“I’m afraid I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about, Miss Strudwick.”
“Well, whatever next? I never thought I’d have to tell a doctor all about the birds and the bees. Who do you want in now? The old duck with the arthritis or the Colonel with the hammer-toes?”
13
The next morning I arrived in the surgery to find an alarming letter from Grimsdyke. The envelope was postmarked FOULNESS, but the official-looking writing-paper bore no address.
“Dear old boy, (it said)
“Shame forbids me to tell you where I am. Little did I think, in those happy days at St Swithin’s, that the Grimsdykes would be reduced to such shifts. But there are compensations. I always thought ‘Sweet are the uses of adversity’ was a damn silly remark, but anguishing in my present chastening surroundings I have had time to reflect. I made an absolute idiot of myself at Hampden Cross, old lad. You should have kicked me out into the street much sooner than you did. I can only ask you to believe that I was full of good intentions and hope that the friendship of our youth will be preserved. Could you possibly manage to fix me up with twenty-five quid? I shall be released from here at dawn on Saturday, and I could meet you in St Swithin’s for a beer at lunch. Please bring the cash with you.
“Yours,
“Grim.”
“Good Lord!” I said to Nikki, handing her the letter. “The poor fellow’s been sent to jail, or something.”
“Foulness?” She picked up the envelope. “I don’t know if there’s a prison there or not.”
“It’s either that, or he’s in some sort of mental institution. Poor old Grim! His career’s absolutely up a gum tree now.”
Remorse struck me like the taste of some unpleasant drug. I sat at the consulting-room desk and stared gloomily at the prescription pad.
“Don’t worry,” said Nikki kindly. “It may not be as bad as it looks.”
“With Grimsdyke it generally is,” I said. “And the whole thing’s entirely my fault. He’s a wonderful chap really, old Grim. We’ve known each other since my first day at St Swithin’s. I remember it well – he taught me how to slip out of lecture-rooms without being spotted from the front. Why, we shared each other’s books and beer for years. And now the unfortunate fellow’s in jail because I was a bit hasty with him and kicked him out of the first regular job he ever held.”
“If you hadn’t,” said Nikki, “you’d have been spared the trouble of taking me in.”
“Oh, Lord! Sorry, Nikki. I didn’t mean for one moment–”
“I’m sure you didn’t.”
“It’s just that I can’t help feeling sorry for poor Grim. I’ll have to go down and see him on Saturday. It’s the least I can do. Would you mind staying on duty? And I must pop out to the bank now to collect twenty-five pounds. The chap’s probably got nothing between him and starvation except the Prisoners’ Aid Society, or whatever it is.”
I drove anxiously into London the next Saturday morning wishing that I had allowed more generously for my friend’s enterprising spirit. I was also worrying what to say when I called at the Royal Neurological to see Dr Farquarson, who a few days before had finally fallen under the knife of his old classmate.
An Englishman’s hospital is his club, and former graduates of St Swithin’s often met in the musty students’ common room, with its sofas looking as uncomfortable to sit in as horse-troughs and its caricatures of surgeons who had long ago pursued their patients across the Styx. I was early, and sat alone in the corner with The Times, reflecting how young the students were getting these days and wondering what Grimsdyke would look like when he appeared. When he did arrive he seemed in sparkling health and as cheerful as ever.
“I thought you’d been run in,” I said immediately.
“Run in? Good God, old lad! The Grimsdykes may have come close to the wind pretty often, but none of them have suffered the disgrace of ever getting caught. What on earth gave you the idea?”
“Your letter, of course. It sounded as if it had been posted from the condemned cell.”
“Ah, my letter. By the way, are you able to oblige with the small loan? Thanks a lot,” he said, pocketing the notes. “It’ll only be till I’ve found my feet.”
“Now I’ve lent you the cash you might at least tell me where you’ve been,” I insisted.
“In view of your opening remarks, perhaps I’d better. Possibly I overdid the pathos a bit. But my dear chap, the surroundings were really getting me down. I’ve had a fortnight at the Foulness Hospital.”
