TO D.
Contents
Title Page
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
About the Author
By the Same Author
Copyright
One
After Ihad been in general practice for eighteen months and married for six, I began to realise that I had taken only the first halting steps on the path to becoming a good family doctor and that there was more to a harmonious marriage than remembering to put the lid back on the toothpaste.
If in my first year of caring for my now familiar patients I had acquired a bedside manner and a certain intuitive skill in looking after them, in my second I gained, in addition to one or two grey hairs, what I suppose can only be called compassion. To my routine visits and consultations, I found myself bringing a warmer heart and to the endless tales of woe, from the most minute psychological pinprick to the severest organic trauma, I lent a gentler ear.
Although the National Health Service had made the old-style family doctor, who lingered over a glass of sherry or a cup of tea with each patient, a practical impossibility, I felt that this essential figure of the last century should not be replaced by a “pill-dispensing” automaton. There had, it was true, been dramatic advances in medicine over the past fifty years as there would undoubtedly be in the next, yet in an age when pimply youths thought nothing of beating up either each other or defenceless old ladies, I was convinced that there was still a need to a minister to the family as a whole. The progress we have made in medicine may have given us control over many diseases of the body, yet it still has not eliminated the need to treat people with sympathy as well as pain with drugs.
As an established practitioner of eighteen months’ standing, I now knew that the complaints I faced daily were not only the ones with names to be found in every morning paper and on the lips of every modern man.
Poliomyelitis, allergy, leukæmia, and operations on the brain and heart were acceptable small-talk in any gathering, but the diseases with which I had most commonly to deal would neither make interesting conversation nor sell any newspapers. Their names were Failure, Weariness, Misunderstanding and Discouragement, and they accounted for a large percentage of the patients who packed my surgeries. These were the chronic maladies of a generation with a background of blood-spattered years, facing a future made sombre with the general unrest of peoples and the specific fear of the hydrogen bomb. The family group, integrated and secure, of a century ago, had largely disappeared, and we were left with a wandering tribe of so-called “independent” people who often sought, in middle life, for the security they had fought so hard to destroy in their youth. They lived in fear. Fear of not making enough money, fear of their social standing and, above all, fear of premature death from one of the much publicised fatal diseases. It was not now merely a question of keeping up with the Joneses; it was a matter of getting ahead while there was still time. Perhaps it was trespassing on the sphere of the priest to help these people go forth into the darkness, but the fact remained that they did not go to the priest. They came, morning and evening, to my surgery. It was impossible, in caring for my patients, not to learn to care about them.
Whether this change, obvious, or so I thought, only to my own perceptive soul-searchings, was the inevitable result of advancing maturity, or due to my newly married status, I don’t know. My private opinion supported the view that whatever improved service I was giving my patients was due to the influence on my home and work of Sylvia, to whom at long last I was married.
It seemed so long ago that I had first proposed to her and had given up my hospital post for general practice in order to be able to support her, that she had turned me down and become engaged to the odious Wilfred Pankrest. The grisly thought that she had come so near to marrying that wealthy, knee-high-to-a-duck playboy whom she didn’t love, made me shudder, but I preferred not to think about it. Sometimes I could hardly believe that she was actually my wife, and after six months I certainly hadn’t got over the wonder of being married to her. I knew that I was a lucky man. I was happy in my practice, liked my work and my patients, and had a growing National Health list. Now I had love as well.
Poor Sylvia! Sometimes I felt pangs of conscience as I watched her cope manfully and simultaneously with a steak and kidney pie and a cryptic message from the laboratory, the proper spelling of which invariably eluded her, or found her, dripping wet from the bath, her teeth chattering with cold, as she listened to some time-consuming, rambling message from which she had ultimately to make a résumé.
As a top fashion model she had been used to long hours and hard work. For years now she had spent her days dashing from studio to smart hotel and Couture House to airport, when she wasn’t standing for hours at a time before the camera; now the only places to which she dashed were the doors and the telephone, and the only apparatus before which she stood was the kitchen sink. True she had only exchanged one arduous task for another, but this time there was no applause.
I had, as well as I could, prepared her before our marriage for her rôle as the wife of a GP. It was no surprise to her, therefore, when she found that she was expected, with no training whatsoever, to operate a casualty clearing station, which entailed anything from dealing calmly with panic telephone calls while I was out on my rounds, to doing the odd emergency dressings which presented themselves at the waiting-room door out of surgery hours. She had anticipated many of her own duties as the wife of a GP and thought she knew a good deal about mine. What amazed her, though, about general practice was the way one could save a life between shaving and breakfast, regarding it almost as a matter of routine, or pronounce a man dead at lunchtime and come back calmly to eat one’s soup. Knowing the misgivings she had had, which had kept her for over a year from marrying me, about her ability to settle down to life as the wife of a suburban GP, I watched her apprehensively as the first months slipped by. Whatever hazards, though, we had to overcome during our early married life were insignificant compared to the ghastly trials of the weeks before we actually reached the altar.
