Must You Go_ - Antonia Fraser [104]
Later we visited Dr Westaby. I spied photos upside down. Insisted on looking and after a bit Harold did too. IT looked ‘like something on a rock,’ says Harold. ‘An evil oyster,’ say I.
8 February
After some rough days and tests, Harold is feeling better. Saw the oncologist in the morning, who confirmed things are moving in the right direction. In the evening to a packed house (nine hundred people) he gave a magnificent performance in Press Conference. He looked elegant in grey shirt, black tie, formal black jacket and the new trousers from M&S: he’s lost so much weight that we had to make a rapid expedition there, despite his sickness. (Harold kept trying to pay more money at the till as he couldn’t believe how cheap everything was compared to the trendy Italian shops he patronizes.) His splendid newly revealed skull most impressive, highly suitable for this horrible governmental character, and so was his voice – which grew – and his ferocious glee. It was a triumph for a man undergoing chemo or indeed any man. I was quite wrong to try and persuade him not to do it because it has boosted his morale enormously. I’m learning as I go: the demands of the body, the needs of the mind … trying to balance them.
9 February
Harold totally exhausted and the bloody indigestion acute.
11 February
Another triumph for Sketches II. Harold possibly even better – less nervous. And I adored Doug Hodge and the lovely Catherine MacCormack in Night: I used to think that it was the only happy thing Harold had written when I first met him. Harold’s skull beneath the skin, as Webster would put it, even more noble.
Some terrible days followed of sickness, the problem of eating and so on. It was the most brilliant weather, crisp, blue skies. Camellias started to flower in the garden, and I was able to bring in my favourite Amaryllis Appleblossom from the greenhouse. Otherwise I just read and read and listened to opera on Radio 3 wishing I could do something, bear something for him. Harold has been told he will probably need more chemo after the operation: not good news and I know his morale is low though he is staunch in not talking about it. The arrival of food supplements, little infant-looking packs with plastic straws and flavours like ‘Peach’ and ‘Cherry’ give a nursery air to the dining room.
20 February
Harold’s supper was two scoops of ice cream and three grapes. A friend, whose husband has recently died of cancer, says: ‘I hope Harold is not very cross with you.’ (I imagine her husband was.) Me: ‘No, Harold is saintly.’ True enough. Keeps worrying sweetly about me: ‘I want you to have a nice time.’ As if I could!
2 March
Harold a little better on the potatoes and ice cream diet, awaiting the fourth chemo session. We went to the Olympia Fine Art Fair on Tuesday to see the Keith Vaughan exhibition, an artist we both admire: I have a small, multi-coloured male figure bought in the fifties. Left Harold at the champagne bar and went a-wandering. Vaguely I was looking for my jewellery (I had been robbed in April 1999 and the police had advised me to ‘keep an eye out’). Rounded a corner on the ground floor – and there was a large stone font full of primroses. Knew I had to buy it, it was waiting there for me, and I would put it in the middle of our rather scrawny lawn as a visual attraction. ‘From an East Suffolk Church 1781’: where the Pakenhams came from before they set off for Ireland with someone called Oliver Cromwell. 1781: a date when Marie Antoinette still held sway at Versailles. Harold slightly surprised to hear we had acquired a font but readily agreed to pay half when I explained that it was an ‘affirmation thing, an affirmation of life’. After all, life begins with a font – well, some lives anyway.
11 March
Bad day after the night-long chemo session. I dashed to No. 10 Downing Street to a Prisoner of Conscience Appeal party held by Cherie Blair, out of guilt as I’m a patron but a useless one. Cherie much prettier than her pictures, most beautiful creamy complexion, and very warm and friendly. The photos