No! I Don’t Need Reading Glasses! by Virginia Ironside Page A

again that Philippa had been dead for years, so I said nothing. I think I’ll just have to ring
every
day from now on, to make sure he hasn’t fallen over or anything.
    I worry so much about him. The worrying space in my mind, from having been rather small, has now expanded to fill my entire brain. The moment I stop worrying about Archie, I’m worrying about the family going. The moment I stop worrying about them, there are the plans for the hotel… the cockroaches … my neighbour leaving … whether to have a facelift or not …
    Talking of which, I phoned Marion because I know that even though she disapproves of plastic surgery, she’s got a friend who’s had it, and it was done brilliantly. I wanted the name of whoever had operated on her.
    She was appalled when I told her of my plans. ‘But you’ll look all horrible and I won’t recognise you!’ she said. ‘You’ll be completely expressionless and you won’t look like my friend any more! I won’t know if you’re laughing or if your face is contorted into a rictus of hate.’ (The way I looked on opening your beastly goaty present, I thought sourly to myself.) ‘There’s nothing wrong with the way you look! You look lovely!
Don’t do it!
’
    She even quoted a Joyce Grenfell poem at me: ‘At dancing I am no star/Others are better by far/My face I don’t mind it/For I am behind it/It’s the ones in the front get the jar.’
    I said that unlike
some
, I didn’t want the ones in front to get the jar. Funny how it’s all my girlfriends who are against the facelift, and the heterosexual men feel they have to say they think it’s a terrible idea just to show they’re only interested in the inner rather than the outer you. Most heterosexual men are fantastically squeamish about visiting the doctor, anyway, even for some cough lozenges, let alone going in for an operation voluntarily. The only ones who agree that it’s a good idea are the gay friends, like James.
    I finally got Marion off the phone after she’d finishedberating me for leaving
Bitter Quinces, Poisoned Souls
too early, saying that we’d missed the very best bit, and that after the fingers being chopped off bit and the car park bit it was absolutely brilliant and incredibly moving, and why was I so impatient, and I’d said because my time was running out, and she said what was wrong with me, taking such a gloomy view, and me saying that she was in denial, and that knowing you weren’t going to live for ever made life actually so much more interesting and vital. Anyway, after all this, she finally gave me the phone numbers of a couple of friends who’d had cosmetic surgery, and I rang them.
    Each one recommended a different surgeon so I decided to make an appointment to consult both of them and see what happens.
    I must say I am getting extremely nervous about the idea all of a sudden. And it does seem like so much money to squander on what’s basically a vanity project. I mean, I could be giving all the money to starving orphans or donating goats to friends I don’t like. I feel such a selfish creep.
    But then I think it would do me good. I mean, I’ve always minded about how I look. I never go out without full makeup, I get my hair coloured and cut regularly, never wear laddered tights, and if someone points to a stain on my skirt I feel like committing hara-kiri.
Later
    Have just got the two Pitchforths down from the walls, and the Patrick Caulfield. The Caulfield is a small oil, with no glass on, but the Pitchforths were all sealed up with mounts, so I thought that before I took them to Christie’s to get them valued and then, hopefully, put into an auction, I’d unpick the backs just to check there were no secret maps behind them. Even at my age I still harbour the touching hope that behind every picture I will find some amazing piece of parchment, with