Love for Now

I am indebted to all the doctors and staff on the Haematology ward where I was treated.

For their friendship, advice and support I would like to thank the first readers of this manuscript: Mark Brend, Mary Jacobs, Zoë Pagnamenta, Victoria Pougatch and Tatiana Wilson.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following:

Lines from
Life in a Scotch Sitting Room, Vol. 2
, ‘Episode 2’, by Ivor Cutler, Rev-Ola Records, 1978.

‘How to Behave with the Ill’ by Julia Darling, from
What Can I Do to Help? 75 Practical Ideas for Family and Friends from Cancer’s Frontline
, Deborah Hutton (ed.), Short Books Ltd © Julia Darling, 2005. Reproduced by permission of Julia Darling’s family.

Extracts from
C: Because Cowards Get Cancer Too
by John Diamond, published by Vermilion, reprinted by permission of the Random House Group Ltd.

Lines from ‘Death does not come from outside. Death is within’ by Jaan Kaplinski, from
Selected Poems
, trans. Fiona Sampson
et al
. (Bloodaxe Books, 2011).

Lines from ‘It Gets Cold in the Evening’ by Jaan Kaplinski, from
Selected Poems,
trans. The author
et al.
(Bloodaxe Books, 2011).

‘Wet Evening in April’ by Patrick Kavanagh, from
Collected Poems
, Penguin Classics, 2005.

‘A Man Called Percival Lee’ by Spike Milligan, from
The One Hundred and One Best and Only Limericks of Spike Milligan
, Penguin Books Ltd, 1988.

Lines from ‘I Go Back to May 1937’ by Sharon Olds, from
The Gold Cell
, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1987.

‘After Frost’ from
Grinning Jack
by Brian Patten. Copyright © Brian Patten 1990. Reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN.

Extracts from
Lost in Music: A Pop Odyssey
by Giles Smith, Pan Macmillan, London, © Giles Smith, 1995.

Extracts from
Intimations of Mortality
by Violet Weingarten, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., 1978.

Thanks are due to Rosie Marks, Emily Riall and Samantha Smith for their help with typing this manuscript.

I will always be indebted to the friendship, love and support of my family and friends. In particular I would like to thank Olwen Goodall, Mary and Sidney Jacobs, Ruth and Roger Lewis, Col and Lucy Mallet, Greg Mason, Debra Myhill, Sam and Phil Randall, William Richardson, Lawrence Sail, Jon and Jo Soper, Wendy Tutchings, Dinah Warren, Simon and Kim Wilding, and Liz Wood.

The heroes of this book are the people who were there: my children Merenna and Shimi Wilson, my wife Tatty Wilson and Dr Jörn Cann, whom I was pleased to call my friend.

I was formally diagnosed with a variant of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, a cancer of the lymphatic system, on Valentine’s Day, 2006. I was 42.

Despite my friends’ protestations that it was ‘probably nothing’, the diagnosis, when it finally came, was not a surprise. A shock, yes; a surprise, no. Just as the treatment for cancer changes your tastebuds, it also heightens your need for the truth.

I looked for the truth about cancer in many different places. Like a good patient I read up on my disease, seeing it as homework. I quickly gave up. What difference did it make how much knowledge I had of the mutating cells in my body? However much knowledge I gained about them would never change their behaviour.

Some of the least satisfying sources of truth about cancer are the media. Coming to terms with a life-changing diagnosis is hard enough, but it is harder when the story you are living through and trying to make sense of also exists in a parallel universe of cancer as portrayed in the lives of celebrities, soap operas and sports personalities. It goes without saying that however frank these representations pertain to be, they ultimately fall short of one’s own lived experience. Therefore, the risk inherent in writing this book is that, however accurate its portrayal of cancer and its treatment, it will fall short of the reader’s own experience. Every one of us whose lives have been touched by the disease has a unique story to tell.
All I have attempted to do with my own story is to tell it as accurately as possible.

As my treatment for cancer progressed, I became sensitised to its depiction in the culture at large. In particular I was struck by the use of the metaphor of war to describe individuals’ experience of the disease, often written or spoken in the past tense: ‘X has died today, after a short/long battle with cancer’. If there is one difference I wish to make with this book, it is to challenge the use of such metaphor as the predominant discourse of cancer in our culture.

Speaking personally, describing cancer as a ‘battle’ or ‘fight’ places the onus of recovery onto the patient when they are at their most vulnerable. Not one of my fellow-patients and friends who have been diagnosed with cancer has perceived themselves as fighting this battle. If it is a battle, let it be one for the doctors and researchers, who can at least go home in the evening without throwing up their lunch.

