by David Loftus
* * *
Desperate for air this evening and ignoring the threatening skies, I abandoned my desk at the St Moritz and wandered down the tiny coastal path between the blackberry bushes and late-summer primroses, smiling at the rabbits as I passed, to just the sound of windswept flocks of oystercatchers and the increasing roar of the sea. I clambered down to the little cove of Daymer Bay, knowing that there would be no one there at high tide, while the beach was covered and there was a danger of being cut off by the incoming sea. I sat for over two hours on a jagged rock, a freshwater stream both sides of me, the crashing sea all around.
I closed my eyes tight and tried to connect with my senses of smell and hearing, but the sea was so loud it frightened me not to be able to see it. I was soaked through by the spray, so I concentrated on smell: fetid and wet, kelp and bladderwrack, dead crabs and skate eggs, cuttlefish and salt. God it was beautiful, waves ten to fifteen feet tall crashing around me, buntings or pipits, flocks of them, singing in the freshly washed-ashore seaweed, hundreds of crabs. All around me, so noisy, so beautifully out of control, the sea was ferocious and dark. The clouds swirled ominously, but every now and then the sun, only just above the horizon, would blindingly flash its appearance, skimming the waves and reminding you of their true aqua-clarity; every pebble, rock and weed illuminated like tiny mirrors, utter uncontrollable chaos. I lay back, closed my eyes, and thought of John opening his eyes on the gurney, that moment of clarity and false hope, that feeling that actually, everything was going to be just fine.
Tuesday 11 September
Finished shooting Nathan Outlaw’s book, train in the thick fog to London, a ‘pea souper’
I travelled back on the train from Bodmin Moor today, the weather moody and close, everything and everywhere faintly silhouetted by thick fog. I was woken by a wren outside my window this morning, a perfectly timed alarm, then photographed Farmer Hoare in his fields of kale and goldfinches, father and son oyster farmers down in Rock, and Nathan, smart and formal at his restaurant.
I feel much like the weather, drowning in a warm mist. I can’t get past the thoughts of John’s false hopes, his castles in the air. As I was distractedly photographing the oyster farmers this morning, the father was searching for the word for fish leather and kept saying the word ‘chimera, chimera’. I think he must have been thinking of shammy leather, but he just kept rubbing his sunburnt head, repeating ‘chimera’. Eventually I had to smile and tell him that no, that means ‘false hope’.
Wednesday 12 September
Flying to Lapland via Stockholm for Niklas Ekstedt
I’m flying over the Swedish archipelago, accompanying my friend and lovely Viking friend Niklas Ekstedt, on an odyssey to Lapland to photograph the Sami people herding their reindeer off the mountains for the beginning of winter. Traditionally they slaughter some of the adult stags on the mountainside, then remove and then cure their hearts, and that’s the merry task I have been asked to capture: the Sami removing the beating hearts of reindeer. So here I am, Lapland-bound, the lights of tiny dwellings twinkling in the clear air beneath me, another journey into the unknown.
After three flights and two long journeys by car, Niklas and I arrive after midnight in thick mizzle and complete darkness. Our Mountain Lodge Hotel is somewhere in deepest, darkest Lapland and we find no welcoming committee, just a shut-up and deserted hotel. Eventually we tried an open door, passed the deserted reception – unsure of the protocol – but, finding a couple of simple bedrooms furnished with reindeer skins and little else, we unpacked, called our wives and settled down ready for an early start. An hour later, as I was dozing off, I had a knock on the door from Niklas in his underpants, laughing so hard he could barely breathe. It seemed we’d broken into the wrong hotel . . .
Thursday 13 September
Saxnäs, Västerbottens län, Lapland 8°C
In the correct hotel, my room looks like an Edward Hopper painting, retro and so uncool it’s cool, shades of dark green and brown streaked with actual sunrise orange. Pulling back the curtain reveals an extraordinary scene, the brightest orange sun streaking over an island, bizarrely called Japan, on a lake called Kultsjow. If it wasn’t for an ancient Sami house by the water you would think it was Scotland. There’s the clearest air, early-autumn oranges and the occasional bright, bright red maple; the sky is so vast and there’s a rainbow, miles of shore line, rows upon rows of fir trees and Cairngorm-like mountains on the horizon.
