There's Something I've Been Dying to Tell You

by Lynda Bellingham

  There’s Something I’ve Been Dying To Tell You

  Lynda Bellingham

  www.hodder.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Coronet

  An imprint of Hodder & Stoughton

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © Lynda Bellingham 2014

  The right of Lynda Bellingham to be identified as the Author of the

  Work has been asserted by her in accordance with

  the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any

  means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be

  otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that

  in which it is published and without a similar condition being

  imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781473608559

  Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.hodder.co.uk

  Words will never express my love for my husband, Michael, nor my sons Michael and Robbie, nor indeed my stepson Bradley who has arrived at a strange time in his life and mine. I love you so much and just want you to be happy. You will be and I will be cheering you on. Take no notice of the tears, they are just a girl thing, and I am saluting the boy thing.

  Forever and always.

  Respect and don’t take shit from anyone.

  x

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  1 And So it Began

  2 Pantoland and Other Adventures

  3 Country House Sunday

  4 A Passionate Woman

  5 A Textbook Case

  6 Low Tides and High Tea

  7 Fighting Back

  8 High Days and Holidays

  9 Tasty Travels

  10 Halfway There

  11 A Real-Life Prince

  12 All Change Again

  13 Holding On to the Festive Spirit

  14 The Best-Laid Plans Go To Waste

  15 Justice for the Little Man

  16 Adjustments in the Underwear Department

  17 A Grand Day Out

  18 Center Parcs with the Family

  19 When I Am Gone

  20 Times, They Are a-changin’

  21 My Birth Father

  22 Time Will Tell

  Epilogue

  Picture Section

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  There are so many people involved in the story within this book and I am so moved by how much work and care they have for patients and people in general. I guess I should start at the top of the tree with Professor Justin Stebbing and his team headed up by Lesley Bedford. Then all the wonderful nurses at the London Clinic and the two stars at Leaders in Oncology Care: Clare Cobbett and Ani Ransley.

  My thanks go to dear Dr di Cesare and all the Macmillan Cancer care team. Thank you to my dear sister Jean for all her love and care and to Kathryn Peel at Ophir Travel who has managed to bring sunshine into my life through places like Marbella and Corfu. Finally to the wonderful Charlotte Hardman and her team at Hodder and Stoughton for believing in me and publishing this book. I do hope it brings some enlightenment to those who are still asking the question ‘Why?’!

  Keep your friends close and love them dearly – they are the best acknowledgements one can ever have. Life affirming.

  ‘The most stupid cancer cell

  is cleverer than the brightest oncologist.’

  PROLOGUE

  ‘Cancer, what do you mean cancer?’ I asked in amazement.

  The very pleasant gentleman in front of my husband and me visibly crumpled in his seat. He stared at his computer for a few seconds and then seemed to pull himself up and looked me straight in the eye.

  ‘I am so terribly sorry I thought you had already been informed of your position. You have cancer of the colon, and lesions on your lungs and your liver.’

  I cannot write what this moment was like effectively. I have tried so many different ways to put it into words and it is just not possible. Anyone in this position, as I was at that moment, might possibly agree with me when I say I felt nothing except disbelief. Me? Cancer? Never.

  It had never occurred to me I would die of cancer. Heart failure, maybe, liver damage quite possibly, but not cancer. How stupid is that? The statistics suggest that one in three people die of cancer . . .

  My mind was starting to wander. I was suddenly aware of Michael, my dear darling husband, sobbing in the chair next to me. I put my hand on his arm and said, ‘Don’t cry, darling, it is going to be alright.’ I turned back to the doctor and switched into actress mode. It was ridiculous!

  ‘Well, there’s a turn up for the books. Cancer? That bloody private doctor didn’t tell us a thing. I even asked him, didn’t I, Michael? “Is it cancer?” I said. “Oh no I am sure it is nothing like that,” he said. Why didn’t he tell us there and then?’

  Mr Richard Cohen, the surgeon in front of us, looked uncomfortable and replied, ‘Well, I am sure he had his reasons. The point is, Lynda, we need to get on and do something about your state of health pretty quickly.’

  ‘Can’t you operate?’ said Michael, who had composed himself and was back to being supportive. Thank God, because everything that was discussed in the next twenty minutes went in one ear and out the other as far as I was concerned.

  ‘Well yes and no,’ came the reply. ‘I am a surgeon and it is my job to remove tumours. I am a bit like a glorified plumber,’ said Mr Cohen. ‘But in your case, Lynda, it is imperative that you see an oncologist first, and see one as soon as possible. I have made an appointment for you to go and see Professor Justin Stebbing when we are finished here. He is at the London Oncology Clinic at number 95, just down the road. You are very fortunate he is around because I consider him to be one of the best in his field.’

  Mr Cohen then introduced us to his team, and a lovely lady went through some of the basic questions. Weirdly, perhaps, the one thing we didn’t ask at the time was ‘Is it terminal?’ I think we just assumed it was; like everyone does, don’t they? Cancer = death.

