BEFORE HER OPERATION, Rosalind gave consent for a hysterectomy if one were necessary. She knew that she might be signing away her chance to have children and noted wryly that she had been put in the Obstetrical Hospital. Perhaps when her brother David came to collect her, he might think she had had a miscarriage or an abortion. When she emerged from the anaesthetic, however, she was relieved to hear that her womb was still there and a part of one ovary. But not for long. Almost exactly a month later she was back in University College Hospital (this time as a private patient) for a second operation — ostensibly for an infection, actually for a hysterectomy and removal of remnants of the left ovary. This was done and no further cancer was found. Anne Sayre, who was staying in Rosalind’s flat, answered the telephone one day, to hear Jacques Mering calling from Paris. He was startled that Rosalind was not there, and upset to learn that she had undergone further surgery. As Anne struggled to explain in French, Mering became very agitated.
