60/40

Near the end of the blog, we drove across the harbour to meet Jan and Saul at Oceanworld in Manly. Oceanworld's not a patch on Sydney Aquarium, but we've never been there, which seems a glaring omission really, given everywhere else we have been.

It's incredible, really that I've found any energy to do anything this week, let alone go off to Oceanworld with Ella. We've been very busy posting adverts and responding to adverts and sticking flyers through letterboxes in an attempt to flog our house and home. On Wednesday I replied to an online advert from a bloke who wanted to buy a gas barbeque with a bottle of gas and some tools. "We have exactly that" I wrote, "for $150".

"Sorry" he replied. "My budget's only $50, but could I borrow it for the weekend?". He was being very Australian, of course, so in keeping with the tone I replied "don't reckon" and left it at that. These colonials have the cheek of their forefathers, and you know what happened to them.

Jan's parents are visiting from Cheshire at the moment. Her mother, Annie, had cancer a few years ago, which recurred a couple of years after that, but has been held at bay ever since. They've applied to the Australian government for residency several times because they fulfill the requirements set out for retiring to Australia (which include having 50% of your children permanent residents and knowing all five verses of Tie Me Kangaroo Down, including the one they banned). However, because of Annie's health history, they've repeatedly been knocked back and though Jan always says she thinks they'll eventually be able to sell up and emigrate, they told me a different story when I asked them last week.

When I met Jan outside the ferry wharf this morning she seemed distracted. Her parents had come along with her and they were busy ordering coffee and croissants to take away from the Laurent bakery at the end of the jetty. Jan's father, Paul, is a tall, distinguished-looking man with arresting blue eyes that he's passed to his daughter, who's passed them onto Saul. The family resemblence is so strong that it's hard to see where her mum fits into all this because I've looked at her from every angle now and I can't spot a single likeness.

Paul was a businessman in his earlier life. His company made the sort of parasols you fix onto prams and pushchairs for the seventeen minutes of annual sunshine we get in the UK. The company was based in Manchester, which makes it even more astonishing that it managed to thrive, but thrive it did and he made enough money to send all three children to private school. Later in life he became an expert on computer systems, which seems a bit of a turn around, but back then computers were comparatively newfangled and nobody really knew much about them at all because, well, there wasn't that much to know.

Anyway, eventually he retired and took up a position on the non-executive board of an NHS Trust. All in all he's had fingers in many pies. He's absolutely delightful company and so is Annie, both of them entirely posh and entirely forthright, the sort that don't suffer fools.

"My mother is sick" said Jan. She had one eye on me and another on them, checking they were out of earshot. "She went for a scan before they came out to Sydney, a regular check up. The scan of her liver showed a problem"

"What sort of problem?"

"We don't know 100%" she said, "but they said her liver wasn't clear"

"You mean they couldn't view it properly?" I asked, glancing over at Annie, who was jabbing her finger at a pain au raisin behind the glass counter, pronouncing it in an accent so precise you'd have thought we were in the backstreets of the Marais.

Jan relaxed a little. "Pain au raisin" she said, looking back at her mum. "They call them snail cakes in Australia. It drives my mother mad. No. I mean, it's not clear of cancer. And if it's what they think, then that's it"

"It's terminal?" I replied

"Yes. Twelve months, she thinks. She told me when my dad had gone shopping. She hasn't told my brother and I haven't told anyone else. I'm telling you"

I looked at Jan. She's a tall girl, a qualified lawyer two years older than me, with strawberry blonde hair and fair skin. In many ways she seems to have the same strength as her father, yet at times she seems so sad and far away and if I'd known her much longer I'd probably have got to the bottom of it by now. She has cuts on her arms. I've never asked about them and she hasn't told me, but today when she told me about her mother I felt as close to her as I've felt to any of my friends in the UK, even the ones I've known since school, as though she'd exposed every vunerability she had.

"God I'm sorry" I said. "How are you?"