  We found ourselves out on the street, Harley Street to be precise. This world-famous street lined with gorgeous rows of elegant houses with glossy front doors and sparkling brass knockers, behind which some of the greatest doctors in the world are gathered, practising every kind of medicine. As we walked from number 116 to number 95 we held each other and tried so hard to stop the tears from flowing. All around us people were hurrying to and fro and horns blared. Life goes on. We bowed our heads and turned into each other as though protecting ourselves from a storm.

  We arrived at the clinic and presented ourselves at the desk. There were beautiful flowers on display and a big bowl of sweets on the desk. I took one automatically and the receptionist gave me a big smile, ‘Can’t resist them? Neither can I.’ She indicated two seats and explained the professor would be with us shortly.

  We sat down and I looked around the quiet room. Everywhere I looked there was evidence of this dreadful disease. Heads shaved or covered in colourful scarves. Faces drawn and hollow. Husbands and wives holding hands tightly and smiling bravely at each other. Others sitting alone, erect and defiant. I felt nothing. Just empty and still disbelieving. What was I doing here? I cast a sideways glance at Michael, who was staring at his phone, pushing buttons.

  I suddenly wanted to cur
l up and go to sleep. Always my way of dealing with things, and I would probably have nodded off right there had the receptionist not called us to go up to the second floor. We climbed a beautiful oak staircase sheathed in thick expensive carpet and found ourselves in front of a huge door. It was like being summoned to the headmaster’s study – but then the door was opened by someone who looked more like the head boy, he seemed so young!

  ‘Hi! I am Justin, please come in and take a seat. May I call you Lynda?’ he asked, as he sat down opposite us behind a huge desk with a computer screen inlaid in the top. I was very impressed.

  ‘Can I just say before we go through all the details that this must be a terrible shock for you both and nothing will make sense, but it is important you understand that having cancer does not mean you are going to die, Lynda.’

  Michael sat back in his chair and put his head in his hands and let out a gasp. I just turned into a diva and declared, ‘Well, you are bound to say that, but can I just tell you I don’t want to spend years wandering round with no hair feeling like shit and upsetting my family just to prolong the agony for a couple of years.’

  Michael was crying again now and I wanted to scream at them to stop it. I could not let the professor give me all the usual placatory bullshit and I did not want Michael crying because of me, that was accepting the inevitable and at that point in time I was not prepared to accept anything. I just did not want to think about it. I just could not keep a coherent thought in my head.

  Professor Stebbing was not amused by my outburst. ‘Stop it immediately, Lynda. That is not what I want to be hearing and I am sure Michael doesn’t either. I am the expert and I am telling you now that the advance in the treatment of certain cancers has moved so fast that unless you are in the centre of it, as I am, you cannot possibly appreciate how far we have come. Now let me tell you what we are going to do with you.’

  He then explained he was going to blast me with the strongest chemotherapy they had. A mixture of Avastin and Oxaliplatin and the fabulous fluorouracil, also gloriously known as ‘FU2’.

  How wonderful is that? From that moment on I christened my cancer FU2.

  Justin explained that it seemed likely I had had the tumour for at least eighteen months. So much for the stool test I religiously take every year. As Richard Cohen had anticipated, instead of operating, Justin thought I needed to start the chemotherapy as soon as possible as there were secondaries on the lungs and the liver.

  ‘Maybe a few months down the line we can reconsider your options, but at this time I want to get on and attack the problem.’

  Justin was speaking into a microphone, recording everything as if I was not in the room. Things seemed to be moving so fast and I had a horrible sense of losing control of my life. He explained that I would go in to the clinic on the following day and I would have a colonoscopy. They would also insert a port in my chest to take the drip for chemo and I would be having a scan. Then on the Friday I would start my first chemotherapy session.

  I smiled and nodded inanely at everything I was told, and poor Michael tried very hard to make sure he had all the facts. God knows what I would have been like if he hadn’t been there to pay attention.

  I had this huge lump in my throat and a desire to burst into tears, but somehow did not want to be embarrassing. I wanted this man in front of me to know that I was strong and could take anything he threw at me. I was not going to succumb to actressy wobbles and tantrums. I was a proper person who could cope with anything. I thought, being there in that room was like getting the acting job of the century. How deluded can a girl be?

  We found ourselves back out on the street once more. The sun was shining, and as I looked towards Cavendish Square I could see that bastion of middle-class comfort and joy: John Lewis. Whenever I walked into that store as a young woman I felt I was somehow starting life on a rung of a ladder that only went up, and things would get better and better. I did not expect to arrive at the Harrods level of retail, nor did I want that, but John Lewis has always had aspirations. I know I must sound very middle class but then I am! My mother came from a lowly background but always aspired to do better, to have a lovely home, and where back in the day she would go to Marks and Spencer for her clothing, she would take trips up West to see what John Lewis was suggesting in the china and soft furnishings. It must have been incredible in those early years of the fifties when fridges and gadgets started to arrive. What extravagance.

