Mr Fletcher was a patient of mine who had had a short stay in a mental hospital and was determined not to go back. It was by playing on this knowledge that I was able on one occasion to help him.
He was a man of forty-five who was a mild depressive psychotic with an hysterical overlay. He often got very nervous about himself, and when he found life too much for him he retired into a hysterical coma from which it was often almost impossible to rouse him. Since he lived an impoverished existence in two rooms with a nagging and ailing wife, things got “on top” of poor Mr Fletcher fairly often. At frequent intervals I was phoned up by various neighbours who had found Mr Fletcher collapsed in the street and apparently unconscious.
At one stage these attacks became so frequent that I had had to send him to a mental hospital where he was treated with modified insulin, sedation and suggestion. He seemed to be a lot better after this but always swore that he would never go back. I told him that if he kept fit it was unlikely that he would ever have to, and used it as a threat whenever he seemed likely to relapse into his anxiety state.
For a long time Mr Fletcher remained well.
One day, though, his wife rang me to say that he had been lying in bed for twenty-four hours, unrousable and unconscious. She had tried everything she knew but found him completely unresponsive, and she was at her wits’ end. I said I would come to see him.
When I got there I found Mr Fletcher exactly as she had described him. Had I not known him of old I would have believed him to be deeply unconscious. When I tried to get some response from him I had no more success than his wife. Finally I picked up my case and said loudly:
“I’m sorry, Mrs Fletcher, but I shall have to get your husband admitted to hospital again.” To the prone figure in the bed I said equally loudly:
“Mr Fletcher, my surgery starts tonight at six o’clock. If I don’t see you in the waiting-room by five past six I shall get on to the hospital to have you readmitted.” I then went out of the bedroom and slammed the door. Outside I crouched down and looked through the keyhole. For a while nothing happened, and I was just about to stand up because I was getting cramp in my legs, when Mr Fletcher sat up in bed.
“Blimey,” he said to his wife. “’E’s a proper misery, ain’t he?”
It is easy to blame the general public for the fear and trepidation with which they regard mental disorders and psychiatric treatment, but even the most broadminded and informed of doctors still consult their psychiatric colleagues about themselves or their relatives with some degree of stealth.
It is a situation badly in need of remedy and one in which I was very interested. I realised the importance of recognising mental disorders at an early stage, and it was something for which I tried to be constantly on the watch.
When I got back from the Old Bailey I rang the doctor who had been doing my emergency calls to say that I was back and would now take over, and went to find Sylvia to see what visits she had kept for me.
She was resting in the bedroom, and in the armchair by the side of the bed sat a formidable-looking woman, fat and middle-aged, wearing some kind of grey uniform with blue epaulettes. For a moment I couldn’t think who she could possibly be, then I remembered that, on the advice of Humphrey Mallow, Sylvia had agreed to engage a maternity nurse to help her with the baby when she came out of hospital, as she would still have to take things very quietly. This, I realised, must be it.
Sylvia introduced me to Sister Hamble, then said: “How was the Old Bailey?”
“Ooh!” Sister Hamble said. “Has Daddy been a naughty boy?”
When I realised that she was talking to me I explained that I had not been a naughty boy but had been attending the trial of a patient of mine.
She smiled understandingly, revealing horse-like teeth.
“I’ve just been having a nice cosy chat with Mummy,” she said, “and counting out our little vests and nighties. I’m sure we shall get on splendidly together, and if Daddy doesn’t agree with my little ways he mustn’t hesitate to say so.”
“Quite,” I said, and then to Sylvia: “Can you tell me what visits I have still to do?”
Sister Hamble stood up. “I’ll go and have another little look at our bunnies on the wall,” she said, “so that Mummy can talk to Daddy privately.”
When she had gone, after giving Sylvia a coy and cosy wink, I said:
“You haven’t engaged her, have you?”
