22 Cyrus

22

I knock on Evie's door. ‘Are you awake?'

‘No.'

‘You have a phone call from Dr Bennett at the hospital.'

‘I'll call her back,' says Evie, half asleep.

‘It sounds urgent.'

I open the door. Evie's room is darker than a cave. Poppy raises her head and thumps her tail against the mattress. She's supposed to be sleeping downstairs in the laundry, but that house rule didn't last long. I put the phone onto speaker and hold it out of Evie's reach.

‘She's listening,' I say.

‘Hello, Evie,' says Dr Bennett. ‘I've been trying to contact you. ‘Did you get my messages?'

‘No,' says Evie.

‘I have your MRI results. Can you come and see me?'

‘I'm busy.'

‘No you're not,' I say. Evie tries to snatch the phone out of my fingers. I keep it from her. ‘We can come today.'

‘I'll put you down for eleven o'clock,' says Dr Bennett.

‘We'll be there. Thank you for calling.'

Evie glares at me and rolls away, facing the wall.

‘Have you been avoiding her?' I ask.

‘No.'

‘Well, get dressed. We leave in half an hour.'

‘I can drive myself.'

‘I want to be there.'

‘Why? It's none of your business.'

‘I care about you.'

‘No. You like sticking your nose into my life. You're not my father, or my guardian, or my big brother. What am I to you?'

‘My friend.'

Her eyes narrow. She knows I'm telling the truth and that annoys her because she wants us to be more than friends and housemates and co-parents to Poppy. I suspect I know the reason. Evie has survived so much abuse in her life that she could be forgiven for never trusting another human being, let alone a man. Then I came along and listened to her. I read between her lines and didn't judge or pity her or make her feel broken. The opposite happened. I made her feel normal and unsullied and stronger. But sometimes survivors like Evie mistake empathy and listening for something deeper and more romantic. In psychology we call it erotic transference. Evie argues that she is not my patient so it shouldn't matter. But it does, of course. And it's never going to happen. I can only love her as a friend.

We drive in silence through countryside that is dotted with pretty farmhouses and ugly barns and golden wheels of hay. Heat shimmers off the road, creating darker pools that look like puddles of water. Holiday traffic is banked up at roadworks and exits – tourist coaches with bug-splattered windscreens and jug-eared mirrors; caravans and campervans and family wagons loaded with beach gear and children.

Evie opens a window and tilts her face into the rushing air. I notice her hands. She has picked off her nail polish and bitten her cuticles raw. A bad sign. She switches on the radio and flicks between stations, looking for a song that suits her mood, which is sour. Finally, she connects her phone and plays techno, loudly, because she knows it annoys me.

At the hospital, we wait in a patient lounge decorated with posters of healthy, attractive people doing active things because they've been vaccinated or taken the proper vitamins or eaten five servings of vegetables a day.

‘It's probably nothing,' I say.

‘If it was nothing, we wouldn't be doing this,' says Evie, who is playing on her phone.

She's right. I stop talking.

Evie's name is called. We're ushered inside an office with a desk, three chairs, two filing cabinets and the bust of a small plastic brain that can be taken apart like a three-dimensional jigsaw. The desk also has a silver-framed photograph of two children, a boy and a girl in their early teens.

Dr Bennett brushes her hair behind her ears and rests her hands on her desk. ‘Thank you for coming, Evie,' she says brightly. ‘And you, Dr Haven,' pronouncing my name with a degree of professional respect. She has a blue manila folder under her wrists.

‘What's wrong with me?' asks Evie, not interested in small talk.

‘You have a small growth in your temporal lobe. It measures about three centimetres across and is a solid mass about the size of an almond.'

‘In my brain?' asks Evie, as though wanting clarification.

‘Yes,' says the doctor.

‘A plum?'

‘About this big.' Dr Bennett holds up her hand and makes a circle with her fingers.

‘How did it get there?' asks Evie.

‘Tumours form when a normal cell develops a mutation and changes its DNA. The mutation tells other cells to grow and divide, forming a tumour.'

‘And it's growing,' says Evie.

‘Most likely, yes, but it may be very slow, and it could be benign.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘It could be harmless,' I say.

