Bert has only got a few tubes left inside him now. He was awake when I went into his room. He didn’t recognize me at first because I was wearing a mask and gown. He thought I was a doctor. He said, ‘Get these bkedin’ tubes out of my private parts, I ain’t an underground system’. Then he saw it was me and asked how Sabre was. We had a long talk about Sabre’s behaviour problems, then the nurse came in and told me I had to go. Bert asked me to tell his daughters that he is on his death bed; he gave me half-a-crown for the phone calls! Two of them live in Australia! He said the numbers are written down in the back of his old army pay-book.
My father says that half-a-crown is roughly worth twelve and a half pence. I am keeping the half-a-crown. It has a nice chunky feel about it and it will no doubt be a collector’s item one day.
Pandora and me searched Bert’s house looking for his army pay-book. Pandora found a pile of brown and cream postcards that were very indecent. They were signed ‘
Bert is now tubeless. He is being moved into an ordinary ward tomorrow. I told him about not finding the army pay-book, he said it doesn’t matter now he knows he’s not dying.
Pandora came with me tonight. She got on well with Bert; they talked about Blossom. Bert passed on a few tips about grooming ponies. Then Pandora went out to arrange the flowers she’d brought and Bert asked me if I’d had my ‘leg over’ yet. Sometimes he is just a dirty old man who doesn’t deserve visitors.
Bert is on a big ward full of men with broken legs and bandaged chests. He looks a lot better now that he has got his teeth in. Some of the men whistled at Pandora when she walked down the ward. I wish she wasn’t taller than me. Bert is in trouble with the ward sister for getting beetroot juice on the hospital sheets. He is supposed to be on a fluid diet.
I hope Bert can come home soon. My father is fed up with Sabre and my grandma is sick to death of our dog.
Bert’s consultant has told him to give up smoking but Bert says at eighty-nine years old it is hardly worth it. He has asked me to buy him twenty Woodbines and a box of matches. What shall I do?
Couldn’t sleep last night for worrying about the Woodbines. After much heart-searching decided not to grant Bert’s wish. Then went to the hospital to find that Bert had bought his stinking fags from the hospital trolley!
Just measured my thing. It has grown one centimetre. I might be needing it soon.
Woke up with sore throat, couldn’t swallow, tried to shout downstairs but could only manage a croak. Tried to attract my father’s attention by banging on my bedroom floor with school shoe but my father shouted, ‘Stop that bloody banging’. Eventually I sent the dog downstairs with a message tucked inside its collar. I waited for ages, then I heard the dog barking in the street. It hadn’t delivered the message! I was close to despair. I had to get up to go to the toilet but how I got there I don’t know; it is all a hazy blur. I stood at the top of the stairs and croaked as loud as I could but my father had his Alma Cogan records on so I was forced to go downstairs and tell him I was ill. My father looked in my mouth and said, ‘Christ Almighty, Adrian, your tonsils look like Polaris missiles! What are you doing down here? Get back into bed at once, you fool’. He took my temperature: it was 112deg Fahrenheit. By rights I should be dead.
It is now five minutes to midnight, the doctor is coming in the morning. I just pray that I can last out until then. Should the worst happen, I hereby leave all my worldly goods to Pandora Braithwaite of 69 Elm Tree Avenue. I think I am of sound mind. It is very hard to tell when you’ve got a temperature of 112deg Fahrenheit.
I have got tonsillitis. It is official. I am on antibiotics. Pandora sits by my bed reading aloud to me. I wish she wouldn’t, every word is like a rock dropping on my head.
A ‘get well’ card from my mother. Inside a five-pound note. I asked my father to spend it on five bottles of Lucozade.
I have delirious dreams about Lady Diana Spencer; I hope I am better in time for the wedding. Temperature is still 112deg Fahrenheit.
My father can’t cope with Sabre, so Pandora has taken him home with her. (Sabre, not my father.)
Doctor said our thermometer is faulty. I feel slightly better.
Got up for twenty minutes today. Watched
Pandora brought me a ‘get well’ card. She made it herself with felt-tip pens. She signed it: ‘Forever yours, Pan.’
I wanted to kiss her but my lips are still cracked.
Why hasn’t my mother been to see me?
My mother has just left to catch the train for Sheffield. I am worn out with all the emotion. I am having a relapse.
Pandora went to see Bert Baxter. She said the nurses are getting fed up with him because he won’t stay in bed or do anything he is told to do. He is being discharged on Thursday.
I long for the peace and quiet of a hospital ward. I would be a perfect patient.
Pandora’s father has put Sabre into kennels, it iscosting him three pounds a day, but Pandora’s father says that it is worth every penny.
I am entering a period of convalescence. I will have to take things very easily if I am to regain my former vigour.
Summer 1981
The truant officer came round this afternoon; he caught me sitting in a deckchair in the front garden. He didn’t believe I was ill! He is reporting me to the school! The fact that I was sipping Lucozade whilst wearing pyjamas, dressing gown and slippers seemed to have escaped him. I offered to show him my yukky tonsils but he backed away and trod on the dog’s paw. The dog has got a low pain threshold so it went a bit berserk. My father came out and separated them but things could get nasty for us.
The doctor said I can go back to school tomorrow, depending on how I feel. You can depend that I won’t feel up to it.
