Working at bed rest

The hair stylist wanted lights, mirrors, reflectors; he demanded fresh towels, damp wipes, white damasks; he'd carried scissors, combs, clippers and other paraphernalia but required warm water, gels, ointments and assorted unguents. The staff gawped at his tomahawk tresses stiffened like iced frosting on a cake as he set to work on my son's somewhat unprepossessing mane adequate for a lawyer but hardly requiring the attentions of a personal hair therapist. For all the high theatre, his cropped locks looked no different from his more mundane haircut at the neighbourhood salon - the only difference being the size of the bill that I was left holding because he was running late for work.

Laid up with a bad back, if I thought I'd be indulged by the warm affections of a caring family, I was mistaken. "You won't be needing the driver then," whooped my wife, fixing lunch and gossip meetings with a snap of her fingers and disappearing in a haze of Estee Lauder. When I'd complained about the pain, she'd advised against whining on her watch. "It's really annoying," she'd said, so I'd taken to whimpering instead, and then only when she wasn't around.

Because I was at home, my daughter asked if I could receive some urgent packages for her. It transpired, she'd gone on an online shopping binge, so instead of resting, as I'd been advised by the doctor, I kept attending to the doorbell as piles of mysterious couriers kept arriving, each requiring full and instant disbursement - in cash. With both cars missing, I had to requisition a cab to take me to the bank so I could withdraw sufficient funds to pay for her indulgences. The effort might have been worthwhile if at least the merchandise - shirts, skirts, off-season jackets and footwear - had at least turned out to be the right size, or material, or colour, but which, alas, my daughter, on her return from office, consigned to the back of her cupboard in a sulk for being "so wrong".

You'd think I'd have caught some shuteye, if only as a refuge from the pain, but my wife decided, "with nothing to do, darling", that I was best suited to supervise the upholsterer's services, which I was made to do sitting in the living room when the physiotherapist had been specific that I shouldn't rise from bed - which even though I'd made, my wife now decreed I wasn't to lie in. My daughter requested that I fix an appointment for her masseuse, order her contact lenses, and schedule a spa treatment seeing how I was free. My son's friends arrived "to pick up supplies" for a party that, besides glasses and varied bar ware, stretched to include alcohol. "We'll replace it," they promised with a straight face, which lie they'd delivered so often, I had to wonder why they kept up the pretense.

The cook complained that I wasn't to watch TV, he had memsahib's instructions. Memsahib had also taken it upon herself to send the painter and the plumber home for "minor repairs" that, once begun, stretched over the next few days. The office decided if all I was doing was "resting", I could at least attend to some urgent work. Friends who dropped by to commiserate ended up having a party at my expense, though I wasn't allowed to participate - much like the celebrated barber who's services I'd ended up paying for without so much as a haircut to show for it.