Doctors Wear Scarlet

by Raven, Simon

  “Yes,” said Piers nastily. “But all that is in the past–”

  “–Is it?” said Holmstrom.

  “We can only hope so,” said Tyrrel soothingly. “What we are wondering about, Erik, is the significance of Fountain’s new attitude; his willingness to talk quite sensibly and openly about this.”

  Holmstrom lit a cheroot and blew a succession of flawless smoke rings.

  “I grant you,” he said, “that it seems quite hopeful in some respects. It seems that Fountain is now exercising his memory and his intelligence on what has happened: that he is out to rationalise it, to explain it away, to make the best of a bad job. He is at pains to emphasise his helplessness during the orgy he described: we need not disbelieve him, but we should note that this is an aspect on which he insists. He is also keen to explain that it was impossible for him to resist the later demands on his own person. Nor should I be at all surprised if he does not sooner or later blame his continued impotence on his horrifying experiences with this woman – despite the fact that he was impotent before he met her. For this is the pattern of his thought: to seek excuse, to present everything in the light most favourable to himself.”

  “Sensible, one would have thought, if not entirely honest.”

  “Eminently sensible,” said Holmstrom, “and in many ways very hopeful. But you remember what I said a month ago? That he must not be shocked or got at?”

  “Very clearly.”

  “Well it’s just as important as it always was. If people start getting at him now, it will remind him of the servile side of his disposition – and almost certainly make clear to him that his humiliation in Greece was not only due to Chriseis’ unusual strength but also to his own undoubted weakness. If he is reminded too strongly of this, or if he is so shocked that the web of self-justification he is weaving gets torn or destroyed, then he is liable to revert to a condition of pure resentment and to seek satisfaction in a less convenient fashion. It is true that he is now trying to face facts; but he is doing so very much on his own terms. It is clear to me that the position is still very delicate.”

  “So you think our optimism must be qualified?” I said.

  “I do indeed,” said Doctor Erik Holmstrom.

  In any case, there it was. Two days later, with fair hope but many forebodings, I saw Richard and Piers off at Liverpool Street and made ready to return to the work which I had neglected for so long. But that evening, out of something very near habit, I rang up Tyrrel to tell him they were gone.

  “And now perhaps you’ll take a suggestion,” he said.

  “Gladly.”

  “Forget about this. There’s nothing you can do now. We’ve all got our lives to lead. You and I have both done what we can and stuck out our necks a long way in the process. If we’re going to get our heads cut off, the best thing we can do is to think of something else meanwhile… If you feel like coming out for some dinner in the next few days – a meal at which Richard Fountain will not be discussed – then you know where to find me. All right, Anthony?”

  “All right, John,” I said, and put down the receiver.

  But a bare forty-eight hours had passed when such peace as I enjoyed was once again disturbed. Not too seriously. The uncertain waters of my contentment were merely ruffled by a light breeze; but there was a chill in the breeze which struck through the skin. The occasion was a letter from Piers.

  Lancaster College, Cambridge.

  October 13, 1957.

  My dear Anthony,

  Thank you so much for having me to stay. I’m sorry I drank so much brandy. Next time – you will have me again? – you must lock it up.

  Richard and I arrived here safely, but the term has got off to rather a poor start. Walter, despite his nice letter to Richard, has not changed his spots. When we reached Lancaster, the porter on duty took me on one side and said he was terribly sorry but on Walter’s instructions I had been moved out of my rooms in College and given digs in the Milton Road. Virtually on Cottenham Race Course. So I told Richard to go ahead with his baggage, and then went hot-foot and red-cheeked to see Doctor Goodrich; because after all I did well enough in my tripos, and I’ve paid my college bill, and one can’t be shifted out of college for no reason at all.

  Well, Walter was very busy and looked jolly put out at seeing me, but I insisted on an explanation. So he said that I was being sent to live out because my behaviour was riotous – constituting annoyance to the more serious students and setting a bad example to freshmen. So I said that this was not altogether unreasonable; but why had I not been warned of this decision in the customary manner? For after all, I said, he’d had the whole summer to let me know. At this stage, Walter got rather shifty and said that he understood I’d been abroad and he hadn’t known where to find me; whereupon I replied that my home address was filed in the college office along with everybody else’s and that he could at least have written there – which I knew for a fact he hadn’t, as I’d had Mama start forwarding all my letters as soon as I got back to England. At this very logical complaint, Walter got shiftier than ever, but finally took refuge in ill temper. He said he had other things to bother about during the vacation than the personal convenience of noisy and conceited undergraduates; whereat, having let him put himself well in the wrong, I retired to make further enquiries.

