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By Root 717 0

when Harold started to hallucinate, a temporary consequence of the anaesthetic. It began with ‘awake dreaming’ as he put it: he had a lovely dream that we were both in California and there was sunlight and leaves and I looked very beautiful. I think I had been swimming and my hair was shining. Then it got more serious and turned to bugs, Harold’s bane, infesting the (immaculate) telephone. This was fearful – literally so – for him but I was able to remain optimistic in what might otherwise have been a desperately worrying situation because by an extraordinary coincidence this had happened to another member of the family after a major operation a year or two back. So I knew Harold would recover his wits. In the meantime, the fears included a gentle black man with a crown – a king as in the Three Kings of the Orient – residing in the television so his face had to be extinguished with a towel, although unlike some of the visions, he was not menacing.

This led to a hilarious situation as Harold began to recuperate and the hallucinations at last faded. I arrived for my morning visit quite late on in his stay and Harold said: ‘I must warn you there is a very tall black man in the bathroom.’ Oh God, I thought, here we go again: my heart sank. And lo and behold at that moment the door opened and out came the cleaner, an Ethiopian perhaps, of about 6′8″ …

7 May

I can’t believe it, I took Harold out to lunch at Le Colombier! (the restaurant next door to the Marsden Hospital). Gaunt, fragile, all in black, he then proceeded to eat liver and bacon, the first real food since forever.

8 May

He’s coming out at noon. I am to spring the prisoner. I can’t believe that either.

I did spring him. On return home Harold behaved like Hector, Damian and Paloma’s golden labrador in Mexico who was kidnapped for a week; when recovered, he just rushed up to their bedroom, went under the bed and stayed there for forty-eight hours. Except that Harold got into the bed, he behaved exactly the same. I stayed downstairs and answered the doorbell to flowers. Finally I opened the door to Mr Nader, of Savile’s Cars, who had been so tremendously staunch in times of need, driving both of us to and from hospital endlessly; he had a huge bouquet ‘from all the drivers’. At long, long last I burst into tears which I didn’t try to stop.

Chapter Seventeen

THE NEW DEAD

In the course of the summer Harold cautiously began to say that he felt better.

15 May

Alexandra Shulman’s tenth anniversary party as editor of Vogue. A touching occasion, full of Alex’s old friends, most of whom I have known throughout their lives. Nigella Lawson was tenderly sympathetic about intensive care at the Royal Marsden where John Diamond had died, and the holy character of Steve the male nurse. At this point the photographers descended on her in droves as if she were Princess Diana and perforce snapped us together – if only they knew what her perfect lips were discussing.

25 May

Took Harold to Holland Park and we sat looking at the irises and the water sculpture. This was the first time he had walked properly and it was real progress.

There were milestones, like the day that he was pronounced ‘clear’ of cancer: so no need of further chemo – the chemo he had announced beforehand he would not have. I might have disagreed but we had no need to go that route. He was once again a man with black, curly tonsured hair – it did not grow back silver as I had expected. He fell into a routine of lying in the drawing room like a leopard – a convalescent leopard – on a branch, then going out for a couple of hours at night.

I found that the subsidence of one anxiety, the major anxiety, led to the emergence of another much smaller professional one, which had been concealed by the traumatic events of winter and spring 2002. I was no longer convinced that I could write an interesting book about the Battle of the Boyne – and who wants a boring one? Of the two principal antagonists, I admired but disliked William III and simply disliked James II without admiration. My pulse quickened