by Tom Sharpe
At the Accident Centre Wilt was finding he had no choice at all. The doctor who finally arrived at his cubicle to attend to him was accompanied by a formidable Sister and two male nurses. Wilt regarded him balefully from the couch on which he had been told to lie.
'You've taken your time,' he grumbled. 'I've been lying here in agony for the last hour and...'
'Then we must get a move on,' said the doctor. 'We'll start with the poison first. A stomach wash-out will...'
'What?' said Wilt, sitting up on the couch in horror.
'It won't take more than a minute,' said the doctor. 'Just lie back while Sister inserts the tube.'
'Oh no! Nothing doing,' said Wilt, bolting from the couch into a corner of the cubicle as the nurse closed in with a length of rubber pipe. 'I haven't taken poison.'
'It says on your admittance sheet that you have,' said the doctor. 'You are Mr Henry Wilt, I take it?'
'Yes,' said Wilt, 'but you needn't take it that I have taken poison. I can assure you...' He dodged round the couch to avoid the Sister, only to find himself grabbed from behind by the two male nurses.
'I swear that ' Wilt's denial died on his lips as he was pushed back on to the couch. The pipe hovered over his mouth. Wilt stared villainously at the doctor. The man seemed to be smiling in a singularly sadistic manner. 'Now then, Mr Wilt, you will kindly cooperate.'
'Won't,' grunted Wilt through clenched teeth. Behind him the Sister held his head and waited.
'Mr Wilt,' said the doctor, 'you arrived here this morning and stated quite adamantly and of your own free will that you had swallowed poison, broken your arm and had suffered a wound that required immediate attention. Is that not so?'
Wilt debated how to answer. It seemed safest not to open his mouth. He nodded and then tried to shake his head.
'Thank you. Not only that but you were impolite, to put it mildly, to the lady at the desk.'
'Wasn't,' said Wilt only to regret both his rudeness and this attempt to state his case. Two hands attempted to insert the tube. Wilt bit the thing.
'Have to use the left nostril,' said the doctor.
'No you fucking don't,' yelled Wilt, but it was too late. As the pipe slid up his nose and, by the feel of it, expanded in his throat, Wilt's protests came to an unintelligible end. He writhed and gurgled.
'You may find the next part slightly uncomfortable,' said the doctor with evident pleasure. Wilt stared at the man murderously and would, had the infernal pipe not prevented him, have stated forcibly that he found the present part bloody terrible. He was just burbling his protest when the curtains parted and the admissions clerk came in.
'I thought you might want to see this, Mrs Clemence,' said the doctor. 'Go ahead, Sister.' The Sister went ahead while Wilt silently promised himself that if he didn't suffocate first or burst he would wipe the smile off that sadistic doctor's face just as soon as this ghastly experience was over. By the time it was Wilt's condition prevented him from doing anything except moan feebly. Only the Sister's suggestion that perhaps to be on the safe side they ought to give him an oil enema into the bargain provided him with the strength to state his case.
'I came here to have my penis attended to,' he whispered hoarsely.
The doctor consulted his record sheet 'It doesn't make any mention of your penis here,' he said. 'It states quite clearly that...'
'I know what it states,' squeaked Wilt. 'I also know that if you were forced to go into a waiting-room filled with middle-class mothers and their skateboard-suicidal sons and had to announce at the top of your voice to that harridan there that you needed stitches in the top of your prick you'd have been less than reluctant to do it.'
'I'm not standing here listening to a lunatic call me a harridan,' said the clerk.
'And I wasn't standing out there shouting the odds about what had happened to my penis for all the bloody world to hear. I asked to see a doctor but you wouldn't let me. Deny that if you can.'
'I asked you if you had broken a limb, suffered a wound that required '
'I know what you asked me,' yelled Wilt, 'don't I just. I can quote it word for word. Well, for your information a penis is not a limb, not in my case anyway. I suppose it comes into the category of an appendage and if I'd said I had damaged my appendage you'd have asked me which one and where and how and on what occasion and with whom and then sent me round to the VD clinic and...'
'Mr Wilt,' interrupted the doctor, 'we are extremely busy here and if you come and refuse to state exactly what is wrong with you...'
