Low life
Visiting hours
Jeffrey Bernard
My doctor, a good Irishwoman, spent all of half an hour in this fiat yesterday. That is quite a hefty chunk in a day in the life of a GP. It seems that my nervous sys- tem is in tatters and that I must stop sitting on my sofa and staring at the sky and get out and about more before atrophy sets in. She says that this sitting about all day is a form of depression. I am not so sure. I think I am at last bored and up to here with what is downstairs and outside. Mind you, children confuse boredom and depres- sion because at an early age they don't understand what depression means. Since I know almost exactly what is going on and being said in my old haunts it matters not a lot. My precious visitors are my lifelines. Even the district nurses.
Yesterday, Christine, who owns my favourite Chinese restaurant, the Ming, came up with some orange chicken and mixed vegetables and in passing told me that she had been brought up in Hong Kong a Protestant. In spite of being aware of missionaries it hadn't really occurred to me that anyone Chinese could swallow the Bible. Deborah came along too, having been given a leave pass (compassionate?) by Richard Ingrams, and Irma Kurtz arrived with some grub for me having been to our only fishmonger for miles. And the postman brought me two postcards from the Duchess.
Vera is away on holiday this week, but Juanita comes every morning and sets me thinking of the Fisherman's Bar in Barba- dos where she comes from and where the fishermen play dominoes, banging them down so hard it makes the windows rattle. The flowers that Sue Townsend brought me last week are now dead but I still keep them on the table as a souvenir of sorts of a visit from a delightful woman. It is good to know Sue, Alice Thomas Ellis and Beryl Bainbridge. They are so much nicer than
hackettes. Then, on Saturday mornings, my friend Bill who I was in the drying-out bin with 20 years ago calls in and my brother Bruce comes along to tell me that he can only stay for three minutes. Sometimes my daughter Isabel comes along and cooks me lunch. With all of that who needs to be Pushed along Old Compton Street in a Wheelchair?
I must say, though, that I would like to be reminded of what a tree looks like and I wouldn't mind being escorted to Ireland or Barbados either. Meanwhile, readers have responded very kindly to my request for a replacement for Monica who is in intensive care and slipping away. This could be her last bit of work. If she doesn't want to go on I suppose that is my fault. She never got around to writing a novel. But I can't sit here moping, so I shall pour myself a vodka and ponder the amount of the stuff the Medical profession think excessive. The medical establishment's hysteria about drinking will soon be on a par with the hysteria about smoking. I think it was Mrs Thatcher who pronounced in so many words, shortly after she came to power, that it was obligatory that we should all live for ever, but that would be extremely expensive and mean that one day I would be sharing my bachelor pad with about 20 geriatrics. No thanks. We should be allowed to fade away like Sue Townsend's flowers have done.
And I have been told that an aspirin in the vase will keep flowers going longer and With that in mind I have wondered whether to lace my drinks with Baby-Bio, the stuff that feeds plants. I certainly shouldn't mind looking as healthy as my palm tree. My rose tree is dead, as is my fern, and per- haps the liveliest thing in this flat is my Plaster bust of Nelson.
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