“…and then we have in one capsule a preparation which combines tetracycline and oleandomycin, a relatively new medium spectrum antibiotic with a range of activity similar to that of erythromycin…”
I must have dozed off for the next thing I heard was the word “Golf.”
I sat up.
Mr Piper was placing the pile of literature on my desk together with two or three small samples.
“What was that you said?” I asked.
“Ah!” About our lozenges. Soothing to the inflamed oral mucosa, non-toxic, pleasantly flavoured and acceptable to children.”
“No, not that!” I said, wondering if perhaps I had been dreaming. “I thought I heard you say something about golf.”
“Yes,” he said. “My firm is sponsoring a golf tournament for general practitioners. I was asking whether you were interested at all.”
“Good gracious, yes,” I said, my weariness completely disappearing. “When is it?”
By the time Mr Piper left, I had waited so long for dinner that my hunger had evaporated.
Sylvia had already had her dinner, so she brought mine, which she had kept hot, on a tray into the morning-room. She was busily sewing name tapes on to numerous tiny garments which she had to take into the hospital with her when she had the baby.
“Why don’t you finish it, Sweetie?” she asked as I put my knife and fork down, able to eat only very little.
“Too tired.”
“Poor Sweetie. Shall I get you something else?”
“No thank you, darling,” I yawned. “Never mind. In twenty-five years’ time perhaps I shall have someone to help me with the practice.”
“How do you mean?”
“Our one and only.”
Sylvia squinted at the needle she was threading.
“Oh! no!” she said. “I don’t think I’d like to see our daughter doing medicine. It’s no life for a girl.”
“Daughter?”
“Mm,” she said, smiling. “Blonde, with a pony-tail.”
I said nothing but picked up the newspaper and put my feet up on the mantelpiece.
Sylvia put her hands in her lap and looked at me.
“It’s just sunk in,” she said. “What you were saying about someone to help you with the practice? You’re really banking on a boy?”
“Oh! no,” I said casually, keeping my face behind the paper. “Whatever we have will be OK with me. After all, what does it matter?” I knew that that was how I should feel about it, but I didn’t. I desperately and unreasonably wanted our only child to be a son. It was both stupid and unfair on Sylvia, and I was sorry that I had let her see how I felt.
“Look, darling,” I said, “it really doesn’t mean a thing to me, as long as you and the baby are all right. Little girls are sweet and so are little boys.”
“I’d like to make you happy, Sweetie,” Sylvia said, “since it’s only going to be one.”
“You will, whatever it is,” I said firmly. “Now, let’s not be so stupid. After all, neither of us really minds, do we?”
“No,” Sylvia said, “we don’t mind a bit.”
But we did.
As often as I imagined a future with my son by my side I knew that Sylvia was still hoping for a daughter, although neither of us said anything. We always skated tactfully round the subject, referring to “the baby,” until it came to problems like the paint.
“Pink!” Sylvia said. “The very palest pink. Then we can have white curtains scattered with pink rosebuds.”
I looked at her in horror, offended at the thought of my son surrounded by pink rosebuds.
Together we both realised that we had given ourselves away. Sylvia recovered first.
“No,” she said, “perhaps not. Pink, after all, is very ordinary. Had you anything particular in mind?”
I had visualised a manly blue. “Not really. What about green?”
“Or yellow?” Sylvia said half-heartedly.
“Or grey?”
We settled for off-white on which I was to stick black, silhouetted bunny rabbits.
In the surgery I asked for the loan of some equipment from patients who were in the building trade, and got ladders, planks, a pair of top quality brushes (known affectionately as Big Tom and Little Tom), a “one-inch tool” for painting the architraves and a load of advice. After I’d “rubbed down the winders,” “filled me cracks,” and “put on me undercoat,” according to instructions, I began to think I had missed my vocation!
All went well and I was extremely happy with my new-found occupation until my two jobs clashed, as they did at the most annoying and inconvenient moments. I had painted half the door which, for a professional finish, had to be done with the greatest concentration and in one particular way, when Timothy Jollop fell off his bike and presented a gaping knee to be stitched up; and I had my hands smothered in top-coat which had dripped from the ceiling when Mrs Barclay decided to have an attack of gall-bladder colic. Timothy had been too fascinated by the smudges on my face to cry, and Mrs Barclay in too much pain to notice the traces of Superlac White (semi-gloss) I left on her abdomen. I blamed a pyloric stenosis for “tears” on the long wall, a second-degree burn for paint trodden into the stair-carpet and ignorance for my failure to remove the light switch and door handles. When it was all finished I was, not without reason I thought, proud of my handiwork.
“Think of the money we’ve saved,” I said to Sylvia as we stood in the doorway admiring the clean, bright room.
Sylvia said nothing but went to the stack of equipment I had piled in the middle of the room. Silently she held up the shirt, pullover, golf trousers, socks and shoes I had ruined with paint.
“Well,” I lied, “I was going to throw them away, anyway.”
That night I nearly had to sleep among the bunnies I had so carefully stuck on to the walls.
After dinner we had gone into the nursery again to see how it looked by night.
Sylvia half-closed her eyes and stood in the middle of the room.
