DOCTOR IN CLOVER

by Richard Gordon

  When he slipped into the ward sluice-room to issue the invitation, he was surprised to discover her chatting to his room-mate.

  'Just looking for my diabetic specimens,' Miles said quickly.

  'They've been taken down to the path. lab., old man,' Charlie Barefoot told him. 'If you're going that way, I'll come along and collect my own. Bye-bye, Dulcie,' he added to Nurse Crimpole. 'See you on Saturday.'

  'Two o'clock outside the Nurses' Home,' she replied, and went on polishing her bedpans.

  Miles felt he'd been given the electroconvulsive treatment he'd seen in the psychiatric department. It had never occurred to the idiot that Dulcie Crimpole could have eyes for anyone else-particularly, he felt angrily, a stodgy old bookworm like Charlie Barefoot.

  'Known Nurse Crimpole long?' he asked in the pathology laboratory, his hand trembling as he unstoppered a bottle of Benedict's reagent.

  'I've seen her about the ward, you know.'

  Miles paused.

  'I didn't go to my relatives those last weekends,' he scowled.

  'So she tells me.'

  'I think Dulcie's a very nice girl.'

  'So do I,' said Charlie Barefoot.

  That evening, Miles glanced up sharply from his Muir's Pathology and said, 'Perhaps, Barefoot, you would have the kindness to return my pencil, when you've finished chewing it.'

  'This happens to be my own pencil, Grimsdyke. And I am not chewing it.'

  'I distinctly saw you chew it just now. Apart from ruining the pencil-my pencil-you ought to know that chewing pencils is a thoroughly unhygienic habit, leading to the transfer of _Streptococcus viridans_ and large numbers of other oral pathogens.'

  'Oh, take the bloody pencil!' said Barefoot, and went up and sat in his bedroom.

  It was the old business of sex. Cut-throat rivalry in class had never ruffled the two chaps' friendship. Now they glared at each other all night across the top of their textbooks. The following Saturday evening, Miles sat alone miserably drinking cups of cocoa and wondering blackly how to do Charlie Barefoot down. The Saturday afterwards he told his chum he was taking Dulcie to the Festival Hall, and visited her parents in Guildford. On the Monday morning the whole hospital discovered that he and Nurse Crimpole were engaged.

  Barefoot was very decent about it.

  'I won't say I am not disappointed,' he confessed in Mrs Capper's parlour.

  'Dulcie's a wonderful girl, and I was getting rather fond of her. But…well, there's no one I'd rather lose her to than you, Miles.'

  'It's really extremely generous of you, Charlie.'

  'And when's the wedding?'

  'Not till I've qualified, of course, I've cabled my father out East that my new status certainly won't interfere with my work. You'll be my best man, I hope?'

  'That will be my only consolation for the whole affair.'

  'You're a brick, Charlie.'

  'And you're a real sport, Miles.'

  They shook hands across Eden amp; Holland's Obstetrics._

  'Now,' began Charlie Barefoot. 'What would you consider the leading features in the management of a case of puerperal paranoia?'

  The years which stretch pretty chillingly ahead of you as a junior medical student soon start to melt away. As far as I remember, after that Miles took Dulcie out regularly every Saturday, while Barefoot went by himself for tramps in the country. The rest of the week the pair of them studied as steadily as before.

  'You'll collar the Medical and Surgical Prizes in the finals all right,' conceded Barefoot, when the exams were only a few weeks ahead.

  Miles smiled across the plush tablecloth, now a little faded.

  'It could easily be your turn, Charlie.'

  Barefoot shook his head. 'No, Miles. You're streets ahead of me on the practical.

  But I suppose we'd both better get on with some work. There's really so much revision to get through. What are the ninety-four causes of haematuria?'

  When Miles next met Dulcie, he explained he couldn't spare his Saturday afternoons from studying any longer.

  'But you really must get some fresh air,' she insisted. 'After all, now I'm a staff nurse and know all about these things. Lack of sunlight can reduce your vitamin D right down to danger-level.'

  'Damn vitamin D!' exclaimed Miles. 'And A, B, and C as well.'

  'Miles!' she said, horrified at such blasphemy.

  'I'm sorry, dear. I'm a bit irritable these days. It's only the pressure of work.'

