How the Dead Live by Will Self

on the nature of cancer. He expatiates on the fact that cancer was unknown in the ancient world, that it seems to have arisen at the same time as human reason itself emerged from the darkness. After a couple of glasses of a good single malt, he’s probably been known to hazard that the peculiar morphology of certain cancers may be a function of their being, in reality, tiny cellular models of the Copernican universe itself! ‘. . . it’s never easy to tell somebody that there’s nothing much we can do.’
    ‘I feel for you – truly I do.’
    ‘Ms Bloom – this isn’t helping. You can stay here at UCH if you wish – although I know you’re as aware as I am that the bed is needed. Or I understand from Mr Khan that a bed could be made available for you at St Barnabas’s – ‘
    ‘The hospice?’
    ‘Yes, the hospice.’
    ‘In Muswell Hill?’
    ‘I believe so.’
    ‘I’m not dying in Muswell Hill – I wouldn’t even go shopping in Muswell Hill. I want to go home.’
    ‘Or, you can go home. Can your daughters arrange for nursing? You appreciate it will need to be round the clock?’ Or, or, or – but you note: no either.
    ‘One of them can.’
    ‘That would be Charlotte, would it?’
    ‘I can’t see Natasha organising anything much – can you?’
    ‘Erm, no, maybe not.’ He’s writing stuff down on a clipboard with a Bic Fine, gathering the panels of his virginal tabard about him. He’s beautifully shaved, Dr Steel, marvellously groomed. When he gets cancer – and he must, eventually, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy – it will be a nice orderly one, a tiny tumour in his brain which will simply push down on a vital artery, like a light switch, and turn him off. Leaving his clothes all neatly pressed and his body unsullied.
    Did he go? People are always doing that now – they don’t say goodbye to me, they just leave. I guess they think all conversations with me are now intrinsically valedictory – no need to say goodbye to the old bat, she’s already gone. And it’s true – I do feel detached. I feel detached the way I did in the months of dropsical pregnancy that led up to David and Charlotte and Natasha. At the time I thought it peculiar that I seemed to be absenting myself while these very important guests were arriving for life’s party – but now I see it’s all connected, there’s a compensatory arrangement – arrivals and departures. Terminal life.
    I suppose I must’ve slipped into unconsciousness for a couple of minutes, because when the girls arrive they wake me with their bickering.
    ‘I don’t mind giving you the money – I just don’t want any crap about a loan.’
    ‘But I’ll pay it back.’ This wheedling voice is naturally sonorous and beautiful.
    ‘No you won’t, you never do.’ This reasonable, mature tone is strangulated by class.
    ‘I will – I’m gettin’ a job.’ This mockney is so wrong.
    ‘A job? You?’ This hauteur is entirely believable.
    ‘At the dogs – Hackney Dogs.’ Hackney – how utterly unsuitable for this, this . . .
    . . . vision of a thing. She’s beautiful all right – my Natasha. She ought to be in elbow-length white gloves and writing on her dance card with a silver propelling pencil. Instead she’s got the sleeves of a black cashmere cardigan pulled down to her wrists. I wish she’d shoot up in the soles of her feet. Her black hair looks as if its been cut with pinking shears. Her blue eyes have kohl round them, obscuring blacker circles. She’s stoned – of course. Her pupils blighted points in each wilted iris. She’s an inch or so taller than I used to be – five-eleven, I guess – but Natasha is coat-hanger thin. The last time I saw her naked I could count all of her ribs. They should’ve given her a fucking mastectomy – she’d never’ve noticed. Still, she’s riding on her cheekbones, my youngest. Her cheekbones and her charm. How can anyone with that generous a mouth be so ungiving? It doesn’t matter,