No! I Don’t Need Reading Glasses! (9 page)

‘No, they are small and brown,' she said. ‘They are German cockroaches.'

Good God! Checking with my neighbours on the other side I discovered that they had German ones, too. Small and brown! Mine, for God's sake, are not only black but they're the size of Shetland ponies. Hardly dare tell Michelle.

A man with a mask and a spray came round today and asked me to leave the house for two hours after he'd finished treating the place.

He told me that cockroaches are distantly related to lobsters. They lay hundreds of eggs at a time, and scream when you tread on them. Apparently they are the only creatures to survive a nuclear explosion. In the States, he told me, they used to get rid of them by laying down ‘Roach motels' – little cardboard traps which feature a drawing of a cheeky cockroach in a top hat and holding a cigar with a
speech bubble saying ‘Roaches check in – but they don't check out!'

He charged me so much money that I realised I'd
definitely
have to sell the Caulfield if I wanted a facelift. But at least my house is now clear of vermin. Feel so ashamed of actually trying to preserve the beasts.

I've been ringing Archie every other day just to see if he's okay – I daren't ring Sylvie again – and during one conversation he admitted that Sylvie had suggested he see a doctor, but he'd refused.

‘There's nothing wrong with me at all, after all. Don't want to waste his time.'

Oh dear. Well, at least she tried.

And notice the way he said ‘his'. Not just me, then.

When I suggested coming down he said that Philippa had asked several friends over so there might not be room. I didn't want to point out yet again that Philippa had been dead for years, so I said nothing. I think I'll just have to ring
every
day from now on, to make sure he hasn't fallen over or anything.

I worry so much about him. The worrying space in my mind, from having been rather small, has now expanded to fill my entire brain. The moment I stop worrying about Archie, I'm worrying about the family going. The moment I stop worrying about them, there are the plans for the hotel
… the cockroaches … my neighbour leaving … whether to have a facelift or not …

Talking of which, I phoned Marion because I know that even though she disapproves of plastic surgery, she's got a friend who's had it, and it was done brilliantly. I wanted the name of whoever had operated on her.

She was appalled when I told her of my plans. ‘But you'll look all horrible and I won't recognise you!' she said. ‘You'll be completely expressionless and you won't look like my friend any more! I won't know if you're laughing or if your face is contorted into a rictus of hate.' (The way I looked on opening your beastly goaty present, I thought sourly to myself.) ‘There's nothing wrong with the way you look! You look lovely!
Don't do it!
'

She even quoted a Joyce Grenfell poem at me: ‘At dancing I am no star/Others are better by far/My face I don't mind it/For I am behind it/It's the ones in the front get the jar.'

I said that unlike
some
, I didn't want the ones in front to get the jar. Funny how it's all my girlfriends who are against the facelift, and the heterosexual men feel they have to say they think it's a terrible idea just to show they're only interested in the inner rather than the outer you. Most heterosexual men are fantastically squeamish about visiting the doctor, anyway, even for some cough lozenges, let alone going in for an operation voluntarily. The only ones who agree that it's a good idea are the gay friends, like James.

I finally got Marion off the phone after she'd finished
berating me for leaving
Bitter Quinces, Poisoned Souls
too early, saying that we'd missed the very best bit, and that after the fingers being chopped off bit and the car park bit it was absolutely brilliant and incredibly moving, and why was I so impatient, and I'd said because my time was running out, and she said what was wrong with me, taking such a gloomy view, and me saying that she was in denial, and that knowing you weren't going to live for ever made life actually so much more interesting and vital. Anyway, after all this, she finally gave me the phone numbers of a couple of friends who'd had cosmetic surgery, and I rang them.

Each one recommended a different surgeon so I decided to make an appointment to consult both of them and see what happens.

I must say I am getting extremely nervous about the idea all of a sudden. And it does seem like so much money to squander on what's basically a vanity project. I mean, I could be giving all the money to starving orphans or donating goats to friends I don't like. I feel such a selfish creep.

