Slowing Down by George Melly Read Free Book Online

had another crack at it: ‘A load of fuckin’ wankers!’ they repeated even more aggressively. No reaction. I imagined they’d fared no better in the previous carriages – or would in the next ones either. Nothing was said after their departure and I thought, ‘I suppose that’s what we are really – a load of fucking wankers – whether faced by a small body of yobs insulting homeward-bound commuters or the sight of a drunk jazz-singer urinating in Berkeley Square.’ I suppose I personally had a feeble excuse – I might be thought of as too old to engage in fisticuffs.
    At the bottom of the quite steep, quite long hill was a small circle of benches. Just beyond there was a busy main road with two more side streets a few yards to the right. Leaving me seated, Michael went on patrol there to see if he could intercept a cab plying for hire. In the next half hour only one passed and that occupied. I sat on.
    I was not alone. On the other benches were about ten people swigging tins of strong lager and, to one degree or another, clearly pissed. They were not, however, the usual smelly old tramps who are regulars at most alfresco public houses, but rather young (middle twenties?) and fairly well dressed in that style which apes poverty–torn jeans, etc. – but gives itself away by being reasonably clean. They kissed a lot, and now and then one or two of them would begin to wander unsteadily off, only to return after a few yards to add another point to the repetitive and seemingly aimless conversation they’d been part of. At one stage a young woman staggered over to ask me if I had a light for her roll-up. When I said I hadn’t, she smiled without rancour and returned unsteadily to her companions.
    Finally Michael gave up and, more discontented than ever, said there was a rank at the top of the hill we’d recently descended and so of necessity we reascended it. By this time the ‘short daily walk’ advised by my doctors had become a long one. Thump, thump, thump, went my dog-headed stick, only by now my ankles had really begun to ache, my calves to stiffen and itch, and my mood grown closer to Blind Pugh, although with unfocused malice and no murderous intentions.
    Thump, thump – we passed the great stranded whale of the hospital where the sad husk of Conroy gaped in his bed,past the pub, onwards and upwards, until finally, at a church, we turned left and there (for a moment I thought it might be a mirage already booked to carry some wedding guests to their breakfast) there was a substantial row of cabs, most of them black but some painted in bright colours to advertise insurance or supermarkets. So we took the one at the front and asked it to stop near Notting Hill, where Michael lives, and then on a mile to Shepherd’s Bush, where I do.
    I ached all over but leant back in a state of relaxed bliss – like banging your head on a brick wall and then stopping.
    I got home just before six, almost seven hours after we’d left and with seven minutes of it spent at Conroy’s bedside. I slept until supper at eight, lurched upstairs again and, having swallowed my three night pills, one the water pill (six visits to the loo before 7 a.m.), fell into welcome oblivion.

5. One Last Disadvantage
    Eyes, nose, mouth and chin,
    That’s the way to Uncle Jim.
    Uncle Jim makes lemonade,
    Round the corner chocolate’s made.
       Put a penny in the slot,
    And out it comes, plop, plop, plop.
    Schoolboys’ jingle
    It’s now late November. In the interim I’ve been X-rayed, or scanned as they call it, moving very slowly on my back through a tube with the occasional flash of the camera above me. Not being claustrophobic, I didn’t mind this, although as usual I squeaked when I was injected to ‘relax the intestines’, but positively enjoyed the psychedelic colours that flashed now and then down narrow bands along the sides of the tube.
    I didn’t however relish the small nozzle they had inserted into my arsehole. It was