“What, as a locum?”
“No, as a resident guinea-pig. It’s a research place – you know, where they make you catch measles to see why.”
“Oh, of course, I’ve heard of it – the unit that Professor MacRitchie runs?”
“That’s it. If you want to find out how well you really feel, just go down there for a bit. They’re always screaming for volunteers, so it’s just as easy to sign on as letting yourself in for seven years in the Army. And a damned sight more uncomfortable, I should think.”
I was puzzled. “But why on earth did you want to go there? I didn’t know you were all that keen on the progress of medical science.”
“I was reduced to it, old lad. A bit infra dig, I thought, a doctor becoming a mere bit of research material, but I had no choice. The exchequer was pretty low when I left Hampden Cross, you know. Also, various coves in London were after my blood – hence the twenty-five quid. And I wanted time to think over a little scheme, of which I’ll tell you later. I knew Foulness hospitality ran to free board and lodging and five bob a day for cigarettes, and as you’re kept in complete clinical isolation even the bailiffs can’t get their hands on you for a fortnight. Above all, of course, no work. You just sit on your fanny and wait to sneeze. It seemed just the job at the time, and I wondered why more people didn’t do it.”
“I nearly had a go at the place myself once. Quite a few of the chaps went when we were students.”
“Yes, but wait till you’ve seen the dump. They used it during the war as a survival school, and they haven’t had to alter it much. It looks like a concentration camp up for sale as a going concern. There were about a dozen of us, and we were greeted at the gate by old MacRitchie himself. He’s a tall gloomy chap with a long nose and a handshake like a wet sock full of cold porridge. He told us that we had to split into pairs and each pair could take one of the huts. I had the idea of coupling up with a nice little piece of goods from Bedford College for Women, but that apparently wasn’t the idea at all. So I decided to chum with the fellow standing next to me, who was a quiet sort called Erskine who said he was a schoolmaster.”
“We got on all right at first. We were put in a sort of packing-case-bungalow with all mod. cons. The food and the daily beer issue were left at the doorstep, just like the plague of London, and MacRitchie appeared every morning to drop measles virus down our noses. There were a few books, of course, but these ran largely to the Stock Exchange Yearbook and novels about chaps doing other chaps in by various means. There was also a draughts board. I never realized,” Grimsdyke said with sudden heat, “what a damn silly game draughts was. After the first three days, when I was leading in the series by a hundred and six to a hundred and five, we had an argument. Old Erskine said I’d shifted a draught with the edge of my sleeve. I said I hadn’t. The discussion widened. Questions of cheating at draughts, whether chaps are gentlemen or not, and the general state of family morals were brought up. With some force, I might add. We didn’t actually come to blows, but we spent the rest of the day staring out of opposite windows.”
“I must say, it seems a silly thing to argue about – a game of draughts.”
“Ah, but you don’t understand, Richard. The draught squabble was only a symptom. This fellow Erskine – admirable chap that he was, no doubt, and kind and thoughtful to his little pupils – had the most irritating habit of saying ‘Doncherknow?’ The blasted phrase used to explode in his conversation, like la
nd mines. You wondered when the next one was going off. Damned hard on the nerves, you understand. Also he had the most irritating way of holding his teacup with his fingers right round the bottom. If he’d only done it every other time, it would have been all right. It was the inevitability of the thing which got you down. Hence the sober reflections expressed in my letter.”
I sympathized with him, remembering the table habits of Mr Tuppy. “At least, I’m relieved you suffered nothing worse. And I expect he found just as many objectionable habits in you.”
“Good Lord,” said Grimsdyke in surprise. “That didn’t occur to me.”
“But couldn’t you have gone out for a walk by yourself? Even in the condemned cell you get regular exercise.”
“Oh, yes, they rather encouraged healthy walks, as long as you steered clear of other people. But the weather, old man! Pouring rain and gales for the whole fortnight. And like a fool I forgot my raincoat. I couldn’t possibly have gone out. Why, I might have caught a most fearful infection.”