But then I think it would do me good. I mean, I've always minded about how I look. I never go out without full makeup, I get my hair coloured and cut regularly, never wear laddered tights, and if someone points to a stain on my skirt I feel like committing hara-kiri.

Have just got the two Pitchforths down from the walls, and the Patrick Caulfield. The Caulfield is a small oil, with no glass on, but the Pitchforths were all sealed up with mounts, so I thought that before I took them to Christie's to get them valued and then, hopefully, put into an auction, I'd unpick the backs just to check there were no secret maps behind them. Even at my age I still harbour the touching hope that behind every picture I will find some amazing piece of parchment, with a note written in blood which reads, ‘For the treasure, go to the church. Turn left outside the iron door, go North five paces, then East two paces, dig deep and you will find jewels beyond compare!' I must have these fantasies from reading all those
Famous Five
adventure stories when I was small. Of course I've never found anything like that, but I live in hope.

Putting the framed pictures on the kitchen table, I removed the tape behind, pulled out the panel pins with pliers and then removed the pictures themselves. Luckily I'd hung them in a shady bit of the room so they weren't faded by the sun, but I could see the glass needed cleaning, even on the inside. And what I found at the back! It was like a wild-life park. Dead flies, discarded chrysalises, endangered species, tiny squashed beetles and even a leaf. It's amazing what collects behind pictures. No treasure map, sadly. But I still had great satisfaction putting them back
together, having cleaned everything up, and it was a relief to find that both pictures were actually signed, though the signatures were hidden under the mounts. So there won't be any argument about provenance, thank goodness.

Daily Rant
: ‘MORE RATS THAN PEOPLE IN LONDON!
Scientists predict plague!
'

Very sad phone message from Archie, who said, ‘Come and see me soon! I so long to see you, darling. I sat under “our tree” the other day, and thought of you. Loads of love.'

The fact is that I ring every day now, and constantly offer to come down, but he always makes some excuse. ‘Our tree' … oh dear …

Well, I've done it! I've been to see the first cosmetic surgeon. He was called Mr Mantovani and he hangs out in Wimpole Street, next door to Harley Street, home of super-expensive doctors. (The very grandest surgeons are always called Mr rather than Dr apparently.) His reception room was one of those places with giant furniture of the kind you see in
Jack and the Beanstalk
pantomimes. You sit on a chair and your
legs don't reach the ground. That sort of thing. Opposite me in the ballroom of a waiting room was a battered-looking woman in a fur coat, dark glasses and swathes of expensive scarves up to her chin. There appeared to be tiny little bottles of what looked like blood suspended on tubes hanging from her ears.

Not a good look.

I wondered what on earth I thought I was doing. Did I really want a facelift?

From the moment he welcomed me into his office, I realised that Mr Mantovani was a slimy old thing. His face was such an orange colour it looked as if it had been smoked, and his skin was tightly pulled back to his ears, giving him a sinister, ageless look. I immediately thought: I don't want to go to the guy who gave
him
a facelift. Or had he done it himself? Surely not. He had silver wings of hair at his temples, a very well-cut suit and a bright-yellow silk bow tie. (Why is it that all private doctors, particularly surgeons, are not only uniformly tall but also sport ridiculous bow ties? Some I've consulted even have red silk linings in their carefully tailored suits. Is it that they want to show how much money they're making, by these displays of ostentation? Or is it because they all harbour ambitions to play a clown in a circus? Actually, now I come to think of it, it's probably because if they were performing surgery, their conventional neckties would be dangling down into the blood and liver and kidneys and what-not. Not very reassuring. But then the idea of being operated on by a man in a hilarious bowtie
who looks like Coco the Clown isn't exactly comforting either.)

Mr Mantovani showed me to a huge chair and then sat down behind an enormous desk. Perhaps this ludicrous furniture is installed to make the patients feel even smaller than they do already. His desk was crowded with executive toys and lumps of crystal – presents, presumably, from grateful patients.

