Steve Calvert

David stood on the platform and waited. He had a bunch of red roses in his hand. Red roses had always been Jenny’s favourite. Checking his watch, he realized that less than a minute had passed since the last time he’d looked. Jenny’s train was running late. Never mind, he’d waited nearly a year so what difference would a few extra minutes make? He was so overjoyed that Jenny was coming home that he would wait all night if he had to.

He couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t believe that she was coming home to him. Although there hadn’t been a single day that he hadn’t thought about her, or wished for her back, he’d all but given up hope of ever seeing her again. Then last night she’d called him to say that, not only was she coming home, but that she was cured. CURED!

It was a miracle. A real miracle. David just hoped that the cancer had gone for good. He’d heard about other people who’d supposedly been cured. They would get on with their lives, everything would be fine, and they’d start making all sorts of plans for their future. Then, BANG, suddenly they didn’t have a future anymore, the cancer was back and they were finished.

If there is a god, he thought, please let it be gone for good … please …

The last time David had seen her, Jenny could barely put one foot in front of the other without getting out of breath, and she was going to-and-fro between the hospital and their flat so regularly that they were on a first name basis with most of the taxi drivers in York. There had even been talk of her having Oxygen bottles in the house. And then there had been all of the painkillers. He didn’t even want to think about any of those things. That was all in the past. Jenny was on her way home to him and, most importantly, she was better - even talking to her on the phone, he had been able to tell that. They’d talked for nearly an hour and she’d not got out of breath once.

Oh God, please don’t let it come back.

When the train eventually did arrive - twenty-five minutes late - Jenny was one of the last people to get off. For a while David thought that she wasn’t on it and that had been the longest few minutes of his life.

Then Jenny stepped out of the end carriage, a suitcase in her hand and a smile on her lips. They stared at each other for a long time and David couldn’t believe how much better she looked. How much more like her old self.

She dropped the suitcase and they ran to meet each other - Jenny running.

They held each other for a long time, and David could quite easily have believed that he was only dreaming - a wonderful dream - if it wasn’t for the sweet smell of Jenny’s perfume. He had forgotten that smell until the flowery aroma drifted up to his nostrils. It was Jenny’s smell - the smell he’d always associated with her, anyway. Not the smell she’d had when she got sick - the ill smell. It was the smell she used to have, the smell that was just Jenny and Jenny’s perfume, and not disease and death and dying flesh. David sniffed in the Jenny smell and knew he wasn’t dreaming.

When Jenny had left, she’d left him a note. In the note she explained that she had withdrawn her life savings from the bank - £12 000 - and she begged him not to try and find her. She wanted to try to find alternative treatments and when - if - she found what she was looking for, she would return. If not, it was good-bye. She didn’t want to turn him from her lover into a nurse. She couldn’t - wouldn’t - put him through that. David remembered that letter word for word and kept it in his top pocket - next to his heart. But now he had more than just the letter. Jenny was back and Jenny was better.

David carried Jenny’s suitcase in one hand and held her hand with his other. As they left the station she lifted the roses to her nose and smelt them.

Over dinner that night as they talked, and laughed, together it seemed to David as if they had never been apart. She looked a little pale, he thought, and maybe a little tired, but that was only to be expected.

God he was glad to have her back.

Of course he was very keen to know all about the cure. How it worked, who had discovered it and how Jenny had first heard about the treatment. He asked a million questions, but Jenny did not seem to want to talk about it, and he didn’t want to press her. He could find out nothing more than that she had been cured by a Rumanian doctor and that the cure was not only effective on Cancer, but on other illnesses too. David wondered why he had not heard of such a revolutionary treatment before, and why it had not made the news. But, again, he didn’t press. Jenny was better. That was all that mattered.

After they left the restaurant, they caught a taxi home. Although Jenny seemed to be full of life she also looked tired and David did not want to wear her out so soon. She’d been through such a lot. Hell, they both had.

David turned the key in the lock and let the door swing open for Jenny to enter. No sooner had he clicked the door shut, though, than she was all over him, passionately reacquainting herself with every contour of his body. He tried to protest that she would wear herself out, but his words were silenced by her tongue in his mouth; silenced and forgotten. Suddenly she seemed so strong. Even before her illness he couldn’t remember her ever being as strong as this. They made their way to the couch, David walking backwards, as Jenny urged him forward with her body, their lips still locked. Jenny’s hands explored his body with frenzied urgency. First his back, then his shoulders, then his behind, then … and then they both felt urgency.

She pushed him onto the couch, and, following immediately with her own body, straddled his hips and started to undo his shirt. He started to ask, again, if this wouldn’t be too much for her, but Jenny silenced him with a finger to his lips. She seemed different now - more dominant - but who was he to complain? Suddenly Jenny gave up working on the buttons, and simply ripped open his shirt, baring his chest.

Then she bared her teeth - long and white and sharp.

Soon David knew more about the cure than he had ever wanted to know, but, by then, it was too late. The life was already being remedied from him.