Doctor And Son

by Richard Gordon

  I was looking forward to our outing not only for gustatory reasons but to discover the result of my friend’s stealthy clinical investigations. But it was unnecessary to wait until then, for the next morning our paper exclaimed MONICA FAIRCHILD TO HAVE BABY. There was a long account on the front page, illustrated with a photograph of the actress gazing into the eyes of her husband, an undernourished-looking young man with large eyes and a feathery moustache.

  ‘Old Grim’s got it right this time, anyway,’ I announced to Nikki, tossing the paper across the kitchen table. ‘I bet he’s feeling pretty pleased with himself even though they don’t actually mention him by name.’

  ‘But they mention the hotel, twice.’

  ‘Perhaps they might let the poor chap keep a bit more of his own fees, now,’ I suggested.

  ‘Or give him a better job in the publicity department,’ said Nikki.

  Grimsdyke’s increased importance in the Arundel as Monica Fairchild’s prospective accoucheur was clear from the moment my car drew up at the front door the following Wednesday evening. The staff now bowed us in with the respectful curiosity shown these days only to royalty and television personalities.

  ‘Nikki, my dear, you look absolutely charming,’ said Grimsdyke, greeting us exuberantly as we were shown up to his suite by three pageboys. ‘Hang up your hats and we’ll have a quick one first from my private cellar. I hope you’re both starving,’ he went on. ‘We’re kicking off with a mouthful of caviar, then a spot of soup and a chunk of salmon just off the plane from Scotland, followed by a duckling apiece done as the old chef used to produce it for the aristocracy of Europe, when they could afford to eat in places like this. And to save messing about with the wine list, I’ve told them just to lay on bags of the bubbly stuff.’

  ‘Lovely!’ said Nikki. She closed her eyes in contentment. ‘I don’t have to cook a bit of it myself.’

  ‘Tell me, Grim,’ I asked him, ‘how in the end did you manage your little deception with Miss Fairchild?’

  ‘My dear chap, it was easier than testing her knee-jerks. At our next consultation I simply put on a serious face and told her what I wanted, and the next morning her secretary brought it down in a Chanel perfume bottle. I sent it off to the lab. in a taxi, and a couple of days later I got the happy news.’

  ‘Which you still had to break to the patient?’

  ‘Exactly. That needed a bit of courage, I admit. But there was nothing to be gained by beating about the gooseberry bush. I kept quiet about my methods, naturally, but I just drew a deep breath and told her. At first she said, “Impossible! I’m on Broadway for the next six months.” But after that she saw things in the right perspective, and to my enormous relief threw herself head and shoulders into the role of prospective mother. Jolly good at it she is, too. And look how her audiences reacted! Why, the day the newspapers gave it out they pretty well raised the roof. She says her agent can get her another two and a half per cent on the strength of it.’

  ‘I’m sure she looks just like anyone else when she’s being sick in the mornings,’ said Nikki, a little unkindly.

  ‘And I hope she’s now affording you the honour and gratitude you deserve?’

  ‘My dear old lad, she’s all over me. She calls me her “true apothecary” – Romeo and Juliet, you understand. More to the point, she’s half-promised to take me to the States when she goes, presumably in the puerperium. That’s the place to practice the healing art, and no mistake.’

  He grinned enthusiastically, and emptied his glass.

  ‘Great believers in science, the Yanks. They turn on medical advice like their bathwater. None of them would think of blowing their noses or changing the baby’s nappies without first consulting the appropriate specialist – all American doctors of course being specialists. I tell them I’m a general specialist, and that seems to do the trick, If you’d like to go down and eat,’ he added, glancing at his watch. ‘With any luck we’ll have a view of my distinguished patient as she sails out to perform.’

  Grimsdyke seemed in great form. I couldn’t remember seeing him so pleased with life since – to the equal surprise of the examiners and himself – he had passed his finals.

  As it was early the dining-room was almost empty when we sat down at a special table heaped with flowers in the corner, heavily outnumbered by waiters. I was just eyeing the caviar glistening so expensively before me, when Grimsdyke gave a nudge and whispered, ‘Here she comes now.’

