Low life
Kind hearts and baguettes
Jeffrey Bernard
Iwas quite staggered last week on my birthday by the amount of cards and the kindness shown by readers of this column. I even had one large vodka chez Norman which I believe was my fourth drink since last June when I had my near-death experi- ence in Morocco and was saved, not just by doctors, but by Sister Sally. She kindly sent me an excellent duvet cover but whether one day she intends it to be used as a shroud I'm not quite sure.
When I find out all the cities of Spain that have dialysis machines I must get her to take me away again. How strange it would be to stay in Spain for a while where all the red wine, as it is the world over, is overloaded with potassium. I am used to talking rubbish with an excess of it, but being made ill by it is something quite new. Why can't beer be overloaded with the stuff since it bores me incredibly, plus the fact that this frame hasn't got room for it? ---- Talking of which, I had to be helped in and out of bed in the hospital yesterday I was so weak, and sometimes I see on the horizon with no little amount of horror a nursing-home where they try to tell you what to do and what not to do. Should it ever come to that I think I might surprise them. I was once told years ago that a clean ship was a happy ship, and I can assure you that that is not necessarily so. It certainly doesn't apply to guardhouses in the army, but that's another story. I had to polish coal there. Anyway, the Middlesex is clean enough and at least the nurses seem to be happy enough.
Meanwhile, the food in this flat has reached rock bottom. I was once addicted to Marks and Spencer and now the fact that it is too much trouble to be taken there and actually see what they are selling makes me eat the same things every day. In fact, I'm eating so little that when I have dialysis they drip a bottle of food substitute that is full of protein into me and I still feel weaker than a kitten that you would worry about.
The other day, a friend kindly pushed me to a restaurant in Old Compton Street which was all right until I realised that I wouldn't be able to get home since I'm too weak to push my chair. I sat there on the pavement for what seemed an age, and eventually a stranger asked me where did I want to go and he pushed me home to my front door. People are sometimes incredi- bly nice which is odd in a way because you might think the English too shy and self-conscious to make such offers and ges- tures.
The idea of living in China fills me with horror for several reasons but mainly because I'm told they have the habit of lit- erally spitting on the disabled since they believe that any disablement is brought about by a load of evil that lurks inside the victim. I suppose that here and even in America they assume that one has had an accident while pissed. That would seem like logic to an Englishman. I have yet to go to Ireland since my leg was removed but there they'd probably push you by the hun- dred.
But even a doctor, who is obviously a Spectator reader, remarked the other day a propos a reference to them in this column that he had noted that I had become addicted to baguettes. The trouble is, I am running out of ideas of what to put into them. So today, being both baguette- and stir-crazy, I shall probably telephone the Groucho Club to come and fetch me for lunch. I must say that, in spite of the awful suits who bring their office work into the club, the staff still remain extremely civilised when it comes to doing the odd favour. Nevertheless, I have decided to opt out of their Derby Day meeting because, as I said last week, of the impossibility of a wheelchair on a coach and, anyway, this year I particularly want to see every yard of the running which I can do here at home watching my television set while munching a baguette. Come to think of it, Baguette isn't a bad name for a racehorse.
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