“We’ll have the cradle there,” she said, pointing, “the nursing-chair there and the baby bath there.”
“I don’t know why you bother with all that,” I said, admiring my invisible brushwork. “Most of the patients put the babies in an old laundry basket to sleep and bath them in the kitchen sink. I think I made a neat job of that awkward corner, don’t you?”
When Sylvia didn’t answer I looked at her. The tears were running down her face. In the next ten minutes I learned that I was not only heartless, thoughtless and stupid, but was accused of gross callousness and unwillingness to provide the most obvious essentials for our expected newcomer. One by one I managed to reclaim my hastily uttered words, and later, there among the hopping bunnies, was unconditionally forgiven.
I had long ago resigned myself to the fact that I had much to learn about women and marriage and had thought I was progressing quite nicely. Now I began to doubt if I had progressed much past Chapter One of the first volume.
That I was trying to economise by painting the baby’s nursery was one particular indication of a new general trend. I had never been worried particularly about money. My father, medicine-mad and kind to the point of indulgence, had paid for my medical studies. In my hospital days, after I had qualified, the salary although ridiculously low had easily covered my carefree bachelor needs. In general practice, while I was still single, I was able to live comfortably. Marriage, however, seemed to put a different complexion on things. The practice, as practices go, was quite remunerative, but with my change of status certain things which before I had managed very nicely without seemed quite indispensable. My housekeeper and I, in the first year I was in practice, had been quite content to place, with mechanical regularity, buckets under the leaking fanlight every time it rained; we had ignored happily the ancient rumblings of the old-fashioned boiler in the kitchen which kept everything permanently smothered with a thin film of dust, and covered the milk bottles, in hot weather, with damp muslin. Sy
lvia, however, had a rooted objection to the almost permanent array of bowls and buckets in the corridor, could not live with grimy shelves, and said she didn’t see why in the age of atomic power and the “never-never” we had to act as though we were living in the back of beyond, with no main services. In consequence, we now had a leak-proof fanlight (whose repair incidentally had entailed extensive and costly adjustments to the flat roof), a shiny, dirt-free boiler in the kitchen and a fridge. Now we were going to have a baby and, judging by the terrifying number of garments, conveyances and coverings this as yet unborn child was going to need before it was anywhere near ready either to wear shoes or be educated, I thought it probably just as well we were not to have them in unlimited numbers. I was assured by my mother, Mrs Loveday, and by now keeping my eyes open to things other than the patients in the beds as I did my visits, that this state of affairs was quite normal. I had merely now to husband the resources which I had before let slip casually through my fingers, and make better use of the additional sources of income available to me as a general practitioner. In the interests of my growing family I got tough. By charging the patients for certificates for which I was entitled to a fee but about which I had never bothered, I collected enough shillings in a month to make me regret my previous slackness. By being more particular in notifying the Public Health authority of the immunisations and vaccinations which I did, I received the proper remuneration.
My efforts to provide for my family were not unaided. Most of the patients now knew about our expected increase and the news had affected them in various ways. The ladies on the Council estate knitted tiny garments and laid them diffidently on my desk; the ladies in the immediate vicinity knitted tiny garments and brought them to the front door, giving them to Sylvia together with advice based on their own, usually grisly, experiences about having babies. I became a likely target for what seemed to me the abnormally high proportion of gentlemen among my patients who sold insurance.
“But, Doctor, you must provide now for the future of your child…”
“Doctor, by paying these negligible premiums now, in twenty years…”
“Doctor, you must insure your life. What would happen to your wife and child if…”
“This endowment policy, Doctor, will bring you…”
“School bills, Doctor. And then you’ll want him to have a university education…”
I listened carefully and felt the last remnant of my youth slip away. For at least an hour after one of these onslaughts I was quite depressed; my normally cheerful vision clouded with thoughts of what might happen if I dropped down dead, became maimed for life, got some incurable disease. I began to feel quite sorry for Sylvia and our poor, fatherless child.
They finally wore me down and, after much deliberation and evasion, I finally in self-defence provided myself with a small amount of life insurance; a policy which covered me in the event of a patient slipping on the floor of the waiting-room and breaking his leg; and another to insure myself against being struck by a golf ball. After which precautions I quickly forgot about the whole matter and almost regained my previous carefree attitude.
Another chance of extra income which I now agreed to tap was to administer dental gases for my friend Loveday. He had offered me the chance to do his gases when I first went into practice. I had refused because I had never particularly enjoyed giving anæsthetics. In view of my growing financial responsibilities, I decided that it was time I overcame my aversion. Loveday was surprised when I rang him up.
“But, my dear boy,” he said, “you told me you’d hate to give my gases. What’s made you change your mind?”
“LSD,” I said.
Loveday laughed. “As a matter of fact, it’s a good thing that you rang just now. My old anæsthetist is moving down to Devon. I was just about to ask that Compton chap if he did gases.”
“Good Lord!” I said. “You can’t do that!”
“All right,” Loveday said. “I’ll let you know when I have something.”
Two weeks later, his receptionist rang to say that Mr Loveday would like my help with a simple extraction.