  I had only seen Monica Fairchild before on the stage, where her personality filled the theatre like some powerful gas bursting into a vacuum. I could now tell instantly from the set of her blonde head and blue eyes that it was not simply a stage presence, which seemed confirmed by the look of the husband plodding dejectedly behind her.

  ‘She’s coming across for a word,’ continued Grimsdyke excitedly. ‘Would you like to be introduced?’

  ‘We certainly wouldn’t want to complicate–’ began Nikki.

  ‘Dear Dr Grimsdyke,’ declared the actress, advancing on our table. ‘I just wanted to tell you that I am quite all right. I thought you might be worrying.’

  ‘I’m delighted to hear it, Miss Fairchild,’ exclaimed Grimsdyke, jumping up. ‘And now may I have the pleasure of introducing two of my professional colleagues and personal friends – Dr and Mrs Sparrow.’

  ‘How do you do?’ said Miss Fairchild, as though we were in the back of the gallery.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ went on Grimsdyke, rather carried away by the occasion, ‘I might as well confess now, Miss Fairchild, that I called Dr Sparrow here into consultation to discuss how we could diagnose your present happy condition.’

  ‘I’ve often wondered, Doctor,’ her husband interjected to prevent himself being totally ignored, ‘how your profession does manage to diagnose these things?’

  ‘Oh, it was quite simple from the contents of that perfume bottle,’ I replied without thinking.

  The actress frowned slightly.

  ‘What is this, Dr Grimsdyke?’

  Grimsdyke shot me a glance.

  ‘Well, you see Miss Fairchild,’ he said quickly. ‘That – er, what you kindly let me have, was taken to the laboratory, and they sent me back the result. Didn’t I tell you?’

  ‘Do you imagine, young man,’ she declared in the voice of Cleopatra, ‘that for one moment I would allow you to submit me to such an indignity? Of course not!’

  Grimsdyke suddenly looked worried.

  ‘You mean that – that offering wasn’t exactly – er, yours?’

  ‘I shouldn’t think of it! No more than I’d give away locks of my own hair for the hundreds of demands that come every post.’

  ‘Good God!’ said Grimsdyke, grasping the table. ‘Then you’re not–’

  ‘What are you trying to say, you fool?’ thundered Miss Fairchild.

  ‘Perhaps my diagnosis was a little exaggerated,’ muttered Grimsdyke, staring at me hopelessly.

  ‘If you are trying to infer,’ Miss Fairchild flashed at him, ‘that I am not going to have a baby, that is completely out of the question. It’s already been announced in the newspapers.’

  ‘But Miss Fairchild,’ I interrupted bravely, to save my friend, ‘How on earth could you have obtained such an appropriate specimen otherwise?’

  ‘As it all seemed of no importance,’ she snapped at me, ‘I got my secretary to supply it.’

  There was a loud cry behind her and a crash.

  ‘My God!’ screamed the actress. ‘Fetch a doctor! Rollo’s dead!’

  But her husband had only fainted.

  ‘I’ve never been treated like this in my life,’ declared Grimsdyke indignantly, as the three of us stood outside on the pavement. ‘I didn’t even have the chance to swallow a single ruddy sturgeon’s egg. And telling the valet to pack my things, too! I’m damn well going to sue that manager. You wait and see. I’ll go to my solicitors first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I’d hold your horses a bit, if I were you,’ I
told him sympathetically. ‘He might be able to sue you.’

  Grimsdyke stood glaring for some moments at the site of his former employment.

  ‘Oh, well,’ he grunted. ‘I’ve been thrown out of better places than this. Anyway, there’s plenty of spots we can go and dine – the Ritz, Mirabelle, Mayfair–’

  His voice trailed off as he remembered that he didn’t have an expense account at any of them.

  ‘I don’t suppose you could lend me a few quid, old lad?’ he asked. ‘I’m a bit short.’

  ‘I’m awfully sorry, Grim. But in the circumstances I didn’t bother to bring my wallet.’

  ‘I’ve got a little loose change if it’s any help,’ said Nikki, opening her bag.

  We managed to raise eight and tenpence between us.

  ‘We can run to half a pint in the nearest pub, I suppose,’ said Grimsdyke, pocketing it. ‘Then there’s a fish and chip parlour I know off the Edgware Road. I never did care for rich food much, anyway.’