  How many times in the last forty years had I walked down this yellow brick road to happiness and shopping! I used to live around the corner when I was at drama school, and loved the elegance of my surroundings, even if I couldn’t really afford any of it. I would wander down this road, eyes straight ahead to my goal: Oxford Street!

  There was a wonderful moment when I was at drama school in 1968. I met Nickolas Grace on the first day at the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1966, and have stayed friends ever since. He got us invitations to a very special charity ball. He knew lots of famous actors because he was the president of the Redgrave Society at his school and he was always arranging things so that he could meet his idols! Anyway, the very famous Kenneth More was the guest of honour. For those of you under the age of sixty who may be reading this, Kenneth More became famous for playing a very brave pilot called Douglas Bader in the Second World War who lost his legs while fighting the Germans. The film was called Reach for the Sky.

  It was a black tie event which does not pose a great problem for boys but for me it was a huge dilemma. Who at the age of twenty, and living on a grant at drama school, has an evening dress – unless of course you were born with a silver spoon in your gob! Well God moves in mysterious ways and one morning I was strolling down my favourite yellow brick road towards John Lewis, and for the first time ever I was looking right and left, scanning the shop windows for sparkly dresses. Suddenly the sunlight caught a sequin in a shop window and there waiting for me, waving at me, was the most incredible long silver sequined dress I have ever seen. It was a Shirley Bassey dress. I stood outside the shop and just devoured it from head to toe. A very jolly sales assistant was obviously watching me and she came to the door and said, ‘Why don’t you come in and try it on? No harm in that.’

  I could not even find words to express my desire to pour myself into this confection of silver. I followed her into the shop to the changing room at the back. I took off my clothes and sat still as a statue waiting for the arrival of my fantasy. She slipped it over my head and it slithered down my body like a caress. It fitted perfectly, but I knew it would.

  ‘Oh my dear, you look beautiful,’ said the temptress. ‘Is it a special occasion?’

  Well that was it, a combination of nerves and excitement sent me into overdrive and I was telling her all about the ‘do’ and Kenneth More (‘Oh I love him,’ said the lady, adjusting the fishtail on my dress) and suddenly it was a done deal. Except I did not know the price of the dress and there was no way – even if I paid in instalments for the rest of my life – that I was going to be able to buy it. I started to pull it back over my head with the sales assistant still attached!

  ‘I am so sorry,’ I stammered, ‘but I am wasting your time. There is no way I could pay for something like this.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ encouraged the Fairy Queen. ‘Let’s see . . . well for a start it is on “special offer” because there is a tiny nick in the fishtail here, look. But it is so small we can invisibly mend that easily. It is £50. Madam, that is cheap!’

  ‘Not cheap enough I am afraid,’ I said but a little voice was pushing its way to the surface: You have to speculate to accumulate, don’t you?

  I was lucky (or unlucky depending on which way you looked at it) to have a brilliant bank manager who I could talk to like a father. In fact he was my dad’s bank manager also, and he had always been incredibly supportive, knowing how tough it was for farmers, like my family, starting up after the war. Maybe, just maybe, he would understand my predicament and give m
e a loan?

  ‘Would it be possible to use your phone and ring my bank?’ I ventured. Don’t forget there were no mobile phones back then! ‘Yes, be my guest,’ said the she-devil, handing me the phone.

  I tried to sneak into the corner of the changing room and whispered into the mouthpiece.

  ‘Hi, is that you, Mr Wyatt? . . . Yes, I am fine, no I am whispering because I am in a dress shop and I want to ask . . . Dress shop. Yes it does sound ominous, doesn’t it?! The thing is you always tell me to speculate to accumulate and I have the chance to make lots of contacts and possibly further my career.’

  I explained about the evening and as soon as I mentioned Kenneth More he was impressed.

  ‘How much is the dress?’ he said, getting down to the nitty-gritty.

  ‘Fifty pounds,’ I said, as quickly as I could.

  There was a very long silence and then I heard him smile . . . yes you can hear a smile, I promise you!

  ‘Very well, Miss Bellingham, you may have the money but I want you to put a little money back each month for the repayment.’

  I stifled a scream of joy and did a little dance in the changing cubicle.

  ‘Thank you thank you thank you. I will send you a photo of the evening.’

  I put the phone down and carried it back to the counter. ‘Thank you, I will take the dress and please can we fix the small nick in the hem by next Saturday?’

  ‘Certainly, of course, Madam, and may I say nothing gives me greater pleasure than being able to sell you this. You look stunning.’

  I walked back up Marylebone High Street in a daze.

  I had silver shoes – my practice dance shoes for movement class – which I could wear with the dress. They were not quite high enough but I could stand on tippy-toe all night if need be. Nothing was going to spoil this evening.