In Other Words, Part II

Wherein my mother arrives in England; she and Gail travel to Lancaster; I try to lighten up the mood; memories overlap; they visit my room and meet some of my friends; are cared for by Colin's wife, Rosemary. Departure.

2/28/90
I got up at 4:30 to catch the 6:00 Speedlink from Gatwick to Heathrow. The driver got me to Heathrow ten minutes late and I worried that Jerri had already come through. Her plane -- the same that Steve and I had taken 6 days before -- had come in early. But she was walking through the crowd -- thin and exhausted -- wearing her black and white tweed coat, a pink turtleneck under a long thick sweater, jeans, leather tennis shoes, carrying a smallish leather bag. We hugged and immediately left the airport for the Picadilly Line.

She was all there, helping figure out which way to go and how to buy the Tube tickets at the automatic machine. The train was clean. I can't remember the other people -- I just listened to Jerri.

At Euston we got off and went to the rail office and each bought a ticket to Lancaster. Then we sat down and had sandwich en baguette with Coke and coffee. Weather snowed and rained, so the passing countryside didn't show up very well. We sat opposite the train table. I read her leukemia pamphlets and she talked and I talked and she cried and people looked at us.

No one was at the station as we got off. But in the upper lobby was the most curious welcome: a thin, little straight-haired woman in a neon green rain jacket asking if either of us was Mrs. Brown, hovering and apologizing that her husband had been delayed in picking us up and, unfortunately, her car was only a 2 seater and couldn't carry us both to the hospital. I suggested we get a taxi, but with her hovering, the last taxi was taken before our eyes. So I asked, and someone said just turn left and you will find more taxis. But the second left didn't look right, so we kept walking on the sidewalk. By this time I was beginning to find my role in the process... Soon a taxi drove by. We hailed it and we told Rosemary we would see her at the hospital.

Jerri wanted to talk to Dr. Lorigan before we went to see Robert. He rushed into the hallway and we agreed to meet him during his 2 to 5 clinic. The hospital was Victorian, ancient, the nurses called sisters. There, turning in from the hallway, was Robert in a small room across from the sister's office. Glass walled, a TV and VCR, a double-sash windo in stone blocks looking into the alley. We had to wash our hands before we went in. Felt good after the train. Just.

The first thing Jerri said was "you've grown chest hairs." They talked about bank accounts and things in his room and transfusions and platelets. They spin platelets out of the donor's blood and put them in packets, then they're injected into Robert's blood. He'd just had platelets, and was scheduled for a transfusion shortly. Robert said he did want some nice pajamas, since he'd be in the hosptal for a year. Neither of us corrected him, time enough later. The treatment-to-cure is about a year. 85% chance of that.

Robert told how he was playing snooker Thursday night and they were all being Dudley Moore silly, saying cancer of your cuetip, cancer face, cancer the ball, and a girl said "You shouldn't say that." That's funny, it was only last Thursday and now here I am and leukemia is a cancer, isn't it?

We left to go to the University office for insurance arrangements. Jerri called Buzz, Robert's father, and told him he might have to share a £6,200 transportation bill, although they were trying to get insurance to pay. The British Healthcare and Ambulance of St. John needed a guarantee of the £6,200, so Colin Lyas and Dr. Rogers faxed a University of Lancaster guarantee. The trip was to begin at midnight that night. An English Navy doctor would accompany Jerri and Robert back to London in the ambulance and then onto a British Airways jumbo jet to Seattle. That later changed to Pan Am -- leaving Thursday morning at 10 AM; the University of Washington already had a bed for Robert. Dr. Lorigan's job -- in addition to medical things -- was to coordinate all the ambulances, airfares, medical accompaniment and to browbeat/convince the insurance company that Robert really needed to be in Seattle for his treatment. Then Jerri and I went to Robert's room.

The University is only 30 years old and quite modern in architecture. We met a porter who had to tell us how awful she felt about poor Robert. She meant quite well but I was relieved when she finally left us alone in Robert's room, a sort of concrete bunker affair, but pleasant with shelves and wardrobes. More sobs, the first in hours. Jerri decided to leave the sweaters and coat, but took the Lynda Barry jean jacket, two journals, tapes, a sweatshirt. Then Simon came by, such a stricken young man. He wanted to know if he should give Robert's bank account money to Jerri or Robert. Jerri said Robert. He said he'd have to mail some, if that was all right, and Jerri said yes. We closed the door behind us, our arms full of Robert's few things, and walked back along the concrete hallway. We passed rooms and students and showers and loos and it was such a journey. The students knew us, I think.

Then Colin again. He took us in his borrowed mini out to his 200 year-old house in a village called Hornby, a Danish name meaning Horn Place. Rosemary was there, no longer wearing her neon green jacket. She got out her best brandy. Colin says she hoards it -- he buys it duty-free on his many travels. The ceilings were at least 12 feet high and Rosemary had a good smelling coal fire going in the wall grate, 3 dishes of salted peanuts, and three glasses. She wasn't drinking because she would be driving Jerri back to Lancaster at ten that night for the ambulance journey. 2 glasses each in fairly quick order, sitting on a flowered rug, warm fire.

Rosemary brought a cookbook and wanted to know if she should make a paella for us -- she and Colin were going out to dinner. I said no, we'd fix our own, besides we weren't really hungry. She said Oh. I want to. So I let her. Jerri fell asleep by the fire. Alone, we ate the paella, surprised that we were so hungry, smoked a couple of their cigarettes, talked and cried and cried. Then Jerri went to take a shower and I slept. Jerri put her same clothes back on and she and Rosemary drove off in Rosemary's Fiat about 10:30. Colin and I sat by the fire philosophizing until Rosemary returned.

Rosemary died of lung cancer no more than six months later, before the summer had ended, before I was completely out of the woods myself.