As I got older, the leg got worse. A few miles walk saw me limping home; a jog had me out of action for a week afterwards; even getting out of bed could be painful; and putting on the left sock was sheer torture. I won't bring getting my leg over into it.
This summer, back in leafy England, to see the dog and my mother, the latter told me about a remedial therapist she knew and so, on a sun-kissed afternoon, I went along to a home-based clinic in a pretty village, somewhat skeptical about the outcome.
“Your posture is all wrong,” the lady said by way of introduction, diagnosed after a brief glance at me standing in the doorway.
She soon found a trapped nerve in my left elbow, explaining the central nervous system going up the arm, down the torso and into the leg.
“But it isn’t just that,” she added and rubbed my leg for a while, which was quite pleasant I have to say. Then she poked and stroked and pressed my left foot and asked, “When did you break your leg?”
“I’ve never broken my leg.”
“Yes, you have, about 25 years ago,” she continued. “It was broken here on the metatarsal running along the top of your foot.”
My mind delved back in time and came to a halt at a football match in the late 1980s when an opposition player had deliberately stamped on my ankle, leaving me writhing about on the pitch then looking up to see sponge man Alan Jones, fag hanging out of his mouth, laughing and telling me to stop whining. We only had 11 men (those weren't exactly the glory days of Hadlow Rangers FC) and had to win to avoid relegation, so I carried on, scored a goal and we stayed up. One of the highlights of my career!
The next day my ankle had swollen to three times its size and I took myself off to Kent & Sussex Hospital where an entirely unsympathetic NHS doctor (I can still see his face, the useless fucker) dismissed it as a sprain. He didn't even do an x-ray. I carried on playing football and cricket for years after, struggling through the pain for the joy of sport.
“You must have been in agony for all that time,” the lady said as she massaged the bone back into place - a five minute operation costing £20, which had eluded all the other doctors (the useless fuckers) who had blindly looked at it.
“Yep,” I answered and told her about the football match and the National Health Service’s treatment of it, or lack of (the useless fuckers).
Hugely grateful I left her clinic thinking that if I ever make a fortune, she’s going to get the holiday of a lifetime, and walking along the village street on my new leg, smoking a cigarette in celebration, waiting for my mum to pick me up, a girl wearing a horsey outfit at the bus stop shouted out, “Oi mate! Got a spare fag?” I gave her one while she told me about her job in the stables and then asked what I was doing there.
“Getting a new leg.”
“What you on about?”
“Long story.”
*
The relief of being able to walk without pain is still, two months later, sinking in. It’s like a new life. Although at first one side effect was that I was using muscles - the outer thigh and calf – on my left leg that I hadn't been using for 25 years as I kind of dragged that leg when walking, and those muscles were now crying out in pain. Man, give me a break!
After countless hikes with the dog, followed by an energetic holiday in Portugal, those muscles were tight and taut and in serious need of attention and so on the third Magnificent Journey That Not Many People Know About of the summer I found a traditional Chinese medical clinic in Amsterdam and had a masseuse knead my leg and entire body back into shape. Even though it appeared to be an establishment of a non-erotic nature, she did offer to jerk me off at the end, but I was in too much of a blissed-out state to even think about getting a boner, and so I almost ran down to the pub for a final hurrah with friends before embarking on the next day’s trip back to hellfire (47 degrees centigrade on landing; humidity 80%) and my leg still works!