Forever Is Over (63 page)

“
As I said earlier, I did not know the f
amily very well at all. We did
not socialise with them. We often saw them coming up and down the
path and not long after we moved in, there was a memorable, amusing
period, when a young man in swimming trunks, kept singing at one of
the girls windows every morning., but that soon stopped and he then
started to arrive fully clothed. He appears to be the younger girl, Kelly
’
s
gentleman friend.
”

“
Would you know Jemma and Kelly to speak to?
”

“
Only to say hello to.
”

“
Could you differentiate between their voices?
”

“
I beg your pardon.
”
Wally had advised me if I was asked any question that I was unsure
how to answer, just to pretend I did not hear it properly. Wally said it
would allow me some thinking time.

“
Could you differentiate between Kelly
’
s voice and Jemma
’
s voice?
If I blindfolded you, Mrs McGordon and played a tape recording of
Jemma
’
s voice and then Kelly
’
s voice, could you tell them apart?
”

“
Yes.
”

“
Could you really? I must congratulate you on having the capacity
to do that, because I can
’
t. I had to listen to the playbacks of their
statements many, many times to enable me to tell the two sisters apart.
They have very similar voices, don
’
t you think?
”

“
Yes, they do, but Jemma
’
s the older one, she tends to have more
authority. We could often hear them and Jemma tended to mother Kelly somewhat, as an older sister does. Wally and I found Paula used to do
that with Karen.
”

“
So, given their voices are so similar, how can you be sure it was
Jemma who confronted her mother, not Kelly?
”

“
Jemma told Kelly to get out of her room.
”

“
How can you be sure it was Jemma telling Kelly to get out though,
not the other way around?
”

“
Because it sounded like Jemma.
”

“
But we
’
ve just established the two girls sound very similar.
”

“
Yes, but I also said Jemma was the bossy one.
”

“
So your judgement was formed on the basis that you could hear
one girl bossing the other and as Jemma was normally the bossy one,
she was probably doing the bossing on 16
th
April?
”

“
Yes.
”

“
But you couldn
’
t see the events taking place, could you?
”

“
No, we were in bed.
”

“
And you said before that you could not be sure that Carole

Watkinson used physical force on her children, because you could not
see her. How could you be sure Jemma was the bossy one because you
could not see them?
”

“
Because she was the older one and they referred to each other by
name.
”

“
OK. That makes sense. Just suppose though, on the night in
question, Kelly bucked the trend. Just suppose it was Kelly that was
annoyed with her mother. Would it not have been possible for Kelly to
have told Jemma to go and then confronted her mother?
”

“
It
’
s unlikely.
”

“
Why? Did you clearly recall the sisters referring to each other by
name? Did you hear Jemma say
‘
Get out, Kelly!?
”

             
“
No, I don
’
t recall that, but Jemma was always arguing with her
mother.
”

“
Yes, I appreciate that Mrs. McGordon, but I am asking you whether
it was possible on the 16
th
April, for you have jumped to the conclusion
that it was Jemma confronting her mother, because, as you said it had
always been Jemma arguing. Could you and Wally not have been woken
up, in the early hours of the morning, and naturally presumed, based on
past history, that it was Jemma arguing, even if it was actually Kelly?
”

“
I suppose so. It seems very unlikely though.
”

“
But not impossible. There were two girls in that house, two girls
who sounded very much alike. Is it possible that it was, in fact, Kelly
who confronted her mother, not Jemma?
”

“
It
’
s possible, but
…
.
”

“
Thank you, Mrs. McGordon. You
’
ve been very helpful. No further
questions.
”

Mr.Davenport, the urologist, told me the operation would be pretty
routine. He indicated that I would have the operation on Thursday
morning and all being well, I could even be home that evening. It
turned out that I only returned home on Friday morning as I had a bit
of a reaction to the anaesthetic, when they were taking me to Philip
Ward from surgery, I was taken back in an ambulance. In my drugged
up state, I saw Andrew Prescott, an
old neighbour of mine who had
moved to Elland when I was five. Andrew was sitting next to me, as
I was sprawled out on the trolley and he had a white rabbit on his lap
that he was stroking. A white rabbit that developed, Kelly
’
s head and it
began to speak to me.

