these big feet of yours, if you don’t mind.
If you want to, I said.
He loved stroking things.
IF YOU LOOK at yourself through a window, it’s not really you it’s happening to, it’s like watching yourself in a play. Today, 10th May 1984, we’re looking through the round window. Rain’s spitting on the windows of the health centre, Myra’s smiling weakly.
You’ve got a virus called Coxsackie B4, she says. There have been recent sporadic cases in the west of Scotland. It can take a long time to burn itself out. We’ll send you to see a specialist.
She passes me the tissues, her first helpful gesture since the trial began.
I told you I was ill, I say. I’ve been telling you for months and you didn’t believe me! If that locum hadn’t come out to see me, you’d never have done viral studies and you still wouldn’t believe me. He could see I was really ill, he believed me, why couldn’t you?!
I’m sorry, Helen, she replies. We doctors aren’t gods. I was making what I thought was an accurate clinical judgement. Sometimes, we get it wrong. At least we’re on the right track now, aren’t we?
(Yes, Myra, we’re on the right track now, no fucking thanks to you.)
I’m giving you something for the pain and nausea, she says, reaching for her pad. And I’ll give you a sick note for the next three months. Her hands twitch and scribble. She’s like a giant insect.
As I leave her room, I see that a huge rainbow has come out.
Rita’s in the waiting room. She hugs me tightly when I tell her what Myra has said. Everyone’s looking at us, wondering what disease the thin girl has. When we get home, I go back to bed and Rita calls Nab to tell him the news.
Nab looked it up in a book at the hospital. He photocopied page 110 and came home from work early with flowers and strawberry tarts.
Coxsackie, he read out loud at my bedside: an enterovirus first isolated in the town of Coxsackie in New York. Can cause a polio-like illness (without the paralysis) in humans; can cause paralysis and death in young mice.
At least I’m not a young mouse, I said. Nab sat down on the bed and gave me one of his polar bear hugs.
When Sean got in from school, he galloped up the stairs and burst into my room. I hear you’ve got the cock-a-leekie virus! he said.
After tea, Rita called my granny to tell her about the diagnosis. I couldn’t make out everything she said but I heard ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.
The next night, Ivan called me from a payphone in the uni library to see how it had gone with Myra. He said he’d look up enteroviruses and call me back. Half an hour later, he told me that enteroviruses developed in your gut and could affect your muscles and nervous system. I bet I got it when I was working at the Swan Hotel, I said. He started to answer but his money ran out and we got cut off. I waited by the phone, hoping he’d call back but he didn’t.
Shrouded in my pink candlewick dressing gown, crying with pain. Sean’s friends walk past me with embarrassed respect. Square window.
Brian’s coming on Sunday, Rita said to the grey-faced fixture on the couch. That should cheer you up.
He had asked Rita if I was going to die. Don’t worry, he said, she’ll go to heaven and heaven’s lovely. It’s the same as earth but you get less colds.
I heard Brian tramping up the stairs. My granny had already been up. He put his head round the door, beaming. Hello, how’s my favourite niece?! He stood there for a minute before coming over and smothering me in his black mohair arms, planting himself at the side of the bed.
It’s lovely to see you, Brian. I love your jumper.
Your granny knitted it for me. How are you, dear?
Well, you know I’m not very well. I have to stay in bed a lot.
He took my hand. Are you coming downstairs later?
Yeah, maybe I’ll come down for tea, I said.
I’ve got a new girlfriend. Her name’s Moira.
What happened to Valerie? I thought she was your girlfriend.
Valerie’s not well. It’s that heart of hers.
Poor Valerie. So what’s Moira like?
She’s just beautiful, he said, turning round to give Agnes a perfunctory clap on the head. I think I’ll go back downstairs now, if that’s all right with you?
Can you not stay up here for a bit?
I’m sorry, dear, but I don’t want to miss the racing.
He clumped off downstairs and I lay staring at the black strands of mohair and the dent that he’d left in the duvet. Agnes yawned and licked her paws. She jumped off the bed and padded out of the room. Agnes was tired of the sick-bed too.
Clumping feet and padding feet, walking away.
I thought about the unbearable cliche I’d become: an ill young woman with a tortoiseshell cat that sits on her bed throughout her illness.
I decided to go downstairs for ten minutes. I wanted to make the most of us having visitors. I got up and put Ivan’s polo neck on over my pyjamas.
I sat on the living room floor hugging my knees, my back clamped against the radiator. The heat was eating up the pain in my spine.
Don’t sit so near the radiator, Helen, my granny warned from the couch. It’ll dry up your lungs.
My grandad was eating marshmallows and watching the racing. I was jealous of him with no worries, focused on his horse. How are you keeping, dear? he asked. He swivelled round and offered me a sweet. I sank my teeth into the vile pinkness. He cleared his throat and I could hear the hem hem travelling up through his gullet. (When you make that hem hem noise, d’you ever think it’s not really you, but another voice in your head? These are the things you think about when you’ve got a lot of time.)
I asked my grandad what his horse was called.
He didn’t answer.
He’s deaf, said Brian. It’s called Swizzle Stick.
They should name racehorses after illnesses, I said. It’d give ill people a chance to be sporty.
No one was really listening.
You could put your money on Viral Meningitis or Parkinson’s Disease.
That’s a terrible thing to say, said Rita from behind her crossword, but she was laughing.
Brian joined me at the radiator and rested his head against my shoulder. His hair smelled of apple shampoo. My hair smelled of illness.
Come away from that radiator, Brian. It’s bad for your lungs.
Och, Mum! he tutted. He put his arm round me. Are you all right, dear? His breath smelled of mallows.
I think I’ll need to go back upstairs, I said. I feel awful.
D’you want the Observer magazine? said Rita.
No thanks, I said, my head’s too clamped.
I’ll bring tea up if you’re not well enough for the table.
Okay, I said.
I trudged back upstairs, still thinking of names for horses. In years to come, Gulf War Syndrome