Low life | 31 January 2019

‘The whole of my life I’ve had difficulty.’ I heard Sylvia say this through the door, which was slightly ajar. ‘Sometimes it’s absolute torture.’ I knocked and entered my mother’s small sitting room unctuously, bearing a tray on which were two gold-rimmed Royal Worcester cups and saucers, the cups filled with steaming, freshly poured Yorkshire tea. On a reclining armchair, with her legs stuck out, and she herself thickly covered in a colourful variety of thin and thick blankets, my mother was listening to the monologue, or perhaps soliloquy, being delivered by the woman in the reclining chair opposite, also with her legs stuck out. My mother was keeling hard over to port, perhaps under the weight of the blankets, and although she looked close to death again, she was politely trying to look keenly interested in what her visitor was banging on about.

‘Last week, gosh, it was so bad I went to see Dr Popinjay about it and he referred me to the constipation clinic.