Singular life
Naming and shaming
Petronella Wyatt
Once I took three sleeping pills by accident. They were mixed up in a bottle with some other tablets for indigestion. The pills turned out to be a barbiturate of the kind they used to pop in Jacqueline Susann novels, especially Valley of the Dolls. The drug had been around since then, too, for I believe that doctors had ceased to prescribe it years before. Seconal, I think it was called.
Anyway, the effect was out of Coleridge. It was like one of those half-dreams when you know you are dreaming, usually of hor- rors, and struggle to awake, hysterically, futilely. When I fell asleep, my dreams ranged from the sublime to the terrible; nebulous outlines of rolling landscapes and still, crystalline waters, followed by baroque and terrible scenes of death and torture.
Then an inspiration. Here was a chance to bid for immortality. If Coleridge could write an epic poem on opium, why couldn't I on Seconal? A sort of contemporary `Kubla Khan', perhaps set in the House of Commons or Downing Street, something along the lines of, say, Kubla Campbell.
Coleridge burbled on about incense-bear- ing trees and ancestral voices prophesying war. But when I roused myself enough to pick up a pen the only words I could think to write were 'Oh God'. I could not so much as summon up a shrub, let alone an incense tree. As for the 'ancestral voices prophesy- ing war', there were the elderly neighbours next door quarrelling about who should put out the cat, but that was the extent of it. War, but not as the heroes know it.
For the past week I have felt similar. The cause has been one of those virus things. They never have a name, and it is the worst kind of flu because you feel ill without showing any obvious symptoms. The accompanying 'fever' was negligible — a mere 37.4; sometimes it even fell to 37.1.
I was quite ashamed and tried to exorcise it by standing naked in the lavatory and so on. But the doctor said you can be as ill with a low temperature as with a high one, and the low one takes longer to go away. He was right about that. It is still here. I think I shall nurse a temperature of 37.1 for the rest of my life. My eyes have swelled to huge, spongiform balls. The wheels of my brain are rotating at half their normal speed. They say I have full use of my arms and legs but they are just being kind.
Some afflictions are very difficult to explain to one's nearest and dearest. How for example, do you tell someone in whom you are romantically interested that you have chronic diarrhoea? Euphemisms only tend to confuse. 'I had figs for dinner last night.' Did you, darling? Black or green?' The medical profession should really invent better words for these things. Bowel condi- tions are really things one wants to keep to oneself, like paedophilia, I suppose.
The naming and shaming of sex offenders in the News of the World, incidentally, is a worrying precedent. What's to stop them confining themselves to perverts, or indeed extending the definition to other hated minority groups, such as Tories? 'Evil mid- dle-aged man tempts local teenager with disgusting policies.' Or 'Fiends who run evil research group rings.' No one would be safe. I can see myself being named and shamed for all sorts of offences. Owning a fur hat, or a tortoiseshell bag some friends gave me for my birthday. Large vigilante groups would gather outside my house screaming: `Down with tortoisicide!' I wish to name and shame myself before anyone else does.
Now the Emin girl can get herself some clean sheets.'
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