‘No, Uncle.’

‘You’ll wear him out, Tummis, he’s easily tired.’

‘I’m quite well today, Uncle,’ I said.

‘You are no more substantial, poor Clod, than a dandelion.’

‘What’s a dandelion?’ I asked.

‘It need not concern you. Some of us, Tummis, are not so robustly fashioned, unlike you, you great bell tower, great walking advertisement for upwards.’

‘Is he like the Monument, Uncle?’ I asked. ‘Is he like the statue built to commemorate the Great Fire of London, built in 1677, two hundred and two feet high, that stands upon the junction of Monument Street and Fish Street Hill?’

‘Indeed,’ he said, ‘very like. You have been reading, Clod.’

‘Yes, Uncle, many books on London.’

‘I’m sorry, Uncle,’ said Tummis, ‘it was his Sitting, you see, and I –’

‘Don’t let me catch you in here again.’

‘No, Uncle.’

‘Cut along then.’

And away went the dear stork, hurt and snotty.

An Uncle Called Aliver

My Uncle Aliver, deliverer of syrups and potions, of foul-tasting pills that looked like animal droppings and smelt as much, Uncle Aliver the doctor, the plumber of human innards, his thoughts all heading inwards, he who looking at every person could only ever see their underskin, their dripping and clotting, their blackening and blueing, he whose imagination was all boils and rashes, he who was companion to pain and swelling, joint-ache, colds and moulds, blisters and twisted testicles, tooth rot and foot rot and gut rot and stomach knot and ingrowing toenails and outgrowing skin flaps, his company, his sociability, his interaction, his hellos and howdoyoudos, his Iloveyous, were all and only with the unwell. Well people, young and sprightly and sleeping tightly every night, he could not comprehend at all. They were not interesting to him. Aliver could only recognise a person by his ailments. He was close friend and admirer of everything from colds to calluses to catarrhs to cataracts to cancers to carbuncles to cysts to catalepsy to cretinism and sat beside them and worried over them a great deal. With someone ill he was loving and tender and patient, with a well person he was rude and blind and baffling and horrible. When his patients recovered he turned his back upon them, hurt and miserable, already missing the disease which he, in his sadness, had helped to dismiss. He had been married, Uncle Aliver, to Aunt Jocklun (cake knife) and the marriage had not been a happy one until poor Aunt Jocklun picked up black lung and then he never left her until she left him for ever and for ever.