Doctor in Love

by Richard Gordon

  “You’d better treat her here in the surgery in future,” said Dr Farquarson, his eyebrows quivering violently. “Or else send me along. That would finish her.”

  “But the whole thing was all my fault,” I said bitterly, tossing my stethoscope on to the examination couch. “I should have had more control of the situation.”

  “It’s an occupational risk we’ve got to run. A woman gets bored in the afternoons, whether she lives in Canterbury or in Canonbury. And the doctor’s the easiest one she can run after.”

  “But it might have led to all sorts of complications with the GMC! I didn’t realize how I had to watch my step.”

  “You know the working rule, of course? ‘It’s all right to make your mistress into one of your patients, but it certainly isn’t all right to make your patient into one of your mistresses.’” He scratched his cheek with the tip of a pair of forceps. “If I had my way, that would be engraved in stone over medical school doorways. It’s much more useful than ‘The Art Is Long’, not to say much less depressing. But speaking as a comfortable widower, Richard my lad, the best deterrent is a wife of your own in the background.”

  I considered this. “But don’t you think that marriage isn’t to be tackled as an emergency operation?”

  “That’s true,” Dr Farquarson agreed. “Take your time. But not for ever.”

  I sat down in the patients’ chair. “Anyway, who could I marry? I don’t know any girls.”

  “Come, Richard! Even to my old eyes the streets of Hampden Cross seem full of them.”

  “But they’re all on other men’s arms or the backs of other men’s motor-bikes. I don’t seem to know any girls these days. Besides, how do I know I’d choose the right one?”

  “I’d say pick the one with the nicest legs. It’s as reasonable a way of choosing a wife as any.”

  I persuaded Mrs Tadwich to let me continue her cardiac investigation in the surgery, where she appeared in a tight black dress, three-inch heels, and two-inch nails. Hitching up her skirt, she started every consultation by discussing her absconded husband in tones suggesting that an intimate bond now existed between us.

  “We didn’t see that type of patient in Dr McBurney’s day,” declared Miss Wildewinde, pointedly opening the surgery windows afterwards.

  It was only a day or two after meeting Mrs Tadwich that I first made acquaintance with the family at “Capri”. This was one of the houses known as “Tudor style semi-det.”, for which British builders developed such a distressing addiction between the wars. I had been called to examine a Miss Porson, and as I approached through a garden of crushing neatness I diagnosed either a middle-aged housewife with an obsessional neurosis, or an under-occupied elderly spinster putting on weight through idleness, chocolates, and gin. But the door was opened by a classical gall-bladder case, a fair, fat, fertile female of fifty, who was wearing a tweed skirt and a pink blouse.

  “Miss Porson?” I asked, speculating when she last had her attack of gallstone colic.

  “Why, you’re Dr Gordon!”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’d have known it the moment I set eyes on you.” I looked surprised, and she added, “You’re so like your father. He looked after my little girl when we were down with the Rotarians only this year.”

  “Really? That’s most interesting.”

  “My husband knew your father from the days when he was studying engineering in London, you know. They had lots and lots of mutual friends among the students.” Knowing the company my father had kept at St Swithin’s, this didn’t seem much of a recommendation. “It’s my little Cynthia you’ve come to see,” Mrs Porson went on. “The poor child’s so very delicate.”

  I followed her upstairs anxiously. My family’s clinical honour was clearly at stake, and I wasn’t at all well up in children’s medicine. “Cynthia’s a very highly strung child,” Mrs Porson whispered outside the bedroom door. “You will make allowances, Dr Gordon, won’t you? Here’s the doctor, dear,” she announced, entering. “Let Mummy do your pillows and make you comfy, now.”

  Cynthia turned out to be a pale, dark, subdued, but pretty girl, sitting up in bed in a flowered nightie, and aged about twenty.

  “Good morning,” I said, trying not to look surprised. “And what’s the trouble?”

  “She’s got one of her feverish bouts, doctor,” said Mother, behind me. “I took her temperature this morning and it was ninety-nine point six. So I said ‘Off to bed you go, my girl, and we’ll get the doctor.’”

