27th September 2014
First the coincidences, showers of them making me tingle. I was even looking in a mirror holding my nose when a voice from the radio started talking about Cyrano. There was a strong sense of time speeding up, and then as usual after these experiences, the news of change coming, loping towards me.
Last Tuesday, 23rd, my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The same disease which hit me in 2010. A bit of a coincidence there too, as we are not related, I was adopted. Hers has spread further than mine, and I was a dreaded Stage Four. So there will be no straightforward operation as we hoped. Instead she is just having chemotherapy.
It is grim to picture that tiny woman aged 92, making her way to the hospital six times, and she has to visit between sessions, so that will be twelve visits at least. I picture her sitting there dwarfed in the high-backed chair, her thin arm laced and looped with bright plastic canulae, as the vile stuff goes in.
But it has to be done. There is no good, easy way to end this precious life, unless you are very late and very lucky.
At the same time I am planning, trying, despite the efforts of lazy solicitors and dodgy estate agents, to leave London after 35 years, to start a new kind of life in Oxford. In those small, exaggerated matters such as marriage and money my London adventure has been a flop. But in the greater sense, of allowing me to lead a free, creative life, it has been just right.
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