Low life
A full house of woe
Jeffrey Bernard
My little world seems to be collapsing even beyond what's left of my teeth and my gums. Dental matters have never struck me as being a fit subject for conver- sation just as the problems of having a dif- ficult child or romance on top of those two doesn't help a lot either. At the moment, I am holding a full house: a bottom jaw of teeth that are all shortly to be extracted, an income tax demand for £18,764, a daughter who doesn't think I'm worth a visit because none of my videos stars any of today's pop heroes and an attractive woman totally oblivious of my existence.
A week ago, my dentist, who dissipates his skills and concentration by trying to make jokes all the time, rooted about for half an hour in my mouth and came up with nothing more solid than bits and pieces of an old tooth. That was in my flat. He then said that I would have to get help to get carried to his surgery where he had the most sophisticated equipment. He spent another half an hour trying to get hold of the tooth, remarking that for a front tooth it had a rare appendage i.e. two roots and he had to play around even longer with that and give it even more local anaesthetic before he eventually dug it out and put five stitches into the cavity.
Before he began this minor operation, I expressed the hope that it wasn't going to be difficult and he replied glibly with yet another joke, 'It will be no more difficult for me than it would be for you to write a piece.' I'll say one thing for him, though. He has subsequently given me pain killers and sleeping pills that are so strong I don't know where I am for half of the time. Now he tells me all my bottom teeth must come out, either one by one or in one fell swoop. One fell swoop appeals more, it being so simple, and yet with it goes the horrendous and humiliating experience of not moving out of this flat for six weeks and looking for six weeks like a gormless village idiot or like the average so-called man in the street usually invited to take part in television family quiz shows.
The tax demand is merely official corre- spondence and I would be even more wor- ried by my daughter's taste in entertainment should she want to sit through a ten-hour documentary on the subject of the American Civil War or the mere 50 minutes of Ian Botham severely chastising Australian bowlers a few years ago. I am now, as I usually do in such cir- cumstances, ducking and diving and bob- bing and weaving my way off these ropes that I find myself cornered in and what with the hemp burning my back as usual I have got my priorities wrong. The sore mouth will eventually pass, as it does with everyone who did most of their growing up during the war. My daughter will remain happy as long as none of us is daft enough to expect her to do a day's menial work, the Inland Revenue can learn the virtue of patience and the young woman who ignores my existence is really no more painful than continuing the nervous break- down I have been having for the past 60 years and which is unbeknown to every- body except me.
Since I last wrote to you I've had more — many more — well-wishers and congrat- ulations pouring in about my Grand National win on Rough Quest — now framed, incidentally, and on my wall — but it seems a lot of people need advising that it can't be done with any sort of regularity, but they are still expecting miracles and I must warn them about the Derby which isn't going to run until 8 June, which is an age away. I have backed Mons who, it is to be hoped, will see another angel like the Original battle.
Meanwhile, it could break a leg, get the virus, simply fall sick or be scratched. He is also a stayer and something of a relentless galloper which means he would be helped enormously by some gloomy, wet and unsummery weather before the off. But he is trained by Luca Cumani who does not owe the Inland Revenue anywhere near £18,764. And don't mistake an ante-post bet for sheer greed. It is simply a way of prolonging life and I have always believed in that corny old superstition that a man holding an ante-post voucher never dies before the race itself is run.
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