17

THE LITTLE HOSPITAL CHAPTER

‘LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE,’ SAID MY HOLY GUARDIAN SPROUT. ‘THE swellings will soon go down. The fractures will mend. Your hip joints will be reset and they’ve almost finished the reconstruction of your rib cage. Once the heart-lung implants go in on Friday you’ll be as right as rain.’

I groaned. Inwardly.

‘You’ll come up smiling like the trooper you are, chief. Listen, have you thought about what kind of job you might apply for once you leave hospital? Perhaps something in the entertainment industry. You liked being on the stage, didn’t you? Chief, are you listening to me?’

‘No I’m bloody not. Leave me alone.’

‘Now you thought that, chief, didn’t you? You didn’t actually say it.’

‘Well, I can’t bloody say it, can I? Not with my jaws wired together. Oh shit, I need the bedpan again.’

‘I wish I could help you out, chief, I really do.’

‘Well that’s nice of you, at least.’

‘Oh I wasn’t trying to be nice, it’s just that we share the same nose.

‘Will you please leave me alone!’

‘Sorry, chief, sorry. Oh look, here come the doctors again.’

‘And so how are we feeling today?’ asked one of the doctors, taking up the regulation clipboard from the bottom of the bed and giving it that once—over look that pretends to be a real once-over look. ‘Everything hunky-dory?’

If I’d had any teeth left I would have ground them.

‘We’ll soon have you up and about, old fellow.’

‘You hear that, Barry? He thinks I’m old.’

‘It’s just a figure of speech, chief. You look like a million bucks.’

‘I do?’

‘Yeah, green and wrinkly.’

‘What was that, Barry?’

‘Nothing, chief.’

‘Well, just keep your pecker up,’ said the doctor. ‘What you have left of it anyway. Nurse, are we thinking of sewing his nose back on?’

‘Sorry, doctor, there’s been so many other bits to do.’

‘Quite so, nurse.

‘Here, chief, that reminds me of a joke.’

‘I don’t want to hear it.’

‘Of course you do, chief, it will cheer you up.

‘I don’t want to be cheered up.’

‘Of course you do. Now just listen. There was this bloke, see, and he was in hospital, just like you, all bandaged up from head to foot, and the doctor comes in, and the doctor says, “Ah, I see you’ve regained consciousness, now you probably won’t remember but you were in this pile-up on the motorway. Now you’re going to be OK, you’ll walk again, everything, but something happened, I’m trying to break this gently, but your penis was chopped off in the wreck and we were unable to find it.”‘

‘Turn it in, Barry.’

‘No, listen, chief, so the bloke groans, a bit like you just did, but the doctor says, “But it’s going to be all right, we have the technology now to build you a new one that will work as well as your old one did, better in fact. But the thing is, it doesn’t come cheap. It’s a thousand pounds an inch.” And the bloke perks up a bit at this, even though it’s a thousand pounds an inch. “So the thing is,” the doctor says, “it’s for you to decide how many inches you want. But it’s something you’d probably better discuss with your wife. I mean if you had a five-inch one before and you decide to go for a nine-incher, she might be a bit put out. But if you had a nine-inch one before and decide to only invest in a five-incher this time, she might be disappointed. So it’s important that she plays a vital role in helping you make the decision.”

‘So the bloke agrees to talk with his wife and the doctor comes back the next day. “So,” says the doctor, “have you spoken with your wife?”

‘“I have,” says the fellow.

‘“And has she helped you in making the decision?”

‘“She has,” says the bloke.

“And what is it?” asks the doctor.

‘The bloke looks up and says, “We’re having a new kitchen.”‘

‘That is a very sick joke, Barry.’

‘Yeah, and an old one too, but a classic, chief, a classic. Very, very funny.’

‘But not too funny if you were the bloke.’

‘Oh no, chief, not too funny at all. Hey look, the doctor’s leaving, good riddance, eh?’

The doctor turned as he reached the door, ‘Nurse,’ he said, ‘about the other bits you still have to sew on. Did you come across his penis?’

The nurse shook her head. ‘They never found it,’ she said. ‘And you know what a new one costs. I hope this chap has an understanding wife.’