We were picked up early by a lovely smiley Sami girl called Kajsa who guided us up to the mountains. Nothing prepared us for the utterly terrifying, exhilarating, heart-thumpingly beautiful madness that followed: a breakneck car ride through some of the most beautiful lakeland roads I have ever seen. We were in a desperate rush to catch the movement of the reindeer, which were charging in a clockwise mass of dust and sweat through the mountainous forests. Mist rolling across mirror-like lakes reflecting forests of bright white-veined plane trees, rainbows so bright that at one point Niklas, now like a child who’d eaten too much candy, exclaimed, ‘They may have the Northern Lights but that is the brightest rainbow I’ve ever seen, it’s actually got an extra purple in it!’ Dark burgundy dwellings in the backlit mist, white antlers of moose and reindeer nailed in patterns that made their façades look like the wings of a butterfly. A moment of sadness flashed through me as I remembered John and how much he would have loved and been inspired by the scenes fleeting past me, coinciding with another flash, this time of guilt, as I realized in my tiredness I hadn’t said my awakening ‘good morning’ to him.
The heart of the reindeer is why I had travelled all this way. Hopefully it’s the nearest I’ll come to seeing what is apparently the closest thing to a human heart. I know mine is broken, physically bruised by Johnny’s death, and those bruises would be visible to intense X-ray, but at least my broken heart didn’t send me to an early grave.
Friday 14 September
I kept the hotel curtains open, looking out over the lake and mountains beyond in the desperate hope of an early showing of the Aurora Borealis.
Today was spent with Kajsa and her husband Andreas, cooking and fishing for small green and speckled trout in an ancient, protected, fairly secret Sami village, full of their old wooden gahti, Tolkein-esque huts, conical, moss-covered dwellings, impossibly beautiful, dotted among the lushest and most verdant forests beside a clear water lake teaming with fish. I became obsessed with the woodland floor, the lichens and mushrooms, from the minute to the prehistoric and gargantuan, the Jurassic fungi and plants, a kaleidoscope of colours I dream of but never see. Tiny islands in the lake and streams reminding me so vividly of the ‘Singing-Ringing tree’ dreams of my youth, the calm and idyllic scenes of ultimate rest in my dreams of adulthood.
Overcome by a feeling of melancholy I played with their collie in the clear water, skimming flat pebbles, throwing him logs, building Andy Goldsworthy-esque leaf patterns in the cold shallows, alone with my Lakeland memories. It was a stunningly beautiful day.
Saturday 15 September
Home is where the heart really is. Godson Buddy Oliver’s birthday
Three flights; storms, rainbows, the sun setting over the endless Swedish archipelago turning thousands of lakes into mirrors, and home.
As I landed in the wee hours of the morning, the moment the tyres screeched on the tarmac, Tim called me from his sabbatical in America. I’m so happy to hear his voice, his promises of coming home soon; we’ll have so many stories to share, so much has been on hold while he is away.
Sunday 16 September
Popped down to see Mother and found her teary-eyed and sad, missing John, mulling over what we could have done to prevent his death. This week Ange received a reply to her letter to Dr S. The original envelope had been opened but, unsealed, it had been marked ‘return to sender’.
Monday 17 September
With lovely designer Andy, shooting a hotel in Canterbury. It was a stunning day, clear blue sky. From the train, I sp
otted a pair of herons courting in the middle of a field of corn. As I walked towards the cathedral, across the river with sixteenth-century buildings hanging precariously over its banks, small speckled trout swam in the weeds amidst vibrant greens and crystal-clear water. I stopped on an ancient bridge next to a friary garden and a kingfisher flew past, a flash of extreme blue.
On the train I took the time to read Ange’s letter to Dr S. She was so disappointed to see ‘return to sender’, particularly as it had the correct address. It was opened but probably unread, maybe the name Loftus was enough to guarantee its rebuttal, its very ‘return to sender’ a statement of refusal to even acknowledge our being.
