One tablet will do . .
Jeremy Clarke
On election day, after an early morning swim, I went to the weekly sexual health clinic at the local cottage hospital. The receptionist told me to take a seat beside the red door. While I waited, I took my pulse. My latest fitness regime requires me to take a note of it while at rest and during exercise. Fascinated by the fluctuations in my heart-rate, I now take it in every conceivable situation. It was 86 — ten beats more than my normal resting rate.
On the stroke of half past the red door opened and an absolute babe came out and asked me if I was Jeremy Clarke. I just sat there gaping. She looked like Miss World. I couldn't believe it. Her name, she said, extending a tanned, slender arm, was Polly. And this is Vicky, she added, pointing behind her to a much less attractive but smiley person standing just inside the consulting room. Vicky was a student, said Polly. Would I mind if she sat in on our interview? Not at all,' I said, putting on the bravado. 'The more the merrier.'
We went in and sat facing each other in a triangle. Polly asked me to tell her and Vicky why I'd come. I must begin at the beginning, she said, and if it suited me better I could put it in the vernacular. She leaned forward in her chair and these big sympathetic eyes latched on to my probably rather frightened ones.
After some hesitation I blurted out, `I love her' — which seemed to me to be the absolute nub of the matter. Then I went on to tell them both all about my problem, in the vernacular, and finished with an impassioned peroration. I couldn't sleep for worrying about it, I said. Because I was on such a short fuse, I'd fallen out with the neighbours. And I was unable to compose newspaper articles. All I needed, I said, was a Viagra prescription to get me off the mark. Once I was over the hump, I'd be fine.
Polly and the student looked at each other and laughed. 'But I can't prescribe,' said Polly. 'What I can do though is put you in touch with a psychiatrist specialising in your problem, which I can assure you is very, very common.' From a small circular table beside her she picked up a brochure and showed me the front page. On it, a bloke with a lot of letters after his name was claiming success with a list of sexual problems, including something called `Erectile Dysfunction'. 'That's me, I take it,' I said, pointing to the words. 'He's very good,' said Polly. 'The best in the west.'
I was bitterly disappointed. It was Viagra I wanted, not some bloke telling me to lay off the beer and play with myself in the bath. 'But will he be able to prescribe Viagra for me?' I pressed them. 'No,' said Polly. 'But he'll be able to talk to you.' 'Look,' I said. 'I'm not neurotic, or disabled, or a victim. I just want some Viagra. One tablet will do. Or failing that' — and this really had to be said — 'a hands-on one-to-one session with you and I'd be cured immediately.' (Just getting the appointment in the post would probably have done the trick.) They both laughed again. But I wasn't laughing. I was serious, mate.
Polly then asked me a succession of yes/no questions about my medical history, ticking boxes on a form as she went. The form was geared up for female conditions. Polly got another laugh out of the student by not omitting to ask me whether I'd had any gynaecological problems. I said I hadn't. 'Any serious illnesses?' she said, brightly. I had to stop to think. 'Only amoebic dysentery,' I said. 'Twice.' Where did you get that?' she said, looking up from the form in surprise. 'My bottom,' I said.
Form completed, they stood up, told me to wait where I was and left the room. (I'm sure it was their laughter I heard in the corridor just after the door had closed behind them.) While I waited, I took my pulse again. Ninety-five. And as there was a set of accurate-looking scales in the middle of the floor, I stood up, kicked off my trainers and carefully weighed myself. The needle pointed straight up — 12 stone exactly. That meant I'd lost six pounds since taking up eating the Atkins way four weeks ago. (It's not a diet: it's a lifestyle!') Too much, possibly, for a naturally thin person like myself.
When Polly and the student came back, finally, their faces, I thought, were unnaturally taut with suppressed laughter. Polly said she'd made me an appointment with the erectile dysfunction expert, and before I went she needed to take some urine from me, in case I was an undiagnosed diabetic.
Afterwards I went to the village hall and with a pulse rate of 110 wrote 'Tony Blair — you're f***ing dead' on my ballot paper.
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