  'Are you sure that's all? You're looking terribly peaky.'

  'Yes, of course that's all.'

  Old Miles is fundamentally honest, which has nearly wrecked more careers than his own. He disliked telling Dulcie a lie. But how could he explain that he wished the ruddy woman were dead? A couple of years in the rough-and-tumble of the hospital wards has changed far worldlier young fellows than my cousin. As a junior student he'd been surprised at any girl smiling at him. Now he was almost a doctor and got smiles all round, some of them very pretty ones. And he could no longer dissuade himself that the woman was a shocking bore.

  'Are you sure you're getting enough sleep?' Dulcie went on. 'The Professor says seven hours is the normal minimum. And what about your diet? I'm certain you're not taking nearly enough calories. Dr Parsons gave us a smashing lecture about them yesterday.'

  'Very interesting, dear. How would you like to pass the afternoon? Shall we go round an art gallery?'

  'If you don't think it would tire you too much. From the way you walk about, Miles, I'm not at all sure you haven't got flat feet.'

  The wedding was planned for a fortnight after the examinations, and I was already wondering how to raise the rent of a Moss Bros. suit. I hadn't seen anything of Miles for weeks, and supposed he was swotting steadily for the exam. In fact, he was mostly sitting in Mrs Capper's parlour trying to find some honourable escape from his obligations short of suicide. After my own later experiences in Porterhampton, I could sympathize with the chap. He told me afterwards he'd almost reached for Murrell's Poisons before the answer appeared, with the clarity of all great inspirations.

  Miles decided deliberately to fail his exam.

  Even I could appreciate the simplicity of the scheme. Miles couldn't sit again for another six months, and by then Dulcie Crimpole might have got tired of waiting. She might have got a sister's job miles away in the North. She might have got run over by an ambulance. At least he wouldn't be walking up the aisle with her in exactly six weeks' time.

  'Hello!' exclaimed Barefoot, arriving home from his tramp in the Chilterns. 'You're looking much happier with life tonight.'

  Personally, I always find the day of the examinations as unattractive as the Day of Judgement, but Miles and Barefoot strode into the examination hall a few weeks later without flinching.

  'Good luck, Miles,' whispered Barefoot, as they separated among the schoolroom desks just far enough apart to make cribbing rather tantalizing.

  My cousin smiled, 'This time you don't need any, Charlie.'

  Miles told me he did well in the written paper-bottling up that knowledge from Mrs Capper's parlour would have been almost as heartbreaking for him as marrying Nurse Crimpole. Besides, the clinical session presents more opportunities for spectacular failure under the eye of the examiner himself. When a few mornings later Miles approached the bedside of his allotted examination case, he felt both determined and serene.

  'Well, my boy,' began the examiner, appearing after the interval they give you for diagnosis, 'what do you find wrong with your patient?'

  'I am afraid, sir,' said Miles, 'that I can't make a diagnosis of anything at all.'

  The examiner seized him by the hand.

  'Congratulations! We've put in a perfectly normal man, and you'd be horrified at the peculiar diagnoses I've had to put up with all morning. Mr Miles Grimsdyke, isn't it? I thought so. Only a student of your outstanding ability could have seen through our little deception. Excellent, my dear sir!

  Good morning.'

  P
oor old Miles staggered into the street, gripped by an alarming thought-after all those years of being an academic athlete it was impossible for him to fail an examination at all. He made his way from the hall in a daze, wondering what the devil to do. There was still the oral examination that afternoon. He'd half a mind simply to clear off to the cinema instead, but they'd only give him another appointment like a candidate taken ill. The vision of Nurse Crimpole rose before him, wearing a wedding dress.

  When he finally focused on his surroundings, he found himself facing a sign announcing THE RED LION-Ales and Spirits.

  I don't believe Miles had ever swallowed a drink in his life, but he felt so miserable he decided to experiment with the treatment he'd seen me administering to myself for years.

  'Good morning, sir,' said the chap behind the bar. 'What can I get you?'

  'I want a drink.'

  'Of course, sir. What sort of drink?'

  It had never occurred to Miles that there were different ones.

  He noticed an advertisement showing bottles glistening on blocks of ice, which looked very refreshing.

