The State of Disbelief by Juliet Rosenfeld

Author:Juliet Rosenfeld
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780723808
Publisher: Short Books Ltd

15

The Trial

Bluntness does not exist in the oncological team looking after Andrew that we fly up to meet, me for the first time, and Andrew for the third. Connecticut is freezing, especially after Florida’s relentless sun-blasted days, and the change in light and temperature matches the change in my feelings. I feel shivery and cool, as if we too are moving into something very different. Leaving our isolated life in our flat, we will now encounter hundreds of people at Smilow Hospital, New Haven, attached to Yale University.

New York is cold but I have barely been outside, only when I left the airport terminal to go to the hotel and then again, at 6.30am, much earlier than we needed, to take the taxi up to New Haven. Andrew is, as always, keen to be early, but this seems to have developed into something more anxious and disproportionate and he has allowed four hours for a two-hour journey. I say nothing and we leave the hotel wordlessly, driving north out of the city.

I have been oblivious to the extreme weather conditions of this coastal crossroads two hours north of Manhattan until the last twenty minutes of the journey into New Haven, when the colour of the skies changes suddenly. Unlike New York, where we left a ground frost, piercing blue skies punctuating the soaring towers, here the skies are shrouded in thick cloud, muddling the horizon with the snow, which has slowed us down dramatically. Andrew starts to check his watch every three minutes and beat out a steady metronome tap on his thigh with his phone. His anxiety to be there is palpable and he starts shaking his head and screwing up his lips as the nervous driver goes slowly, anxious that his low-slung saloon will hit bumps as we turn off the highway and into the town. Andrew is next to the driver unusually. He takes a deep breath and looks out of the window. At one stage he searches for my hand, ready, on the seat behind him, and then releases his grip. Eventually, after what seems like an hour travelling past one-storey bungalows the Americans call ranch houses, mailboxes covered in snow and sparse traffic, we arrive.

We are at the hospital 45 minutes early for his appointment. The driver joins a snow-slowed queue in front of a huge, modern building, where the pavements are being cleared and several cars are waiting to drop people. We wait in turn, me touching Andrew on the wrist as he tries to get out before we have come to a stop. Pedestrians are starting to stream into the giant reception in front of us, muffled and padded against the wind-chilled air. There has, it seems, been a huge snowstorm the night before and our trainers feel inadequate as we step out of the car.

The atrium of Smilow makes me pause as we walk in through the revolving doors. It is enormous, quadruple height, with bleached-white walls and a highly lit plate-glass roof.

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