“We came as soon as we saw the newspapers,” Fred’s father said. “As you can imagine it gave us a tremendous shock. We haven’t seen Frederick for some years now, but his mother and I have never ceased to pray for him. He was always such a good lad…”
“…took the Sunday School class for years…” his mother said.
“…we never really knew what happened…”
“He’s still one of the best,” I said, “he has a genuine compassion for people.”
“I’m exceedingly pleased to hear it.”
“It’s just that he doesn’t want to be pressed into a mould.”
His mother leaned forwards, she was wringing her hands nervously.
“Do you think he would see us?”
“I can’t think why not.”
A phrase from the past reverberated through my head: “If you can’t turn your parents on, plant them.” Had Fred said that?
“Look, come into the house.” I stood up. “Fred went to catch up on some sleep but I’ll tell him you’re here.”
“I wouldn’t like to disturb him.”
And the meek shall inherit the earth.
I beckoned to them to follow and opened the door leading to the dining room. I blenched myself and did not dare to look at their faces. The walls which Fred and his cohorts had painted navy blue when he had moved in, were decorated with graffiti and unidentifiable liquids which had been spilled and left their dehydrated trail. Cushions, oozing feathers, lay disconsolately on the floor with the remains of food and bottles and glasses; cigarettes, which had been stubbed out on the parquet, were sprinkled overall like confetti. I looked in vain for somewhere my guests might sit while I went upstairs to find Fred. In the kitchen were two packing cases which served Fred as chairs. I dusted them off.
In the bedroom I shook the unconscious Fred who had lain down, fully dressed, to sleep.
“Fred, it’s your parents.”
“What is, man?”
“They’re here; downstairs. They want to talk to you.”
“It isn’t Sunday.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Only listen to sermons on Sundays.”
“They’re concerned about you, Fred. They read about you in the newspapers.”
“Local boy makes good!”
“Fred, don’t be cruel.”
“Cruel, man! Raise a child with all those gospels rammed down his throat. Turn your cheek and pray for your soul, cast your bread upon the waters, the Lord will provide…tell them I’m dead, man, struck down for my wickedness…”
“Fred, it’s your mother and father, remember.”
“I don’t owe them anything.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Did anyone ask you?” He turned over and closed his eyes. I could get nothing more out of him.
I hardly liked to face them. “Look, I’m terribly sorry, Reverend Perfect, but Fred…”
To my surprise he stood up and raised his hand. “Please don’t apologise. We didn’t really expect to see Fred. We wanted to make sure he was all right…”
“He’s quite all right.”
“Our minds will be at ease then.”
“He’s just tired…”
“There’s no need to make excuses. He’s a good boy…”
I must have looked surprised.
“…a fine son. He sends us almost every penny he earns, you know. We have eight other children and life would have been exceedingly hard… I’m not terribly fit and it’s not much of a living…if it wasn’t for Frederick…the Lord Bless him and keep him…”
“I brought him a seed cake,” his mother said, taking it from her shopping basket and looked around the littered kitchen for somewhere to put it.
I took it from her. “I’ll see that he gets it.”
When they’d gone I put it on the draining board. When I came back from the morning’s visits, Fred was feeding it to the birds.
“Recognised it at once, man. Made of piety and flavoured with holier than thou. It was either me or the cake. Not both of us, man, not both.”
“I can’t see what you’ve got against them.”
“Nothing, man. Not a thing.”
“They’re very fond of you.”
“It’s mutual.”
“Then why don’t you see them?”
“I’d be consumed by the fire, man.”
“Sometimes, Fred, I get the distinct impression that you are crackers.”
He threw the last piece of cake to the birds. “Normality is a reality found only in fiction. I don’t have to tell you that, Professor.”
“What are you going to do about last night?”
“In what way?”
“The newspapers.”
“It’s all good publicity.”
“Publicity. I wouldn’t say good.”
“All publicity is good publicity, man. That waiting-room will be bursting its seams tonight, partner.”
Since it was my evening off I wouldn’t be there to see it, but I guessed after the experiences of the morning he was probably right. Fred had become like the fat lady in the circus; everybody wanted to see him. At that moment the front doorbell rang and it was Doctors Murphy, Miller, Hobbs and Entwhistle. They had morning newspapers in their hands and appeared to be considerably agitated.
“We would like to talk to Doctor Perfect.”
“Have you bought tickets?” Fred said from the back of the hall.
They pretended not to have heard. I showed them into the sitting-room where Mrs Glossop was making a valiant attempt to clear up the shambles. There was nowhere to sit.
Dr Murphy, as the senior practitioner in the district, opened.
He thrust the newspaper read by top people under Fred’s nose.
“You have, I presume, read this?”
Fred took it from him and opened it. “No. But I’d like to, man. I bought some shares last week and would like to see how they’re doing. If any of you gentlemen would like a really first-class tip…”
“Or this!” Dr Entwhistle said, producing a more proletarian news-sheet of which Fred’s face occupied almost the entire front page.
