There's Something I've Been Dying to Tell You (14 page)

I have so many memories from this time and writing about them has made me feel a little melancholy. I suppose I know I am so much luckier than many people, to have had the opportunity to see so many different sides of life, so I can look back fondly.

I just want to share one last adventure with you. We were down in Devon and visited Cockington Court, yet another beautiful establishment with exotic gardens. They have turned the stables and outhouses into studios for private businesses, like jewellery making, and wrought ironwork.

We went round and looked at all the different trades with an old friend of mine, John Labanowski, and his Mrs, Brigit. He played my husband in
Calendar Girls
for the four years we were on tour. It was great to see them again and we had lunch in the restaurant there and shared happy memories in the sunshine. It was just lovely to see all these master craftsmen and women working away.

I was immediately drawn to the rocking horse man. Oh my goodness all my dreams came true at once. I know it must seem ridiculous, but all I ever wanted as a child was a rocking horse. I had this old tin thing which I made do with and, of course, on my tenth birthday I was incredibly lucky to be given the real thing. My pony Tiddlywinks! I have talked about her very often and very fondly. She dominated my life from ten to thirteen, until I tragically developed hay fever meaning that I could not go near her without breaking out in hives or peering at her through eyes partially closed and swollen. However, I never lost my desire for a rocking horse, and seeing the perfect specimens on display in the studio at Cockington Court just made me more determined. I announced on camera that all I ever wanted was a rocking horse, and pulled Michael into shot and shamelessly begged him to buy one.

‘Look on it as an investment,’ I announced. ‘It is going to be an antique one day and our grandchildren and their children will cherish it forever.’ I was being honest. These creations are quite something, and what the maker had done with these particular horses was build in a time capsule, so a child could put treasures inside their horse, and keep them secret for years. Oh how I wanted one!

Anyway, cut to Christmas Day and Michael presented me with a small box. I opened it and discovered a miniature version of the Cockington rocking horse. It was perfect in every way and I was thrilled with it. Michael looked at me very strangely and then burst out laughing: ‘You silly cow! Do you really think I would give you that as your Christmas present?’

‘Well, yes,’ I replied. ‘I love it, and we agreed we would not spend loads of money this year.’

‘Well that’s too bad because the real thing will be being delivered very soon.’

He gave me a big hug. I am a very lucky girl, I know. Well, lucky in love let’s say and not so great in the health department, as we all now know.

The horse did indeed arrive, and Jack and his wife, Alison, put it all together in my window. It really is a work of art and better than any antique because we can use it. My grandson loves it, as do my sons and my hubbie, and it is so sturdy an adult can sit and have a rock! I often sit and rock looking out of the window and having a think about things.

It is a wonderful reminder of those weeks spent hurtling around the countryside in Batty my camper van, being paid to enjoy and learn and eat new things and meet lots of wonderful people.

Everyone should do it. Get out there and go on your own tasty travels. Life is too short.

10

HALFWAY THERE

October 2013

I couldn’t believe it when October had already rolled around and I was over halfway through my twelve sessions of chemotherapy. Things seemed to have thankfully settled down in the stomach cramps area and I was finding that I was able to keep the pooh in hand. Well, not in my hand literally, you understand! So life, or my life as it had now become, was ticking along and I had become used to the rhythm of it all.

It is still amazing to me that days go by and I fill them with activity. A typical day in the life goes something like this:

I get up at 6.30 a.m. and I still make a hot drink for me and my hubbie with squeezed fresh lemon. I have a teaspoon of manuka honey in mine because it gives it a bit of sweetness, and manuka is supposed to have all sorts of healing powers. I then have to take ten different pills! I make a juice for Michael which is currently two handfuls of spinach, three sticks of celery, three small courgettes and a fresh pear or apple with the juice of half a lemon or lime and some fresh ginger. I pop everything into the smoothie maker for twenty seconds with some mango, Bob’s your uncle!

The other one he likes is half a lemon, four whole oranges peeled and a little piece of fresh ginger. It is delicious and it provides you with all of your vitamins for the day. Michael has a glass of energised greens bought from Deborah Morgan’s website too. I eat a bowl of porridge or natural yoghurt, again with a bit of honey. I have tried the gluten-free bread and it is disgusting, so I am going back to my toast and butter. There is no doubt I am developing a sweet tooth but I am careful to limit the intake.

We then go for a walk round the park. I leave Michael after three laps and he steams off, and I go back and clear up, put washing in and work out what I am going to give the hoard for dinner. I must say it is quite challenging coming up with different meals every night. I make a homemade tomato sauce every week and that lasts, in the fridge, for when the boys come in late and just want a pasta dish. I make myself shepherd’s pie but often find it has been snaffled away in the middle of the night. And of course the hard one to cook for is Michael, as he does like his meat or fish and vegetables. I keep telling him it is an expensive way to live but he takes no notice.

Mind you he rarely eats lunch, so that helps, because then having finished my morning chores I retire to my bedroom and start up my computer. I do all the work emails first, and considering I am not really working as such there is still a good deal to cope with: answering requests for charity appearances and endorsements and things. I had a very unexpected request to write the foreword for the 2014
Giles
cartoon book. I was very flattered, and reading the cartoons brought back so many memories of my childhood on the farm. It was also a useful reference as to the history of the years gone by, and what went on. It seemed to me things just go round in circles in politics. I don’t know if that is a good or bad thing.

I finish my correspondence and then open up my novel.

When I am writing I try to work for three or four hours on the trot, but since I have been having chemo I find that at about noon I just fall asleep at my desk! That is the signal to take more pills and lie down for a couple of hours. Then I get up and watch
Come Dine with Me
to which I am now addicted. I cannot believe people will make such idiots of themselves on TV. So many of the contestants are deluded about their cooking skills and some of the guests are just so rude. I love it!

