Waiting Room.

She arrives early as usual. The choice of seating leaves a lot to be desired, but she sits one row back at the end of the line of plastic chairs. Easy to make a quick getaway, easy to run, although she knows she won’t.
There’s a similarity in hospital waiting rooms, she thinks. Whether it’s a clinic or just waiting the chairs stand in place like a school-room or a firing squad. All upright and waiting for the unwary victim. Eyes to the front and no slacking. This is where you get the news, good or bad. She pops another mint in her mouth to mask the smell of vodka, even though she read somewhere that vodka doesn’t smell. Drinkers might know more about it, she’s normally a wine drinker and only on the odd occasion. But this morning she couldn’t get her tights on, her hands were shaking too much. There was a few half bottles of spirits left over from Xmas. Greg liked his day to be smoothed by getting himself merry. Not that it ever was, with Lucy sitting as stiff as a mannequin, poor lass. So she poured herself a glass and then drowned it in lemonade…now she wants a pee. Can she make it before they call her name? Was that woman before or after her? She unconsciously wrings her hands in indecision and then…
‘Mrs Evans please,’ the nurse calls out.
She shuffles forward, a lamb going to the slaughter. If only she could keep her mind from rambling all over the place.
The nurse pushes her forward into a room she’s never been in before. ‘Take a seat, Mrs Evans, Mr Jeffries will be with you in a moment.’
Mr? That means a consultant , her consultant though she’s not seen him before. Now she really wants the toilet and wriggles uncomfortably on the chair. If she could only catch that nurses eye then she could ask for the toilet.

He’s quite young for a consultant, walking into the room with a file under his arm he seems sort of sprightly, as if the room cannot contain him.
Hello Janet,’ he says extending his hand to her. For a moment she’s thrown, she wasn’t expecting him to call her by her first name. He sees this and apologises,
‘Sorry Mrs Evans, I just like to help people relax. So many patients see us as unapproachable, you know.’
‘That’s okay, I don’t mind…actually I wanted the toilet only I was scared I’d miss my turn.’
For all his understanding nature he looks embarrassed, but smiles and says he will wait for her. In the Ladies she can’t believe she actually said that. Lucy would say she was being silly. She’s only fifty, not one of the older generations, but her mum never talked about toilets. Her face is red when she re-enters the room, despite the fact that she’s been exposed to different doctors over the last few months.
He looks up from her file as she sits down again. The look is one she’s seen before. On the face of her GP when she first found the lump. It flashes through her mind, the hospital corridors seen from a trolley, her mind doped up and the pit of fear in her stomach. Now she rings her tissue paper between her hands as she waits for the verdict.

‘Mrs Evans, Janet, I’m sorry to say that the biopsy showed a malignant tumour in your left breast. It’s pretty aggressive so the best option is a total Mastectomy. There is a ch……..
His voice fades into a jumble of sounds without meaning. The word “aggressive” is doing just that…it’s battering against her mind and cutting all else out. Greg was aggressive before the divorce, it keeps going around in her mind. He’s been different since but neither her or Lucy trusts him anymore. That sort of thing never stops, it goes away for a while and then comes back worse than before. She knows damn well that this is her mind procrastinating rather than face the words she has heard. Her eyes fix at a point on the wall where there’s a hook without a painting. Maybe it was too bright and cheerful for such a miserable room.
It’s something that her Yoga lessons taught her when she had so much trouble sleeping. Fix your eyes on one spot and then keep staring as you let your limbs go loose and your breathing slows down. She does that now, one big sigh.
Suddenly a nurse thrusts a glass of water into her hands that have, by now, mangled her tissue paper to bits. They must think she’s taken it badly, but actually all she can feel is a sense of relief. No more poking and prodding for a while, or junior doctors standing by as her tits are pushed and pulled all over the place.
She sips the water and looks at the doctor. ‘I’m sorry, I was wool-gathering for a moment, could you repeat what you said after you told me you’re going to cut my breast off?’
He ducks his head a moment and then the veil of professionalism settles over him.
‘There is a chance that we can save some of the breast, but it’s better to remove all the tissue to be on the safe side. We’d like to get you in as soon as possible in case the cells advance any further.’
‘In case the cancer spreads to the other breast,’ she says.
‘Umm…well I wouldn’t put it quite like that, but there is a slim possibility.’
‘How long will I need to stay in, only my daughter is taking her A-levels soon and I don’t want her to be disrupted?’
‘It’s a big operation and you will need plenty of rest afterwards. It’s a ten-day stay at least and a three month convalescent period.’
‘Rubbish. I can’t do that.’
‘I’m sorry Mrs Evans, but you need this operation as soon as possible. There must be some other family that help you out?’
‘ You mean like my ex-husband? That would be over my dead body. I’m sorry Mr Jeffries, but I can’t possibly have the operation until my daughter takes her A-Levels.’
‘You know you are gambling with your life?’
‘Of course I am, but it’s all a question of waiting, you see.’

She gets up from the chair and smoothes the creases from her skirt. On the way out she passes the waiting room and thinks again of how she was always frightened by the rows of chairs when she was in school. Maybe that’s why they place each in the same way, every waiting room in surgeries and hospitals across the land. The fear has gone now she knows the worst. It’s vital that Lucy gets the grades she needs for University. After that they can take her breast, or maybe even two if it goes that far. There’s room for waiting.

…………………………………………………..