It’s the Saturday one week after Lizzie had her last chemo session.
Usually things are calming down at this point. Lizzie has got past her worst days (which are usually three or four days after the chemo, when the steroids have worn off) and, as a family, we begin to collectively sigh a sigh of relief.
Not this Saturday, however.
At this point I’d like to point out… it’s not really my intention, in this blog, to dwell on the less good aspects of Lizzie’s and my relationship.
After all, every couple has their ups and downs. And, to be honest, it also feels a little shitty to be moaning about any of our downs – when Lizzie has been going through the things she’s been going through. Ungentlemanly, you could say! Grossly insensitive, might be another way of putting it.
Also, it takes two to tango… and any disagreements between me and Lizzie are at least fifty percent my responsibility. Maybe a good deal more. It would be churlish to deny it.
On the other hand, if I’m giving the impression that things are always harmonious between the two of us… well, that’s not entirely an accurate impression. In a weird way, I’d say we’ve been getting on better since the whole ‘C’ business began. United by a common enemy and all that. But also, there have been plenty of times when the stress of the ‘Big C’ has widened the cracks which are undeniably there, between us. I mean, it would, wouldn’t it? (To misquote Mandy Rice-Davies). The incident below is a pretty good example of this.
So, as I said it’s the Saturday one week after Lizzie’s last chemo.
The minute I wake up and get out of bed, Lizzie accosts me and says… ‘you know that muntjac Cedric nearly killed a few weeks ago?’
‘Er… yes?’ I reply, sort of knowing. In fact, Lizzie did tell me a couple of weeks before that our nutty dog had nearly managed to murder one of these poor creatures. Muntjacs, in case you don’t know, are small piggy-looking deer… and, for some reason, we get a constant procession of them going through our back garden.
‘Well,’ continues Lizzie, ‘he didn’t nearly kill the muntjac… he did kill it. I’ve just spotted it halfway up the garden. And it STINKS.’ Lizzie fixes me with her pale blue eyes. ‘Can you get rid of it?’
I desperately try to think of an excuse. How about I’ve just had a hernia operation and the doctor’s told me not to move anything heavy for a while… and I’m sure that includes dead muntjacs. Nah, even as I think of it, it sounds lame.
‘OK, I’ll do it,’ I grumblingly concede. ‘In a bit.’
Of course, when I say ‘in a bit’ it means ‘after I’ve put it off for as long as possible’. Exactly as it does when Jake says he’ll do his homework ‘in a bit’ (although when he does it, of course, it drives me nuts).
After all, I’ll admit it, I’m in no hurry to drag the dead carcass of an animal up the garden (for the purpose of throwing it over the fence at the top, where all the other victims of our mass-murdering hound – mostly bunnies – are piled up). To be honest, I’m still recovering from the horror of having to bury a dead baby deer in the garden, the previous year (presumably the baby deer was killed by Cedric – but we have no conclusive evidence of this).
Unfortunately, deep down I know I’m deluding myself. When Lizzie asks me something like this, ‘in a bit’ is not an option. The only option is the thing has to be done NOW!
As soon as I say ‘in a bit’, I know from Lizzie’s frown that I’ve fucked up. But I try to put it out of my head. ‘I’ll make myself a coffee. And then I’ll get rid of the dead muntjac. OK?’
Lizzie doesn’t say anything. Her silence speaks volumes.
Minutes later, I’m doing what I’ve set out to do. About all my mind can manage to do, first thing on a Saturday morning. I’m making myself a coffee.
As I pour the hot water over the instant coffee granules, I look up and see… Lizzie stomping up the garden, pulling one of our red plastic toboggans behind her over the grass.
Resting on the toboggan, is a small bundle of fur. It’s not an item of clothing, sadly (a warm coat to go tobogganing in, for instance – even though there’s no snow). The thing on the toboggan, of course, is the dead muntjac. Lizzie, impatient as ever, couldn’t bring herself to wait for my ‘in a bit.’
Of course, I should run out and offer to take over. To finish dragging the creature up the garden and then to sling it over the fence. But I’m finding the whole situation too surreal for the thought to cross my mind. Also, I’m still in my pyjamas.
Lizzie continues dragging the muntjac up the garden. If there was snow, it’s the kind of sight you might expect to see in a documentary about the struggles of being an Eskimo.
The muntjac is smaller than I was expecting. It looks less like the kind of piggy-deer I remember seeing running across the garden… and more like a prostrate furry chicken.