“That’s a lovely one,” Mrs Glossop said, leaning on the broom. “Really lovely. I cut it out and pinned it on the dresser. My Renee says…”
“It’s an outrage,” Dr Hobbs said, not troubling to unfold his particular newspaper. “If the General Medical Council are not prepared to take issue on this, we are.”
“We should have kept the seed cake, man,” Fred said. “We have nothing to offer these good people. Yes, we have, we have. Mrs Glossop, in the bookshelves – behind the Encyclopaedia of Medical Practice ‘Gastritis to Hypermetopia’.”
“Gas…what?”
“Never mind; the liquorice allsorts. We hid them there before the party, remember?”
“So we did,” Mrs Glossop said. “You have got a lovely memory.”
Dr Murphy seemed to have difficulty in controlling himself.
“We do not require liquorice allsorts, my good lady.”
Mrs Glossop’s mouth opened wide at the form of address.
“I really do not think that your presence is strictly necessary either.”
Fred put his arm round Mrs Glossop. “Love me, love Mrs Glossop,” he said.
“That is the point,” Dr Murphy said. “We do not love you. We are utterly fed up with you. We had always prided ourselves on the standard of medicine and its practitioners in this district, until you came along and made a laughing stock of us all with your pop and your hop and your ridiculous clothes and your house like a…like a…”
“Brothel,” Dr Entwhistle said.
“…and that childish taxi you drive around in, and now this!” He jabbed a finger at the front of the newspaper in which Fred was looking at his share prices.
“‘Rubber market elastic’,” Fred quoted. “‘Oils spurt.’ I often wonder who thinks up those bons mots.”
“It’s
nothing more or less than advertising!” Dr Murphy said.
“I had a feeling it was a touch of the green-eyed gods,” Fred said.
“Added to which you are a disgrace to your profession.”
“Have a liquorice allsort,” Fred said, extending the packet. “I’ve eaten all the black ones.”
“We have come to suggest that you hand in your resignation to the Executive Council,” Dr Murphy said, ignoring the extended packet.
“Does that include you, Phoebe?” I said to Dr Miller, surprised, because she was a charming old lady and we were the best of friends, to see her among the deputation.
“Not at all,” she said. “I really wanted to ask Fred if he’d do a weekend for me. I have to go up to Scotland and I knew he’d be so good with the dogs.”
She never visited a patient without her two sheep-dogs in the back of her evil smelling car.
“Anytime,” Fred said. “You’ll have a liquorice allsort?”
“I can’t resist the round pink ones,” Phoebe said, taking one. “Now, if you’ll all excuse me…”
“I’ll excuse you all,” Fred said, extending his arms to include Doctors Murphy, Hobbs and Entwhistle.
“You’ll be hearing more of this,” Dr Murphy said.
“I told you it was a waste of time talking to him,” Dr Entwhistle said.
“You could always let down my tyres,” Fred said.
“I can’t understand why you don’t get rid of him,” Dr Murphy said to me.
“On what grounds?”
“Immoral conduct, detrimental to the profession.”
“Man,” Fred said, “I don’t care for the look of that pigmented mole you have beneath your right ear. I would get rid of it if I were you, before it becomes malignant.”
“When I want your advice I will ask for it…”
“Thomas Flower deals with them estimably, leaving a minimal scar…”
“You are an absolute oaf,” Dr Murphy said, losing the temper which he had obviously been determined to keep. He stalked towards the door. “I shall have you out of the district if it’s the last thing I do.”
“It will be if you don’t get that thing removed.”
“Mind your own…”
“You’ve forgotten your newspaper,” Fred said, picking it up from the floor. “And if you want to be the richest man in the graveyard, buy Porto Rio mines. But don’t pay more than six and sevenpence ha’penny…”
“Goodbye!” Dr Murphy said.
“Peace and love,” Fred replied.
He stood at the door politely while they drove away in their sensible general practitioner cars, leaving the purple taxi solitary by the kerb.
I fetched my case from the surgery as it was my turn to do the visits and went back into the sitting-room to say goodbye to Fred and Mrs Glossop. I found the latter upside down on one of the cushions, revealing an excess of pink bloomer. I might have been inclined to agree with Dr Murphy on the state of Fred’s morals had I not known that he was helping her with her yoga.
When I finally got home I found a note to the effect that my lunch was in the oven and that the communal garden at the back of the house was open for the first time and I could spend the afternoon sitting in it. The PS included kisses from Sylvia and the information that I would find a deckchair in the pram cupboard. I burned my fingers on the macaroni cheese and looked forward to what remained of the afternoon in the fresh air reading up on my psychiatry.
The deckchair was, it was true, in the pram cupboard. So were the automatic carpet shampooer, three pairs of entangled ice skates, a man-high stack of medical journals, a carrycot plus mattress, one hockey stick, one guitar, a bowler hat, the best tea service and sundry other articles, for which there was simply no alternative place.
