When he told me he couldn’t go with Fiona to the fifth chemo session, I exploded. ‘What do you mean “can’t”? There’s no such word as “can’t”. You’ll just have to reschedule your really important meeting and take your sick wife to hospital. It’s called prioritizing, Mark. You might want to look up the word in the dictionary. It’s on the same page as “prat”.’Sweeping his hair back from his forehead – which I think he just did to wind me up as I had none to sweep – he sighed.‘Look, Kate, if I could rearrange the meeting of course I would, but Professor de la Toit is flying in from Paris that morning to help me with the final stage of the paper. I need his expertise to work through a glitch in the findings.’‘Can’t you let him figure it out while you sit with Fiona, then meet up with him later when I take over as usual?’‘He’s only here for five hours and I need to work with him on this.’‘Isn’t that cheating? Getting someone else to finish your homework for you?’‘It’s called collaboration, Kate.
