Something Like Happy by John Burnside

Author:John Burnside [Burnside, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House
Published: 2013-01-02T23:00:00+00:00

THE DEER LARDER

THE FIRST EMAIL arrived on a Thursday evening, around nine o’clock. I remember it quite clearly, because I had spent the day at the hospital, going from one department to the next, having various tests and X-rays done before ending up back in rheumatology, being examined by my usual doctor and a very tall, rather pretty student who hadn’t quite mastered the necessary air of professional detachment. The consultant was detached enough for them both, though. As usual. Which is not to say that she was lacking in any way – quite the contrary, in fact. No: as always, Elizabeth Marsh – my beautiful, shrewd, faintly glamorous doctor – displayed the reassuring mix of good humour, consideration and mild irony that made me thankful I had been assigned to a female specialist rather than a man. If there is one thing that I cannot abide, it’s the seriousness of male professionals.

Still, St Hubert’s was a teaching hospital so, with the best will in the world, it was hard not to feel like the Elephant Man as she pointed out the various interesting features of my disease: the localised but fairly extreme psoriasis, the odd little pools of inflammation on the scan, the visibly damaged areas revealed by the X-rays, while the younger woman – whose dark hair and very blue eyes reminded me, each time our eyes met, of a girlfriend I’d had twenty years before – tried to seem unperturbed. Of course, I knew things had worsened since my last appointment, but I had tried not to think about it too much. Some of the pain was new, but I’m a fairly old hand at this by now and I’ve been preparing myself for this slow fall into creaky middle age since my first bout of iritis back in the early 90s. I do my bit to keep the whole process civilised: I take an interest, I make light, I use the kind of language doctors like – which is to say, accurate and undramatic, the language of a detached observer, descriptive, neutral and, most important of all, entirely innocent of any pretence to clinical knowledge. Privately, I am fascinated by the way it all works – the body, the disease, the cause and effect, the observable phenomena, the management of pain and expectations. Still, I’m always glad to get back home and be alone again – and that night was no different. Few pleasures equal the relief that comes from locking the front door behind me, turning on the desk lamp and settling down to work. The relief, and the simple happiness.

The email arrived just as I was taking my first break. My routine is pretty consistent: I do a few pages – I write commercial film scripts, mostly for training and PR companies – then I get a pot of coffee going and check my emails. That night, it was the only item in my inbox, which was odd, because there are usually masses of minor tasks and requests to deal with.

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