Low life
Talking dirty
Jeffrey Bernard
At one point last week, there were three psychiatrists standing at the end of my bed. I am quite willing to be civil to these people even though I doubt very much whether they can do anyone any good, but when they start being facetious I would like to be left alone. These three actually asked me if I wanted counselling, as though any of them could change my way of thinking about anything at all. I never thought that here that dirty word in any way applied to me.
I think what prompted their visit was the fact that some time ago I had questioned a doctor in the dialysis unit very seriously about the prognosis of my ills, and had also made various enquiries about dying from kidney failure or, more to the point, I was very interested to know what sort of death could be staged. I suppose that after that the doctor I spoke to probably told the psy- chiatric unit that I was a possible suicide.
What I really need counselling about is this year's Derby, which looks extremely difficult to pick the winner of. Already I have decided not to go because the terrain would be very difficult for a wheelchair and I don't want to sit in a coach all afternoon. But, anyway, I cannot think at the moment about solving racing puzzles or anything else for that matter except for the incredi- bly stupid and thoughtless remark made by one of those Middlesex Hospital psychia- trists. I mentioned something about work- ing and this particular man suddenly said, in all seriousness, 'But writing isn't work, is it?' What an utterly crass remark for a qualified man to make. But come to think of it he is quite right because painting, after all, is simply a mat- ter of slapping paint on canvas and playing an instrument, for example, is simply being part of a background noise. I would think that to want to be a psychiatrist a man must have quite a load of self-importance to carry around with him. Sigmund Freud must be turning in his grave. But I think I may have cracked the boredom of dialysis because I now take one sleeping pill when I get up in the morning and somehow man- age to sleep all through the three hours on that wretched machine. Unfortunately, it means that I am made to feel pretty dopey all through the afternoons. So now the business of a retirement pen- sion is just a matter of days away and I have given the DSS all the information that they want, including my mother's maiden name. It was about ten years ago that I was asked for the same piece of nonsense infor- mation when I applied for a visa to go to South Africa. I remember writing in these columns at the time that the South Africans were a complete bunch of arse- holes if they wouldn't let me go into their wretched country without knowing my mother's maiden name. Apart from the pension, something else has come up. After two years of writing, the council have at last got me a slightly larger flat just a block away from where I now live and I am allowed to look at it in a fortnight's time. Nowadays, I regard most things as being potentially disappointing and this new flat will probably be the size of a cupboard. But by the time I get into it — if I do — I shall probably be too weak to need any more space than that.
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