didn’t feel the same about them any more.
One week of pure hell followed.
James wouldn’t notice if I was dragging myself round on crutches, since he’s begun a new craze: ham radio. This also foiled my attempts to distract myself by getting on with my writing, since he’s cut several things out of my ham radio magazine, and hogs my library books.
I can only hope it is temporary. It’s bad enough him slipping back into the habit of meeting his cronies after work in the pub (which is turning dinner into supper practically every evening, now he has so far to drive home), or risking arrest by consorting with Howard, without him having his nose glued to my books whenever he is here and I want him to do something.
Friday morning, the Lump still being present, I went to see my new doctor, which I should have done at the start.
Not that she – brisk, brusque and overworked – was very reassuring.
She said she didn’t think it was anything to worry about, but would refer me to the hospital anyway and I’d be sent an appointment.
This meant another wait, although I knew that if she’d only been
pretending
not to be worried by the lump I’d be sent for instantly.
So the longer the wait, the less important she’d found it …
It didn’t do anything to stop me worrying.
Fergal: April 1999
‘WHO IS BRITAIN’S SEXIEST STAR? YOU VOTE!’
Trendsetter
magazine
SEXY?
I’m not about to become celibate for life, but seeing Tish like that … well, if you crave champagne, then water is just something you quench your thirst with when you can’t get what you really want.
Nerissa – the latest thirst-quencher – is turning tricky now I’m losing interest. I don’t have much respect for women prepared to lie down at the drop of a famous name, but I don’t want to hurt her.
She was just a girl who threw herself at me, and prettier than most. Only now it turns out she used to go to school with Sara, Carlo’s fiancée, and she’s using that old friendship so that she always knows where I’m going to be next, trying to turn a casual affair into some kind of relationship, though I made sure she knew right from the start that it would never be that.
Now she’s always there. Especially after a gig, when I’m on a high …
She always seems to be there whenever the cameras flash, too.
Chapter 9: Nutthill Nutria
Two weeks later I found myself sitting in a dingy hospital corridor on a bursting plastic chair, thinking about Life, the Universe, and other more mundane things such as why James hasn’t noticed the state of panic I’ve been in for a fortnight.
He ought to have guessed something was wrong. But even last night, when I was so nervous and in need of a hug that I wound my arms round his neck and kissed him, he just sort of suffered it, then leaned over and pressed the video play button.
If he ever touched me these days he might have noticed the lumpiness himself … which is another thing: since the move our love life seems to have pretty well tailed off. (Not that I ever found the sex riveting, but I do miss the cuddles.) Our only physical contact lately seems to be James’s absent-minded goodbye kiss in the mornings – when he isn’t staying at Horrible Howard’s.
Now I’ve stopped the pill I’m back to the light, erratic periods I had before I started taking it. But I don’t really mind – it’s only the unpredictability that’s irritating, and I’m sure my body is enjoying a holiday from all those chemicals.
James
did
notice I wasn’t eating much lately, but thinks I am on a diet. He said if he wanted a wife who looked like a coat hanger with a dress on it, then he would have married one in the first place! I am certainly not
that
thin – I do go in and out in the appropriate places – but perhaps I have become too thin to attract James any more?
Mind you, if
I
am getting thinner,
he
is putting it on – especially round the waist! And his face seems to be losing some of its
One week of pure hell followed.
James wouldn’t notice if I was dragging myself round on crutches, since he’s begun a new craze: ham radio. This also foiled my attempts to distract myself by getting on with my writing, since he’s cut several things out of my ham radio magazine, and hogs my library books.
I can only hope it is temporary. It’s bad enough him slipping back into the habit of meeting his cronies after work in the pub (which is turning dinner into supper practically every evening, now he has so far to drive home), or risking arrest by consorting with Howard, without him having his nose glued to my books whenever he is here and I want him to do something.
Friday morning, the Lump still being present, I went to see my new doctor, which I should have done at the start.
Not that she – brisk, brusque and overworked – was very reassuring.
She said she didn’t think it was anything to worry about, but would refer me to the hospital anyway and I’d be sent an appointment.
This meant another wait, although I knew that if she’d only been
pretending
not to be worried by the lump I’d be sent for instantly.
So the longer the wait, the less important she’d found it …
It didn’t do anything to stop me worrying.
Fergal: April 1999
‘WHO IS BRITAIN’S SEXIEST STAR? YOU VOTE!’
Trendsetter
magazine
SEXY?
I’m not about to become celibate for life, but seeing Tish like that … well, if you crave champagne, then water is just something you quench your thirst with when you can’t get what you really want.
Nerissa – the latest thirst-quencher – is turning tricky now I’m losing interest. I don’t have much respect for women prepared to lie down at the drop of a famous name, but I don’t want to hurt her.
She was just a girl who threw herself at me, and prettier than most. Only now it turns out she used to go to school with Sara, Carlo’s fiancée, and she’s using that old friendship so that she always knows where I’m going to be next, trying to turn a casual affair into some kind of relationship, though I made sure she knew right from the start that it would never be that.
Now she’s always there. Especially after a gig, when I’m on a high …
She always seems to be there whenever the cameras flash, too.
Chapter 9: Nutthill Nutria
Two weeks later I found myself sitting in a dingy hospital corridor on a bursting plastic chair, thinking about Life, the Universe, and other more mundane things such as why James hasn’t noticed the state of panic I’ve been in for a fortnight.
He ought to have guessed something was wrong. But even last night, when I was so nervous and in need of a hug that I wound my arms round his neck and kissed him, he just sort of suffered it, then leaned over and pressed the video play button.
If he ever touched me these days he might have noticed the lumpiness himself … which is another thing: since the move our love life seems to have pretty well tailed off. (Not that I ever found the sex riveting, but I do miss the cuddles.) Our only physical contact lately seems to be James’s absent-minded goodbye kiss in the mornings – when he isn’t staying at Horrible Howard’s.
Now I’ve stopped the pill I’m back to the light, erratic periods I had before I started taking it. But I don’t really mind – it’s only the unpredictability that’s irritating, and I’m sure my body is enjoying a holiday from all those chemicals.
James
did
notice I wasn’t eating much lately, but thinks I am on a diet. He said if he wanted a wife who looked like a coat hanger with a dress on it, then he would have married one in the first place! I am certainly not
that
thin – I do go in and out in the appropriate places – but perhaps I have become too thin to attract James any more?
Mind you, if
I
am getting thinner,
he
is putting it on – especially round the waist! And his face seems to be losing some of its
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