dddk 11 - professions

« Bloody marvellous these dear girls. Old Mother Nightingale’s diligent descendants.

I thank you, most civilly, delightful child.

And off she pops, giggling like a Dorset lass a-milking on a summers eve. Alas, the infrequency of the bed bath.

Anything you want they’ll get you here. Anything, bar what you actually need. Tickle your inner thigh with a damp sponge they will, but ask for a little bottle of what you fancy, and they’ll each and every one of them look at you like you’ve just stuck your finger up their motherly bottoms.

Girls, girls, girls. Poor creatures. Put on this earth with so many gifts, and yet destined to meet out their days saving us miserable men from ourselves. My god I could do with a pint. Bitter sweet elixir, laking over the palette, coursing down the arid gorge of my too long denied oesophagus. Newkie, Newkie, ale of the gods.

I said to them the other day, « ladies, we should be celebrating. » A darling young student was ineptly jiggling the three inches of hollow surgical steel, that has bound me, umbilically, to my whee-led metal mother, all these long, long, weeks. Julie, resolute toughie of a staff nurse, peered intimidatingly over her shoulder. « Just pull the bloody thing out girl. » The pressure tightened, momentarily whitening the purple green mottling of my Cambodian wrist. And then pull she bloody did. I threw back my head as the pain scorched up my arm. « Rebirth. » I hollered. Think I must have surprised the poor thing, as she dropped my fragile member like it was so much steaming dog shit. An arc of redness shot out across the room, splattering Julie’s ample bosom as she elbowed past the now quaking new girl, to reapply pressure, with Titan grip on my pulsing artery. « More like second coming, eh Prof? » She’s a cutie that one. I shall have to watch her.

So, finally freed from all impedimenta I have been granted liberty to perambulate. Of course, I shouldn’t still be here. I’m choking up the system. Bed blocking. Some poor old sod is stuck at home, hipless, whilst the charming chaps at social services scratch their bollocks trying to decide what to do with me.

It’s the lungs you know. Mother always said my chest would let me down. Though if I stay here much longer, I rather think malnourishment could play it’s part. I’ve had better food out of Sainsburys’ skip than the muck those sad immigrant slaves slide out of their clunking chuck wagon. And on the subject of underfeeding, my gelatinous code breaker is atrophying. Tuesday afternoon, freshly released from medical shackle, I jubilantly followed the signs to the fourth floor library...

Cruel deception. Several hundred Babs Cartland, cleverly concealing lepric scabs of Deighton, Archer and dear old Aggie. A light dusting of Mills and Boon, a cheeky blush of Cookson and a scarlet slash of Harold want a wank Robbins, for that daring finishing touch. Oh painted lady. Mata Hari.

Do you know? They have a computer in Deptford Library. What about that eh? With internet access if you don’t mind. Bloody amazing. Now that’s what I call a library. I mean the choice of reading material is still somewhat limited. But the delightful young people that staff the place are only too eager to hunt something up for one. Home from home that place.

Really, it could be said that Deptford has welcomed me into its awaiting arms like a prodigal cuckoo. I have only to enter it’s parois and the love enfolds me. They won’t let me go back you know.

« You can’t possibly expect us to send a gentleman of your age and fragile state of health back to the arches Mr.Bishopsthwaite. » I rounded on the poor lad. « For thirty years, hail or shine, I have spent each and every school hiatus tramping the fields and dales of this fair land. Young man, I was sleeping in barns before you were pooing in your pot. » I drummed my fingers on the bedclothes, « I can assure you, er, Keith, my girls will look after me. » « With the best will in the world sir, it’s a very cold December. » Subject closed. I think they’re trying to find me a corner in some petit bourgeois Sussex convalescence home. Self righteous bastards. That line must be terribly thin. Transparent to them it appears. Did I always straddle I wonder, or did even I in some distant, forgotten land, dream of verisimilitude? Doesn’t bear thinking about.

Haven’t felt quite so left field since they banned me from The Crown and Greyhound. Well I’m not sorry. I said it then and I’d say it again. Bunch of bloody brown nosers. Practically creaming over the counter they were. Still not sure if it was the idea of an increase in property value, or kudos by association. But the excitement that old Mags generated on becoming a village freeholder, made me sick to my stomach. « As you all know, I’m not a political type, rather the man of peace, » said I. « Ghandi is a guru, but if I so much as sense that metal headed woman’s presence at my elbow, whilst supping my well deserved nightly restorative, I fear gentlemen, I may be inclined to slap. » I’ll tell you, the looks of bemusement, consternation, yes outrage, that rained down upon me. As politely but firmly, the fellow that refilled my empty cup for nigh on fifteen years informs me that I am no longer welcome at his bar. Well, you know who your friends are eh? Iron bloody lady, she was never a girl. Ripped the guts out of this country, poisoning the lives and minds of every little man in the process. It’s the youth I cry for. Where’s their moral worth?

I haven’t heard from young David you know. Or the girls. Bloody ashamed of me I don’t doubt. Silly old bugger.

He’s not pressed charges of course. Dear Frank. But I should have known better. Puffed up with my own possibility. Utterly blind. I so wanted to help the boy. I did think he might have popped by, see how the old prof was getting on.

Met a strange character on the stairwell yesterday, odd one that. Burns victim. He was pulling on a cigarette like it was his final request. You wouldn’t have been a fool for thinking he was still on fire the amount of smoke he was generating. Funny place this, bit like the arches sometimes.