‘I suppose it’s like when you’ve been caught for speeding. You see policemen staring at you everywhere.’
‘Quite. When my old auntie died last winter, every street in London seemed a traffic-jam of funerals.’
The dean’s eyes widened a little behind his large glasses. A faint, gratified smile played on his lips. Leaving a taxi on the corner was Frankie Humble.
He watched unseen as the MP trotted past his window, mounted the steps of No 3 and rang the bell. He had telephoned her the previous evening, throwing himself on her mercy. The appointment at Hampton Wick, he pleaded, would be less a tragedy than a black farce for a man of his own sensitivity, humanity, conscientiousness, kindness, good-humour, malleability, fairness, high-mindedness, culture, responsibility and tendency to rheumatism when chilled. He would break even sooner than the others – much sooner than the tough Australian. Not only would Hampton Wick suffer but – though, of course, this would be a minor consideration entirely – his own career would be in ruins at St Swithin’s.
What Frankie needed was a strong man, he urged. An academic Cromwell – or possibly an academic Hitler. Someone tough of mind, body and voice. Someone in the lifelong habit of dominating, of getting his own way, of squashing opposition so flat the breath remained out of it for weeks. Someone not too fancy with his manners or his language, who could sink with ease to the puerile level of students’ humour. In short, Sir Lancelot Spratt.
Frankie had demurred. The official announcement was already prepared for release after the weekend. But the dean sounded so piteous she agreed at least to see Sir Lancelot, and put the idea to him. ‘I’ll try to persuade him,’ she promised. ‘But if I don’t, I’ll expect you to keep your word. I’m sure you wouldn’t like it to get round London that you ratted, would you?’ The dean agreed readily. When Frankie persuaded anyone to perform anything she really wanted, it was as good as done.
The dean watched her disappear inside. ‘Well, there’s Miss MacNish about the place to keep an eye on the pair of them,’ he murmured to himself, still smiling. ‘They need a chaperone, if you ask me. I wouldn’t put anything entirely past Frankie, especially with her husband away…and I certainly wouldn’t put it past Sir Lancelot, if she gets him in the right mood.’ His face took on a thoughtful look. He pulled his right earlobe. ‘I wonder, when Frankie was his house-surgeon, if Sir Lancelot ever did…’ He paused. ‘And I wonder if he wonders if I ever did…’
‘Aren’t you going to open the wine, Lionel?’ called his wife from the next room. ‘The young man will be here any minute.’
‘What are we having before the roast beef?’
‘Asparagus and plovers’ eggs.’
The dean jumped. ‘Have you thought of the expense? We’re entertaining our future son-in-law, not some wealthy hospital benefactor.’
‘I just fancied them. After all, we must make some sort of show. You wouldn’t like him to think we couldn’t afford a treat now and then, would you?’
The dean went through the hail to the kitchen and opened a bottle of supermarket beaujolais. For a wild moment he considered uncorking the champagne, which had been replaced in the refrigerator the evening before. But he decided it would be more economical to keep it for the wedding, or possibly the birth of the baby.
He went with the bottle to the dining-room, where his wife was arranging a bowl of sweet-peas in the middle of the table. ‘I just saw Frankie go past,’ the dean told her. ‘She didn’t lose any time making a date with Lancelot.’
‘Oh? What was she wearing?’
‘A sort of black thing with holes in it. Rather fetching, actually.’
‘You’d think Frankie Humble fetching if she were dressed in an old potato-sack, wouldn’t you?’
The dean looked startled. ‘I hadn’t really visualized the situation.’
‘Though of course you’d prefer her in nothing at all.’
‘Josephine! What a thing to say to your husband. The dean of St Swithin’s, too.’
‘Well, it’s perfectly true. You drool even when you speak to her over the telephone.’
‘Of course I don’t.’ He sounded outraged. ‘One must be reasonably polite.’
‘You go out drinking with her–’
‘I can hardly refuse to be sociable–’
‘You let her do what she likes with you–’
‘As a Member of Parliament her wishes must to some extent be respected–’
‘Nonsense, Lionel. It was exactly the same when she was your house-physician. You were the scandal of the hospital.’
