by Lucy Palmer
My desire for another child remained strong, yet the obvious questions that hung over Julian’s future raised major issues for us both. Having more children in such circumstances was clearly an enormous gamble.
We had been discussing this somewhat fraught issue for several months, taking it in turns to play devil’s advocate. If we decided against having more children, to me that would be a tacit acceptance that he was not going to survive. To say no would be to give up on him, to begin to live with the thought, ‘What’s the point? He’s going to die anyway.’ In the end, it was this prospect that I could not accept, a choice that seemed so utterly bleak and depressing. I simply could not allow myself to think that Julian would not triumph in the end.
After months of difficult conversations, we chose hope. And then we waited.
•••
Julian began to talk to a lovely lawyer friend, Philip Boyce, in Bowral as he thought the impending Goods and Services Tax being introduced by the government of John Howard might yield future work for him.
‘I went to university with Howard,’ he said.
‘He’s so unimaginative and depressing,’ I said. I missed the insightful acerbity of former prime minister Paul Keating. For me, politics in Australia after the excitement and unpredictability of Papua New Guinea was extremely dull.
I had largely given up on the idea of continuing work as a journalist – reporting news in a small country town did not seem very appealing.
Luckily, the BBC World Service got in touch and asked if I would be interested in being a regional freelancer for Australia and the South Pacific. I was told I would only report on significant events, which meant the workload would not be too great. Then they dangled another carrot – I had to spend a week in Jakarta for some training.
•••
The week away was a huge boost to my professional confidence and it was thrilling to be working with other journalists from South-East Asia, many from countries that I knew little about. The days were intense and interesting as we sat around in an airless hotel conference room. I had not worked this hard since the Sandline crisis and I enjoyed it immensely.
However, after a few days I began to wonder whether our evening sorties into the clogged and choking city had made me sick – my appetite was dropping and I felt unusually tired.
I dragged myself off the plane in Sydney to be greeted by Julian and George.
‘You look very pale,’ Julian said as he took my bag. ‘Did you catch a bug?’
‘Must have done,’ I said, gathering up George. I held him close, breathing in his scent. It was good to be home.
•••
Within days of returning, I had all the symptoms of pregnancy I had previously experienced with George, but this time accompanied by a level of nausea and vague preoccupation I had not thought possible.
A test soon revealed my suspicions were true – it was not some nasty bug from Jakarta but an overload of hormones. A double dose. I broke the news to Julian. We were having twins.
He was delighted and immediately began suggesting boys’ names.
‘No, Jules,’ I said. ‘I really think I am going to have girls.’
Julian immediately dismissed my prediction. ‘I only have boys,’ he reminded me. ‘There are no girls in the Thirlwall family. It’s absolutely impossible.’
•••
With the news that our twins would arrive around Christmas, we increased our efforts to find a permanent home. However, we had completely different ideas about what we wanted. I was looking at what I thought were gorgeous old, rambling weatherboard homes near the centre of a town or village, close to shops, people, activities and places for children to play.
Julian, on the other hand, was driving to the most remote corners of the Southern Highlands, enthusing over wilderness and miles of bush. Where I saw charm and convenience, Julian could only see suburbia and boredom; while he was carried away over miles of rocky, windswept bush, I could only see isolation and the hours we would spend driving just to buy a carton of milk.
Eventually we were persuaded to look at a farm in East Kangaloon, about a fifteen-minute drive from town. We had driven past it on several occasions but the house seemed too close to the road, something that neither of us found particularly appealing. A friend urged us to go and have a proper look.
We were in the depths of winter by then. Frost had destroyed most of the lush paddocks and the wind was icy. After years in a tropical climate it seemed I simply could not get warm no matter how many clothes I wore. I had hoped the pregnancy would boost my internal heating system but so far that had not happened. When we arrived at the house mid-morning to meet the agent, we were greeted by the owner’s daughter, who was still in her dressing-gown.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m just waiting for the pipes to thaw so I can have a shower and leave.’
I raised an eyebrow at Julian.
‘We’ll come back,’ the agent told her, then suggested to us: ‘I’ll take you for a drive instead.’
We headed out across the open paddock, the ground dry and brittle after months of drought. Beautiful stands of towering trees clustered around the bottom of a perfect hill. The sun came out and we got out of the car to drink it all in. Julian and I stood together, mesmerised. There was a still, dark dam, a vista of green paddocks through gaps in the bush, and a cluster of paperbarks. Sunlight carelessly threw itself in pieces on the ground near our feet.
Julian squeezed my hand and we exchanged a knowing look.
This was it.
•••
As we prepared to move, Julian said he would quite like to go to China and Tibet with Oliver and Charlie, who were living in Beijing and Korea. I always felt it was important for him to spend time alone with his children and completely supported the idea.
‘How long will you go for?’ I asked.
‘About a month or so. You’re invited as well, of course.’
I laughed, thinking about the logistics of preparing our new house alone, dealing with my increasingly weighty body and caring for George.
