My appointment was at noon. Cycling through Tavistock Square, in Central London, I checked my watch. I had cut it fine, so there wasn’t even time to stop at Waterstones for a book to read.
I locked up the bike, pulled off my helmet and headed inside. Above the double-doors I read the words ‘Macmillan Cancer Centre’. Yes, this was where I’d been told to come.
A CT scan is quick and simple, they said. You are in and out. I skipped down the stairs, exuding — I hoped — an ostentatious energy and good health. In the waiting area, I sat and looked around. A sombre-faced Asian family huddled. An older couple sat silently. I felt a wave of doubt. These people seemed unwell.
In the waiting area, I sat and looked around. A sombre-faced Asian family huddled. An older couple sat silently. I felt a wave of doubt. These people seemed unwell. Pictured: Marina at work in her garden in London
Just then a man began to shout. ‘Kurwa mac!’ I had spent six months in Poland, back in the days of Solidarity, and had picked up a range of vocab, mainly around food, political protest and the Virgin Mary. The shouting man wasn’t touching on any of these topics.
Though he was standing close to me, I don’t think it was my mother he was accusing of being a whore. Still, I was rattled.
Some weeks earlier, in May, Mr K of the Whittington Hospital had delivered the diagnosis.
His explanation was clear and careful. He was very sorry. I would be referred immediately to the gynaecological oncology team at University College Hospital (UCH), a world-class centre for this kind of thing — this kind of thing being cervical cancer.
I was unimpressed. Clutching a leaflet, I left thinking: ‘That’s absurd. I have no time for this. Quite apart from anything else, I have a book to write.’ I had already missed my deadline twice.
Some weeks earlier, in May, Mr K of the Whittington Hospital had delivered the diagnosis. Pictured: Marina in 2008
On the bus down the hill, questions kept on coming. Did the Almighty have a plan for me? Was it to save me from publishing a book that was destined to be a flop? Should I just give up? However you figured it, this just wasn’t going to work.
I was due to fly to Moscow with my friend Rachel. In the mornings we would write our books in her apartment. Later there would be ice cream in Red Square. Cocktails even. We’d visit the banya — heat up in the sauna, beat each other with branches of silver birch, and then plunge into a deep tub of icy water.
At UCH they told me two surgical procedures had been booked, a week apart, the second contingent on the outcome of the first.
‘Thank you very much,’ I replied. ‘But I’m not sure I can fit it in. You see, in July I have to go to Moscow.’ This didn’t seem to be the usual response they received to a treatment plan.
‘The choice is yours, of course,’ they said. ‘Talk it through with the nurse and let us know. We have a very busy surgical list.’
Helen, the nurse, spoke to me in a private room. She quickly sized me up: polite, strong-willed but not really thinking straight. A tricky customer, in other words. She called in Karen, her manager, by way of reinforcement.
My favourite advert used to be ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers.’ Slapstick, but still a cracker.
Now it’s the Macmillan one. ‘Cancer doesn’t care about you,’ it warns. ‘But we do.’ It’s not a gag. It’s true. They did. From start to finish.
For a long time, Karen listened. ‘Do you have children?’ she asked. ‘Four,’ my sister Shirin interjected. Gently, Karen delivered the bottom line: ‘You need to have this done.’
She used the words ‘dependants’ and ‘survival’, and I knew my Moscow trip was doomed. I met my consultant, Miss O, early the next week.
Online research established she was at the top of her game, surgically speaking. In person, I liked everything about her: the way she spoke; her thick, untamed hair; her close-fitting bright red dress and 3in heels.
I’ve watched Killing Eve. If you can have a crush on your would-be assassin, why not on a surgeon who plans to remove your womb? Miss O rattled off a list of things that could go wrong. The risk of post-operative blood clots would be mitigated by wearing surgical stockings. For six weeks. Through the summer.
She handed me a pair. They were very white and very tight. ‘Do they come in other colours?’ I asked. ‘Olive-green, or maybe pink?’ Sadly not.
She asked if I had any other questions. The op would be Thursday morning, and Friday was my friend Lucy’s birthday party. Could I go? I had helped compile the playlist and considered my presence to be essential.
She smiled: ‘If you feel up to it, there’s no reason you shouldn’t go. Just take a taxi and some painkillers, and limit yourself to one glass of wine.’ Excellent news! What about dancing?
