'In such delicate circumstances,' I suggested, 'I take it you'd more than ever like me tucked away in some respectable job?'
'Exactly.'
'Find me one, old lad, and I will. I can't possibly face Palethorpe for months, of course.'
'I have some influence with the Free Teetotal Hospital at Tooting. They'll be needing a new house-surgeon next week.'
'And the week after, I'm afraid, as far as I'm concerned.'
Miles stroked his pale moustache.
'A pity you didn't keep your position on the _Medical Observer. _At least it utilized your talent for the pen respectably.'
'That was a congenial job,' I agreed, 'until the old editor banished me to the obituaries.'
The _Medical Observer_ was the trade press, which lands on doctors' doormats every Friday morning and is widely appreciated in the profession for lighting the Saturday fires. It has an upstairs office near the British Museum in imminent danger of condemnation by the health, fire, and town planning authorities, where I'd been assistant to the editor, a thin bird with a wing collar and severe views on the split infinitive.
'You can't imagine how depressing it was, writing up dead doctors from nine to five,' I told Miles. 'Though I composed my own for the files while I was there, and a jolly good one it will be, too. Yours isn't bad, either.'
'I am gratified to hear it. Perhaps you should go abroad? An oil company for which I do insurance examinations are prospecting up the River Amazon in Brazil. They have a vacancy for a medical officer on a five-year contract. The salary would certainly appeal to you. And you just said you could do with some sunshine.'
'But not five years of it, all at once.'
Miles began to look irritable again. 'I must say, Gaston, for a man in your position you're being extremely difficult to please.'
'Oh, I don't know. If I'm going to sell my soul I might as well get a decent price for it.'
'I do wish you'd discuss the subject of your livelihood seriously.'
'I was just about to, old lad. I don't suppose you could advance me ten quid, could you? Resigning abruptly from Porterhampton left me a month's salary short.'
'You know I am against loans among relatives. But I will agree if you accede to my suggestion about the psychiatrist. I am certain that's what you need. I can easily arrange for you to see Dr Punce, who manages the aptitude tests for the oil company. He rather specializes in whittling down square pegs.'
I don't share the modern reverence for psychiatrists, mostly because all the ones I know are as cracked as a load of old flowerpots. But the financial blood was running so thinly I accepted.
'I suppose you have no serious plans at all for maintaining yourself?' Miles asked, putting away his cheque book.
'I've a few more medical articles on the stocks. I'd also thought of trying my hand at a bit of copywriting-you know, "Don't let your girdle be a hurdle, we make a snazzier brassiиre," and so on.'
Miles winced.
'Gaston looking for another job?' asked Connie, appearing with the coffee. 'That's no problem anyway. A bright young man like him should be in demand anywhere.'
A bit _infra dig,_ I thought, a doctor going to a psychiatrist. Like a fireman ringing the station to say his house was alight. I didn't remember much of the psychiatry course at St Swithin's myself, except the afternoon Tony Benskin was left to hypnotize a young woman with headaches, and once he'd got her in the responsible state suggested she took her blouse off. Apparently Tony's hypnotic powers are low voltage, because the girl clocked him one against the corner of the instrument cupboard. Quite some confusion it caused when the chief psychiatrist came in, to find the patient stamping about shouting and the doctor unconscious.
But I dutifully appeared at Dr Punce's rooms in Wimpole Street the following afternoon, and found him a tall, thin fellow in striped trousers, a pince-nez on a black ribbon, and side-whiskers. I was shown in by a blonde nurse, which put me in a awkward position at the start-if I gave her the usual once-over the psychiatrist might decide something pretty sinister, and on the other hand, if I didn't, he might decide something even worse. I hit on a compromise, and asked her what the time was.
I took a seat and prepared for him to dig into my subconscious, shaking the psychopathic worms out of every spadeful.
'I don't suppose you treat many doctors?' I began.
'I assure you that all professions are fully represented in my casebooks.'
'Psychiatry is the spice of life, and all that?' I laughed.
But he had no sense of humour, either.
'The note I have from your cousin mentions your difficulty in finding congenial employment,' he went on, offering me a cigarette, as psychiatrists always do.
