There is very little in the way of conversation at home. Uncle Jack sometimes appears in the hall to ask someone where he is, what he is doing here, or what time of the year it is. The rest of us communicate so rarely we are rapidly losing the power of speech. Occasionally someone might attempt a comment at mealtimes, then forget the word for something, a crucial noun usually, and we all sit there waiting for it, as if we’re taking part in a séance. If my mother or my sister is present, exchanges take the form of a parlour game in which players take it in turns to compose simple sentences containing the word ‘nice’.
But twice a year or so my mother’s friend John, a retired doctor, comes to stay for a week. Dr Lovepants we used to call him. John’s second most salient feature is his tremendous eloquence. He’s talking as he walks through the door with his suitcase and he doesn’t stop talking until he gets in his car at the end of his stay and drives away again, and the house subsides into silence until his next visit.
You’d think he’d just escaped from a Trappist monastery. It’s non-stop. He buttonholes you and you can’t get a word in edgeways. You watch for a gap in the monologue to excuse yourself and there isn’t one for half an hour. If you walk away he follows you, still talking. After a day or two we all hide.
On the plus side, though, it’s very handy having a retired doctor around the place for an informal consultation when you need one. I told him I was feeling a bit depressed. He described for me in minute detail the chemical composition of my central nervous system.
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