'I get a fucking stomach-pump stuffed down my gullet for my pains,' shouted Wilt. 'And what happens if some poor bugger who is deaf and dumb comes in? I suppose you let him die on the waiting-room floor or whip his tonsils out to teach him to speak up for himself in future. And they call this the National Health Service. It's a fucking bureaucratic dictatorship. That's what I call it.'
'Never mind what it's called, Mr Wilt. If there is something really the matter with your penis we're quite prepared to look at it.'
'I'm not,' said the admissions clerk firmly, and disappeared through the curtains. Wilt lay back on the couch and removed his pants.
The doctor observed him cautiously.
'Mind telling me what you've got wound round it?' he asked.
'Bloody handkerchief,' said Wilt and slowly untied the makeshift bandage.
'Good God,' said the doctor, 'I see what you mean about an appendage. Would it be asking too much to enquire how you got your penis into this condition?'
'Yes,' said Wilt, 'it would. Everyone I've told so far hasn't believed me and I'd rather not go through that drill again.'
'Drill?' asked the doctor pensively. 'You're surely not implying that this injury was inflicted by a drill? I don't know what you think, Sister, but from where I stand it looks as though our friend here had a rather too intimate relationship with a mincing machine.'
'And from where I lie it feels like it,' said Wilt. 'And if it will help to cut the bandage let me tell you that my wife was largely responsible.'
'Your wife?'
'Listen, doctor,' said Wilt, 'if it's all the same to you I'd just as soon not go into details.'
'Can't say I blame you,' said the doctor scrubbing his hands 'If my wife did that to me I'd divorce the bitch. Were you having intercourse at the time?'
'No comment,' said Wilt deciding that silence was the best policy The doctor donned surgical gloves and drew his own ghastly conclusions. He loaded a hypodermic.
'After what you've already been through,' he said approaching the couch, 'this isn't going to hurt at all.'
Wilt bounded off the couch again. 'Hold it,' he shouted. 'If you imagine for one moment that you're going to stick that surgical hornet into my private fucking parts you can think again. And what's that for?'
The Sister had picked up an aerosol can.
'Just a mild disinfectant and freezer. I'll spray it on first and you won't feel the little prick.'
'Won't I? Well let me tell you that I want to feel it. If I'd wanted anything else I'd have let nature take its course and I wouldn't be here now. And what's she doing with that razor?'
'Sterilizing it. We've got to shave you.'
'Have you just? I've heard that one before, and while we're on the subject of sterilizing I'd like to hear your views on vasectomy.'
'I'm pretty neutral on the subject,' said the doctor.
'Well I'm not,' snarled Wilt from the corner. 'In fact I am distinctly biased not to say prejudiced. What are you laughing about?' The muscular Sister was smiling. 'You're not some damned women's libber, are you?'
'I'm a working woman,' said the Sister, 'and my politics are my own affair. They don't enter into the matter.'
'And I'm a working man and I want to remain that way and politics do enter into the matter. I've heard what they get up to in India and if I walk out of here with a transistor, no balls and jabbering like an incipient mezzo-soprano I warn you I shall return with a meat cleaver and you'll
both learn what social genetics are all about.'
'Well, if that is your attitude,' said the doctor, 'I suggest you try private medicine, Mr Wilt. You get what you pay for that way. I can only assure you.'
It took ten minutes to lure Wilt back on to the couch and five seconds to get him off again clutching his scrotum.
'Freezer,' he squealed. 'My God, you meant it too. What the hell do you think I've got down there, a packet of freezable peas?'
'We'll just wait until the anaesthetic takes effect,' said the doctor. 'It shouldn't be long now.'
'It isn't,' squawked Wilt peering down. 'It's bloody disappearing. I came in here to have minor medication, not a sex-change operation, and if you think my wife is going to be happy having a husband with a clitoris you sorely misjudge the woman.'
'I'd say you had already misjudged her,' said the doctor cheerfully. 'Any woman who can inflict that sort of damage on her husband deserves what she gets.'
'She may but I don't,' said Wilt frantically. 'I happen... What's she doing with that tube?'