I know Ange, she would have pored over the writing of this letter for hours, analysing every sentence, every nuance. It outlines the last thirty years from the failing of my first marriage through grief, the effect on my mother’s career and health, to the success of my brother Ian, through adversity, to become such a talented surgeon. It appeals to ‘his heart’ to not ignore the letter, to appreciate our loss and it asks him to be ‘kind and understanding’ as ‘humanly possible’.
Tuesday 18 September
Shooting at the Wolseley
6.30a.m. start. Balmy day
Early start, early finish, so sitting at the Mews rereading Ange’s letter to Prof S. I think that his return of the letter is his way of saying ‘do not contact me again’. That’s fine, I guess. It might even be the first time he’s thought about John’s death since the inquest, but I hope not. I hope he learned at least some sort of lesson from the whole sorry episode.
Wednesday 19 and Thursday 20 September
Crystal Palace and Colbert
Second day of a three-day shoot with Christian (DJ BBQ) and his madcap and merry band of bearded brethren. Much-needed hilarity, taking my mind off yesterday’s bad day.
Friday 21 September
Last day of Christian’s book shoot with his band of brothers, Forage Sussex Dave, Charcoal Matt, little Lizzy, T-bone-Chops Chris and various dogs and charcoal burners, chefs and spoon carvers. Much hilarity over burger flipping, controlled arson, swashbuckling, axe wielding, head banging, air-guitar strumming and wild drinking. Somehow we have made a beautiful book through the fug of smoke and mayhem and the threat of Storm Ali in a suburban garden.
Sunday 23 September
Shooting at home with Ange and cookbook author Rukmini Iyer a.k.a. Mini, editing my Lapland trip in the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Text received from Mother this morning, acknowledging our conversation about people in life who enjoy manipulating and causing trouble:
‘Remember darling David, less said, soonest mended, and a soft voice turns away wrath x’
Monday 24 September
Shooting in N7, finishing the Lapland edit
The bullies we’ve endured in life, do they sleep the sleep of babies at night, dreamless and free? I dread my nights. Multiple awakenings, nightmares, the occasional night terror that awakens me thrashing and sweating, endless dreams leading into more dreams . . . sometimes I’m not sure whether I’ve actually awoken or have falsely woken into another never-ending chain of nightmares. It doesn’t matter how exhausted I am, how accomplished my day has been, whether I am happy or sad, it’s always the same.
I finished my shoot early today, edited it and sent it in, then went back to my Lapland edit. I’m taking my time as it was such as complex and frenetic shoot, on two cameras, one in each hand, and it needs my patient attention. The day is blissfully clear, blue sky, Simpsons clouds with silver linings, warm sun with a cold chill to the wind. I yearned to be on the boat but forced myself to work on for an hour or so, eventually heaving our enormous sheepskin pouffe out onto the roof terrace and plonking myself louchely face-to-sun for half an hour’s quiet contemplation.
Tuesday 25 September
Finished the Lapland edit. A two-shoot day in London and then catching a train to Norfolk to shoot with Gennaro Contaldo
I realized yesterday was the anniversary of John’s move back from Neurology to the oncology unit, a day that at the time was filled with positivity, that seemed like the beginning of the road to recovery. John arriving by ambulance, in a wheelchair, on a sunny day much like yesterday, no wires or tubes, tentatively walking to his bed to begin his physical therapy and his radiotherapy. Little did we know that meeting with the consultant radiotherapist would be the beginning of his fateful treatment there. Nothing much happened that day other than Samantha settling him into his bed and surrounding him with his teddies, cards and flowers, filling his drawers with pyjamas and smellies and pens and papers to practise his writing. He met his two fellow patients, whose names I’ll leave, both charming chaps; the businessman having ‘blood cleansing’ and another young man who had just undergone chemotherapy and literally vomited between sentences of greeting. It was also our first meeting with Douglas, the gentlest and kindest nurse you could wish for at such a vulnerable time, and my first meeting with Dr S, a serious and unsmiling junior doctor, working under the consultant.