  'A drink of that.'

  'Vodka, sir? Large or small?'

  'Oh, large, please. I didn't have time for my second cup of tea at breakfast.'

  The story of Miles' oral examination never got out. No one likes a bit of gossip better than me, but even I should have felt a cad so much as hinting about it. His answers to Sir Lancelot Spratt at first flew across the green-baize table, even though he was grasping it for support as he wiped away the perspiration with his handkerchief.

  'Now, Mr Grimsdyke,' went on Sir Lancelot, perfectly used to the oddities of nervous candidates, 'let us discuss the subject of gastric pain.'

  'No,' said Miles.

  'I beg your pardon?'

  'I said no. You're always discussing gastric pain. And do you know why? I'll tell you. It's because you know all about gastric pain. You might know sweet Fanny Adams about anything else, as far as your students are concerned. You've bored me stiff with gastric pain for three years, and I'm not going to talk about it now.'

  'You're perfectly correct, Mr Grimsdyke,' agreed Sir Lancelot after a thoughtful pause. 'Of all dead horses to flog, dead hobby horses are the worse. I'm glad that a gentleman of your courage had the decency to stop me becoming a tyrannical bore on the subject. Thank you. We shall discuss nausea and vomiting instead.'

  'Oh, God!' said Miles, and gripped his waist coat.

  He still might have passed if he hadn't been sick into Sir Lancelot's Homburg.

  The next evening the pass-list was read from the examination hall steps, with the announcement that Charles Barefoot (St Swithin's) had won the University Prizes in Medicine and Surgery. Miles wasn't mentioned at all.

  He'd arranged to meet Dulcie Crimpole outside Swan and Edgar's, and hurried to detonate his news. But before he could speak she held out her hand and said: 'Good-bye, Miles.'

  'Good-bye?'

  'Yes.' She felt for her handkerchief. 'I-I'm afraid I've been a bad girl. I'm very fond of you, Miles, but-I'm really in love with Charlie Barefoot after all. Now we want to get married.'

  Miles gasped. 'But-but how long has this been going on?'

  'Just a few weeks. I've been out with him every Saturday, while you studied at home.

  But I didn't want to tell you before. I thought it might upset you for your examination.'

  14

  'Even Sir Lancelot himself doesn't know the full story about Dulcie Crimpole,' Miles whispered on the doorstep, as I left for the houseboat after dinner. 'I believe I read in an advertisement somewhere that vodka leaves no smell on the breath…'

  I nodded. 'A wise choice at the time.'

  'Having such a formidable rival for the job as Barefoot is bad enough as it is. But if the tale got out just at this particular moment-'

  'Rely on Gaston, old lad. Compared with me an oyster is garrulous. Besides, I have problems enough of my own.'

  'Not serious, I hope?'

  'Purely professional, and happily resolving every moment.'

  He frowned slightly. 'What exactly _are _you up to, Gaston?'

  'One day I hope you'll find out.

  Meanwhile, don't worry. I'll take any odds you end up with a permanent stable at St Swithin's.'

  'It's certainly kind of you to give me some encouragement. I'm afraid I don't seem to get much of it these days.'

  Dinner had been pretty gloomy that evening, with Miles brooding on Barefoot and even Connie hardly able to raise a laugh when I told a few funny stories to cheer them up. Falling into the prevailing mood, I started pondering on my own troubles with the book. Then I suddenly had another of those brilliant inspirations of mine. Here I was, stuck over portraying to the public the brilliant and dedicated young surgeon. And sitting opposite glaring into his raspberries was the prototype, known intimately from childhood. Whenever my Clifford Standforth was faced with a tricky situation I had only to ask myself, 'How would that chump Miles have tackled it?' and that should be good for another twenty pages. I was so taken with the idea I could hardly finish my coffee before hurrying back and trying it out on the typewriter.

  I felt I could have the manuscript on Carboy and Plover's doormat in a fortnight, which I might have done if a telegram hadn't arrived a few days later from my forwarding address saying:

  COME IMMEDIATELY MONTE CARLO

  ALL EXPENSES PAID.

  LADY NUTBEAM.

  The summons wasn't a particular surprise.

