful day
, text in the morning, and then like a torrent: Call me babe. Call me today. Call me now.

So I called her. I told her,
Cristina, baby, I had a lovely time with you, but it's now over. O.V.E.R. Over
. The line went dead immediately and I felt some relief that my message had got through. But then, not ten minutes later, my mobile rang again and she left the longest, loudest, maddest message my voicemail has ever had the misfortune to record. I would tell you what she said, but for the most part it was incomprehensible. She was raging, babe. Raging.

I called Movistar the very next morning and reserved myself an iPhone and a new number, but before I could even get there to pick it up she called me on Federico's landline.

“How did you get this number?” I asked her straight off, because that was the mystery that needed to be solved.

“Juan gave it to me,” she said.

“Juan?”

“Juan González,” she said.

“How the fuck do you know Juan González?” I asked, getting angry now.

“Well, Carlos gave me Maria's number, and Maria gave me Daniela Gómez' number, and she gave me Pepi González number, and he of course, gave me Juan's. He's such a polite boy. Is he cute?”

I was beside myself with anger Chupy. The stupid bitch had climbed my entire family tree and no doubt hung around on a comfortable branch here or there for a chat on her way up. And no matter how discreet she might have been – and I doubt frankly that the appropriate adverb is
very
– Colombian tongues would now be wagging.

At this point, I was still finding the whole thing vaguely amusing, and a little flattering also, so I just told her not to call me; I told her to work on her marriage and to forget me. I lied and said I was moving overseas and that there was no future for us. And when she hanged up on me again, I phoned Juan. He was the only member of the chain I felt close enough to discuss the matter with, and that babe, is when things got
really
scary.

“You have got yourself mixed up with one crazy bitch, Uncle,” he laughed. “And if Carlos finds out about it, you're a dead man. You really should know better.”

“Why am I a dead man?” I asked him, already shivering in anticipation of the explanation. As you know, you learn to take such phrases seriously here in Colombia.

“Well, for one he's an asshole,” Juan told me. “And for two, his business partner is Alejandro Ceballos. And for three he's your cousin.”

“He's
not
my cousin, Juan.”

“Well second cousin. Or
third
. Or something like that.”

“And who the hell is Alejandro Ceballos anyway?” I said.

“The son of
Antonio
Ceballos,” he said.

“Antonio Ceballos,” I repeated, “I know the name, but …”

“You've really been away too long Uncle,” Juan laughed. “Antonio Ceballos.
The Snake.”

“Shit, from the old Cali cartel?”

“Ah, you see, you do remember your Colombian history.”

“But he's dead, right? Antonio Ceballos is dead?”

“Not dead, in prison. Ceballos gave himself up, remember? But his son isn't in prison. His son spends his days with crazy Cristina's hubby Carlos.”

“Stop sounding like you think this is funny, Juan.”

“Hey, who's laughing?”

“So let me get this right? Carlos is business partners with the son of
The Snake?”

“Exactly. That sounds like a B-Movie.
Son of The Snake
. Starring Crazy Cristina.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“Yes Uncle. Fuck.”

“And the business?”

“I think they call it import/export these days.”

“Shit.”

“Oh yes.”

“So now I'm changing all my numbers, OK?”

“OK.”

“And if that crazy bitch calls you don't give her the new ones, OK?”

“Sure.”

“Or the address. Or the town even. Don't tell her where I am either.”

“Sure. You have vanished.”

“Tell her I've gone back to France.”

“Sure. But Uncle Ricardo?”

“Yes?”

“I kinda like my legs, right?”

“I'm sorry?”

“Well try to quiet her down, yeah? Because if
he
asks me … I mean, you know, if
Carlos
asks me … for
anything
… no matter what … well, the answer's gonna be, ‘yes.'”

“Sure.”

“I mean, if he wants me to suck him off
and
tell him where you are, the answer's still ‘yes.'”

“I hear you, Juan. I hear you.”

As if planning a military manoeuvre, we work out the fine details of who is going to do what and when. Jenny will get up with Sarah at six, and then return to bed for an hour. I will get up at eight, drive us to London, dropping Sarah at nursery en route, and then find some way to occupy myself for the hour that Jenny's treatment is slated to take. On the way back we will pick Sarah up along with any shopping needed.

Our test runs are to be Thursday and Friday when we have to go to London for fittings and pre-treatment consultations.

Of course, nothing goes quite to plan.

Thursday starts badly at half-five when Sarah wakes me from a nightmare by, for some reason known only to her, poking her finger into my ear.

“Ugh!” I splutter, jerking away and trying to focus on her features. “What are you doing?”

“You were talking,” she says.

“Um … I was having a dream,” I say. “What time is it?
Five?
Where's Mummy?”

“She's snoring,” Sarah says.

“God, OK … Go downstairs, and I'll be down in a minute.”

I lie and stare at the ceiling for five minutes to give my heart time to slow. I attempt to remember the nightmare too, but other than a house filled with corpses surrounded by a muddy field, it has already slipped into the void. But even that's enough to
work out what it was about: I am in a house filled with death, and I can't get away.

Jenny finally surfaces less than twenty minutes before we have to leave the house. “Sorry about that,” she says still applying lipstick as I unlock the Micra. “I just couldn't wake up.”