LITMIR.BIZ

       eleven: three words

      friday 21 november / 9.52 a.m.

      Like A&E last night, Outpatients is quiet.

      As a morgue.

      But, hey, maybe they’ve cured everyone; the London Borough of Waltham Forest is now a tumour-free zone…Oh yeah, and it’s twinned with Never Land.

      Actually, given that this is my first ever trip to a hospital where the news could be truly dire (as opposed to being dire only in my paranoid fantasies), I’m coping pretty well with my nerves. Keeping a lid on things.

      I look at the only other patient. He’s a ginger nut, about my age. Needless to say he isn’t wearing a mid-grey suit. He’s in faded black jeans and a red and white Arsenal shirt that clashes disastrously with his hair.

       Should have worn the away strip, matey.

      Even so, he isn’t wearing a mid-grey suit. Lived-in jeans and favourite team shirt seem suitable wear in which to receive possibly life’s final piece of significant news. Not a suit in which your own mother would have trouble picking you out in a crowd.

      But as I said, I feel pretty good. I’m not expecting the worst. As the pixie doctor assured me, testicular cancer isn’t that common, and far be it for me to do anything uncommon. Being the original Mr Average, departing from the norm isn’t my thing and I’m wearing the mid-grey suit to prove it. Last night’s panic attack was silly, irrational, and totally induced by (other people’s) drunkenness.

      Ginger nut isn’t alone. A woman is with him, her arm linked comfortingly through his. She turns to him and says, ‘Fancy some tea, Mark?’ He nods and they get up. I watch them amble off hand in hand. Love’s young-ish dream. I wish someone had come with me. (Purely for company—I am so not worried.)

      Obviously not Megan. Not now.

      I almost returned her call before I left, but I chickened out. What was I going to say? Let me get this straight, Meg. A man who looks exactly like me was seen in your road trying to punch in the window of your boyfriend’s car? That is incredible! But what a sick bastard—going round impersonating women’s exes. Some sort of weirdo vigilante for jilted blokes. Have you ever heard of such a thing?

      Somehow I didn’t see that convincing her, a lawyer.

      ‘Mr Collins?’

      I don’t even bother to correct the receptionist this time.

      ‘Doctor Morrissey is ready for you. It’s the third door on the left.’

      Her tone is far more sympathetic than the last time I was here. Does she know something?

       Don’t be daft—hospitals, paranoia and all that.

      I walk down the corridor and tap quietly on the door.

      ‘Come in,’ Morrissey’s voice calls out. I ease the door open and step inside. The elfin one isn’t alone. A nervous grey-haired man is sitting beside her. He’s wearing half-moon glasses and he peers over them at me with moist, kindly eyes.

      Wait half a bloody mo—…I’ve seen that look before. Vets in Practice—they save it especially for dogs that they’re about to dispatch to doggy heav—

      For Christ’s sake CUT IT OUT. Remember: HOSPITAL plus MURRAY COLIN equals gibbering PARANOIAC.

      ‘Please, take a seat,’ Morrissey says with a smile.

      I smile back.

      Go on, give me your worst, which I know for a fact isn’t going to be bad at all. And make it snappy, because I’m a busy man—I’ve got three words to discuss in Croydon.