The Doctor Is Sick

by Anthony Burgess

  'You got her permission?'

  'Oh, yes. She was very concerned about you, very anxious that you should be made well again.'

  'And how about my permission?'

  'Well,' said Dr Railton, 'obviously you can't be dragged into the operating theatre screaming your refusal to be operated on. You're sane enough, and you have the power to choose. But I think you'll see that it's very much in your interests to say yes.'

  'I don't know,' said Edwin. 'I haven't felt too bad really, despite the collapses, despite other odd things, sex and what-not. I have a feeling that I'll survive somehow without anybody mucking about inside my head.'

  'You can't be too sure of that,' said Dr Railton, still depressing, with vibrant fingers, the trumpet-valves on the coverlet. 'I'd say it was dangerous the way you are. There's also the question of your job back in Burma.'

  'I could give that up.'

  'You'd have to get another job somewhere. That won't be easy. And do remember that you'll get steadily worse.'

  Edwin thought for a minute. 'There's no doubt about its being successful?'

  'There's always some doubt. There's got to be. But the chances are overwhelmingly in favour of this operation going well. I'd say about a hundred to one. You'll be a changed man when it's all over, you won't be the same person at all. You'll bless us, really you will.'

  'A changed man, eh? A man with a changed personality.'

  'Oh, not fundamentally different. Shall we say a healthy man instead of a sick one?'

  'I see. All right. When?'

  'Next Tuesday. Good,' said Dr Railton, 'good man.'

  'Supposing I change my mind before then?'

  'Don't,' said Dr Railton earnestly, 'don't, whatever you do. Trust us, trust me.' He stood with his arms out, a figure to be trusted, looking all too much, however, like a dance-band trumpeter who had put down his instrument in order to take a vocal.

  'All right,' said Edwin. 'I trust you.'

  CHAPTER NINE

  On Sunday afternoon Sheila came, only a little tipsy, dragging in by the hand a reluctant young man with a beard. She looked younger and prettier, was smartly made-up, and wore her beige opossum coat swinging open over a new mohair dress. 'Darling,' she cried. 'Darling, darling.'

  'Forgive me,' said Edwin, 'if I don't start out of bed to greet you. It's this air that's still buzzing about inside.'

  'Oh,' said Sheila, 'of course you two haven't met. Strange, isn't it, really? Nigeledwin. Edwinigel. I'm sure you'd like each other a lot if you got a chance to meet properly.'

  'How do you do.'

  'How do you do.'

  'Look here,' said Edwin, 'that awful little man pinched my watch. The one you beat at shove-ha'penny who calls himself 'Ippo.'

  'Did he? That's annoying. I haven't seen him since, nor has anybody. He was passing through, resting his sandwich-boards, and the Anchor isn't his local at all. You are a fool, Edwin. You're too trusting, that's your trouble. We'll have to get you another, won't we? A good thing that one didn't cost any money.'

  'Didn't cost----?'

  'I got it off Jeff Fairlove. You remember. I bullied him into giving it to me. For a present for you.'

  'And why,' asked the bearded Nigel, 'were you able to bully him? That is to say, what hold did you have over him?' Edwin grinned to himself at this sly glint of jealousy. Nigel was a young man untidily trying to make himself look not older but ageless - the ageless maned bearded painter.

  'My beauty,' said Sheila, with Cockney vowels, 'my infinite attractiveness. No man can resist me when I bully him.' The painter nodded seriously. 'This afternoon,' said Sheila, 'Nigel proposes to draw me. Not paint, draw. I'm so glad, darling, that everything's fixed up at last. It'll be such a relief to get things over. You must be pleased yourself.'

  'So they've told you, have they?'

  'That man Railton was down in the hall. He said they're going to operate and that everything's going to be all right. It's such a relief.'

  'A relief not to have to nurse that secret any more?'

  'That too.' She smiled. 'We can be back in Moulmein for the winter. I hate the cold, you know,' she said to Nigel. 'I hope this flat of yours is warm.'

  'If I were a painter,' said Edwin, 'one of the things I'd like to paint is the view you get from the air as you're dropping down to Moulmein. Beauty and utility. All those paddy-fields of different shapes and sizes, not a square inch of waste, a big collective artifact, yet not anything else that's human or even natural in sight. But I suppose it would be too easy to paint.'

  'Nothing's easy to paint,' said the painter. He had a gobbly kind of voice. 'Take my word for it, painting is absolute hell. That's why I keep on with it.'

  'And what modern painters do you most admire?' asked Edwin.

