Free Love for Now by Anthony Wilson

a
film
for goodness sake. The dream of narrative worked for me. I might have to go onto Amazon or whatever it is and order 3 vids for
£
10 per month. Or even just buy some. Films I could watch now and weep a little over?
     
    Good Will Hunting
    Sliding Doors
    Dead Poets Society
    Truly Madly Deeply

    All About My Mother
    The Ice Storm
    Groundhog Day
     
    I recalled watching
Twelfth Night
at the Barbican with Mummy and Daddy all those years ago. It was one of those occasions, as I remember it, when he took us all out, with girlfriends, including a trip to Dustin Hoffman’s Shylock. Somewhere I have the programmes. The bit I remember was quite early on, where Viola (Zoë Wannamaker) gives the ‘cruellest she alive’ speech to Olivia. It was a great doubleheader, sparks flashing between the pair of them, verbally and physically. The end of it isn’t an important break in the play but nevertheless he clapped heavily in the pin-drop silence. I really admired him for that – going for it in the silent auditorium. It came back to me today watching Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow jousting and falling in love.
     
    A lovely present from Mark today in the post. The match day programme from Chelsea/Barca from two weeks ago. His note said ‘Look at the back. Do you not like the result from the Bridge?’, a reference that he got Graham Taylor to sign it: ‘Best wishes, Anto.’ It has lovely glossy photos and expensive adverts for, among other things,
art
. A nice piece on Joe Cole (pre match-winning performance for England) on his interest in Spanish football: ‘But Joe’s real passion, or should that be Real passion, is going to watch them play live.’ He can afford it, I suppose.
     
    It reminded me that it came out before the death of Ossie. Peter (Carps) emailed me that day to say he saw him once with Chopper Harris and Dave Webb in a pub in Ewell and always regretted not asking for an autograph. ‘He may not have played much for England, but he certainly drank for them.’ I replied that watching him on telly is the reason I became a Chelsea fan. I never saw him live. ‘Sometimes something comes from nowhere which makes you want to go outinto a field and howl’ I said. Later that night they showed him running through the Leeds defence to score that diving header, having laid off the ball just outside the centre circle. It completely did me in.
    I don’t think we’ll win tonight. I think we’ll try very hard, probably get one of the two goals we need, but will get caught on the break. I’m out of time. Time to go and get Shim from school.
     
    I want to live.
Wednesday 8 March
    Second day of chemo.
     
    Back from hospital propped up on the bed not feeling too nauseous and rather smug. My haemoglobin has remained normal – a score of 14 – and they all love me to bits. ‘I’m keen to keep the pattern of two weeks going, Tony,’ Karl said, ‘so if you’re ready, we’ll start poisoning you.’
    As Lizzie, today’s nurse, talked me through the side effects, he butted in loudly on entering the room with ‘what’s all this about a cough? You’re not being male about this I hope.’ He declared my chest clear and gave me ‘5 days, oops, seven days, slip of the pen’ of antibiotics. So far so good.
    Lizzie smiled when I told her about the shivery achy back pain, from the Granocyte. ‘Oh that’s a
good
sign,’ she said. ‘It means your large bones are making lots of white cells. We like that in a patient.’
     
    There was poetry in the way Frank Keating remembered Ossie, on the back page (where else?) of the
Guardian
:
    In 1961, as sports editor of the Slough
Observer
and at a boys’ cup final to present the trophy, I was riveted by a building-site tea boy, a cheery, cheeky, spindly gawk playing with a carefree dash for the winners, Old Corinthians.Just 15, his aura of lithe grace and balance matched a bravura of power.
     
    […] I heard from his uncle Bob that my rave had helped him get a trial at