When the Feast is Finished

To see Dr Hart, for the six-month check-up I requested. He suggests I have an angiograph done, a tube inserted into the veins, to see if he can find out what is wrong with the blood supply. Sounds horrid, but must be done, a day in the hospital with local anaesthetic. Ugh. I have to go on to anti-cholesterol pills, to lower it. OK, maybe that will help. I await a date.

Angiogram duly done, early July: great result – no coronary artery problems at all. So, only the blood pressure and enlarged ventricle to look after, with pills, as before. Thank goodness for that!

Margaret was a great counter of blessings.

Often in the night she would wake, and then I would wake, and we would walk about the house holding hands. We put no lights on. A street lamp outside the front door filtered light into the rooms. We were always kind and fond. I enjoyed those waking times; sometimes I would fetch her a little glass of milk from the fridge.

I would hold her and kiss her. We told each other that, now we were getting old, we needed less sleep. Indeed, it was difficult to distinguish the natural pains of growing old from more serious pains, or a sense of feeling old from a sense of feeling ill. It seemed then that we were both ‘getting on a bit’, and so we were inclined to regard Margaret’s heart problem as part of a process in which we were both involved.

Nevertheless, there was a new development. For several years, I had been taking a post-lunch siesta in the study, whereas Margaret said she could not sleep during the day. Now she began to rest on the sofa in the living-room, her beloved cat Sotkin beside her, and often would sleep for a whole hour or possibly more.

She could not think herself well again.

It was on the 14th of April that Margaret wrote the letter to her cardiologist.

Dear Dr Hart,

I came to see you in October last year, and we discovered that I have an enlarged left ventricle. I gather from my GP, Neil MacLennan, that I am not due to see you again for a year, but I really would be glad to have another appointment with you now. I don’t know whether I should make it direct with you, but in any case I am sending Neil a copy of this letter.

It seems to me that things are really not much better, and I am disappointed I suppose – you said it could be ‘cured’, and I hoped for good things. But I still get short of breath very easily, and tired, and find I am not up to doing a great deal of gardening, for instance – by which I mean digging up shrubs and transplanting them, carting round bags of manure, restoring our newly acquired garden, etc.!

I have had regular appointments with my GP, and my blood pressure is reasonably normal; but my cholesterol level is very high at present. I have chosen to improve my diet rather than go on more pills, since I am aware the diet has slipped over the winter. I have the odd ‘pale day’, after a night when my heart seems to have been extra cramped up, and then I feel unable to be particularly active – this is something I have experienced over a few years. I would also like to discuss with you why I have this condition, something I really didn’t ask your opinion about. It seems to me I have trouble at night, and again over the years I have had ‘struggling’ dreams which wake me, it seems, on purpose to get my breath back. Anyway, I am worrying about it at present and would be glad of a check-up with you.

I have found a note written in Margaret’s elegant hand, dated the 2nd of May 1997. It reads mysteriously: ‘7.2 chol. Liver slightly abnormal. Neil lipid doc’.

During this period, of the early summer, we tried to live as normal and enjoy our usual pleasures. These included our contacts with countries overseas. A party of musicians came to Britain from Turkmenistan to play. They performed in the Holywell Music Room in Oxford. In the programme interval, I was presented with a hand-woven rug into which was woven the name of the Central Asian poet Makhtumkuli, together with my name. This was by way of honouring my versification in English of Makhtumkuli’s poems, first started when I was in Turkmenistan in 1995.

On the following day, Youssef Azemoun, the great unsung ambassador of all things Turkmen in this country, came to tea with Margaret and me. He brought with him two Turkmen ladies, Mai Canarova, a descendant of the eighteenth-century poet, and Orazgul Annamyrat, a pianist trained in the Moscow Conservatory.

Margaret served tea in the garden, in the helix. Afterwards, Orazgul came inside and played to us (Margaret was delighted she had just had the piano tuned). She had a clear attacking style, beautiful both to hear and to watch and was a remarkable person who briefly entered our lives, very friendly and quick. She quite won our hearts.