  'Very few. Very, very few indeed. Chagall, perhaps. Dong Kingman, possibly. One or two others.' He looked gloomy.

  'Never mind,' said Sheila. 'Don't worry so much about things. Everything will be all right.' She smiled reassuringly at him, patting his arm. He wore very tight trousers. 'Nigel,' she said, 'is really a very good painter. When you're well you must see some of his things. Some of them are most effective.'

  'Don't,' snarled Nigel, 'use that word. They're not effective. That's the most damning word you could possibly hope to find.' He raised his voice. 'Noise again,' sighed Edwin to himself. R. Dickie's squad of visitors looked over interestedly, assured that there would always be entertainment of some sort or another on Edwin's bed. 'To say they're effective is to lower them to the level of, to the level of, to the level of a cinema poster. It's bloody insulting.' R. Dickie's visitors nodded to each other, pleased at this fulfilment of the expected.

  'All right,' said Edwin. 'Shall we say that they're not effective, then?'

  Nigel glared at Edwin. 'You haven't seen any of them,' he said. 'You're not in a position to make any judgment whatsoever?'

  'You must remember, Nigel,' said Sheila sharply, 'that you are speaking to my husband and that my husband is very ill. I won't have this petulance about your art.' Nigel sulked. 'That's better,' said Sheila. 'And, Nigel, remember your promise.'

  'What promise?'

  'Just like an artist, isn't it?' said Sheila. 'All take and no give. Your promise about Edwin's laundry.'

  'Oh, that.'

  'Nigel,' said Sheila, 'is a very lucky boy. There's a Hungarian woman who comes every week and does his washing for him. That's in exchange for English lessons.'

  'What,' asked Edwin, 'does he know about giving English lessons?'

  'He's learning,' said Sheila. 'Learning by doing. And one thing he's promised to do is to have all your dirty clothes washed. Where are they?'

  'This,' said Edwin, 'is most kind.' He was growing tired of always sounding like Mr Salteena, but what else could he say? 'That locker's stuffed with dirty pyjamas and towels and things, and there's a shirt in the big locker outside.'

  'Good,' said Sheila. 'We're going straight to Nigel's flat or studio, or whatever he calls it, and we can take those things with us.'

  'We'd better go now,' said Nigel. 'I've had no lunch, remember.'

  'But you had breakfast.'

  'That was a long time ago.'

  'When I was a young girl,' said Sheila, 'I always believed that artists starved. La vie de Bobeme.'

  'Plenty of stuffing goes on in the first two acts of the opera,' said Edwin.

  'Oh, yes,' said Sheila, 'that reminds me. Les and Carmen are coming to see you again this evening. I, of course, can't make it. Carmen is coming to apologise.'

  'No,' said Edwin violently. 'I'm very ill. I can't have visitors. Please tell them that.'

  'We shan't be seeing them, shall we, Nigel? So you'll just have to put up with it. Les has a queer life really, doesn't he?'

  'I should think so,' said Edwin.

  'Yes. He works in one of the Covent Garden pubs early in the morning, and at night he works in the opera house. That seems to me to be right - unification in terms of place, or something. A
nd for the rest of the time he has Carmen. You must get him to tell you about some of the things she does sometime.'

  'Come on,' said Nigel. 'We ought to eat.'

  'Yes,' said Sheila. 'She's very quaint. They did Samson and Delilah and she went to see it and a couple of days later they had a bit of a row, and he woke up in the middle of the night to find her standing with the scissors over the bed----'

  Nigel was looking, suddenly very intently, at Edwin. 'I don't know about your brain,' he said, thoughts of food apparently temporarily forgotten, 'whether it's worthwhile saving that. But as far as heads go, it's a good head. It's a better head,' he continued, with the artist's impartiality, 'than hers. I wouldn't mind doing it. I think I'd rather do your head than hers, though she, of course, from my point of view, has by far the more interesting body. And, of course, soon you'll have no hair.'

  'There's a long way to go yet,' said Edwin. 'My family is not a family that goes bald early.'

  'No, no,' said Nigel. 'If they're going to operate on your brain they'll have to shave all your hair off. I think that I should like to have a go at it then. It would make a very nice and rather original study. A painting, I think. The tropical brown of the face and a sort of nacreous pink -I should like to try that.'

  Edwin was pale, aghast. 'You know,' he said, 'I just hadn't realised. I just didn't think of that at all.'

  'Never mind,' said Sheila. 'It will grow again, very quickly. And it will be just the opposite of Samson, won't it?'

  'What do you mean?' asked Edwin.