“Yes, I have,” Sylvia said. “We’ve left it so late, you see, that she was the only one they had available. She has excellent references; some from people I know.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “I’m not having that woman in the house. ‘Has Daddy been a naughty boy?’” I said in disgust. “I couldn’t stand that for a fortnight.”
“I’m sorry, Sweetie,” Sylvia said, “but there’s absolutely no one else. I think they’re all much the same, anyway.”
“Well, you’d better keep her out of my way,” I growled.
She gave me my visits, and a note which had been dropped in the door. It was from Archibald Compton and was a copy of the letter which the hospital had sent him about Renee Trotter. The poor girl had a carcinoma of the breast. If only she had consulted me about her symptoms instead of writing those idiotic letters, she would have been far better off.
There was a little tap at the door and a voice called: “Have Mummy and Daddy finished?”
“God knows what she thinks we’ve been doing,” I said to Sylvia.
“Come in!”
“I always like to be understanding,” Sister Hamble said, when she was in. “It makes for a happy atmosphere. I know because I’ve had to get on with so many Mummies and Daddies in my work.”
I left her to Sylvia and went down to the morning-room to make a phone-call. While I waited for them to ring me back I sat down in the armchair and picked up the BMJ to catch up with an article about combined prophylactics.
“There are three recognised ways in which the immunological response to a primary dose or course of an antigen may possibly be reduced,” I read; then there was a discreet tap at the door followed by the appearance of a grey, pudding-basin hat encircled by a blue hatband.
“I’ll say goodbye, Daddy,” Sister Hamble said. “It’s a shame about our blood pressure, isn’t it? We’ll have to take great care of ourselves.”
“We do,” I said shortly.
“Oh! I’m sure we do, with a doctor for a daddy. It’s a great pity we aren’t having the baby at home. We do like to deliver our babies, you know,” she said hopefully.
“I’m sure we do.” I held out my hand. “I’ll say goodbye, Sister Hamble. I’m expecting an important phone-call.”
“Life and death?” she said dramatically, clasping her hands before her and leaning towards me.
“No. As a matter of fact, it’s from my stockbroker.”
She pulled on her leather gloves.
“Ah!” she said. “Daddy wants to get out of the market while the going’s good. We’re gong to have a nasty little slump.”
I stared at her. She was half out of the door. She waggled two fingers at me.
“Bye-bye, Daddy,” she chirruped. “Look after Mummy.”
I stared at the door which she had slammed after her. The phone started to ring shrilly. I picked it up, almost mesmerised by the voice I heard repeating in my ears: “We’re going to have a nasty little slump.”
Pulling himself together, “Daddy” said hallo to his stockbroker.
Eighteen
Encouraged and convinced by Musgrove I had, after giving the matter a great deal of thought, decided to speculate on the Stock Market in an effort to increase my practically non-existent capital.
On the day that Sister Hamble had predicted a “nasty little slump” I had invested in a modest hundred shares, as advised by Musgrove’s patient-in-the-know, and hoped to get out with a nice quick profit before the end of the account. I made up my mind to sell the shares again on the day that our baby was due t
o arrive, and as they had risen steadily since I had held them, I looked forward to reaping my little windfall and confronting Sylvia with my successful fait accompli.
On the actual day our child was due to be born, however, something happened which left me no time to look after Sylvia, and even less to think about the Stock Market.
Tessa Brindley committed suicide.
I hadn’t left Sylvia alone for more than an hour or so at a time for the past week, but when the call came from H H Brindley just as I was finishing my morning’s surgery, there was nothing else I could do.
HH sounded desperate and shaken.
“Summat’s up with our Tessa,” he said. “Housekeeper’s just phoned from the country to say she’s taken ill. You’ll come right away, won’t you?”
It would take most of the morning to get to Brindley Manor and back.
“What seems to be the matter?” I said.
“She couldn’t tell me nowt,” Brindley said. “She were too agitated. Only said to hurry.”
