Along a lonely corridor, I stumbled into Queen Elizabeth II. Her white gloved hand was on the handle of a small door. When I started to engage in conversation with her majesty, she interrupted me quickly to say that she really didn’t have time to chat. It was only then that I realised that we were standing outside a lavatory. I left her to it.
Later I related my royal encounter to my friends.
‘That must have been Princess Anne’, one remarked. “Remember, Queen Elizabeth is dead’.
The cost of a hospital discharge was a lasagne. I had mine ready to hand over when I left with KH, who had volunteered to pick me up.
I’d almost finished packing. I just needed to work out how to stuff all the bowls of fruit into my suitcase.
In the meantime, I took my last shower in the communal mixed sex/age bathroom alongside a bald woman and a very pale teenage boy who looked like he was dying of cancer.
KH also showered – in a cubicle all of his own, fully dressed.
Our dinner guests had left, and I was about to turn in for the night when the doorbell rang. Into the flat piled a horde of old ECM friends, desperate to party. TPR had invited them over just a few minutes earlier.
Goodness knows how those with children had managed to find babysitters at such short notice, but DTJ asked to borrow a razor so that she could shave her armpits. She wanted to look her best on the kitchen dance floor.
When I arrived at the gym, MM was waiting for me – not because I was the last member to arrive for a class, but so that he could take me aside for a personal matter. He wrapped his left arm round my middle and led me from the studio to a private ‘trainers-only’ room. Here MM took out a ruler and started to measure my fingers.
‘I noticed last week that you have tiny hands’, he explained. ‘I think that this may be the reason why you are useless at lifting weights’.
Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I could see my mother in an adjoining room. She was running about in a tightly fitted burgundy dress, with half the decorative gold buttons on the bodice popped open. When I asked what she was doing at a gym, she gestured at the boardroom table behind her and replied that she was looking at furniture.
My deceased father and I chatted at the garden table as the sun was setting. My anxiety about our meeting increased as darkness fell. Soon we’d need to retreat inside. How could I keep him away from my mother?
He made straight for the bathroom when we headed indoors, barging in on my mother who was sitting on the lavatory. To my relief, she didn’t flinch. I realised then that only I could see my father’s ghost. He ignored his widow, climbed into the shower tray, lay down, and took a ‘bath’ under the main shower head.
Later TPR admitted that he had been playing mind games with me. He had invented unnecessary domestic tasks that I had to complete, and lied about the number of eggs that he used to make my lunch. I suspected that he was also behind the sudden appearance of my father’s ghost.
Boris Johnson and I joined forces to organise Nelson Mandela’s birthday party. As we prepared the celebration, I learnt that Mr Johnson had never ridden a horse.
I had my doubts when my parents told me that they had recruited the Lenushkas as their new household staff.
My fears were confirmed one Tuesday afternoon. When Mr Lenushka picked up my call, he gave the impression that he was answering his own telephone – and in the background I could hear Mrs Lenushka hissing suspiciously.
Whatever had they done with my parents?
‘I’ll never get used to this’, I thought, as I inserted the British three pin plug into the slot in my forehead.
Everyone raved about the effect, but it did nothing for me.
So far the outdoor picnic party I had organised for my colleagues at Stonehenge was going swimmingly. Everyone was seated around stone tables, enjoying their food and drinking wine.
The same could not be said for me, however. I was still waiting on my first course (clam soup) while everyone else was on to puddings. I suspected foul play and carefully looked at my colleagues’ faces to see who might have bribed the wait staff to starve me. Having made several gentle reminders, a waiter slammed a can of Campbell’s Clam Soup in front of me. It had been half opened leaving a dangerously ragged metal lid perfect for slicing my fingers open.
The bad news was that I forgot to print out KT’s promised boarding pass. The police arrested her for 30 minutes for wandering the airport without the required paperwork. I served as her legal representative when I accompanied her for questioning.
The good news was that the band members of The Cure had missed a flight connection so were forced to wait with KT while new paperwork was generated for their changed travel arrangements. I unashamedly requested a hug from each of them.
KT’s plight and our encounter with The Cure meant that I forgot to check in for the flight myself. The rest of the passengers were appalled. Due to my idiotic mistake our journey was delayed even further.
Dreamaticus 