This pre-wedding period made jumping beans out of nerves I never knew I had, and reduced my weight by half a stone. Had it gone on for much longer I doubt if I should have survived it.
There seemed to be endless weeks, before the date set for the wedding, of attempting to divide my attention fairly between carbuncles and cupboards (new fitted ones for the kitchen), and tonsils and various tones of grey (all of which looked the same to me) for the walls of the dining-room. During this time it often surprised me that I never answered “pale blue everglaze” when asked by a patient what kind of elastic stockings she should wear, or recommended Mr Hicks, our plumber, when sending someone for a second opinion on what many of the patients referred to as their “waterworks.”
Much to my surprise the Happy Day did eventually arrive and on it all went smoothly. Faraday, my colleague, best friend, and best man, remembered the ring, the rector a pretty speech with suitable references to my Honourable Profession and Noble Calling, and my mother not to shed more than one unobtrusive tear. By eleven o’clock, when I was normally walking down the garden path with my case to do the morning visits, I was marching slowly down the aisle with Sylvia.
The rest of the day I remember only as a hazy performance of handshakes, toasts, coy sentiment and ribald jok
es in which Sylvia, indescribably beautiful in the white dress Michael Reed had created especially for her, was the star and my part so very insignificant that at times I wondered why I had come along. I did, however, provide the foil for her beauty, make a very short speech and give Sylvia’s Uncle John something for his lumbago.
Our honeymoon was spent in the South of France and, apart from its more obvious delights, was memorable in that for two weeks I didn’t see a single ill person and used the telephone only to order breakfast. We arrived home on a wet Wednesday, our heads full of happy memories of soft, ink-blue nights, lazy Pernods in the sun and the leisured life of the Côte d’Azure. It took us about two minutes to get the stars out of our eyes.
Faraday, who had been acting as my locum while he waited for his new hospital job to start, opened the door to us, kissed Sylvia soundly and nearly kissed me in his relief at seeing us.
“Busy?” I said, and picked up one of the suitcases which the taximan had dumped on the doorstep.
Faraday clapped a hand to his forehead. “I’m going mad,” he said. “Thank God you’ve come home.”
I started to step inside, but felt a tug at my elbow.
“Haven’t you forgotten something?” Sylvia said.
I cast an eye over the bags and cases.
“I don’t think so, dear.”
Faraday whispered in my ear.
I put down the suitcase and picked up Sylvia. In the hall two pairs of eyes watched us incredulously. One belonged to a white-faced girl who was sitting on a battered suitcase, and the other to a smarmy-looking young man with shiny black hair.
Embarrassed by the audience, I looked round for somewhere to put Sylvia, who was waggling her legs in the air in an abandoned fashion. Since she was gazing into my eyes she hadn’t noticed that we had company. She pulled my head towards her and put her lips lovingly on mine.
Faraday cleared his throat and the reception committee looked tactfully at the ceiling. Chivalry, I decided, had had its due for the day. I set Sylvia firmly if unceremoniously on the floor and pulled her into the morning-room. Faraday followed us and we shut the door.
“Now,” I said, “perhaps you can put me in the picture. For a start maybe you could tell me who all these people are. You haven’t by any chance been taking in lodgers?”
Faraday lit a cigarette. I noticed that his hands were none too steady.
“It’s quite simple. The girl is the maid you ordered from the agency, and has just arrived from Ireland. The man just came a few minutes before you did and said he wanted to see you on a matter of the greatest importance. I’ve only just finished the surgery and I’ve twelve visits to do, so with your permission, old man, I’ll be on my way. We’ll have a chat later, and with the greatest pleasure in the world I’ll hand you back the keys of your kingdom where no meal can be eaten in peace and in the service of which I shouldn’t be at all surprised to have acquired a large peptic ulcer.”
Faraday made for the door, but came back to peer into my face.
“You’re looking rather pale, old man,” he said. “You don’t want to overdo this marriage business, you know!”
He kissed Sylvia again and was off.
I delegated Sylvia to take the maid upstairs and deal with her, and called the young man into the morningroom.
“Now,” I said, taking an immediate dislike to his appearance; “what can I do for you?”
He held out his hand. “I’m Doctor Compton,” he said, “Archibald Compton.”
We shook hands. “Yes?”
He wandered over to the window, where the rain was streaming down the panes. “It’s very pleasant round here.”
“Extremely. Won’t you sit down?”
“No. I can see I haven’t called at a very convenient time. I don’t want to detain you.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Busy practice?” he said, swaying back and forth on his heels.
“Extremely.”
“Full list?”
A horrible suspicion began to enter my head. “Doctor Compton,” I said, my manner less friendly. “I hardly know you. These are very personal questions. Perhaps you’d better tell me why you called.”
He looked at his nails. “I’m putting up a plate,” he said; “I don’t expect you’ll be sorry to get rid of a few patients.”
