Free The Bright Side by Alex Coleman Page A

befall him. As it was, it took us a couple of days to gather the courage. When we did finally manage it, we found him understandably pole-axed. He made tea and produced biscuits, as if we’d dropped by to see his holiday snaps but seemed unable to meet our eyes. His son was sound asleep upstairs. He was going to have an operation in a few days’ time, but the doctors had said there was no point in admitting him before then. When Tony told us that, I could tell by his expression that he’d taken it to mean “He might as well spend a few nice days at home, just in case they’re his last”. Gerry and I asked banal questions and received horrifying answers. On his discovery of the problem, for example: Jonathon had been playing on his PlayStation a few weeks previously when he suddenly threw the controller across the floor. It was unlike him and Tony asked him why he was being so bad-tempered. There was something wrong with the game, he said, or the TV – sometimes he could see two of everything .
    I found it difficult to ask about Jonathon’s chances of survival, not just because I didn’t want to hear the answer – although I didn’t – but because I couldn’t think of the right way to phrase the question. Eventually I settled on “Is the surgeon confident?” It was hard to tell, Tony explained; the guy was so relentlessly cheerful and positive that you wanted to grab him by the lapels and shake him. He certainly said he was confident – repeatedly. But that was little comfort .
    We stayed for about half an hour and left feeling as if we had made things worse with our hopeless clichés and watery smiles. “If there’s anything we can do .. . ” We said that at least six times, knowing full well there was absolutely nothing and it was at best pointless and at worst deeply irritating to keep asking .
    Jonathon’s operation came and went. It was a success, of sorts. Ninety-five percent of the tumour was removed, but ninety-five percent wasn’t good enough; he needed radiation treatment to take care of the rest. Tony seemed to find this news even harder to take than the original blow. He’d been stressed to the point of breaking by the operation, but now he fell into a state of deep depression. I had started to call over every couple of days, usually without Gerry, and I saw him deteriorate right before my eyes. While his physical decline was dramatic and obvious, the thing that really worried me was the way he gradually lost the ability to hold a conversation. He wasn’t just being quiet. When you spoke to him, he would nod or shake his head and his lips would move in silence, as if he understood the general concept but couldn’t quite remember how to take part. He broke down one night and told me in short, stuttering sentences that he’d had several violent rages during which he’d smashed about half of his crockery and every mirror in the house. His cousin, Maria, who looked after Jonathon when Tony was at work, had seen the damage and had told him to wise up. They’d fallen out over it and now he felt more alone than ever. I reached across the table and patted the back of his hand, wishing I had this Maria character within throttling range. Once again, there was nothing I could say that might actually help. But he seemed to appreciate the contact .
    As the weeks dragged by, I found myself investing more of myself in Jonathon’s health than I would have thought possible. Every time I visited him in hospital, I came away cursing God and his mysterious bloody ways. When I saw my own children, I hugged them until they could stand it no more and wriggled away, complaining. One Friday night I called over and found Tony off his face on whiskey. He made no attempt to keep himself together in front of me. As I ran through my usual list of hopeless offers – to Hoover the house, do the laundry, scrub the bathroom, bring yet another lasagna – he gradually curled up into a ball on the sofa and then cried for a