It’s so small, I could definitely have picked it up – hernia or no hernia. It’s then, the realisation fully hits home…
I’ve REALLY fucked up.
For the rest of the morning – and into the afternoon – I’m on tenterhooks. Are Lizzie and I friends? Or is she going to hold the dead muntjac against me? (Not literally, I hope).
As we have lunch and then go about our chores, things remain uncertain. Lizzie isn’t talking to me much. But she is talking to me. Maybe we can put the whole muntjac episode behind us… you know, stick it on the toboggan of forgetfulness and push it away, out of our minds forever. Or some better metaphor.
The afternoon pushes on and Lizzie begins to get slowly more talkative. I’m out of the woods! I think to myself (unlike that dead muntjac). She isn’t cross with me any longer!
‘So,’ says Lizzie, as we make ourselves tea. ‘Are you going to come to my Mum’s tonight for curry?’
‘Yes?’ I reply, uncertainly.
Unwittingly, I’m now about to make my second – even more catastrophic – error of judgement.
Lizzie has mentioned a week or so before, the plan for us all to go to her mother’s for a curry this Saturday evening – which is now this evening.
It hasn’t occurred to me that I wouldn’t go, since then. I just took it as a given. But then Lizzie says:
‘You don’t have to come, if you’re too busy. I know you have a lot of work to do.’
Well, that’s true, I think. I DO have a lot of work to do. It would definitely be good to get started on it. And it is true. I’m still teaching an online screenwriting course, based on a successful book on the subject (someone else’s book) and I’ve got loads of notes which need writing up by Sunday evening.
There are also a couple of other factors. The first is, Lizzie went to her mother with the kids a couple of weeks before. She said she was happy for me to skip it, so I did… and everything was fine. That time.
The second factor is… I’m still a little stroppy about the muntjac business that morning. Things are tangibly tense between me and Lizzie, still, and I keep on thinking she’s so impatient! Why couldn’t she have waited until I was ready ‘in a bit’! Whenever that was going to be.
And so, bearing all these things in mind, I look at Lizzie and say:
‘Staying at home would be really helpful. Thank you!’
I smile… and Lizzie looks back at me, inscrutably.
What a complete fucking idiot, I’ve just been. Deep down, I know it.
I mean… have I forgotten Flamingo-gate?
Flamingo-gate happened a few years ago, long before the spectre of cancer reared its ugly head in our lives.
It was the twenty-first birthday of one of Lizzie’s nieces. The niece’s mother loves organising parties for any occasion… and, needless to say, this was going to be a big one.
The event was to take place in the large garden of their family home in the West Midlands countryside. And the theme was to be… Alice in Wonderland. It was fancy dress. You had to wear fancy dress. There was no escaping it.
Lizzie and I were in a mood with each other, that day, anyway. I can’t remember why. It could have been any one of a thousand reasons. Anyway, this was long before Lizzie got ill, so I was feeling a lot less guilty about it, than I would do now.
The time was coming for us to don our costumes. Needless to say, I’d prepared absolutely nothing to get dressed up in – knowing that Lizzie had been on the case, on the family costumes front, for weeks beforehand.
Last time Lizzie had sorted out costumes for the four of us – at the niece’s mother’s (i.e. Lizzie’s sister’s) previous big party, which had had a pantomime theme – it had worked out… ok. Lizzie had decided me, her, Jake and Annie should go as Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Jake had gamely dressed up as Goldilocks (he’d seemed very keen to, for some reason). And the rest of us had worn huge, brown, spherical papier-mâché bear heads, over our own, which had made it impossible to talk to anyone (it felt like you were wearing an old copper diving helmet) or even to walk in a straight line.
But that was nothing, compared to this year’s costumes.
This year Lizzie and I – I was informed – would arrive at the party with another of Lizzie’s sisters, along with her husband, all wearing a matching set of costumes.
We would be going as four flamingos, from the Queen of Heart’s court.
A couple of hours before the party, Lizzie revealed my flamingo costume.
It was the kind of outfit the old comedian Bernie Clifton (no relation) used to walk about in. A bird puppet outfit, in which your legs and body are covered in fake-feathers… and a bird’s long neck and head protrude out of your front, where you can control them with a couple of rods-disguised-as-reins.
I put my flamingo outfit on.
It was grotesque. Not because it was so lurid (although that didn’t help). But because the flamingo’s large pink neck, which protruded directly upwards from my midriff area, looked like nothing less than a massive pink, upright cock.
