Julian Barnes

There must be some advantage, I think, in –

realizing and reflecting on the fact that you're not going to be here forever.

And in my case, I won't be here for 10 or 15 years.

Definitely not.

Probably.

But I don't think of what I've got as in any way comparable to what she had.

I've got something which will be with me for the rest of my life and I may well live a sort of normal span.

She had a catastrophic diagnosis and was dead in 37 days.

It was like being taken downhill in an avalanche and every day something got worse.

And it was the most...

Well, it's by a long way the most appalling thing that has happened to me in my life.

And the most, the blackest, the thing that most deprived you of sort of hope and balance, really.

It took me years to get over it.

But I don't think I shall mourn my own departure in quite the same way.

No, she didn't give any specific guidance.

She was herself as much as possible right to the very end.

I mean, her last complete sentence was she was brought home from the hospital on a stretcher and she was put in a bed in the sitting room.

And the guys who brought her in sort of rather dumped her on the bed.

And I said, was that a bugger?

And she said, a bit of a bugger.