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Emma, 21st February 2011

Michael took me to Venice for a surprise weekend to make up for the bad news. I love that man more and more each day. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve him in my life just when I need him most. The doctor was expecting more progress. She thinks we should try a different treatment but I shudder at the prospect of yet more chemo. But there’s no choice really. It’s either that or give up now. The months ahead look grim, but I’ve got to keep believing I can beat this.

Yet sometimes you can get one over on life, lick up a dollop of happiness before it slides from the cone. That was our little weekend break. I don’t know how Michael managed it during carnival – I’m imagining he offered all sorts of interesting and illegal sexual favours to the travel agent – but he booked us into a quiet hotel near the La Fenice opera house, which is the Italian for ‘phoenix’. The theatre, I was pleased to see, has risen again after burning to the ground some years back. Did they foresee its future when they named it, I wonder? I’m not a high-culture fan but I can appreciate history as long as you don’t make me sit through a performance. Me, I’m more likely to go to a Lady Gaga gig than Madam Butterfly.

The hotel is on its own little canal which is not wide enough for much boat traffic. The water there is a strange slate blue, unexpectedly teeming with black fish right up to the front doorsteps. I wonder if people cast lines from their windows? I forgot to ask the hotelier. The walls have a weathered look, like stippled old-lady skin. I imagine that if anyone does repaint they are immediately instructed by the city authorities to mess up the finish so nothing stands out too strongly. The place is so crowded you get important buildings stuck down what in any other city would be back alleys. I loved the limp flags hanging from the official buildings, washed-out colours and little or no wind to make them flap. You get the sense that the whole of Venice is like that, just hanging and hoping nothing blows her away. The cruise ships have a good go, ugly white blocks dwarfing the city as they churn along the lagoon, the backwash doing plenty of damage. It’s like Manhattan trying to invade a medieval city – or one of those alien invasion films where a huge flying saucer drops out of space, reminding Earthlings how insignificant we are.

Have you noticed how Hollywood sci-fi does superpower invasions with heroes who always end up in a punch-up despite having laser blasters, whereas the UK does Doctor Who and A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy? Odd bloke in a telephone box and another hitching a lift in a dressing gown. I listened to Hitchhiker’s on perpetual loop as a teenager, my way of combating exam stress. Something about the bemused outrage of Arthur Dent before the absurdity of the universe just hit the spot for me. Still does. The alien constructor fleet destroys the Earth to make way for a bypass. That sums up the British sense of humour and I think is closer to the shitstorm that is the universe than Hollywood’s grandiose ideas that anyone could be bothered to invade us. Stuff just happens – a meteorite arrives and kickstarts life, then another takes out the dinosaurs, and maybe yet another will bring down the curtain on this human experiment we’re running not very successfully. It would help if I could take comfort from this big-picture perspective but it’s hard when it’s your life, your cancerous meteorite.

Enough.

But back to the cruise ships. If I were in charge of the city, my first directive would be to keep them well away – make the tourists transfer by smaller vessels. It’s not as if Venice is short of visitors. They are killing the thing they love.

That’s the human condition, I suppose.

Thanks to the perfect choice of hotel, we didn’t have to go very far to find the carnival in full swing. We hired some costumes – not as elaborate as many on display – and joined in with the street party. It was a relief to have a couple of days off from that conspicuous group – the cancer treatment patient with a hairless head. I was gloriously anonymous in a gold dress, cloak, wig and mask; Michael wore an outfit in red and black which made him look like Zorro. He was very careful of me, mindful at all times of the doctor’s words, like I was a delicate confection of spun sugar that would fracture on the slightest brush against anyone. I wanted to tell him that I’m tougher than I look – I’ve had to be, considering my recent experience – but I think he was getting a kick out of being protective. It reminded me of the incident last year. I shouldn’t bring that up again with him, though. We’re both keen to forget how close we sailed to complete disaster. The might-have-beens still keep me awake at night.

I found it liberating to walk a city with my mask in place. We all dissemble, even with the ones we love most, smiling when we feel like crying. I’m so used to wearing a mask that lies just below the skin, that to have it out there for all to see was the most real, most truthful I’ve been for a long time.