I don’t give the final payment to the builder myself, as I’m sick of his creepiness and don’t want to let him into the house again. I make my husband hand over final envelope of cash at our front door, knowing he’s not been bred with any compunction to let someone in when they request it; to let someone put their arm around his shoulders momentarily, repeatedly, when they discuss plans for a business transaction; to let that paid transaction include any conversation about where my husband should sit in his garden and what swimwear he should be sporting when he does it.

The builder thanks me for the payment by text, then, 24 hours later – having clearly given it some thought – he texts me to say that, after we’ve paid him thousands of pounds to work on our house, maybe I just want to let him know if I want a hug. Winky face.

After several hours where I do some thinking of my own, I eventually reply that his message is creepy and inappropriate, and I block him. It feels good, compared to all the times, day after day after day after day, where I don’t say anything, too stunned in the instance, or too wary of consequences because of where I am and how drunk the men seem. Not all men, obviously: just the men I encounter at the supermarket, on the train, on a run, on the library shelves, on TV, in the newspapers, in parliament, in my local cinema listings, at social events, and online.

At lunch with friends, we talk about the terrible men we work with. Bosses who tell us to cancel our IVF as it’s something we’ll regret once landed with a screaming kid. Bosses who take all the young skinny white boys out for breakfasts, then send emails to their bosses insisting they should be fast-tracked for promotion. Bosses who tell us our own promotions are mistakes, our plans are wrong, our ambitions are foolish.

We talk about you, I want to say to those men. We all know what you’re like. You’re ridiculous. And you make the world worse.

At a PTA breakfast, other friends talk about trouble their daughters are having at school amongst their friendship group. Well, you know how mean girls can be! they say. I say, Look at us, guys! How great are we! I say, The friendship of the women in my life are the most valuable friendships I have. Men are hot garbage. Women are kind and hilarious and understanding and way more interesting. Don’t teach your daughters to hate each other already. Women are the best! Show your daughters how great girls are! If more girls learnt how fucking cool women are, we could make the world a trillion times better!

I am amazed I am still invited to these breakfasts, to be fair.

May 23, 2016

I sleep in the car, my nerves sedating me as usual. We drive past the American Cemetery on the way to the hospital – apparently – and when I wake up as we park in the multi-storey my husband says, I’ve always wanted to visit there. I was going to stop on the way but I thought if you woke up you would panic that you’d woken up in Heaven.

A new doctor, an actual brain surgeon this time, rather than a consultant who invites you to consider his proposed brain operation with the words, ‘I’m not a brain surgeon, but I will perform the operation on your brain.’ This latest consultant has a colleague in the room for my appointment who looks like a young Mary Beard, and I am already fond of both of them. The brain surgeon has the air of someone who wears ties with miniature hippos on, like all brain surgeons should. He tells us: If I could be autocratic, if 100 people had your situation, I would send all 100 of them home and tell them to get on with living their lives. He looks momentarily wistful at the thought of clearing his desk so fast. But! we say, and repeat the words from the last appointment: catastrophic risk and life-changing and major trauma and constant bleeding. In a soft voice he says, Yes, you might, possibly, have a major bleed one day, that could affect the speech lobe in which this problem is located, but who knows? It might actually improve your writing.

As if I didn’t love him enough.

As we leave into the white sunshine, eating ice creams, giddy, high-spirited at the thought that maybe my death might just be like everyone else’s, unforeseen, unknowable, hopefully distant, and nothing we have choice in, I say to J, I think that other consultant just really wanted to do my operation. Maybe one more brain operation and he gets the cerebrum badge to stitch onto his white coat.

May 10, 2016

In bed, I fling my book away from me, and say almost thoughtfully, ‘I’m really, really frightened all of a sudden.’ I can’t tell if it’s the scene I’ve just read about people being buried alive in a mine; the vertiginous feeling I’ve had since lunchtime which I have no way of telling whether it’s a cold in one ear or a pre-stroke event; book deadlines not just whooshing past but sucking me onto the tracks as they race by; the death of my most adored comic writer and performer; or poor sleep patterns and eating habits. Whatever the ingredients of this dazzling cocktail, I’m focusing very hard on my breathing, on trying to force my brain to accept that I’m not really on the edge of a cliff, this aren’t really my final moments. Recognising what this must be doesn’t mean the fear is any less: in fact, this physical sensation is so overwhelmingly like the one bit of childbirth I really liked - knowing when it was time to push, an instinct so clear and true that it felt like an ancient godly blessing - that I’m convinced it must actually be my death occurring, since my body, when it spoke like this before, spoke the truth.

I know it isn’t though. I know this must just be a panic attack - although in 2016, can we not find a slightly gentler phrase than that, please? But it doesn’t stop me saying, ‘If I do die, can you look after the children, please?’ like it would otherwise be something that just slips off the To Do list.

Jack-rabbit-hearting and drop-limbed 18 hours later, I think: I need a warm holiday with a warm pool where I have no deadlines, only bread and olive oil, tomatoes and salt, J and the babies, sun cream and card games. Everyone feels like that, though, give or take the specific company. In the meantime, the baby and I watch this, listen to this, and sleep curled up under a hand-me-down blanket while the world continues on outside.

April 21, 2016

One day, I think, one day I’ll learn to ditch optimism at the door of the hospital.

It’s warm inside, full of sun-struck open corridors, Starbucks and welcome desks, still-faced paper-white patients in wheelchairs and walkers, smiling patients in hospital gowns chatting in familiar tones with receptionists, and couples where one of them sports a cannula in the back of their hand like a grim, slipped corsage. Glowing pregnant women roll around the wings like scattered pearls, lit differently to all of us visiting with our own personal decay.

The recent neurology appointment was so reassuring that I can actually read while we’re waiting. The neurosurgeon calls us in to say, Yes, hello, but have you thought about brain surgery? Because that cerebral anomaly is leaking, always, always, he says, and if it blows for good, the result could be - probably would be - catastrophic. And since it’s located in the area of speech, I’d not only be paralysed down my right side, but my ability to find words would be severely impaired, possibly forever.

I think, Seriously? My words? Are you kidding me? It couldn’t have been in my juggling lobes? I couldn’t be putting my Donkey Kong skills at risk? We ask more questions. I try to ignore the creeping sense of icy death spreading from the base of my spine, down my thighs, up my chest. I know I’ll fall asleep as soon as we get into the car; my usual shelter from the storm. The surgeon scoffs as we ask about mortality risks in the operation, which I suppose is the correct response, and we shake his hand and walk around the hospital and decide the best thing is probably to let him incise my skin, remove a section of my skull, and excise this stowaway from the delicate folds and walkways of my brain. I am so glad I am here with my favourite person in the whole world, even in this situation, even with this decision. I wonder what we’d do if I had a major personality change after the operation, as can sometimes happen, according to my vague recollections of fact-less Daily Mail articles. To be fair, my other half says, it’s 50/50 that you might actually end up with a better personality afterwards.

I fall asleep as soon as we get into the car.

In the evening, I speak to my neurologist brother-in-law on the other side of the world, who reassures me that I desperately need a second opinion, that I shouldn’t go flinging myself under a brain surgeon’s knife without a little more information. My sister knows how impatient I am to have difficult situations done and dusted, and understands that I would have had the surgery this afternoon if it had been an option.

I would have been calling you right now from my hospital bed, I say.

Yes, but using only your left hand, she says, both of us gurgling with laughter.

With my new vocabulary of twenty words, I add.

Oh my god, she says, I’d finally be able to best you in an argument! I’m beginning to think this operation has no downsides.

March 7, 2016