I laughed, and told him, “May I say how glad I am that this unfortunate experience has anyway led to the re-estab1ishment of diplomatic relations between us?”
“My dear Richard, and so am I. I behaved like a moron, and I’m sorry.”
“No, no, Grim! I was a bit edgy having the responsibility for Farquy’s practice on my plate.”
We shook hands.
“Let us cement our reconciliation in the usual way,” he suggested.
“Capital idea!”
We went across the road to the King George.
After the first pint Grimsdyke remarked, “You’re looking full of beans, Richard. Hard work must agree with you, or something. Have you got anyone else to help you?”
I nodded as I slowly filled my pipe. “I’ve got a woman doctor, actually.”
He whistled. “Good God, old man! How simply ghastly for you. I can just see her now – some frightful piece with legs like a billiard-table, who walks like a hay-cart turning a corner. I suppose she’s got spectacles and dandruff and knows everything?”
“As a matter of fact, she isn’t at all like that. She’s one of the best-looking girls I’ve come across.”
“Really? Then she’s ruddy hopeless as a doctor.”
“On the contrary, she’s very good. She gets on well with the patients, works hard, doesn’t miss a thing, knows all the latest stuff, manages all the sick kids and midder–”
“Look here, old lad.” Grimsdyke suddenly stared at me narrowly. “Have you got any social life in common with this – this piece?”
“Well I must admit I’ve taken her out to dinner.”
“Oh yes? You mean you think she’s a case of malnutrition, or are you getting soft on her?”
I suddenly decided that there was no point in self-deception over the diagnosis any longer. I had to talk to someone. I drew a deep breath.
“I’m terribly in love with her,” I said. Grimsdyke spilt his beer. “Think! Think, old lad!” he implored. “You can’t mean it? You can’t! Or can you?”
“But it’s wonderful,” I continued, as the idea crept through my consciousness like sunshine on a spring morning. “Nikki’s absolutely a girl in a million.”
“But you can’t go about the country falling in love with girls at your age!”
“Why ever not? My endocrine system isn’t past it.”
“I mean,” Grimsdyke protested hotly, “you’re not an impoverished medical student any more. She’ll expect you to marry her.”
“I only wish she did,” I sighed.
Grimsdyke seemed to find words difficult.
“But think what it means, old lad! Staring at her every morning over the top of the Daily Telegraph for the rest of your life. Listening to the funny noise she makes when she cleans her teeth. Waking up every night and hearing her snore. There’s nothing romantic about marriage. Oh, I know all about it. I’ve lived with a few hotsies in my time. Once you get the sex stuff worked out of your system it’s just like the measles place. Think of it, Richard! She probably says ‘Doncherknow’ and holds her teacup all wrong.”
“Nikki does not say ‘Doncherknow’. She happens to be a remarkably good conversationalist.”
“This is terrible,” Grimsdyke went on, wiping his forehead with his silk handkerchief. “You don’t want to get married, I assure you, old man. Not till you’re too old to go out in the evenings, anyway. Think of the fun and games you can have yet. Look here – just to restore you to your senses, let’s ring up a couple of nice bits of crumpet and all go out together and have a hell of a good party? I don’t even mind going back to Foulness to pay for the treat. It would be a useful social service.”
I shook my head, “I’m afraid I’ve got to get back to Hampden Cross. I promised Nikki I’d look in tonight.”
“There you are! You might as well be married already. just because she lets you get into bed with her–”
“She does not let me get into bed with her! I mean, I haven’t even tried to find out.”
“Then what the hell’s the use of rushing back then?”
It was clear that Grimsdyke had given me up for lost. He shortly had to hurry away, throwing more warnings over his shoulder, to meet a chap in a pub in Fleet Street. I went to visit Dr Farquarson in the Royal Neurological in Bayswater.
