LITMIR.BIZ

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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?

      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

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