Emily
People say some fucking stupid things when someone close to you is very ill. The word platitude is invented for this kind of thing. After Effy left to go to whatever current event was occupying her time whilst her best friend was dying, I was alone with Naoms for a couple of hours. I spent the first twenty minutes incoherent with grief and anger. I was so fucking angry with her for depriving me of the few months she had been sick. All that time I had been gradually neglecting her more, and my anger was tinged with guilt at that fact. OK, we had exchanged many many texts and emails, and she had talked to me on the phone every week. But I accepted her excuse about the web-cam on her laptop packing up so that Skype wasn't usable. I let it slide because I was busy. Yeah busy. Busy getting successful whilst the person I love more than anything in this fucked up world was getting busy dying.
I even shouted at her on the phone last week, because she was fucking stoned again. This wasn't my Naomi. My Naomi was sharp edged and focussed, convinced of her ability to change things, The stand up comedian thing was a distraction, nothing more. She was no more a bar room comic than I was. I remember how humiliated she had been that time Cook fucked up her student president speech in the canteen. My use of the cunt word really helped that situation, didn't it? But in any case, we both knew, over the past year, that she had lost her focus, and I had found mine. So we were drifting. And cunt that I am, I never noticed that there was a reason she was getting increasingly lost in drugs and denial. Cancer. Its a fucking ugly word for an ugly thing.
Like I said, people say the stupidest things when they are grieving. After I had stopped crying so helplessly, whilst Naoms cuddled me and whispered soothing words to me, I sat up and let her have it.
"You selfish, stupid, fucking heartless bitch" I yelled "How could you Naomi, how could you leave me this little time with you. You said you would never hurt me again"
I know it was cruel, and I know it wasn't even fair, but I had to say it. I saw big fat tears spring up in those incredible eyes. Eyes which were ringed with red and underlined with dark shadows. I had never seen those eyes like this. The enormity of what was happening to her hit me again, and I dissolved again myself into hopeless sobs. She was dying. My darling Naomi was dying, and I couldn't do a thing about it.
"I'm so sorry " I said between sobs, and she said the same. I felt those big tears run across my face as she cuddled me tight. So tight. She groaned slightly as I squeezed her back, and I realised it was hurting her. I pulled back and looked at her face again.
"No Ems" she said "I need lots of cuddles now. Having you this close is worth any pain"
I choked again and laid back with her, this time just letting her squeeze me. We laid there for ages, I don't know how long. My brain was singing, but I couldn't seem to break this cycle of tears and hugs. There were no words I could say that would make this right.
Then I heard the gentle swish of the rubber mounted door behind us open, and knew we weren't alone any more. I heard a strangled sob as whoever it was caught sight of my baby's exhausted face.
"Oh my poor darling" the voice spoke. It was Gina, of course. Back from Ireland, as soon as Naomi had allowed Effy to call her. I sat up, despite the small grumble that came from Naomi, and turned to smile weakly at the only adult I really had any time for when we had been growing up in Bristol. She looked different. Less flamboyant, less hippy but still unquestionably Gina Campbell. The tears I had in my eyes were mirrored in hers. She looked again at her daughter, lying on that bed and I heard another stifled sob.
"May I?" she said quietly, and I stood up awkwardly as she made her way round the bed and regarded Naomi with huge sad eyes.
"Mum?" Naomi said in a small voice "Oh... mum" She began to cry bitter tears.
I thought I'd cried all my own tears, but there were apparently plenty left as I saw Naomi collapse into her mothers arms as she sat on the bed. I turned as the door swished again and Kieran stood there, his normally ruddy face pale.
"Oh, little Red" he said in that soft Irish burr "I'm so very, very sorry" He's called me that since our college days, when Naomi and I first went out together, even though my hair has been back to dark brown for years, and the use of that affectionate term broke me all over again. I sobbed in his arms as Naomi sobbed in her mothers.
After a while, Naomi stopped crying and we swapped bundles of tissues round. You know the term 'there wasn't a dry eye in the house'? Well, there wasn't, not for a long while.
Then the platitudes started. I was ready for them, but it didn't make them any easier to take. "There's still hope" , "Miracles happen" , "Advances in modern medicine" You know the kind of thing people say to each other when the inevitable is too fucking painful to contemplate?
Well the single conversation Gina and I had with the Oncologist in the corridor whilst Kieran stayed with a now sleeping Naomi ended that little fantasy.
"I'll be honest with you both" he said in a businesslike way "We have ended treatment for the original tumour on her ovaries. Sadly Naomi has developed secondaries on her uterus and liver. She is a very sick girl. We can offer palliative care only now, which means she won't be in as much pain, but will sleep a lot more, due to the morphine doses. The sickness and spasms from the chemo will subside, so she won't be as visibly distressed, but I'm afraid you will have to deal with the fact that she wont be able to talk quite so much from now on "
There was only one question on both our minds, but I had to say it.
"How long?" I said bleakly
"Honestly?" he said in a kinder tone
"Yes" This time it was Gina speaking, her pretty face swollen and blotchy.
He sighed and looked up at the ceiling for a second, before replying.
"Days...but in all probability, the chances are it is more likely to be within 24 hours. Make the most of the time you have with her. Once she enters the final few hours, she's likely to be asleep more than she's awake. It's better for her, you know...more peaceful. I'm so sorry...its not fair is it?"