‘I think that’s what they call a Clayton’s invitation. Can’t quite see myself on a trekking holiday right now.’
I thought all about the friends I could see, the books I could read, the freedom to hang out with George in my own way, all unencumbered by anyone else’s agenda.
‘Send me a postcard,’ I told him.
Julian did in fact send me a postcard from his travels – just the one. I still keep it on my bookshelf.
Darling, we went up to the Potala Palace on the first day and spent the morning. The building was tremendous but a little lifeless with only 50 resident monks.
Love,
J
Dearest Jules. A man of few words.
•••
We moved into the farm a few weeks before the twins were due. By this stage, I had become rather ungainly, so my role was largely restricted to emptying but not lifting heavy boxes and making endless pots of tea for anyone who was doing any real work.
After we had settled in and consigned most of the boxes to the shed for unpacking later, Julian and I went to Sydney for his next consultation at St Vincent’s in Darlinghurst.
I wanted to know what options the doctors were suggesting to Julian, and to better understand the language of his illness and its treatments. I certainly did not have any fixed views about the path he should take; I simply hoped to support him and have a sense of what was coming.
The oncologist was pleasant but avoided engaging with me and spent most of the consultation speaking directly to Julian. The news was not good. Having lain relatively dormant for several months, it seemed the myeloma was on the move. It had been previously suggested that a bone marrow transplant would give Julian the best chance of a long-term remission. His brothers John and Adrian had already undergone tests to see if they could be donors. Neither match had worked.
The only remaining option was an autologous transplant. Thi
s would mean Julian’s stem cells would be removed from his bone marrow and stored. He would undergo a gruelling dose of chemotherapy to kill the cancer cells and then his stem cells would be infused back into his blood. This would mean a month in hospital, largely in an isolation ward. It was a risky procedure as his susceptibility to opportunistic infections would be very high. However, if successful, it could mean remission, possibly for many years. Myeloma could not be cured, but it could be postponed. It was our best option.
We debated about when this should happen. Julian naturally wanted to be around for the birth of the twins, and the extended family – including Nina – were coming to the farm for Christmas. We settled on mid-January and I began an earnest search for a live-in nanny to help me while he was away.
•••
On 16 December 1998, I went into an induced labour in Bowral hospital. Unlike George’s birth, which was natural and drug-free, this time I opted for every legal opiate available. An epidural, pethidine, gas, any barricade against pain was lined up and ready to go. I wanted the experience to be as stress-free and as devoid of unpleasant surprises as possible. It had already been a long year.
As the labour slowly gathered pace, Julian sat by the side of the bed, occasionally telling me to remain calm and reading aloud what he thought were interesting snippets from The Economist.
Having an epidural was like experiencing pain from a distance. I could certainly sense that my body was in increasingly intense labour, but I could only feel a fraction of the pain I had felt with George. Or at least I did until the drugs began to wear off.
Once again, my body took on a life of its own. However, this time I could not stand up or move around on the bed a great deal. Due to the numbing effects of the drugs, and despite the fact that I was pushing as hard as I could, it was time for some medical intervention and out came the suction pad. I was frankly beyond caring at this point.
The first baby’s head began to crown. I kept breathing as deeply as possible. And then I heard a sharp intake of breath and a strangled cry. I thought it was the baby but it was Julian.
‘It’s a . . . girl.’
He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes. He could not believe what he was seeing.
‘Well done, darling, well done.’ He kissed me several times and squeezed my hand.
The baby was whisked away for testing and soon the second labour was upon me. It seemed this baby was in far more of a hurry. I grabbed the gas mask, wondering what state my body would be in after going through another labour so soon.
‘This one’s coming feet first,’ said a voice at the end of the bed.
There was another gasp from Julian. ‘I don’t believe it.’ It was another girl.
Swaddled in blankets, their wizened little faces peered out, pink and delicious. I began to cry. The babies I had dreamed of, Meg and Charlotte, had arrived.
12 December 1998
The big news has not yet happened. Lucy is extremely pregnant with twins which are due just before Christmas, but were expected to arrive yesterday. The call may come before this hits the post. One, we think, may be a girl, but I am not putting any money on it. Everyone has been alerted and all is ready for the big day which may well, as things are going, coincide with the birth of Our Lord. Meantime Lucy tries to rest and George, who is nearing three, enjoys our constant attentions. I dabble at soliciting and tractor driving.
In August we finally found our new home and are very happy here. It’s a small 100acre farm near Bowral, two hours south of Sydney in the Southern Highlands, in what is a pretty, gentrified area that has become too expensive for real farmers who are leaving the land to the likes of us to play around with – doing very little properly but enjoying it greatly. It has numerous paddocks, cows, a beautiful wood, a treelined stream, a tractor, and very attractive trees, shrubs and roses in the garden. We are close enough to drive in each day to buy food and to check the post office for news of the outside world.
