When the Feast is Finished

It’s a long while to the 7th and the laparoscopy; the time till then seems like a gift we’ve been given yet cannot use.

Sunday 3rd August

If I had the effrontery to think of life as a spiritual journey, then Margaret is far ahead of me; so calm, so tender.

Clive phones from Athens to ask after her health. Although she tells him that one of her symptoms is rather worrying, she says it so reassuringly, so light-heartedly, with amusement even in her voice, as if to say It’s nothing, that he and Youla are surely deceived into thinking all is well.

She’s too tired to water the garden. I do it for her – and drench myself with the hose!

It was a wonderful sunny summer. In order to keep Margaret’s thoughts directed towards the future, I was creating a new bed in the garden. It proved to be hard work.

Moggins sits and watches me plant honeysuckle to climb the new pyramid, and to set a new deutsia in the bed. Charlotte arrives, bringing flowers, for one of her lightning visits. We have tea and biscuits in the helix, and photograph each other.

Charlotte has presents for Tim’s birthday.

Wendy calls at 8.30, large with child. She brings Chris a basket of ‘snack’ gifts, knowing she can eat only a little and often. A lovely and loving surprise! We’re very cheerful.

It’s been a nice day.

That night, I had a fragment of a dream, in which humanity had been given the gift of better understanding. I saw two people sitting together talking. A voice tells me, ‘They are going over all the conversations they had in their lives, improving them.’

If only …

Somewhere in that long night, Margaret came to the realisation that our proposed holiday in Brittany would be too much for her. This was to have been a family holiday by the sea. She and Wendy had made all the arrangements between them. We had hoped for a repeat of a gorgeous holiday we had all enjoyed in Languedoc, in the heart of France, a couple of years earlier.

Brittany was not to be. Wendy and Mark also had their problems. Wendy was pregnant, with a demanding small boy at her heels, Mark was bowed with over-work, and they were going to move house.

Ordinary life continued in fits and starts. We drove to Yarnton Garden Centre and bought £72-worth of plants for the new bed as if nothing was wrong. Margaret walked happily among the assembled plants. Indeed, she was strong enough to bake us a delicious Bulgar plum pie for lunch – of which she could eat but little. She smiled sadly at me as I cleared away. Oh, my dear loving darling! Now you are gone, I live in the dull widower-world of hasty snacks, indifferent eating. I should have framed your lovely pie instead of eating it …

Food became an increasing problem for her. One of the concoctions in Wendy’s magic basket of snacks was called ‘Nurishment’. It was packaged in the average-size can and was manufactured by Dunn’s River Nutritionals. ‘Nurishment’ became Margaret’s stand-by. The drink was advertised as a meal replacement and an energy and nutrition boost. It came in several flavours, and contained vitamins, proteins, calcium and other necessaries. ‘Nurishment’ must have given Margaret at least an extra day of life – and much enjoyment.

Otherwise, she scarcely ate. I took her her breakfast in bed. She managed to eat half a piece of toast, spread with honey. As her appetite failed, so, empathetically, did mine.

Standing became a problem for her. We drove up to a big builders’ showroom, Johnson’s, and investigated stools or seats to use in the shower cubicle. I begin to ask myself guilty questions in the diary.

What can books, ornaments – work, indeed – mean if she is not here with me?

It was to be but a brief while before I found the answer to that question.

We extracted a note from Neil saying Moggins was unfit to travel abroad. I took it to Summertown Travel to cancel our Brittany holiday. There, a sympathetic lady named Karen set about retrieving some of our deposit through the insurers. As the transaction concluded, she said, ‘Give my love to your wife.’ It was so touching. I burst into tears on the way home, and had to draw the car into the side of the road. I still found it hard to accept what was coming to seem more and more inevitable. How Margaret managed, I cannot imagine. Perhaps her long sleeps helped.

But she slept badly that night. I took her some muesli to bed in the morning. It was all she asked for. She had no taste for tea any more, and drank mineral water, mainly Volvic, in the small bottles easily stored in the fridge. Soon after washing and dressing she looked as sparkling as ever and, as ever, made light of her ills.

How was our life then, poised on the brink?

I went shopping at the old Sainsbury’s near Boars Hill. It was as quiet as a cathedral, with a few spectral oldsters wheeling their trolleys about in a funereal way.

Before lunch, I made the beds and vacuumed the bedroom. Moggins got some lunch together – Wendy’s snacks, in part – after which we both had a nap. I worked on Twinkling. It’s just a revision, easy to do, needing little real concentration. I’m earning nothing these days.

We drove into Oxford in the afternoon to buy some new toner for the photocopier. A brief outing. Clive and Youla rang during the evening, to see how Chris was.

