By week four we are all well and truly settled into our new routine. It feels, in fact, as if life has forever been like this; it feels as if it will go on like this forever more.
As far as I can tell, Jenny is as solid as a rock. She seems to become tougher and cockier and funnier with each day that passes. I’m sure that most of this must be constructed bravado, but it’s truly impressive – inspirational in fact.
My relationship with Ricardo too feels surprisingly solid. The complexities and costs of calling him on weekdays – from London – mean that our daily chats have now reduced to weekends only. But despite that, Ricardo is endlessly reassuring. He continues to offer every kind of support he can from such a distance, and his every word continues to project a future for us both. He is even discussing coming over for Christmas should I still be here by then, an idea I have yet to mention to Jenny. Her cancer has become a trial our relationship simply has to undergo. At least we know it’s one that we will survive.
As week four is Jenny’s second chemo week she has to spend three hours daily at St Thomas’ rather than one. And because it’s raining, and because it’s cold outside, and because I have now visited pretty much every museum in London – or every free museum at any rate – I offer to sit with her during chemo. For the first time, she accepts.
When the male nurse appears and starts to insert Jenny’s IV he strikes me as instantly familiar, so I sit and struggle to remember where I have seen his face before. He looks like a little bearded blue-eyed angel.
Finally he catches me staring and frowns at me quizzically.
“Sorry, I …” I say, shaking my head. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“Nice,” Jenny murmurs.
“I’m sorry?”
“Original,” she says.
I tut and roll my eyes. “Seriously, though …”
The nurse shrugs. “I haven’t been here long,” he says.
“Hum,” I say.
“I was in Surrey before if that helps.”
“Ahah! Camberley hospital.”
“Frimley Park, that’s right,” he says tapping Jenny’s arm in order to raise a vein. “Nice veins,” he says.
“Aw, all you boys say that,” Jenny flutters, shaking her new Marilyn wig.
“Being blond is turning you into such a tart,” I say.
She laughs. “Says Mister Haven’t-I-seen-you-somewhere-before …”
“You know who this is, Miss Clever-clogs?”
Jenny shrugs.
“He’s the nurse who looked after you when you had your seizure.”
“Really?”
“Well one of them. There was a Polish girl too.”
The nurse frowns and nods. “It’s possible,” he says. “You see so many patients in a day … I’m sorry.”
“Hey, don’t worry babe. I don’t remember you either,” Jenny says. “It can’t have been that good a night.”
“Well you were unconscious most of the time,” I point out.
“There’s no telling what those nurses got up to,” Jenny says.
The nurse blushes and grins, and starts to tape a plaster over Jenny’s IV entry point. “Well, well spotted anyway,” he says, shooting me a grin.
“Oh Mark never forgets a pretty face, do you Mark?” Jenny says.
“Jenny!” I protest, blushing myself.
“Right, that’s you done. Enjoy,” he says.
We watch him leave and then Jenny turns to me.
“His name’s Florent,” Jenny says.
“Florent?”
“It’s French, I think.”
“He doesn’t sound French.”
“He isn’t. Just his name. Florent Nightingay.”
I laugh. “Nightingay, ha! Very good Jen. Is he? Gay, I mean?”
“Well what do you think?” Jenny says. “How many straight men have arses like that?”
“How many gay men have arses like that?”
“He’s like a little cherub, isn’t he?”
“He is.”
“God I suppose I’m going to have to put up with you two making eyes at each other every time I have chemo now.”
“Well it’s you he’s following from hospital to hospital,” I point out. “I think it’s you he’s stalking.”
“Maybe this isn’t chemo. Maybe he’s murdering me.”
“Perhaps. Can you feel that stuff going into your veins?” I ask, nodding at her suspended IV bag.
“A bit. It’s cold. But not much.”
“Yuck.”
“But then after twenty minutes I start to feel vomity. It happens every time.”
“Nice.”
“I know.”
I glance over at the door and Jenny says, “He’ll be back in precisely forty minutes. Don’t worry.”
“Jenny … I am married.”
“Yeah, well … You know what I think about that.”
“Not really, but I can guess.”
“You could do much better,” she says.
“Not a nice thing to say about the man who is putting food on the table and petrol in your tank.”
“True,” she says. “Still, I should be getting the money from probate soon.”
“Yeah.”
“A week or two, they said.”
“Right.”
“And then you can pay him back and hook up with Florent Nightingay.”
“Jenny!” I protest, frowning seriously now.
“God,” she says. “If you can’t even take a joke.”
I roll my eyes at her. “I can, it’s just …”
“But you actually could,” she says. “Do better, that is.”