Chapter 21 - White and Black

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I stare at the appointment card in my hand. It's torn almost straight down the middle because I've been toying with it nervously for the past fifteen minutes. Nanna Millie snorts loudly as she hears the paper rip. She takes it gently from my hands and pats me on the knee.

I look around the brilliant white waiting room. White walls. White tiles. Everything is white except for the big, dark mahogany desk, behind which a roundish girl with a pretty face is clicking away at her keyboard with her flashy red nails. Grey armchairs are uniformly positioned along the perimeter of the room. To the right of the reception desk is a grand circular staircase which, according to the sign next to it, leads to the Mini-Op Theatre. To the left is a narrow corridor leading to the consulting rooms, one of which is presently occupied by an oncologist.

The room is big and airy but it is not big and airy enough to stop the relentless classical music from smothering me. It seems to get louder and louder, faster and faster, challenging my galloping pulse.

There are two more people in the waiting room, an elderly lady who is busy going through every health information leaflet on the coffee table, and a young man who looks about my age. His head rests against the wall. His eyes are closed and he has earphones secured in both ears. I can't tell what he's listening to but I'm sure it's better than the maddening symphony engulfing the room. I'm guessing it's not his first time here.

According to the notice at the reception desk, a respiratory physician and a diabetologist are also holding their clinics today.

I hope they're here to see one of them. I hope nobody ever has to see an oncologist.

I turn my focus to the colourful prints perfectly mounted on the white-washed walls. Each print displays a picturesque scene from the Maltese Islands. I look at the one opposite us, a view of the Valletta skyline as you would see it from Sliema. I close my eyes and pretend I'm sitting on one of the black, metal benches, the breeze blowing softly through my hair. I imagine joggers trotting by, the sound of the traffic behind me and the chatter of pedestrians all around. I almost zone out completely until a door opens down the corridor and the classical music explodes in my ears once again.

A sombre-looking couple comes down the corridor. The man is tall and strong and healthy. He has one arm wrapped protectively around a frail-looking woman with wispy, dull brown hair and dark eyes. She is clenching some papers in her trembling hands. The man claps the boy with the earphones gently on his shoulder.

The boy is a spitting image of the man towering over him. Small brown eyes, unruly dark brown hair, and a strong chin. But there is something about the shape of his face and the nature of his features that he unmistakably inherited from his mother. He stands up looking expectantly from one to the other, but they just make their way to the reception desk and he has no option but to follow them. His eyes flicker towards me momentarily on his way out and I smile softly at him.

Then a nurse with sleek red hair appears and calls out Millie's name. We look at one another apprehensively, then stand up and follow her.

The doctor's room is colder and even whiter than the waiting area. The walls, the floor, the desk, the examination couch. Everything is white. Even the doctor who is at the sink washing his hands scrupulously seems devoid of colour. The only shocks of hue come from a leafy plant on the ledge of the window and a collapsible figure of the human body on the doctor's desk.

The disturbing music mercifully stops as soon as the nurse shuts the door behind her and a heavy void settles in its place. The doctor turns to greet us with a small smile as he dries his hands and throws the paper towel in the bin. He motions us to sit in the two chairs in front of his desk. I observe him closely trying to draw out any fragment of information from his expression, his behaviour.

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