Our twelve-year-old daughter Annie* is singing the words to Happy Xmas (War Is Over), in the kitchen.
I join in, in a plummy (figgy?) baritone.
‘So this is Christmas. And what have you done? Another year over. And a new one just begun,’ I boom.
‘Do you know this song?’ asks Annie.
‘A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS! AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!’ I boom more loudly. ‘LET’S HOPE IT’S A GOOD ONE. WITHOUT ANY FEAR.’
‘Do you know it?’ Annie asks again.
‘No,’ I say.
Annie looks at me. Idiot.
‘Yes, of course I know it,’ I continue. ‘How could I sing it if I didn’t know it? It’s by John Lennon.’
Annie has been sort of interested in the Beatles recently, having seen their picture on the front of The Times Culture magazine. She picks up her phone and starts playing the song on TikTok, evidently where she knows it from.
‘Is John Lennon dead?’ she asks.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘He was shot. By a crazed fan.’
Annie looks surprised. ‘Did the fan go to prison?’
‘I think he’s still there.’
‘Are the other Beatles dead?’ Annie now asks.
‘Paul McCartney’s still alive,’ I answer. ‘And Ringo Starr’s looked the same for about seventy years. And George Harrison…’
I stop, realising I’ve backed myself into a corner.
‘Yes?’ says Annie, now even more interested.
‘George Harrison died…’ I stammer, vaguely, pathetically, ‘due to… er… illness.’
What am I going to say? That George Harrison died of cancer? That people actually die of cancer? They don’t just lose their hair and then get better? It’s exactly the kind of conversation I’ve been avoiding with the kids. It’s the main reason we haven’t been watching Celebrity Bake-off Stand up to Cancer repeats on 4OD. No, there’s NO WAY I’m going to mention that – ’
‘George Harrison died of BRAIN CANCER!’ Annie suddenly shrieks. She’s already looked it up on Wikipedia, while I’ve been mentally wittering on.
‘Yes… yes…’ I stammer… ‘but Mummy’s cancer isn’t as bad as George Harrison’s was… because they managed to cut all of Mummy’s cancer out. But it’s not like they could cut out George Harrison’s brain.’
Annie looks horrified. I don’t think I’m making this any better.
Lizzie chooses this moment to walk in, in her head scarf and dressing gown. She keeps a respectable (social) distance – even though Annie and I were so often in contact with Lizzie up to her Covid diagnosis, it seems a little like closing the stable door after the horse has bolted.
‘Cut out whose brain?’ Lizzie asks, not unreasonably.
‘George Harrison had brain cancer, so they had to cut out his brain!’ replies Annie, in a tone somewhere between delight and disgust.
Lizzie looks at me with a condescending, raised eyebrow. What fucking unhelpful things are you telling our child now?
‘If they cut out your brain, would you die?’ Annie asks no-one in particular.
‘If they cut Mummy’s brain out, it wouldn’t make any difference,’ I can’t stop myself from saying (Lizzie’s condescending expression of a moment ago has put me in a mischievous, retaliatory mood. I know, not very sensitive of me, considering Lizzie’s condition).
‘They wouldn’t be able to find your father’s brain, to cut it out,’ Lizzie retorts.
Annie looks from her mother to her father. Why are my parents so weird?
*Annie isn’t the name our daughter is really known by (protecting the innocent and all that). But, as it happens, she’d probably prefer it to the name we actually did give her.
P. D. Clifton 
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