  'Think it over, darling. Look,' she said to Nigel, who had taken out a small drawing-pad and was sketching preliminary studies of Edwin. 'You put this idea of food into my head. Let's go and eat.'

  'All right,' said Nigel. 'And let's not forget to collect the laundry.' He was a kind young man beneath the veneer of artist. He took up in his arms a bundle of socks, underwear, pyjamas from the bedside locker, with a faint ca pue wrinkling of his snub nose. And off they went to collect the dirty shirt from the outside locker used for outside clothes and suitcases. Sheila peered in again gaily when they had done this, waving the shirt, blew a kiss which also embraced R. Dickie and the sneerer, smiled brilliantly, lovingly, and sardonically at Edwin, then left.

  'Quite a card, your missis,' said R. Dickie later.

  Just before dinner Edwin told the ward sister that he wasn't feeling well enough for visitors and could he please have screens put round his bed. This was done, and in the process of straightening his bedclothes the negro orderly found the preliminary sketch that Nigel had discarded. It showed, thought Edwin, little talent.

  'Dyin', is he, that one?' one of R. Dickie's visitors was heard to ask in a loud whisper palpitant with excitement.

  'Naw,' whispered R. Dickie back, 'not him. I think his missis upset him a bit, that's all. If it is his missis, that is.' A softer susurrus of speculation ensued.

  CHAPTER TEN

  'This, my little friend, is clearing the deck for activity.' The negro orderly, shedding light from every facet of his skin, his glasses splintering with light, giggled at the daring of the image and began to fiddle with his tray of instruments. He had an apprentice standing by him, a morose tall Italian who had just joined the service, and to him he explained what the instruments were.

  'Scissors.'

  'Si.'

  'Clippers.'

  'Si, si.'

  'Electric razor.'

  'Si, si, capito.'

  Sheila had had, apparently, no time for a letter, much less a visit, but she had sent a telegram: BEST OF LUCK WILL BE THINKING OF YOU LOVE. He had in the past received such messages at commercial hotels in strange towns, on the eve of an interview for a new job. Now he was going to travel to the ultimate bourn of thingness from which return was possible. A pilgrimage, but he was to be turbaned before Mecca was sighted. The negro began his work. Humming nonchalantly he pulled on rubber gloves. Then he said: 'Scissors.' Scissors were handed to him. Whorls of hair began to fall. Edwin said: 'What's your name?' The negro said: 'Please be so good as not to be distracting.' But, as more and more swathes drifted down, he relented and said: 'If you must know, my name is Mr Southey. Mister,' he emphasised, as if to disparage Edwin's own title, 'like Mr Begbie, eminent specialist.'

  The rapid autumn continued, the deciduous down-drift of brown bunches and wheels. 'Very bad dandruff,' said the specialist. 'That way you lose your hair.' The Italian watched every detail of the operation closely, nodding frequently to show that, despite the language barrier, he understood perfectly what was being done. Edwin began to feel cool, light and lamb-like. 'Clippers,' said Mr Southey.

  Here was a new and voluptuous sensation, a curious abandon as total nakedness drew nearer. Hair was coming down as a whole Koran of Arabic letters mingled with a Pitman manual. In broad mowing strokes Mr Southey drove his purring instrument over a hill which, for thirty-eight years, had hidden its contours from the air. Aware of achievement, he sang. In mid-strophe he said: 'Razor.'

  Now came the final stages of depilation. The Italian's mouth was half-open and he panted a little. The razor maintained its irritable buzz, the negro's song grew more exultant. Soon the song tailed off for the business of pausing to stand back to scrutinise - an odd buzz here, a short whirring passage there - and at last the sculpture was completed.

  'That looks good, really fine.'

  'Bello,' the Italian agreed.

  'You wait,' said Mr Southey, 'and I bring you a mirror.'

  'No, no,' said Edwin. 'No, no, no.' His fearful fingers roamed over his scalp, palpating, sliding. 'For God's sake cover it up.'

  'Everybody,' said Mr Southey, 'appreciates a little bit of appreciation. That's nothing to ask. You have a look in a mirror.'

  'You heard me,' said Edwin. 'I don't want to see it, I don't want to know anything about it. Just cover it up.'

  'Ingratitude,' said the negro. He brought a woollen cap that fitted snugly. Then Edwin risked a look in his shaving mirror. He saw little Edwin in his pram - the little Edwin of a photograph his mother had had framed for the front room - but little Edwin with sharp mistrustful eyes, a jowl, and a day's growth of beard. He clattered the mirror back on to the locker-top and lay still in bed. The Italian swept away a whole barber-shop-floor-load of hair; the negro wheeled off the bed-screens. Edwin now felt himself at last a full member of this prone club of pilgrims.

