Doctor On The Ball

by Richard Gordon

  ‘What puss?’

  I explained how all sons wished to castrate Father and marry Mother.

  Mrs Oldfield laughed. ‘I can see it now! Me in bridal white with orange blossom, standing at the altar with Roger, he’d just come up to my hips. Oh, it would be a lovely wedding. I suppose Roger would have to go easy on the champagne, but he just loves iced fruit cake. I wonder where we’d go for our honeymoon?’ she speculated. ‘Roger liked Littlehampton, but only because of the Peter Pan paddling pool, I don’t suppose many newly married couples go for it, still it would be handy taking your hubby everywhere half-price, wouldn’t it? And just think! Marrying your own little boy, you’d have no trouble with the in-laws. It’s a lovely idea, doctor.’

  I expressed the wish that my other patients were as robustly sensible, and assured her, ‘The complex has no more effect on your everyday life than the stirrings of the earth’s core on the foundations of your charming little bungalow.’

  ‘Of course not, doctor. Well, you make me feel better already. I tell you what, I’m going to buy Roger one of those Swiss Army knives myself, even if Harry is terrified the little boy’s going to use it to vandalize the family jewels. Harry does get some funny notions in his head, you’d be surprised, you should hear him going on about people staring in the street because of his pimples. Though I must say, if Roger’s going to inherit those I’ll turn his proposal down flat.’

  Odd, it occurred to me. Mr Warburton shared a sensitivity about facial blemishes with Mr Oldfield. Did he suffer also a phobia of mass castration by the pupils of Balmoral House? I must ask Ollie Scuttle at the golf club.

  The next day was Saturday. I paused on my way home from surgery to replenish my cellar with fine wines. In the supermarket, I met Mr Cuthbertson.

  ‘Doctor!’ he greeted me warmly. ‘Wonderful idea of yours. About the home computer. Little Cuthbert is no longer a problem child. He’s as happy as the day is long, toddling off to school then coming home to potter among the square roots and cosines. Furthermore–’ He tugged from his jacket pocket a copy of the pink-paged Financial Times. ‘He’s using the computer to have a go at this.’

  His finger indicated an advertisement by a firm of City stockbrokers. To hook reluctant capitalist debutants, they were offering a £1000 prize for picking the twenty shares likely to go up most on the London Stock Exchange over the month.

  ‘Even I cannot understand these pages of share prices and dividends and that,’ Mr Cuthbertson confessed proudly. ‘And I am in control of the borough’s total budget for recreational activities and toilets.’

  I wished them luck. Another case cured. Our trolleys went their separate ways.

  Mr Cuthbertson appeared at Tuesday evening surgery.

  ‘Doctor, something terrible’s happened.’ He sat down, trembling. ‘Young Cuthbert. Oh, the shame!’

  ‘What’s the matter? Lost the knack? Always a risk with infant prodigies. They were saying Mozart was washed up at six.’

  ‘Cuthbert’s been collared, doctor. By the school attendance officer.’

  ‘Oh? What was he up to?’

  ‘Sitting on a bench in the park, reading the Investors’ Chronicle.’

  The distraught father enlarged on the incident. The official seemed to have been a former member of the Special Patrol Group, or maybe the SAS, or possibly the Gestapo.

  ‘To think! Me a council employee!’ His voice broke under the crushing humiliation. ‘Now I know how the Pope felt when those Vatican bankers got shopped for fiddling. Poor misunderstood Cuthbert! He’ll be dragged through the juvenile court, you mark my words. Being no respecter of authority, particularly of our big-headed magistrates – and I could tell you a thing or two about their expense sheets – he could be sent to borstal; a sensitive lad like Cuthbert, it would kill him. What are we to do, doctor?’

  ‘Send an SOS to Balmoral House,’ I suggested.

  ‘No, no,’ he objected agitatedly. ‘Not since the headmaster went so peculiar.’ He dropped his voice. ‘Mr Warburton seems to be performing what they call indecent exposure, all over the school. Even in prayers and assembly. The boys are all laughing themselves silly, they think it’s the biggest joke since the science master blew his fingers off, but the parents are calling a special meeting.’

  My affinity with Balmoral House suddenly expired, like young Cuthbert’s.