That May, as reported, Margaret and I flew to Greece for a holiday. To begin with, we took life easy, staying on Aegina in the House of Peace with Clive and Youla. We had had some concern about the heat, which was why we went early in the month.

We were back home in time for Moggins’s birthday on the 23rd of May. It was to prove her last birthday.

In the middle of June, Margaret and I opened the garden to the Friends of Old Headington, and many amiable people wandered round our garden and others nearby. Among them were Jeremy and Margaret Potter. Jeremy, brave and jovial, announced that he was dying of cancer, hale and hearty though he looked. Moggins too looked so bonny that day, and radiated happiness. Yet we both knew that she was under par, and feeling weak.

On the 4th of July, we drove out to Kidlington – well, Margaret drove us to Kidlington; she usually did all the driving – to a dinner party under the hospitable roof of our friends Felicity and Alex Duncan and children. We always looked forward to visiting them. I suppose about sixteen or more people sat down to dine in their hall. During the first course, Margaret, who was sitting down the table from me, rose, and excused herself; she said she was feeling unwell. Anxiously, I went outside with her, into the cool dark. She said her heart was bothering her, and her pulse was fluttering; I was to stay and enjoy myself, because she would be fine once she got home and could lie down.

Her casual manner in part reassured me. I went to the car with her, protesting that I would go with her. No, no, she would be fine. I must go back to the party; she was sorry to leave, etc.

So I went back, but was too anxious to remain at table. I told Alex I would have to leave. Alex came with me into the night, and saw me into a taxi. I believe that that was the first moment when my anxiety broke through into full consciousness and I realised that my wife might be seriously ill.

So, while Margaret underwent various tests, still centring on her heart problem and cholesterol levels, we still tried to live as we normally did, enjoying the summer, the garden, and our orderly little house. And, of course, continuing White Mars.

We had both been reading Anna Karenina in different editions. I enjoyed the fateful love affair; Margaret, impatient with Anna, was more sympathetic to Levin’s dealings with his serfs, and his love of the countryside.

I wrote my wife a letter at this period:

Tolstoy says that Levin and Kitty, during the early years of their marriage, wrote each other two or three notes every day. They did this even though they were constantly together, as we are.

It seems a good idea! So I send you a little note for a change.

I go on to thank her for her assistance in getting together the sprawling manuscript of Twinkling, saying that there must be passages in it which were not agreeable to her; nevertheless, she did not complain or attempt to act as censor. I admired her restraint and thanked her.

To this I received a bouncy answer. It must stand against the criticisms of my behaviour I happened across later, which we will come to. Meanwhile, her letter is worth quoting in full, as proof of her affectionate and optimistic outlook on life. And on her husband, for that matter …

Hello my darling,

You sent me a lovely note at the end of last year, and it’s about time I answered it!

We don’t write to each other much these days, do we? But we do express our love in so many happy ways, and in our support for each other. I am so grateful for your care and concern when my heart seems to play up and make me rather feeble. And I am very worried about the state of your legs – let’s hope the tests and X-rays will show up what is causing the pain. Soon, the weather will make life easier for us, when we can get out and move around, and get more exercise in the garden.

I wish Malcolm would come through with some decent enthusiasm for your autobiography. It is such a wonderfully wide-ranging book, so much experience in it, and so many areas of life included. We will weather the curiosity of our family and friends, who will no doubt appreciate that we have survived many awful times and yet stuck together, knowing that we are the foundation of a great family structure! Lucky old us! And thank goodness for Gordon Van Gelder!

I suppose it’s true and inevitable that we seem to have aged a bit over the last year, with the traumas of moving and building. I hope we will manage to enjoy the garden this year, and that you won’t be too exhausted with too much travel. We’ll try to have some good adventures of the easy kind!

Love you hugely as always, huge hugs – Your Moggins

Well, we did stay and try to enjoy the garden, and I did not travel abroad. Unfortunately, our Tolstoyan correspondence progressed no further, as her sorrows overtook us.

