No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a Sixtieth Year by Virginia Ironside Page B
Authors: Virginia Ironside
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had got rather addicted to them. Sensible shoes from Ecco, no less. There’s a funny moment when you’re sixty and thinking about shoes, when someone (everyone, in fact) suddenly reveals there is a special shop for old people’s comfortable shoes. It sounds glamorous—Ecco. Ecco! Behold! But rather than continuing with the theme: “Ecco! Da beautifulla shoes for the lovely matura ladya! Flattera your beautifulla feeta!,” the words following Ecco should, in my view, run: “Ecco! Atta lasta! The hideousa but comfortaballa shoesa for the olda batsa!”
“They’re delightful,” he said gallantly. “I do hope you can walk, though. Would you like me to hire a wheelchair? It might be rather fun…Then you could be at the level of the captions and near enough to read them out to me—very loudly, of course—and we wouldn’t have to get the big print version of the catalog for oldies with fading sight.”
On our way out we saw a big man’s black hat lying in the corridor. “Oh dear, I saw the owner of that hat earlier on,” said Hughie.
“Show me a man in a big hat and I’ll show you a cunt,” I said. It’s a joke Penny told me.
“Marie!” said Hughie, shocked but unable, despite himself, not to laugh.
We both imagined this wretched man going around pompously, imagining he’d got his ludicrous hat on his head, and then going home and looking in the mirror and finding to his horror that he’d been strutting around all day just an ordinary person with a small, bald head.
Hughie bought me a scrummy lunch in the restaurant, which was fearfully expensive but it was good because over the saddle of hare (oh, dear, too yummy, poor old hare) I was able to bring up the difficult subject again.
“Now, what did the doctor say about that ghastly cough?” I asked in a no-nonsense kind of way. Hughie’d been coughing his head off all the way round the exhibition, narrowly avoiding exploding all over Turner’s Thames Above Waterloo Bridge.
He looked at me slyly. “I think you know I haven’t been,” he said. “You’ve been talking to James, I can hear it in your voice.”
“I have absolutely not been talking to James,” I said. “I swear on my mother’s grave. And what’s James got to do with this, anyway? Is James worried too?” I said. When I lie, though, I say it myself, I lie well. Anyway, my mother, like Hughie’s, was cremated. So ha!
Hughie looked rather uneasy. “Yes, yes, I must go to the doctor,” he said. “I know. And I will. I’m just putting it off, but I will, I promise.”
“You’re not one of those ludicrous men who’s frightened of going to the doctor, Hughie?” I said. “Please don’t tell me you are. I’d lose all respect for you.”
Hughie grimaced. “Stop it, Marie. Don’t use cheap tricks on me. I will go.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “I can see it in your eyes. They’ve kind of clouded over as if someone’s drawn a piece of cheesecloth over them.”
He laughed, then paused, thinking.
“I’ll tell you why I don’t go, Marie,” he said eventually. “If I’ve got cancer or something—and I frankly don’t care if I have—I’ve lived long enough. Sixty-five isn’t a bad age, quite honestly, and I’ve still got all my faculties. But if I have got something sinister, I’ll have to start having all that chemotherapy, last strand of hair falling out, feeling utterly wretched, James in floods of tears, you wringing your hands. I’ve got better things to do with the end of my life than lie in hospital on eight hundred drips, a living corpse surrounded by people discussing whether I’m well enough to have a lung transplant. It’s not the doctor I’m frightened of. Or the diagnosis of cancer—which is probable, as I’ve smoked for fifty years now. It’s the curative treatment that scares me. Or, most likely, the noncurative treatment. All that hoo-ha.”
“But it might be just a chest infection,” I said. “Which could be cured by a
“They’re delightful,” he said gallantly. “I do hope you can walk, though. Would you like me to hire a wheelchair? It might be rather fun…Then you could be at the level of the captions and near enough to read them out to me—very loudly, of course—and we wouldn’t have to get the big print version of the catalog for oldies with fading sight.”
On our way out we saw a big man’s black hat lying in the corridor. “Oh dear, I saw the owner of that hat earlier on,” said Hughie.
“Show me a man in a big hat and I’ll show you a cunt,” I said. It’s a joke Penny told me.
“Marie!” said Hughie, shocked but unable, despite himself, not to laugh.
We both imagined this wretched man going around pompously, imagining he’d got his ludicrous hat on his head, and then going home and looking in the mirror and finding to his horror that he’d been strutting around all day just an ordinary person with a small, bald head.
Hughie bought me a scrummy lunch in the restaurant, which was fearfully expensive but it was good because over the saddle of hare (oh, dear, too yummy, poor old hare) I was able to bring up the difficult subject again.
“Now, what did the doctor say about that ghastly cough?” I asked in a no-nonsense kind of way. Hughie’d been coughing his head off all the way round the exhibition, narrowly avoiding exploding all over Turner’s Thames Above Waterloo Bridge.
He looked at me slyly. “I think you know I haven’t been,” he said. “You’ve been talking to James, I can hear it in your voice.”
“I have absolutely not been talking to James,” I said. “I swear on my mother’s grave. And what’s James got to do with this, anyway? Is James worried too?” I said. When I lie, though, I say it myself, I lie well. Anyway, my mother, like Hughie’s, was cremated. So ha!
Hughie looked rather uneasy. “Yes, yes, I must go to the doctor,” he said. “I know. And I will. I’m just putting it off, but I will, I promise.”
“You’re not one of those ludicrous men who’s frightened of going to the doctor, Hughie?” I said. “Please don’t tell me you are. I’d lose all respect for you.”
Hughie grimaced. “Stop it, Marie. Don’t use cheap tricks on me. I will go.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “I can see it in your eyes. They’ve kind of clouded over as if someone’s drawn a piece of cheesecloth over them.”
He laughed, then paused, thinking.
“I’ll tell you why I don’t go, Marie,” he said eventually. “If I’ve got cancer or something—and I frankly don’t care if I have—I’ve lived long enough. Sixty-five isn’t a bad age, quite honestly, and I’ve still got all my faculties. But if I have got something sinister, I’ll have to start having all that chemotherapy, last strand of hair falling out, feeling utterly wretched, James in floods of tears, you wringing your hands. I’ve got better things to do with the end of my life than lie in hospital on eight hundred drips, a living corpse surrounded by people discussing whether I’m well enough to have a lung transplant. It’s not the doctor I’m frightened of. Or the diagnosis of cancer—which is probable, as I’ve smoked for fifty years now. It’s the curative treatment that scares me. Or, most likely, the noncurative treatment. All that hoo-ha.”
“But it might be just a chest infection,” I said. “Which could be cured by a
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