I nodded. 'Miles seems to think I should find a job with security. Though frankly I rather prefer insecurity. But I suppose that's a bit of a luxury these welfare days.'
'H'm. I am now going to recite a succession of words. I wish you to say the first word that comes into your head in reply. Light?'
'No, it's going very well, thank you. I've got some matches of my own.'
'That is the first word.'
'Oh, I see. Sorry. Yes, of course. Er-sun.'
'Night?'
'Club.'
'H'm. Sex?'
'Psychiatrists.'
'Line?'
'Sinker.'
'Straight?'
'Finishing.'
'Crooked?'
'Psychiatrists. I say, I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to say that at all.'
Dr Punce sat for a while with his eyes closed. I was wondering if he'd had a large lunch and dozed off, when he went on, 'Dr Grimsdyke, I have had a particularly heavy month with my practice. I fear that I am sometimes tempted to be rude to my more difficult patients.'
'If it's any consolation,' I sympathized with him, 'I'm tempted quite often too. But don't worry-the feeling will pass. I recommend a few days in the open air.'
'Have you heard the story of the donkey and the salt?' he asked bleakly.
'No, I don't think I have.' I settled down to listen, knowing that psychiatrists pick up quite a few good ones in the run of their work.
'I'd like you to follow it carefully. There was once a donkey who fell into the water, crossing a stream on a very hot day with a load of salt. Eventually he got to his feet, feeling greatly relieved because the water had dissolved his burden. The next day he was crossing the stream loaded with sponges. This time he deliberately fell, but the sponges soaked up so much water the donkey was unable to rise at all. The animal succumbed. What do you think of that?'
'Ha ha!' I said. 'Jolly funny.'
In fact, I thought it a pretty stupid story, but one has to be polite.
'You think that the story is funny?'
'Oh, yes. Best I've heard for weeks. I suppose you know the one about the bishop and the parrot?'
'Dear me, dear me,' said the psychiatrist, and started writing notes.
After a good many questions about the Grimsdyke childhood, which was just the same as any other beastly little boy's, he asked, 'Any sexual difficulties?'
'By Jove, yes.'
I told him the story of Avril Atkinson, but he didn't seem impressed.
'Your trouble, Dr Grimsdyke,' he finally decided, wiping his pince-nez, 'is that you find yourself in uncongenial employment.'
I asked him what I was supposed to do about it, but he only said something about it being a consulting-room and not the Labour Exchange.
'I mean, being a doctor doesn't train you for anything else much, does it? Not like some of those barristers, who get fed up standing on their feet drivelling away to judges and collect fat salaries running insurance companies.'
'There have been medical bishops and ambassadors. Rhodesia had a medical Prime Minister. Goethe and Schiller were, of course, once both medical students.'
'Yes, and Dr Gatling invented the machine gun, Dr Guillotin invented the guillotine and Dr Dover became a pirate. I don't think I've much qualific
ation for any of those professions, I'm afraid.'
'I suggest some non-clinical branch. How about entymology? Are you fond of insects?'
I thought deeply. 'Well, if I'm really no good as a doctor I suppose I could always end up as a psychiatrist. I say, I'm terribly sorry,' I added. 'Just for the moment I was forgetting-'
'Good afternoon, Dr Grimsdyke.'
'Right-ho. Do you want to see me again?'
'No. I don't want to see you at all. The nurse will show you out.'
I left him shaking his head and fumbling nervously with his pince-nez. The poor chap looked as though he really ought to have seen a psychiatrist.
'How did you get on?' asked Connie, answering the door when I called to report.
'Well, I think I won.'
'I hope he recommended shock treatment. Your Uncle Rudolph's in the sitting-room.'
'Good Lord, is he really? Where's Miles?'
'Out on a case. But don't worry-Uncle only wants to offer you a job. One of those rich patients who've been buying up the local country houses has asked him to Jamaica for a holiday. As he's got twenty-four hours to find a locum for the next three months, I suggested you.'
'That's really very decent of you, Connie.'
