No! I Don't Want to Join a Book Club: Diary of a Sixtieth Year Read Online Free PDF Page B

wonderful long hair tied in a ponytail—the only man I’ve ever seen who looks good with one. He’s not bad with a Hoover, either. Naturally, back in Poland he trained to be a biochemist or a brain surgeon or something, but can’t get a job here so is reduced to cleaning.
    I put my arms round him and gave him a hug and made him some tea, and he smoked a cigarette and told me all about it, and then Michelle came in and he quickly pulled himself together and started wiping the surfaces.
    December 1
    Penny helped me shop for the party at Marks and Spencer, which was very nice of her since she’s not coming. She’s got to go to see her daughter, Lisa, who’s recovering from a broken love affair.
    “Men!” said Penny, as we stared into the freezer section hoping to find a thousand frozen sausage rolls for under a tenner. As it was, we found only fourteen boxes of “Indian-style” cocktail snacks for some astronomical sum of money.
    “We’d need about a hundred of those,” I said. “Too expensive.”
    “Are we reduced to Iceland?”
    “We are,” I said. “Anyway. Men! Poor Lisa. I’m planning to give them up.”
    “I didn’t know you had any to give up,” said Penny. “Anyway, this boyfriend of Lisa’s, he was just so sweet! And then he says he’s frightened of commitment and gives her the boot. When am I ever going to have grandchildren?”
    “Well, I asked Jack the other day when I might hear the patter of tiny feet, and he just said, rather tersely, that I should get a dog, and then I’d hear the patter of four tiny feet,” I told her.
    Penny said: “I used to say to Lisa: ‘Wait till you’re married before you get pregnant,’ and then I said: ‘Wait till you’re in a stable relationship.’ And now, I say: ‘Oh, darling, why don’t you stop taking the pill and just have a few one-night stands?”’
    December 2nd
    It was a freezing cold day, but I dragged myself up to Harley Street to see the bunion man. A nice bloke—not the usual private consultant with a bow tie and a snotty voice and a bedside manner that oozes out of him like oil. He had a cockney accent and a practical manner, more like a builder than a medical man.
    “Oooh, you’ve got a right one there,” he said, looking at my feet, in much the same way as a gardener might remark on spotting a fearful display of greenfly, or a plumber might declare on discovering a giant leak. It is, indeed, a “right one,” a huge, red, sore lump that makes it impossible to buy any shoes other than comfortable ones. Not that I’d want to buy uncomfortable ones, but now and again it would be nice to be able to slip into an Emma Hope or a Jimmy Choo without screaming.
    “Inherited, you know,” he added, writing up his notes. “Anyone else in the family got one?”
    “We all have bunions like this,” I said, not without some pride. “It’s known as the Sharp bunion. My mother, who had one, tried hard to prevent my developing one by shoving me into Start-rite shoes from an early age, and getting my feet X-rayed on those evil machines that you used to see in shoe shops before they realized that they were belting out radiation to all their customers. She even took me to see Dr. Scholl, forcing me to wear metal supports in my shoes for three years. But nothing made any difference.”
    The bunion man scoffed. “Wouldn’t,” he said. “When would you like to come in?”
    “Hang on a minute,” I said. I felt I was being rather oversold. “What does it entail?”
    It turns out that these days you don’t have to have your leg in plaster for six weeks, which is a relief, and it is all done incredibly quickly under a local anaesthetic. Then your feet are shoved into rather weird shoes for a couple of weeks, then comfortable shoes for six, and then—“Manolo Blanket, here we come,” I interrupted cheerfully.
    “Blahnik,” he said. “And there’s no pain; you’re walking within two hours.”
    “Done,” I said.
    It’s booked for