The man in the thermoplastic mask

Radiotherapy ended over three weeks ago and Major is recovering well. This is how it started...

At the end of August, Major and his new mask have a 45 minute appointment in the radiotherapy simulation suite. Dr Rowell is there with his team to work out exactly where the x-rays will strike. The purpose of the mask is to keep the patient still so that the rays hit their target precisely without damaging surrounding healthy tissue. Mildly claustrophobic, Major has had nightmares about this since the date with Graham; I know because most nights I've been woken by his whimpers and flailing limbs.

He lies on a plinth with supports under his knees to keep his back comfortable. The mask is placed over his head and bolted down; he's told to raise a hand if it's too unbearable in which case he'll be released. His eyes are open, and immediately dust falls into them from the mask; he can barely blink it fits him so tightly. Eyelashes poke out through holes too small to allow a relieving fingertip in, and laser-thin lines of green light criss-cross his body. He is left alone in the dark room.

Dr Rowell and the techies sit at banks of computers behind a glass wall as in a recording studio. At the tap of their fingers the plinth goes up, plinth goes down, and the giant head of the machine moves above and around Major at impossible angles for one so huge, its blank face preparing to blow Terminator kisses to his tumor from all directions.

Major's course of 35 treatments is to be mapped out and programmed in during this simulation; decisions made about photons, electrons, neutrons, futons and all sorts of sci-fi business; "warp factor" is probably somewhere in the mix. A radiographer repeatedly rushes in to mark grids on the mask with thin strips of tape, and then to draw lines and bullet points on them in green ink (earthling, lo-tech style). With each visit she reassuringly coos to Major "not long to go now", before dashing out again. After 25 minutes he waves to her as she approaches and grunts through closed mouth his urgent desire to be free. She explains that there are only 5 minutes to go, and if they break now they'll have to go right back and start from the beginning. She tells him he's doing really well, and disappears.

In the village Major bumps into our neighbour, Jenny, a reflexologist. She has made repeated offers of a free session since she heard that Major had cancer, and now he is so freaked out by the simulation experience that he finally accepts. After a generous hour in her slanting chair he floats home across the road, clutching a relaxation cd dealing with FEAR. He dreamily tells me that the session was wonderful, and sleeps all afternoon and through the night. The next day as I'm practising I hear strange moans outside my room, and "no, no, NO". I open the door to see Major denying his fear on my yoga mat, eyes closed, body extended, listening to the cd through headphones. Over the next few days he is often to be found in meditative pose, his fingers forming various shapes as Jenny has shown him, glass of wine on the table at his side.

A second session with her a few days later is as pleasant and relaxing as the first, but, after the third the other-worldly sense of well-being disappears, and Major comes home agitated and disturbed, muttering in all seriousness about the release of demons. Jenny reckons he is particularly responsive to the work so it should have good results.

On the next visit to Maidstone Major seeks out Graham and asks him to cut eye and mouth holes in the mask. He asks that his nose might have a hole too but this is an orifice too far and is denied him for the sake of the mask's "structural integrity". When Major enters LA2 for his first dose of rays he asks to hold the mask before being clamped under it. He gives it a good shake and blows away dust from the new cuts, then gives himself up to the plinth. He says that by the time the session finishes, some 4 minutes later, he is almost asleep.