Sunday 11 September 2022 01:19 AM RICHARD E. GRANT recalls the intense kindness of Charles when losing his wife ... trends now

Monday January 18, 2021

I read the oncology report that's just landed on the doormat. Addressed to Joan, but am resolved that she will never read it. The atomic bombshell diagnosis/prognosis verbally delivered a week ago, here in black and white. 

The hospital has opted to do radiation surgery. To blast the brain tumours in three days. Joan's hair will all fall out a week later, and there will be brain swelling and possible incoherence, which we will counteract by doubling her steroid dosage. This will be followed by chemo or immunotherapy.

Friday January 29

The oncologist, Wanda Cui, calls with astonishing news. 'The FDA-approved tepotinib wonder drug has been granted on compassionate grounds, completely free. You're only required to take two pills per day.'

It's a new drug that only works for a very specific type of lung cancer. To be given this end-of-week hope-filled news is extraordinary. Joan won't have to undergo chemotherapy. Won't lose her hair. Feels like a lottery win.

No sooner has Wanda said goodbye, than all three of us burst into tears and dance around the kitchen to Queen and David Bowie's Under Pressure, which happens to be playing on the radio.

Wednesday February 3

Finally here – the first day of Joan's treatment plan. When I get downstairs, she and our daughter Oilly are already awake and the atmosphere is antsy and irritable. At the very moment that we need to be united and supporting one another, everything feels scratchy and out of sorts.

Deep, deep breaths, then we're in the car and negotiating rain and heavy traffic to the Royal Marsden hospital. Feel profound relief that her treatment programme has finally begun.

Thursday February 4

Overwhelmed with longing for everything to be healthy and safe again. Against the ghastly recognition that this will never be. Joan asks: 'Do you feel that this is all happening to someone else?'

'I'm afraid so. You?'

She nods. Looks exhausted and ill. For the first time. Or is that just me daring to acknowledge this to myself?

Tuesday February 9

Oncologist Wanda reveals that the pioneering tepotinib lung cancer drugs, which Joan is due to take, have been held up at customs. This is a real blow.

Wanda tells me: 'If the tepotinib works, the tumours will shrink within the first eight weeks, and Joan's life will return to normal for the next 12 months. Thereafter, we might resort to chemo.'

The good news I'm holding on to is that we will make it to our 35th wedding anniversary in November this year and have one more Christmas together. Double bonus!

Sunday February 14

Valentine's Day – could it be our final one after 38 years together? Hard to compute. Impossible to imagine. Not being a unit, pair, partnership, union, marriage. None of which we share or discuss out loud. Play Scrabble, eat, cuddle and cocoon ourselves against the arctic temperature outdoors.

Monday February 15

Decades ago, I was invited to become an ambassador for The Prince's Trust and was seated beside Camilla Parker Bowles at a dinner in St James's Palace.

She was so forthright, open, curious and funny that we got along instantly and were subsequently invited to spend the weekend with her and Prince Charles at Sandringham, then Highgrove, and to attend their wedding.

Camilla sends flowers with a note – 'Thinking of you at this horrid time' – which made both of us chuckle.

No attempt at euphemisms. Much appreciated by my no-nonsense Aberdonian wife, who is equally direct.

Tuesday February 16

Prince Charles sends Joan a two-page, handwritten letter, full of love, compassion, empathy and encouragement. Joan wonders: 'How has he managed to do this in between endless commitments and calls on his time?' Clearly very touched.

Drove to the Marsden hospital to pick up the tepotinib drugs which have finally landed. Having waited so impatiently for them to arrive, it's anticlimactic to have them at last. Will they work? With what side-effects?

Sunday February 21

Nigella Lawson cabs over Sunday afternoon savoury and sweet treats. Call to thank her and she advises to 'live for the moment. Ignore all the prognosis and life expectancy estimates. That way madness lies.'

Easier said than done, when you're a natural-born worrier!

Thursday February 25

Steroids have made Joan incredibly tetchy and irritable due to interrupted and too little sleep. Know it's not meant, but all the same, very wearing.

