Thirteen

A Good Place to Be Ill

There used to be a widespread belief among those Englishmen unfortunate enough to endure a privileged public school education that any health problem short of a broken leg could be cured by a couple of aspirin and a cold shower. Complaints and self-pity were for wimps, and a stoical disregard for aches, pains, and symptoms was admired.

This started to change several years ago, when girl students and their softening influence were admitted to these temples of learning, but for those of us who had been educated in the bad old days, old memories and insults remain. One insult in particular has stayed with me: it was always said that France is a nation of hypochondriacs. This was never explained or justified, probably because none of us had been to France or knew any French people, but it stuck, and it made us feel more manly and superior.

Early visits to France seemed to confirm that the French were considerably more health conscious than English schoolboys. There were more pharmacies, all equipped with chairs for those waiting their turn. And waiting time was often long, because each customer required a short conference rather than a quick purchase. Prescriptions were studied and discussed. One by one, packages of painkillers, digestive aids, trusses, eye drops, nose drops, and laxatives were arranged on the counter for consideration. Finally, when all the crucial decisions had been made, the customer would stagger out of the pharmacy with a bulging plastic sack containing enough to keep him healthy for at least another week.

This ritual was faithfully observed by the French, who were used to it. But for the poor ignorant foreigner, it was a little daunting. I still remember my first taste of pharmacy shopping. I had gone in to buy a tube of toothpaste. I found it, I took my place in one of the few chairs that was free, and I waited. And waited. And waited.

Eventually, my turn came, and I went up to the counter clutching my toothpaste. The pharmacist put it to one side, and asked to see my prescription.

“For toothpaste?”

“No, no. For your other purchases.”

“I have no other purchases.”

“Ah, bon?” His eyebrows went up in surprise. “Bizarre.” And he made a great ceremony of putting my toothpaste into a paper bag, folding the top carefully, sealing it with Scotch tape, and presenting it to me with a flourish.

My visit to the pharmacy made me curious about the French and their attitude to self-preservation, and I started to pay closer attention to what proved to be a rich and often surprising subject. For a start, I quickly learned the consequences of making polite inquiries about a Frenchman’s general state of health: if you ask him how he is, he’ll tell you, in detail, from his lower-back problems to his turbulent liver, his arthritic toe, and, if you’re not careful, the irregularity of his bowel movements. This fascinating update will be delivered as if none of these conditions had ever been suffered before. Attempts to interrupt will be brushed aside, and all you can do is assume a sympathetic expression and hope that your companion will run out of ailments.

There is a story, widely told, about two elderly men having coffee one morning in the village.

“What are you doing today?” asked the first gentleman.

“Oh, I shall be at the doctor’s most of this morning.”

“Can I come?”

This exchange may well be true, such is the interest in medical matters. In doctors’ waiting rooms, equipped with the usual varied selection of magazines, I’ve noticed that the most popular of these are journals devoted not to celebrities and soccer but to health problems. Waiting patients have their noses buried in news of the latest surgical advances, often tearing out a page that describes a breakthrough in the treatment of piles or heart fibrillation.

This fascination with our internal workings is not just personal. Other people’s problems are every bit as interesting. When a friend of ours fell off his bicycle and broke a bone in his ankle, his plaster cast and his crutches made him a minor village celebrity, and the questions he was asked almost persuaded him to hand out a press release. It’s only fair to say that the attention he received was entirely sympathetic. There was not even a trace of criticism that he often had a few beers before getting into the saddle, or his weakness for attacking the summit of Mont Ventoux after a good lunch. Instead, his questioners hoped that the problem wasn’t too serious, and did he have any picturesque scars?

Scars are, of course, the most dramatic souvenirs of a brush with death, but they are by no means the only subjects of keen interest. Symptoms run them a close second, with the added advantage that we’ve all had symptoms at one time or another, and this allows us to join in the conversation.

Many years ago, I found myself sitting at a café table next to a group of old men whose behavior caught my eye. Instead of playing cards, they were having an animated discussion punctuated by frequent pauses: one man rolled up his shirtsleeves to allow a better view of his arms. The man next to him rolled up a leg of his pants. One by one, heads were massaged, necks were rubbed, and tongues extended. Then it was the turn of ribs and shoulders. In each case, the group paid close attention, asking questions, sometimes probing and poking the organ on display and generally acting as though they were having the most enthralling experience of their lives.

A week later, there they were again, the same old men, wearing their ailments like war wounds. After watching a second performance much like the first, I realized that this was a group dedicated to the appearance and progress of symptoms, the tracking of newly arrived aches, and the monitoring of degrees of suffering—all this helped down by health-giving carafes of rosé.

Sadly, when I went back to the café a few years later there was no sign of the symptomaniacs, and when I asked the café owner where they were, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and drew his index finger across his throat. RIP.

Since then, I’ve seen smaller versions of this fascination with health, from two people arguing noisily over prescriptions to demonstrations of newly achieved mobility—the most public-spirited example being a friend of mine, who donated his recently discarded crutch to the café as emergency aid to customers who had enjoyed themselves slightly too much at the bar. In every case, what struck me was the willingness to share intimate personal health developments with the rest of the world.

My own experience with the French public health system has, on the whole, been pretty good. Our doctor, Madame Medicine, is charming and helpful, and writes embarrassingly generous prescriptions. Specialists are highly qualified and well organized. Pharmacists are extremely well trained and well informed. France must be one of the best places in the world to find professional medical help. And this occasionally comes with some surprising refinements, one of which I experienced not long ago.

Madame Medicine had suggested, then recommended, then insisted that I should undergo a minor operation. “Your heart is murmuring,” she said, “and it’s telling you to go to the hospital. Fortunately, I know an excellent man for hearts.” And within forty-eight hours she called to give me my marching orders.

After the obligatory mechanical checks at the hospital, I was taken to see the surgeon, a reassuringly soothing young man who asked me if I had any sinful habits, like nicotine or cocaine. I was able to put his mind at rest about those, but I had to admit a long-standing fondness for red, white, and pink wines. He brushed those aside. “C’est normal,” he said. Obviously, a doctor after my own heart.

The great day arrived, and I was taken to my room at the hospital, where I found the doctor waiting to greet me. He told me that I needed to have a small preparatory procedure before the main event, and that he’d see me in the operating theater. I was then left to change into my outfit for the morning.

I don’t know who invented hospital gowns, but it would be difficult to imagine a more embarrassing garment. Its flimsy cotton had a slit from neck to hem of what I assumed was the back of the gown. I put it on, and immediately discovered that, with any kind of movement, the slit fell open to reveal a detailed view of naked back and naked buttocks. I was still trying to work out some way of getting to the operating theater while preserving a shred of dignity when there was a knock on the door.

It was a girl, a pretty girl, carrying a small metal tray. “Il faut raser la barbe,” she said with a grin. This puzzled me, as I’ve never had a beard. The girl then put her tray on the bedside table and I could see an electric razor, a cloth, and a small pot of what I imagined was after-shave balm.

“Lie down on your back, please,” she said. I lay down. With great delicacy and precision she pulled the gown up to my waist, and I belatedly realized that I was about to have my very first pubic shave.

“Uncross your legs, please, and relax.”

She gently went to work, and I have to say I didn’t feel a thing. She finished, sat back, and surveyed her work.

“Voilà,” she said with another grin as she dusted me off. “You look ten years younger.”