  I'd been following-up my former patient closely, this being easy from the newspaper placards, which generally said something like LORD NUTBEAM AGAIN. The old boy was whooping it up on the Riviera at a rate which made Champagne Charlie look very small beer, and people read so much about him on the bus going home he'd become one of the things the British public wondered how on earth they existed without, like penicillin and television.

  I'm not one to refuse a free trip even to Margate, and anyway the houseboat had sprung a leak which I'd calculated in another ten days would put me completely under water. But I hesitated, wondering if Lord Nutbeam should have summoned a more high-powered doctor than myself. Finally, I decided that if he really wanted my own humble ministrations I couldn't let the old boy down, and stuffing my manuscript and stethoscope into a suitcase I rapidly switched professions and booked on the next plane south.

  The following afternoon found me driving in his Lordship's new Rolls among the palm trees.

  'It was Aubrey who insisted on sending for you,' said Lady Nutbeam, greeting me at her hotel. She looked just the same, except for the diamonds. 'He doesn't trust foreign doctors.'

  'Are you sure he shouldn't have got the President of the Royal College of Physicians instead?'

  'Not at all, Doctor. After all, you've saved his life once already, haven't you?'

  I found old Nutbeam lying in a darkened room, suffering from nothing worse than a chronic hangover. Fortunately, I have wide clinical experience of this condition, and prescribed a diet of dry biscuits with some French spa water that tasted like bottled gasworks.

  'That's a relief,' Lady Nutbeam agreed, as we left him suffering in peace. 'Though I didn't think it was anything serious. But I hope the poor dear will soon be himself again. He's so enjoying life at the moment.'

  'He was rather out of training for it, that's all.'

  'Perhaps you could stay on a few days, Doctor?' She paused on the terrace, gazing at the millionaires' yachts parked in the harbour as thickly as the cars on Brighton front. 'As a matter of fact, I am a little worried about my husband.'

  'You mean,' I suigested, 'that party I read about in the papers? Pouring champagne over the Maharajah?'

  She nodded. 'And setting off fireworks under the Greek millionaire. Not to mention the ice-cream down the French ballet dancer's dress. I'm afraid, Doctor, Aubrey might sometimes strike one as a little childish.'

  'Pure boyish high spirits, I'm sure.'

  'I should like to think so.
I'd be much obliged if you'd keep an eye on him for a while. You might be able to control him a little. You know he thinks the world of your advice. You would be our guest, of course.'

  I gathered the Nutbeams, and a good many other people in Monte Carlo, had cash in lands where you didn't have to fill in beastly little forms to get it out.

  'I could possibly spare a day or two,' I admitted, 'if you're still sure I'm the right chap?'

  'But you've learned the penalty of boyish high spirits already, Doctor, haven't you?' Lady Nutbeam smiled. 'I noticed in Long Wotton you took the lesson to heart.'

  As the days went by and nobody asked me to leave, I found myself a regular member of Lord Nutbeam's household, along with the chauffeur and the valet. Come to think of it, I'd always wanted the job of private physician to a travelling millionaire, though these days there's as much chance of finding anybody travelling with their private executioner.

  His Lordship being an easy patient, I passed the time sitting in the sun, finishing my book, and brushing up my French-I flatter myself I'm rather hot stuff at this _defense de crвcher_ and _crкpes Suzette_ business.

  'Garзon,' I was saying fluently after a week or so, _'apportez-moi une verre du bon vieux biйre anglaise, sil vous plait._ And if that's the luncheon menu you have there, I'll try the _gratin de langoustines Georgette._ That's sort of mucked-up shrimps, isn't it?'

  'Monsieur has the true English sense of humour.'

  'Remind me sometime to tell you the story of _l'йvйque et le perroquet._ Were the roses sent to the young lady I met in the Sporting Club last night?'

  _'Mais certainement, monsieur.'_

  _'Jolli bon spectacle._ And waiter-inform the chauffeur I'll be taking the car this afternoon. I might do a little shopping in Nice.'

  _Entendu, monsieur.'_

  I felt that life for Grimsdyke was looking up.

  The waiter had hardly left the terrace to collect my midmorning refreshment, when my patient himself appeared. Lord Nutbeam seemed in excellent spirits, and was smoking a cigar.