Doctor In The Swim

by Richard Gordon

  ‘Just - well, a decent compromise, that’s all,’ I returned, beginning to feel rather lost.

  ‘I mean, does your gentleman want me in bed or out? It’s extra in bed of course.’

  ‘Naturally. I think he’d be glad enough to have you up and about.’

  ‘I could do it for fifty keeping all my things on. It’s a hundred in my slip, a hundred and twenty-five showing my legs, a hundred and fifty showing my–’

  ‘We’ll have the hundred quid one,’ I interrupted, feeling this the best value in the tariff.

  ‘Of course, dear, if your gentleman really wanted to go the limit–’

  ‘Exactly. When can we fix a date for the operation?’ I asked quickly.

  ‘Not till next month, darling.’

  ‘Next month?’ I remembered Miles’ holiday would be up. ‘Couldn’t you manage to squeeze in a day, or rather a night, before then?’

  ‘But darling, I don’t see how I possibly can. Not till I start my own holidays. We’re utterly overwhelmed this time of the year, and I always help out Miss Treadburn – she’s the boss, a complete darling – with the summer kennelling. Absolutely everyone is going out of Town just now and leaving their pets. You’d never believe what I’ve had in my flat – a pair of alsatians, six budgies, and a monkey, not to mention the fish. And then there’s the poodle-clipping. “Dolores,” Miss Treadburn said to me only yesterday, “for poodle-clipping there’s no one to touch you in London.” So I said–’

  ‘I expect we can fix up some time convenient for you and the animals,’ I hazarded, though feeling rather doubtful,

  ‘I expect we can, darling. Give me another ring. Oh, and don’t make it Brighton, will you, darling? A girl can always do with a change.’

  ‘Fixing up your co-respondent was pretty easy,’ I reflected to Miles some time later, when he was already coming up for his second turn on the divan. ‘It’s the theatre of operations which presents the difficulty. Why the devil do you want to get a divorce in July, particularly when it looks as though we’re in for a heatwave? It’s absolutely ruddy impossible to book a double room at the seaside anywhere. At least, in a hotel where they have waiters to bring up the breakfast.’

  ‘We shall need a single room as well, of course.’

  ‘What on earth for?’ I was becoming rather testy with the chap. ‘You’re not asking our old grandma along for sea-water treatment of the back or anything, are you?’

  ‘You will be accompanying me, naturally,’ announced Miles calmly. ‘You don’t imagine I intend to suffer this extremely unusual and somewhat alarming experience by myself do you?’

  ‘Me? I am most definitely not going to play gooseberry.’

  ‘I have the final execution of the plan carefully worked out,’ Miles continued, taking no notice. ‘The co-respondent will sleep in the single room, while you and I share the double. In the morning, the kippers already being ordered, you and she will rapidly change places. As soon as the waiter has left, you may return and enjoy your breakfast.’ He gave one of his smiles. ‘You see, Gaston, I am not devoid of guile when necessary. It is simply that I usually manage to conceal it beneath my engagingly frank exterior. You will now continue to ring round all the seaside hotels in the Automobile Association handbook. Only the four-star ones, of course.’

  That was typical of my cousin, imagining he could cast off the bonds of matrimony like a dirty shirt and then leaving all the work to me. But the trouble with modern Britain, whether it’s hotels or hospitals, is too many people chasing too few beds. The hotels kept regretting they were booked to the eaves. I started to feel that Miles, Dolores, and myself would end up with a jolly night of it on the rocks at Land’s End.

  Then I had a terrific stroke of luck.

  16

  ‘Sir Lancelot Spratt’s lipstick,’ I announced, ‘is a trifle on the thick side. Though he could do with a touch more eye-shadow.’

  ‘How about his powder, Dr Grimsdyke?’

  ‘A dab or two, I’d say.’

  The pretty girl in the pink overall ran her puff over the surgeon’s forehead.

  ‘Grimsdyke,’ said Sir Lancelot.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Is it not a frightening reflection on our age that every evening not only consultant surgeons but bishops, barristers, business men, and backbenchers sit back and let themselves be made up like one of the girls from Madame Tellier’s?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, sir,’

  ‘I wonder,’ growled Sir Lancelot, ‘what Mr Gladstone would have said.’

