Will you be requiring anaesthetic? He’s asking me whether I shall be requiring anaesthetic! Yes, I will definitely be requiring anaesthetic. Would I survive without anaesthetic? The shock. The pain.
A thought sidled into my brain: bargains can be problematic. And a further thought in the form of a question: was this the moment to bail out? Then there was a third internal event: a memory of the voice on the telephone implying (what was implied and what was made explicit – what were the actual words?) something about cancellation fees. The fourth internal event was a physiological reaction: a sudden deathly chill and at the same time beads of sweat burst out of every pore on every square centimetre of my skin.
I hadn’t told anybody about what I was doing: the alarming visit to my GP; my feverish internet research; my default antipathy to the socialised medicine of the NHS; the celebratory dinner after it was all done; my speech about the glories and the necessity of privatisation of the wasteful health services.
A hasty exit through the window was looking very attractive together with the consequent hasty exit from this life that somehow or other had suddenly become very problematic.