In the second week of rehearsals I was going to the toilet so often I knew the exact number of steps it would take to get me there. It was depressing and humiliating and frightening: a return of symptoms I had had before, but more virulent and painful. I didn’t talk about them. I can talk about anything. Not this. Age nine, at boarding school, I would lock myself in the bathroom at night and cry for my vanished mother, gone as sure as the sun from the sky. Now I cloistered in that familiar environment again, staring at my wan, middle-aged face in the mirror, wondering how sick I was, knowing I was sick, really, really sick. Laughable … for now. Because, of course, one day it won’t be. One day — sooner, later, whenever — I’ll be on the money, and the sense of my body refusing its duties and falling apart like an old shoe will reflect what is actually going on. So it was a rehearsal in two senses, a getting ready, a gearing up. In the toilet, phone in hand, I went over all the things I had to do: The List. It was exhausting to think about. Wrapping up, giving in, giving away, repairing, resolving, reflecting. And then. Whatever comes next.