I wondered if Sylvia was going to go into labour that day, then remembered my promise to HH to look after Tessa, “no matter what.”
“All right,” I said. “I’ll be down as soon as I can.”
I rang Phoebe Miller, who agreed to do any urgent calls which couldn’t wait until I got back, and went to break the news to Sylvia.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I said, “but just in case anything happens I’ll leave you the number of the ambulance.”
“Sweetie,” Sylvia said from the kitchen table where she was sitting down topping and tailing gooseberries, “please don’t worry about me. I feel absolutely fine today, and in any case most women don’t have their husbands hanging around waiting for the first pain. They all seem to get themselves to hospital in time.”
“A friend of my mother’s had hers in the street,” Iris said.
I glared at her.
“I don’t want you to leave her, Iris,” I said. “Not for a moment.”
I wrote Humphrey Mallow’s telephone number in ink on the kitchen wall above the telephone and made Sylvia promise to phone him if she had any pains at all. There seemed nothing else to do since I couldn’t ensure that she didn’t start going into labour before I got back, so I repeated the emergency drill to her and Iris, and left.
Feeling depressed and miserable, I drove off through the morning traffic, taking it as a personal affront every time the signals turned to red or I was held up in a stream of cars. I could think of nothing but Sylvia standing in the doorway to see me off, large but beautiful, and telling me not to worry.
On the main by-pass I put my foot down and, ignoring the protestations of the car, overtook everything in sight. By the time I reached the winding stillness of the summer lanes I was feeling a little better. With any luck I should be back before lunch and there was, after all, no reason why our baby should choose to appear on this particular morning. From my experiences with my patients, I knew that it was rare for them to turn up exactly when they were expected.
Creeping round the hairpin bends and bouncing sickeningly over the little hump-backed bridges, I wondered what could be the matter with Tessa. I had been visiting her at regular intervals and her health had been exceptionally good. She had settled down to country life and spent the days peacefully thinking only of her Tony and the child which she was going to have. She still hadn’t told her father exactly who Tony was and, according to Tessa, he had stopped asking her. HH had said nothing more about the matter to me.
Brindley Manor was a glorious Georgian house in a breathtaking setting. It lay at the foot of three gently undulating hills which protected it from the Surrey breezes and provided a backcloth for the magnificent grounds in which a miniature lake and a superb rose garden were only two of the attractions.
The house itself, beautifully furnished by one of the foremost interior decorators, had a concealed television screen in every room, and at least three cocktail bars. The whole thing was extremely sumptuous, if lacking in individual taste and personality.
When I arrived at the front door at the end of the mile-long, yew-lined drive, I found that HH in his maroon Rolls had beaten me to it.
He was up in the bedroom trying to rouse Tessa.
“It’s not a bit of good, sir,” the housekeeper was saying. “I’ve tried cold water and even smacking her poor face. I think… I think…she’s…” She hid her face in her apron and ran from the room.
There was no doubt. Tessa Brindley, her ash-blonde hair streaming over the green and white striped pillow with its starched, frilly edge, was dead.
I sent HH out of the room while I had a look at her. I thought she must have been dead for quite a few hours but could find no evidence as to why she had died.
The room, a pretty young girl’s room, appeared to be in perfect order. On a frilly-skirted dressing-table were Tessa’s photographs. Her mother, her father, two or three girl friends, a group of boys and girls in bathing costume by the sea; they looked as if they were having a good time. On a chair lay her clothes, neatly folded; by the bed, on the small table, was a book of short stories, the place marked with a piece of blue ribbon. There was nothing to suggest that Tessa had taken her own life.
Downstairs in the lounge filled with chintz and sunlight, H H Brindley sat with his head in his hands.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I shall have to ring the Coroner’s Officer. I can’t find any reason for her death.”
There was no reply. The house was silent except for the sobbing of the housekeeper coming from the kitchen.
