Today is my very best friend's birthday. Sadly, I won't be celebrating it with her, because on 2 September it will be ten years since she died.
We met when I started high school. We both took the same bus to Hammersmith - where the school was - from Chelsea. Sitting on the top at the back - there used to be a particularly nice seat tucked behind the stairs in the old Routemasters - we would discuss the books we were excited about and add up the digits on our bus tickets. If the result was 21, it was a stroke of good fortune., (don't ask me why)
Our first bond was a shared love of John Verney's books about February Callendar. Later, I enjoyed having the film Far From the Madding Crowd described, over many trips, in such minute detail that when I did finally, some years later, see it for myself, I felt exactly as if I had already seen it several times. Probably the most thrilling thing that happened to us during these years was glimpsing Terence Stamp getting into a mini on the Fulham Road.
When I left London and went to boarding school in Australia, I used to receive long, enthusiastic letters from my friend in her spiky italic writing. Her personality was so vivid that even on paper she seemed more present than most of the people with whom I was actually spending my time. I wish I still had those letters but, in an act of hard-to-forgive vandalism, my mother threw them out when I was away one summer, (together with a full set of Beatles autographs - but, if I could have only one of those things back, it would be my friend's letters).
Whenever I'd go back to England, we'd pick up the friendship again, as if there'd been no break in contact. This was testament to my friend's personality. She was not someone who ever bothered with being petty or irritable. If you were her friend, she was also your greatest supporter and encourager and most enthusiastic partner in crime.
And then astonishingly, she was diagnosed with late stage cancer. I say astonishingly because, of all the people I've ever known, my friend seemed by far the most alive. I don't know how to explain it except to say that she seemed always to be burning especially brightly. It seemed impossible that such a spirit could be extinguished.
But it was. Somehow the illness got the better of her and all too soon she was gone, leaving a six-year-old child behind her. And the terrible thing is that it needn't have happened, if only her doctors had been more vigilant. I don't know if one should blame them - maybe they also were unable to imagine that someone so very alive could really be in danger. Anyway, for whatever reason, they told her not to worry, to ignore her own symptoms - and then it was too late. Almost nothing could be done.
I suppose the only positive to be drawn from this is the reminder that doctors are not infallible, that, if you feel unwell and are not satisfied with what your doctor tells you, don't let them fob you off. Get a second opinion - and a third and a fourth if necessary. My friend gave up after three separate doctors told her that, although they couldn't explain her stomach pains and anaemia, she was obviously much too young and vigorous to have anything seriously wrong with her. Perhaps a fourth doctor might have taken a harder look and actually done something before things reached the stage of A&E and never leaving hospital again. In other words, if in any doubt, don't hesitate for a moment. It's better to be thought of as a neurotic than to suffer my friend's fate.
Thank you for this post, which has touched me in several ways. I remember that seat at the back of the top floor on the Routemaster. I also recall standing on the platform as the bus approached its stop, hanging on the bar, leaning out and enjoying the wind blowing through my hair. Losing your friend must have been like losing a part of yourself - I know that's a cliche, but it sounds as if you had a fracture in your life and were suddenly uprooted from the world you knew. Along with being a companion who filled you with joy, your friend anchored you to your past.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who has been unwell for the last couple of years and when I spoke to him on the phone a couple of days ago, he sounded broken. He is an extraordinary man who lights up any room he enters. The prospect of losing him is too awful to bear, so I shall be urging him to forget the waiting lists and get the help he needs.
You have also made me realise that even if I'm a bit of a hypochondriac, my recent health problems may be more than 'stress' over my son, so I shall stop being male and do something about it.
The worst telephone call I've ever had was from my friend one evening near her death. She wanted reassurance or at least companionship - she said she knew she was dying and she was very frightened. Nothing you can say is adequate.
DeleteWe loved standing on the platform too. We also loved the bus conductors, who almost without exception were unEnglish in their easygoing good cheer - was that your impression too? Oddly, whenever we met up again in adult life, we usually managed to get on a bus at some point during the encounter - and, of course, our favourite place became the front seat at the top., in the new horrible buses. (Boris Johnson is here in Melbourne, by the way, and I heard him last night boasting that you can hop on and off his new Routemasters - I know they have the feature but is it actually true? I assumed they wouldn't open them up, because it would mean having to get a conductor?)
DeleteIn true modern British fashion, I think you can hop on and off the buses, but only at designated periods - something to do with a health and safety risk assessment, I expect.
ReplyDeleteThe old bus conductors were certainly easy-going characters. I don't remember being told off for leaning out of the bus as it approached the stop. Many of them would have lived through the Blitz, so perhaps that's why they were more sanguine.
I took my son on an old Routemaster bus a few years ago - they still operate a few on 'heritage routes' - but it was very disappointing. The distinctive diesel engine had been replaced with a new modern eco version and instead of slowly accelerating, it suddenly lurched forward. My son soon complained that he felt sick.
Was it the No. 9 (??) that goes along the back of Knightsbridge and by the Albert Hall? I remember a lot of Caribbean bus conductors, who were astonishingly kind and paternal, to the extent of leaning out and telling cars to hold back if you were leaping off and generally making you feel taken care of. If such people were still employed, I think parents in London would feel much more relaxed about letting their children roam about the city in the way that my brother and I did from a young age - and my memories of the freedom we had and the outings to St Paul's and Kensington Gardens (where, for reasons I totally cannot fathom as it was completely out of character and I felt bad even as we did it, we once threw stones at some ducks and were, absolutely rightly, severely told off by a park warden person) are some of my best from childhood (which may say something about the limitations of my childhood I suppose)
DeleteThank you so much, even if this made me weep and, ahem, "boys don't cry". This is a wonderful commemoration of friendship.
ReplyDeleteShe was the most wonderful of friends. I hope you got away with the old, 'It's just a spot of hayfever", line
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