Frustrating? I suppose sometimes it was. But at the same time, you know, it was always a bit tongue-in-cheek-y from her,” he says. Joan had been in Tahiti coaching Mel Gibson on The Bounty. We hadn’t even moved in together yet, and my career prospects were provincial to put it politely, compared to the stellar company she was keeping. But she never allowed that to come between us, even though I felt it keenly. It’s as if we’ve made an unspoken pact not to family-fall-apart and go about prepping food for tomorrow. Those old clichés “business as usual” and “the show must go on” apply.

I can only begin to imagine the emotional strength it must take to write, publish and promote a book within a year of the death of your life partner. And Richard E Grant’s love and admiration for his wife, Joan Washington, shines though every paragraph. Brutal to witness Joan telling Oilly that “more tests are required, chemotherapy is likely, as I have an as yet undiagnosed form of lung cancer.” I knew he had an "interesting" life and was reputed to be an excellent raconteur and writer ( The Wah-Wah Diaries: The Making of a Film), but he exceeded those expectations. Grant is an actor who found fame in "Withnail and I" and recently won best-supporting actor awards for "Can You Ever Forgive Me?". He was born and raised in Swaziland but has been based in the UK for most of his adult life. Walk, lurch downstairs, utterly overwhelmed and discombobulated. Tears blurring everything. Grateful to have something to do.As soon as I saw any of the other actors, I always had hundreds of questions for them, I was asking, ‘What’s going on? What have you been doing?’ That was a unique experience for me, because normally you’re interacting with other people all the time. I was like somebody who had Coronavirus, I couldn’t be with other people, I just had to be with the camera on my own.” No, I thought that keeping a very accurate record would be the best way to try to understand what was happening,” he says quietly. His voice today is a little huskier and flatter than usual, as if the events of the past year have hollowed the stuffing out of him. While I was grateful that she didn’t think I needed endless coaching, I was also frustrated that after only two sessions I no longer had a legitimate reason to see her again. She was also a few years older than me, married-but-separated, with a young son, and with a string of prestigious productions and a movie to her credit. Would you mind if I stayed the night in your guest bedroom, as I’ve missed the last tube? My fault.”

Once you've stepped off the running machine, it's suddenly clear where you're actually standing and who is standing with and beside you. And who ISN'T." Sorry, should have said, I like to smell everything in sight. Always have done. Ever since I can remember. Can’t understand why everyone doesn’t . You’re a brilliant cook.” During a matinee interval, the stage manager went around the dressing rooms, asking if anyone knew “the very tanned woman wearing Bermuda shorts and a Hawaiian shirt, who was fast asleep in a house seat and snoring very loudly.”Manage to get through to our local health centre immediately and given an appointment at 5 p.m. for a chest X-ray and blood test at Kingston Hospital. I entered into this book under the notion it would be solely focussed on Grant’s experience of losing his wife. Understandably so, given the memoir’s title is the parting advice upon her death, in addition to Grant’s press tours where he continually touted this as a memoir on Joan’s terminal cancer. Oilly brings us breakfast in bed and questions Joan about how long she’s felt breathless and had a cough. It’s a completely honest and open exchange, which enables us to share everything that the doctors and scans have revealed. The parental push-me-pull-you of wanting to protect our grown-up child, by withholding detailed medical information, is subverted by her open-hearted need to know and share everything.

I've always liked Richard E Grant, ever since my family watched his version of The Scarlet Pimpernel yearly like it was some kind of religious ritual and later, as an older teen, I found his autobiographical film Wah Wah about childhood trauma, colonialism and being the outsider quite powerful (especially since my granddad actually lived for a bit in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, and described similar experiences) and his exuberance on social media about everything is endlessly endearing. I felt for him when he publicly announced losing his wife on socials and his enduring love for her was palpable #couplegoals. I was therefore quite interested in reading this memoir. The town was the final stop on Laurie Lee’s epic walk across Spain, described in his much-loved travelogue As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. Mother and daughter hug each other and our brave child says, “Let’s have a great Christmas together.”Thank you for writing honestly and lovingly about your wife and caring for her when she was dying from lung cancer. She fixed me with her big monkey eyes and said, “All right—but you’ll have to repay me, if you ever make it.” Joan voice coached so many people from Kate Blanchett to Dame Julie Waters and so many many others there were literally thousands. A voice coach is someone you’d rarely think of while watching a film yet they are one of the most important to an actor to just ‘get it right’. The world feels beautiful to me at the moment. I’ve never felt quite like this before about anyone. I can’t find the right words to tell you how I feel, because the sensations are new to me. I so love everything about it—just being in the same room with you is wonderful. You’re a very special person—I’ve always thought so, even before I fell in love with you—so open, so generous, so… EVERYTHING. I want you to be happy, to be successful, to feel complete, whatever happens between us. At the moment I want US to happen together. Read “The Good-Morrow” by John Donne—that’s how I feel about you—