Sixteen
It was on the day before the gold tournament arranged by Mr Piper’s firm, Credo-Medicals Ltd, that I did my first gas for Loveday. In view of my performance, I was surprised that he ever asked me again to assist him. But then Loveday was a good sort. It wasn’t that I was technically incompetent, although I hadn’t given a dental gas since I had qualified, but just that on that first occasion I had been a little slow, with rather unfortunate consequences.
The patient was a middle-aged woman who had come to have four teeth extracted; three from one side of her mouth and one from the other.
With the patient made comfortable in the chair, I fitted the nasal mask and, switching on the nitrous oxide, instructed her to breathe deeply in and out through her nose. Gradually her breathing changed and became automatic. I glanced at her pupils, noted her colour and, when all seemed well, switched on the oxygen and told Loveday that I was all ready and that he could start the extraction.
For the removal of the first three teeth all went well. Loveday extracted them with expert speed and seemingly effortless dexterity. He then started to shift the gag that was holding the patient’s mouth open, in order to expose the fourth tooth on the other side of the mouth.
The gag slipped and the woman’s mouth half closed.
“I’ll have the Mason’s retractor,” Loveday said quickly, holding out his hand to me. “You can hold her mouth open for me while I get this last one.”
I looked vaguely round the room, then noticed a tray of ferocious-looking dental instruments behind my left arm. While I pondered over the choice of weapons, trying to decide which particular retractor he was asking for, Loveday decided he couldn’t wait. He put his fingers in the patient’s mouth to hold the slipping gag in position, and quickly got hold of the last tooth.
I had just noticed the retractor I was sure he had asked me for when I saw him whip out the fourth tooth. At that moment the patient’s jaws snapped shut. Unfortunately, Loveday still had his fingers in her mouth.
After muttering one extremely rude word, Loveday managed to restrain himself while the nurse helped the patient from the room. Then, gripping his bleeding fingers, he banged round the surgery, his seventeen stone rattling the equipment, swearing at me.
Apologising profusely, I offered him bandage and Elastoplast an even to stitch him up. When he’d exhausted his repertoire, the cream of which I had mistakenly thought I already knew by heart from the golf course, he said it wouldn’t be necessary. He thanked me for helping him, and he even paid me.
I was surprised when he rang me two days later to say that he had a child with two teeth to extract, and could I give the anæsthetic. Considering that through me he had nearly lost three fingers, I thought it very decent of him. I gradually got to know what was required of me in addition to actually administering the gas, and by the time Loveday’s fingers had completely healed we had formed a fine partnership.
When I came home for lunch and told Sylvia about my first unfortunate little episode with Loveday she said: “That’s funny!”
“I can’t see anything very funny in nearly having your fingers bitten off,” I said.
“No, I don’t mean that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t smell. When you used to give anæsthetics when you were working at the hospital, you smelt terrible for hours. I was almost anæsthetised when you kissed me.”
“This is different,” I said. “We don’t use any ether for dental gases. That’s what I used to smell of at the hospital.”
Sylvia shuddered. “Ugh. It was horrid. You were at the Chest Hospital then. Do you remember? I used to think you were wonderful in your white coat with your stethoscope dangling nonchalantly.”
“You were pretty wonderful too.”
Sylvia looked down at her bulging figure.
“I bet that good-looking drive
r wouldn’t offer to run me home in the ambulance now!”
“He would get more than he bargained for if he did! Those were the good days,” I said, thinking of Sylvia waiting for me to come off duty in the doctors’ sittingroom at the hospital; the dances, parties, walks on the Heath, dress shows when she was modelling.
She put her arms round me. “These are better.”
“Are you sure?” I said anxiously, wondering if she still hankered after her old, glamorous life.
“Positive.”
Looking into her saucer-like blue eyes with their heart-breaking black lashes, I felt that she meant it. In spite of, or because of, her pregnancy, she was looking more beautiful than ever, and for the first time I was really able to believe that she was settling down and no longer yearned, or if so only very occasionally, for the cameras and the bright lights.
She seemed lately to be really enjoying her rôle of doctor’s wife, and I suspected that it was because she was now getting to know the patients as more than just disembodied voices over the telephone. She met them when they called at the house for prescriptions, and kept up with their progress by asking me what my diagnoses were after I had been to visit them.
She seemed glad to be able to help when little Jenny swallowed a safety pin or pushed a bead up her nose while I was out on my rounds, and could advise with assurance what little Tommy should have for breakfast after a tonsillectomy. She also dealt in my absence with cuts and scalds, babies who had fallen out of cots or off draining boards, and aged relatives who had collapsed on the floor. She was able to assess the situation with confidence, reassure the panic-stricken callers and tell them exactly what to do.
Looking at her contented face, I felt sure that this way she would remain happy long after the bright lights would have dimmed.
The day of the Credo-Medical’s golf tournament dawned bright and clear with a light spring breeze ruffling the newly leafed trees. Phoebe Miller had agreed to look after my patients for me for the rest of the day, so it was with an unusually light heart for a Tuesday that I got into the car after an early lunch and drove off towards the course where the tournament was to be played.
Love on My List Page 14
