Low life
I beg your pardon-.. .
Jeffrey Bernard
It seems that I have upset the nurses on the ward that I have become almost a per- manent fixture in. Not long ago, I wrote referring to it here as the 'killing fields' without realising that the dear nurses were so incredibly sensitive. Considering the amount of indignity that they see others suffer, I should have thought that a jocular remark like that would go almost unno- ticed and I certainly didn't mean to upset them or damage their dignity and I beg their pardon, but to me all hospital wards are potential killing fields.
Anyway, I have this week been in again for the fourth time in as many weeks, and was fearful that they would take their revenge, but they were as sweet as pie unlike the Spanish helper, a rather bossy, strutting little woman who is oddly enough reminiscent of General Franco. This time I had to have a new line put into my chest, a simple operation but one which caused more post-operative pain than even the amputation of my leg. I was given mor- phine in the recovery room and even then I needed pethidine within an hour, which was almost unbelievable. I don't know quite what it is that they shove down your throat while you are out to facilitate breathing, but my throat has bulged enor- mously and I now look like an orang-utan.
In spite of that, I have just met a young woman who thinks I look wonderful. She came out of the blue one day last week, or maybe out of a nuthouse, and she asked whether she could photograph me and told me that she is compiling a collection of photographs of writers. Yes, she loves my face, and at first I was simply rather embar- rassed by her saying so, but then I became as irritated as you would be with somebody repeatedly insisting that the earth is flat or with people who seriously think that if all handguns are made illegal then people will stop shooting each other.
I should think that I could find and buy a handgun within 24 hours if I put my mind to it and visited a few of the pubs I know, and in fact it did seriously occur to me three years ago after I had been attacked outside my block of flats one day when I was on my last legs or last but one. That was the occasion when my attacker at one point knelt on my chest and failed to notice the tiny bulge of £450 in my top pocket.
What a brilliant mugger Norman would make. He can somehow tell at a glance how much a man is carrying. He is now on holiday in Venice, will return next week and will doubtless come back with some duty free spaghetti. Looking back to the time a few months ago when I went there with Sister Sally, I feel disappointed in ret- rospect, so to speak. That is because there seemed to be no loitering in Venice, no hanging about, lounging and hardly any bars to lean against, just an endless panora- ma of things to see.'As Francis Bacon once said of Switzerland, 'One bloody picture postcard after the other. Nothing but views.'
And now, since the kidney collapse, I continually think about the fact that my travelling days are over without complicat- ed planning and precise locations within easy reach of a dialysis machine, but I won- der if there is a cruise-liner drifting some- where equipped with one. I haven't had a post-coital cigarette since I was afloat on a Norwegian cord ten years ago.
Yesterday, someone on my ward gave me a booklet about being an organ donor and it occurred to me with some horror that I have nothing to donate. Who on earth would want tired eyes, a lived-in liver, an enraged pancreas, a heart that has been in my mouth so often, smoke-encrusted lungs and dried-up kidneys? There are people who hang on to an old banger to use for spare parts for their number one car and I met a man on the smokers' landing last week who has been given a kidney by his wife. It is to be hoped that he doesn't get greedy, but I suppose that at present the situation keeps them together, and it is odd to think that whatever he does she can never leave him completely.
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