During the summer, I gave my Moggins Lisa St Aubin de Teran’s autobiographical book The Hacienda. She was absorbed by it, and by Lisa’s terrible life, and wanted to read more of her writing. She lent The Hacienda to Betty, who also devoured it.

Friends I had met originally at the Conference of the Fantastic, Gary Wolfe and Dede Weil – now married – were in Europe. They had said they wished to see England beyond London, so Margaret and I planned a short trip for them. It was to prove our last carefree little excursion, and the most valued because of it, for all four of us.

Margaret drove me from Oxford to Tiverton Parkway, a smart little railway halt in the West Country. She seemed in good health again, although it was no surprise when she stayed sitting in the car while I went to the platform to meet our guests. They had come down from London by train, to save them a long car journey.

The weather was beautiful. The four of us drove down to Tarr Steps, where the river flows shallowly through a deep valley. A low stone bridge, little grander than a giant’s stepping stones, crosses the river. Adults paint there, children pretend to fall in. There we stayed for a night, enjoying each other’s company. Gary is witty and humane; Dede is intense, empathetic and affectionate. Time for Dede is rendered particularly special because she has suffered from cancer, has had one lung removed, and has lived to tell the tale.

On the following day, we moved to a more comfortable hotel, the Royal Oak in Winsford. Margaret and Dede drove to Winsford; Gary and I walked up a leafy valley, past a herd of the semi-wild Exmoor ponies, through countryside that has scarcely changed since before Wordsworth’s time. Gaining an upper by-road, we saw Margaret and Dede in the distance, strolling towards us, both looking serene. Dede told me later that they had discussed mortality.

The pleasant scene remains in mind, assisted by the photographs we took.

When the time came to part, we drove our friends to Bath, and lunched with Charlotte in the Pump Room. Charlotte worked as deputy manager of the HMV branch in Bath. Rain poured down that day. Gary and I took shelter in a tour of the Roman Baths while the ladies shopped. Our friends caught the London train from Bath station. Margaret and I drove back to Oxford, with Margaret again at the wheel.

We returned home late on Thursday. Wendy had been feeding our cats while we were away. For our part, we were happy to resume our prized and peaceful home life. But on the Saturday Margaret and I went to the Acland, where she was X-rayed.

Tuesday 29th July

Well, a dreadful day: I am apparently very unwell. I had a liver ultrasound scan at the Acland on Saturday, and the radiologist immediately told me I needed a biopsy, as there were ‘irregularities’, which ought to be investigated further. Neil phoned yesterday, Monday, to say it was rather worrying, as these growths could be evidence of a secondary CANCER. I can’t remember whether he actually used that word, but that’s certainly what he was talking about. But we have no evidence of a primary growth. He seems to think the heart condition might have disguised it. Although I had a colonoscopy which was totally clear two years ago, I may have a tumour there somewhere – though I never pass any blood. Christ! It’s a death sentence. The encyclopedia says that once a secondary growth develops in the liver there’s nothing that can be done.

B and I collapsed into each other’s arms, wept and comforted each other, without really being able to believe it. Immediately, thoughts of all I want to put in order, of how desperate it would be to leave my darling husband to cope on his own, the children without seeing them married and without seeing any of my very own grandchildren … I have to stop myself brooding.

Having to stop herself brooding … Maybe. And having to commune within herself and summon up all her inner resources of fortitude.

Although we were to face much misery to come, it was always tempered by Margaret’s wonderful example of courage and concern for others than herself.

On the following day, Sunday, she slept badly and spent much of the day simply lying about. Hardly surprisingly.

Tuesday 29th July

At 3.25 yesterday, Neil phoned to say there was a growth of secondaries on Margaret’s liver, as revealed by her sonic scan on Saturday. Unwrapping this we found it meant cancer.

She will go to Mr Kettlewell for a liver biopsy on Wednesday.

We went into the living-room and held each other and wept.