  It hadn’t been half as tough as I expected, persuading the old boy to go on the telly. I suppose with the fishing season half over he was eager to raise public support for his idea of a teenagers’ re-adjustment centre. Though I must say, he didn’t seem quite so keen, now he sat glaring at himself in that bright bulb-fringed mirror they have up in the studio make-up department.

  ‘Not nervous, I hope, sir?’ I jollied him along.

  ‘Exceedingly. Unlike that blunted battleaxe Dame Hilda – I beg your pardon, Grimsdyke, I quite overlooked for the moment your impending relationship – unlike Dame Hilda I am not accustomed to making regular exhibitions of myself in public. However, our views differ so greatly I should be lacking moral strength if I declined to cross swords with her whenever the occasion demands.’

  I nodded. ‘As you’re on the air in ten minutes, sir, we’d better get down to the studio. The hospitality room’s at the end of the corridor,’ I added, remembering that even the bishops like to drop in for a quick spot of hospitality before facing the cameras.

  ‘Thank you, Grimsdyke. You have some flair as an anaesthetist.’

  The studio, like all television studios before transmission, resembled the Black Hole of Calcutta wired for electronics. It was all cameras and cables and men in frayed khaki pullovers. Among them stumbled the studio manager, with a rapt and vacant look on his face and his own walkie-talkie, through which he was receiving messages from on high, like Joan of Arc.

  I’d already lunched that day with Dame Hilda – she brought me some very nice messages from Anemone – and I knew she was as much at ease as Pavlova having another bash at Swan Lake. But poor Sir Lancelot, settled on one of those hard chairs they give people to squirm in during television interviews, simply stared in alarm at the monitor set, showing a couple of sporty seals tossing balls to each other.

  ‘Two minutes, everyone,’ called the studio manager, getting the call from above.

  Sir Lancelot’s face went blank, like the monitor screen.

  ‘I intend to be quite merciless towards you, Sir Lancelot,’ smiled Dame Hilda, shaking a finger. ‘Nor do I expect you to pull any punches with me. All’s fair in war and television, you know.’

  Sir Lancelot’s face took on a confused jagged look, like the monitor. I stood quietly in the background. Personally, if Evan Crippen had wanted to interview me, I should have gone abroad, grown a beard, and changed my name. As I waited for the red light and watched the girl who did the announcing adjusting her television neckline, I could only feel acutely sorry for the old boy.

  ‘Ten seconds,’ said the studio manager.

  The red light went up, and the one-thousand and-fifty-fourth edition of This Evening took the air.

  The programme started off as usual, with a chap holding forth about the political situation, a girl explaining how she made bedspreads from old typewriter ribbons, another girl singing a witty little song, and then another chap holding forth about something else. Finally, the light flashed on Sir Lancelot’s camera, and Evan Crippen started introducing them to God knows how many millions sitting agog over their high tea or cocktails, according to taste.

  ‘Sir Lancelot–’ Evan Crippen turned on the surgeon. ‘You wrote recently in the press that far too much fuss is made over the problems of the modern teenager?’

  ‘Well, I–’

  ‘You seriously mean that this, probably the greatest social question of our country, is receiving not too littl
e but far too much public attention?’

  ‘I hardly said–’

  ‘Sir Lancelot, I am utterly surprised that a man of your standing – particularly in the great profession of medicine – should take such a miserably mean attitude.’

  ‘I assure you that I–’

  ‘Many teenagers are watching this programme, and I need hardly tell you their reaction. I am appalled at your harsh Victorian approach to the problem of these delicate saplings growing in the mysterious forest of adulthood,’ ended Evan Crippen, seeming rather pleased with the remark.

  ‘Let me tell you that–’

  ‘Sir Lancelot, would you regard yourself as a square?’

  ‘Would I regard myself as a what?’

  ‘Thank you, Sir Lancelot. I am sure that was very enlightening. Dame Hilda–’ He swivelled the sanitary inspector’s nose. ‘You are, of course, our greatest national authority on juvenile delinquency?’

  Dame Hilda smiled.

  ‘I believe I am admitted to be.’

  ‘Quite. Dame Hilda, I have here a cutting from a local paper of some years ago. Will you explain to the viewers, if you please, how you were once convicted in a magistrates’ court and fined five pounds for stealing a hat from a milliner’s shop?’

