Low life
Big bad Woolf
Jeffrey Bernard
Astrange thing happened last Thurs- day evening. When I got home and closed the front door behind me, I had a sudden pain in my chest as though I had been kicked by a cart-horse and I fell to the floor. The next thing I remember was lying on a table in the casualty department of University College Hospital. By that time the pain had radiated to my left shoulder and I thought here we go and I haven't even made out a will. I had particularly wanted to leave 14 compact discs to She who would once iron 14 shirts for me. So I lay there dreading heaven and desperately trying to think of some famous and witty last words when they gave me a pain-killing injection and I drifted off.
When I came to, She was sitting there next to me. It's a funny thing but some women — no, most of them — look at you reproachfully even if you have been knock- ed down by a truck. 'Now look at what you've gone and done to that truck', sort of thing. Just as I was about to excuse my smoking and drinking to her they slapped an oxygen mask over my face, thus pre- venting me uttering my famous last words which were going to be, 'Could you please sew some new buttons on the blue and white checked shirt?'
After a while they carted me off to the casualty ward. It was a mixed ward. In there they gave me some tranquillisers to prevent nasty withdrawal symptoms from the Coach and Horses, Groucho Club and Muthaiga Club and I was then at peace. Unfortunately a woman opposite me woke me up in the middle of the night by repeatedly moaning, 'Percy, Percy.' I didn't think that they still called people Percy although I am aware that the Austra- lians call the penis Percy. The woman, though, did not moan with an Australian accent. But she went on and on and I couldn't sleep any more.
By breakfast time the pain had gone and I felt in very good nick and ready for a day on the town. They gave me a boiled egg for breakfast which doesn't say much for the dreaded Edwina Currie and it has yet to strike me down. Then it was chest X-ray time and after that the nurses surprised me by allowing me to smoke a cigarette. Never have I come across such nice nurses and I have met many. In the sober light of day the sight of the woman who had been calling for Percy was rather depressing. But I suppose you have to admire the bravery of a woman of 70 who will wear a see-through nightie.
In the middle of the morning the consul- tant and his team came to my bedside. He said, 'I'm afraid you have me beaten, Mr Bernard. I can't see anything wrong with you.' I thought this must be the first truly honest doctor I have come across. They can nearly always see something wrong with you, indeed if they couldn't they would all be out of work. After an amazing lunch of minced beef, mash and peas they let me go. I went immediately to the Coach and Horses for a drink and to milk some sympathy from Norman. When I told him what had happened the cold-hearted bas- tard just said, 'Oh, I thought you'd been drinking in another pub.' When I eventual- ly got home I got even less sympathy. My landlord who had summoned the ambu- lance said, 'I was terrified you were going to die and that I would have to clear your room up.' She didn't even bother to telephone me so I shall cut her out of any future will and say my famous last words to a stranger or Percy's bride should we meet again in casualty.
Before I left the hospital they showed me the X-ray of my chest and it would seem that my heart has never been broken. Odd. I could have sworn it had. Were all those tears just to wash the eyeballs? Apparently. Anyway, since that 'kick' in the chest various cracker-barrel philo- sophers — Soho abounds with them have told me to regard it as warning from on high to ease up. I'll drink to that.
And now I think I am ill again. Last night I dreamt that I woke up in bed one morning and found Virginia Woolf lying beside me. I am no stranger to nightmares but that shattered me. And dreams often reflect the chemistry of the body. But, as Richard West commented, it could have been worse. It could have been Andrea Dworkin. You simply daren't close your eyes nowadays for fear of dreaming or your heart stopping with a bang.
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