I looked at him in horror. “Squatting?”
“Horrible term,” he said. “Putting my plate up.”
“Where?”
“Well, it’s round the corner, actually. Number thirty-five.”
“Not the Johnsons’ old house?” It was practically on my doorstep.
“That’s right.”
I advanced menacingly. “You can’t do that,” I said. “The Executive Council…”
He held up his hand. “As a matter of fact,” he said, “I’ve done it.”
Two
The maid was familiar with neither gas, electricity, running water nor flushing toilets. The Hoover terrified her, the cooker petrified her and when the telephone rang she crouched in a corner telling her beads. On the first day, having filled the sink with washing-up water for her, Sylvia came back half an hour later to find her bailing it out with a cup and throwing each cupful out of the window into the garden. When Sylvia demon-strated the miracle that occurred with the removal of the plug it quite made her day. She kept nipping surreptitiously to the sink, filling it with water and watching it disappear again.
It was a pity that Mrs Little, who had been my housekeeper since my first day in general practice, had given me her notice as soon as she heard of my marriage plans. But, as she said, she only liked to “do” for single gentlemen and would never consider playing second fiddle in “her” kitchen. Possibly it was all for the best anyway; I had always taken the line of least resistance, thankful that the house ran as smoothly as it did, but I doubt if some of Mrs Little’s activities would have satisfied Sylvia’s vigilant and fastidious eye. Anyway, Mrs Little had seen me safely married, given me a tea-cosy for a wedding present and departed to look after a gentleman in Balham. The gods, who in their divine wisdom look after the general practitioners, sent Bridget; I don’t know what I had done to anger them.
Anyway, if Sylvia had her worries in the shape (peculiar as it was) of Bridget, a new husband and a new house to run, I also had mine.
My practice under the ministrations of Faraday had got a little out of control. He was used to seeing patients in hospital who had already been through the sieve of general practice and were in need of his specialised and prolonged attention. He had applied the same principles to my practice, with the result that he had usually not finished the morning surgery by lunch-time and the evening one by nine o’clock. It was hardly surprising that he considered me a grossly overworked slave of the State and returned, well satisfied, to his own less onerous if less remunerative job. On the patients, his methods had had varying effects. They were impressed by his kindness, his solicitude and the impression he gave that he had all the time in the world to spend with each one of them. They were not so impressed with his tendency to strip them and make a complete examination with the possible inclusion of a blood test, when they came to the surgery only for a “pick-me-up,” the weekly bottle of medicine they had been having for years, or merely to read the magazines in the waiting-room and for a chat. Exhaustive examinations of the nervous system were run-of-the-mill for Faraday, but it was probably many years since he had opened an abscess or treated a case of measles. Neither was he in the habit of looking down ears, and one inflamed one which he had been treating daily with antibiotics cleared up immediately when I removed a piece of impacted cotton-wool from its depths.
To their utter confusion he made all my old men abandon their well-loved pipes and baccy (“the smoke helps me bring up the phlegm, Doctor”) and lectured the young mothers soundly and firmly on giving no quarter to the family thumb-suckers. He had frightened them all so with his powerful personality and sense of the dramatic that they
had all done as he said, but within a week of my return the pensioners were all once again sucking happily at their pipes and the children at their thumbs.
As I got into the swing of things again, getting the ropes back firmly into my own hands, I was flattered to see how much most of the patients depended on their “own” particular doctor, rather than just any qualified person sitting at the surgery desk dispensing treatment and advice.
Faraday had seen a good many of my patients for me and had considered himself very busy, but I was surprised at the large number of people who had been saving up their complaints for my return. The excuses varied: “You know my case, Doctor”; “I reckoned he wouldn’t know as much about arthritis (or boils or urticaria or catarrh) as you do”; or merely, “I felt I couldn’t talk to him like I can to you, Doctor.” It was nice to know it wasn’t only the medicine, but the man, that mattered, and that there was a certain therapeutic value in the mere telling of the tale to the proper ear.
There was, of course, another side to the picture. Some of my patients came to see me, not for myself, but merely to “the Doctor’s.” They came because it was the house with the red light outside, probably the nearest to their homes, and here they knew they could get treated. Many of these people didn’t even know my name. I was simply “the Doctor.” To this minority it was of no importance whom they found behind the desk. Myself or Faraday; it made no difference. For all I knew an electrically propelled robot might have been acceptable provided he could wield convincingly a stethoscope and a pen.
Another section of the practice had actually welcomed my absence. There were some of the chronic sick, for whom there was no treatment except palliative, who had welcomed a new and sympathetic ear and the fresh display of interest in their symptoms provided by Faraday’s thorough examination and attention to the weary history. He sent them home hugging their pathetic renewal of hope and a differently coloured bottle of medicine.
Others among the chronics merely grumbled that the “other doctor” had altered the prescription they had been swallowing by the gallon for years and that they had in consequence taken a “turn for the worse.”
Love on My List Page 1
