Check-out time

Saying goodbye to a pal

What do you talk about with a mate who’s got terminal cancer?

Turns out it’s football, records, the normal stuff really.

My mate Andy pegged it this week. He’d been diagnosed with really angry cancer (I’m paraphrasing hugely) last spring and I went to see him a couple of months after that.

Speccies from left: Me, Mark, Andy

I’d offered to go earlier but he was pretty weak. Besides, as he put it, “I fear your bedside manner would be appalling”. The man knew people.

We met up along with another mate, Mark, at a pub in Bristol (where they had both moved from London. Separately, they weren’t a couple).

(That’s us in the pic above at Andy’s wedding do. The spread was a buffet so I made him promise to let me know when the food would be coming out as it was a hands/food situation. There were blokes there and I reckon - at best - one in three wash their hands after they’ve been to the toilet. So I didn’t want to be part of that. It’s basic mathematics.)

The visit was awkward at first - I’m terrible around sick people and they didn’t come much sicker than Andy was.

There’s no escaping it when someone is that ill. It’s like seeing a massive birthmark - it’s weird to ignore it.

He asked if I had any cancer questions, and I did. I had a list of them and was waiting for a good chance to bring them up. He saved me the bother by going straight into it.

It was weird, and not in a way that I can particularly put my finger on. He looked massively different, but better than I was expecting.

He talked candidly - almost matter-of-factly - about what was happening to him. It was not the sort of thing I handle well.

He had to go after a couple of hours and I waited with him while a taxi turned up. He said I didn’t need to and could bugger off, but I stayed. I was certain I would crack and start crying or something but I didn’t.

The way I looked at it was, I went to see my mate. The fella who has cancer was just hanging around in the background.

I’m not one for goodbyes. I hate any kind of do where it takes 20 minutes to get out of there because - and let’s have it right - your mrs takes forever to leave anywhere. A tour of the room followed by a five-minute encore of “have we got everything?”.

When my mum was dying in a care home, right at the end, I didn’t say goodbye. This is partly because I wouldn’t want that myself, even if I was unconscious.

In fact, especially if I was unconscious, I don’t think I’d want a lot of people trotting around saying goodbye to me. Sounds like torture.

I just said to Andy what I always say to people: “See you later.”

He said “come and see me again” but I walked off thinking it would be the last time I saw him.

It was. I’d thought of visiting again but he was away when I suggested it, then he got worse.

Andy was a good lad and he didn’t deserve that. I knew him for 20 years or so, although I wouldn’t claim to know him well.

I think a lot of men have relationships like that. We’d meet up every few weeks for a drink. It was always the same sort of thing, just what fellas talk about, nothing too seismic. Football, music, clothes (he liked a ‘shacket’).

When Andy moved to London, he had some friends who were already there, or who followed shortly afterwards. Over the years I met a few of them - usually just in passing while we were out - and they were always very welcoming and great company.

Those are the sort of people that the likes of Andy attract. He was a good egg who was well liked and will be much missed. Top notch - there is no higher notch.