Russell Hoban - Come Dance With Me

I do what I can and console myself with small gains: Imran Patel has been balancing his blood sugar better than he did six months ago; Sarah Blum’s Charcot joint has reached Stage 4 and she’s ready for a surgical boot, and so on. In the meantime I continue my research on the aetiology of the disease and the psychology of diabetics.

While I was working my way through the morning a motorbike messenger arrived with a ticket for the Mobile Mortuary concert at the Hammersmith Apollo on Friday. There was also a pass for the hospitality suite after the concert, and a note that said, ‘Can’t see you till after the gig. XXX’ Three paper kisses. Could do better. Humming ‘Is That All There Is’ I went through folders, checked histories, sent people for blood tests and X-rays and various scans, and in between ran my eye over the proofs for the third edition of Lipids: An Overview, a pocket picture guide on which I collaborated with the biochemist Phil Winston. This little book is elegantly produced; the tables and diagrams inspire the hope that there are answers for almost everything, while the photographs of such things as tuberous xanthomas and diabetic gangrene make it clear that for many the answers come too late. Between the clarity of the physician and the confusion of the afflicted the gap is wide and on some days I think it will never be narrowed.

Of course I didn’t stop thinking about Christabel. While doing that I had a mental visit from Professor Ernst, my predecessor, who walked into my mind without knocking and shook his head. ‘It’s a matter of the vertical vis-à-vis the horizontal,’ he once told me. He wore a pince-nez that never fell off. ‘The doctor is vertical; the patient is horizontal, even when they’re walking around. The doctor wears a suit, the patient is in pyjamas, even when they’re fully dressed. Keep this distinction in mind because a lot of people who aren’t patients should be patients of one kind or another if you take my meaning. Also: don’t sleep with anyone who doesn’t play golf.’ I don’t know why I was remembering his advice now. I was his registrar at the clinic for the ten years before his retirement. I doubt that Christabel plays golf. I’ve never slept with anyone who did.

When was I first attracted to Christabel? It was when I saw her standing in front of The Cyclops. She wasn’t just looking at the painting, she was giving herself to it, and as I’ve said before, her response excited me. Then when she smiled I wondered what she was smiling about.

Now in my working day I remembered her trembling last night and my right arm involuntarily moved to encircle her.

23 January 2003. I’ve been Elias Newman’s registrar for five years. What with his research and his writing in addition to the hospital work he’s the busiest man I know. Whenever I come into his office he’s fully engaged with one thing or another. But today he was just standing by the window, apparently lost in thought. He turned to me and said, ‘Yes?’ With some impatience, I felt.

‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘It can wait.’

‘Right,’ he said, and went back to his thoughts. Most unusual.

23 January 2003. OK, the owl tattoo. I get so tired of explaining everything, even to myself. When I got back from Maui in 1993 I wanted to, I don’t know, draw a line under that time? Put it all behind me? That sounds like a joke in view of where the tattoo ended up. I’ve said before that I do a lot of stupid things, right? So I had this book my neighbour Victor had given me and in it were some Caspar David Friedrich owls that really talked to me. The one I decided on, sitting on a grave marker with his wings outspread, he was like an orchestra conductor, very much in charge and he was commanding silence. His whole body was saying, ‘‘OK, that’s it.’ I got a photocopy of it and took it to the Fulham Tattoo Centre. The walls were full of dragons, devils, hearts and flowers and skeletons and whatnot and there were a couple of pretty girls discussing body piercing. One of the signs on the wall said that nobody under the influence of drink or drugs would be tattooed. It was a grey day with reality coming down like rain.

‘Where do you want this and how big?’ said the man. When I told him he looked at me sideways and said, ‘You’re not on anything, are you?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Do I look like I am?’

‘Kind of.’

‘What, you want me to pee in a cup so you can test it?’

‘Calm down, OK? It’s just that you might not be quite yourself today.’

‘How do you know I’m not like this every day?’

‘Look,’ he said, ‘once you get this on you it’s there for good, so it’s best not to do anything you’ll be sorry for.’

‘All my life I’ve done things I’ve been sorry for,’ I said. ‘Why should I stop now?’

‘OK, I’ll do this owl for you if that’s what you really want. First I have to make a tracing for the transfer. Come back tomorrow and I’ll be ready for you. It’ll cost you fifty pounds.’ So the next day I came back and now that owl is part of me.

I know that I tend to make a mystery of myself with Elias. Well, I have a lot to be mysterious about. I was nineteen when I married Richard Turpin. I was singing with an all-girl group called The Nectarines. That was in 1968. We were doing a gig at the Orford Cellar in Norwich with some of our own songs and a few covers. This bloke who was very close to the stage kept staring as if he’d never seen anything like me before. We wore miniskirts and fringey tops and I’ve always had good legs. After the last set he came up to me and said, ‘Hi, I’m Dick Turpin.’

‘Where’s your horse?’ I said.

‘My horse is a white Ford Transit with a ladder on top,’ he said, and gave me his card:

Dick Turpin

The Highway Roofer

‘We’ve got it covered.’

‘Great,’ I said. ‘Next time I need a roof I’ll ring you up.’

‘I’m putting together a brochure,’ he said, ‘and I want to feature you in it.’

‘Wow,’ I said. ‘This could be my big break. Does that happen before or after you ask me up to see your roof tiles?’

‘Come on, do I look like that kind of guy?’

‘Yes.’ He looked like Jack the Lad with an indoor complexion even though he did outdoor work. His mouth was smiling but something about his eyes made me wonder if there was a peephole in the dressing-room wall. He was a big man with big strong hands. Like my stepfather who was always opening the door of my room without knocking. He’d managed to catch me in my underwear once or twice but he’d never got further than that. I’d been thinking it was high time I got a new roof over my head.

‘What I have in mind,’ said Jack the Roofing Lad, ‘is a back view of you climbing a ladder in a Dick Turpin T-shirt and a skirt a little shorter than the one you have on now.’

‘Cheeky,’ I said. ‘Do I get to show my face at all?’

‘Of course. When you reach the scaffolding you turn and smile and we’ll have a close-up with my message under it: FOR A ROOF YOU CAN LOOK UP TO, PHONE DICK TURPIN FOR A FREE ESTIMATE! There’s three hundred quid in it for you.’

So I did it, one thing led to another, and I very quickly got a new roof over my head. Dick got what my stepfather hadn’t and it was legal. He was not a gentleman in bed or out of it. He drank a lot of beer and he watched a lot of football, sometimes at our house with men from his crew who also drank a lot of beer, sometimes at other places. The house was nothing wonderful, a small brick end-of-terrace with two up and two down. With a leaky roof that he never got round to fixing. The Nectarines disbanded and there I was being some kind of housewife. It wasn’t quite my idea of getting out into the world.