I wasn’t sure whether he had heard me.
“Mr Brindley,” I said. “I would like to ring the Coroner’s Officer.”
He still said nothing and didn’t move.
“Would you like me to get you a drink?” I said.
He raised his head and stared straight at me without appearing to see me.
“I did it,” he said, and his voice was rough. “I killed her with me own hands.”
I poured him some brandy and put the glass into his hands.
“Look,” I said, “you’d better tell me what’s been going on.”
“I never thought she meant it,” he said. “I never thought she meant it. Not our little Tessa.”
Suddenly I remembered Tessa’s threat to take her own life if ever HH tried to find out who was the father of her child.
The memory made me grow cold, and at that moment I don’t think I could have borne to be H H Brindley.
“You found Tony, then?” I said, knowing what the answer would be.
“Aye,” he said, “I found Tony all right. I wanted to do the right thing by our Tessa.” He drank a little of his brandy, spilling some on his suit. He didn’t bother to remove the staining drop.
“It took me a long time,” he said, “but I found him. He’s a journalist, a nice enough chap but very ordinerry.”
I remembered Tessa’s accurate description of how Tony would appear to her father.
“It was only three days ago I actually met him,” he went on, still staring straight ahead of him like a man in a trance. “Some place in Chelsea he lives, with his wife and two children. I knew he worked late on Thursdays at the paper so I called at the flat before he was due to arrive. I wanted to see for meself what the position was. It’s not much of a place but smartened up a bit with window boxes like, and they live on the top floor. ’Is wife was in; one of these bluestockings with great thick glasses and an Oxford accent.
“I told ’er I’d come to see ’er husband. She never asked me what about but said I could come in and gave me a drink – it looked like it was the last of the sherry – and told me to make meself at ’ome like. It were a right difficult place to do that in, even if I hadn’t been bubbling over. There was nothing but bookcases and yards and yards of books, and the carpet was frayed and there were no springs in the sofa. She was reading some great book or other, but I reckon she’d o’ been better off washing curtains or summat.
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“When she heard her husband cooee up the stairs, she yelled for him to bring coke bucket and to hurry ’cause he had a visitor. I ’eard him ask if ’is dinner was ready, and she said it were a kipper and she were just going to put it under grill.
“When ’e came in ’e’d been drinking. ’E set down coke bucket, slapped me on back and asked me who I was.
“‘I’m Tessa’s dad,’ I said, reckoning it would wipe the smile off ’is face. It did. ’E got quite pale and shut the door.
“‘I would ’ave been home before,’ ’e said, ‘but I had a couple o’ beers with the boys.’”
I interrupted him to give him a little more brandy. He appeared not to notice.
“’E didn’t deny anything nor try to get out of it,” HH said, “I’ll give the lad that. I thought that when I set eyes on the man who ruined our Tessa I’d strangle him with me own two hands but I did nothing of the sort. I listened to what ’e had to say and ended up by feeling sorry for him. ’E didn’t love ’is wife, he told me. She were too busy reading books, improving her mind and the like to look after him or the children properly, but ’e was crazy about those two kids. The pair of them ’adn’t lived as man and wife since the youngest was born because she only believed in spiritual love or some such tommy-rot, but ’e couldn’t run out and leave ’er with the kids.”
To me it sounded a pretty sordid story; the frustrated husband who had taken a pretty mistress to satisfy his appetites.
“I know what you’re thinking,” HH said, “because that’s what I thought meself, but it’s not quite like that. That boy was crazy about our Tessa, was nearly mad with worry over what had happened, but thought that his first duty lay to his two children. ’E knew I had plenty of brass and could look after Tessa, he said, but there was no one but ’im to look after his kids. ’E knew what ’e’d done and said no one was to blame but himself. ’E ’adn’t dreamed that anyone like our Tessa could exist, and when he met her ’e was so bowled over he lost ’is ’ead.”
Love on My List Page 16
