‘Beloved’
Episode 2
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The Receptionist’s voice broke through my quiet reverie. "Mr Porter?" she called. As I rose from my seat I felt the hot tears stinging the backs of my eyes. I simply could not cry here, surrounded by all these strangers. I followed a white-clad nurse into one of the Consulting rooms. The parallel with this time last year was painfully obvious to me, and I felt those tears spilling over into the corners of my eyes. I tried again to blink them back. Why do we sense with comparative ease when bad news is afoot? |
Even before he spoke, I knew the Doctor had little to cheer me. I just wanted it all over with, and I slumped into the chair he offered.
"Libby is very ill" he began, "and I have to tell you that I hold out very little hope for any recovery."
His voice was sympathetic and I bit back the urge to comment on his bluntness. He had nothing further to say and I knew he now waited for me to speak.
"You can do nothing?" I heard myself say.
"Well, we could operate to remove as much of the tumour as possible but I don’t know if she would survive the operation, and also this cancer is quite rife. She may have a few more months after the operation and a little less pain, but I do believe it will return."
What did he want me to say? Find a miracle? How I wanted to rage, rage at the cruelty of it, rage at the hurt to me and my beloved Libby, rage for having to face the same agony and anger and pain I had felt last year when I had lost my wonderful Diana to the same evil. Thirty years together snuffed out in only nine months. The irony was not lost on me. Nine months to create a life. Nine months to end one. And now, here I sat listening to the same fate for our beloved Libby …..
A few months, he had said, and I grasped at this like a drowning man to anything that might save him.
"Operate" I suddenly said, a little more savagely than I had truly intended.
"But Mr Porter …."
"Just operate! I have just lost my wife to this, I cannot bear to lose Libby as well. I will pay you, you will not be out of pocket", and suddenly I was on the other side of the door, facing all those strangers, with hot bitter tears welling from my eyes and down my face.