Now 9.50 – dark and raining a little. Moggins is already in bed. I’m more or less watching the film version of Osborne’s The Entertainer.

And tomorrow – O God! – it’s the Acland!

She remains ever calm and sweet, reassuring others. A courageous lady!

If only we could have that day again, she and I! Even at the cost of having to watch The Entertainer once more …

So to the ghastly 7th August. I rose at 6.40, and prepared my poor sweetheart a modest breakfast of cereal. She did not clear her plate. We talked of our hopes and fears of what was to come that day, and clung to each other like shipwrecked sailors to rocks. We wept briney tears.

The Acland received us and a nurse conducted us to a small room labelled Room 3. It was hot and airless in there. I got a fan going. Margaret undressed and got into bed. There we waited, holding hands, silent now.

Eventually, an anaesthetist, the Chinese Mr Low, entered, talked informally, and took notes, detailing the heart condition. After him, nurses came, to prepare Margaret for the laparoscopy.

I suppose I left the hospital about three in the afternoon. As I went, the flowers I had ordered were delivered. I arranged them in a vase. Margaret was so calm; her dear smiles almost broke my heart. We hugged and kissed each other and I said I’d return at six, when she would be back in bed and recovering.

Our house was silent. The cats slept.

A laparoscopy is a serious matter. A slit is made near the navel and an endoscope inserted, by means of which the abdomen can be investigated. An endoscope takes the form of a fibreglass tube containing a lighting and lens system. A clawlike attachment can be inserted to cut a sample of tissue.

The worst news.

I was at the Acland before six, in plenty of time to see Moggins being delivered back into Room 3.

She was awake and on a drip, looking rather the worse for wear. An analgesic suppository had been inserted into her anus. Beside the endoscope in her stomach, she had had a laryngoscope down her throat.

I sat by the bed and held her hand. We spoke a little. She asked after the cats. She was hot and I gave her some water.

It grew dark outside. Mr Kettlewell finally appeared. He muttered that the source of the secondary tumour on the liver had been traced to the pancreas.

It cannot be cured. Its progress might be slowed by chemotherapy, which treatment could be started almost at once. No wonder Kettlewell muttered. He had to deliver Margaret’s death sentence.

She scarcely wept. This was everything we had feared. The all-devouring anaconda within …

A lady of massive kindness, by name Nikki Driscoll, an oncology clinical nurse specialist, then came in. She talked to us, explained, tried to reassure us.

She couldn’t say how long my darling has.

Margaret had to remain in the Acland overnight. At last I had to drag myself away.

I returned to Hambleden. I have managed to speak by phone to all members of the family except Tim, who was working. Clive phoned almost as soon as I got home.

What Margaret’s state of mind might be I cannot tell.

Farewell, our carefree happy days!

Friday 8th August

So, I brought her back from the Acland some time after noon. She was brave and bright. The Acland staff could hardly have been more considerate.

When we were home, she sat on the sofa. I made us scrambled egg for lunch. Moggins followed it by yoghurt with Greek honey. Then she slept for quite a while. Both Tim and Charlotte phoned during the afternoon.

Margaret spoke a little about her bitter disappointment. She had expected to enjoy another twenty years – time to see Tim and Charlotte happily married, and producing grandchildren. To grow old.

She was more unwell than she had been before entering the Acland, and she suffered from the heatwave. I drove to Currys superstore on the ring road and bought her a good 12-inch three-speed fan.

Moggins is upstairs now, having a cooling wash. Wendy is coming to see her at six.

My dear Wendy! What an encouragement she was at this time, despite her own troubles – of which she made light. The babe within her had been diagnosed as having a slight kidney problem, which would have to be rectified once it (or he, rather, for we knew which sex it was by now) was born. A report out at this time stated that ‘the family is still central to most people’s lives’. In our case, it was stating the obvious.

Saturday 9th August

Our practical, dependable Wendy arrived at six with a fine standing fan for Chris! Unfortunately, I had pipped her at the post; so she would use it in her own house. She also brought a little bouquet of roses and a novel type of ‘air cooler’, which we were to find very useful by Chris’s bedside.

She stayed for an hour, while I watered the garden and prepared supper for my poor old battered girlie. She retired to bed after long phone conversations with Tim and Charlotte. They’ll both be here next week, as will Clive, flying in from Athens.

When did this horrible thing begin to spread? As long ago as May of last year she could not face going to Israel with me. In September, in Portugal, she was rather under the weather. Yet in May this year, she seemed fine, although she had begun to leave her food. Clive took photographs of her on his balcony in Prigipou and she looks so well and beautiful, eyes bright, colour good. She’s so brilliant in her own domain, so uncomplaining. Her heart trouble evidently masked this more insidious misery.

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