16th June ‘I gave my back to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame…’ Isaiah 50.6

Chemotherapy has follicly, like the whirligig of time, brought in his revenges; the beard is no more. As I drove Izzy to work, second glance after second glance, all that stared back at me in the rear-view mirror was the smooth baby-face of Other. 

As I finally decided that I would, could(!), no longer maintain the beard I asked Alex for shaving advice. This strange, perceived, indignity of the son instructing the father on shaving regimes seems to be a microcosm of so much of life with cancer – i.e. “how can I find a new way of turning your world upside down?”.

Even the cat seems to be involved in the cancerous conspiracy. The cat has been with us seven or so years. Her relationships to members of the house were, hitherto, straightforward:

Ben, like all guests before is treated to the full gamut of feline soliciting, purring, presentation of the bottom, affectionate meowing etc.

Isobel is Tom Brown to the cat’s Flashman. The cat seems to take genuine delight in bullying and harassing her. 

Sarah, enjoys the position of tolerated relation: one whom you converse with at weddings and funerals only.

Alexander, may his name be praised, moves in the cat’s circle i.e. the realm of the gods. Quite how Alex ended up in Olympus is a mystery, but cats do run the universe.

I am merely a functionary, or more accurately, a tied slave, there to clean her tray—“Oi, idiot, you’ve missed a bit”; feed her—“Oi, idiot, what happened to the ludicrously expensive cat food you can only buy from the vet you promised the Protection League you’d continue to buy?” She has been forever censorious. 

However, since my diagnosis, Zeus has come to me and, metaphorically, mated with me. It appears that Mount Olympus has space for one more baldy. Now I am the object of the cat’s affection. 

Of course, Izzy—the object of her menace—argues that the cat thinks I’m on my way out, so in some cruel jest is furnishing me with love. This, she continues in her contention, has the added bonus of also winding up the dog. The dog simply loves everyone, because at some point everyone has fed her or thrown a stick for her, and so is bewildered by this changing of the guard. 

Once all this is over perhaps golden curls will return and the cat will continue to bask in my presence… Nah, grey male-pattern baldness, and grey cat litter in the finger-nails is what really awaits.