‘I have a duty to encourage the young in my own profession–’
‘You’ve got a medical Lolita syndrome, that’s your trouble. What do you care about me? Nothing! You don’t even look at me these days. Not even when I’m in the bath.’
The dean’s voice trembled nervously. ‘My dear, I assure you I entertain exactly the same feelings for you as on our wedding-night.’
‘When you had a horrible cold and I had to tuck you up with aspirin and hot lemon.’
‘Well, the next night,’ the dean conceded. ‘Or whenever it was I felt strong enough.’
‘Now you never even take me out to dinner.’
‘But Josephine, you had a wonderful time at the students’ May ball.’
‘A whole month ago. And it was Sir Lancelot’s party, anyway.’
‘We’ll go out on Monday and dance all night, if you like.’ He was mystified at the unexpected outburst. ‘I never knew you were suffering from such feelings, not for one minute. And it’s so unlike you, just to break down like this. I’ve always looked on you as a tower of strength. A very well-constructed and decorative tower, of course.’
‘Oh, Lionel!’ She burst into tears, throwing herself at him.
‘There, there!’ The dean patted her vigorously. ‘Come, come! Now, now! You’re not quite yourself today, my dear, that’s all. It’s the strain we’re all going through, isn’t it?’
She blew her nose. ‘I expect that’s it. It’s such an awful worry about Muriel. And so dreadfully sudden.’
‘We shall just have to make the best of it, that’s all.’ He smiled. ‘Though perhaps you’re right, Josephine. I’m not sufficiently attentive to you. Not as you so richly and rightly deserve. But it’s so difficult, with so many things on my mind… Now I promise I’ll be a little more…er, vigorous. Let’s say, next Saturday. Not of course that the weekend should make any difference, but one gets so used to dividing one’s work from one’s pleasure. I mean, at the weekend one mows the lawn and so on… Yes, definitely Saturday night. You will remind me, won’t you? I do get so dreadfully tired these days.’
‘Lionel, you’re very sweet. I’m sorry that I seemed to lose control of myself all of a sudden.’ She dabbed her eyes with the edge of a table-napkin. ‘Edgar will be here any minute. I must look reasonably pleased with life.’
The door bell rang. The dean heard Muriel hurrying down from her flat, where she had been sulking most of the afternoon. There was a crash from the house next door. The dean jumped. ‘Great heavens! What on earth is Lancelot doing to Frankie? Throwing her downstairs?’
17
‘Clumsy!’ said Frankie with a smile.
Sir Lancelot looked ruefully at the trayful of smashed crockery at his feet. ‘Really, Frankie, it’s hopeless trying to turn myself into a butler at this stage of my life. And, I would add, at this stage of the evening.’
Frankie picked Miss MacNish’s flowered apron from a hook in the kitchen and tied it round her in a businesslike way. ‘I said I’d cook our dinner, and cook it I shall. I’m sure you’ve got lots more plates and things somewhere? I expect you can glue some of that lot together later. Though it would probably be less trouble to sweep it up and put it in the dustbin.’
‘Why don’t we go to a restaurant, as I suggested? Or if you like, there’s a place round the corner where the students take away packets of fish and chips.’
‘Just pour me another of tho
se huge vodkas, my darling, and leave the rest to me.’
‘You know this is genuine vodka, don’t you? It was given me by a patient from the Russian Embassy.’
‘Never drink anything else.’
‘I imagine they use it for thawing out the tundra.’
‘Has that tergiversating cook of yours left any food in the house?’
‘I believe there’s some fillets of steak.’
‘You’ve cream and mushrooms and onions? I’ll do you a perfect boeuf strogonoff. It’ll go with the vodka.’
When Sir Lancelot reappeared with two ice-clinking tumblers, Frankie was already busy with the frying-pan. As she took the glass with a smile, he noticed that characteristic little twitch of her nose. It always sent delightful shivers up and down his vertebrae.
‘A nice little perch you’ve come to roost on here, Lancelot.’
‘I should have invited you here long ago, my dear. But I imagined you too busy. You always seem to be in the news.’
