by Emily Dean
My phone bleeped with what Rach called ‘lazy-bastard texts’ from old acquaintances – those serve-all, generalised New Year greetings, decorated with party poppers and champagne bottle emojis. ‘Have the best one ever!’ ‘Here’s to all you dream of in 2012!’ ‘Gonna be a good one!’
It was eerily quiet back on the ward. Pensioners were receiving dutiful visits from family members and a TV blared out the National Lottery draw in the visitors’ room, watched by a lone man in a fleece and slippers. I returned to my safe place, resting my head on Rach’s feet, and watched her as she slept, scanning for any sudden changes in her breathing. I wondered whether this was what it felt like to look after a newborn child. Constant panic blended with vigilant love. She had always looked after me, and now we had reversed our roles. If I just kept watching her, maybe she wouldn’t leave.
2 January 2012
Rach went home. She was going to spend a few days there before she started her treatment at the Royal Marsden. Even though she was frail and wiped out, her face brightened when she re-entered the noisy domestic scene of dogs and children.
‘Giggle was so excited to see me he’s ACTUALLY pissed everywhere, Em!’
Giggle didn’t seem to be especially adept at controlling his emotions. His eyes on stalks, he attached himself to her ankles, whining and following Rach around like a deranged groupie.
Adam installed Rach upstairs in their sunny attic bedroom overlooking the garden, where she could rest and build up her strength before chemo. She had been deluged with thoughtful gifts from friends: cashmere pyjamas, organic beauty products, magazines and paraffin-free scented candles. I arranged for my manicurist friend, David, to come and give her a pedicure. ‘I think it’s a pink day!’ he announced, distracting her with tales of fashion runway dramas and high-maintenance clients. He waved away my attempts to settle the bill, insisting, ‘It was an honour!’
I could see that Mimi was relieved to have Rach back home and normality restored. My mum brought Bertie upstairs to gurgle on the bed, and the nightmare of the hospital drama felt diminished. Rach sent out Facebook messages to all her friends. ‘Sorry to sound like an Oscar winner but I need to thank these wonderful people!’ she said with customary camp largesse. She carefully documented each offer of childcare and every bunch of flowers, refusing to let the cancer rob of her courtesy and grace.
3 January
The Rosses had offered to lay on a car and driver to take Rach to her first consultation at the Marsden. ‘Look, it’ll just be one less thing to worry about,’ Jonathan said, downplaying it.
During painful times, people often end messages with the phrase ‘If there’s anything I can do …’ It’s a well-intentioned, socially decent offer that I myself had extended many times in the past. But it was only now that I understood the power of doing rather than asking.
Our friend Kaz brought round dishes of home-cooked lasagne for the whole family. Rach’s college pal, Alice, booked a flight over from America, despite having just given birth. One of Rach’s mum friends swept in to help out with Mimi and distract her with playdates. James, my primary school friend, was about to arrive on a plane from Washington. He had lost his mother to cancer and knew the implications of Rach’s diagnosis.
I realised how much we are conditioned to tread around people who are in pain. We worry about causing offence, overstepping the mark, intruding. But Rach was entering a country that had no time for such genteel reservations, and we were heading with her. No need to even ask. Just do.
A few months previously, Rach had managed to get tickets for the sold-out play Jerusalem. She had spent three days repeatedly refreshing the ticket site, to buy three seats. She’d planned to go with her friends Helen and Vicky but was simply not up to it now. I could fix this, I decided. I would not ask – I would do.
I spent the day calling my colleagues at the magazine, then the theatre manager, trying to swap the Jerusalem tickets for a date after her chemo had started. A matinee perhaps, when the West End would be less noisy and overwhelming.
4 January
‘Em, I want to ask you something,’ Rach said to me the day after my flurry of theatre-related phone calls. I was sitting on her bed, massaging her feet. My mum was pottering about downstairs with the girls. Adam had rushed up to Whole Foods to stock up on organic produce, urged by a friend whose wife managed to overcome a similarly ominous prognosis.