  Dame Hilda gave a gasp, and so did everyone else in the studio. ‘But…but…that was so long ago.’

  ‘Quite so. But it was shoplifting.’

  ‘I…I was a mere girl at the time…and it was such a pretty hat…I don’t know for the life of me what came over…’

  ‘Go on, Dame Hilda.’

  ‘Oh, dear!’ Dame Hilda produced a handkerchief. ‘I thought everyone had forgotten…it’s terrible after all these years…’

  Evan Crippen smiled. ‘Go on, Dame Hilda, if you please.’

  Sir Lancelot tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Just a minute, sonny.’

  ‘Would you mind!’ rounded the interviewer.

  ‘Do you know what I think of you?’ growled Sir Lancelot, taking him by the lapel. ‘I think you have the mentality of a nasty-minded youth prowling round suburban back gardens at night, in the hope of espying through some uncurtained window the sight of a respectable housewife standing in her underclothes.’

  ‘Really!’ cried Evan Crippen.

  ‘Furthermore,’ continued Sir Lancelot, taking the other lapel, ‘you have the manners of a school bully, the gallantry of a Soho pimp, the compassion of a Barbary slave-driver, and about as much tact as an elephant reversing into a greenhouse.’

  ‘Let me go at once! The viewers–’

  ‘Do you know what I should like to do with you?’ Sir Lancelot shook him a bit. ‘I should like to take you down to St Swithin’s Hospital and lock you for the night in the mortuary. Then you might begin to see we are all feeble human beings made of the same flesh and blood, even though our egos sometimes become inflated like toy balloons.’

  ‘If you do not take your hands off me instantly – !’

  ‘Let me give you some advice, sonny. If you wish to continue making fools of people through this contraption you are perfectly at liberty to do so. I would only counsel you to read the Fables of Aesop, with particular attention to the Ass in the Lion’s Skin, and a side glance at the Fox and the Sour Grapes. You will now kindly apologize to the lady.’

  ‘This programme never apologizes to anybody,’ snapped Evan Crippen.

  ‘In that case, I shall break your ruddy neck.’

  ‘Oh, Sir Lancelot!’ cried Dame Hilda, falling into his arms.

  ‘Cut!’ cried the studio manager. ‘We’re running that film of village life instead.’

  ‘I’ll have you thrown out of here!’ stormed Evan Crippen, pointing a finger in my direction. ‘Has everyone gone mad?’

  ‘Wonderful programme,’ said the producer through the intercom. ‘Pure television.’

  ‘I want a drink,’ said Sir Lancelot.

  ‘So do I,’ I told him.

  I hustled the two performers out of the studio. I pushed them into the local round the back. I bought Dame Hilda a large brandy. She drank it gazing up at Sir Lancelot like one of her own ruddy teenagers stuck in the studio lift with the latest pop singer.

  ‘My dear lady.’ Sir Lancelot wiped off his make-up with one hand and took hers in the other. ‘I trust you are not too distressed?’

  ‘But Sir Lancelot! That dreadful man! You were so wonderful.’

  ‘I hope, madam, I shall never stand idly by to witness a lady being humiliated by a cad.’

  ‘And that dreadful revelation!’

  ‘I can assure you, madam, my own cupboard contains many interesting pieces of osteology.’

  ‘Surely you can no longer think anything of me?’

  ‘On the contrary, I think a great deal more of you.’

  ‘But you must call me Hilda.’

  ‘But I should be delighted.’

  ‘Sir Lancelot, you were so forceful…so strong. A true knight, in shining armour.’

  ‘Another brandy, Hilda?’

  ‘Thank you. How often have I suspected a beard indicated inner strength!’

  ‘That is kind of you, Hilda.’

  ‘A beard does not lend a man character. It expresses it.’

  ‘A charitable observation.’

  ‘You must in your youth have been such an athletic man.’

  ‘I did indeed enjoy some success at putting the shot.’

  I began to feel rather out of this.

  ‘Now Sir Lancelot, I must do everything in my power to help your new scheme down in Wales. Perhaps I could bring down a party of London girls for a fortnight’s holiday? I could easily arrange for you to receive a most generous grant for their maintenance, and it would be a fine beginning for your clinic.’

