And that was it. “Eunice in reception will find some available dates”: the only kind of dates I have to look forward to now.
I avoid the front desk—I have no idea which one Eunice is anyway—I can’t get out of that place fast enough. I walk home. I must have. I’m here. It’s like when you’ve been out and got properly hammered yet wake up to find you managed to get home and in your alcoholic stupor still carried out all your normal rituals: put the front door keys in the dish, took off your makeup, put your phone on charge. But you remember none of it. That was my walk home. I don’t even remember walking into the chemist but that crisp white-and-green paper bag on my kitchen worktop would suggest I did. There’s a small bottle of whiskey that sits alongside it. I don’t drink whiskey, but in my haze of emotion, I must have decided I needed it. Amazing the rational decisions you can make in a totally irrational state. Now I’m sitting staring into oblivion with a cup of tea in my hands. One I don’t recall making. I think I may sleepwalk through these final months.
I am reeling. Where did this come from? This freeloader in my body who has squandered all my hopes of a future; one I no longer have because I left it too late. Because I didn’t take my tiredness seriously.
What am I meant to do now? Sit and wait? Where is my mother when I need her?
I still haven’t cried. It’s weird that I can’t. Not yet. It’s as though my tear ducts refuse to believe it. I must be in the first stages of grief and this is denial. What’s next? Anger? Probably. I can feel it sitting, waiting in the wings. But not yet, anger. I like denial.
Still . . . I’ve got to be realistic. I should arm myself with every bit of information available so I understand what this ’osis means (I will never call it by its full name. I will never, ever dignify this interloper with its title). I resolve to read the leaflets in my handbag, then google my vile new bedfellow even though I’m familiar with the dangers of googling an illness. (I once had an overlong case of pins and needles and googled to discover I had MS. Except of course I didn’t.) But googling this can’t possibly terrify me more than it already has, and surely it’s better to be prepared?
I go to retrieve the leaflets then stop midstoop, dropping my bag as though it’s live. I can’t do it. Determination deserts me. Knowing too much might risk manifesting the symptoms quicker than they would otherwise take hold. Like when you read all the possible side effects of a drug and know you’re going to get the stomach cramps, the diarrhea, the skin irritation, the depression even before you start taking the damn things.
I scream inside my head.
If there is a God, please help me! Please tell me what to do.
I am lost.
I am scared.
I am dying.
I must have fallen asleep because I wake up with a jolt, curled in a ball on my sofa, freezing cold, with that horrible groggy feeling that seeps from your head to your stomach to your toes. To be honest, it’s how I normally feel when I wake from a snatched weekend nap, but this feeling now terrifies me. I feel ill in a way I never felt before the diagnosis. I mustn’t do this.
And then, it happens.
I cry.
I cry with the abandon of knowing no one is listening and yet I so want to be heard. I want someone to hold me and tell me it’s all going to be okay. But I’m alone in this. Suddenly I’m not so comfortable about being single. I feel vulnerable and exposed. But I am also pragmatic. I’m a list maker. Maybe that will help. I wipe my eyes, blow my nose, stop the snuffling, and grab paper and pen.
Let’s look at the positives:
NUMBER ONE: I don’t have to struggle through the shitty bits anymore. And let’s be honest here, the world is a pretty shitty place right now. No Bowie, no Leonard Cohen, no Maya Angelou. It’s all algorithms, politics, no poetry.
NUMBER TWO: I’ve had twelve more years than my friend Vanessa. Vanessa was thirty-one when she died and I’ve crammed a hell of a lot into those twelve years she never had.
NUMBER THREE: I won’t get Parkinson’s like my father. Or Alzheimer’s like my mother. I won’t get wrinkles, or saggy breasts, or teeth that flop out at the mention of the word apple. And maybe I’ll be remembered with the romantic grief bestowed on those taken too soon. It would be nice to think so. I hope I won’t be easily forgotten.
NUMBER FOUR: I am not frightened of death. I’ve witnessed it. I was with my friend Vanessa when she died. It was peaceful. Beautiful in fact. I was with my father, then two years later my mother. You see, there are the hand-holders and the people who stay out of the room—like my sister.
I held their hands.
But who is going to hold mine? WHO?
I have no children. My three miscarriages are the reason my husband, Andy, is now my ex-husband. Supposedly, my insular sadness after each loss made him feel excluded. I could have included him if he’d asked, but he never did. He just looked elsewhere. At Elizabeth. Would things have been different if I’d made him mourn with me? I’ll never know. Sometimes I wish I could rewind the tape. Never more so than now.
Saturday morning, I take myself and my misery into Kentish Town and buy a wall calendar from the local pound shop, each month illustrated by an English masterpiece. I could have bought a Taylor Swift official but seeing her all vibrant and full of life seems counterproductive.
Dr. Mackenzie’s words ring in my ears. Three months . . . at best. I rip off January to August (an extravagant waste had it not cost 50p) to reveal a Gainsborough landscape and start a ninety-day countdown, ignoring his miserable at best caveat. It’s like making an advent calendar without the chocolates. If I’m lucky, I might scrape past Christmas.
But let’s not get maudlin. It’s not a science; it’s a guide. An incentive. Something to encourage me to make the best of every day and who knows, perhaps I can get beyond Day Zero. Maybe I’ll even see in the New Year.
I hang the calendar inside the closet in my bedroom. Two crosses. Today is the last day in September—a short month which now feels even shorter. Gainsborough will be gone by tomorrow and tomorrow is already day eighty-eight. I try to convince myself I am being proactive and that I’m facing my illness head-on but I know full well it’s a form of procrastination. A distraction from my first hurdle. Telling people. Because no matter how much I try to deny it, once I tell someone, reality will kick in. And right now, denial holds an enormous amount of appeal.