The Healing of Broken Souls

Chapter 12

"When we were talking yesterday, I might have given you the impression that our life was one long struggle," my father said as we sat in the Landy looking out over the stubble field. "But I want you to know that, for most of the time, Clara and I were blissfully happy."

He was feeling better after a reasonable night's sleep so we'd decided to go back to the cropped sunflower field. The trek along the pebble beach the day before had taken its toll and I realized I'd have to be more careful about choosing locations. We needed places that were easily accessible for a sick old man.

"We were hopelessly in love," he continued, "and when she was feeling well, she was still the same fun-loving girl I'd first met. But, when she was ill, she couldn't cope with running the launderette. I helped as much as I was able, but the business began to suffer as regular customers deserted her. It wasn't long before the owner noticed the drop in profits. Clara didn't make excuses. She explained that she'd been poorly a few times recently and could do with a part-time assistant.  Her boss was sympathetic, but he made it clear that the business couldn't afford to pay another wage, and if things didn't pick up soon, he would have to let her go.

That ultimatum frightened Clara. If she lost her job she would also lose the flat that went with it. We worked out that we could survive on my allowance, but we'd have to live in a bedsit, or a shared house, and neither of us wanted that. So that's when I decided to bite the bullet and get to the bottom of her illness.

You already know that my parents were wealthy, Michael. Our family doctor was in private practice on Harley Street in London. My father would never go to an 'ordinary' doctor. For him, it was nothing but the best."

"So why didn't you go to your fancy Harley Street doctor in the first place?" I sniped.

"Because I knew that any consultation would show up on my father's account and that he'd blow his top when he found out he was paying for a 'black washerwoman' to have treatment. I was a coward, Michael. I was afraid of what he might do."

"I see," I said. "You couldn't get yourself a part-time job like thousands of other students do to pay for their studies. You needed Daddy's money to live."

"Michael, I was helping Clara as much as I could as well as trying to attend lectures and write essays. I also had to go to court sessions to listen to real cases. And remember, all our hopes for the future depended on my law degree. I probably could have found an evening job waiting on tables or serving behind a bar, but they paid next to nothing. Up until her boss's ultimatum, we thought we'd be able to cope. We thought Clara's problem was temporary and she'd get over it."

"Okay," I relented. "So you went to your doctor. What did he say?"

"I hadn't seen him since I was a child, but he still remembered me and asked after my parents. Apparently, neither of them had been ill for quite some time. After the pleasantries, Clara and I explained about her double vision and general weakness, and he took her seriously. The journey into London had been quite tiring for Clara and she wasn't feeling good, which was probably a blessing, because she was showing some of her symptoms.

He examined her eyes, then asked her to lift her arms while he pressed down on them. He listened to her breathing. He did all the checks you'd expect in a thorough examination. He asked Clara if she sometimes felt like a clockwork toy that needed to be wound up every so often. Clara said that was exactly how she felt. As if her spring was winding down until she stopped completely.

Then he wrote us a referral to a neurologist he knew and said he believed he knew what was wrong, but wanted it confirmed by a specialist. I begged him to tell us what he suspected.

'I'm sure Clara has a condition called Myasthenia Gravis,' he said. 'It's caused when the nerve endings don't contact the muscles correctly, so signals don't get through. The muscles around the eyes are among the first affected, which causes double vision and the lowering of the eyelids. It's a classic sign of Ocular Myasthenia.'

I asked him about treatment but he would only say we'd have to discuss that with the neurologist. It was extremely rare and he wasn't up to date with the latest developments."

"You must have been devastated," I remarked.

"No, Michael, we felt like we were getting somewhere at last. At least we knew Clara had a genuine illness and we had a name for it. Her own doctor had treated her like a silly neurotic woman who was some kind of hypochondriac. You must have heard that old proverb 'a disease known is half cured'.  We were both looking forward to seeing the specialist and finding that cure." 

"But I remember her being ill when I was young," I said. "And that was more than ten years later!"

"That's right, Michael. We went to see the neurologist and he confirmed the diagnosis, but he also told us there was no cure for Myasthenia Gravis. He said he could prescribe drugs which might help a little but, in essence, the message was that Clara would have to learn to live with it as best she could. But that wasn't the worst of it, Michael. We did something which I very much regretted afterwards. We went to a library and looked up everything we could find about Myasthenia Gravis, and what we found out was shocking."

"In what way?" 

"The medical books said that many sufferers die within two years. That in severe cases, the condition can spread to the muscles that control the lungs and the patient can simply stop breathing. It also said that most patients eventually lose the use of their legs and are confined to a wheelchair. When Clara read all that, she was horrified. She told me that she would never marry me now. That she wasn't going to be a burden to me for the rest of her life. She told me I should leave her and find someone else."

I looked at my father. Tears were rolling down his face. I grabbed a packet of tissues from the glove box.

"Here, take these," I muttered, and then realized he wasn't the only one shedding tears.