The Sister was unwrapping a catheter.
'Mr Wilt,' said the doctor, 'we are going to insert this...'
'No, you're not,' shouted Wilt. 'I may be shrinking rapidly in parts but I'm not Alice in Wonderland or a fucking dwarf with chronic constipation. I heard what she said about an oil enema and I'm not having one.'
'No one intends giving you an enema. This will simply enable you to pass water through the bandages. Now kindly get back on the couch before I have to call for assistance.'
'What do you mean pass water simply?' asked Wilt cautiously, climbing on to the couch. The doctor explained, and this time it took four male nurses to hold Wilt down. Throughout the operation he kept up a barrage of obscene observations and it was only the threat of a general anaesthetic that caused him to lower his voice. Even then his remark that the doctor and the Sister were less fitted for medicine than for offshore oil drilling could be heard in the waiting-room.
'That's right, send me out into the world like a bleeding petrol pump,' he said when he was finally allowed to go There's such a thing as the dignity of man, you know.'
The doctor looked at him sceptically. 'In the light of your behaviour I'll reserve my opinion on the matter. Call in again next week and we'll see how you're coming along.'
'The only reason I'll be back is if I don't come again,' said Wilt bitterly 'From now on I'll see the family doctor.' He hobbled out to a telephone and called for a taxi.
By the time he got home the anaesthetic was beginning to wear off. He went wearily upstairs and climbed into bed. He was lying there staring at the ceiling and wondering why he was not as other men presumably were when it came to bearing pain manfully, and wishing he was, when Eva returned with the quads.
'You do look awful,' she said encouragingly as she stood by the bed.
'I am awful,' said Wilt. 'Why I should be married to a female circumcisionist, God alone knows.'
'Perhaps it will teach you not to drink so much in future.'
'It's already taught me not to let you get your mitts near my waterworks,' said Wilt. 'And I mean waterworks.'
Even Samantha had to contribute to his misery. 'When I grow up I'm going to be a nurse, daddy.'
'Bounce on the bed like that again and you won't grow up to be anything,' snarled Wilt on the recoil.
Downstairs the telephone rang.
'If it's the Tech again, what shall I tell them?' asked Eva.
'Again? I thought I told you to say I was sick.'
'I did but they've phoned back several times.'
'Tell them I'm still sick,' said Wilt. 'Just don't mention what with.'
'They probably know anyway by now. I saw Rowena Blackthorn at playschool and she said she was sorry to hear about your accident,' said Eva, going downstairs.
'And which of you quadraphonic loudspeakers blurted the good news about daddy's whatsit to Mrs Blackthorn's little prodigy?' asked Wilt, turning a terrible eye on the quads.
'I didn't,' said Samantha smugly.
'You just egged Penelope on to, I suppose. I know that look on your mug.'
'It wasn't Penny. It was Josephine. She played with Robin and they were playing mummies and daddies.
'Well when you get a little older you'll learn that there's no such thing as playing mummies and daddies. You will find instead that there is a war between the sexes and that you, my sweethearts, being females of the species, invariably win.'
The quads retreated from the bedroom and could be heard conferring on the landing. Wilt edged his way out of bed in search of a book and was just getting back with Nightmare Abbey, which was sufficiently unromantic to suit his mood, when Emmeline was pushed into the room.
'What do you want now? Can't you see I'm ill?'
'Please Daddy,' said Emmeline, 'Samantha wants to know why you've got that bag tied to your leg.'
'Oh she does, does she?' said Wilt with dangerous calmness. 'Well you can tell Samantha and through her Miss Oates and her animal minders that your daddy wears a bag on his leg and a pipe up his prick because your mummsyfuckingwumsy took it into her empty head to try to rip off daddywaddy's genitalia on the end of a strip of fucking sticking-plaster. And if Miss Oates doesn't know what genitalia are tell her from me that they're the adult equivalent of a male stork only its spelt with a fucking L. Now get out of my sight before I add hernia, hypertension and multiple infanticide to my other infernal problems.'
The children fled. Downstairs Eva slammed the phone down and shouted. 'Henry Wilt...'