  ‘Mr Cuthbertson,’ I pointed out, ‘it is hardly your doctor’s job to rub out the blots on your escutcheon. I have a roomful of patients outside who require me for my proper function of opening their bowels, syringing their ears, supporting their varicose veins, stiffening their resolve against impotence, and similar matters with profound effect on human happiness.’

  ‘But doctor,’ he implored, ‘you’re always so kind to humble, struggling people like us.’

  I sighed. I had the uncomfortable feeling of a sensitive plant with greenfly. ‘Very well, I’ll have a word with the local education authority,’ I promised. ‘Perhaps young Cuthbert’s scholastic attitudes will ripen with the apples. A hols is a long time in childhood, the summer one a lifetime.’

  Mr Cuthbertson took my hand in both his. ‘Thank you, doctor,’ he said feebly. ‘We can but be ever grateful to those who know so much more about the ways of the world. Bless you.’

  I had the rewarding sensation of performing a useful stroke of pastoral medicine. However outlandish the forces bringing patient to doctor, however pressing the doctor’s practice – or his pleasures, or his personal problems – the patient always comes first. The tradition was founded by Hippocrates two thousand years ago. Politicians are frequently mistaken in imagining they created the medical profession the same day as the NHS.

  Late one afternoon at the end of the month, I left my car at Straker’s garage for servicing before my fishing holidays. Mr Cuthbertson was gazing into the showroom window, smoking a cigar.

  ‘Hello, doctor! I just looked in to order a Merc.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said.

  ‘Have a Havana. Ah, you don’t, of course. Had your holiday yet? We’re just off to the South of France.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said.

  ‘Know any good French restaurants, cafés, discos and that?’

  It seemed that Uriah Heep had changed into the Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo. ‘How’s the young hopeful?’ I inquired.

  ‘We won! That share competition. Announced this morning. Look.’ He flourished a pink cutting.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said benevolently. ‘You got the thousand-pound prize? Well, even these days, it’s a tidy sum. Perhaps you’re right to blow it on a glamorous holiday.’

  He grinned. ‘Listen, doctor. As befits a member of the Borough Treasurer’s staff, I have always been prudent with money. But when my son and heir was pinched by the heavies, it altered my thinking. What point was there, living a respectable life when they can run you in for sitting in the sun reading about the International Monetary Fund? Also, I have a thousand times more faith in my little one than in his teachers. So I drew our nest egg from the building society and backed his hunches in the Stock Exchange competition. For real.’

  Mr Cuthbertson flicked away his last four inches of cigar. ‘Well, what with Megaglomerates International and Hyperinvestments Incorporated taking over each other, and that Boomerang Trust finding the entire Australian desert was floating on oil, little Cuthbert and me did pretty nicely, thank you. So I am giving up the borough toilets to set up with Cuthbert as a financial adviser.’

  I whistled. ‘What’s old Wartnose think?’

  He lit another cigar. ‘Over the moon. He did a bit of wheeler-dealing with some sharp schoolmaster in London and took a job with OXED – this organization that goes out to teach kids in Africa geometry and Latin and that. So little Cuthbert is now joint owner of Balmoral House,’ he ended proudly. ‘Can hardly wait for prayers and assembly first day of term, though I think they’ve abolished prayers, the education being scientifically planned by computer so no longer needing t
he guidance of God.’

  I said humbly, ‘Might I express the respectful hope that little Cuthbert will remember me when he’s a millionaire?’

  But he did not even offer me a lift home.

  Sandra was in the front garden of our Victorian villa, agitated.

  ‘The Oldfields,’ she shouted. ‘Urgent call.’

  I inquired about what.

  ‘Couldn’t make a word of sense. They’re hysterical, the lot of them. You’d better take my car and hurry over.’

  I found Mr Oldfield clutching the front gate between the holly encircling his charming little bungalow.

  ‘Don’t go in there, doctor,’ he whimpered.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s Myrtle.’

  ‘What’s the matter with her?’

  ‘She’s trying to castrate me with a Swiss Army penknife.’

  ‘That’s not in Sophocles’ plot,’ I objected.

  ‘This is Linda, doctor.’

  A girl in anorak and jeans appeared round the hedge.

  ‘Hello,’ said Linda.

  ‘I love her, doctor,’ said Mr Oldfield.

  ‘Oh?’ I said.