My darling! – Why wasn’t this me, with my checkered old life, instead of my dear young innocent wife?

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy,

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

William Blake.

Now I entered a period of rapid mood swings, in contrast with Margaret’s amazing equilibrium, while we struggled to come to terms with this fatal news.

Being sensible and stalwart, my lady goes to Jo at Salon Scandinavia to have her hair done before tomorrow’s biopsy.

This evening, she phones Tim in Brighton to issue a vague storm warning. ‘It doesn’t look too good,’ she says brightly. Tim is concerned and says he will ring tomorrow. Today, she appears in good spirits but is clearly frail. She snoozes on my chaise-longue here in the study all morning long, and on the sofa in the afternoon. In part it must be the shock of the news.

Already it’s started. ‘This tree she planted with her own dear hands …’

Her gentle manners, her sweet and cheerful voice. I don’t know what to do, where to turn. If only I could take on her cancer and she could live …

My vegetables have been a fair success this year, as I have fought weeds, pigeons, slugs, snails and blackfly on my little patch. It’s hot and dry weather: I’ve just hosed everything down. The peas aren’t brilliant, but the broad beans are delicious. Margaret ate some for her supper, in a white sauce.

Wednesday 30th July

We went to see Mr Kettlewell, a large, rugged, muttering sort of man in a loose grey suit. He sat in his room in Polsted House, next to the Acland, asking Moggins questions and examining her. There’s to be no biopsy. We feel we’ve been given another week of life! After that week, a CT scan and then a laparoscopy. It appears there may be a tumour in the stomach or pancreas. I pray not the pancreas.

Margaret describes this anxious time.

I had a fairly immediate appointment with Mr Kettlewell, who has done my two colonoscopies; he took all the details, and sounded out my diaphragm; he found one uncomfortable patch between my ribs. He suggests a laparoscopy would be better than a biopsy, which is rather hit and miss: this would be a micro-camera put into the liver area so they can have a good look around it and other organs, pancreas, etc. Seems a good idea. In his mumbly quiet way, he was not nearly so fatalistic as Neil had been, and says there could be other reasons, and there is always chemotherapy (me!) and so on.

We came away feeling we had been granted a reprieve, and went into town to buy new photo albums etc. (I want to make Tim and Charlotte an album each of their family backgrounds – I have the photos chosen already).

Much of Margaret’s character can be read in that extract. Her courage, her concern for others, her sense of family, her determination to act and get on with life.

On the day after the meeting with Mr Kettlewell, we both had health appointments. Mine I felt was completely irrelevant; it had been fixed some while earlier. Margaret describes it, not particularly flatteringly.

Yesterday morning early I had an appointment also with George Hart, my cardiologist, who also listened patiently to all the symptoms which have occurred since the angiogram last year. He took my blood pressure which he says is fine. No comment on my irregular, or rather increased, pulse rate. He says the laparoscopy is a good idea, and he will decide if I need to change medicines after the results of it come in. A cheery little fellow.

B had an appointment with an ENT consultant in the afternoon! We are making the most of our BUPA subs at present!! It was because of his permanently achy nose, dry and painful up the top. A very pleasant and clearly spoken youngish man (the sort Charlotte ought to get together with!) looked at everything and pronounced it normal, but said the septum dividing the nostrils was a little crooked, blocking one nostril slightly.

We talked of B’s snoring, which I described as someone cutting corrugated cardboard with a serrated knife, which amused him; he suggests B might attend the sleep clinic locally, but that any operation to shave bits off the floppy palate is extremely painful and not recommended. There are other things that can be done.

B said to me he felt like a fraud, getting attention for his nose at present when it is a minor thing. Certainly while he is on Beconase and the two inhalers, his breathing is easier and he snores less.

But he is very tired, has bad legs, etc. and always has indigestion much like what I am experiencing at present, a cross between a hiccup and a burp. Mr Bates suggested losing a stone in weight would help B greatly, even with the snoring. We must try to aim for this – I’m sure it would help his legs too.

