The C-Word (33 page)

I wonder now, though, whether it might have been an unconscious decision not to muddy the soundtrack of 2008/09 with the worst time of my life? The one album I did embrace during that time (
The Seldom Seen Kid
, obvs), I made a point of only playing in times when I felt more like a human being, careful not to taint it with crappy cancer memories. I kind of hope my music-shunning was done on purpose, actually, because it might just be the smartest thing I ever did.

Getting to Glastonbury with P, Tills and Si (she says, as though it can be equated with reaching the summit of Everest or Nelson Mandela’s
Long Walk To Freedom
) wasn’t just a big deal in terms of how far I’ve come in the space of my ‘gap year’, but in recognising that it is possible to fall right back into the comforting arms of the stuff you love (or love listening to), like jumping off a perilous tightrope onto a huge, enveloping cushion. And the simple fact that it all happens on a farm in Somerset only adds to its brilliance. Because, when you’re low on signal, when text messages are taking forty-eight hours to reach you and when you’re miles away from your laptop and your email and your Twitter account, you’re even further
removed
from the communication-crammed life you couldn’t do without back at home. And, strangely comforting as it is the rest of the time, you’re not continually having to return hospital questionnaires or order repeat prescriptions or book follow-up appointments or answer questions several times a day about how you’re feeling. And, by heck, it’s glorious.

With a jolt, Si looked up from his pint of cider – or piss, we couldn’t tell which – one afternoon at the festival. ‘Crikey,’ he said out of nowhere. ‘I’d forgotten you’d even been ill.’ And the beauty of it was – for the very first time in a year – I had too. Good old Glastonbury. You might come back bruised and muddy and covered in more germs than a Sunday-night portaloo, but any place that has the ability to make you forget about The Bullshit gets a McCartney-style thumbs-up from me. And so those four days on Worthy Farm marked more than just a brilliant Blur reunion, the return to fashion of Springsteen-like sweatbands and the realisation that Neil Young can make ‘Down By The River’ last for three weeks. It also marked the moment when I took my finger off the pause button and finally pressed play on my lovely life once more.

*

‘IF SOMEONE COULD
have told me a year ago,’ said P, as we kept each other warm in front of a candle flame on our old-person blanket at rock ’n’ roll’s biggest festival, ‘that we’d be here and you’d be better, well …’

‘Well?’ I queried.

‘Well, y’know, I s’pose I’d settle for that,’ he concluded, in what could almost certainly take the gong for the World’s Largest Understatement.

‘Yeah, I probably would too,’ I agreed, mimicking his dryness.

Months previous, some smart cookie had commented on my blog that one day I’d turn around to notice that things had become normal again, without even realising they had got that way. And in that cidered-up conversation in the cold, in which cancer was just a mere detail for my husband and I to trivialise, I guess it finally happened.

For over a year, I had been longing to have a chat that didn’t begin with my diagnosis or my hair or the state of my immune system or my scars or my infection or my hot flushes or my boobs. I’d lost count of the number of people who’d opened telephone calls with ‘how are you feeling?’ instead of ‘hello’. It was overwhelmingly lovely that everyone had so much invested in me getting better, and that they were so interested in what stage I was at with my recovery. But the repeated questions about my well-being also meant that something must have been wrong.

And so, even more than I was searching for a cancer cure or a tumour-free boob or a good head of hair or a new nipple, I was searching for normality. The kind of normality in which I could talk
Coronation Street
before cancer. In which I’d be sick because I’d had too much to drink, and not because of chemo. Where people would ask ‘how’s things?’ instead of ‘how are you feeling today?’ The kind of normality in which I could moan about my hair despite once not having had any, or whinge about the size of my thighs as though their enormity were the worst thing that could possibly happen to me. In which our families could visit for a weekend because they wanted to say hi, and not because they had to look after us. And in which I could tell my husband I loved him because I felt like it, and not because I was worried how many more times I might be able to say it. The kind of normality in which I could sit on a blanket in a field, rather than under a blanket on my sofa.
The
kind of normality in which I could be just another face in an 180,000-strong crowd.

