The senior physician in the land had never known a patient to take such news with more dignity and composure. The only sign of human frailty Emma revealed expressed itself as he accompanied her to her car, when for a moment she leant on his arm. She only made one request of him, to which he agreed without hesitation.
Lord Samuels remained on the pavement until the minister’s car was out of sight. He then returned to his office and, as she had requested, made three telephone calls to three people to whom he’d never spoken before: the Lord Chancellor, the Prime Minister and Sir Harry Clifton.
One of them broke down and wept, and was quite unable to respond, while the other immediately cleared her diary, explaining to her staff that she wished to visit a friend. Both of them, Lord Samuels concluded, were cut from the same cloth as the great lady who had just left his consulting rooms. But the call he was most dreading was the one he had put off until last.
As gently as he could, Lord Samuels told Harry that his wife had motor neurone disease, and could only hope to live for another year, eighteen months at the most. The gentle man of letters could find no words to express his feelings. After a long silence, he eventually managed, ‘Thank you, Lord Samuels, for letting me know,’ before putting the phone down. It was some time before he recovered sufficiently to accept that one of them needed to remain strong.
Harry left Heads You Win in mid-sentence, and drove himself to the station. He was back in Smith Square long before Emma arrived.
When Emma left the department for the last time, she was driven home to find Harry waiting for her on the doorstep. Neither spoke as he took her in his arms. How little needs to be said when you’ve been together for more than fifty years.
By then, Harry had phoned every member of the family to let them know the devastating news before they read about it in the press. He had also written half a dozen letters, explaining that, for personal reasons, he was cancelling all his existing engagements and would not be accepting any new ones, whether social or professional.
The following morning, Harry drove Emma down to their home in Somerset so they could begin their new life. He made up a bed in the drawing room so she wouldn’t have to climb the stairs, and cleared everything from his desk in the library, so she could set about answering the sackfuls of letters that were arriving by every post. Harry opened each one and placed them in separate piles: family, friends, colleagues, those who worked for the NHS, with a special pile for young women up and down the country, of whom until then Emma had not even been aware, who not only wanted to say thank you, but again and again mentioned the words ‘role model’.
There was another particularly large pile that lifted Emma’s spirits every time she read one of them. Those of her colleagues who did not share her political persuasion, but wanted to express their admiration and respect for the way in which she had never failed to listen to their views, and had on occasions even been willing to change her mind.
Although her postbag didn’t diminish for several weeks, Emma replied to each and every person who had taken the trouble to write to her, only stopping when she no longer had the strength to hold her pen. After that, she dictated her replies to Harry, who added ‘scribe’ to his many other responsibilities. However, she still insisted on checking every letter before adding her signature. When, in the fullness of time, even that became impossible, Harry signed them on her behalf.
Dr Richards dropped in twice a week, and kept Harry informed of what he should expect next, although the old GP admitted that he felt quite helpless because there was little he could do other than show sympathy and write out endless prescriptions for pills that he hoped would ease Emma’s pain.
For the first few weeks, Emma was able to enjoy a morning walk around the grounds with Harry, but it was not long before she had to lean on his arm, then rely on a walking stick, before finally succumbing to a wheelchair that Harry had bought without her knowing.
During those early months, Emma did most of the talking, never failing to express her strongly held views on what was happening in the world, although she now only picked it up second-hand from the morning papers and the evening news on television. She delighted in watching President Bush and Mrs Thatcher signing a peace treaty with Chairman Gorbachev in Paris, finally bringing the Cold War to an end. But only a few days later she was horrified to learn that some of her old parliamentary colleagues back in London were plotting to remove the PM from office. Did she need to remind them that the Iron Lady had won three elections in a row?