John’s first visit to the oncology unit had been on 11 September, where he was due for ‘moulding’. This was the fitting of a plastic mask that fits face down into a secure table, allowing the head to remain in a still position during radiotherapy. Mother believed that so soon after major brain surgery John should have been transported gently, in a stretcher, but the decision was made to sit him in the ambulance and walk him in, rather than carry him. As John walked unsteadily from the ambulance, he developed what appeared to be an extremely runny nose, with clear fluid running from his nostrils into his mouth and all over his pyjamas. It had an unpleasant taste and he was visibly upset. The liquid was then discovered to be cerebrospinal fluid, a clear and colourless fluid produced by the brain. The primary function of this fluid is to act as a cushion or buffer to the brain within its hard skull and to provide immunological protection to the brain. It fills all the spaces inside and around the ventricles of the brain as well as the central canal of the spinal cord. With the help of Mother I was learning fast, and realized immediately that one thing you definitely do not want is for your cerebrospinal fluid to have contact with the outside world, with all of its floating and invisible germs and their microorganisms. Basically, you are opening a fluid pathway directly to the centre of the brain and nervous system.
It was then decided that John could not be fitted for the moulding and, after several delays, including an inability to find him an ambulance, he was driven back to the neurology unit. During the delay he had contracted a potentially lethal meningitis, an acute inflammation of the protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. John was, eventually, treated with strong antibiotics. This is when, to my horror, I learned the exact nature of the lumbar puncture, a procedure John put up, with his usual lack of complaint and calm, resigned composure.
For this procedure John had to lie on the bed, on his side, with his knees tucked up to his chest, which was not easy in his condition. This is the position I often see him in in my dreams, tanned and foetal, in his white underpants, under the pine trees of Agios Fokas.
An injection of anaesthetic is given into the area of the lower back and then a thin and improbably long needle pierces through the skin into the small of the back, through the bones of the spines, into the space around the delicate spinal cord. The cerebral fluid then drips through the needle and into a tube, to be tested for infection. This is repeated to check whether the antibiotics are working, and also to relieve some of the pressure building up in John’s brain, which was causing him severe headaches, nausea and, eventually, unconsciousness. The lumbar puncture is also known as the spinal tap.
* * *
Five things to remember about today:
Walking past the still-flowering magnolia tree beside the Mews, I thwacked one of its branches with my outstretched hand, dislodging a very disgruntled tabby cat preparing to pounce on a lone sparrow, now flying free.
The blood-red moon rising
over the Essex marshes as the train trundles its way towards Norwich, the first flying ‘V’s of ducks beginning their long flights over the Thames Estuary to sunnier climes in the south.
The warmest of welcomes from Gennaro Contaldo, Liz, his partner, and stylist Pip Spence at Waterfall Cottage in the Norfolk countryside. The hug Gennaro gives me is that of a bear: long, close and painfully loving.
Tucked up in ‘my usual room’. Gennaro likes me to sleep in his daughters’ bedroom, as Chloe and Olivia, his fifteen-year-old twins, are back at school in London.
Falling, eventually, to sleep, all the windows open and my face pointed to the chill breeze, the blood-moon full and white and high in the sky, watching the bats dancing among the stars and listening to the hoots of the barn owls.
Wednesday 26 September
Waterfall Cottage
After breakfast Gennaro insisted on a pre-shoot stroll along the lanes that cross in all directions around his ancient cottage. The sky is cloudless and clear, the air cold enough to sting the nostrils. Over several rosés the night before I had vowed to ‘be like Johnny’ and remain shoeless and sockless for my three-day stay, so I do get the odd peculiar look from my walking compadrés, who are dressed in appropriate attire of boots and jumpers as I stroll along the grass verges, pretending I am oblivious to the painful thistles and nettles. The bridge over the River Wensum in his village is stunning in its Haywain-like simplicity, the trout-filled waters clear and mirrored, fifty shades of reflective greens in the spangled, early-morning sunshine.