‘I want you to go to Jerusalem in my place. I want you to see it for me. And tell me what it’s like.’
‘No, we can postpone the tickets, I’ve been making arrangements—’
‘I want you to see it for me,’ she said decisively.
I didn’t want to address what I feared. That she suspected she might not get to see it. She would never have said that out loud; it was simply not her way. I wondered, with a creeping sense of shame, whether I would have been capable of such a generous act in her position. Wanting to gift your experience to others, for your pain to become their joy, despite the sheer injustice of life continuing without you.
‘Of course! That’s so sweet of you,’ I told her.
‘I want you to have a laugh with my friends. Go out and get pissed with them afterwards. Promise?’
‘I solemnly promise we’ll get pissed, Rach, yes.’
6 January
The black Mercedes that Jonathan had arranged to take us to and from Rach’s appointment at the Marsden snaked out of Rach and Adam’s street. A mile into the journey Rach needed to vomit.
The driver stared ahead without uttering a word, pulling up obediently outside a Sainsbury’s as I raced in to get a carrier bag to use as a makeshift sick bowl.
‘Sorry about this,’ Rach apologised to the driver.
He nodded repeatedly, still stonily silent.
‘Maybe-no-speak-ENGLISH?’ my mother stage-whispered at me.
We continued through the traffic, Rach talking about the Marsden being the best place possible. The atmosphere in the car felt faintly optimistic, as if the word ‘hope’ had suddenly swung by for a visit.
We pulled up outside the hospital and Adam gently helped Rach out of the car.
The eerily mute driver suddenly leaned out of the car window to address me.
‘Excuse me,’ he whispered apologetically, waiting until the others were out of earshot. ‘I hope I do not seem rude. I am told for this job not to say one word EVER to the passengers. They tell me peace and silence.’
We sat drinking coffee in the waiting room before Rach’s appointment. I told them about ‘one word EVER’, imagining Jonathan giving draconian instructions to the car company, which the driver seemed to have taken rather literally.
‘I wondered why the poor bastard looked so terrified!’ My mother laughed.
‘How thoughtful of Jonathan. Everyone is being so kind,’ said Rach.
Rach had never chosen to be the centre of the picture. She seemed almost baffled by the rush of deference being thrown her way. She had never felt entitled to lavish bouquets or solicitous drivers and people monitoring her every movement. So she accepted this blast of attention with a slightly stunned gratitude, an appreciative stranger in this new land.
We were ushered in to see her consultant, Dr Cunningham, who had a sympathetic, paternal manner. He confirmed that she had colon cancer, which had metastasised (I learned recently this means ‘spread’) to her liver. Notoriously, colon cancer could be hard to detect, which was why in Rach’s case there had been no obvious signs until it had spread to other organs. Surgery on her liver at this late stage, he explained, with this type of cancer, was not an option. But he didn’t dwell on this, instead suggesting ways of managing the disease. He told her that she needed to forget picking at raw diets and instead load up on calorie-rich foods. The priority now was to get her strong for chemotherapy. He focused on what he could do now, rather than worst outcomes.
We all headed home, diverting via the West End to drop me off at the theatre. It was the night of Jerusalem. I neede
d to say something to Rach. I wanted to pitch my tone right – to keep it light and not treat the occasion with weighty solemnity. That was not how Rach dealt with things. It never was.
‘Wish me luck. Those two will be stuck into the white wine already.’ I smiled.
Helen and Vicky are the couple you hope will arrive first at a party. The ones who seize the karaoke mic, pull the elderly relative on to the dance floor and finally take you to an after-hours bar where you have to buzz three times and ask for someone called Spider.
‘Well, I’m green with envy, dear!’ my mother said, taking her cue from me. I think this is the way to handle it, her glance communicated.
But I realised suddenly that there was no need for this careful monitoring of language. Rach had acquired the unfettered honesty of someone focused purely on living now. Time spent on selecting the correct words to deliver in the appropriate way was time wasted.