‘Oh, the news.’ She twitched her nose again. The ice jangled in Sir Lancelot’s glass. ‘There’s too much of it. “The news expands to fill the media”, that’s my motto. People gawp at it from the moment they open their eyes until they switch off the telly and go to bed. The world would be a far more tranquil place if we returned to broadsheets on the walls of public houses.’
‘I sometimes wish that I had tried my hand at politics.’
‘Do you?’ She looked surprised. ‘You’re far too good a doctor.’
‘Well, perhaps too experienced a one.’
The strips of steak were sizzling gently in butter. ‘Doctors see problems clearly and unemotionally, Lancelot. In politics, we see them only according to our point of view. It’s like a case of pneumonia being diagnosed by a neuro-surgeon as a slipped disc and a dermatologist as shingles. No wonder the world lurches so paralytically along the road to the millennium.’
‘It must be gratifying to contribute something to the running of the country, beyond one’s taxes.’
‘Taxes! More power for the state. And the modern state is a jealous god.’ She added the mushrooms. ‘Middle-class individualists like you are doomed, I’m afraid. Even now, most of the specimens of your species are safely fossilized, squashed flat in the deeper economic strata.’
‘I’m not sure if I should be only offended by that, or depressed.’
‘Depressed.’ In went the cream. ‘Liberty is outdated. Or rather, the state provides it like the drains – a necessity to keep the population reasonably healthy, but channelled and under continual and painstaking supervision by experts who know best. Do get me another vodka.’
As he came back with more drinks, she was busy with a serving-dish. ‘Delighted as I am to see you Frankie, you haven’t yet even hinted at the reason for inviting yourself.’
‘I shall keep that as a surprise till you’ve had your dinner. I don’t want anything to distract your mind from my cooking.’
‘I assure you that nothing on earth could distract it from you yourself.’
‘What a sweet man you are.’ A high-pitched cackling noise came from next door. ‘What on earth’s that?’
‘The dean must be giving a party,’ said Sir Lancelot glumly. ‘He will have told his one funny story. He always laughs at it heartily himself.’
The dean’s dinner-party was not much of a success. Edgar Sharpewhistle sat eating steadily and silently, drinking all the beaujolais. Muriel gave the impression of imagining she was dining alone. The dean told his story. Only Josephine showed any animation.
‘I’m really terribly thrilled about the baby. In fact, it’s making me quite broody myself. Of course, I’ll do all I can to help you, my dear. And naturally, your father will pay for the baby-clothes and the pram and the cot and all the things like that. Won’t you, Lionel?’
‘Within–’
‘He’ll be delighted to. Have you thought where you’re going to have it?’
Muriel looked even gloomier. ‘St Swithin’s, I suppose.’
‘Good God, no,’ muttered the dean. ‘Why not go somewhere deep into the country? I mean, where it’s much quieter. You get no sleep at all in a London hospital these days.’
‘Of course you’ll have it in St Swithin’s. I can’t go traipsing up and down to the country with my bad back. But we’ve the wedding to think of first. Are you sure you can fix it with the local registry office so soon? We’ll have to ask a few close friends, of course. And there’s no reason why we shouldn’t have a rather magnificent reception afterwards, which of course your father will pay for.’
‘Within–’
‘It’s your privilege, Lionel. Then you’ve got to find somewhere to live. All the linen and the household goods will of course be provided by your father–’
‘Within–’
‘So that’s one less of your many worries. And naturally he’ll give you something for the bank, to start you off the right way.’
‘Within–’
‘Lionel, I do wish you wouldn’t keep interrupting when I’m trying to give the happy couple some good advice.’
‘I suppose you really do want to go ahead with this elaborate programme?’ suggested the dean hopefully.
‘You mean, not to get married?’ Edgar Sharpewhistle broke his silence. ‘Ah, I see. Not to give our child a name? Or perhaps just to get rid of it?’ He glared aggressively, fortified by the beaujolais. No one said anything. ‘It’s going to be a genius, too. Can’t help it, can it? Not with Muriel and self as parents. We’ve got the best genes in the business, you might say. It might be another Beethoven. Another Newton. Another Churchill. I’m ashamed at you, dad. May I call you dad? I’m ashamed of you for suggesting such a despicable act. The dean of my own hospital, too.’