Evie, incredulously, ‘A tumour can be harmless?'

‘Yes,' says the neurologist. ‘But even if it grows slowly, it may eventually press upon your brain and create neurological problems.'

‘What sort of problems?' I ask.

‘Behavioural and emotional changes; impaired judgement, increased inhibitions. It can also cause memory loss or affect your sense of smell or vision.'

‘Take it out,' says Evie.

Dr Bennett looks at her, as though she might have misheard.

Evie repeats the instruction. ‘I don't want it growing inside me. Take it out!'

‘You don't have to decide that now,' says Dr Bennett. ‘I'd like to run a few more tests. A biopsy is the first thing. Under anaesthetic, a surgeon will drill a very small hole into your skull and use a needle to take a sample of the tumour tissue for analysis. We'll learn if it's malignant or benign. You won't have to stay in hospital. You'll be home the same day.'

‘What's malignant?' asks Evie.

‘Aggressive and life-threatening.'

‘Just take it out.'

‘You don't have to decide that now.'

‘I have something growing in my head,' she says, as though she's explaining this to Dr Bennett. ‘If you're going to drill a hole, just cut the damn thing out, or zap it with radiation.'

‘That's not how it works,' I say. ‘We should think about this.'

‘There is no we,' Evie snaps. ‘My head. My tumour. My decision.'

I turn to Dr Bennett. ‘What are the dangers of surgery?'

She steeples her fingers. ‘Well, we can't remove all risk. The temporal lobe controls personality and intellect. Some patients experience changes to their personality or their moods after surgery.'

‘I want it gone,' says Evie.

‘It could change who you are,' I say.

‘I don't like who I am.'

‘Yes, but I do.'

We both realise that our voices are raised. I apologise to Dr Bennett.

‘It's my decision,' Evie reiterates.

‘Of course,' says the doctor. ‘That's all ahead of you. We'll talk next week.'

Evie studies her face, as though looking for the lie, but is unable to find one.

Nobody speaks on the walk back to the car. Instead of silence, I hear a deafening static that fills my head with white noise. I have the sharpest almost visceral sense that Evie is going to die and I won't be able to save her. Not this time. She will disappear piece by piece, in a series of doctor's appointments, scans, lab reports, operations, anxieties, tiny struggles, small victories, gloomy setbacks, reprieves and failures.

My lips unglue, peeling apart and leaving a sticky white residue. ‘Are you hungry?' I ask.

‘No.'

‘Thirsty?'

She shakes her head.

‘I could murder an iced coffee,' I say.

We drive to a Starbucks on the outskirts of town. Evie follows me across the car park, walking slowly in the murmuring heat. A blast of frigid air washes over us as the door opens. We queue. Evie chooses a green-coloured juice from the cold cabinet and takes a table in the corner. She stirs her drink with the straw and toys with her phone. A millennial silence.

‘We could get a second opinion,' I say.

‘No.'

‘There might be other tests.'

‘They will tell us the same thing.'

The gold flecks in her eyes seem to swim, or maybe they're floating in mine. I want to put my arms around her. I want to tell her I'm sorry and that I would change things if I could, but they're just words and everybody says them, and they mean fuck all. Up until now, Evie and I have had a cosy system worked out – sharing a house and a dog. There have been laughs and irritations and sometimes, just occasionally, the past has reached out to drag us back to less certain times, but fundamentally we have been good for each other.

Yes, she's damaged and self-destructive and a pathological liar, but she is also funny and feisty and intelligent and empathetic. I don't want her to change. Let someone else have a tumour. Someone cruel, or abusive, or ancient, or who's sick of living. Someone who deserves a shitty diagnosis. This isn't fair. Why should we just accept the world as it is? Sometimes we have to scream from a rooftop and foam at the mouth and say, ‘Fuck you, fuckers! You fucking fuckwits.'

My phone is ringing. I ignore it. Almost immediately, it rings again. I look at the screen. Carlson's name.

I answer.

‘A barge driver spotted a trawler being towed by a runabout on the east side of the Humber Bridge.'

‘I'm busy right now,' I say, glancing at Evie.

‘Yeah, so am I. No excuses.'