Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [74]
So once again, without even seeing the sleight of hand, I’d given up another piece of my personality and replaced it with a slice of Peter’s. My pride at pulling my weight and my desire to work had gone up against Peter’s raging sense of entitlement and hadn’t even landed a punch. I hate myself for it now, but I just gave in. Another cherished belief handed over and trampled into the dust by the master manipulator.
Living off a disability pension meant Peter was always disappearing to the doctor’s for check-ups and tests. Usually he’d return with the largest bag of pills I’d ever seen. Some of them had names like Amitriptyline and Triazolam, but I didn’t have a clue what they were for.
‘Do you take all of those?’
‘Every one,’ he said. ‘Until next month when I get a new batch.’
God, I’d had no idea he was so ill. I’d never heard him mention his pain since that first day in the Hungry Years. The poor love must be so brave, I thought, keeping it to himself. And what pain must he have been in to warrant this vast amount of drugs? I didn’t have any answers. All I could say for sure is that I was more determined than ever to look after him. He deserved it.
One day Peter returned from his trip to the GP with the usual medication, but I could tell there was something wrong. It was in his face, in his body language, it even seemed to come out of his pores.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Oh, don’t you worry about me, hen, I’m fine,’ he said, but clearly that was a lie.
If my man’s ill, it’s my job to know, I told myself. The amount of pride I derived from seeing through his protestations of good health was ridiculous. It was affirmation, me proving that I was a good girlfriend.
I had to wrestle it out of him, or so I thought, but eventually Peter told me to sit down with him. Worried as hell, I obeyed. Every second that he sat there, in silence, I felt the fear rise in me. What on earth is he going to say? I’d gone from pride to anxiety to abject terror in the blink of an eye.
‘I saw my doctor today and he gave me the results of a test I had done last week.’
‘Test? What test? You never told me you were having a test? What’s wrong?’
‘I found a lump,’ he said, so quietly that I had to lean in, hanging on his every syllable. ‘In my testicle.’
I gasped. I couldn’t help it. The tears were already in my eyes, waiting for their cue.
‘It’s not . . . ?’ I couldn’t bring myself to say the word.
Peter nodded. ‘It is. I’m sorry, love. I’ve got cancer.’
Wow. When a bombshell like that hits, you can either bury your head in the sand or go crazy. I went crazy, completely into overdrive. I wanted to know everything about this perfidious disease. I wanted to completely mother my man, fulfil his every whim. And I wanted to show my love for him more than ever. We had to fight this together. We were a team.
‘Are they going to cut your balls off?’ I asked.
Of all the questions! But that’s what they did to women with breast cancer. I figured it would be the same for him.
Peter shook his head. ‘No, thank God. The doctor thinks he can treat it with a laser. I won’t lose anything.’ He paused. ‘Except . . .’
‘Except what? Come on, you can tell me. I’m here for you.’
He picked up my hands and stared directly into my eyes. I felt like he could see into my very soul.
‘The thing is, Cathy, when they use the laser, they’ll kill off my reproductive ability. I’m so sorry,’ he said, crying now. ‘I won’t be able to give you children.’
That was in January 1987. By the start of February I’d done some serious thinking. This was the man I intended to spend my life with. This was my war hero, my lover, my worldly gift of a man. At some point in the future, I rationalized, I will want to have his babies. That wasn’t going to be possible, though, was it?