by Lucy Ellmann
She had one she’d selected for URMA THURB: dark-blue corduroy with yellow suede trimmings. Inside, Jen kept an old Kleenex that had a lipstick imprint of Urma Thurb’s MOUTH, Urma Thurb’s lost earring, a cherished example of Urma Thurb’s handwriting: a prescription Urma Thurb had written for some VINCRISTINE (which Jen, in a fit of pique over something Urma Thurb had said, injected into a child’s SPINE, with catastrophic results), a photo of Urma Thurb standing beside the Falls at Killin on her honeymoon, and white nurse’s socks that Jen believed had once belonged to Urma Thurb. This was the handbag Jen most often slept with.
Jen’s own handbag was very large, capable of carrying SO MUCH. How readily it opened to gape and gulp emptily at the air. Like a big FISH it floundered, often vomiting its contents at the worst moment! Every day, she stuffed it with cheese sandwiches (or tuna fish), a couple cans of lager, a copy of Nurse Prescribing, a few spare syringes, deodorant, air freshener, tampons, safety pins, cookies, chockies, ciggies, bickies, keys, her wallet, some socks in case she was cold, a piece of cardboard to use as a fan in case she was hot (more likely), and baby powder for her chafing thighs and the airless acres under her breasts (Jen smelled more like a BABY than she ever realised).
But it could have held much more!
Xmas Pudding
May and Marvin Eakins, so NICE, so normal, so comfortable with themselves and the way they DO things, so content and contained in their snug little bungalow next door to Dr Lewis’s surgery, with their bevelled glass mirrors, their gigantic WARDROBES, their silver brush-and-comb sets, their doilies, the telephone on its telephone TABLE, their childlessness, their bill-paying promptitude, and the two-person BURIAL PLOT mown weekly in advance.
SO pleased are they with all this, they are continually ASTOUNDED by OTHER people and the way they organise themselves! A lone woman eating a sandwich in the PARK earns their stares, since she’s eating ALONE and her COAT is dragging on the ground (also, they have no idea what KIND of sandwich she’s eating). A man walking by surprises them because his hair’s longer than Mr Eakins’s and he’s walking FAST – faster than either of the Eakinses has walked for DECADES. A JOGGER passes. His hair is SHORTER than Mr Eakins’s. They observe his steamy breath with consternation, barely able to comprehend what it IS or how it GOT there. It EMBARRASSES the Eakinses that this fellow is steaming up the park.
They’re particularly stunned by the way other people handle DEFECATION. The Eakinses sit on their respective toilets in public loos listening in DISMAY and ALARM to the bodily functions of others and wincing at the sight of alien pubic hairs or yellowish DRIPS on the seat. The horror, the HORROR! In fact, anything anybody does, be it WALKING, SITTING, EATING, SNEEZING, YAWNING, SLEEPING, KISSING, FARTING, PISSING, SHITTING, FUCKING, THINKING, BLINKING, or VOMITING (all the things people do in more or less THE SAME WAY), serves as a source of wonderment, worry and regret for the Eakinses, an excuse for staring OPEN-MOUTHED at the time and commenting upon later at home.
The Eakinses moved to the country to enjoy their OLD AGE, but it’s getting less and less enjoyable. Even popping down the road to the shops or the bank is a burden and a challenge. The TOTING of stuff. The body in old age is like a teenager who needs to MOVE OUT: it starts making TROUBLE until you’re glad to be rid of it. This is the process the Eakinses have embarked on.
May Eakins has always assumed that Marvin loves her a little more than she loves HIM. This, she feels, is the recipe for a HAPPY MARRIAGE. She has kept him on his TOES by always being a tad REMOTE – through this, and never wearing YELLOW, May has retained her mystery. But secretly she PRIDES herself on Marvin and has served him loyally. In the old days she threw many a party for Marvin and his cronies, who would become flirtatious on sherry and luncheon-meat. May turned down many men who might have loved her MORE. For MARVIN, she entirely missed out on the BUSH.
Instead, she darned his socks, ironed his newspapers, erected windbreaks on rainy beaches (while Marvin inspected tide pools), and regularly sent his suits out to be cleaned. For Marvin she’s shaved her armpits for FIFTY YEARS. She has also permitted carnalities, of a fairly muted order, and has paid for his Xmas presents from interest on her own SAVINGS.
In return, Marvin DOES love May a little more than May loves him! He is immensely concerned for May’s welfare and happiness and likes to PAMPER her, fetching a shawl or the PEANUTS, even if they’re closer to May. He’s interested in everything May has to SAY, and agrees with her whenever possible. He is ENTHRALLED by May, convinced of her good taste and intellect. If May wants chintz curtains, she GETS ’em. When she says it’s time for shepherd’s pie, he EATS it!
