It may be that privacy has always been a relative concept, but in an age when its gradations grow ever crazier, their management left almost entirely to the harried individual, some of us find ourselves longing for its old, more absolutist protections: for the silence of our grandparents; for the laconicism of our parents. On Friday, like so many other people, I watched a youngish woman – a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife – talk about the illness for which she’s being treated, and in the midst of my sympathy, an alarm began to ring somewhere in my head.
Across the internet, I knew, people would be busy deleting their stupid, spiteful Facebook posts; in the cause of personal damage limitation, a few would shortly board Instagram in order to loud hail an apology – red-face emoji – for their part in the spiralling gossip and loopy conspiracy theories. And yet, I also knew her carefully beseeching statement wouldn’t really draw a line under anything. The word cancer is a beginning, not an end. Around the Princess of Wales, expectations are already quietly blooming, like the daffodils we saw behind her as she spoke.
The princess talked of privacy herself: she and William had, she said, been trying to manage the news of her illness “privately” for the sake of their young family; they hope the public will understand that they need some “time, space and privacy” while she completes her treatment. And this really doesn’t seem to be very much to ask for – especially in the light of the demented fuss that trailed the mildly doctored family photograph; the risible nonsense that followed a snatched image of the royal couple at a Windsor farm shop.
How grim to be recovering from major surgery and to hear that your seclusion is regarded as weird and suspicious; how horrible to be undergoing chemotherapy and to know that, if you step outside your own front door, you’ll very likely be photographed. This cycle has, for some, been chastening: a reminder that the princess is not a cardboard cutout, but a human being, with a body that provides all the same possibilities for mutating cells as yours or mine.
But the lull may be brief. Already, the tabloids are casting their eyes in the direction of Harry and Meghan. Will the royal exiles visit, bearing grapes and branded scented candles? And what of Kate’s “trusted inner circle”? Are its members on hand to deliver Lucozade and a Fortnum’s hamper to Adelaide Cottage? Friendly doctors are rallied to describe chemotherapy’s side effects; to offer prognoses based on no evidence at all of the case in question. James Middleton’s social media will be scanned daily – perhaps hourly – for sibling bulletins (obligingly, he has already posted an encouraging childhood snap).
All this, however, is wholly predictable. I’m more concerned by what we might call the longer-term obligations of the princess’s illness: unspoken responsibilities she seems already to sense lie ahead. “At this time, I’m also thinking of all those whose lives have been affected by cancer,” she said. “For everyone facing this disease, in whatever form, please do not lose faith or hope. You are not alone.” Ours is a society that insists to an almost bullying degree on one’s duty to share: talk openly of your illness, we’re told, and you will help yourself and others. The chief executive of Cancer Research UK, Michelle Mitchell, has already remarked that Catherine’s example may encourage people to seek help early.
Look further ahead, then, and the subtle pressure Catherine will be under to reveal more details of her illness becomes obvious. There will be talk of symptoms and taboos; charities will look to her to boost their profile. Remember that time when William went to Deborah James’ home to present her with her damehood? (The honour acknowledged James’ campaigning work around the bowel cancer that would shortly kill her.) Well, that was just the beginning.
None of this territory is contested – and I think it should be. Some people may well find it helpful to talk publicly about illness: doing so gives them a sense of control and support. But not everyone feels like this and, for those who don’t, the pressure to speak of intimate things is invasive: an incursion we disdain at the best of times, let alone the worst. Not so long ago, cancer was unmentionable and this helped no one. I remember my granny weeping as she described how agonising it was not to be able to tell her rapidly fading sister she was dying of breast cancer (this was on the advice of the doctor); the contrast between what the public knew of George VI’s final illness (not much) and what it knows of King Charles’s current one (a bit more) is probably only positive.
But where do we draw the line? When does the requirement for openness become ugly curiosity? Why should the sick be expected to toe this moral line? Illness is a world unto itself, lonely and frightening. Of course, the unwell need other people, but they can do without strangers and megaphones, and might prefer to. As for heroism, it has no place in the sickroom and, even if it did, it doesn’t need to be witnessed by a crowd to exist. We should allow for the possibility that once the Princess of Wales has recovered, she might not want ever to talk of what she has been through – to us or to anyone.
• Rachel Cooke is an Observer columnist
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