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Sometime that summer, during the first recuperation, there was another visit, I went down to Brighton again, at June's request, she phoned me to say that Tony was very low, needed taking out of himself, did she say, was that her phrase, how a common expression can become so like a philosophical statement, sometimes, in this case, he himself wanted to be taken out of that now alien body, which was not himself, which was no longer under his control, the cells multiplying without reference to his will, destroying him and themselves. They could not meet me at the station this time, I caught a bus along the front, past Rottingdean, and June met me at the stop, I brought her flowers, they had a garden full of flowers already, she had walked the mile or mile and a half, or so, from the bungalow, yes, I think the parents had gone away for a holiday, they were there alone with the dog, and his pain, this was why they could not pick me up, why June had asked me to come down to take him out of himself, and walking back we discussed the deception, she had not told him that she had rung me but that I had asked to come down to see him, about the book, the second novel, and thus she involved me in the deception, a small one, I carried it off as best I could, tried not to show, I do not think he knew, but he was very intelligent, and he would not necessarily have let me know he knew, there was little point anyway, it was a small deception. And I did my best to take him out of himself, ha, as I remember, but I had no control over the rampant cells either, the one thing that would have been of use to him I could not give him, it was no use, no one could give him.                       He still looked the same, but was tired, all the time, but we did talk more on this occasion, perhaps I forced him to talk, about the new novel, more than he would have wished, in accordance with my supposed reason for being down there, indeed, it was useful to me, talking to him about the book, but perhaps I tired him too much. And we watched the cricket on the telly, there were test matches, I don't take much notice, myself, tennis I report in summer, but Tony was very keen, yes, and there were worse ways of spending an afternoon, no doubt I dropped off to sleep, it's that sort of game, to me, perhaps Tony did as well, in his tiredness. I do not remember much more about this visit.

To help him, in such a way as I was able, which was not at all, in effect, a couple of weeks later, was it, when I had the use of a friend's cottage, at Winshelsea, not that far from Brighton, really, with a bird, a new one, strange to think of my wife now as just a bird, as she was, then, in this cottage, for a weekend, and we invited Tony and June down for the Sunday, for a lunch, his brother drove them to Winchelsea, then went off with his fiancée, arranging to pick them up later, that evening, met them in the pub, as a place to meet, they did not know Winchelsea, Tony easing himself in some pain, slowness, out of that old car, his brother was a self-repairing enthusiast, ha. The lunch late, the first the new bird had done, I think, for me, anyway, she's become infinitely better since, ah, but then, I was so taken up with her that I hardly remember anything about Tony, what we said, the usual things, no doubt, I had not quite finished the second one then, still, it was probably about a month from completion, we must have discussed that, at least, as we waited for lunch in that cottage, sun-raddled, that day.                                            In the afternoon we went somewhere by car, Bodiam Castle, I shouldn't wonder, I had a car then, had borrowed it, it had the same owner as the cottage, kindly, generously. June hated my driving, I remember that, was almost carsick, yes, hated me for my driving, though all I was doing was driving round corners instead of coasting, as the method is. Yes, we stopped on a road, out in the country, Ginnie loved it, we saw some animal in the distance, perhaps a hare, that's why we stopped, I think.

And when I had finished it, there was another occasion, another trip to Brighton, to his parents' home. I had sent the typescript to him the previous week, or some days previously, had asked him to read it as a whole before we came, Ginnie came with me, for the day, and he had, but had he? Forget what he said about the thing, but know I was dis- appointed, tried to explain how to Ginnie on the train going home, that his comments were not really constructive, interested, this time, with this novel, but were almost petty, almost irrelevant. It was difficult to explain to her, I must just have been covering up, not admitting genuine faults to myself, as far as she was concerned, it is very easy to do, especially that soon after finishing something. Perhaps I did not give him enough time to consider it, the deadline was a self-imposed one, I was eager to finish to have his opinions so that I could improve the book, to have done with it. Nothing he said, after this draft was finished, made me change a word, I was disappointed, but I can see now that it was reasonable that the book would seem irrelevant to him, everything must have, in his condition, except whether he was going to be cured, whether the treatment had succeeded or failed, that was all that mattered, would surely have mattered to me, so it was infinitely excusable, but difficult to understand, it all is, again.

Yet he knew by that autumn, when they had gone back to Chester, found a flat on the Wirral overlooking the sea and the Welsh mountains, ah, and had undergone more surgery, that he was cured, I think they told him he was cured, they must have, for I remember the letter I got from June, a separate one from him, too, that told me the news, the whole of the lump removed, June's letter ending in joy that the sun was shining across this view from their flat, on the mountains in the distance, on the sea, and that she could enjoy it, that she had a future again.