'Nature is unfair, but it does offer some great remedies'

Taking over from the rakish Jeffrey Bernard, Jeremy Clarke wrote the Low Life column in 'The Spectator' for 20 years until his death from cancer in 2023. His witty account of his battle with the disease, The Final Years, is extracted here

- Jeremy Clarke

“But you look so well!” How many times have I heard that lately. Kindly meant by most, but for a few, it’s outrageous, after all, they have heard or read about my health, and they feel cheated of the mushrooms growing out of the side of my head that they’d been hoping for. Either way, I’m surprised by the compliment. Yes, the tan and this expensive shaving balm Catriona bought me, and now hair again, make me appear unravaged from the neck up.

“But you should see the rest of it,” I laugh gaily, detailing the bulge in my neck where the chemotherapy tube remains in place; the young Brigitte Bardot breasts; the scarred, punctured jelly belly; the spindle shanks; the lizard-skin calves; the knobbly feet; the black toenails oozing some sort of clear liquid that I don’t enquire about.

“But you do look fabulous,” they insist. And vanity whispers: “Perhaps it’s true!” Maybe some sort of psychic flaring is making me attractive to those with an eye for that sort of thing.

“You must keep thinking positively,” say others, grasping my hand and looking me in the eye. “Mind, body, spirit – eh? Mind over matter – eh? Come on. You can do it.” I might be encouraged by one of those anecdotes about a chap who was absolutely riddled. Half man, half derelict termite mound.

But stubborn. Never-say-die, life-and-soul sort of a bloke. Was given six months to live 10 years ago, went to live in Phuket, opened a ladyboy bar, still going strong, doctors baffled.