A Bird on My Shoulder by Lucy Palmer Page B

despite it. And if he was going to be dealing with any kind of traditional cancer treatment in the future, it was clear he needed to be as strong as possible.
    •••
    While he was away, the national elections were held. Herald photographer Palani Mohan and I followed the main political campaigns. At one point we went to Milne Bay Province to accompany Sir Julius Chan on the campaign trail. After a long day on the hustings, it was decided that we would go to the house Sir Julius was staying in that night to conduct a long interview.
    It was strange to find him alone, without the entourage he had enjoyed as prime minister. The strangest moment of our evening came when someone raised the issue of dinner. By thistime, it was long past ten o’clock and no-one had eaten. In the kitchen we found some eggs and bacon, an electric stove with one working ring and some dusty plates. We began to cook. When Sir Julius left the room, Palani and I both began to laugh quietly at this rather strange turn of events. It was extraordinary that we, currently regarded as his enemies in the media and the reason for his political downfall, were planning to share what should have been a hearty breakfast. Papua New Guinea. Always the land of the unexpected.

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    We sailed over deep, still waters, undisturbed. Our world was
    calmer then. The storms came later, capsizing our certainties,
    leaving us stranded, on other, more distant shores.
    Julian returned from Melbourne having lost a little weight, no doubt a result of the strict diet he’d been on.
    Initially he seemed quite flat. His verdict? Not bad but the food was terrible, meditation was boring and the only thing that might make sense would be for me to administer the recommended daily coffee enemas to give him a bit of zing.
    ‘What?’ I said in disbelief.
    ‘Well, we have marvellous organic coffee here,’ he said.
    I took a deep breath. ‘I can’t tell whether you’re serious,’ I said. ‘But if you are, you need to know this is absolutely not going to happen. Coffee in a cup, yes. Anywhere else, not a chance.’
    While Julian had obviously benefited from his break, I was disappointed that he had not really connected with anyone he’dmet. I’d been hoping he would make some new friends, others who shared and understood his experience, people who could support him and take a little of the burden from my shoulders.
    I later realised that talking about his situation was my need, not his. Like many women I found a sense of strength and comfort through talking; empathy and connection had always been very important in my emotional world view.
    Selfishly, I really wanted to understand what Julian was feeling in order to lessen my own feelings of fear and isolation. He said so little about what he really felt since his diagnosis and I could sense myself retreating from him, a little bruised by his apparent self-absorption, muted by the vastness of everything we could no longer talk about.
    Later that year Julian went to another alternative cancer treatment workshop, this time in Brisbane. Again there was lots of talk of meditation and a diet free of alcohol, sugar and meat. He returned with a huge bag of apparently immune-boosting vitamins.
    I remember him lining up all the bottles of co-enzyme Q10, vitamin C and I honestly can’t remember what else along the open kitchen shelf. Every morning he would down several of these tablets with his morning juice.
    ‘Delicious,’ he would say with heavy irony.
    •••
    The most obvious obstacle to Julian’s continuing good health and the possibility of receiving the best treatment was the fact that we lived in Papua New Guinea, where medical care of the kind he might need was almost non-existent.
    But this was our home and we both had careers, friends and a life neither of us wanted to leave. With Nina and her extended family, we had a quality of loving care for George I knew would be almost impossible to find in a Western society. I had