  The staff-nurse came round to say: 'Do you sleep sound enough?' She spoke in the comfortable voice of Manchester.

  'Enough,' said Edwin.

  'Eh, you don't sound too convinced. We'd better be on the safe side. Tomorrow morning we want you to be nice and muzzy, half-dead, if you see what I mean.' She emptied a generous helping of tablets out of her bottle. Edwin sluiced them down.

  He was soon asleep. His dreams were polychrome, stereoscopic. Three big dogs couched in the wood he was walking through turned out to be the folds of a python. He smiled in his dream: that was meant to be sex. He dropped down well after well after well. At the bottom of one well he encountered the expected: large crawling insects, an animated drawing out of an 1860 Punch, a severed marble head out of a film by Cocteau which repeated monotonously the word habituel. He was sitting on Brighton sands, surrounded by smiling people, and was desperately trying to hide his bare feet. At the bottom of the final well there was only darkness, no more images.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Edwin awoke with mechanical suddenness, with no hint of a margin between dead sleep and complete wakefulness. He even sat up, fully aware of where he was, what he was there for. He had no idea of the time, but it was full night, with brilliant plenilunar light washing London. He awoke with a very clear intention, feverishly sharp, of an acuity undoubtedly, he saw, induced by the large dose of sleeping drug: that nobody should cut his head open, that there should be no excision of any tumour, that he should live - however briefly - and die - however soon - as he was, whether sick or well. He felt wonderfully well, as a matter of fact.

 
; Death, anyway, was in the hospital: you could hear it snoring in the ward. Life was outside. He must leave at once. For if he returned to sleep his intention might be blunted by morning drowsiness; there would be too many to fight; they would pump a deader sleep into his buttock before he knew where he was and have burly men wheel him off to the theatre. Then it would be too late. It had to be now.

  Enclosed by her frail walls of bed-screens, the night sister sat at her desk with its dim light. She was, he knew, an American girl over on a year's exchange. From Missouri or somewhere.

  How bloody stupid he had been to trust Dr Railton and everyone else. To them he was already a thing, could not be less of a thing if he died under the anaesthetic: regrettable: Dr Spindrift has changed into a mere chunk of morphology.

  The bed creaked as he got out of it. He felt his head: the woollen cap was still there: the woollen cap was going to look a bit bloody stupid in the world outside. Never mind. There were hats, wigs, weren't there? The sister's ears were sharp. She peeked out, then walked softly and swiftly towards him.

  'You all right? You want something?' She was a pretty girl with a becoming uniform, a film sister. Her voice was rich.

  'I just want to go to the----'

  'Oh. Sure you wouldn't rather I brought you a bedpan?' That hated word for a clumsy intractable thing took on tones of irony in her accent. It was a word you never heard in American films. The two vowels retracted and prolonged: badepairn.

  'No,' said Edwin. 'I'd rather-I'm not all that incapable, you know.'

  'Okay. Put on your dressing-gown.' The moon shone full on her prettiness. It was an honour to be bossed by her, a film goddess. And now she was going to get into trouble. Edwin felt sorry for her, but not all that sorry. 'And don't be too long,' she said.

  'It may be,' said Edwin, 'rather a long job, if you know what I mean.' He paused on the brink of fake clinical details. 'Something I ate,' he said.

  'Okay, okay.' She went back to her sequestered light. Edwin, tremulous with excitement, padded rapidly out. Opening a steel door of the lockers in the corridor opposite the bathrooms, he suddenly realised how much this last week had stripped him of possessions: watch, underclothes, hair. No socks, no shirt, he realised: at Nigel's flat, to be washed by a Hungarian. He was going to be cold: no overcoat, no raincoat; both shed before going to Burma. In great haste he carried tie, jacket, trousers to one of the bathrooms. And this time he must not forget his shoes. He put everything on over his pyjamas. The striped, rather grubby, pyjama top did not look much like a shirt. He frowned at it in the mirror. He wound the tie under the collar and knotted it. From the shoulders up he looked, to say the least, eccentric. The inside of his shoes struck his bare feet coldly and he shuddered. He paused. Should he steal? The lockers, despite their name, were not locked. There were other clothes available - shirts, perhaps overcoats. And then he thought: no. To commit a crime, however minor, would be playing into their hands. Such petty thefts would be attributed to kleptomania, part of the complex syndrome - a very sick man, not at all responsible for his actions.