‘I want to hear all about it!’ Rach said, as I climbed out of the car.
I felt strange standing outside the five-star billboards for the play. Guilty about stealing her experience. And panicked by her absence – as if we had fast-forwarded to a future that I didn’t want to think about. But then Helen and Vicky arrived and covered me in cold-cheeked embraces, and laughter.
Our three seats were, as my mother would say, ‘up in the bloody gods’, and the stage was partially blocked by lighting equipment. Helen spotted an empty box and we snuck down there, dodging past ushers and giggling rebelliously. I was glad we had managed to come away with an anecdote that would make Rach laugh.
‘How AMAZING was that?’ said Vicky afterwards.
‘I know,’ Helen agreed. ‘I really wanted to tell Rach, “You missed nothing! Fucking overrated. We fell asleep.” Do you think she’ll buy it if we tell her it was an absolute pile of shite?’
8 January
‘Tell me about Jerusalem, Em.’
I decided she was unlikely to buy the ‘absolute pile of shite’ line, so opted for the truth.
We were at my mother’s house in Muswell Hill for our postponed Christmas. Adam was bouncing Bertie on his knee; Giggle was pacing around, high on the scent of turkey, cynically working my mother’s tendency to over-indulge his endless appetite.
My dad started talking about Jerusalem. I wasn’t sure he had actually seen the play. But that was the kind of detail that rarely bothered him. ‘An extraordinary performance. Mark Rylance is easily our greatest living stage actor,’ he said grandly, letting out a large fart that no one acknowledged except Mimi, who gave an elated gasp.
Rach grinned at me. My mother was stirring the special gravy she always made from a yellowing Delia Smith newspaper cutting. The tree was buckling under the weight of the bizarre decorations she had kept since our childhood. We never had red baubles. Instead there was a blue Afro-wigged angel, a little photo Rach put in a tiny frame of me having a tantrum and a miniature African wood carving of a naked woman that our grandmother gave us one year.
It was hot and noisy in the small kitchen, with an orchestra of competing voices. Rach looked weary.
‘Do you want to come and sit up here, Rach?’ I suggested, and she nodded, slowly mounting the three steps up into my mum’s living room area, cluttered with chipped bowls of potpourri, theatre prints and Mimi’s drawings. She sat in the battered chesterfield chair gifted to my mother by Lynsey several years ago, which now had exploding innards held together by gaffer tape. ‘That chair is SO our family,’ Rach said once. ‘Decaying decadence. You can hear it screaming, “How have I ended up in this weird place?”’
She glanced at the continuing discussion about Shakespeare in the kitchen. Comforted to have it in the background but wanting space from it sometimes. Just as it always was.
‘You see, YOU get me,’ she said, of the subtle rescue mission.
‘We get each other,’ I replied.
Mimi urged Rach to open her long-overdue Christmas presents. Rach took her time over it, partly because of her diminished energy but also because that was how she approached everything. With deliberation, rather than frenzied gorging.
She got to my gifts: a gold necklace, a cashmere top and the hairdresser vouchers for a cut and highlights.
I had started to panic about the hair vouchers the night before, wondering whether the escalating events of the previous week had rendered the present wildly inappropriate. ‘You’re about to have chemo and lose your hair, here’s a tasteless reminder of the life you’ve left behind!’ I considered removing the envelope with its silk bow from under the tree. And then decided that would be not be in keeping with the way Rach was dealing with this – wanting to stay positive, talking about the future.
‘Thought it would be something to look forward to after … everything,’ I said awkwardly as she opened it.
‘Oh, Em,’ she said quietly.
I felt sick. I had got it hopelessly wrong.
‘Rach, I didn’t want to upset you! It’s for after the chemo, for when …’
‘No!’ she said. ‘Don’t be stupid. I’m crying because it’s such a generous present.’ She hugged me. ‘It’s so nice, that’s all.’