Oliver and Charles are coming home for Christmas. Oliver has been in Shanghai for the past three years and plans to do an MBA course next year but is not sure where – possibly Sydney, but he likes the idea of America and Europe. Charles has been living in Seoul working for a French sports goods chain but is ready for a change. He has plans to go to Argentina next year where he would like to play polo. Henry has finished his second year at university learning Chinese and Spanish, and Edward is halfway to Zambia, where he will work on a chicken farm owned by family friends for a year, having just finished school.
I was diagnosed with cancer some time ago but fortunately am still in remission. I am due to have a bone marrow transplant early next year which I am not particularly looking forward to but which should keep the disease at bay for quite a while.
Apart from a little work and infrequent trips to PNG – Lucy did her last stint up there for the BBC World Service in August – the current outlook is babies and probably not much else until they are old enough to be put on view.
Julian
14
In our newly planted orchard, the trembling plants
struggle not to wither and die under this summer’s
unforgiving sun. Enclosed by the night, I walk outside
barefoot with a watering can, and will them to survive.
Julian went to hospital in January, four weeks after the girls were born. The time passed in a smear of anxiety, sleep-deprivation and crying babies. The nights were the hardest. Fear sprinted, without obstacle, through every pathway of my mind, obliterating contentment; at night I gripped a stone from a river bed, torn and tossed to perfectly fit in my hand, to earth me.
I was only able to visit Julian twice during that long month as the logistics of getting to Sydney while breastfeeding twins, coupled with the fear of passing on any kind of infection from the children, were just too difficult.
‘Don’t come tomorrow,’ he would say, his lovely voice now fractured by the ravages of chemo. ‘It’s enough for me to talk to you and know you’re there.’
Fortunately, the boys visited him frequently and kept me up to date with how he was. This relieved the pressure and gave me more time to recuperate from the birth of Meg and Charlotte. As Julian’s main carer, I also needed to gather my energy for when he returned.
•••
Achingly thin, completely bald, pale and more brittle than I could ever have imagined, a semblance of Julian returned home. Such high-dose chemotherapy seemed akin to having smashed a peach with a hammer and I privately questioned whether this had been the right course to take.
Gone were Julian’s normally colossal appetite and energetic zeal, gone were his enthusiasm and strength; I found it hard to recognise the shadow of the man he had become. The side-effects of the treatment were harrowing – he was nauseous, weak and exhausted. It broke my heart to watch him, normally so fastidious and dignified, shuffle around the house in a pair of sheepskin slippers, hollowed out and grim-faced.
I read the hospital notes carefully, made sure he had his daily medications and focused on finding foods he could tolerate. He also seemed confused at times and uncharacteristically down – he struggled to find the energy for reading or watching films he would normally have enjoyed.
Caring for him was enormously draining. Even when I was not with him, I thought about him constantly, wondering what more I could do to ease his suffering. I also found myself impatient and frustrated by him at times – exhausted by his needs, resentful that my life had been reduced to such petty details and overwhelmed by the enormity of all my responsibilities.
By this time, I had given up any idea of continuing my life as a journalist. I had once tried to record a radio interview for the BBC at midnight, but I’d been forced to hide in a spare room with pillows stuffed around the door to shut out the sound of the children crying.
Deadlines, babies and a sick husband were clearly not a happy mix. It was obvious that my career would have to go.
•••
Within a few weeks, Julian became bored with the life of an invalid, and began planning what he would do when he was fully better – the horses he would ride, the friends he would visit, the tree planting he would undertake.
Gradually, he got stronger and we were able to christen Meg and Charlotte in May. It was a lovely celebration and many of our family and friends said they had been deeply moved by the day; bittersweet hours of joy and anguish. ‘Love and longing, deep and abiding, summoned you forth to light our world,’ one friend wrote.
Buoyed by his improving health, Julian suggested we should head up to Byron Bay for a holiday during the winter. I had not really anticipated the challenge of driving for several hours with three tiny children, but we eventually limped into the north coast town and collapsed into a rented apartment.
The next day the children and I woke up with heavy colds. I was very concerned that Julian should not get sick as well so I encouraged him to leave us alone as much as possible. Julian was improving and I thought a few leisurely bushwalks and the fresh sea air would do him the world of good.
After lunch one day he came back to the apartment looking very excited.
‘I’ll just have a bite to eat and then I’m off,’ he said.
‘Are you going for another walk?’
‘No,’ he said, sitting down to pull on some running shoes. ‘I’m going hang-gliding. Do you want to come?’
•••
For several months, life settled into a period of relative normalcy.
We made the most of what we believed was Julian’s long-term reprieve from cancer. He embarked on a massive tree-planting exercise at the farm, cleaned out the dams, repaired fences and agisted horses for breeding. Julian and my father, who came over from the UK for a month, created an orchard of peaches, pears and apples. We also found a lovely old weatherboard cottage which the owners wanted to knock down – so we had it cut in half and relocated to the farm to be used as an office.