Since returning from the East, the old uncle had settled at Long Wotton, a pleasant niche in the Cotswolds with thatched roofs and draught cider and cows in the High Street. My session with the psychiatrist not producing much alternative to a lifetime of GP, and Miles' ten quid already having undergone severe amputation, I felt glad of a decent job anywhere. I consoled myself that half rural practice is veterinary medicine anyway, and I'm rather fond of animals.
'My daughter-in-law talked to me for thirty minutes before persuading me to take you as my locum,' Uncle Rudolph greeted me. He was smaller and bristlier than Miles, with hair and eyebrows like steel wool under the influence of powerful magnets, and an equally prickly ginger tweed suit.
'That's very civil of you, uncle,' I told him, 'but as a matter of fact, you're not putting me to any trouble, as I'm quite free at the moment.'
'If you come to Long Wotton on Thursday, I can hand over. My Mrs Wilson will look after you adequately. Though she is attuned to the habits of an elderly widower, so don't expect champagne and caviar for breakfast.'
'Good Lord, no. I couldn't possibly manage anything heavier than cornflakes in the morning, anyway.'
'Kindly remember, Gaston, that there are a large number of important people in the neighbourhood. Most of them are my patients, and I wish them to remain so. Now listen to me. I understand from Miles that you are short of cash?'
'I am rather undernourished in the pocket at the moment,' I admitted.
'You know I have certain funds under my control which I saved you dissipating as a medical student. If you behave sensibly and efficiently at Long Wotton I am prepared to release them. If not, you will have to wait until my demise. And I can assure you that my blood-pressure is excellent.'
'All that matters, uncle,' I told him, 'is giving you satisfaction. In fact, you might just as well advance me the cash now.'
But he didn't seem to grasp the point, and hurriedly asked Connie to fetch him another whisky and soda. Shortly afterwards Miles came in, and nobody took much notice of me any more.
8
I arrived in the country on one of those April days when all the flowers look freshly painted and all the girls look beautiful. The English spring had arrived, as described in the poems and travel advertisements instead of the grey slushy thing we usually get.
I'd already spent a few week-ends at Long Wotton, and found it a friendly place where the inhabitants are all acquainted, if not, as I later suspected from the general feeblemindedness, all actually related. Although I'm not much of a one for country pursuits-guns make such a frightful noise, fishing gives me a bad cold for weeks, and I regard horses as highly unroadworthy vehicles-it was pleasant to find myself respected locally as a learned chap, and not just the fellow who dishes out the chits for false teeth. Also, there was a very amiable young sub-postmistress, and I was looking forward to a few months quietly letting life go by and Avril Atkinson and Porterhampton fade into my subconscious.
After a week or so I was even becoming a little bored, with existence presenting no problems more complicated than keeping the uncle's housekeeper happy, and she seemed very satisfied with the story of the bishop and the parrot. Then I returned one evening from repairing the effects of a pitchfork on some bumpkin's left foot-a very pleasant consultation, with everyone touching their forelocks and asking if I could use a side of bacon-and found the old dear herself standing at the garden gate, looking distraught.
'Doctor, Doctor!' she called. 'Something terrible's happened.'
I was a bit alarmed the cream might have gone off. I was looking forward to my evening meal of fresh salmon followed by early strawberries, particularly as the old uncle had overlooked handing over the cellar keys in his hurry to be off, and I'd just found them-buried under the coal in the outhouse, of all places.
'Doctor, you're to go at once,' she went on. 'It's very urgent. To Nutbeam Hall,' she explained, when I asked where. 'It's his Lordship, there's been a terrible accident.'
A bit of a tragedy, I felt. Fancy missing a dinner like that. But the Grimsdykes never shirk their professional duty, and pausing only to load the Bentley with sufficient splints and morphine to tackle a train crash, I sped up the road to Nutbeam Hall.
Everyone in Long Wotton knew Lord Nutbeam, of course, though I don't mean they played darts with him every night in the local. In fact, most of the inhabitants had never seen him. The old boy was a bachelor, who lived in a rambling house apparently designed by Charles Addams, his younger brother's missus doing such things as ordering the coal and paying the milkman. He appeared only occasionally when they gave him an airing in an old Daimler like a mechanized glasshouse, always with brother or wife as bodyguard.