I couldn’t decide whether she was being honest. But it made me wonder how much this mantle of optimism she had fashioned was for all of us rather than her. I had no idea what was really going through her mind when ‘the future’ was mentioned.
11 January
A few days later, preparations for Bertie’s first birthday got underway. Rach had decided to throw a little party at the house, and sent out Facebook invites to friends. She told them that if anyone had a cold or virus they would need to stay away as she was trying to protect her immune system.
‘Weekends are busy for you all, don’t worry if you can’t make it!’ she said. ‘Turn up when you like.’ She sounded like a working mum who understood the chaotic lives of other working mums. Rach had never been uptight about arrangements and was baffled when people responded angrily to altered plans or late arrivals. Her house style had always been ‘No dramas, mate!’ a phrase we picked up in Australia. It still was.
13 January
Two days before Bertie’s party Rach was resting. She was trying to build up strength for the operation to have her chemo port, a small disc through which the drugs could be administered via a tube, inserted next week.
I was worried about her coping with a party. I suggested to Mum that we talk to Adam about keeping things more low-key.
‘It’s her daughter’s first birthday, Em,’ Mum said simply.
15 January
Rach put on a bright silk shirt and some eyeliner and lipstick for the party. She had lost a lot of weight and looked frail. Shock flashed briefly across her friends’ faces before they embraced her. But she had thrown out the cancer narrative for today. She complimented someone on their skirt. ‘Is that Zara? I’m so copying you, sorry!’ She told a funny story about Mimi, and laughed with a friend about how all newborns look ‘basically like Ross Kemp’.
Adam brought in the cake, with a giant pink iced number one, which had been organised by one of Rach’s friends. (‘Darling, is it just me or does the number one look more like a pound sign? You have to be SO careful with high-street bakers,’ my mother whispered.) Rach posed with Bertie on her lap as Mimi blew out the candles for her.
On the way home in the car my mum told me how happy she was to see Rach surrounded by her friends, wrapped up in love and concern.
‘Her friends have always been like an extended family for her. And she wants to share that with her girls …’
She trailed off, aware that we were heading into dangerous waters with the mention of things Rach wanted to cultivate in her daughters’ lives.
‘I really think she is going to beat this, you know,’ she said, shifting swiftly into another gear. ‘Rach is a fighter!’
I nodded silently.
16 January
I popped into my magazine office a few days later. Partly because I felt guilty abou
t my long absence, which still had no end date in sight, but also to thank my boss, Eilidh, for being so understanding.
‘Emily. Please. Don’t even think about work,’ Eilidh said. ‘You need to be with your sister now. For however long …’
It was strange being thrust into the world of my immaculate fashion colleagues, with their glossy highlights, tailored blazers and spiky heels. I felt like a foreigner in this perfumed, elegant universe. The girls wrapped me in hugs but no one probed for information. ‘Get out of fashion magazines, too many bitchy women!’ a male friend once said. I now knew he was utterly wrong. There was an undeniable power in female friendships at times like this.
Alice, the Beauty Editor, offered to help source wigs for Rach and handed me a list of sensitive, specialist places – ones where we wouldn’t encounter stag-night parties piling in to ask ‘for twelve Austin Powers wigs. Lads on tour!’
Rach had told me she wanted the wig to be right so that she didn’t frighten Mimi. ‘I need to still look like her mummy. I don’t want her to worry. Find me a good one, Em. And for fuck’s sake, make sure it’s not the sort of thing Matt Lucas wears in Little Britain when he’s playing a woman.’
17 January
I met Mum at the wig shop in Notting Hill. There was an elderly lady with alopecia, browsing. The other customer was a woman wearing a headscarf who looked about Rach’s age, her missing eyebrows and lashes telling their own story. I offered her a friendly smile. Before, I would have thought it best to discreetly avert my gaze.
‘What about this?’ my mum said, picking up a buttery blonde layered one with a fringe and ash highlights.
‘No, a bit “newsreader going through marriage problems”,’ I said, lapsing into the waspish shopping shorthand Rach and I used.