I'd had a cold, a perfectly ordinary one, from which I was swiftly recovering when Elsje, my daughter, fell ill. It was agreed that I would babysit her the following day and I duly turned up at my former home at 7.15 in the morning. For some reason (alcohol, for once, was not involved), I was feeling terrible and I warned my wife that there was a possibility I'd have to call her and ask her to relieve me. As an aside, I realise that any woman reading this will be feeling sympathy that, measured in degrees Centigrade, would make sudden immersion in liquid helium feel positively Caribbean but, hey ho, there it is.
Anyway, I was lying on the sofa, feeling even sorrier for myself than usual. Elsje was...extraordinary. She immediately recognised that an emergency was in progress and that Milly was the solution. Milly is a hot pink, fluffy cat and Elsje's absolutely inseparable friend. Milly spent about an hour stroking me and muttering (through the mouthpiece of her mistress) 'don't worry, daddy, we'll make you better'.
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| Milly, the sainted cat |
Lying there on the sofa, with Elsje and Milly in my arms, I wished I could preserve the moment in aspic. And then, quite suddenly, I became aware of a stabbing pain in the top, right hand side of my chest. I started to sweat and my teeth began to chatter uncontrollably. Flu, I thought, shit, my defences are down and now I've got flu. Then I started to feel worse. The sweat became menopausal and the pain in my chest seemed to clench. I noticed that my breathing was shallow. Fuck, I thought, I'm having a heart attack and I'm going to die in my five-year old daughter's arms.
I retreated to bed. Elsje and Milly followed me. What would you have done? I called my wife, asked her to come home and described my symptoms. Call 999, she said. I demurred. If you don't, I will, she said. I called 999 (conversations with Corinne tend to go this way - no offense intended). Now, extreme hypochondriac that I am, I have never in my life previously dialled 999, except once from outside a pub in Chalk Farm and that was an accident, honestly (alcohol was, on that occasion, involved).
Within a minute I was following the instructions from the ultra-calm voice on the end of the phone, scrabbling through drawers looking for aspirin and absolutely convinced I was about to die. I told Elsje, as calmly as I could (blubbing like a baby) that, if daddy went to sleep, she should help herself to a drink from the fridge and wait for mummy, who was on her way. I also tried to tell her how much I love her and, oddly enough, I think she understood. When the ambulance arrived, Elsje (I worship the ground upon which she walks) went downstairs, introduced herself to the ambulance crew and showed them upstairs to the sepulchre where I was by now resignedly awaiting death.
The ambulance crew looked at me and then at one another. 'Bit of a chest infection then?', said one of them. I was hooked up to an ECG, Elsje watching, fascinated and my ticker was diagnosed as being in perfect and unreasonable good health. I'm sure that we have all had the experience of feeling like a prat but I sincerely doubt whether many of you have felt as immersed in pratishness as I did then.
Corinne came home, confirmed with the ambulance crew that no, they were not cross about being summoned to deal with a severe case of man flu and drove me to the doctor. To my great relief, he said that I looked very sick and prescribed an antibiotic, which seems to have done the trick.
There are two saints in this story, or maybe three, and one fool. The primary saint is Elsje, who came as close that day as anyone is ever likely to, to restoring my faith in humanity. Milly, her accomplice, deserves an honourable mention. The second saint is my wife, who looked after me for the next two days, despite the fact that she was suffering from a chest infection at least as bad as mine. I will leave it to you to identify the fool.
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