Friday March 5

Wanda calls: 'Good news – the lung tumour which was 7cm has shrunk to 3.5cm and the MRI brain scan has confirmed that there are no new tumours.'

Impossible to resist the fantasy that if this new tepotinib drug has managed to reduce the cancer by half in just two weeks, why can't it carry on destroying it, until it's all gone, in another fortnight? A friend calls. 'You may have narrowly missed winning an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, Richard, but your supporting role in your domestic drama will be your finest hour.'

2017

In late November 2016 I was sent a script titled Can You Ever Forgive Me? by my agent and told that I had 24 hours to read and decide about doing it, 'as it's shooting in January'.

'Who's dropped out?'

'Don't ask.'

'Who's playing the lead?'

'Melissa McCarthy.'

It's the best screen role I've had since my first one, Withnail And I, 30 years ago. Months from my 60th birthday, and the best gift I could have been given.

Being Melissa's co-star is about as status-enhancing as it gets.

Everyone I encounter wants more Melissa. Whether it's Glenn Close, backstage after Sunset Boulevard, Meryl Streep via email, or Tom Hanks at dinner with Steve Martin, actors palpably love her.

Saturday March 20, 2021

Since sharing our news about Joan with all of our friends two months ago, am finding it difficult not to judge the ones who haven't been in touch whatsoever. No word, text, WhatsApp, email or call, especially as we're in Covid lockdown. Crystal clear where people are placed in the pyramid of friendship.

Friday April 16

We are in the car by 9.30am and at our cottage in Gloucestershire by noon. Joan had always wanted a country retreat, with low ceilings and an inglenook fireplace, and four years ago went searching online.

Found a cottage 100 miles away in a village with a couple of pubs and no shop, and, within five minutes of being shown around, said, 'We'll buy it.' The quiet of the countryside is like balm.

Lunchtime news reports that Helen McCrory has died of cancer at just 52. We all cried. Both of us had worked with her. Wrote to her husband Damian Lewis.

Impossible not to project when this will happen to us.

Wednesday May 5

My 64th birthday. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was the first pop LP I was given, on my tenth birthday in 1967. When I'm Sixty-Four seemed an impossibly distant, unimaginable age.

I met Paul McCartney in 1997, when I'd gone to see my one-time 'screen wife' Julie Christie in a play at the Wyndham's Theatre. Went backstage to see her, and met Paul and Linda and their daughter Stella. 'Join us for dinner. We're all going to the Bombay Brasserie.'

'Why bloody notsky!' scrolled across the cartoon balloon above my head as I looked around in disbelief at the dinner guests either side of me. Julie, Paul, Linda, oh, and Twiggy and Leigh Lawson who had joined our gang. A mini round-up of 1960s icons all chatting away with me, this starstruck Swaziboy, among them.

I banged my knees together to remind myself that I was actually here, sharing naan bread with Doctor Zhivago's Darling, the man who wrote Hey Jude and Eleanor Rigby. and Twiggy, while my head went all 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da'.

November 2018

A lot of talk of major movie awards – even the 'O' word! – surrounding Can You Ever Forgive Me? following its US release in October. Attend the Governors Honorary Oscar Ball in a vast ballroom, somewhere in Hollywood. Meet up with Melissa, as our spouses are not invited.

Into the cocktail party fray and the first person we stop and talk to is Emily Blunt, whom I'd met at Jessica Chastain's wedding near Venice last summer. Introduces me to her husband, John Krasinski, who is curiously bashful.

The minute he is distracted by another actor, she leans in and whispers, 'This is a big moment for him. He was so jealous that we'd met in Italy, as he can recite every line of Withnail And I.'

Who knew? Certainly not me.

And now it's Nicole Kidman swanning elegantly towards me, saying: 'I hope you win every award coming your way, 'cos you're heartbreaking and brilliant.'

No denying the sea change from her polite greeting at an event eight weeks ago, before she'd seen the movie. Feels like being given temporary membership of the elite Fame Club.

Thursday December 6, 2018

Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor! Oilly and I are midway through lunch in the Cotswolds when this pings into her phone. 'OMGs' back and forth between us, as we try to contain our excitement.

Monday January 7, 2019

Day of the Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles,

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