'Shut up,' yelled Wilt. 'One more comment out of anybody in this house and I won't be responsible for my actions.'
And for once he was obeyed. Eva went through to the kitchen and put the kettle on for tea. If only Henry would be more masterful when he was up and about and well.
Chapter 9
For the next three days Wilt was off work. He mooched about the house, sat in the Spockery and speculated on the nature of a world in which Progress with a capital P conflicted with Chaos and man with a small M was continually at loggerheads with Nature. In Wilt's view it was one of life's great paradoxes that Eva, who was forever accusing him of being cynical and nonprogressive, should succumb so readily to the recessive call of nature in the shape of compost heaps, Organic Toilets, home weaving and anything that smacked of the primitive while at the same time maintaining an unshakable optimism in the future. For Wilt there was only the eternal present, a succession of present moments, not so much moving forward as aggregating behind him like a reputation. And if in the past his reputation had suffered some nasty blows, his latest misfortune had already added to his legend. From Mavis Mottram the ripples of gossip had spread out across Ipford's educational suburbia, gaining fresh credence and additional attributes with each retelling. By the time the story reached the Braintrees it had already incorporated the crocodile film by way of the Tech, Blighte-Smythe, and Mrs Chatterway, and rumour had it that Wilt was about to be arrested for grossly indecent behaviour with a circus alligator which had only managed to preserve its virginity by biting Wilt's member.
'That's typical of this bloody town,' Peter Braintree told his wife Betty, when she brought this version home 'Henry has merely to take a few days off from the Tech and the grapevine is buzzing with absolute lies.'
'Grapevines don't buzz,' said Betty. 'There's no smoke '
'Without some evil-minded moron adding two and two together and coming up with fifty-nine. There's a bloke called Bilger in Liberal Studies who did make a film in which a plastic crocodile figures largely as a rape victim. Point one. Henry has to give some explanation to the Education Committee that will prevent Comrade Bilger's numerous offspring having to leave their private school because daddy is on the dole. Point two. Point three is that Wilt is taken ill next day...'
'Not according to Rowena Braintree. It's common knowledge Henry's penis has been mauled.'
'Where?'
'Where what?'
'Where is it
common knowledge?'
'At the playgroup. The quads have been reporting progress on papa's dingaling daily.'
'Great,' said Braintree. 'For once common knowledge about sums it up. Henry's dutiful daughters wouldn't know a penis from a marrow-bone. Eva sees to that. She may be into self-sufficiency but it doesn't extend to sex. Not after the Pringsheims, and I can't see Henry in the role of Flash Harry. If anything, he's a bit of a prude.'
'Not where his language is concerned,' said Betty.
'His use of "fucking" as an adjective is the simple consequence of years of teaching apprentices. In the average bloke's sentence it serves as a sort of hyphen. If you listened to me more carefully you'd hear it at least twenty times in an average day. As I was saying, whatever's the matter with Henry he is not into crocodiles. Anyway, I'll pop round this evening and see what is up.'
But when he arrived at Willington Road that evening there was no sign of Wilt. Several cars were parked in the driveway, among them an Aston-Martin which looked out of place in the company of the Nyes' methane-converted Ford and Mavis Mottram's battered Minor. Braintree made his way across the obstacle course of cast-off clothing and the quads' toys that cluttered the hall and found Eva in the conservatory, chairing what appeared to be a committee on the problems of the Third World.
'The issue that seems to be overlooked is that Marangan medicine has an important part to play in providing an alternative to chemically derived drug treatment in the West,' Roberta Smott was saying as Braintree hesitated behind the bean flyscreen, 'I don't think we should forget that in helping the Marangans we are also helping ourselves in the long term.'
Braintree tiptoed away as John Nye launched into an impassioned plea for the preservation of Marangan agricultural methods and particularly the use of human excreta as fertilizer. 'It has all the natural goodness of...'
Braintree slipped through the kitchen door, skirted the Fertility Retainer or compost bin outside, and went down the Bio-dynamic kitchen garden to the summerhouse where he found Wilt lurking behind a cascade of dried herbs. He was reclining on a deckchair and wearing what looked suspiciously like a muslin bell-tent.