‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Kate,’ he says. ‘You all right?’
No. I’m not. It’s hard to explain why, but I feel like I’ve lost my husband and my best friend and my boss, all in one fell swoop.
My phone rings.
‘Kate? I’m Doctor Wilson. I’m a registrar in the neurology department, just taking a look at your husband’s preliminary test results. Are you still in the area? I’d like to speak with you.’
This is the call. Our lives are about to implode. I look at Hugh, watching me, concerned, and I have to restrain my hand from moving itself across the table to grasp his.
‘I’m coming now,’ I tell the doctor.
14
Cam is in the bed, looking as concerned as I feel. Doctor Wilson drags an extra chair into the cubicle and asks me to sit down. I do not want the kind of news that I can’t receive standing up. I take Cam’s hand nervously.
‘Okay. Now, as I understand it, you’ve presented here due to a car accident, with some concern that Cam may have hit his head. We’ve done a structural imaging scan and there’s no sign of trauma from the accident.’
‘As I thought,’ I say quietly.
‘But there are still a few unusual symptoms. Some cognitive difficulties, some confusion and memory issues. Is this something you’ve been noticing for a while?’
‘I just put it down to a busy life and stress,’ I say, feeling neglectful. ‘He’s so healthy.’
‘We’re going to need to do some more tests to find out what’s going on. To begin with, Cam, would you mind standing up and walking down the corridor and back?’
Cam gets off the bed and stands. He’s so tall. Those floppy, blond curls. That relaxed attitude that drew me towards him the second I saw him stride into that first lecture, smiling with his friends. He’d been unaware of the hold he had over me from that very first second, long before he passed that first note.
He walks down the corridor and back. Nothing out of the ordinary as far as I can tell. Surely there can’t be anything seriously wrong when someone looks as good as he does now.
Doctor Wilson performs a couple of tests on his reflexes and muscle coordination. He passes with flying colours. She asks about nutrition and alcohol use and scribbles notes on Cam’s file.
‘I’d like you to draw a clock face with all the numbers correctly positioned,’ she says. ‘And please show the time as ten past two.’
He flashes me a confident grin and does as she asks.
‘Now, Cam. I’m going to ask you to remember three items,’ she says. ‘Table, shoe and Richmond Street. Got that?’
Cam winks at me. ‘Table, shoe, Richmond Street.’
‘Great. Now, what day is it today?’
‘Monday the eighth.’
Relief floods through me.
‘What’s your wife’s name?’
‘Kate.’
‘Name and ages of your children?’
‘Charlie, he’s one. And Kate is pregnant, just a few weeks along. We had the ultrasound earlier.’
I feel like giving him a standing ovation. I’ve never been so proud! It must have been a bump to the head, surely? Can’t we call it a day?
‘What were those three items I asked you to remember?’ Doctor Wilson asks, after a few more basic questions. She puts the file down and looks at Cam carefully.
Confusion.
‘I recall you asking me to remember some things.’
‘Take your time. There were three.’
Table, Cam. Shoe! RICHMOND STREET! How can this be so hard?
He looks at me, tears in his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Katie.’
His remorse over failing this test is the single most tragic moment I’ve ever witnessed. My blood runs cold as I feel our relationship slipping away from us already, ushering in a bleak new reality that’s dark and confusing and something I don’t feel remotely equipped to handle.
‘We’ll get to the bottom of this, but you’ll need to be admitted,’ the doctor says. ‘There are lots of tests to come. I’ll hand you over to the nursing staff to make that happen.’
With Cam finally settled on the seventh-floor neurological ward by 8pm, I’m made to leave so he can get some proper rest. And so that I can too, apparently, even though I know for a fact I’m not going to sleep a wink. I’ve been updating Grace and Hugh all afternoon, and I’d had to phone Mum earlier to fill her in and ask her to collect Charlie from childcare mid-afternoon.
‘Neurological ward?’ she’d repeated just now when I called again. ‘But Cam is such a brilliant man, Katherine!’
‘Brilliant men do get sick, Mum,’ I’d answered impatiently. ‘Being clever isn’t an immunity idol.’
‘A what?’
‘Never mind.’
‘But his brain, of all things?’
Thankfully Grace was due back about now and should be at home with Charlie soon, waiting for me. I really need a non-confrontational face.
I walk into the lift and push the button for the ground floor. The doors close and I feel temporarily cocooned. Of course as soon as the doors shut, the tears come. What is going to happen to us? What about this baby?
Moments later, the bell pings and the lift doors open and I have this fleeting wish that my fairy godmother will be standing there, ready to transform the entire situation. But it’s some other crying family, going up. This place is horrible.
I’ve never felt more alone than I do walking into the hospital’s main foyer, which was buzzing earlier in the day but is now dimly lit and eerily quiet. When I see him, I stop in my tracks. He’s sitting on the lounge alone, illuminated by his laptop, tie undone and draped around his neck, shirt sleeves rolled up. Diligent. Patient.
When he sees me, he shuts the lid of the computer and stands up. I walk straight over to him, not even trying to disguise the fact that I’m upset. I want to fall into his arms and bawl, but something stops me. It’s not the fact that he’s my boss – in this moment we are just two humans having a very real, grown-up experience. It’s the invisible wall he keeps around himself, which I noticed the first time we met. It commands respect.
‘Why are you still here?’ I ask.
‘I went back to work in the interim,’ he explains. ‘But you gave me a comprehensive list of all the support you don’t have. Your best friend is at home with Charlie. You crashed your car. I figured you’d need a lift home eventually.’
I don’t know what to say. It’s extraordinarily kind of him. ‘I would have caught an Uber.’
‘I know. But you’ll be up for some hefty medical bills and a lot of uncertainty. It’s one small thing I could do to help. I’d have been working at home in Kingston, ten minutes away, anyway. This is just a change of scene.’
Does he ever stop working? I wait while he packs up his things and we walk outside into the crisp night air where I breathe deeply.