Filling a role

Ann has gone to Cambridge with Mary-Ann and the girls, on a shopping spree. Thus left, I continue with writing my new short story, and get my own lunch. This invariably comprises gorgeous Italian plum tomatoes on toast – a simple, tasty and nourishing meal that I take with unhealthy salt and lashings of butter melting into the toast. If Cameron and George Osborne had threated a shortage of Italian tomatoes as part of their scare tactics to frighten us into Brexit, it might have had some effect. As it is, though tempted to stockpile by buying a dozen tins at a time, I will ride out the storm. Let them do their worst: I am sure Italian tomato farmers will be only too pleased to reopen their trade links to a country where their produce is truly appreciated.

On a scale of one to ten, my acting ability is close to zero. I cannot remember lines or act in character of dialect, and to see me tread the boards would be the dread of any audience. Yet somehow, placed in any situation, I have a wretched tendency to assume the role of the moment. In Yorkshire, Scotland or Ireland, I lapse into a pseudo patois as though a native striving to sound false. In business, I wore an ancient suit that might have served some local councillor on a bad day. As a sailor, I loved to strut the decks in my nautical cap, issuing orders with the nautical language I was keen to master. As a manager, I issued instructions without consultation or any real expectation that they would be followed, and as a country doctor, I wore tweed jackets and pretended to a knowledge and certainty I could never possess.

Now I am officially a cancer victim and doing little paid work, I see myself lapsing into the role of retiree: shuffling about, lying under a blanket in my chair, drinking hot milk and going to bed early as though willing myself to be a caricature of an old man. At least I am aware of this failing; now I must resolve to do something about it, to pull myself back from this brink and take on some new challenge. I will keep my eager readers abreast of how this turns out, but in the end only they, as external observers, can really comment on my progress or decline. I have made a start to be both more energetic and more creative. I have cut the lawn (a small lawn but requiring vast reserves of energy on my part), and I have started a new short story. All my stories, and many of my poems, came in dreams, and for this one too I woke in the night at about 2 a.m. with the story complete in my head, and immediately went to the computer to capture it. I know from experience that, left till morning, it would fade and be forgotten.