Low life
An unhappy snap
Jeffrey Bernard
Eery other day I am visited by both or either one of my district nurses, Dawn and Trudie Karamatzov. They dress my remain- ing but ulcerated foot, test my blood sugar and help me bath and wash my back and hair and shave me.
We usually then have a cup of tea and they write a paragraph in what is called my `Care Record', which is a kind of log book of my progress or regression. I hardly ever bother to look at it but the other day I flicked through it in a moment of idleness and saw that in the introduction to the record it says, 'diabetes mellitus/ right below the knee amputation/ pancre- atitis/ prone to depression'. I don't much like the phrase 'prone to depression', true enough as it is, but why didn't they write an equally valid truth saying, 'prone to bouts of happiness'? Nobody is pleased with you if there is anything positive to report. They also failed to make a note of the fact that I am also prone to what the women in my life have always referred to as 'snapping' at people.
I snapped only yesterday at a woman who works for the Christian Children's Fund of Great Britain, when I asked her about the well-being of a girl in Thailand who I have been sponsoring for some years now. Her name is Sum. Apart from any concern as to her health and safety in the area where she lives, which is at times infested with Cambodian bandits, and whether or not she is by now working in a massage parlour in Bangkok, it would make, I think, a very good story were I to go out there to meet her and see for myself. Getting from Bangkok to where she lives, or did, on the farm would be a haz- ardous business in itself. Wheelchairs are not made to cross paddy fields.
Anyway, I told all this to the woman at the Christian Children's Fund and she said that, although they encouraged people to see their sponsored child, they would have to read whatever I wrote. I told her that I write about any god-damned thing that I wanted to write about and that's when the snapping began. She said, as all my old schoolmasters did and telephone operators sometimes now do, that she didn't like my attitude. I told her that I didn't like their silly rules and that I would give the equiva- lent amount of protein, education and medical assistance to some other children's charity like the NSPCC, if she was going to be difficult about it all.
But I would like to see Sum, just to see if the piddling amount of money she gets from me — about two large vodkas a week — has been of any benefit to her. Her father, they told me, died of liver disease. Poor girl. From, the frying pan into the fire. Perhaps I could kidnap, adopt or marry her, which would make me feel that our association so far had been like the process of feeding the fatted calf. There are several Thai restaurants in Soho which would help to make her feel at home and I even have my own non-stick wok. It would also be interesting and extremely conve- nient to share a flat with somebody who would put up with all sorts of bad and eccentric behaviour believing it to be the custom in London.
When I was last in Bangkok, I was assured that young Thai women will do anything, but anything, for you if you ask them nicely. If this is true then the tempta- tion to take advantage would be so evil it doesn't bear contemplation. She would be as safe as houses with me. I am now too weak even to abuse myself, never mind teenagers from Thailand and I happen to be a closet gentleman anyway. A far bigger danger to Sum would be membership of the Groucho Club or a permanent perch in the Coach and Horses. Come what may, if anything happened to me, Auberon Waugh who has claimed fondness for a Siamese massage, would look after her. But I am sure Sum is a good girl and would be the last person to do anything that could result in her producing twins.
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