Slowing Down by George Melly Read Free Book Online Page A

attached to a tube, itself connected to an air pump which then blew air up my intestines and into my stomach. Despite having been gay and then bisexual well into my twenties, I never took to anal penetration. At school, on the back stage of the puppet theatre he used for trysts on the art master’s and mistress’s day off as he had a key, a bigger boy, in every sense of the word, tried it and I fainted. During the fifties, when I had caught a dose ofclap, a nice Scottish doctor, the image of my favourite housemaster as it happened, wanted to examine my sperm. He put on a rubber glove, well greased, and inserted a finger. I fainted again. He told me when I came to that by the manipulation of some gland he’d got what he wanted. He added, as I dressed, that I was clearly the active rather than the passive partner.
    They didn’t find anything they now call ‘threatening’ in my examination. A few nodules and a small fissure was the best they could do, but even so they have decided to repeat the exercise, this time with an enema, in the near future. I’ve only had one enema in the past and didn’t like it either. It was after I’d had a burst ulcer in the sixties. A large cheerful West Indian nurse was in charge of the operation. She was always asking me, even at this point, when my ‘bit of spare’ was coming to see me.
    Some people, presumably passive gays, like enemas, and will even pay for the privilege of having one. Indeed there was a nurse who advertised her services in the personal column of a national newspaper. She’s no longer there. I imagine they suspected her of canvassing non-medical cases, of attracting a non-prescribed clientele.
    On this occasion, the scan discovered a nodule at the bottom of my lung. This was my second nodule; the other, higher up my lung, had vanished previously of its own volition. This new growth, however, very much interested my consultant, the totally admirable Dr Kohn, the ideal medico in my view. Of maybe Chinese or certainly Asian origin, and speaking perfect English without that harsh rapidity which so often accompanies Far Eastern origin, he explained again in full the possibilities of this phenomenonand then asked me what I wanted to do about it – a probe, chemical treatment or an immediate operation if the surgeon was prepared to do it, given my irregular heartbeat and other physical deterrents. Dr Kohn and his assistant, a nice woman, equally frank and in touch with Diana, told us that this last would, if it were cancer and I had a successful operation, put me professionally out of commission for at least, the very least, five or six weeks. It so happens that December and January I was meant to be very busy singing and, if I had to cancel my full date-sheet, it would not only harm my band-leader Digby Fairweather and his musicians but would prove a form of professional suicide. Bookers would be reluctant to renew their offers on the grounds that I could fall ill again.
    Diana said I mustn’t be influenced by money. We hadn’t all that much as such, but two houses and lots of pictures, books and objects of, or so I believe, some concrete value. She would hate me to feel I might be not poor exactly, but broke. She wants me now to do anything I choose and, within my physical limitations, to enjoy myself. This time round too, she seemed less upset. During my first alarm she had asked several of her circle of friends, including my beloved sister, about my desire to have no treatment and they all without exception agreed I had made the right decision. Yet again, I said, ‘No, no treatment, no tests, no medication, nothing!’
    Dr Kohn said all right. He told us many patients in my position were prepared to try any possibility of a cure, no matter how painful or possibly unsuccessful, but others, like myself, were not. Of course I’ve taken into account I am in my late seventies. At under, say, sixty, I’d possibly have beenless adamant – but more likely not either.