Low life
Like a hole in the head
Jeffrey Bernard
Ihave written before about my most recent head injury but forgive me for repeating myself. I can think of little else. For the past ten days my scalp has been a flap of skin held down by 17 stitches. I feel that those stitches have also stopped my brains from seeping out on to the kitchen table, a bar or my pillows.
A man with neuropathy of the legs should always keep one hand free to break a fall but I came home, both arms laden with shopping, and took a nosedive on to the concrete front doorsteps. It was like diving into an empty swimming-pool. It still makes me feel slightly sick to recall the moment of impact. Luckily I am not squeamish about the sight of blood and I watched the expanding puddle of it on the pavement in my concussed daze with some curiosity. Firstly I noted that it was a beau- tiful colour. Had there been a white chevron across that pool it would have been the McAlpine racing colours. I was also mildly surprised that anything that could come out of me wasn't as clear as water. Soda water, anyway.
Then I became aware of the fact that my neighbours were hovering over me not with Consternation but idle curiosity. But one of them wrapped my head in a bath towel and another telephoned for an ambulance. Later, I was to discover that another had stolen my shopping and in one carrier bag there was a tape recorder on to which I had dictated the last two chapters of a book. Charming. I hope he or she choked on the Marks & Spencer steak and kidney pud- ding.
At the Royal Free Hospital the woman doctor who sewed me up was something of a virtuoso seamstress. The scalp is a bad place for stitches, it being so close to the bone, but she didn't make me scream. Anyway, nothing much hurts after you have experienced pancreatitis.
They stuck me in the emergency and casualty ward for observation overnight and that was a minor nightmare in itself. The ward is a mixed one and my bed faced those of two women who kept me awake for seven hours. One of them screamed with every single exhalation of her breath. I thought she was being hysterical and not in a lot of pain and the nurses proved me right as they continually yelled at her to shut up.
The woman in the next bed to her was quite extraordinary and semi-comatose. She rambled on and on talking to herself for no less than seven solid hours. She did not utter a single sentence of interest or say anything remarkable in that time. I do not know nor have ever known even profes- sional pub bores who could match her stay- ing power and stamina for uttering mindless trivia. She finally flaked out when they produced breakfast of one slice of bread and butter and a paper cup of tea. They told me that emergency wards are not equipped to make proper breakfasts but I shouldn't have thought it would have taken an Alexander Fleming to find a way of boil- ing an egg.
When I left in the morning I didn't feel up to looking after myself and I stayed in the Groucho Club for the next four days to avail myself of room service. It was very comforting and for the umpteenth time I must say that it is the only place I know in which the staff are preferable to the cus- tomers.
And now, home again, a district nurse has just been to take out my stitches and clean my head up. It was a very sore busi- ness and she has left three of the stitches in, telling me that I still have a hole in my head. This is nothing new, I told her. I always have had.
Hot on her heels a plumber arrived to switch on the boiler. It took him 30 seconds and he left some £36 the richer. Not all of us have holes in the head, it seems.
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