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Authors: George Melly
Tags: General, Biography & Autobiography
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country to remind me of the time and place of the funeral of a much-loved friend. ‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I told you last week as soon as I’d heard.’ I drew a blank but didn’t imagine for one moment that she’d crept up from the cellar after interfering with the gas supply.
Names lost. Whole books mentally shredded. And the most irritating aspect is that younger, or at least comparatively younger people, often assert, mainly I imagine out of kindness, that they share the same handicaps. ‘Oh,’ they tell me in that special voice they reserve for toddlers and animals, ‘I forget everybody’s name!’ It’s actually quite annoying. If you are unable to feel tied to age and its tricks, to deafness and its quirks, what’s the point of the inconvenience?
My eyesight, on the other hand, while not perfect, is serviceable. The original deficiency was brought about quite a long time ago when the retina in the left eye became detached. The effect of a maverick retina is to make everything waver and sway, producing an effect not unlike the early expressionist German film The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari . Everything became wobbly and invisible from certain angles. I consulted a surgeon, a Mr Schonberg, an almost ridiculously handsome and charming man who works part-time at the Western Eye Hospital, attached to St Mary’s but facing on to Marylebone Road rather than Praed Street, and just opposite the posh hotel where Miss Day had her farewell party.
Mr Schonberg arranged to sew it back on in the operating theatre but gave me a local anaesthetic, which stung for a few seconds like a bee. It was an odd experience because I could see a bit, but as if through semi-transparent gauze, and could watch his hands in their rubber gloves, holding various, to me, unknown surgical instruments, approaching and receding.
When he’d done, he asked me to stay overnight so he could examine me the next day. In the small hours my sleep was interrupted by a grotesque and comic incident. I was woken by a seemingly indignant Filipino nurse. I couldn’t really see her but her rapid Asian voice came from not far above the bed-end and was enough for me to realize that, like many of her compatriots, she was not very tall. What she shouted at me, disgruntled as I was at being woken anyway, was ‘How many fingers I got?’
I knew very well what she meant, but felt mischievous. ‘Ten, I suppose,’ I told her in a measured and reasonable voice.
‘I was woken by a seemingly indignant Filipino nurse’
She was gratifyingly irritated. ‘No!’ she shouted as though to a village idiot. ‘How many fingers I got?’
‘Oh,’ I asked, ‘are you one of those people who think their thumbs don’t count as fingers? In which case,’ I said, ‘eight and two thumbs.’
At this answer I feared I might have driven her close to passing out with rage. She tried once more, so loudly I feared she might wake up other patients.
‘HOW MANY FINGERS I GOT?’ she shrieked.
I decided to relent.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Do you mean how many fingers are you holding up?’ And I held up several so she knew I was finally on the right track. ‘Now, if you’d asked me “How many fingers am I holding up?” I’d have understood at once.’
Finally she relented a little. She felt she’d got through to this dummy. Comparatively calmly she asked me for the final time, ‘How many fingers I got?’
I could honestly say I couldn’t see any. I told her so and she jotted the answer down on a form and left me in peace.
I’m well aware she was doing her job and I was teasing her. When I saw her in a corridor the next time I apologized for my stupidity, but told her that in the future she could avoid such misunderstandings by saying ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ She repeated this several times, but I wasn’t convinced that when once again faced by a recumbent patient she would remember. Some time later, asked to speak from a patient’s point of
Names lost. Whole books mentally shredded. And the most irritating aspect is that younger, or at least comparatively younger people, often assert, mainly I imagine out of kindness, that they share the same handicaps. ‘Oh,’ they tell me in that special voice they reserve for toddlers and animals, ‘I forget everybody’s name!’ It’s actually quite annoying. If you are unable to feel tied to age and its tricks, to deafness and its quirks, what’s the point of the inconvenience?
My eyesight, on the other hand, while not perfect, is serviceable. The original deficiency was brought about quite a long time ago when the retina in the left eye became detached. The effect of a maverick retina is to make everything waver and sway, producing an effect not unlike the early expressionist German film The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari . Everything became wobbly and invisible from certain angles. I consulted a surgeon, a Mr Schonberg, an almost ridiculously handsome and charming man who works part-time at the Western Eye Hospital, attached to St Mary’s but facing on to Marylebone Road rather than Praed Street, and just opposite the posh hotel where Miss Day had her farewell party.
Mr Schonberg arranged to sew it back on in the operating theatre but gave me a local anaesthetic, which stung for a few seconds like a bee. It was an odd experience because I could see a bit, but as if through semi-transparent gauze, and could watch his hands in their rubber gloves, holding various, to me, unknown surgical instruments, approaching and receding.
When he’d done, he asked me to stay overnight so he could examine me the next day. In the small hours my sleep was interrupted by a grotesque and comic incident. I was woken by a seemingly indignant Filipino nurse. I couldn’t really see her but her rapid Asian voice came from not far above the bed-end and was enough for me to realize that, like many of her compatriots, she was not very tall. What she shouted at me, disgruntled as I was at being woken anyway, was ‘How many fingers I got?’
I knew very well what she meant, but felt mischievous. ‘Ten, I suppose,’ I told her in a measured and reasonable voice.
‘I was woken by a seemingly indignant Filipino nurse’
She was gratifyingly irritated. ‘No!’ she shouted as though to a village idiot. ‘How many fingers I got?’
‘Oh,’ I asked, ‘are you one of those people who think their thumbs don’t count as fingers? In which case,’ I said, ‘eight and two thumbs.’
At this answer I feared I might have driven her close to passing out with rage. She tried once more, so loudly I feared she might wake up other patients.
‘HOW MANY FINGERS I GOT?’ she shrieked.
I decided to relent.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Do you mean how many fingers are you holding up?’ And I held up several so she knew I was finally on the right track. ‘Now, if you’d asked me “How many fingers am I holding up?” I’d have understood at once.’
Finally she relented a little. She felt she’d got through to this dummy. Comparatively calmly she asked me for the final time, ‘How many fingers I got?’
I could honestly say I couldn’t see any. I told her so and she jotted the answer down on a form and left me in peace.
I’m well aware she was doing her job and I was teasing her. When I saw her in a corridor the next time I apologized for my stupidity, but told her that in the future she could avoid such misunderstandings by saying ‘How many fingers am I holding up?’ She repeated this several times, but I wasn’t convinced that when once again faced by a recumbent patient she would remember. Some time later, asked to speak from a patient’s point of
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