  “Quite. Well, Miss Porson, Have you any particular symptoms?”

  “She had a headache just above her eyes and buzzing in her ears,” said Mother.

  “And do you often get such attacks?” I asked the patient.

  “Yes, doctor,” replied Mother immediately. “About every six weeks. She’s very delicate, aren’t you, dear?”

  “I’m not,” murmured Cynthia, her lower lip protruding almost imperceptibly.

  “Yes you are, dear,” Mother wagged her finger, with fairly playful reproach. “Mother knows, dear.”

  “There’s nothing physically wrong with Cynthia,” I said to Mrs Porson, accepting a cup of coffee downstairs afterwards. “Her temperature’s quite normal by my thermometer.”

  “But I know how careful one has to be. Cynthia’s so delicate, particularly now the nights are turning chilly.”

  “Quite. Has she any job?”

  “Oh, no, Doctor! She’s such a help to me in the house.”

  “I see.” The diagnosis was now becoming clear. As Dr Farquarson sometimes put it, it isn’t only the obstetricians who have the privilege of cutting the umbilical cord.

  “You know, I think you’d find her general health would benefit from some outside interests.”

  “But she’s such a shy girl, the poor dear.”

  “Has she any boy friends?”

  Her mother looked surprised. “Why…no, Doctor. No, none at all.” She added quickly, “It’s not that she isn’t interested in the opposite sex, of course.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting that for a moment,” I said with a smile. “I’ll come and see her tomorrow, if I may.”

  “You really must have supper with us one evening, Dr Gordon,” Mrs Porson invited from the front door. “How about next week?”

  I wasn’t anxious to be involved in the private lives of my patients, but I accepted – partly because of the family connexion, and partly because it would be an evening away from the Crypt and Mr Tuppy. I hoped meanwhile that Cynthia would find some presentable youth to take her to the pictures, because girls who have regular dates with young men don’t develop regular headaches.

  The supper was a dismal meal. Mr Porson, who seemed to be some sort of iron merchant, talked only about business. Mrs Porson talked only about her daughter’s health. Cynthia talked about nothing at all.

  After the meal I suddenly found myself alone with her in the sitting-room. She seemed a pleasant girl, though she appeared to lack all the things mentioned in the advertisements. She hadn’t anything to chat about except her symptoms, until she sighed and said, “I often wish I could go away. For a long, long sea voyage, for instance. I’m sure it would do me ever so much good.”

  “Well – why don’t you have a try? You might get a job as a stewardess?”

  “I’ve thought of that. But I couldn’t really leave Mummy.”

  “Perhaps one day the time will come when you’ll have to,” I said, as she looked so miserable. “You know – starting a home of your own.”

  She gave one of her rare smiles and began talking about the garden.

  “You’ve done absolute wonders for Cynthia,” whispered Mrs Porson as I left. “She’s quite a different girl since you’ve taken her in hand.”

  “I’ll tell my father next time I see him,” I smiled back. “Oh, Dr Gordon,” she breathed. “Do you really mean it?” I thought this an odd remark, but returned to the Crypt satisfied with my evening’s treatment.

  �
��There’s another call for Miss Porson,” said Miss Wildewinde the next day. “We never had anything like so much trouble from that family when Dr McBurney was here.”

  This time Cynthia had vague stomach ache. A couple of days later it was vague headache, and three days after that vague earache. Every time Mother took her temperature, packed her off to bed, and picked up the telephone. My work in the New Town was now increasing daily, the influenza virus was jubilantly starting the open season for human beings, and I decided that I must take a firm line. Besides, far from benefiting from my advice, the poor girl was becoming a flourishing neurotic.

  After I had examined Cynthia a few days later for a vague backache, I called Mother into the sitting-room and announced as weightily as possible, “Mrs Porson – I want to have a serious talk with you.”

  “Yes, Doctor?”

  “About your daughter.”

  “But of course, Doctor.” She gave me a smile.

