is far greater than mine. I have to start from scratch. But maybe that’s part of the reason. I read how chemotherapy and radiotherapy destroy healthy cells as well as cancerous ones, how they do more harm than good according to some reports, how some people recommend going nowhere near them. I read that a study of more than six hundred cancer patients who died within thirty days of receiving treatment showed chemotherapy probably caused or hastened death in twenty-seven percent of cases. In only thirty-five percent of these cases was care judged to have been good by the inquiry’s advisors, with forty-nine percent having room for improvement and eight per cent receiving less than satisfactory care. I read a study that shows chemotherapy can change the blood flow and metabolism of the brain in ways that can linger for ten years or more after treatment, that this could help explain the confusion, sometimes called “chemo brain,” reported by many chemotherapy patients. And The Times’ website tells me 300,000 patients now receive chemotherapy in the uk each year, a sixty per cent increase compared to 2004. Furthermore, cancer causes thirteen percent of all human deaths. And according to the American Cancer Society, 7.6 million people throughout the world died from cancer during 2007. I don’t tell Anna about these findings. She’ll put her life in the hands of the medical profession. She comes from a medical background. It’s the only thing she can do. If there’s any complimentary medicine or vitamins on offer and the medical profession don’t argue against them, then she’ll have those too she says, as long as there aren’t too many.
I come up with four supplements that are said to be vital in fighting cancer, but then I find another four, and then more too. We can’t afford all of them and Anna won’t pop loads of pills each meal time anyway. I don’t know which ones to buy. I don’t know which would be more useful, which could be vital. So I click on four, close my eyes and hope for the best.
•
We bounced along on the back of a trailer, half asleep and holding on for dear life as the sunrise slowly announced itself and smoke from our cheap cigarettes curled upwards to meet it. Fifteen minutes later a large man with curly black hair and straight face introduced himself as Amit, showed us a square of wood with a circle cut out the middle. We were picking apples he said, and he didn’t expect any that fitted through the circle. They were too small and had to be left on the trees. We set off in pairs, apple measurers around necks on string, four empty buckets each. When we filled our buckets they had to be emptied into large crates which were moved by tractor to ensure they were always in front of us. The picking was hard work and by seven in the morning the sun started to burn. But it was soothing too, once you got used to the boss barking instructions, as it took so little concentration, allowed your thoughts to wander. I worked with Rob down one line of trees while Anna and Helen had the next. Amit followed, checked trees, shouted we’d missed apples. Then he went and checked crates and shouted we’d put apples in that were too small. It was not a joke he said. The future of kibbutzim depended upon agriculture. The fruit went all over Israel, some of it abroad too. It was the kibbutz’s main source of income. They couldn’t survive without it. At eight we were back in the cabin eating omelette and salad for breakfast, speaking quietly as Israelis shouted across the table in Hebrew. Then we were given water bottles and sent back to work. I wandered along with Rob, climbed trees, chatted, found comfort in the combination of activity and silence. Whenever the opportunity arose though, my gaze drifted backwards to the two English girls smiling and chatting their way through the line of trees next to us. Faster they went, driven by childish competition that didn’t want boys to finish in front of them. I smiled and pointed, told them they’d missed some, would be in trouble. We stopped for cigarette breaks when the boss wasn’t around, sat crossed legged on the earth. That’s when I first became aware of Anna and myself staring into each other’s eyes, losing ourselves in a whirl of iris, in wonder and admiration. But there were times when we couldn’t look each other in the eye, when we had to look away, had to look anywhere but the eyes. I knew during those early days which way my hopes were turning. But there was one significant stumbling block. Anna was returning to England in December to study to be a nurse. Helen, like me, had no timescales to adhere to.
•
We’re on a wild manure hunt armed with wellies, spades and empty bags. After an hour we find some by the side of the road, a large pungent heap beautifully ready. We decide we should ask at the farm but the gate’s padlocked so we just help ourselves instead, all of us getting stuck in. As I dig out the better manure from the bottom of the pile, the top caves in and a little field mouse jumps comically for its life and scampers away. We fill eight bags and put them in the boot, then go home for dinner. Then we go to the school field for bike practice, assault course and family football. Nobody talks about cancer, about life or death. We simply live for the moment. And it’s a beautiful day, a perfect Sunday.
It’s last thing at night before bedtime. She’s in the shower when she notices this one as well. She doesn’t shout me upstairs, just waits until I walk into the bathroom, says it matter of fact. Points to her other breast.
“I’ve got another lump”
I move forwards, press my finger into her breast and squash it, just above the nipple. It’s there alright. It doesn’t feel much, just a tiny firm lump the size of a pea, a little smaller than the one on the other breast but similar in all other ways. It moves when I press it, like it’s trying to evade me singling it out, slip back to being unnoticed until it can spread its vile malignance further. Anna stands there in some kind of daze, water dripping from her naked body.
“It might not be cancer,” I say. “You’ll probably think it is just because of the last one, but it might not be”
She doesn’t look at me.
“It feels like the last one,” she says.
“Yeah I know, but the last one felt like a cyst according to the doctor so that’s no definite sign”
She smiles. One of those flat ones
“And even if it is, then it’s probably better to find it now anyway. Better that than wait two years down the line and think you’re in the clear”
Her face does nothing so I continue mumbling whatever comes into my head.
“They can probably just deal with everything in one go as well”
And then she looks up at me, scared puppy dog eyes.
“But can they operate on both at the same time?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know”
And I reach out to her naked body and pull her in close.
I’m going for lunch with Kathleen, a colleague and friend who’s been through it all herself fourteen years ago. She takes my hand, tells me everything will be alright, looks at me with eyes that understand. I telephone Anna who starts crying on the phone. The hospital doesn’t have any appointments until Thursday and that’s with a nurse, not a doctor, so she can’t be examined. She’s waiting for our GP to phone back, needs to speak to someone today. Needs someone to tell her that there really is a lump in her other breast. That she’s not imagining it.
“There is,” I say. “I felt it”
“I know,” she says. “But I need to see someone today. I need to speak to someone”
“I’ll cancel my class this afternoon, come back home”
“No, don’t worry”
“It’s not a problem. Everyone’s really understanding here”
“Honestly. It’s okay. Helen’s coming