‘I can’t wear this to the party!’ I shrieked, the moment I put the outfit on. ‘It’s obscene.’
The outfit was quite pornographic, it seemed to me. I had a hideous mental image of myself, Lizzie, her sister and her sister’s husband arriving at the party – in the ghastly things – and all of Lizzie’s extended family hooting with laughter at the sight of us.
Hoo hoo… they look like a bunch of massive cocks! What a total lark!
This is exactly the kind of off-colour thing Lizzie’s family finds hilarious. That’s just how they are.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I like a good willy joke as much as the next man or woman. But I guess, that evening, I just wasn’t feeling good-humoured enough to be the butt (or cock) of the joke, in such a highly-visible way.
I think the fact the party was going to be full of twenty-one year olds added to my feeling of discomfort. It seemed quite likely they might ask themselves… who’s this creepy old man, who’s not even related to the birthday girl, and what’s that big pink thing he’s pointing at us?
The humiliation!
I took a deep breath.
‘I don’t really want to wear this,’ I said to Lizzie, pulling the flamingo outfit off and discarding it on the floor like a massive pink used condom.
Lizzie looked back at me, inscrutably.
‘How about I wear this instead?’ I said to Lizzie, a couple of minutes later, having patched together a lacklustre rabbit outfit from some items in the kids’ dressing-up box.
Lizzie shrugged. After a moment’s silence, she said:
‘I’d really like you to wear the flamingo outfit. My sister and her husband are doing it.’
‘Yeah, but they’re the kind of people who’d find it funny,’ I whined. ‘I’m not like them. I just don’t feel comfortable doing it.’
Another moment’s silence.
Finally, Lizzie said:
‘You don’t have to come, if you don’t want to. You can just stay at home.’
Even then, I knew she didn’t really mean it. She meant the exact opposite. And I was meant to read between the lines… and gamely put on the flamingo outfit and strut around the party, with my flamingo neck and head proudly erect.
But I REALLY didn’t want to go in the outfit. So, either bravely or selfishly (you decide), but definitely suicidally whichever way you look at it, I said to Lizzie:
‘I will stay at home. Thank you! Send my love to your family!’
For the next two months, Lizzie barely spoke to me.
When she did… it wasn’t pretty.
During this time, I often asked myself… was it worth it? Was my act of defiance worth the endless tension – peppered by occasional explosions into full-blown argument – which resulted?
I still don’t know. I probably never will.
Anyway, now you know the whole sorry story that was… FLAMINGO-GATE.
So… back to the present.
And here I am, in a similar situation with Lizzie.
In case you’ve forgotten what happened, earlier in this blog post, Lizzie has just said to me (in regard to going for a curry this evening, at her Mum’s): ‘You don’t have to come, if you’re too busy. I know you have a lot of work to do.’
And I’ve just replied: ‘Staying at home would be really helpful. Thank you!’
I’ve followed that by smiling at Lizzie… and she’s responded by staring back at me, inscrutably.
‘OK then,’ Lizzie says finally. ‘I’ll just go with the kids.’
She turns and goes.
Is that it? I think. Does she actually mean it? Do I not have to go to the curry?
Maybe she really doesn’t mind! Maybe I’ve gotten away with it!
OH MY GOD. What a tosspot I’m being.
OF COURSE Lizzie doesn’t mean what she said.
OF COURSE she meant the exact opposite.
OF COURSE she wants me to go for the curry.
OF COURSE I shouldn’t have taken her words at face value.
Have I learnt NOTHING from Flamingo-gate?
I try to put it out of my head. Try to deny the bleeding obvious. That I’ve fucked up. And – even if I do get a rare evening to myself, tonight – there’ll be a price to pay for it.
The reckoning comes the following morning… when I head into the bedroom to do… I dunno, something unimportant… probably just to find a cap to cover my big bald head, or something like that.
Lizzie is already in the bedroom, wearing a beanie which covers her own baldness.
We don’t say much. But the air between us crackles. Not in a good, sexy way. In a terrifying, I’m done for way.
As I write this down, I can’t exactly remember what’s said between myself and Lizzie which finally ignites things… and makes them boil over so spectacularly. Probably some terse, meaningless exchange. Maybe about the muntjac. Who knows?
Anyway, moments later, it’s clear Lizzie is INCREDIBLY cross with me.
OF COURSE she wanted me to come for the curry last night. Wasn’t it bleeding obvious?
Sort of, I think. I was kind of in a state of denial.
