doctor, scientist, priest.
Engine of hope
It was in those days that I started talking to God, making prayers. Even the most selfish prayer is a little engine of hope. I prayed for small improvements rather than drastic transformations. At a time when I could only squirm from one side of the bed to the other, I’d pray that some day I’d be able to inch from one side of the room to the other. That would be enough for me. No sense in being greedy.
When Mum wasn’t reading to me, she would look at the fire. I could understand her fascination when the gas was lit, with my own pyrolatry so incandescent. I liked the way the honeycombed panels behind the grille glowed orange and pink as they grew hot, and held those wonderful colours, yearningly, nostalgically, for a long moment after the flame was extinguished. Perhaps I had a memory-inkling that nirvana in Sanskrit means the state of having been extinguished or snuffed – otherwise it’s a mystery that I should have been happy to see the fire I loved so much die down. Nirvana isn’t ‘extinction’ with all its ominous overtones, more an extinguishment (an indispensable word I’ve just made up) welcomed by the flame. But Mum would sit there for what seemed like hours on a warm evening, with her knitting on her knee unthought-of, looking at the fire when the honeycombed panels were pale and dead.
One of the games I played, Itches and Scratches, needed another player – Mum. It was fun, though the itch could often get out of hand. Any itch I had was likely to be in a part of the body I couldn’t reach, and I would have to ask Mum to scratch it. Having the itch scratched was sheer Heaven, but it wouldn’t be long before another itch broke out, and then Mum would have to scratch that one also. After three or four such itches, I seemed to be itching all over and would be wondering whether the game was so much fun after all.
Sometimes the game took on a new twist. It would happen that when I had an itch and Mum came to scratch it, the itch wasn’t affected in the slightest. Then Mum said, ‘Shall we try scratching bits of your body which don’t itch at all? Somewhere quite different.’ I could do a certain amount of scratching myself, and I discovered that if there was an itch somewhere on my right leg near the foot, then scratching part of my left arm completely cured it. The same trick only worked less well on the other side because I found it harder to scratch my right arm. What’s more, the phantom itch, when treated by remote control in this way, was much less likely to break out again.
I pestered Mum to tell me how this piece of body magic worked. She said she didn’t really know, but I could ask Dr Duckett next time he called. Dr Duckett was the local doctor, portly and fierce of eyebrow . He smelled of the little cigars he smoked, pungent little things. Weren’t they called Wills Whiffs? They were certainly whiffy. Once I heard Dad say, ‘Why can’t he smoke cigarettes, like a normal doctor?’, not meaning a joke.
Dr Duckett was a very good explainer. He thought for a moment after I asked him about the itches and then said, ‘John, you know how sometimes a light bulb has two switches, on different sides of the room?’
‘Oh yes!’ I had always been fascinated by such things.
‘If you turn on a switch near the door, the ceiling light comes on. Yet you could turn off the same light’ (well, I couldn’t, couldn’t have reached even if I was allowed out of bed, but I had seen it done) ‘by using a different switch right over on the other side of the room. Well, itching is to do with nerves, and in a way nerves are the body’s “wiring”. The wiring of the body is a much more complicated business than the wiring of a house, but sometimes you can put your finger on an itch-switch in a place you wouldn’t expect.’
Dr Duckett gave me so much to think about. No wonder I loved him. I decided that I’d try to understand house wiring as soon
Engine of hope
It was in those days that I started talking to God, making prayers. Even the most selfish prayer is a little engine of hope. I prayed for small improvements rather than drastic transformations. At a time when I could only squirm from one side of the bed to the other, I’d pray that some day I’d be able to inch from one side of the room to the other. That would be enough for me. No sense in being greedy.
When Mum wasn’t reading to me, she would look at the fire. I could understand her fascination when the gas was lit, with my own pyrolatry so incandescent. I liked the way the honeycombed panels behind the grille glowed orange and pink as they grew hot, and held those wonderful colours, yearningly, nostalgically, for a long moment after the flame was extinguished. Perhaps I had a memory-inkling that nirvana in Sanskrit means the state of having been extinguished or snuffed – otherwise it’s a mystery that I should have been happy to see the fire I loved so much die down. Nirvana isn’t ‘extinction’ with all its ominous overtones, more an extinguishment (an indispensable word I’ve just made up) welcomed by the flame. But Mum would sit there for what seemed like hours on a warm evening, with her knitting on her knee unthought-of, looking at the fire when the honeycombed panels were pale and dead.
One of the games I played, Itches and Scratches, needed another player – Mum. It was fun, though the itch could often get out of hand. Any itch I had was likely to be in a part of the body I couldn’t reach, and I would have to ask Mum to scratch it. Having the itch scratched was sheer Heaven, but it wouldn’t be long before another itch broke out, and then Mum would have to scratch that one also. After three or four such itches, I seemed to be itching all over and would be wondering whether the game was so much fun after all.
Sometimes the game took on a new twist. It would happen that when I had an itch and Mum came to scratch it, the itch wasn’t affected in the slightest. Then Mum said, ‘Shall we try scratching bits of your body which don’t itch at all? Somewhere quite different.’ I could do a certain amount of scratching myself, and I discovered that if there was an itch somewhere on my right leg near the foot, then scratching part of my left arm completely cured it. The same trick only worked less well on the other side because I found it harder to scratch my right arm. What’s more, the phantom itch, when treated by remote control in this way, was much less likely to break out again.
I pestered Mum to tell me how this piece of body magic worked. She said she didn’t really know, but I could ask Dr Duckett next time he called. Dr Duckett was the local doctor, portly and fierce of eyebrow . He smelled of the little cigars he smoked, pungent little things. Weren’t they called Wills Whiffs? They were certainly whiffy. Once I heard Dad say, ‘Why can’t he smoke cigarettes, like a normal doctor?’, not meaning a joke.
Dr Duckett was a very good explainer. He thought for a moment after I asked him about the itches and then said, ‘John, you know how sometimes a light bulb has two switches, on different sides of the room?’
‘Oh yes!’ I had always been fascinated by such things.
‘If you turn on a switch near the door, the ceiling light comes on. Yet you could turn off the same light’ (well, I couldn’t, couldn’t have reached even if I was allowed out of bed, but I had seen it done) ‘by using a different switch right over on the other side of the room. Well, itching is to do with nerves, and in a way nerves are the body’s “wiring”. The wiring of the body is a much more complicated business than the wiring of a house, but sometimes you can put your finger on an itch-switch in a place you wouldn’t expect.’
Dr Duckett gave me so much to think about. No wonder I loved him. I decided that I’d try to understand house wiring as soon
Similar Books