“
I
’
m watching you, Richie Billingham! Never forget, I
’
m always
watching you! You wouldn
’
t grass me in, would you? Of course not,
you
’
ve got no balls! If you
’
d have eaten more carrots, this would never
have happened! Never!
”

I
’
d obviously watched too many horror films as a kid! The hallucin
ations and general feeling of grogginess continued into the evening and
my random incoherent mutterings towards apparitions were enough
for the Senior House Officer to deem me unfit to return home. By the
following morning, the drugs had worn off and I was just left to contend
with an aching groin, a sore scrotum and a throbbing pair of balls, a real
one and a sparkly new false one.

The week before the operation, Mr. Davenport had sat me down
and explained what the procedure was and provided me with a couple
of options on how we would take things
forward. The operation itself
was a unilateral inguinal orchidectomy. Mr.Davenport explained that
he would be making a three inch incision into my groin to remove the
testicle and that he would also be removing the entire spermatic cord
too. I had no option but to trust him as I was totally oblivious to what
spermatic cord was, it sounded like something you
’
d buy at a DIY shop
or an Ann Summers party or was a t
echnique learnt by a lecherous
guitarist.

I would never have asked why the spermatic cord had to go, but Mr.
Davenport obviously felt a duty to explain
, as he went into great detail
about how it was absolutely necessary to remove it, as often testicular
cancer would spread from the cord into the lymph nodes near the
kidneys. In total, he thought the operation would not last much more
than hour. I expect it didn
’
t, but as I was as high as a kite, I didn
’
t have
an opportunity to start and stop my stopwatch.

Despite knowing very little about the spermatic cord, I had, at this
point, developed a vague comprehension of my illness. Mr. Davenport
always went to the trouble of trying to explain it and coupled with the
books I had been getting from Ormskirk library, my understanding was
gradually improving. Mr. Davenport had explained that the tumour
will have started from one abnormal cell. He said it was impossible to
explain why that cell had become cancerous, but once it had, it basically
went out of control and kept multiplying. My analogy, which I did not
share with Mr.Davenport, was that it spread like the news of a teenager
’
s
house party when their Mum and Dad were away. It seemed to be a
good one as both scenarios involved sex, wankers, pricks and knobs!
A juvenile analogy perhaps, but I was little more than a juvenile at the
time.

Mr. Davenport had gone on to say that there were certain groups of
men that were more likely to develop testicular cancer than others. Men
with undescended testes were one group, a group I did not belong to.
A second group were men with a family history of testicular cancer. As
far as I was aware, I did not belong to that group either. Mr. Davenport
explained though, that because of my illness, Jim would now be deemed
as being more at risk than someone who
se
brother did not have testicular
cancer and on that basis, Mr. Davenport felt that it would be sensible
for Jim to be screened. He would love that news, I thought at the time,
but to be fair to Jim he took it in his stride and was given a clean bill
of health. The third group, was the one I did fall into, this was the
geographical one. For some reason, young, white men in Northern
Europe tend to develop a higher rate of testicular cancer than anyone
else in the world. I concluded there was, therefore, some truth in the
phrase,
“
Freezing your balls off!
”
Once again, I did not share my witty
sexual observations with Mr. Davenport!

That meeting, the week before the operation, almost passed with me
having total faith in Mr. Davenport. Almost! Just before I left, however,
having gone through everything in the finest of detail, Mr. Davenport explained that following the operation, my removed testicle would be
sent to a pathologist for him to confirm it was cancer. Up until that point, I had every faith that this man knew what he was doing and
I let everything go with a reluctant acceptance, but all of a sudden, I
felt perhaps I was not challenging him enough. Had he not just said
he would send my testicle to a pathologist TO CONFIRM IT WAS CANCER! Hang on a minute!

“
Sorry! What was that, you just said? Why does my testicle need to
go to a pathologist to check it
’
s cancer? Surely if you are removing my
testicle, you are removing it because it
’
s cancerous, not to see whether it
’
s
cancerous or not. I take it, if the pathologist confirms it is not cancerous,
you don
’
t just open the stitches up on my groin and pop it back in?
”

Mr. Davenport shook his head.

“
No.
”

“
So why do we need confirmation its cancerous?
”

Mr. Davenport could see my calm exterior had now evaporated and
the fearful child I was, was now truly laid bare.

“
Mr. Billingham, trust me, I would not remove your testicle if
everything did not point towards your tumour being cancerous, but
we will only know with complete certainty, once the testis is out. The
ultrasound scan we did indicated that your lump is a solid mass, which
is likely to be a tumour, now if it had been a benign cyst, which is more
common, it would have shown on the ultrasound as a fluid filled lump.
Once the testis is out, the pathologist will have a look at it under a
microscope and in all likelihood, confirm cancer.
”