THE AMSTERDAM ORGY PART TWO

Nothing much to report since last time. Stuck in the interminable hell of hospital. A mixture of boredom and trauma. Many fruitful and fruitless discussions with Isabella about whether I should stay here and make use of the good physiotherapy and get as strong and well as I can,

ON SCRATCHING

The elegant Lady G visits me most mornings with a cappuccino and cheerful gossip. She is an acquaintance of Isabella and a distinguished research doctor at this clinic, where she works in a lab. She is another new friend who is generous and kind, and someone I would never have met otherwise.

DOWN
 
I am waiting for my hypnotist to call. He’s been recommended by a friend; I have worked with him before, years ago when I had a writers’ block. It did actually work insofar as I was able to continue as a writer, fortunately or unfortunately for the public. Let’s hope he has magical healing powers this time.

ADVENTURES IN FATHERLAND

There has barely been a minute of the last ten years that I haven’t enjoyed being with my three sons, Sachin, Carlo and Kier. But I have to admit that the early days were difficult, if not nasty and even hair-raising at times. I am sure there isn’t a parent in the world who wouldn’t admit this. Freud refers to these strong alternating currents as ambivalence, which does not mean mixed feelings, but absolute hating and absolute loving, often at the same time.

A CRICKET BALL
 
Last night was a bad one. A bit of a standoff at one-thirty in the morning with a nurse. I wanted more sleeping pills and he insisted I had had enough already. Of course I have my own stash here in Rome, but I do not have access to it. And if I started mixing this stuff, I guess I could go up like kerosene. The nurse suggested I should lie still with my eyes closed. It sounded like good advice.

YOU CAN’T GO HOME
 
It’s not unpleasant here. The doctors, nurses and all the workers are kind. Almost all of them look you in the eye and at least smile. They know that they have to relate to each patient. They aren’t afraid of touching the most abhorrent, aged or broken body. But what still makes me despair is the idea that I can’t walk up the front path of my house, open the door, and step back into my old life – lie down on my sofa, with a glass of wine and the Premier League. It seems unbelievably cruel that I cannot do such a simple thing.

HE DO THE POLICE IN DIFFERENT VOICES

As a young man, I loved to look at photographs of writers I admired; Henry Miller, Raymond Chandler, Jean Rhys, Dashiell Hammett, Anais Nin, and Simone de Beauvoir. But my hero in literary terms, and sartorially, was Graham Greene.

Super-Painted Toenails

Being a tetraplegic isn’t all bad. As I write this, I am having a pedicure while eating caviar with a plastic spoon. My girlfriend is tickling me under the chin. I have just proposed to her. ‘Barkis is willin’’. While she pretends to contemplate the question - to my surprise, and that of most of my friends, who consider me to be less than a good catch, in fact a bad catch, and had advised me against proposing while I am in this condition – she eventually says yes, of course, and laughs.

ON CUNNILINGUS, ENVY, AND OTHER MATTERS

As my more discerning readers will already have noticed, I am - after the incident involving the fish - now more intimate with the Heimlich manoeuvre than I am with cunnilingus. It doesn’t follow that just because one is severely injured, one doesn’t think about sex. Indeed one might think about sex more.

LIFE IS NOT BEAUTIFUL

Yesterday, as you might have heard from my son Carlo, was a bit of a catastrophe because we wrote the blog and then we lost the blog. I am sure all of you have had this experience. But it is tiring doing this work and when we lost it there were tears and recriminations. I accused Isabella of going the full Bette Davis.

LA DOLCE BOREDOM

Yesterday, before lunch, I was elevated from my bed and slid into my wheelchair. My two new best friends, Miss S, the woman with the shiny blue-green hair, and the Maestro, the film producer and director, gathered at door of my room for a trip out.

AN ORGY IN AMSTERDAM

I was happily watching Better Call Saul when the iPad stopped working. The screen went black and a legend appeared, asking; ‘Are you still there?”. Now, that is an interesting question.

The Human Flies

Someone must have listened to my complaints because the doctors upped my sleeping dosage. I slept until four am. My new roommate talked throughout the night in his sleep, of course in Italian. I can’t say he bothered me. You can get used to anything.

Sleepless night. Not a moment’s rest. Racing mind. I wake up with an elevated temperature and fear of an infection. Blood in the urine. A new catheter and a massive pain in the genitals. An anaesthetic in the penis. A visit to the laryngologist after the incident with the fish and the Heimlich manoeuvre. Tubes up the nose and down the throat and a sore arse.

How Easy it is to Nearly Die.

I wake at four in the morning knowing I will be moving today. I wonder what the place will be like. At five my favourite doctor arrives and we begin our morning chat. We discuss my legs, Giorgia Meloni, the up-bringing of teenagers and the pleasure of when your children become your friends.

In late middle age, lost in a dark forest, no direction home… This day has been one of the better ones. My son Sachin is here visiting me. Last night, Isabella set up a film for me on my iPad before she left.

Rome

A Shattering. At last, not such a bad night. Asleep at nine and excluding a few interruptions, I was unconscious until five. The previous evening I had asked for more sleeping aids but was told they had run out. Perhaps I had already consumed the hospital’s supply. But last night was better.

The Door Opens

Another shitty night. One of the worst. I went to sleep at eight o’clock after taking my medication and by one o’clock I was wide awake. Not only that, my head had become jammed down the side of the bed. I can’t move my arms nor legs and no one could hear me. It seemed like a good opportunity for some contemplation.

What could I think about?

This Morning I Looked Out the Window.

Since I became a vegetable I have never been so busy. Last night at around nine I watched a few minutes of Glass Onion, which I enjoyed. Then I lost connection and everything went dark. I fell asleep and woke at one and was conscious for the rest of the night. I had many ideas but since I can’t use my hands and make notes, I have to shout them at my poor son Carlo who is trying to get some sleep.

I sat up today.

I sat up today. Four physiotherapists came to my room. They started to move me with the determination of putting my feet flat on the floor. They turned me, and for a moment I sat on the bed staring ahead of me. I have to say, I felt proud and amazed and incredibly dizzy.

Day 3 report
8 January 2023
Dead Fingers Talking, Talking
When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is make my coffee and go upstairs to my desk which overlooks the street. Around the edge of the desk I have hundreds of fountains pens, pencils, markers, I also have dozen of bottles of ink, in numerous colours, from the ludicrous to the sober.