Linked lovingly in abstention from almost EVERYTHING, they have established a harmonious little life for themselves, their only worry: who will DIE first. The one who loves the most, or the one who IS loved? It doesn’t make much difference. You don’t give your WHOLE LIFE to someone without losing track of what you’d do on your OWN. For YEARS they have hidden in fear of this event, peering out, between the chintz and the chats, at peculiar characters, and the savage storm to come.
One morning, a CAR drove right across their carefully manicured front garden and hit the side of the Eakinses’ bungalow! The driver of the car died. The Eakinses were unhurt, but the police arrived and declared their house UNSAFE: the Eakinses had to be EVACUATED! The police offered to take them to hospital, but, fearing the chaos of the indiscriminately sick, the Eakinses said they would prefer to go next door to the GP’s surgery.
Arriving with a POLICE ESCORT at least ensured that the Eakinses got past FRANCINE. But she told them the doctor was OUT – they would have to go see the new NURSE. The Eakinses smiled gratefully and were led by Francine along the corridor (fifty-seven) to Jen’s grotty little office.
The Eakinses had so far been SPARED any encounter with Jen, and even though she wasn’t doing anything much, just sucking a lollipop and reading Jane Eyre with her feet up on the table, the mere sight of her (which unfortunately included a glimpse of KNICKERS beneath her white nursy hem) caused Mr Eakins to FAINT and Mrs Eakins to have a panic attack!
Francine and Jen had to carry them both into the consulting room and lay them on the couch (they were so SMALL they could both fit on, arsy-versy). Then Jen sat with them, trying to calm HER and revive HIM. The trouble was, every time MR Eakins woke up and got another look at Jen, he conked out again, flopping backwards against MRS Eakins, whose BREATHING difficulties then increased! This push-me-pull-you routine might have gone on FOR EVER, had not Dr Lewis returned at last and, upon examination, declared that Mr Eakins was essentially OK, but Mrs Eakins had had a STROKE, brought on by the shock of having a car drive into her house. (Only JEN knew that the shock was not the CAR CRASH but seeing JEN.)
Every Xmas of their lives together, the Eakinses had dutifully lit a Christmas pudding that oozed and flopped and fumed like Jen’s ASS. Stiffened and boiled in a PUDDING CLOTH, Jen’s rich dense brandy-soaked ASS seemed a mockery of DEATH, a CANNONBALL from the glorious colonial past, emblem of EMPIRE. On some level, May and Marvin Eakins had always believed that eating Christmas pudding was a PATRIOTIC ACT that might eventually SAVE them from death!
But those puddings were so ROTUND, so complex, so full of SUET, they were an OUTRAGE. Eating them was an act of SABOTAGE against the modern era and DECENCY itself! It was like spooning up Jen’s PUSSY into their innocent mouths, STUFFING themselves with malign and malodorous MISHAP. That pussy-footing pudding somehow contained their DOOM, their downfall (and no sixpence).
Football
Dr Lewis had an innocent love of football which had only led to a few fatalities so far. He had a TV in the consulting room. His patients were very impressed by Dr Lewis’s ability to prod their pimples and piles, and scribble out a more or less legible prescription, without taking his eyes off the game.
Today, Barcelona was playing against Paris St Germain for the final Cup in the final Cup Final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup Final FINAL, and Dr Lewis di
dn’t want to miss it! But MARTHA arrived, a new patient, who was suffering from CONTINUAL ORGASMS. Anything that VIBRATED set her off: riding on a bus, a bicycle, showers, loud DRUM beats and bass notes, hoovering, BEETHOVEN, even getting too close to an active WASHING MACHINE. Masturbation brought only temporary relief: Martha was EXHAUSTED. She was just an orgasm MACHINE, a SLAVE to the antics of her clitoris! This was Dr Lewis’s first case of involuntary orgasm syndrome. He decided to see her DAILY, for electrotherapy, hydrotherapy and massage. He just hadn’t decided who would massage WHOM yet! (Baboom-tttzzz!)
Now it really was time for the GAME. Dr Lewis shooed Martha out but as soon as he turned the damn TV on, he got an emergency call to attend an OBSTETRIC crisis some place miles away! Irritably collecting his coat, medical bag and NURSE, Dr Lewis stormed out of the surgery and drove TOP SPEED towards the CRISIS, crackly football coverage on FULL BLAST.
Jen didn’t know what was the MATTER with him, he seemed so preoccupied (she was unaware, as yet, of his devotion to football). He didn’t say a single word to her throughout the journey! But – at least she was finally in that JAG.