  “Mrs Porson, you may think me perhaps rather young and inexperienced–”

  “No, no, not at all!” she interrupted. “Not a bit too young. Why, these days young people make up their minds ever so much earlier, don’t they?”

  “I mean, you may think me rather young to speak to you like this.”

  “Say exactly what’s on your mind, Doctor. I know just how you feel.”

  “Thank you. Naturally I wanted to mention it to you before saying anything to Cynthia herself.”

  “But how terribly, terribly sweet of you! And they say the younger generation are so inconsiderate.”

  “To be blunt, Cynthia needs marriage.”

  She threw her arms round me and burst into tears. “Oh, Doctor! Now you can call me mother, too!”

  My departure was a blur of Mrs Porson’s face, the chintz curtains in the hall, the gnomes in the garden, the white wicket gate… The rest of my rounds passed in a daze.

  “But how can the beastly woman possibly have got hold of the idea that I personally wanted to save her blasted daughter from the psychological scrap-heap?” I complained angrily to Dr Farquarson as soon as I got in.

  “A doctor’s a bit of a catch for any fond mother,” he said, trying to keep his eyebrows under control. “Though I must admit it’s an awkward situation for a young man.”

  “But what on earth can I do? And what a fool I’ve been! I thought even the Porsons couldn’t expect me to swallow the medicine as well as prescribe it.”

  Dr Farquarson twisted the bell of his stethoscope thoughtfully. “I’ll take over the Porson household from now on. Though I’m prepared to wager they’ll ask for their cards after a couple of visits.”

  But even this relief was denied me. The next night Dr Farquarson himself went sick. For several days he had been complaining of “the screws in the back”, and when I returned a syringe to the surgery after a late call I found him stuck in his chair.

  “It’s only the lumbago,” he explained, rubbing himself painfully. “Don’t you fash yourself, Richard – I’ll be as right as rain in the morning.”

  “Oughtn’t you to see someone?” I asked anxiously. “I could call up old Rogers. I saw him go into his surgery as I passed.”

  “No, no,” he said, with unusual weariness. “Don’t bother him at this hour. He’s as overworked as we are. Besides, I haven’t much faith in the medical profession, anyway.”

  “Will you let me have a look at you, then?” He hesitated, so I added, “You know you complain yourself about the pig-headed idiots who only go to the doctor feet first.”

  “I’m afraid this looks like a slipped disk to me,” I announced a little later.

  He sighed and admitted “Well, now you’ve said it, that’s what I suspected all along.”

  “Don’t you think you ought to see a specialist?” I asked with concern. “I could get you into the private wing at the local hospital. After all, we send them enough patients.”

  “Heaven forbid! That place?”

  “Look here,” I decided, seeing that I must be firm. “I’ll lay on a car tomorrow and have you run down to London to see Sir Robert Cufford. He knows more about disks than anyone else in the country. Won’t you agree to that? Especially as you knew him as a student.”

  “And a bumptious stubborn little blighter he was, too.”

  “And that’s just the type you want, to make you do as you’re told. He’ll take you into the Royal Neurological and investigate you. I insist on it. It’s doctor’s orders.”

  “But it’s impossible, Richard! Who’ll run the practice?”

  “I will.”

  “With the best will in the world, it’s too much for one pair of hands.”

  “Then I’ll get a locum.”

  “You won’t at this time of the year.”

  “I’ll try the newly qualified men at St Swithin’s.”

  “They’ll all have got jobs.”

  “I’ll write to an agency.”

  “You never know who they might send.”

  We were still considering this problem when the front doorbell rang.

  “Damn it!” I said, tired, irritated, and worried. “That’s bound to be some small child with a note saying please send more cotton-wool and some ear cleaners because father’s run out.”

  On the mat stood Grimsdyke.

  9

  “Irish medicine’s quite unlike medicine anywhere else,” Grimsdyke reflected. “The chaps don’t actually use leprechaun poultices, but there’s a cheerful element of witchcraft about it.”

