12 Homesickness

Homesickness I was homesick during the whole of my first term at St Peter's. Homesickness is a bit like seasickness. You don't know how awful it is till you get it, and when you do, it hits you right in the top of the stomach and you want to die. The only comfort is that both homesickness and seasickness are instantly curable. The first goes away the moment you walk out of the school grounds and the second is forgotten as soon as the ship enters port. I was so devastatingly homesick during my first two weeks that I set about devising a stunt for getting myself sent back home, even if it were only a few days. My idea was that I should all of a sudden develop an attack of acute appendicitis.

You will probably think it silly that a nine-yearold boy should imagine he could get away with a trick like that, but I had sound reasons for trying it on. Only a month before, my ancient half-sister, who was twelve years older than me, had actually had appendicitis, and for several days before her operation I was able to observe her behaviour at close quarters. I noticed that the thing she complained about most was a severe pain down in the lower right side of her tummy. As well as this, she kept being sick and refused to eat and ran a temperature. You might, by the way, be interested to know that this sister had her appendix removed not in a fine hospital operating-room full of bright lights and gowned nurses but on our own nursery table at home by the local doctor and his anaesthetist. In those days it was fairly common

practice for a doctor to arrive at your own house with a bag of instruments, then drape a sterile sheet over the most convenient table and get on with it. On this occasion, I can remember lurking in the corridor outside the nursery while the operation was going on. My other sisters were with me, and we stood there spellbound, listening to the soft medical murmurs coming from behind the locked door and picturing the patient with her stomach sliced open like a lump of beef. We could even smell the sickly fumes of ether filtering through the crack under the door. The next day, we were allowed to inspect the appendix itself in a glass bottle. It was a longish

black wormy-looking thing, and I said, 'Do I have one of those inside me, Nanny?' 'Everybody has one,' Nanny answered. 'What's it for?' I asked her. 'God works in his mysterious ways,' she said, which was her stock reply whenever she didn't know the answer. 'What makes it go bad?' I asked her. 'Toothbrush bristles,' she answered, this time with no hesitation at all. 'Toothbrush bristles?' I cried. 'How can toothbrush bristles make your appendix go bad?' Nanny, who in my eyes was filled with more wisdom than Solomon, replied, 'Whenever a

bristle comes out of your toothbrush and you swallow it, it sticks in your appendix and turns it rotten. In the war', she went on, 'the German spies used to sneak boxloads of loose-bristled toothbrushes into our shops and millions of our soldiers got appendicitis.' 'Honestly, Nanny?' I cried. 'Is that honestly true?' 'I never lie to you, child,' she answered.' 'So let that be a lesson to you never to use an old toothbrush.' For years after that, I used to get nervous whenever I found a toothbrush bristle on my tongue. As I went upstairs and knocked on the brown door after breakfast, I didn't even feel frightened of the Matron. 'Come in!' boomed the voice. I entered the room clutching my stomach on the right-hand side and staggering pathetically. 'What's the matter with you?' the Matron shouted, and the sheer force of her voice caused

that massive bosom to quiver like a gigantic blancmange. 'It hurts, Matron,' I moaned. 'Oh, it hurts so much! Just here!' 'You've been over-eating!' she barked. 'What do you expect if you guzzle currant cake all day long!' 'I haven't eaten a thing for days,' I lied. 'I couldn't eat, Matron! I simply couldn't!' 'Get on the bed and lower your trousers,' she ordered. I lay on the bed and she began prodding my tummy violently with her fingers. I was watching her carefully, and when she hit what I guessed was the appendix place, I let out a yelp that rattled the window-panes. 'Ow! Ow! Ow!' I cried out. 'Don't, Matron, don't!' Then I slipped in the clincher. 'I've been sick all morning,' I moaned, 'and now there's nothing left to be sick with, but I still feel sick!' This was the right move. I saw her hesitate. 'Stay where you are,' she said and she walked quickly from the room. She may have been a foul