‘What can I do for you, Marie?' he asked, cautiously. I think the first thing he'd noticed was the fact that I didn't look rich. (I certainly didn't have a red silk lining in my rather threadbare jacket.) Unfortunately there was no operation that would fix that.

‘I was thinking of having something done to my eyes, Mr Mantovani,' I said, hoping my formality would stop him referring to me as Marie. I mentioned my eyes, because suddenly I thought that might be a bit cheaper than a facelift. Within seconds Mantovani was out of his chair and sitting on a stool opposite me, measuring bits and pieces with strange metal instruments, rather like the ones we used at art school when we were doing intricate designs.

After a few minutes of poking and measuring, he said: ‘I can understand why the eyes need attention. But I think we should consider a full facelift. Then we could have the neck lifted, too … we don't want to look beautiful and young – or rather even
more
beautiful and young – with this …' and here he pinched at the loose skin on my neck. ‘And it would be possible, at the same time, to do breast reduction. It's worth a thought …'

‘There's nothing wrong with my breasts,' I said defensively.

‘Not at all!' he said hastily. ‘I just thought that if they were a bit uncomfortable … No – you have a very good figure for a woman of your age, if I may say so.'

And, at the mention of figures, I remembered to ask about the price. ‘How much would this cost?' I asked.

Turned out he was thinking of charging me £8,000 for the full works. I said I'd think about it and hurried away. Then I realised that just to consult him cost £200. Golly. Not too sure about this after all. I'll see what the other one says.

Gene came to stay. We had a great time, and did some leaf prints and made a flick-book, and baked some bread with currants in. Then I remembered I'd got an old lead soldier kit of Jack's and we had a very fun and dangerous time out in the garden with a pan full of boiling lead on top of a campinggas stove, and produced twenty toxic little guardsmen.

He went to bed at eight. He sleeps on a camp bed in the room where I work. It's all a bit cramped, but he likes it, and he doesn't mind being surrounded by canvases and piles of books about Donatello and jars full of old paintbrushes – and there's still the reassuring smell of turps about it, which Gene describes as the ‘Granny smell'. Just as he was getting into bed, he knocked one of the jars onto the floor and it broke.

He looked appalled. ‘I'm sorry, Granny,' he said, very quietly. ‘I didn't mean it!'

‘I know you didn't, darling,' I said, picking up the pieces. ‘I put the jar in a stupid place. Silly old Granny. It doesn't matter a bit. Let's put the rug over all the bits now so you don't step on them, and I'll hoover them up in the morning.'

He looked very serious as he got into bed.

‘I know why you don't get cross, Granny,' he said, solemnly.

‘Why?' I asked.

‘It's because you're very, very old,' he said.

I read him a story, and then he turned over and closed his eyes.

I sleep next door – or try to – but when he's staying I always find it difficult to drop off. I suppose I'm nervous he'll have some frightful accident in the night and I won't hear him.

Anyway, I was still wide awake at 2 a.m. I kept worrying about those blasted cockroaches. Cautiously putting on my slippers in case I stepped on one, I tiptoed downstairs, turned on the light in the kitchen and scanned the floor. Nothing there. I poured some milk into a mug, added some Horlicks and put it in the microwave. That would help me sleep. Just as I was about to leave the kitchen, I started. There was a sinister black shape on the floor. I was sure it was a cockroach. My heart pounding, I approached it as if it were an unexploded landmine.

On closer inspection it turned out to be two enormous currants stuck together, remnants from this morning's bread-making.

Just as I was getting back off to sleep, at about six in the morning, there was a pad pad pad on the landing between our rooms, and in came Gene in his aeroplane pyjamas, clutching a very disgruntled and uncooperative Pouncer, full of beans and raring to go.

‘Can we make toffee now, Granny?' he said. ‘You did promise!'

Oh dear. How I shall miss him!

Leafing through the
Daily Rant
this morning, I came across a story which read, ‘Money really does grow on trees!' about how a man had buried a ten-pound note in his garden which had sprouted into a bush with tenners as leaves.