I didn’t make it to the party. I had puffed up like a balloon. I could have appeared as a decoration. The gas used in the keyhole surgery had stayed trapped under my skin: surgical emphysema, an unusual but not unknown reaction. I had a long time lying in recovery to ponder my horror-show face and general situation. I looked like I was recovering from an amateur facelift.
Karen didn’t recognise me and initially walked straight past me. After she left, I tried to conjure memories of holidays and happy days, but as the hours passed, unwanted thoughts and images intruded more and more.
My spirits dipped. When the evening shift began and I was wheeled into a holding area, still waiting for a bed, I started to despair. Eventually, and now distraught, I pulled off my heart monitor and headed for the exit.
I was found, of course. When I was wheeled up to the ward I felt drained and a bit ashamed. My children and sister were there, waiting. One eye still wouldn’t open and if you touched my skin there was a popping noise.
My kids grimaced and peered questioningly at my face. After hugging, we all relaxed and soon they offered helpful ways to view the situation.
‘You’ve always loved bubble wrap. At least you won’t have to hunt the house for some. Just press your chest!’
The week between procedures crawled by. July 4 was the big one. I was first on the surgical list. When I reached the ward, it was early afternoon. The windows didn’t open but I could see blue sky and the top of some of London’s highest buildings. It was a lovely sunny day; a day to ponder life’s twists and turns.
Twenty years ago to the day, I had given birth, here in UCH, to my youngest child. I told him firmly to enjoy his birthday and not to visit. His girlfriend and I cooked up elaborate plans to keep him occupied. But he turned up anyway.
After the operation, we were both a bit euphoric (in his case, probably helped by booze). I was alive, there was no sign of bubble-wrap this time and I felt, well, pretty good. I had checked my abdomen and the wounds were small. No need, I decided, to ditch the two-piece swimming costume just yet.
Ideally, my phone and laptop would not have spent the night in the controlled medicines cupboard, but these things happen.
My niece brought me her iPad and there were other consolations. My daughters brought sushi, Love Island and Peter Crouch’s podcast. I had jelly babies and a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. I didn’t stay in hospital long. After three operations, I had learnt that hospital and patient are equally keen to free up the bed. A family team headed by Shirin picked me up.
Shirin has been my saviour. She was with me all the time and kept friends and family in the loop. She was endlessly attentive and took the unsavoury stuff in her stride.
When I was four and Shirin six, she fancied herself a witch. She made a little book of spells. She would open it, look at me fiercely and start to mutter.
Soon, she warned, I would be a toad. A very small and disgusting one. I would live outside. My parents would open the door, see me on the step and slam it shut.
‘No!’ I’d cry, ‘I don’t want to be a toad!’ It may be a little soon, but I’m thinking of forgiving her. It is tempting to stick with this theme: gratitude to people who reached out to steady me during an awful, frightening time. But it would divert me from an urgent message I need to send — to my publisher and agent. I haven’t given up! The book is on its way!
I can’t yet cycle, run or drive. But I can write. Things are looking up. The histology after surgery was clear; the cancer hadn’t spread.
I resented the surgical stockings, but then I made peace with them. I fancy I had finessed the look — a few inches peeking from under a pleated skirt — when Miss O told me the stockings had done their time. Joy of joys!
The week between procedures crawled by. July 4 was the big one. Twenty years ago to the day, I had given birth, here in UCH, to my youngest child (pictured, husband Boris Johnson)
I am now in the garden at Lucy’s house in Cornwall. It is lush and filled with flowers. I feel the sun warming my back. I can hear birds and the rhythmic roar of the sea.
I am making progress with my manuscript, while pondering other things.
One is womanhood. It is true, I have lost some key anatomical bits. They served me well but had no further use. And that is fine.
In this age, in the place we live, we are defined much less by our desire or ability to reproduce. Why would we be, when there is so much more?
Lucy is standing in the stream tearing brambles from the bank. She will pile these in a wheelbarrow and haul them up the hill to burn. If I’m lucky, she will then make tea and bring out some of her citrus-with-rosemary-and-olive-oil cake.
We will craft an occasion at which to rerun the birthday playlist. There are details to iron out — date, guest list, that kind of thing — but we agree that a Scandinavian-style singles party would be a hoot.
- Marina Wheeler’s memoir of her mother’s family, The Lost Homestead, will be published by Hodder & Stoughton in spring 2020.