  We were in the saloon bar of the Hat and Feathers behind the Deanery the following evening. I no longer visited public houses myself, because a doctor in general practice spotted refreshing himself with half a pint of mild ale is stamped as an incurable drunkard for life. But Grimsdyke had less inhibitions than me about everything, and insisted that our reunion must be celebrated,

  Grimsdyke was now our locum tenens. That morning I had seen Dr Farquarson off to the Royal Neurological Hospital in London, where Sir Robert Cufford had arranged to take him into the private wing. He had disappeared protesting that he was really much better and warning me of the dangers of having Grimsdyke anywhere near the practice. But Grimsdyke himself, who suffered the chronic delusion that he was the apple of his uncle’s eye, seemed delighted to have arrived at such a critical moment.

  “You know,” he said warmly, “I may be flattering myself, but I think I can contribute a lot to the old uncle’s practice. On the business and social side, you know. Uncle’s a dear old stick, but terribly old-fashioned in his ways. I expect you’ve found that out? Anyway, until the old chap recovers his health and strength – which I sincerely hope won’t be long – you and I, Richard, are going to form one of the brightest partnerships in medicine since Stokes and Adams.”

  “Or Burke and Hare,” I suggested. “Tell me more about Ireland. How did you find Dublin?”

  “Just like Cheltenham, except the pillar boxes are painted green. But full of the most amiable coves drinking whisky and water and talking their heads off about nothing very much and telling you how beastly the British were to their aunt’s grandmother.”

  “But come, now, Grim! Surely that’s a stage Irishman?”

  “My dear fellow,” he said authoritatively, “All Irishmen are stage Irishmen.”

  “But what about Irish doctors? After all, they’re one of the most popular exports, next to racehorses. How did you find your professional colleagues down in the country?”

  “Ah, my professional colleagues! Outside Dublin things were a bit quainter. I hired a car and went down to Enniscorthy in County Wexford, and put up at Bennett’s Hotel while I searched round for my practice. I finally ran him to earth in a pub in that village on the postcard.”

  “Doctor O’Dooley, you mean?”

  “No, the practice. There was only one patient. He was an old chum called Major McGuinness, though what the devil he’d ever been a Major in except the Peninsular War, I can’t imagine.”

  “A bit of a wast
e of medical manpower, wasn’t it?” I asked in surprise. “What became of O’Dooley’s father and that Polish fellow you talked about?”

  “One was dead and the other had gone off with the pub’s chambermaid and started an ice-cream business in Wicklow. Young Paddy himself draws his cash from a brewery or something, and hadn’t been seen for months. The Major was the only patient left. He was as fat as a football, and as he’d been pickling himself in whisky since puberty he had bronchitis, arthritis, prostatic hypertrophy, and I think a touch of the tabes as well. He was pretty pleased to see me.”

  “I bet he was.”

  “Yes,” said Grimsdyke ruefully. “He couldn’t eat his dinner. He’d got toothache.”

  I ordered some more drinks, and Grimsdyke went on. “My first operation was a resounding success. Under the reassuring influence of Power’s Gold Label for both of us, I removed the offending molar. Damn neatly, too, I thought.”

  “What with? A corkscrew?”

  “No, the whole of Paddy’s kit, such as it was, was in the Major’s house – a great rambling place, like living in the Albert Hall – where Paddy had been lodging for some years. So I moved in too. It was quite simple. You just found some blankets and cooked your own food if you could collect anything to start a fire, and there you were. There seemed to be about a dozen other people doing the same thing, and very odd characters some of them were, too. You kept running into new ones round corners. They didn’t seem to know each other very well, but there was usually some whisky knocking about which made for conviviality. The Major was a genial old soul, although the British had apparently been beastly to his aunt’s grandmother, too. I settled down quite comfortably.”

  As it seemed unlike Grimsdyke to refuse a job offering no work and free drinks, I asked why he left.

  “The practice died,” he explained simply. “One night the old boy got more bottled than usual, and passed out under the delusion he was riding in the Grand National and the upstairs bannisters were Becher’s Brook. Caused quite a sensation, even in that household. Soon the whole village were in. Then we got down to the serious business of the funeral. You’ve heard about Irish funerals?”