  ‘Linda is in Gas Board accounts (new connections),’ he explained shakily. ‘Doctor, I just thought up all that stuff about Freud. I was going to buy Roger the Swiss Army penknife when Linda had her holidays, then clear off because I was scared of him going for my personals. But what happens? Myrtle buys him one, so I say I’ll be happy to leave her with Roger and forgo the operation, but Myrtle does not seem to take kindly to the idea. What shall I do?’

  ‘My advice is to buy the works of Jung. He was a Swiss, and probably has a lot on the psychology of their Army penknives. Good evening.’

  I am leaving pastoral medicine to the vicar of St Alphege’s, who believes that Hell yawns for adultery, truancy and parking outside the churchyard, though, I fancy, only when his back is troubling him.

  18

  We arrived at Llawrfaennenogstumdwy as the sun stretched western mountain shadows across the river Abergynolwnfi, frothing its way excitedly among boulders before pausing to catch its breath in smooth, tree-canopied pools. I drove along the twisting riverbank road tingling with the prospect of hauling out trout like a piscine sausage machine.

  ‘Now, I don’t want you to fret about me at all this holiday,’ Sandra implored. ‘I only want you to relax and enjoy yourself.’

  I said defensively, ‘I know you’d prefer the Med, but honestly, I’m fed up with crowded airports, garlic and lunatic Alfa drivers. Anyway, bright sunlight has a worse effect on the skin than neat vodka on the stomach.’

  ‘I was being utterly selfish, darling,’ she continued contritely. ‘I shan’t be in the slightest bored, I shall sit on the bank and watch. I’ve brought lots of Agatha Christies and my tatting, and if it rains there’s always television in Welsh, which must he interesting. It’s you who needs to unwind and recharge your batteries after the stress of overwork, and if I did want to see Cannes, well, there’s other years.’

  ‘You sound like Dr Quaggy,’ I grumbled.

  A final twist revealed the Rising Trout Hotel, a turreted red-brick wysteria-decked mansion arising amid hydrangeas, with croquet lawn, putting green and gazebo.

  ‘Looks all right,’ Sandra admitted.

  ‘Well, I heard about it from this Panacea Drugs salesman, and they do themselves sybaritically, travelling on expenses.’

  A slight, sandy man in blue blazer, sharply creased grey trousers and striped tie hurried down the stone front steps.

  ‘Mr Gordon? Colonel Coots. A pleasure, welcoming you to my hotel.’

  ‘How’s the fishing?’ I demanded.

  ‘Stupendous. Fantastic. Never known it better. Last week’s guests were thinking of clubbing together for a Birdseye frozen-food lorry, to take their catch home. Sniffed our wonderful mountain air? Does miracles for tired businessmen. You’re in life insurance, I believe?’

  I nodded. I was also fed up on holiday with fellow-guests cadging medical advice, having fits or babies, or dropping dead, putting me to endless trouble.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll be very satisfied with the Cyhiraeth room – a Celtic goddess of the streams, you know. Bronwen! The bags!’

  From the Gothic front door appeared a grinning teenage blonde in black skirt and thin white blouse. She was the most advanced case of mammary hyperplasia I had seen. They were like Belisha beacons.

  ‘You’d be from London, would you?’ Bronwen led us into a mullion-windowed room overlooking the river.

  ‘Yes, I have an office there, insuring lives.’ I stared, fascinated. They seemed about to burst from their bra like the start of a hot-air balloon race.

  ‘It must be lovely, living in London and that, and going to all those discos.’

  ‘We don’t terribly often,’ murmured Sandra.

  ‘I’m sure you’ll find the bed comfy. Brand-new mattress. Sponge rubber.’ She bounced it vigorously.

  ‘Very pneumatic,’ I agreed.

  ‘You’d like me to give you a cup of tea in bed?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘Dinner’s roast chicken. If you want me any time, just ring.’ I fumbled for money. ‘Oooo! Thank you, sir.’

  ‘You grossly overtipped that girl,’ complained Sandra as the door shut.

  ‘In a place like this it’s essential to establish good relations with the staff. Bad service would utterly ruin my relaxing holiday.’

  I swished in the lofty room my expensive new carbon rod, which the tackle-shop man assured me would catch fish in the Sahara. I inspected my costly aluminium reels, floating and sinking lines, and buffet of mouth-watering fishing flies. I had visited the shop for a couple of cheap nylon casts, but was carried away like Aladdin and ended with hand-warmer, boot-dryer, trout-smoker, pairs of thermal underwear, dozen salmon-decorated sherry glasses, set of hunting-scene tablemats, and ultrasonic Japanese device for scientifically repelling mosquitoes, which I later suspected of emitting the mating call of Welsh ones.