Secondly, war metaphor unnecessarily romanticises cancer. The past tense so often used to describe individuals’ ‘battles’ is a tacit reminder that the battle has been lost. None of us like to think we are on the losing side, especially when it comes to the ultimate question of death. Describing cancer as a ‘battle’ is something of a protective device, therefore: we can live with the loss of a loved one because we can persuade ourselves that ‘they gave it everything’ before they died.

The truth about cancer is less likely to appear between the pages of a glossy magazine, in the teary recollections of those we invite into our homes at the flick of a television or radio switch, nearly always after the event and by necessity somewhat airbrushed. It is more likely to be found in the unexpected acts of kindness one encounters; the visits and gifts of colleagues and friends; the humour of doctors at moments of crisis; the simple everyday gift of family life continuing around you. In my view, and with one or two honourable exceptions, these are not remarked on in the literature of cancer with anything like enough frequency.

The story related here, is, therefore, my attempt to be true to the experience of living with cancer. If you are reading this there is a fairly good chance you are doing so because you have cancer yourself or know someone who has. My story is not going to be the same as your story, nor that of your friend or relative. But in saying what happened to me, and relating as precisely as possible the words that were said to me, in the order that they were uttered, I hope they create a space in which the reader’s own experience, however different, can be reflected upon and spoken of with those the reader knows and loves most closely. I began writing this book in an effort not to forget what I was going through; as the writing progressed it became a debt of honour, to my family and friends, and to the doctors and nurses who treated me. I hope that reading this book will provoke conversation between those who experience cancer directly or in the lives of loved ones. I would argue that we remain uncomfortable about doing that in our culture, the evidence of which can be seen in our over-reliance on metaphors of war to describe experience of the disease. In such a technologically advanced age, this is surely a very great irony. Only by speaking about our experiences honestly, without resort to such symbolism, will we say how it really is. To do that, we need to start with the events as they occurred.

Anthony Wilson
Exeter, March 2012

‘Dad?’

We are on the M6, in bright sunshine, driving home from our summer holiday in the Scottish Borders. An old Smiths compilation is going full blast as our campervan is overtaken by a juggernaut. At the very point that its slipstream sends us swaying almost into another lane, Morrissey can be heard extolling the virtues of meeting his death under the wheels of a double-decker bus. The irony is not lost on me, and my fists pound the steering wheel with pleasure.

‘
Dad
?’

‘What? Sorry. What?’

Merenna, my daughter, has crawled across piles of luggage and twisted herself round to face the direction we are travelling, resting her head between the two front seats.

‘Dad, when we get home, can I burn this CD off you?’

In a few weeks Merenna will start a new life, at secondary school.

Our holiday has also been one of transitions: music has blared from bedrooms, appearances at breakfast have been silent, or rare. Family walks, always something of a battleground, have still been undertaken, but now we stretch across hillsides in an unruly line, where once we marched in a clump, holding hands.

‘So, Dad, can I?’

I still regard seeing the Smiths at the ICA in October 1983 as one of the most formative experiences of my life. Though I heard it only once, I sang ‘Reel Around The Fountain’ under my breath for the whole of the next week. When I first went out with the woman who is now sitting next to me I pretty much knew the instant she said her favourite song of theirs was ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ that we would get married.

So when my daughter, recently awake on a motorway,
expresses interest in the band I fell in love to and with, something hard-wired in my DNA shouts ‘Yes!’ at the windscreen and punches the steering wheel a little bit harder.

I do none of this, of course.

‘What, the Smiths, of course you can my darling. Any time you want.’

From even further back in the van my son Shimi asks if he can borrow it, too. Tatty and I exchange glances. She knows how pleased this has made me, and how hard I am working to feign nonchalance.

Seven hours later we stumble across the threshold of our house in Exeter, the doormat a choppy ocean of mail. Among the usual bills and postcards of holidays from friends there is a letter from Peter Carpenter, my editor at Worple Press in Kent. It tells me he has decided to take
Full Stretch
, my next book of poems, and what what’s more, he is going to add selections of my previous books, now out of print, to the new work. ‘It’ll be a bumper edition,’ he says, ‘and we’ve pencilled it for the spring.’

Much later still, our bags unpacked, Tatty says into the darkness ‘What was the best bit of your holiday?’ This is one of our rituals. We ask the same question of each other every summer, however the holiday has gone. For once it does not take me unawares.

‘Was it getting your book contract?’

‘No. It was the kids asking to burn the Smiths off me. I feel I’ve finally arrived as a parent. Whatever else happens, at least I’ve passed on that.’