‘Let’s have some brandy,’ said the dean quickly.
They sat in the front room. Sharpewhistle managed to keep the brandy bottle near his elbow, helping himself. Muriel stared gloomily ahead in silence. Josephine concentrated on her embroidery. The dean had the idea of locking the brandy away in the kitchen cupboard, but felt for once the stronger impulse of keeping it handy for himself.
‘Do you know, dad, what my IQ is?’ Sharpewhistle asked expansively. ‘Over a hundred and fifty. I’m off the chart. Over the top. What’s yours?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You must do.’
‘I haven’t got one,’ the dean told him gloomily. ‘When I was at school they hadn’t been invented.’ He helped himself to another drink. He suddenly wondered what Sir Lancelot and Frankie were up to. It had been noticeably silent next door for some time.
Sir Lancelot was sitting in his armchair, drinking port. Frankie was on his knee, a glass of benedictine in one hand, stroking his neck with the other. ‘It would be a great honour, Lancelot,’ she murmured.
He looked solemn. ‘Indeed, a vice-chancellorship would certainly be a fitting crown to my career.’
‘Very fitting. Remember, five years ago when the university was founded, you wanted so much to be its very first vice-chancellor?’
‘True…’
‘And Hampton Wick wouldn’t take you far from St Swithin’s. You wouldn’t miss your old haunts.’
‘Does anyone else know about this offer?’
‘Not a soul. As soon as the vacancy came before the committee, I told myself, “Only Lancelot Spratt has the stature to fill such an important – and indeed, testing – position in the academic world.”’
‘You really thought that?’
‘I thought more than that. I thought, “if Lancelot cannot come to our rescue, then Hampton Wick must close its doors. The careers of thousands of young people will be ruined”.’
‘That’s very touching.’
‘You think so?’
‘Though doubtless they could find alternative work as demolition experts, assault troops and so on.’
‘Will you take the job?’
He said nothing. ‘Please Lancelot, dear. For me.’
He still said nothing. Then she happened to twitch her nose.
He gave a sigh. ‘I accept.’
‘Dear Lancelot!’ She kissed him lightly on the beard. ‘An official announcement will be made on Monday. In fact, I was so sure you’d gallantly come to my rescue, that I’ve drafted it already.’ She got up, draining her benedictine. ‘Now I must fly.’
‘Must you?’ He looked deeply disappointed. ‘But surely, Frankie, you can tarry a little longer? After all these years… I mean, we’re both worldly and sophisticated,’ he added hopefully. ‘And we are, I think, both enthusiastic hedonists–’
‘Good heavens no, Lancelot. Not tonight. I’ve got a three-line whip.’
He stood up. ‘I shall get very lonely, you know, all by myself. Even Miss MacNish was someone to talk to. It’s rather pathetic, I suppose.’
‘Poor Lancelot!’ She was adjusting her make-up.
‘It’s not easy to seek out another woman in my busy life.’
‘Why don’t you go to an agency?’
‘I know nothing of such things.’
‘It’s hardly an exercise demanding brains or study. That’s the object of them. Try Hotblack’s in Burlington Street.’
‘Hotblack’s? Is it reliable?’
‘Some of my friends who’ve used it say so.’
‘Never heard of them,’ he grumbled.
‘You don’t get around enough, dear.’ She stroked his beard with a smile. ‘Give them a try. After all, you don’t have to accept whoever they recommend.’
Sir Lancelot opened the front door. Offering his arm with a flourish, he escorted her to the corner of Lazar Row for a taxi.
He turned towards his house pensively. It was a clear warm night, just becoming dark. He saw a shaft of light as the dean’s front door opened. A small figure hurried past, calling to him, ‘Good night, sir.’ Sir Lancelot frowned. As he came abreast of No 2, the dean was standing in the doorway. ‘Who was that?’
‘Why, it’s Lancelot, my dear fellow. Dear old Lancelot. That was Sharpewhistle.’
Doctor On The Brain Page 11