By 6 p.m. I am always prepping dinner for whoever may be around. Sometimes meals in our house are eaten in shifts and my husband gets very cross because the lads all come in at different times, but I have become quite adept. The meals and dishes are all cleared away by 7.30 p.m. for
Coronation Street
. Helen Worth and Sue Johnston are good friends of mine and I never stop to marvel at how they manage to keep their performances so fresh. Actually most of the cast are wonderful and I like the humour. We did watch Hayley and Roy’s story, and how they had to deal with her pancreatic cancer, with some fear and trepidation, and I must say I did shed a few tears. We both did, but it also got us discussing all the various issues surrounding a terminal illness. The trouble with watching a story like that three times a week is that a discussion is unavoidable.

I have no idea whether it helps Michael to talk about the state of play or not. I sometimes think we have to talk about it as it is now a part of our relationship. We can’t have deep meaningful, life-affirming sex anymore. Well we could try but my condition and everything that goes with it is a bit of a turn-off and cystitis rears its ugly head. I am being really honest and brutal here and I guess Michael might hate me for saying all this, but it has to be faced. I miss our physical life so much and sometimes there are no words and you just have to hold each other. Everyone going through an illness or crisis will understand where I am coming from, and if you haven’t but you are about to begin this journey, I think you should know just how painful it can be. Sticking it to the back of your mind every day is not right. Being aware of your body, as I said before, is really important. It can tell you when it is the right time to cry or scream or just hold each other in an all-embracing silence.

I have tried very hard not to cry in front of the boys, and I am also aware that Michael is trying to stay positive as well, but every now and then things just well up and it is important to acknowledge these down moments. There was one night when after I had gone to bed I could hear Michael on the phone talking to our vicar, Peter Delaney, who had married us. Michael was literally sobbing his heart out. I felt so bad for him. When he came to bed we both just held each other and cried together.

‘It is so fucking unfair!’ was the
cri de cœur
.

‘I know, I know, but there is nothing we can do about it except live our lives to the full for the time we have,’ would always be my reply.

As I’ve said, I don’t have a bucket list. One often hears about people in our position going off round the world. But Michael has a huge development to build, and why would I spend any spare money that we are certainly going to need in the future enjoying myself halfway across the world? Well, for starters the professor wouldn’t let me do long haul, and secondly I could not deal with the guilt!

So our life goes on as normal, except it is in no way normal. On a bad day the cancer hangs over me like a black cloud. Sometimes I have such bad dreams when I have my afternoon nap that I want to hide under the duvet and never come out again. Those days are especially hard but that is when I drag myself to the kitchen and cook.

Towards the end of the month I noticed my tummy was distending again, so after my chemo session on Friday 25 October Justin Stebbing admitted me to the clinic for a scan. I always feel like such a drama queen when he does this. I don’t want to be a bother and I worry about wasting money. However, it is not in my hands. Poor Michael must be so bored sitting in that very clinical room hour after hour. Sometimes, though, I think it might just do him good to sit quietly after a heavy week on site.

By Saturday I was ready to go home. Justin visited me at seven in the morning. That man really is a saint. When on earth does he manage to see his family? He told me I must starve my windy tummy by eating just yoghurt and white fish. Oh how dull is this? But I did as I was told for the rest of the weekend and blow me down by Sunday night I had no cramps, and no bloating and, best of all, I did not need to take any painkillers. I went to bed at nine and slept like a baby.

That lasted until 5 November when I was back in hospital again for the night, and there was not a sparkler in sight!

11

A REAL-LIFE PRINCE

November 2013

While I was juggling my pills and troubles, things went on in my life as a kind of backdrop, whereas before I would normally be chasing everything like a wild dervish. My first novel
Tell Me Tomorrow
had been published at the end of August, and had gone to number twelve in the top one hundred which was very exciting. I did not do as much publicity as I would have liked because most of the journalists only wanted to talk about the cancer, and at that point in my life I didn’t feel ready to talk about it. I needed to understand what was happening to me before I could share any feelings about it all.

It is very difficult to talk about something when everybody who goes through it has such a different experience. I never talked to my sister Barbara about her lung cancer because I was too preoccupied in trying to make her feel better. I am the kind of person who copes with problems by trying to solve them. Is that an obvious thing to say? I don’t think so, because I know people who would acknowledge that if there is a problem in their lives they either ignore it or absorb it somehow into their everyday life. However, at this point in my life I had no answers at all, so I preferred to hide away for a bit.

However, I had been almost forced out into the open because of the situation with the play. The production having to be cancelled had meant the potential audience needed and deserved an explanation. I also owed my fiction publishers, Simon & Schuster, some promotion for the novel. So I agreed to go on
This Morning
but I was determined to set my own agenda and get past the whole cancer thing quickly so the last thing people would remember from the interview, hopefully, was the title of my book.

Poor Phillip Schofield and Holly Willoughby hardly got a word in edgeways as I prattled on. But it worked and the studio went very quiet when I talked about my illness and explained that my white hair had been for my play, not a side effect of the chemo as the press had been quick to assume. When the interview finished Phillip whispered in my ear ‘Well done, girl, it is good to see a pro at work!’ But the papers only picked up on the hair and there was hardly a mention of the book – it was so frustrating. I would love to have gone round the country doing book signings, like I used to do when I was on tour with
Calendar Girls
, but I was just not well enough, so my appearance on
This Morning
was even more important to me. Because it was all so sudden I was still in denial, and did not fully understand what this was going to mean to me and the family and my career. It had just ended, like a kick to the head. Everything I loved and had ever worked for in my life was over!