It’s my ninth – and final – chemotherapy session

‘Sorry I’m late,’ I said to the big unit stationed behind her computer. She’s the chief, this one. She shows no fear or favour. ‘It’s not grave. Room two,’ she said without looking up. ‘Today’s my last one,’ I said. ‘I know,’ she said.

Room two comprises three cubicles. Two were already occupied. I was piggy in the middle. I took off my shoes and coat, hung the coat over the back of the chair and climbed up on to the padded recliner.

Then the raven-haired black-eyed nurse, who invariably looks searchingly into the depths of my soul before asking whether I would like apple or orange to drink, came in. ‘My last one,’ I said. I thought that she at least would smile or offer congratulations. But she remained her usual otherworldly self. ‘Apple?’ she said. ‘I think orange today,’ I said.

Although I was annoyingly cheerful on this my last day of treatment, I should say that I am usually annoyingly cheerful on chemotherapy days because on doctor’s orders I must take a double dose of steroid, which invariably makes me a bit too full of myself.