It was a wonderful day. It had been one of those rare sunlit autumn mornings when the English countryside looks as if it had been specially designed by Mr Rowland Hilder, and now even Oxford Street seemed as carefree as a fairground as I pulled up benevolently at pedestrian crossings and smiled chivalrously to jostling taxi drivers at traffic lights. I had been in love before – I shivered to remember that a few months ago I was in love with Florence Nightingale – but those were just transient attacks compared with the real, florid, full-blown disease I was now suffering. Why, I asked myself as I light-heartedly weaved my way round Marble Arch, should it be Nikki? Was it simply the accident of work throwing us together? I decided there was clearly more to it than that, or I’d long ago have married one of the pretty handmaidens of medicine at St Swithin’s. Perhaps it could all be explained biologically. Something in Nikki’s arrangement of hereditary genes appealed to something in the arrangement of my hereditary genes, with the eventual object of producing something else with an arrangement of genes suitable for the continuance of the human race. Meanwhile, all the chemicals with impossible formulae that I had tried to learn in biochemistry were pouring out of my endocrine glands like juice from over-ripe oranges, and giving me this delightful outlook on life. Having confessed my condition to Grimsdyke I wanted to tell everyone in sight, even the policeman holding me up at the bottom of Edgware Road. The only person I felt I should keep in the dark was Dr Farquarson, who might lie in bed developing doubts on the efficient running of his practice.
“Wonderful thing, modern surgery,” Dr Farquarson told me, as I found him sitting up in excellent shape, cleaning his pipe with one of the hospital’s throat-swabs. “When they took my appendix out somewhere in the Highlands they stifled me with chloroform and handed me a bucket automatically when I came round. Here a charming young feller came in and pricked me with a needle, and the next thing I knew I was back in bed asking the lass where my teeth were. Now they say I can think about starting work again in a couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks!” I said, aghast.
“Yes, and that’s not soon enough for me. They don’t take long to get you on your feet after surgery these days. It’s all the vogue, I hear, to get the patient to push his own trolley back to the ward.”
“But a fortnight!” I exclaimed. “That’s hardly any time at all. After a serious operation –”
“Oh, in Bobbie Cufford’s hands it isn’t at all serious.”
“I mean…well, you never know what complications might ensue – fractured vertebrae, meningitis, all kinds of things. I really think you ought to have a rest, Farquy. How about a long sea voyage in the sunshine?”
I became aware that he, too, was looking at me strangely.
“Well, we’ll see,” he said. “How’s this young lady locum getting on?”
“Oh, her? Very well, I think. I don’t see much of her outside surgery hours, of course. She seems very competent.”
“Well, Richard my lad, I’ll stay an invalid as long as possible. Though even for you I’m not going to stand more than a couple of weeks with my married sister in Swanage.”
Until then I had somehow overlooked that Dr Farquarson was coming back to the practice at all. Perhaps it was the prospect of his return which made me propose to Nikki that evening. Or perhaps it just happened spontaneously. Few amorous young men sit down and think out a speech and look round for a likely spot to lay their bended knee. Most of them happen to be sitting with a girl in the back of a cinema or the top of a bus, and in a couple of seconds somehow find themselves bound to her for life.
I found Nikki alone in the surgery, repacking our midwifery bag from the sterilizer. She was surprised to see me.
“You are back early, Richard. But everything’s very quiet. Mrs Horrocks popped at lunchtime, without any trouble. Another boy, but she doesn’t seem to mind.”
“Nikki,” I said. “Nikki, I…that is, you see, I…”
“Are you all right, Richard?” She suddenly looked concerned. “You seem rather flushed. Are you sure you haven’t got a temperature?”
“I’m in wonderful shape, Nikki. Never felt better in my life. Absolutely terrific form. Nikki, you see, I –”
“Ah, I know.” She smiled. “I’d forgotten you were meeting your old friend. I should have spotted the symptoms.”
“Honestly, Nikki, I’ve hardly touched a drop,” I protested. “I may be drunk, but not with alcohol. You see, Nikki, I really must –”
“Oh, these X-rays arrived from the hospital this morning. They’re Mrs Tadwich’s oesophagus.”
“Nikki!” I said firmly, grabbing the brown-paper packet.
She looked startled. My nerve failed me.
“Yes, Richard?”
Doctor in Love Page 10