I had to get out of there. I couldn't stay in that place a second longer. I heard Gina call out to me, but I ran down the corridor and found a fire exit. Opening it, I saw a gantry and a set of steps to the roof. I stumbled up the steel steps until I stood on the top, letting the icy wind rush over me. I let it all out then. If anyone had been watching, they would have thought I had lost my mind. I shouted, I screamed and I pleaded with someone, anyone to help me, to help her. No one answered. She was going to die. My precious baby. She was going to die.
After about twenty minutes and another shed load of useless tears. I began to shiver in the wind. Hugging myself, I went back down the ladder and into the too warm corridor of the hospital. When I got back to Naomi's room, we had another visitor. Katie Fitch. But not the Katie Fitch I knew. Not at all. This Katie was bent over and broken, hugging Naomi and weeping yet more tears onto my love. They had never been close, even when Katie had accepted my sexuality, but there was nothing fake about her grief. They all turned to look as I came into the room and Katie stared up at me with haunted eyes.
"Oh Emsy" she said in a voice not like hers at all "Katie sham...Katie sham"
"Emsy sham" I said automatically. Speaking twin now seemed stupid really, but I think in moments like this Katie reverts to our ten year old selves. I hugged her as she stood and we stood around awkwardly for a minute or two. Naomi was still dopey from the recent pulse of morphine, so she wasn't really making a lot of sense at that stage.
The next 24 hours passed like slow molasses. Hour upon hour of constant vigilance. At all times there were two of us with her. She spoke occasionally, but I think the effort of dealing with us all at once had tired her out more than she would admit. I managed to get a few moments with her when Gina and Katie went hunting tea, but there weren't many things we could say now. Naomi was drifting in and out, and I knew the doctor had been right when he said we only had hours. The knot in my stomach grew until it was a cold tangled block inside me. The rest of my senses were strangely dulled, as if I was the one on morphine, not Naomi. I didn't eat anything, I tried but it all tasted of cardboard. I drank the occasional half cup of tea, but if she stirred, I immediately put it aside in the hope that she would speak to me. But she didn't. Her moments of consciousness were now brief and confused. It was heartbreaking. The vibrant, vivid and wonderful human being I had taken as my life partner was fading like an old photograph. Once, I slept myself, resting my head on the bed beside her, but Gina woke me after half an hour. Naomi was for once conscious and smiling down at me indulgently, obviously amused at the state of me.
"Not looking your best here, Fitch" she croaked, and tears filled my eyes for the hundredth time.
"Don't" I said "Please don't joke Naoms"
Her face clouded and she tried to raise a shuddering breath to speak again
"What else do we have baby?" she smiled "Don't cry my darling. Remember, I will always love you. Wherever you go, whatever you do in the future, I will be there, watching over you. I've loved you more than you'll ever know Emily Fitch. There was never anyone else for me"
"Don't leave me Naomi" I said, suddenly panic stricken that this was the moment I really lost her "I'll be so... lonely...so alone, without you"
Her eyes started to lose focus and I knew she was going to sleep again
"Naomi?" I said again and her eyes flickered, trying to stay open. "Please baby...stay with me, just a little longer"
I heard Gina and Katie sob this time, and in the corner of my eye, saw them clinging to each other.
"So tired Ems" Naomi whispered "Cuddle before I go to sleep?"
I pulled myself up onto the bed and put my arm over her body, trying not to tangle the tubes going in and out of her arms. She smiled sweetly in that way she had just before she went to sleep at home. Back when we had everything in front of us. When the world consisted of bouncy castles and motorbike goggles and parties, and Goa...
Naomi slept for another hour and I took the chance to go to the visitors toilet, a few yards down the corridor. I had barely had time to wash my hands afterwards before the door burst open and my sisters face told me everything without words. I stared at her for a long second.
"NO!" I said "she's not?"
"Shhh Em" Katie said, trying to grab my hands, which were shaking and cold as ice "Not quite yet, but the doctor has just been to see her. She's close. You need to be with her now. We all need to be with her now"
I rushed down the corridor uncaring about trolleys or people. I pushed open the glass door and saw Gina and Kieran holding each other, looking down at the bed. Naomi was on her back, propped up a little and her beautiful eyes were open. As I crossed to the bed, she saw me and smiled.
"Emily" she said simply "I was waiting for you"
I threw myself onto the bed and held her in my arms as tightly as I thought she could bear.
"Not yet baby, not yet...please" I murmured desperately "Stay with me, my beautiful girl"
"Shhh" she said in a voice weak and tired "I need to sleep again now Em, but I couldn't before you were back here with me"
I looked up into her eyes once again and saw a small tear escape her eye as she looked down at me.
"Kiss me?" she said, and I pressed my lips to hers. They felt dry and flaky, not like the soft lips I had kissed a thousand times before, but I would take this kiss before all others.
"I will always love you Emily Fitch" she managed before her eyes closed and the hand that held mine relaxed and dropped to the bed.
I looked up frantically at Gina and Kieran. Katie was sobbing uncontrollably in the corridor, I could hear her from here.
"Get the doctor!" I said, but they just looked at me with such deep sadness that I knew it all then...
I felt Naomi's chest rise and fall twice, then stop. Her eyes were closed, and I tugged at her hand to try to wake her.
"Not yet... I'm not ready...please Naomi" I screamed "NO!"
I felt big hands pull me up and off the bed. Kieran's strong arms held me tight as I fought to get back to her.
"Naomi...Naomi!" I cried, hopeless sobs racking my body as he held me.
"She's gone Emily" he whispered "she's gone... Let her rest now little Red."
XXX