  Leaving Sandra to unpack, I descended to a timbered bar decorated with the cased corpses of fish. Already into his gin and tonic was Sir Rollo Basingstoke, Surgeon to the Queen.

  ‘Rollo, you old bastard!’ He was a handsome thickset man with thick grey wavy hair and thick-framed glasses. ‘Haven’t seen you since that wine and cheese party.’

  He grabbed my lapels. ‘I am Mr Basingstoke, director of the Mayfair estate agents Basingstoke and Bolingbroke.’ He hissed, glaring into my eyes, ‘I heard of this hideaway from a Panacea Drugs rep, and I’ve already had enough holidays ruined by acute abdomens at two in the morning. Can’t charge a fee, either. So keep your mouth shut, doctor.’

  I objected, ‘You’ve got the wrong chap. I’m Mr Gordon, a life insurance salesman. Ask the Colonel,’ I mentioned, as he appeared behind the bar.

  We guffawed loudly. ‘Written any good policies lately?’ Rollo inquired.

  ‘Not bad. We’re doing jolly well out of hang-gliding. How’s the property racket?’

  ‘Land’s the one commodity they can’t make any more of, you know.’

  ‘What a brilliant thought!’

  ‘Rollo!’ exclaimed Sandra from the door.

  ‘Ssssshhhhh!’ He applied his lips to her ear.

  She smiled. ‘But how nice to enjoy Lady Basingstoke’s company,’ she whispered back, ‘while our menfolk are catching our dinner.’

  Sandra is impressed with her Ladyship. She does not know her as I did, a sexy staff nurse on orthopaedics who threw up over the sub-dean at a hospital party.

  The dining room was dark-panelled, decorated with sporting prints, and staffed by Bronwen embellished with a little frilly apron.

  She leaned over me solicitously. ‘Breast or leg?’

  ‘Breast.’

  ‘But you never eat the white meat at home!’ exclaimed Sandra.

  ‘Holiday’s time for a change,’ I said uneasily.

  The next day was lovely. I caught nothing.<
br />
  The colonel shook his head knowingly. ‘The water’s too murky. The peat, you understand. Ruins it, bad as dregs in port. Wait till next week, you’ll be beating off the rising fish with the butt end of your rod.’

  Rollo caught nothing, either. I found him chatting over gin and tonics in the bar before dinner with a pleasant-looking fellow introduced as Dalrymple.

  ‘I’m a chartered accountant,’ Dalrymple conveyed at once. ‘You’re in life insurance? Must be a jolly harrowing job, I mean, wondering which customer will expire next and demand his money back.’

  I agreed quickly. ‘Give me Russian Roulette before breakfast any time. But you,’ I diverted him, ‘must be frightfully clever fiddling people’s income tax?’

  ‘Nothing to it,’ he assured me airily. ‘All done by computers, easy as playing Space Invaders in amusement arcades.’

  I was outraged. ‘My accountant claims he sweats blood over those bits about woodlands and housekeeper being a relative and payments under the Irish Church Acts.’

  Dalrymple grinned. ‘And charges for it? Got to preserve the mumbo-jumbo of the accountancy profession.’

  Rollo laughed. ‘Like the medical profession.’

  I winked at him fiercely.

  Rollo added hastily, ‘Wasn’t it Shaw who said all professions were conspiracies against laity?’

  ‘Oh, doctors,’ said Dalrymple disgustedly. ‘Never tell you anything, do they? You should hear about my sister.’

  ‘Please,’ invited Rollo eagerly.

  ‘She went to the doctor and said she’d this funny feeling up and down her spine. The doctor gave her some pills. They give pills for everything, don’t they? Broken legs, I wouldn’t be surprised. You won’t believe it, but the very next week she came out all over with chicken-pox.’

  I rubbed my chin. ‘Sure it wasn’t shingles? The two conditions are related, you know, same virus. Shingles often starts off with funny feelings in the skin.’ Rollo violently elbowed me. ‘My aunt had it during the war,’ I explained. ‘She has talked of little else since.’

  We were joined by another decent-looking chap introducing himself as Harrington.

  ‘I’m a commissioner for oaths,’ he volunteered.