But that’s just the start. Lizzie berates me, telling me that this wasn’t just any old curry with her mother… it was a special Lizzie having her last chemo curry (or ‘chemo curry’ for short. Although Lizzie doesn’t actually call it this, she’s too angry). And – by saying I wouldn’t come – I’ve totally failed. Again. I haven’t given her the support she wanted, when she needed it most.
Lizzie emphasises her last point, about having her last chemo, by tearing off her beanie dramatically – revealing her bald pate. It’s a potent reminder of the fact she’s been having chemotherapy, for months now, in case I’ve somehow forgotten.
I now feel a weird mixture of angry… and awful. Why didn’t Lizzie just say what she meant? It’s so frustrating! I think to myself. But, of course, I knew she didn’t mean what she said the moment she said it and didn’t mean it.
Normally (i.e. in pre-cancer times), I might just wallow in the flow of my own crossness… and go with it. But here’s where the feeling awful part comes in.
I do feel awful. Perhaps I was being naïve and stupid, but I didn’t really realise how important the curry was to Lizzie.
Now, of course, it’s too late.
The terrible thing is… I actually wouldn’t have minded going for the curry all along. Sure, I had work to do (and the prospect of watching an action movie by myself on the sofa).
But a free curry? Mmmm! It’s not like having to dress up in a flamingo-outfit which makes you look like a walking cock.
Lizzie and I spend the rest of the weekend barely speaking.
At one point, I mumble a half-hearted ‘I’m sorry Lizzie, I didn’t realise the curry evening meant so much to you.’ It’s not much of an apology, though. A half-apology at best. Like the half-apology Tony Blair gave when he said something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry I was given faulty intelligence and started the Iraq War.’ That wasn’t even a half-apology, you might say. More of a non-apology-whilst-letting-himself-off-the-hook kind of apology.
My own non-apology-whilst-letting-myself-off-the-hook kind of apology backfires… and starts another argument. When that fizzles out, the rest is silence (and not in a nice, calming way).
It’s the Monday night after our rocky weekend.
The whole family – Jake and Annie included – is still shivering from the frostiness in the house (emotional frostiness, I mean. We don’t have actual frost in our house. It might be cold, but we’ve not reached that point yet).
As we group in the kitchen and help ourselves (slightly guiltily on my part) to the leftover takeaway curry – from the weekend’s disastrous ‘family’ visit to Grandma – Annie, in a quiet moment, suddenly asks:
‘Where Jake and I planned?’
She says this with the same slight smirk on her face she had when she asked me the day before – on the way back from B&Q – a similar question: are Mummy and you only together because you have children? Her expression suggests she knows she’s being outrageous and this is sort of, kind of funny for her. But, also, maybe there’s some deep down issue here (caused by a total parenting failure on our part) and Annie clearly just wants to know… where she and Jake planned?
I mean, why on earth – how on earth – could a couple who bicker like me and Lizzie actually plan to have children? I’m afraid this is the exact thought going through our twelve-year-old daughter’s head (just like the question are Mummy and you only together because you have children? went through her head yesterday).
‘You were planned,’ I say to Annie – and to Jake. And I mean it. Despite the clear unlikeliness of it to Annie, they actually were.
‘You were planned,’ repeats Lizzie. ‘And you’re both very much loved – and very much wanted.’
It’s hard to tell how much Annie is reassured by this, but she does look slightly pleased. Even Jake nods, barely perceptibly, at Lizzie’s comforting maternal words.
I need to say something comforting to the kids too, I tell myself.
Something reassuring and simple. In fact, I should say exactly what Lizzie just said. Word for word. Don’t cock it up!
I look at the children, solemnly, filled with paternal love. ‘That’s right, you’re both loved. Very much. And you’re both wanted…’
There’s a beat… and then I suddenly find myself turning to Jake and pulling a stupid, hammy face – unable to stop myself.
‘… BY THE POLICE!!’ I finish.
The solemn, love-filled moment comes to a crashing end.
Jake looks at me, appalled, then bursts out laughing. ‘That is RIDICULOUS!’ he giggles. ‘That is so not funny.’
I’m giggling now too.
I glance over at Lizzie, who frowns back at me.
Too soon… too soon… I tell myself, like a stand-up comedian who cracks a joke about a natural catastrophe, then realises his audience isn’t ready for it.
Too soon… too soon… Lizzie continues to frown and, unfortunately, I continue to giggle.
P. D. Clifton 
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