By the time I had disentangled the deckchair and reassembled the cupboard, I was not only tired, but cross and tired. My exertions, however, were by no means over. As there was no back exit I had to hump the chair out of the front door, along Church Row to the end, down the pathway and into the gardens. It was like Blackpool beach on bank holiday, with one exception; there were no men. Women with small children with descending knickers and babies in prams dotted the greensward. They had brought their knitting and their tea. It looked like a scene from the Rape of the Sabines as they followed my progress amongst them, weaving in and out of the gossipy groups from the flats until I was level with the back of my own house. I had forgotten that in mid-afternoon on a week-day most men would be at work. I could feel myself being branded idler, good-for-nothing, parasite of the state. Perhaps they would think I’d had an operation. I opened my chair pathetically and tried to look pale. I sat down before the accusing stares to discover that I had forgotten my book. I looked unavailingly at the back of my house. My house, to which ridiculously there was no access without retracing my steps. I was not prepared to sit and do nothing. I retraced my steps. When I returned a small child was playing hide and seek behind my chair. I patted his head and asked him to move. He told me, without animosity, to “fuck off”.
I applied myself to The Place of Psychiatry in Modern Medicine; “Psychiatry today,” I read, “is rooted in genetics, in biochemistry, in endocrinology, as well as in anatomy and physiology; it demands moreover a knowledge…” A large red ball landed in my lap followed by a child on all fours who said: “Ta?” I bared my teeth into a smile and rolled the ball for him to crawl after. “…not simply of normal psychology and psychopathology, but some acquaintance with sociology, anthropology, history and philosophy…”
“They was two and nine in Sainsbury’s and half a dollar down the market…”
“…I said you go out of this house with all that muck on your face and you don’t go out at all…”
“…leaves ’im in the day nursery while she carried on with ’er…”
“…you can keep yer bleedin’ council, I said, if you don’t get my flush working by…”
“…there was water dripping out the globe onto me terrylean quilt all day so the time I got in from work…”
“…use the disposable ones…”
“…you talk to me like that, my lad, I said… Doreen… Doreen…come ’ere…’ang on a mo she’s putting grass in ’er mouth…”
“…If we turn aside for a while from the great proportion of sick people whose illness presents mental or emotional symptoms…”
“Can you look at my Brian’s spots?”
“…including in this category those whose complaints may be of bodily pain or weakness…”
“Can you look at my Brian’s spots?”
I realised someone was talking to me. She was a large woman with her hair in rollers and a small child supported on her pregnant abdomen.
“Can you look at my Brian’s spots?”
“Why should I?”
“You’re a doctor, aren’t you?”
I wondered if I had a red cross on my forehead.
“Yes.”
“I seen you down the Row. My front room winder looks onto your little house. I seen you go out with yer case and yer stethyscope. My Brian’s got spots.”
“Yes, so you said. Haven’t you got a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Well, why don’t you take Brian to see him?”
“It’s ’is ’alf day.”
“It’s mine, too.”
“Yes, but you’re ’ere and ’e isn’t. It won’t take a minute.” She pulled up the child’s shirt.
I ran a finger along his skin. “Nettlerash. Something he’s eaten, nothing to worry about.”
I went back to my book.
“I was worried on account of me being in the family way.”
“Well, you needn’t be.”
“It’s not infectious then?”
“No.”
“Thanks ever so much.”
“Not at all.”
“It’s worryin’ when they get spots.”
“…the doctor’s job is concerned then with the restoration
of health and happiness to a sick person, and the prevention of ill health, unhappiness among those who are well…”
“…’Scuse me, Doctor!” I looked up ferociously. There were two of them this time. “Me and my friend was wondering if we could join your panel. It’s ever so handy, we only live up there…” She pointed to the towering block of flats. “If I look out of my kitchen I can see where you put your baby out…”
“Did you have a nice afternoon?” Sylvia said in bed that night. “I forgot to ask you but I noticed you had had the deckchair out. Was it pleasant in the gardens?”
I told her exactly how it had been in the gardens and exactly how much worse it was likely to be at weekends. It was the first and positively last time, I informed her in no uncertain terms, that I was likely ever to go anywhere near the wretched gardens, and that I yearned for my nice suburban rose bushes and herbaceous border where I could spend a hard-earned free afternoon in peace.
“At least you had no one telephoning,” Sylvia said.
“No.”
“And no one ringing the bell.”
“No.”
“Well, I don’t know what you’re complaining about. It’s good to have company. Anyway, you could always have sat on the patio.”
She was referring to the two square feet of concrete outside our bedroom.
“Are you aware,” I said, “that the only time the sun shines onto the ‘patio’ as you euphemistically call it, is from half-past six in the morning until quarter to seven, ditto?”
“How could I be? I’m never awake at that hour.”
“Well, that’s when it does,” I said. “In the summer that is.”
“Oh, well,” Sylvia said, settling down comfortably, “you can’t have everything, can you?”
“Just as you say, dear.” I settled too.
“Well, you can’t, can you? I mean you always have to compromise. Good night, Sweetie.”
I was just about to say good night when I remembered.
“Barbara Basildon!” I said, sitting up.
“If there is any one thing that’s going to wreck our marriage,” Sylvia said, “it’s that woman. First thing in the morning and last thing at night. What’s the matter now?”
“That’s just the trouble,” I said. “She rang first thing this morning and what with Fred and his capers it completely went out of my head.”
Practice Makes Perfect Page 15