Last week at Tarr Steps, and driving up and down to Devon, I was pretty fit – but feel I couldn’t manage it this week, that’s pretty bad. Most mornings this week, I feel very shaky, pulse rate high, and not keen to stand still at all. I have just had to ask B to do the shopping. Poor man, he is looking after me extremely nicely and kindly and patiently, getting morning teas in bed, doing the washing up, clearing rubbish and putting out papers and bottles etc. Luckily he is not under too much pressure with work; White Mars continues well, but does not have to be finished for quite a while; the autobiog. will need a lot of work, when Little, Brown agrees to release a marked copy of the mss. with suggestions.

By this date, I had taken back my autobiography from HarperCollins and had changed publisher. I was now with Little, Brown.

For reasons that I now find hard to understand, I was somewhat astonished when Margaret asked me to do the shopping. I had become so used to her expeditions. Of course I trawled round Tesco’s with her shopping list. Margaret never visited a supermarket again.

Margaret is to peck at a little food every hour. Chocolate was mentioned. This will suit her birdlike eating habits well. After Mr Kettlewell, we shopped in Summertown at the delicatessen, then called on Wendy and Thomas. I can see Moggins is a little scared of Thomas. He has become so boisterous, and rushes unpredictably at people in a boyish way. She is so delicate she fears he might charge into her.

With Thomas I played in their Victoria Road garden – dungeons and Exploding Boys. The dear ladies talked indoors, ever good friends. Wendy once paid Chris [Margaret] a great compliment, saying she wished she had been her mother. Certainly Margaret’s mild behaviour, her kindness, her lack of stridency have made us all better people.

II

First week of August

Tomorrow, my darling first-born’s thirtieth birthday; this time thirty years ago I was sitting in Jasmine garden with my feet up, very large, few cares in the world!

Now, who knows? This morning I am extremely shaky, even my writing is not what it was. Have I had this thing coming on for a long time? B looks back at his diaries and says I was unwell in the spring, but it was merely a sore throat I think.

The heart trouble has been with me for some time. But this new thing? I lie awake at night trying to sort out things in my mind, like what will happen to my belongings: my will is made, and is fine, but I’ve left nothing to Mark, or to Sarah [Sheridan, Tim’s fiancée], or to Youla, which I’d like to do. Tim and Charlotte will get Quay House immediately, I suppose, and B will have to fund it for them while decisions are made about whether to keep the flat or not … Well, I can’t look after that for them, but it would at least give them some funds to use for their own properties in due course.

My dearest step-daughter came up on Friday with a wonderful large basket full of goodies and snacks for me! Such thoughtful kindness as always. She and Mark are as dear to me as my own two.

Charlotte called on Saturday, with some lovely flowers for me. We talk, mostly superficially, about things. In the car driving her back to her current boyfriend Owen’s place, I say there is a slight reason for worry about my condition. She does not say much about that, perhaps trying to be optimistic for my sake. We say we will see each other in a fortnight.

Sarah has taken Tim over to France for twenty-four hours for his big birthday, hiring a smart Rover 200 for them – they hope to buy one next year! He sounded extremely cheery on the phone!

It was difficult to see how much Charlotte understood from her mother’s lightly made remarks. Driving her into town for her to meet up with Owen on another occasion, we stopped outside Blackwells’ art shop and had a fairly ghastly conversation, where I had to tell her the omens were not good. My hope was that she would prepare herself mentally for graver shocks to come.

On the 2nd of August, we went to tea with our kind neighbours, the Stantons, John and Helen. Also present were Margaret and Jeremy Potter. Jeremy was slowly succumbing to an inoperable cancer. He had tried chemotherapy, but it made him feel so unwell he refused further treatment. He seemed well enough at the table. But so did Margaret; she was bright and talkative. I could not believe she was under threat of death, so serene was her radiance.

Yet she grows weaker. Is it only my fancy she grows thinner and her eyes grow larger, mistier?