When they reached the remote cottage, they could hear SCREAMING. ‘Might need an ambulance,’ said Dr Lewis cheerfully, hoping he might be able to get back home for the game after all. But when they examined the woman, it was clear that there was no time to lose: it was a BREECH birth and the baby’s legs were already hanging out!
Jen organised the rubber gloves, sterile pads, local anaesthetic and scalpel, and Dr Lewis was just about to start the Caesarean when he paused, looking about as if he’d lost something.
‘Margaret,’ he said. FRIEDA didn’t respond. ‘Frieda, I mean. Where’s your TV?’
‘TV?’ mumbled Frieda, nearly delirious from the pain. She nodded towards the window. Dr Lewis quirked urgently at Jen, who went over to the window and, sure enough, there was a small TV set! Dr Lewis got her to drag it closer so that he could watch the game whilst operating.
He cut through several layers of Frieda’s skin, muscle, and her abdominal sac, and was about to TEAR her womb open with his bare hands (as was his custom) when a GOAL was scored by Paris, or Barcelona, or Brussels or Luxembourg or LUXOR – whichever team it was that Dr Lewis was rooting for. The knife slipped, and the baby’s cheek was cut. But Frieda was so pleased the kid was ALIVE, she made no comment on the knife wound! And Dr Lewis got to see his preferred team win the game, so all was well.
Jen stitched the baby’s cheek and tidied up a bit while they awaited the ambulance that would take Frieda and the baby to hospital to recuperate from their respective OPERATIONS. On the way back to the surgery, Dr Lewis seemed ELATED, whistling away to himself!
‘That kid’ll be right as rain,’ he told Jen, ‘as soon as he’s old enough to grow a beard.’
Jen, relieved that he was SPEAKING to her at all, didn’t bother reminding him the baby was a GIRL.
Catheterised Mares
Roger Lewis would never have designed things this way, he would never have put WOMEN in charge of reproduction! Women are the source of all misery! This was why he’d gone into MEDICINE. To control women and death: these were his humble aims. (He’d passed all his exams!)
Dr Lewis dreamt of a better world where the PENIS would be given preference (and its statistically rightful amount of GP TIME) over all the meaningless leakages of women, who seemed in constant need of being DRAINED. Dr Lewis dreamt of a better world in which liquids were only emitted AT WILL. He denied ABSOLUTELY that there was anything INTERESTING about being female, that MENSTRUATION for instance is INTERESTING. For Dr Lewis, if men don’t do it, it must be VILE.
And women make such a FUSS, every day a new fuss-wuss! He’d recently done a D & C on some goop who desperately wanted a baby (the D & C was supposed to help her conceive). Was it HIS fault the woman was pregnant ALREADY? OK, he forgot to do a pregnancy test before embarking on the procedure but, APART from that, was it Dr Lewis’s fault that there happened to be a thirteen-week foetus in there, which he’d then had to drag out piece by piece? It was an HONEST MISTAKE that ANYBODY could have made! (More bits came out by themselves over the next few days.)
He’d given another woman, AT HER REQUEST, an abortion in her own HOME – what could be more convenient? But she too was dissatisfied! Just because he’d wrapped the foetus in a TOWEL, which somehow ended up in the LAUNDRY pile – the scrawny corpse went through two hot washes and a SPIN before the woman found it. But what did that have to do with Dr Lewis? Busy man. Couldn’t be everywhere, TIDYING and whatnot.
Dr Lewis had a lucrative little sideline as a MEDICAL EXPERT on Mental Health panels, particularly in cases of frequent miscarriage. In Dr Lewis’s opinion, one miscarriage is normal, two suspicious, and three MEDICALLY IMPOSSIBLE and a clear sign of MUNCHAUSEN’S SYNDROME – the woman must have secretly obtained an abortion and claimed to have had a miscarriage in order to draw ATTENTION to herself (women are WEIRD). Dr Lewis had arbitrarily estimated the chances of a woman having three miscarriages in a row as one in TWENTY-THREE MILLION.
Everyone on the Mental Health panels was much TAKEN with this estimate (it had a nice ring to it), and many a miscarriage-prone missy had been unceremoniously slotted into a STRAITJACKET on Dr Lewis’s say-so. He was well-paid for his testimonies! (He was expecting an OM any moment!) The fact that twenty-three just happened to be his FAVOURITE NUMBER was something Dr Lewis chose to keep to himself.
But now one of the silly women he’d helped to diagnose was threatening to SUE! Not just for her lengthy hospitalisation (during which she’d been attacked repeatedly by PROLIFE inmates), but also for the two years she’d lost with her existing children and her husband, who was now SUICIDAL. She’d be suing Dr Lewis if her TOILET didn’t flush next! She’d even dared to cast doubt on the 23,000,000 thing. Women are such QUIBBLERS.
