First story - MJA Dr Eric Dark Creative Writing Prize

I have always known all of this, although I’m not sure how. You’ll just have to believe me, because I’m the only one who knows the whole story. My mother must have told me about her poor sister, because that all happened many years before I was conceived. But there was a lot more.

My mother’s sister was young, about 35, when the doctors found she had a tumour in her bowel that had spread to her liver. She was looked after by a cancer doctor who was about her own age. Although everyone thought he was very nice, it seemed like he couldn’t actually do very much, but I’m sure he tried.

When my mother’s sister got sicker, she was in hospital for a long time. The nursing and medical teams did a great job of making her feel better as she lay in bed. She was too tired to get up. All the clan gathered round to watch over her and love her and, when the time was right, to wish her godspeed. Most days, the cancer doctor came and sat beside her bed for a while and talked. Occasionally he held her hand, and then he went away.

After my mother’s sister died, there was a big memorial dinner to raise money for cancer research. It was a great success. The men slipped $100 notes to the waitresses for bottles of whisky, there was bidding for donated washing machines and signed football shirts, and the Archbishop came and said a prayer. Lots of money was raised. The cancer doctor gave a speech, and then he went away.

Now to what I really know, because I could sense it, although again I’m not sure exactly how. You know how, in a dream, you find yourself in a situation with no explanation of how you got there? Like a story that starts halfway through? Being in the womb is like that.

Suddenly, a noise. Is it a noise? Because there’s no word for it. Well, a sensation then. A rhythm. Boom space boom. Except more muffled, and the “boom” flutters on, low, then fades, until a softer “boom”. Maybe Bmm ... mm ... Bmm ... mm ... Gloriously primitive, deeply real. Everything else in life (I realise now) is us just trying to get there again.

Time in the womb. And so it went on and on. Blankness then Bmm ... mm ... Bmm ... mm ... then blankness. Splendid isolation of the most ineffable kind — gentle, warm, enveloping, never-ending, the beat insistently there.

Then one day there was no blankness and a different, urgent noise, and I could hear voices, and my mother sounding frightened. The slow bass of Bmm ... mm ... Bmm ... mm ... became tingka tingka tingka, high-pitched and fast.

We’re so sorry to intrude, but that swelling you talked about? We’ve had a careful look and we think we need to do more tests. Of course, it could be nothing ... usually is with the pregnant breast ... need to be sure, don’t you think?

And more.

... a biopsy ... wait for results. If the worst comes to the worst, we may need to take the breast off.

Then, more clearly.

“I’m so sorry, but the worst has come to the worst. It’s up to you of course. But, really, the best thing would be a mastectomy.”

“What about the baby?”

“The baby will be fine.”

Oh good.

And I was fine. The surgery wasn’t worrying because having a general anaesthetic is not like being in the womb with the slow bass of Bmm ... mm ... Bmm ... mm ... It’s nothing. It’s before time. There’s no beginning and no end. It’s like dipping into infinity.

Then, suddenly, it all starts up again. Beeping noises, voices, mother’s deep rhythm.

Days of alternating blankness and Bmm ... mm ... Bmm ... mm ..., my splendid isolation again, floating and warm, for hours, eras, aeons. Slow tumbling down a gentle never-ending hill, or rolling endlessly, slowly, silently through dark space, her hands held tenderly over the belly that is my sky.

Until tingka tingka tingka. And more voices.

... complicated ... might need chemotherapy ...

Then, more clearly.

“I assume you want to keep the baby?”

What?

Days pass. Bmm ... mm ... Bmm ... mm ... Then tingka tingka tingka. Jumbled voices talking.

Chemotherapy dangerous for the baby ... wait for a while ... then cut the baby out ... then chemotherapy.

Days pass. Bmm ... mm ... Bmm ... mm ... Then tingka tingka tingka. More jumbled voices talking.

... chemotherapy not so dangerous for the baby ... waiting might be dangerous ... leave the baby in and start chemotherapy now.

“Yes”, mother says to one voice in particular, “I want to do it that way”.

So chemotherapy is to start and we are all nervous. The voice in particular becomes familiar, and my mother is saying to him, I know you from before. I feel the sharp jab of the needle from time to time. She had a bad taste in her mouth, I could tell, and ate plain food. More resting, but that was fine with me.

But somehow as I felt stronger day by day, mother felt weaker. The days we went for chemotherapy, she was laughing outside but tensed up inside — I could feel it in her belly. The taste in her mouth was metal.

Being born — don’t want to go through that again. Panting pain around me, squashing pain within me, then white light, white noise, cold and fear all at once. Then everything’s a bit blank. So tired and hurting, and something that I later work out is hunger (with only one breast!).

Seeming days of quiet blackness. Not frightening. Warm and with that reassuring rocking rhythm, rather like travelling in the sleeping cabin of an overnight train.

So it was a while before I woke up, but I remember exactly when that was. There was feeding, there was floating, then there was a man beside the bed, looking at me for a long time, not speaking. Then he spoke to my mother.

“He looks beautiful. All that hair!”

The voice was croakier, but I knew it. And it was true I had hair, while my mother was completely bald, which showed off her big white teeth. She smiled a big smile.