A feast I can't face without my old friend

Years ago my cardiologist forbade them, for though they have always seemed to me to be Neptune's nectar and ambrosia, they are the purest cholesterol.

To my wail of distress, however, he responded: "If you must eat them, be gluttonous: two dozen once a year will do no harm, one every day will clog your arteries."

And so for the past decade I and John, a friend similarly troubled by his heart, have every September ceremoniously feasted at Bibendum's Oyster Bar, after the four-month summer gap when there is no "r" in the month.

But this year John, stricken by cancer, too, has been slowly dying in distant Herefordshire. Twelve months ago we spoke cheerfully of oysters: "When Christmas is over, I'll come to London and we'll have our oyster feast."

I thought not, he was so frail, but did not say so. We reached the end of April and he spoke of them again - "Can't have them now, four months to wait - still, something to look forward to."

By September, however, he could, but only when lifted into the car, be got to Abergavenny for a decent dinner, less to eat than poke and prod and toy, and to Hay-on-Wye for lunch.

When I left for London, I hardly dared hold him in our customary hug, his ribs too apparent to my fingertips. "I'm still coming," he said, "we've got to have those oysters."

Over his shoulder I caught but could not hold the sad eyes of his wife. For the next six weeks or so we spoke almost every day, but oysters dropped out of our farewells.

At our final conversation he seemed rather stronger and more confident; shades of La Traviata I thought, and sure enough, early the following morning his daughter telephoned, and that was that.

Had he held on for five more months our friendship would have lasted half a century, yet I, his oldest surviving friend and he mine, refused to give the valediction at his funeral - and just as well, for at it I was choked with tears.

But I should have had the courage to stand before that congregation and speak of his steadfast friendship, I should have honoured with merry recollection the most honest, loyal and guileless man I ever knew.

What then of oysters? Our little ritual of gluttony, of crushed ice and crusty bread cut peasant thick, of hard butter, cayenne pepper and a dish of onion chopped in vinegar, the thrill heightened by the sense that all this was forbidden, that with each whiff of the sea we diced with death unless we ate them to excess.

When shall I take this risk again? Where and with whom? Oysters and John are tied so close that I cannot think of eating them without him. I can easily contemplate never eating them again.