  ‘Excellent, Hilda! Why not next week-end?’

  ‘Of course. Next weekend–’ Dame Hilda caught sight of me. ‘But next Saturday I am due to begin my own summer holiday with Anemone and Gaston at Whortleton.’

  ‘Ah, tut,’ said Sir Lancelot.

  ‘And of course Gaston and Anemone couldn’t possibly go down to Whortleton alone. That wouldn’t be at all nice.’

  ‘Look here, Dame Hilda,’ I suggested quickly. ‘Why don’t you, I and Anemone all start on the Monday, instead? I mean, Monday’s a far better day to begin a trip to the seaside. Much more room in the sea, and the pierrots will be all fresh with a new show.’

  ‘If you really wouldn’t mind, Gaston–’ said Dame Hilda doubtfully.

  ‘Not a bit. I mean, really, I’m terribly disappointed. But I’m sure Sir Lancelot needs a little of your time too, Dame Hilda,’ I added, with a bit of a smirk.

  ‘In that case, I will alter the hotel reservations.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Dame Hilda. I’ll attend to that.’

  ‘But I could easily send them a wire–’

  ‘No bother at all,’ I told her. ‘I’ll pick up the phone just as soon as I get back to my flat.’

  I didn’t, of course. I left Sir Lancelot to take Dame Hilda out to dinner, and nipped back to find my cousin. And that was why Miles and myself, that Saturday afternoon, were in a compartment with about two dozen other people, all going to Whortleton.

  17

  ‘What on earth do you suppose has happened to that blasted woman?’ demanded Miles. ‘Damnation! I’m absolutely certain she’s never going to turn up at all.’

  ‘Give her a chance, old lad,’ I tried to placate him. ‘After all it’s hardly past ten p.m.’

  ‘It’s all your fault,’ returned Miles shortly.

  ‘My fault?’

  ‘Yes, you’ve told her the wrong date, time, hotel, and seaside resort, I shouldn’t wonder. You always were absolutely hopeless trying to organize anything, even the jam cupboard at school.’

  ‘That’s a bit hard, I must say! I’ve gone to all this ruddy trouble, just because you want to kick out Connie like a cold hot-water bottle. And I’ve still got to tell Anemone and Dame Hilda no end of fibs on Monday about you
and your wife taking over their room for the night. Not to mention what I shall say when the sordid truth comes out in the divorce court. ‘Except that,’ I reflected,’ I shall, of course, be nicely married by then.’

  Miles continued to pace angrily up and down our bedroom in the Surfview Hotel.

  The Surfview at Whortleton, like the pier and the railway, had been built for the pleasure of our Victorian ancestors, when they decided there was nothing like sea air to cure everything from the green sickness to the galloping scrofula – and, poor chaps, they hadn’t much else to try with. Life at Whortleton had centred mainly round the lobster pots until these ancestors started trundling up and down the beach in their bathing machines, exclaiming that nothing was quite so healthy as the tang of the ozone, though actually it’s only the smell of rotting seaweed and the local sewage. The management of the Surfview, having hit on just the right decor to keep the ancestors happy between dips, hadn’t seen much reason to change it since, and our room contained a couple of beds with brass knobs, a wardrobe hefty enough to resist armour-piercing shells, a curly stand for your hats and umbrellas, a picture of a stag rather puzzled to find itself on a mountain peak, and a framed notice explaining that if anyone swiped your valuables while in residence it was jolly well your own fault.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ muttered Miles, kicking the commode. ‘I’m somewhat worked up, that’s all. You can hardly blame me.’

  ‘Perfectly understandable,’ I agreed sportingly. ‘Let’s go straight down and have another recce for Dolores. Besides,’ I remembered, ‘we’ve got to organize those kippers. There’d be no point in the outing at all if the three of us found ourselves picking the bones out of our teeth downstairs in the dining-room.’

  ‘You go.’ Miles reached for his briefcase. ‘I have some essential lecture notes to prepare. Don’t forget I start again at St Swithin’s on Monday morning.’

  ‘You might also have a dummy run at your compromising position,’ I suggested. ‘You could practise on the hat stand.’

  Miles raised his eyebrows. ‘I shall be observed with my jacket off. I presume that will be enough?’