The sessions often left me nauseous, so I was never more than a few feet away from a bucket. But mostly I was just exhausted. And as a result, I lost interest in anything that didn’t involve me.
I couldn’t be bothered to read newspapers, listen to the news or Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. Instead I dipped in and out of OK! Magazine and watched This Morning on breakfast TV for my fix of world events.
The seventeen types of tablets I took each day controlled when I ate, what I drank, when I woke up, what time I napped and how far away I could be from the nearest toilet. I hated them, but by controlling my life, they were saving it.
But nothing I read on the Internet had warned me of how much cancer treatment could drain your femininity. Lack of regular exercise and steroids gave me a moon-face and made my weight balloon. Make-up only highlighted how ugly I’d become and made me look like a cheap drag act, so even the basics like lipstick and mascara were left to gather dust on the dressing table. In fact, my entire beauty regime was given the heave-ho.
I hadn’t coloured my hair for so long, it looked like I’d taken to wearing a silver skullcap. My legs resembled the Forest of Dean, and the skin on my left cheek near the radiotherapy zone was corrugated and sore.
The pricey moisturisers I’d bought on my trips to Paris were boxed up and put into a cupboard, and replaced with E45 cream and aloe vera. I avoided my beautiful wardrobe of Gucci and Versace outfits and asked Selena to order me a selection of brightly coloured, elasticated leisure suits. I went from couture to velour.
And I all but ignored my own reflection. I wouldn’t give that bloody bathroom mirror the satisfaction of seeing me in such a state.
SIMON
Montefalco
27 July
Our family crammed so many memories into the time we’d been allowed.
A former colleague of Luciana’s father with a shady reputation secured me a forged British passport of my own. So the four of us flew from city to city across Europe for weekend breaks and explorations.
And when the short bursts of chemotherapy on Luciana’s kidney and stomach weakened her resolve, we hid indoors and watched old Jimmy Stewart and Audrey Hepburn films with subtitles instead.
A large proportion of her hospital appointments involved tests and scans. They could be fraught affairs not only because many were invasive, but because each time, her disease had advanced that little bit further.
The shame I felt over my earlier plan to abandon her and teach God a lesson pushed me to double my efforts to be there for her. I became more than just Luciana’s chauffeur and helper; I was also part of her treatment team.
I never missed a single appointment again, and even when her doctors and specialists probably didn’t welcome my presence, I sat by her side and irritated them with questions and suggested drug trials and treatments I’d read about on the Internet. I didn’t care what they thought of my silly ideas. She was my soulmate, not theirs.
The side effects of Luciana’s treatment were undignified when occasionally she’d soil herself. Sometimes the palms of her hands felt like ice blocks, and I’d rub them hard between mine to make her feel human again. Or she could spend days in bed poleaxed by crippling stomach pains. All I could do was fill her plastic beaker with water or rub her arm as she vomited. It was heartbreaking to witness and feel so useless.
Madame Lola frequently flew from Mexico to stay with us. Sometimes Luciana wanted both of us around her, and other times, it was just one of us. And occasionally she took herself down to the vineyards to sit alone on a blanket her sister had crocheted and watch the grape pickers come and go.
Whatever made her happy made me happy.
CATHERINE
Northampton
8 October
‘It’s looking good, Catherine, it’s looking good,’ said Dr Lewis, nodding as he examined my latest X-ray against a light box.
I didn’t feel it, I thought, but I kept quiet for fear of sounding like an old whingebag. My check-ups with him were the only highlight of my miserable weeks. Sometimes, the dishy doctor dropped by on treatment days to say hello and offer words of encouragement. He’d pat me on the shoulder each time he left and I’d always get goosebumps.
I’d had no significant other in my life since Tom. I holidayed alone; I shopped alone; I went to parties alone; to Selena’s wedding and Olivia’s christening alone; to Emily and Robbie’s graduations alone. I’d been on dinner dates with several men over the years, sometimes set up by friends and others who I’d met through the boutique. But there was nobody who’d reacquainted me with romance. Or maybe I just hadn’t given them much of a chance.
I’d spent so long throwing myself into my business and my children’s lives that it hadn’t given me time to think about what I might be lacking. Now I was spending time at home recovering, and I began to realise what I’d been missing out on. I was lonely, and fed up with being everybody’s single friend.
Dr Lewis was the first man who’d turned my head in some time. Albeit a bulbous and, in places, dented head. So I made a deal with myself: if I could make it through my treatment and get a second shot at life, I’d throw my hat in the ring, open myself up and take a gamble on love.
SIMON
Montefalco
18 November
Luciana insisted on taking care of all the details of her birthday party herself. Despite my protestations, nothing was going to prevent her from leading the team of caterers and planners she’d hired to throw a lavish fortieth birthday party.
‘I am bored, Simon – I need to do this,’ she explained with a passion I thought her disease had extinguished. ‘I need to have one day where we’re all thinking about the present, not the future.’
I decided against arguing with her. Friends, our children’s friends, our staff and their families, the doctors and nurses who treated her, and villagers joined us as we threw open the doors to our home.
Waiters served drinks as ice sculptures slowly melted into lawns; a casino in the dining room made temporary millionaires out of some, while others danced to a twenty-five-piece swing band playing Rat Pack classics on the terrace. It had been many months since I’d last heard laughter echoing through the corridors.
Mid-evening, I searched high and low for Luciana until I found her perched on a stone wall, her bare feet resting in the infinity pool that overlooked the valley. I placed my arm around her shoulder and she rested her head on it as we stared into a distance we could never reach.
‘It’s not working,’ she whispered.
‘Of course it is. There are two hundred people behind us having the time of their lives.’
‘No. The treatment. Sometimes at night when I’m trying to sleep, I can feel the disease finding new bones to dine on.’
I shivered. ‘No, it’s your imagination. I’ve read about it, plenty of people with cancer think they can hear the cells growing but—’
She gave me a gentle look that asked me not to doubt her. ‘You know this party isn’t just to celebrate my birthday, don’t you? It’s my way of saying—’
‘Please don’t,’ I interrupted, my throat tightening.