And so, yeah, I’d seen off treatment for breast cancer. But I didn’t necessarily want to be hailed a hero for doing it. I just wanted to be an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life – just as I had been before The Bullshit. I wanted to be able to answer my dad’s daily question of ‘what’s your news?’ with a boring ‘bugger all’, and for him to respond with a satisfied ‘that’ll do for me’. And while it would be far too worthy – and a complete fabrication – of me to tell you that there wasn’t a significant part of me that wanted to stop every Glasto punter in their tracks and say ‘guess what – I survived breast cancer’ in the hope of them buying me a congratulatory beer, I also knew that surviving The Bullshit wasn’t necessarily something I could take the credit for. Because I didn’t beat cancer. I just had the kind of cancer that could be treated, and a brilliant medical team to see to its eradication. My job was simply to allow them to do it; to accept the treatment; to accept the way that treatment would make me look and feel, and to hope for the best.

But since all that’s a bit zen, and since I’m also the kind of girl who (a) prefers a burn-out to a fade-away, and (b) will never pass up the opportunity to claim a reward, I roped P into a rather special, post-Glastonbury shopping trip.

‘I’m getting these,’ he said.

‘No,
I
am,’ I protested, wondering why we were arguing about who’d hand over the card from our joint account.

‘But
I
want to do the buying,’ bickered P.

‘Fine,’ I conceded. ‘But if anyone asks, for the record, I bought them for myself. As a present to
myself
. Right?’

‘Yeah, whatever,’ he said, raising a suspicious eyebrow at the goods in the shop window.

If you ignore the fact that we had to ring a doorbell to get into the shop, and that I had a dedicated and impossibly helpful assistant, this was as normal a Saturday-afternoon shopping experience as P and I had ever had: me spending far longer than is necessary making confused faces in front of a mirror; him standing awkwardly in a corner checking the cricket score on his phone.

‘Peeeee,’ I whined. ‘Give me an honest opinion! This one or this one?’

‘Um, walk over there,’ he said, putting his phone behind his back but clearly keeping one finger on a button so as not to lose his page. ‘Dunno babe.
You’ve
got to wear them.’

‘And
you’ve
got to look at them,’ I retorted.

‘Dunno. Like ’em both,’ he concluded.

‘Well, that’s helpful,’ I said, turning to the assistant in invitation for some audience participation in the man-and-wife shopping routine we’d been honing for years. ‘The thing is,’ I told her as P got back to a fallen wicket, ‘I want to wear these
for ever
. If I’m going to spend this much money, they’ve got to go with
everything
.’ I figured it would be fruitless to pretend that we went on these kind of sprees all the time, utterly obvious as it was that we were more used to shopping in Kennington than Knightsbridge.

‘In which case I think you’re along the right lines with either of these,’ she answered politely, backing up the opinion that P had almost given.

I gurned a bit more in front of the mirror before turning to P. ‘These,’ I said, pointing to my right foot. ‘It’s these.’

‘And you’re sure?’ asked P, as he exchanged his credit card for an expensive-looking brown carrier bag. ‘It’s a big deal, is this.’

‘Damn right it’s a big deal,’ I agreed.

*

‘I’m just going to watch these last couple of overs while you play with your new toy,’ said P, stretching out on the sofa after coping admirably with a couple of hours of enforced girliness. With the fragments of our festival still scattered around the bedroom, I made some space on the bed amidst our rucksacks and rain macs to release my Best Ever Purchase from its box. Shooing dirty clothes underneath the bed to clear the floor between me and the mirror, I kicked aside my muddy wellies and took the first tentative steps in my peep-toe Christian Louboutins.

‘Haha!’ I squealed excitedly at my 6 foot 1 reflection, throwing my arms out and barely staying upright in an emancipated wobble. In the aftermath of breast cancer, I was already having to learn to walk again – and here I was adding 12-centimetre heels to the equation. But after a Bullshit year of extraordinary trials in which I could only
hope
to stand this tall, I figured this ordinary girl was ready for a new challenge.

Acknowledgements

With thanks …

I’ve spent my life reading bands’ acknowledgements in album sleeves and have always dreamt of one day doing the same, so please forgive me for lapping this up like a hungry sales shopper on New Year’s Day.

I’d like to thank
the Academy
the following people, not just for the part they played in getting this book to print, but for the part they played in dragging me through the bullshit that was The Bullshit.