  7

  After the unfortunate evening at the Arundel Grimsdyke seemed to disappear. In the expectation of living in rent-free luxury he had sublet his Chelsea flat to a visiting Australian neurologist, and at St Swithin’s – which he regarded primarily as his London club, dropping in to read the common-room papers and chat to his old friends – no one heard of him for several weeks. Meanwhile, the press announced that Miss Monica Fairchild was ‘taking a prolonged rest from the stage on the advice of her doctors.’

  ‘I don’t know who her doctors are,’ I remarked to Nikki over breakfast. ‘But I know one doctor who certainly isn’t.’

  ‘Poor Grimsdyke! Do you suppose he’s really gone on that Antarctic whaling expedition?’

  ‘I must say the other night he seemed pretty serious about not looking at a woman for the next six months. Though I can hardly imagine him as a sort of Moby Doc.’

  ‘I do wish he’d take up something completely unromantic, like public health,’ sighed Nikki. ‘Even he couldn’t get into much trouble with dustbins and drains.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that.’

  As the weeks went by I began to feel genuinely anxious about him. Grimsdyke was such a social being that he would have found himself unable to keep away from his old friends and old haunts even if he had just committed a murder. I wondered seriously if he had emigrated to start practice in New Zealand, or was perhaps officiating somewhere more inaccessible as an original type of medical missionary.

  It was then the middle of July, and when I took a day off to watch the Gentlemen versus Players match at Lord’s I looked for him in the Tavern, which is one of those places like the Royal Academy and Piccadilly Circus Tube Station where you often run into people you want to see – as well as many that you don’t.

  I didn’t find Grimsdyke but I found news of him, from another former classmate at St Swithin’s, Tony Benskin.

  ‘Grimsdyke?’ he said. ‘Yes, I came across him a week or so back, when I was in Simpson’s buying some socks.’

  We were standing on the Tavern steps with pints of beer in the mild afternoon sunshine, watching the English captain score an elegant century.

  ‘He was fitting himself out with tropical kit,’ Tony went on. ‘You know, Boy Scout shorts and mosquito nets and so forth. I asked where he was off to, but he seemed pretty cagey about it all. Only said something about having to be out of the country for a bit. A woman as usual, I suppose?’

  ‘Well, it’s a woman. But not as usual.’

  ‘I envy the chap, in a way. With his ideas of practice he may not see much medicine, but he certainly sees plenty of life. Oh, good shot, sir!’ he said, as the ball rattled against the boundary boards. ‘Anything exciting happening to you?’

  ‘Yes, we’re having a baby,’ I said proudly.

  ‘Oh, really? We’re having our fourth.’

  ‘Your fourth! Good God, man, have you found out what’s causing it?’

  ‘You must come back and meet the family at the close of play,’ he invited. ‘I might be able to give you a few tips on practical fatherhood.’

  The Benskins lived in Hampstead, and were one of those disorganised households who always seem to have twice as many children as they really possess. When I arrived it was bedtime, and they appeared to have a small school on their hands.

  ‘I suppose you’ve read von Schaeffer’s book on The Importance of Antenatal Influences on the Developing Subconscious?’ Tony Benskin asked, pouring me a drink over the heads of his two oldest, who were sitting on their pots in front of the fireplace while the third screamed offstage being put to bed.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve even heard of it, I’m afraid.’

  ‘My dear chap,’ he insisted. ‘Every father in the country should be made to read it from cover to cover. To my mind, bringing up children is a highly scientific process, right from the moment of conception. Molly disagreed with me at first, but I’ve talked her round to my way of thinking. Our children have everything from a metabolically-adjusted diet to psychologically-adjusted colours in their bedroom. Absolutely essential to remember details like that. Otherwise they might easily get stuck in the stage of oral eroticism for ever.’

  ‘Perhaps for the first one we’ll keep to the old blue-for-a-boy and pink-for-a-girl stuff,’ I told him doubtfully.

  ‘Do you realise every male child wants to emasculate its father for being in love with its mother?’ Tony demanded.

  I looked alarmed. ‘But they don’t, very often, surely?’

