Julian is staying, as there is a huge medical conference in town. He calls three times before he finally finds his way to my home. He’s a large, rambling bear of a man, with untidy hair and clothes and a gentle air of bewilderment.
Modern life is a bit too much for him, you can tell. He can’t work the shower and I have to come into the bathroom with him to show him. There’s muffled swearing in the kitchen and it seems that he has cut himself slicing some bread to make toast. “Used to the ready-sliced stuff,” he says, holding his finger under the tap.
He leaves for the conference, but comes back twice in quick succession.
“Whoops, forgot my phone.”
“Damn, forgot my iPad.”
He strides off to the conference centre, heading completely the wrong way.
That evening, he calls asking for a restaurant recommendation. He and three friends are meeting for drinks and he’d like to take them somewhere nice. He settles on a modern Indian restaurant that serves street food and delicious cocktails. There’s another call from him, as he has forgotten the name of the restaurant and the location. At 1am there is yet another, very grovelling phone call: he has forgotten my address, and it seems he’s forgotten his keys as well. When I let him in, he is beyond apologetic and has swiped some tulips from somewhere as a present for me.
He leaves in the morning, shedding papers and journals over the floor. I help him gather them together. He has an overnight bag and some very tatty-looking plastic carriers bulging with what looks like scrap paper. His room, which he has barely been in, is chaotic, to put it mildly. Pillows and cushions are in a pile on the floor, the bedclothes are a tangled mess, and his phone charger, iPad and a bundle of important-looking folders marked “URGENT” are buried under a forgotten sweater and scarf.
I call to tell him, and he reappears. “Missed the train anyway,” he says, cheerfully. He has an hour or so to kill before the next one, so we have coffee together. I like to think of him as a genius scientist who is about to make a major breakthrough in the cure for cancer.
“Oh no, I’m a hospital administrator. Nothing clever about me!”
Ah …