Firstly, to all the amazing internet friends (ooh, friend) who’ve ever read, linked to, commented on, RTd, passed around or pimped out
Alright Tit
. I kiss you all on both cheeks. To Marsha Shandur, who got in there early, always one step ahead of the game. To Stan Cattermole, for the post that sent his discerning readers my way. To Stuart Bradbury, for the brilliant blog design that got me noticed. To Matt Thomas, for nagging me to join Twitter. To Stephen Fry, for driving my traffic sky-high with his kind words.

To Kath, for being the best (and brilliantly bad-influence) boss, and everyone else at Forward. To Shirley, for regular
thoughtful
emails and enough flowers to start a pot pourri-business. To Mr Bancroft, who I always said I’d thank if ever I wrote a book. To Dave Grohl, for ignoring the constant stalker-like references. (My final thinly veiled attempt at getting him to notice me.) To Derby County, for staying up in a season when I couldn’t have handled relegation. To Sgt Pepper, for forcing me into breaks by sitting on my keyboard (any typos are her fault, by the way), and for changing me more than cancer ever could.

To my agent Matthew Hamilton, for discovering my writing and always sharing good news in time for the weekend. To everyone at Arrow, in particular Steph Sweeney, Gillian Holmes, Claire Round, Louisa Gibbs, Charlotte Bush, Amelia Harvell, Richard Ogle, David Wardle and the sales team for their staggering enthusiasm and belief in
The C-Word
, and the hard work (and hard drinking) that got it to print.

To every single medical professional at the London Breast Institute and Royal Marsden Hospital (the most remarkable of whom are mentioned in this book) whose expertise helped get me to this point. I owe you everything. But for now, this acknowledgement and a few fairy cakes will have to do.

To all of my wonderfully supportive friends who have, from my very first blog post, been relentlessly encouraging to pushy-showbiz-mother levels. In particular, the darling Tills, for always finding something nice to do in Chemo Week 3 and stepping up to be the sister I never had; and Si, for on-tap DIY assistance and funny-shaped crisps. To Ant, for staying unreservedly local despite being so far away. To Polly and Martin, for the most gloriously relieved reactions when my mammogram was clear. And to our ‘Goldsmiths Mum’ Angela, for taking off the caps lock. To Weeza, for
making
my life better by simply being back in it. To Busby, for the comedy ginger wig and planting the Super Sweet seed. To Lil, for always ensuring that normal conversation prevailed, and for being Sgt Pepper’s favourite auntie; and Sal and Ive, for
Abigail’s Party
and colour-coordinated get-well cards. To Ali, for endless cheery cups of tea; and Leaks, for
never
taking it seriously. To The WardJonze Entity, for twelve years of toilet humour and the book we’ve not yet written. To Jon, Suze and the boys, for making P and I part of your lovely family. And to every other impossible-to-list mate who’s ever called, cuddled, poked, emailed, visited, texted, baked me gingerbread men or bought me a curly scouse wig. Even the ones who just didn’t know what to say.

To the Lynch clan – Val, Terry, Ted, Paloma, Andy, Tracey, Izzy, John, Val (and the extended scouse relatives it’d take me another book to list) – a family force to be reckoned with. Let’s celebrate in The Star soon, eh?

To Jean and Hedley, for always making me feel like I was on the right track. To Paul, for donating an obscene amount to Breast Cancer Care for the first copy of this book. To Will, for Googling breast cancer when he should have been knee-deep in Lego. To Non, for staying characteristically calm. To Auntie Anne, my cancer buddy, heroine and Matriarch To End All Matriarchs. To Uncle Frank, for the most wonderful cuddles. To Matthew, for Isle of Wight escapes and scrambled eggs with leftover curry. And to everyone else I’m fortunate enough to call family or family-friend.

To Jamie, the most thoughtful, kindest, loving, funniest, arse-faced, piss-taking brother there ever was. And to his beautiful Leanne, for being brave enough to marry into the Macs (and well worthy of the name). To my incredible Mum and Dad, for EVERYTHING. Even in the darkest hours of
The
Bullshit, I never felt anything less than bloody lucky to have been born to such an exceptional couple. I hope you know what an extraordinarily envied family you’ve created.

And – finally and most importantly – to my pride and joy, my reason, my world, my everything: my P.