  ‘A subconscious thought, of course,’ he explained. ‘Then there’s the interesting condition of the couvades–’

  Unable to help laughing any longer, I exclaimed, ‘Surely, Tony! Even you must admit that the husband sharing the wife’s symptoms is all a bit of an old wives’ tale?’

  ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in Eden and Holland’s Manual of Obstetrics,’ he told me darkly. ‘Whenever Molly goes into labour I get the most shocking bellyache.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, I did feel a bit sick in the mornings myself earlier on,’ I admitted. ‘But I put that down to Grimsdyke’s bottle of duty-free rum.’

  ‘It’s all very well for him to talk,’ said Molly Benskin, when a few minutes later I congratulated her on such enlightened parenthood, while Tony took his turn putting the other two psychological problems to bed.

  ‘He hasn’t got to wash the nappies,’ she went on, pouting. ‘Or do the ironing and mop up the puddles and wipe their beastly little faces every couple of minutes from morning to night. The amount of money Tony wastes on books about child psychology would buy me a washing machine, which would be a hundred times as useful. There’s only one thing I know for certain about child psychology,’ she ended despondently, ‘that whatever you do, it’s bound to be wrong.’

  ‘If I can speak from purely theoretical experience, I’m inclined to agree with you.’

  ‘There’s only one way to prepare a child for life,’ Molly Benskin said firmly. ‘Stand him on a high shelf open your arms, and say “Jump.” Then walk away. I wish to heaven Tony would mess about with the car instead, like any normal man.’

  But my visit to the Benskins was useful, because it left me with feelings that I was perhaps not taking my coming responsibilities seriously enough. And my concern was less with the psychological sufferings of our unborn infant than finding somewhere for the poor thing eventually to live.

  ‘Either everyone’s become so attached to Hampden Cross they don’t want to leave the damn place,’ I told Nikki, ‘or someone’s discovered uranium in the garden and is secretly buying up the whole district.’

  I had been window-shopping in estate agents’, as I had done before we were married, though aware that I was now tied to an even less flexible timetable.

  ‘There just doesn’t seem to be anything suitable at all,’ I complained. ‘Can’t you go into a few agents’ offices yourself, now you’re looking so earnestly pregnant?’

 
My wife had passed the depressing point when further struggle with ordinary clothes becomes hopeless, and had assumed the expectant mother’s robes of office.

  ‘I did, dear, this afternoon. But there were two others there already, both much further gone than me.’

  ‘Then there’ll be furniture, too,’ I said sombrely. Although bank managers, building societies, and even bookies have a touching faith in the solvency of junior members of the medical profession, this was an item to be faced with respect. ‘We’ve got the essentials, I suppose, what with wedding presents and so on, and we can always scrounge from our families. But we’ll soon have to choose between next year’s holiday and a contemporary sofa, even if we do find somewhere to put it.’

  ‘Do you suppose one of the patients might be of help?’

  ‘Old Mrs Mackinnon is looking a bit dickey. With a change in the weather there might be a vacancy there.’

  ‘No,’ said Nikki, with a shudder.

  Shortly afterwards our problem was in fact solved by the misfortune of one of my patients, though luckily a less drastic one than Mrs Mackinnon’s. I was still wondering if we might find a place going cheap with some fairly tolerable inconvenience like bad drains or poltergeists, when Major Marston appeared in the surgery complaining of giddy turns and hot feelings in the back of his head.

  Major Marston was a man with pale blue eyes, a crumb-brush moustache, and a fondness for club cuff-links and suede boots, whom Nikki and I knew socially as well as professionally. He had a seat on the Town Council and was a prosperous Hampden Cross builder, which was widely held to be a matter of cause and effect. He lived with his pretty red-headed wife in a modern house on the far edge of the town, with two poodles and two television sets, all four of which they seemed extremely fond of. We had been to several of their cocktail parties – they were the leaders of the Hampden Cross set of bright middle-aged things – and I was now surprised when he confessed in response to a little elementary psychoanalysis that his wife had packed up and left him.

  ‘One’s simply got to face it, Doc,’ he said. He squared the shoulders of his blazer. ‘Diane prefers the other chap – no names, if you’ll excuse me – and there it is. It’s only life. We’re being utterly sensible about the whole thing, of course. What else can one do? I’m going away for a bit of a holiday. To forget, if I can.’