  It appeared, then, that Walter – at whatever time he first came to this decision – had only proceeded to act on it some two days before. A mousy freshman, destined for the Milton Road, was installed on arrival in my place and they just had time to paint my name out and his in before I myself appeared. The significance of this will not escape you. Clearly Walter did not want the matter known about until the last possible moment, thus giving me no time for effective protest or appeal and ensuring, in the beginning-of-term hurly-burly, that the affair would excite the minimum of remark in other quarters. Indeed his scheme worked very well; and even Marc Honeydew hadn’t heard about my exile – a very acid test as you’ll agree.

  And of course it is not difficult to see what led Walter to this coup. Tout simple, he wants Richard and me to see as little as possible of one another – for any number of reasons: Penelope, his own influence, etc, etc. What he doesn’t know is that this is just the kind of thing which might annoy Richard in the way he mustn’t be annoyed at present. So having this in mind, I have loyally represented to Richard that Walter is perfectly justified, that my social behaviour last year was rather exaggerated, and so on – this to persuade Richard that my removal is in no way connected with himself. He has offered to take the matter up for me; but I have told him not to bother (I am sure Walter would prove immovable in this) and have reminded him that the Milton Road is not a thousand miles away.

  All the same, Anthony, I am considerably put out. This is my last year at Lancaster and I had naturally looked forward to spending it in College. On top of this, if we are to have many more of these shabby and deceitful tricks of Walter’s it will not make things easier with Richard. Incidentally, one wonders what part Penelope played in this. After all, one can understand that she might not be sorry to see me out of Richard’s way. But I had a word with her this morning, and to be fair I think she is still very firmly on our side – she is not a girl to break her word – and knew nothing of Walter’s little stratagem till I told her. But this in itself reminds us that however willing she may be, even she cannot control Walter as closely as all that.

  And this must do for now. I don’t think there is any immediate cause for worry, though we shall all do well to keep our eyes open. I cannot tell you how unpleasant it is going to be living in the Milton Road, and I am altogether very displeased with Walter.

  Love,

  Piers

  “Not to worry,” said Tyrrel, when I showed him this letter at dinner a few nights later. “Piers has behaved very sensibly. He seems to have matters in hand.”

  “I dare say. But you see what one’s up against with Walter Goodrich.”

  “I do. It is o
ne of the consolations of this whole affair,” said Tyrrel, “that if things should explode they will probably do so right under the broad bottom of Doctor Goodrich.”

  “I shouldn’t bank on that,” I said: “Walter is one of those people with an unlimited capacity for survival.”

  The second warning I received was in a letter from Marc Honeydew, which arrived exactly a week after I had heard from Piers.

  Lancaster College, Cambridge.

  Oct. 20, 1957.

  Dear Anthony Seymour,

  I told you I’d bang the gong if things looked like getting troublesome. I’m not actually banging it in this letter, but I am giving it a preliminary pat.

  How hard Penelope is trying with Walter, I don’t know. Quite hard, I suspect, because she goes about looking very stern and very worried – as if everyone in her hockey team had been nobbled on the day of the match. But the truth is she isn’t doing very well. Why, I can’t say; perhaps she is only really effective with W over domestic issues. But even here, as I’ll tell you later, she seems to have lost her grip. In any case, I invite your attention to the following unsavoury incidents.

  Firstly, there is this business of sending Piers out of college. He’s told you about that, he says, so we won’t go over it again. But I might say that I consider Walter’s behaviour to have been underhand and unkind in the extreme. Piers did jolly well in his Tripos last summer and he’s never been all that much of a nuisance. If he had been, he should have been told what was to happen. Even the Provost was mildly surprised when he heard about this, and if anyone mentions it openly Walter starts blustering like a failing bookie. His behaviour has been contemptible on any level, and the fact that he doesn’t know the real truth about Richard makes no difference at all. Piers is very upset, and if you want to know why, my dear, try living in the Milton Road for yourself.

  But worse is to come. As you know, the scheme was – and not too bad a scheme – that Richard should spend his first year back in Cambridge writing up his research. Everyone seems agreed that he’s brought back some very good stuff (clever Dickie, with everything else that was going on) and Harlow of John’s, who’s by way of being expert in this line, is impressed. And now what happens? Three days after term begins, Walter announces that he has arranged for Richard to give a series of extension lectures – at the rate of one a week in full term throughout the whole academic year and starting on November 1 – at the University College of Wolverhampton. Have you any conception of what this means? Quite apart from a weekly trek across the midlands, Richard has to prepare some twenty-two lectures on a subject – late Greek historians – which is of little interest to him at the moment and which he must now investigate at minimal notice. (One normally has at least six months’ warning of this sort of thing.) There is little money in it and virtually no prestige; the whole affair is utterly without point. But Walter calmly maintains that it will be excellent practice for him against the time he starts lecturing here, and if anyone contradicts him, he pouts just like a senior Foreign Official at a rowdy Press Conference. The point is – there is no other possible explanation – that this is just a pure exercise of power on Walter’s part. He’s simply showing who’s master – Dickie-suppression of the exact kind prognosed by your humble servant throughout the summer. But Dickie, I must tell you, has taken it like a lamb – so far. One is left wondering what Penelope was about to permit it. Still, it may be as I say; perhaps she can only get at Walter on domestic issues.