"Weird. It's so weird. She's being really stoic. She says, you know I've had a good life and I think, no, don't say that . It never occurred to me she wouldn't see Saul grow up, wouldn't see him in his school uniform. And the thing that I keep thinking about is that he's only two. If she really does, you know, this year, then he won't remember her. He'll have no memories of her, will he?"

I didn't know what to say. No, he won't remember her. There's nothing else to add to that, no silver lining, so I didn't even try.

"How's your Dad?"

"He's not talking about it. Says that until we know exactly what we're dealing with then it's business as usual. Look, you won't say anything will you? Even my brother doesn't know". Annie and Paul were coming back from the bakery, the 10.40 catamaran just pulling alongside the jetty bringing more shiny happy tourists, like them.

"Of course not" I said, "I wouldn't ever".

"Pain au Raisin!" announced Annie as she reached us. "Not snail cake, for goodness sake".

"Oh don't get me started" I said, trying to switch my mood. "I heard an advert on the radio as I was driving here for a furniture company that's having a sale. They're selling chase lounges, apparently"

"What's one of those?" asked Paul, tearing his snail cake in half.

"Well I think the french would call them a chaise longue, but what do we Europeans know?"

All three of them winced, particularly Jan, who studied French and business. "And there's a shop in the QVB selling homewares from Provence" I said. It's really nice stuff, Les Olivades clothes, Valdrome napkins, but the woman who owns the shop refers to the stuff as provincial and not provencale and now I can't go in there because she's ruined it for me".

Annie laughed. "Jan misses France, don't you Jan?"

"Yeah" she replied. "I miss Europe generally, but it was worth the swap, on balance"

"And will you miss France?" asked Annie

"Well we haven't said we're emigrating" I replied. "We're a bit 50/50". And as I said it I thought no, we're 60/40 against. A moment of clarity, the first I'd had in ages. We're 60/40 against.

But how could I say that in front of Jan? Jan thinks we're coming back. She's just told me her mother is probably dying, she doesn't need to hear I'm 60/40 against.

Oceanworld turned out to be perfect for Ella and Saul, not too crowded, not too big. We emerged after an hour and they both fell asleep in their pushchairs so Paul said he'd treat us to lunch. We parked ourselves up in a restaurant on the seafront, the roar of the huge swelling ocean nature's background music.

"I don't know what's holding you back about coming here" said Annie as we were waiting for our food to arrive. The food took an age and Paul had called over a waitress to investigate.

"Look, we've waited half an hour" he said, "could you enquire about the delay and hurry things along". So delightfully posh. Annie was fiddling with an enormous ruby and diamond ring on her right hand.

"It's nothing like Fishers at Kirribilli" she commented, sniffing. Fishers is a posh seafood restaurant just over the harbour bridge. Annie and Paul are regular customers, so regular that the owner sends them a Christmas card to their home in Cheshire.

"The lady who owns Fishers is a lovely woman. She's just had a baby and I've brought her some little clothes from Marks and Spencer but goodness knows whether they'll fit. I never buy first size"

"I love your ring" I said, changing the subject so we wouldn't have to return to the 60/40. "Was it your ruby anniversary?"

"No, it belonged to my mother. My father bought it for their ruby wedding because he asked me what my mother would like and I said "a ruby, probably" and I was right. She left it to me when she died"

Jan shot me a look. I shot it back without thinking then hoped her parents hadn't noticed.

"But really, Sarah, if I were you I'd come. You're young enough"

"I'm 35" I replied

"No age at all" said Annie. "And I'll tell you what, I wish I had my time again because I'd have brought all of my children to grow up here and be retired here myself now, which we'd planned to do, but there you are. Not everything goes to plan. It's your life, not somebody else's. You must lead your lives for yourselves".

I sometimes think people who are facing their own mortality have a clarity we can't otherwise find, and what a pity to find it at that stage, when it might have been useful earlier. They have a knack of seeing to the heart of things and leaving an impression through something they've said or done. I know Annie has that same clarity while those around her are losing theirs.

I'm still 60/40 but I hear what she's saying and I'll probably hear her saying it for a long time to come.