to this man. He's very good and knows about your case. He'll probably put you on tumour-reducing drugs and, possibly, radiation therapy.' He paused.
'And put your affairs in order as any sensible man should.' I thanked him again, took the address, and went back to London where I heard another instalment of bad news. Then I told Penny. I had no need to give her Starkie's explanation because she grasped that immediately.
It was her job, after all. I said, 'Of course, the marriage is off.'
'Oh, no; Malcolm!' And so we had another row-which I won. I said, 'I have no objection to living in sin. Come live with me and be my love.
I know a place in the south of Ireland where the mountains are green and the sea is blue when the sun shines, which it does quite often, and green when it's cloudy and the rollers come in from the Atlantic.
I could do with six months of that if you're with me.' We went to Ireland immediately after Peter and Gillian were married. It was not the happy occasion one would have wished; the men were sombre and the women weepy, but it had to be gone through. At one time I thought of suicide; taking the Hemingway out, to perpetrate a bad pun. But then I thought I had a job to do, which was to write an account of the Ashton case, leaving nothing out and making it as truthful as possible, and certainly not putting any cosmetics on my own blemishes. God knows I'm not proud of my own part in it. Penny has read the manuscript; parts of it have amused her, other parts have shattered her. She has typed it all herself. We live here very simply if you discount the resident medical staff of a doctor and three nurses which Penny insisted upon.
The doctor is a mild young American who plays bad chess and the nurses are pretty which Penny doesn't mind. It helps to have a wealthy woman for a mistress. For the first few months I used to go to Dublin once a fortnight where they'd prod and probe and shoot atoms into me. But I stopped that because it wasn't doing any good. Now time is becoming short. This account and myself are coming to an end. I have written it for publication, partly because I think people ought to know what is done in their names, and partly because the work of Ashton on genetics has not yet been released. It would be a pity if his work, which could do so much good in the right hands, should be withheld and perhaps diverted to malignant uses in the hands of another Cregar. There are many Cregars about in high office. Whether publication will be possible at all I don't know. The wrath of the Establishment can be mighty and its instruments of suppression strong and subtle.
Nevertheless Penny and I have been plotting our campaign to ensure that these words are not lost. A wise one-legged American, in adapting the words of a naval hero, once said, 'We have met the enemy, and he is us.' God help you all if he is right.