  If this is so, then she is seen to have failed most signally on her own ground when we consider the last and most appalling occurrence of which I have to tell you. For this was a domestic affair if ever there was one. Last night Walter gave a party in college – an after dinner entertainment, good wine I grant you, dons and wives and a few carefully chosen undergraduates among whom Piers was not included – and let it be understood that it was by way of being an unofficial welcome home for Richard. (He’ll be officially welcomed back by the Provost at the Feast on the thirty-first; would you like to come as my guest, by the way?) Well this was all very jolly and I was just beginning to think that – for once in a way – Walter was doing something out of pure kindness and niceness, when lo and behold he claps his hands for silence and proceeds to make a longish speech about how glad everyone is to see Richard home again – a speech, my dear, simply spangled with references to the ‘happy couple’ and the ‘bells that will soon be ringing’, and which concluded with a request that everybody should drink a toast to ‘Penelope and Richard – my daughter and my son.’ Well, my dear, I can only say that Richard’s self-control was a miracle. It was quite clear that he’d had no warning of this, because I was watching him very carefully and Walter’s first reference to the ‘engagement’ was evidently a shock. But he pulled himself together, smiled nicely, and even made quite a pretty little speech in reply, being very careful, you’ll be interested to know, to talk only of his return to Lancaster and make no mention whatever of Penelope – which must have been one in the ribs for Walter, though he was at pains not to show it. As for Penelope, my dear, I’m inclined to think that she wasn’t warned either, because when Walter started up she looked very embarrassed; but at the same time I don’t think she was entirely displeased, and in any case she began to develop a coy, girlish, this-is-my-day sort of look which was indicative of anything but misery. I suppose, like the good girl she is, she was just making the best of things. But if she is not really to blame for any of this, I still think she should have foreseen that Walter might get up to his tricks and given him a firm warning to keep his mouth shut before the party began. Let us not be uncharitable, however; whatever Penelope’s shortcoming, she was amply punished for them when she was so pointedly omitted from Dickie’s speech; and she was far from floating about in love’s young dream when I went to say good night.

  And so, you’ll ask, have there been any repercussions? Not yet, Anthony Seymour; and when I saw Richard at lunch today he was looking perfectly normal. But remember that twenty-four hours have not yet passed since Walter put that great clod-hopping foot of his through the hot-house window; and remember that this is neither his first nor his only misdemeanour. Indeed, it might be a good thing if you gave Penelope a tinkle and told her to pull her socks up, because one of these peaceful October days Walter will go just too far, my dear, and then the fat will be in the fire for good.

  Do think seriously about coming up for the Feast on the 31st, and give my regards to that dear little tame policeman.

  Love as ever,

  Marc.

  “Miss Goodrich, please… Penelope?”

  “Yes?”

  “Anthony Seymour here. I’m sorry to bother you, my dear, but frankly I’ve been hearing some rather discouraging reports.”

  “About that speech of Daddy’s, I suppose?”

  “That and other things.”

  “I’m doing my best, Anthony. I cannot be expected to foresee everything that my father is going to do or say.”

  “I know that. But it really does seem as if the general lesson – that Richard is not to be pushed about – hasn’t got into Walter’s head at all.”

  “What you must understand is that Daddy doesn’t think he is pushing Richard about. He thinks that he’s arranging things in Richard’s interest. Pushing about, to Daddy, would be if he were trying to punish Richard in some way – get his fellowship taken away, something like that. But fixing up lecture courses or making affectionate speeches… Daddy thinks of these as kindnesses.”

  “But even he should be able to see that they are…a trifle inopportune.”

  “Richard and I are supposed to be engaged, you know.”

  “Yes, my dear. But you know as well as I do how he hates being rushed into things. He was bad enough like that even before any of this happened; and now…”

  “He seems quite happy today. I saw him in Heffers’ this morning.”

  “Perhaps he does. He probably is. But for Christ’s sake, Penelope, do try to g
et Walter to be more careful. To take it easy.”

  “I sometimes think you’re making altogether too much of all this.”

  “We’ve taken the best advice we could get.”

  “Some conceited professor who never sticks his head outside the British Museum.”

  “And whom else would you suggest?”

  “I might suggest that we all use our common sense instead of complicating things.”

  “There is no question of complication. The basic point is very simple: Richard must be left in peace. If that’s not common sense, I don’t know what is. And you might be better qualified to make suggestions, Penelope, if you’d been in Crete this summer and seen what happened there.”

  “I’d gladly have come if you’d let me.”

  “No point in going into that now. You didn’t come and you didn’t see. You promised to do as I asked and so far you’ve made a rotten job of it. Now, are you going to keep your promise or not?”

  “You’re not being at all fair, Anthony. I’ve done my best. You don’t seem to realise how hard it is…”