Therapy

pain in the knee, and idiopathic means it’s peculiar to you, old boy.” He smiled as if awarding me a prize.
    I asked him what could be done about it, and he said, rather less confidently than before, that he could do another arthroscopy, to see if he had by any chance missed something in the first one, or I could try aspirins and physiotherapy. I said I would try aspirins and physiotherapy.
    “Of course, I’d do it in the BUPA hospital next time,” he said. He was aware that I had been less than enchanted with the standard of care at the General.
    “Even so,” I said. “I’m not rushing into another operation.”
    When I told Roland — that’s the name of my physiotherapist — when I told Roland the substance of this consultation, he gave his sardonic lopsided smile and said, “You’ve got Internal Derangement of the Knee. That’s what the orthopaedic surgeons call it amongst themselves. Internal Derangement of the Knee. I.D.K. I Don’t Know.”
    Roland is blind, by the way. That’s another thing that can happen to you that’s worse than a pain in the knee. Blindness.
     
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    Tuesday afternoon, 16th Feb. Immediately after writing that last bit yesterday I thought I would try shutting my eyes for a bit, to give myself an idea of what it would be like to be blind, and remind myself how lucky I am compared to poor old Roland. I actually went so far as to blindfold myself, with a sleeping mask British Airways gave me once on a flight from Los Angeles. I thought I would see what it was like to do something quite simple and ordinary, like making a cup of tea, without being able to see. The experiment didn’t last long. Trying to get out of the study and into the kitchen I cracked my knee, the right one needless to say, against the open drawer of a filing cabinet. I tore off the blindfold and hopped round the room cursing and blaspheming so terribly I finally shocked myself into silence. I was sure I’d done my knee in for good. But after a while the pain wore off, and this morning the joint doesn’t seem to be any worse than it was before. No better, either, of course.
     
    There’s one advantage of having Internal Derangement of the Knee, and that is, when people ring you up, and ask you how you are, and you don’t want to say, “terminally depressed,” but don’t feel like pretending that you’re brimming over with happiness either, you can always complain about your knee. My agent, Jake Endicott, just called to confirm our lunch appointment tomorrow, and I gave him an earful about the knee first. He’s having a meeting with the people at Heartland this afternoon to discuss whether they’re going to commission another series of The People Next Door. I delivered the last script of the present series only a few weeks ago, but these things have to be decided long in advance, because the actors’ contracts will be coming up for renewal soon. Jake is confident that Heartland will commission at least one more series, and probably two. “With audience figures like you’re getting, they’d be crazy not to.” He said he would tell me the upshot of his meeting at lunch tomorrow. He’s taking me to Groucho’s. He always does.
     
    It’s a year since my arthroscopy, and I’m still getting pain. Should I risk another operation? I Don’t Know. I can’t decide. I can’t make a decision about anything these days. I couldn’t decide what tie to wear this morning. If I can’t make a decision about a little thing like a tie, how can I make my mind up about an operation? I hesitated so long over my tie-rack that I was in danger of being late for my appointment with Alexandra. I couldn’t decide between a dark, conservative tie or a bright, splashy one. Eventually I narrowed the choice down to a plain navy knitted job from Marks and Sparks and an Italian silk number hand-painted in orange, brown and red. But then neither of them seemed to go with the shirt I was wearing, so I had to change that. Time was running out: I put the silk tie round my neck and stuffed the woollen one into my jacket pocket in case I had second thoughts on my way over to Alexandra’s office. I did, too — changed over to the knitted tie at a red light. Alexandra is my shrink, my current shrink. Dr Alexandra Marbles. No, her real name is Marples. I call her Marbles for a joke. If she ever moves or retires, I’ll be able to say I’ve lost my Marbles. She doesn’t know I call her