Gallery Whispers

17

Neil Mcllhenney stared out of the only window in the small consulting room. It looked on to a car park, in which every space seemed to be occupied. 'I never realised' he whispered, to himself.

'What?' said Olive sharply, beside him.

'Sorry love,' he replied. 'I was thinking out loud. The car parks here; there are so many of them, and they're all full. I never realised that there were so many sick people.'

'You just concentrate on this one!' The strain in her voice tore at his heart; he reached across and took her hand, feeling the pressure as she squeezed his.

'Sure, love, sure.'

They had been in the clinic for just over two hours. In that time, Olive had been weighed, examined by a thin-faced girl who had introduced herself as Dr Berry, Mr Simmers' registrar, and sent for a scan. A few minutes before they had been called back into the consulting room.

They looked over their shoulders, simultaneously, as the door opened. A tall, well-built, fair-haired, round-faced man strode into the room, wearing a white coat and with the tool of his trade, a stethoscope, hanging from his neck. 'Good afternoon,' he said. 'I'm Mr Simmers, your consultant. Sorry to have kept you waiting; I'm afraid that the first consultation always seems to take for ever. That's because there are so many things we have to do.'

He sat, not behind his desk, but on it, and looked directly at Olive.

At once Neil was struck by the gentleness of his eyes and by the calmness of his expression. From out of nowhere, an inexplicable feeling of relief swept over him.

'The first thing I have to ask you, Mrs Mcllhenney, is this. Do you understand what is happening to you?'

'Yes,' she replied; the word was clipped, but controlled.

'That's good. In these situations we can't afford to prevaricate. You have an incurable disease, Mrs Mcllhenney; we can't avoid that fact.

You have a carcinoma of the right lung in the second stage of development. Now I use the word incurable because that in clinical terms is what it is. However it is not untreatable; there are ways of attacking your tumour, and the secondary growth.

'Surgery isn't an option here, not with the metastasis in the lymphatic system. But we do have the options of chemotherapy or radiation therapy or a mixture of both. There is a chance that if you react favourably, your cancer can be driven into remission, possibly indefinitely. Looking at your X-Ray, and on the basis of Dr Berry's examination, I would propose that we start you on a course of chemotherapy. Radiation might have a part to play later, depending on the rate of progress, but not just yet.'

For the first time, the consultant looked at Neil, then back to Olive.

His gentle blue eyes were unblinking. 'I'm not going to play anything down here. These treatments are aggressive, and the side-effects… at least initially… will be unpleasant. You'll experience a day or two of fairly violent sickness, but we'll do what we can to control that, using steroids.

'However…' He paused. 'However; there is a further alternative which I have to put to you, and that is that we simply give you palliative treatments and concentrate on keeping you as well and as comfortable as possible, for as long as possible. The choice has to be yours.'

To her complete surprise, she smiled at him. 'You mean I can give up?' she asked. Then, without waiting for a reply, she looked sideways at Neil, raising her eyebrows very slightly. He gave the briefest of nods.

Olive Mcllhenney turned back to the consultant. 'As my husband would say, if I didn't have him so well trained,' she said, 'bugger that for a game of soldiers.

'When do we start the treatment?'