His heart now sank to see VIRGINIA hobbling into the consulting room: an American, with an American’s predilection for learned discussions of SYMPTOMS (she had even asked once for a thorough CHECK-UP, whatever that was). She had come to him months ago about the menopause. It hadn’t really STARTED yet, she was PERI-menopausal, but Dr Lewis had given her a huge supply of HRT anyway, and the requisite lecture on the redundancy of the human female after fifty.
‘In ancient times, Virginia, you’d be DEAD by now,’ he’d told her, quirking steadily. She’d gone off much reassured, no doubt. (He was ALWAYS talking about those ANCIENT TIMES! He loved to think about the human in the WILD, coping without a GP.)
But here she was, back again, complaining of fainting spells and a new pain in her left leg, which she claimed was PURPLE. On examination, Virginia’s assessment of the colour of her own leg proved CORRECT. She was also bleeding profusely (from the vagina, not the leg), and had CHEST PAINS. It was endless! She should have booked FOUR appointments. Worst of all, she had made up her own mind already about the diagnosis! How Dr Lewis hated self-diagnosis: it robbed him of all his FUN. Virginia, it seemed, had decided all her problems stemmed from the HRT she was taking. An absurd idea.
‘I’m not sure I even NEED hormone replacement yet. I think it’s making me really SICK, and isn’t it made by harvesting pee from permanently immobilised, catheterised mares? That is a lot of animal torture for something that isn’t even a DISEASE.’
JESUS, you give a woman a WONDER DRUG and all she can do is BEEF about it. ‘We use animals for many things,’ Dr Lewis began.
‘But the menopause is NATURAL. Why do I have to take medicine for it?’
Dr Lewis spent the next FIFTEEN MINUTES assuring Virginia that none of her symptoms could have been caused by HRT, all the time wondering how Francine would fob off his next patient. Finally, just to get Virginia OUT of there, he took a chance and felt her breasts for lumps and found one (caused by HRT!). What luck – this was a matter for SPECIALISTS. He informed Virginia gravely that he was referring her to the hospital for tests and she would probably require a mastectomy.
‘Not without a
second opinion,’ she declared, before starting to cry. Oh, TEARS, yes, Dr Lewis’s schedule had been ruined by many a woman’s tears.
‘What CAN you be crying for, Virginia? Most women readily accept the loss of a breast!’
More crying! Women get so ATTACHED to their bodies. He was SICK of it, the endless cavalcade of women who trooped to see him, each one trying to preserve her own little expendable frame. No BEAUTIES any of them!
‘Go home and talk to your husband about it, Virginia. I’m sure he’ll agree with me.’
Virginia gathered her clothes and rushed out of the room. Roger was at last able to relax. There WERE no other patients in the waiting room, as it turned out – he had panicked quite unnecessarily. So he got out a magazine on exotic travel destinations (Dr Lewis had big travel plans, so far entirely unfulfilled), and was soon contentedly fantasising.
Thus, everything NATURAL in women, Dr Lewis treats as sinister, unnatural, and disastrous; everything UNNATURAL (like drugs, or premature DEATH), he treats as NATURAL. It’s a system!
HE HAS ALWAYS DONE THIS. He has always bored, manipulated, deprived and abused women! He has no RESPECT for them, even his own DAUGHTER, whom he drives MAD with guilt and worry. She worries about HIM, how ALONE he is, how defeated, how pathetic, how hard he works, how hard-done-by he is, how the WHOLE WORLD OWES HIM A LIVING, how everyone he’s ever known has either PEGGED OUT or let him down some other way. He complains to her about his FINANCIAL difficulties until she’s ready to go on the GAME to help him (and she’s only twelve).
His long lectures! But he CHOSE to live like this! He CHOSE his sordid existence. He has recklessly thrown away his chances in life, his middle-class upbringing, his stable-enough childhood. (He never passed those EXAMS: he was taking too much PETHIDINE at the time.) He has CHOSEN his ruthless medical activities. He CHOOSES never to put out the trash. He CHOOSES to live in squalor in his attic eyrie with the toilet tipping over (he calls it the Leaning Tower of Pisser), he CHOOSES to live in a highly flammable maze of clothes, newspapers, patients’ notes, videos and paint pots. He chose his EXISTENCE. He has ARRANGED for the stink that pervades, that precludes inviting anyone over. The place is UNINHABITABLE, and in it he broods on his ill-luck. His mother didn’t like him much, his father was aloof. Yeah, yeah. But THIS is the man the neglected boy INVENTED, this is the guy he was willing at some point to BECOME: a sad-sack USER OF WOMEN.1