This was the pair who received me in the hall, a long, dim place crammed with furniture and as stuffy as the inside of the family vault.
'I'm the doctor,' I announced.
'But Dr Grimsdyke-?'
'Dr Rudolph Grimsdyke is enjoying a little well-earned holiday. I'm his locum and nephew, Dr Gaston Grimsdyke.'
I saw them exchange glances. The Hon. Percy Nutbeam was a fat chap with a complexion like an old whisky-vat, which I suppose he'd acquired at his brother's expense. His wife was one of those sharp-faced little women with incisors like fangs, to whom I took an instant dislike.
'Of course, I'm perfectly well qualified,' I added, sensing they might not take kindly to anyone but the accredited family practitioner.
'Naturally, naturally,' agreed Percy Nutbeam, very sociably. 'We don't question that for a moment.'
'I am sure you've had very extensive experience, Doctor,' put in the wife.
'Well, very varied, anyway. Look here,' I told them, feeling rather awkward, 'unless it's a matter of saving life on the spot, if you'd rather call another practitioner-'
'Not at all,' said Mrs Nutbeam briskly.
'My husband and I have the utmost confidence in your handling his Lordship's case. Haven't we, Percy?'
'Of course, Amanda.'
I must admit this made me feel pretty pleased. The old uncle's full of homely advice about wool next to the skin and so on, but after all those years among the hookworm and beriberi he's as out of date in medical practice as a Gladstone bag. I could see they were delighted at an up-to-date chap like myself with all the latest from hospital.
'Then what's the trouble?' I asked.
'We fear a broken hip, doctor,' announced Amanda Nutbeam. 'That's serious, I believe?'
'Could be. Very.'
'Our aunt died after a broken hip,' murmured Percy.
'It all depends on the constitution of the patient,' I told them, remembering my orthopaedic lectures.
'Please let me impress upon you, Doctor,' said Amanda, 'that his Lordship is very delicate.'
&n
bsp; 'Very delicate indeed,' added her husband.
'This way, Doctor, if you please.'
I went upstairs feeling pretty curious. I'd already decided it was the old story-poor old Lord Nutbeam was potty, and the family were making themselves thoroughly miserable keeping it quiet, instead of getting him decently certified and sending him baskets of fruit every Friday. I was therefore a bit startled when my clinical examination provided a couple of eye-openers.
In the first place, far from being dotty, Lord Nutbeam had an IQ in the professorial class.
'I fell from the library ladder, Doctor,' he explained from his bed. 'Appropriately enough, as I was reaching for my first edition of _Reli gio Medici._ You are familiar with the work? Perhaps you have also read Dr William Harvey's _De Motu Cordis_ in the original Latin? I should much like to discuss it with a medical man.'
Not wishing to chat about all those books I'm going to read whenever I get a spare moment, I put my stethoscope in my ears.
Then I got my second surprise. From the conversation downstairs I'd gathered Lord Nutbeam's grip on life was as secure as on a wet conger eel, but I quickly discovered-fractures apart-he was as hale and hearty as I was.
'I am very delicate, Doctor,' he kept on insisting, though he looked a spry old boy with his little white moustache. 'I neither smoke nor drink and live on soft foods. Ever since I had the fever at the age of twenty-one my dear brother and his wife have been devoted to my welfare.'
'Don't worry,' I told him. 'We'll soon have this little matter cleared up, and you'll be able to go on reading just where you left off.'
A few minutes later I again faced the ambulant members of the Nutbeam family in the hall, and announced in suitably sepulchral tones that his Lordship had indeed fractured the neck of the right femur.
'Ha!' muttered Percy Nutbeam, 'Auntie!'
'Then it is serious, Doctor?'
'But please let me reassure you.' I possibly gripped my lapels: 'Once we get anyone as chirpy as Lord Nutbeam into hospital and the hands of a decent orthopaedic surgeon, we'll have him on his feet again in no time. Meanwhile, I have administered a sedative and the fracture isn't very painful. I guarantee he'll stand up to everything wonderfully.'
DOCTOR IN CLOVER Page 5
