I flushed hotly. “It was not! I know I only heard the baby cry twice but it was a characteristic cry, and I believe I was justified in trying every way I knew to see the child! Anyway, what’s happened to him? Where is he now?”
“At Fenbridge hospital. I took them there myself - all three of them. Jenny Higgins can stay there with the baby till tomorrow, when I daresay they’ll send him home, cerebral cry and all -”
There was a sudden buzzing sound, and I whirled, startled.
“The phone,” Max Lester muttered, and went across the hall to his own consulting room, switching on the desk light as he reached for the receiver.
“Yes? Lester here. What? Baby Higgins - yes. Yes -” He listened for a long time, and his face altered, showing first surprise and then a sort of sick acceptance.
“I see,” he said heavily. “I see. What? No. It was my - my colleague, Dr Fenwick who suspected it. Yes. I’ll tell her. And I’ll see she comes in to see the baby tomorrow - I mean later today. Yes. Goodbye.” And he cradled the receiver and stood there with his head bent for a moment before looking up at me.
“Well, I owe you an apology. The baby - he’s got a fractured skull. That cerebral cry you heard - it was a true bill. Jenny Higgins has admitted that - that her husband attacked the baby this afternoon, and that was how he was injured. You were right and I was wrong. I thought I could help Peter Higgins stay at home, and I was wrong. I’ll arrange for him to go back to the mental hospital for further treatment tomorrow.”
He sighed heavily, and again rubbed his eyes. “I’m dead on my feet.” And then he looked up at me again, and behind the tiredness I could see the old implacable look.
“But I must be quite straight with you, Dr Fenwick. You made the right decisions on the basis of slender evidence in this case tonight, but I believe that was more a fluke than due to a mature medical judgment. I still believe that you are the wrong person for this practice, in every way, and will do all I can to replace you at the earliest opportunity. Good night.”
And he walked past me, and went through the green baize door that led out to the covered way to his converted coach house flat, leaving me staring after him in the silent brightly lit hallway of Downlands.
CHAPTER FOUR
Peter Cooper and I had breakfast alone, since Judith didn’t feel well enough to get up. Peter told me this heavily, and said no more about her, although his tired shadowed eyes and pallor showed he’d had as disturbed a night as I had.
I told him, very briefly, about the case he’d sent me on, and when I said it had been the Higgins’ baby, he groaned.
“Oh, no! Pippa, I’m so sorry! If I hadn’t been in such a - a flap last night, I’d have recognized the address, and never have sent you. Higgins hates women doctors -”
“I know - now,” I said grimly, and told him the rest of the story, but leaving out the harsh things Max Lester had said. I was still smarting under the injustice of his attitude, and somehow I didn’t want to talk about it, not even to sympathetic Peter Cooper.
“Anyway, the whole thing’s under control, now,” I said. “Dr Lester says he’ll have the father admitted to the mental hospital again for further treatment, and the baby is under care at Fenbridge. I’d like to go in later today and see him, if that were possible. What’s on the agenda for the day?”
“Morning surgery is at nine thirty,” Peter said. “And usually we all meet at nine, just to plan the day. Dr Redmond should be there by now” - he glanced at his watch - “so we might as well go down.”
“What about Judith? Will - will she be all right on her own?” I asked, a little nervously. I didn’t want to sound inquisitive.
“Mrs James - our daily help - will take care of her. She’s already in - she made breakfast. Did you think I had?” He laughed. “I don’t know what we’d do without Mrs James. Don’t worry. She’ll get Judith on her feet by lunchtime, and the place cleaned up, and lunch organized. She always does -” and he led the way out of the flat and down to the consulting rooms.
I felt a deep surge of pity for him as I followed his neat figure down the stairs. Living with a woman who drank as heavily as Judith must be hell, I thought. But he accepts it all so calmly, even the fact that he has to rely on his daily helper to “get Judith on her feet”. It’s all wrong, I thought protectively.
Dr Redmond was sitting in his consulting room, which was the biggest of the four, with Max Lester sitting on the window seat. He merely looked up and nodded as Peter and I came in, but said nothing. Dr Redmond, however, was full of chatter.
“Good morning, my dear! I’ve been hearing all about your baptism of fire last night - too bad, too bad. These things happen of course, they happen. I told Max right from the start that he was asking for trouble trying to manage a case of paranoia as severe as Higgins’, in his own home. The man needs constant hospital care in my opinion, but not to fret, not to fret. The Fenbridge people tell me the baby’s doing well, doing well. They operated on him in the small hours, they say, removed some blood clot from the brain, and the outlook is excellent. They’ve transferred him to the neurosurgical unit -”
“Oh,” I said, a little disappointed. “Does that mean I won’t be able to see the child? A pity. I’d have liked to, very much. I didn’t get a chance to examine him last night, and it would have been interesting. Still, now he’s had surgery there wouldn’t be much to discover, I suppose -”
“Are you interested in the child as young Gary Higgins, or as a medical case, Dr Fenwick?” Max Lester’s voice was deceptively soft.
“What?” I said, startled. “Oh - as a medical case, I suppose, though as a person too -”
“There lies the difference between us, Dr Fenwick, I’m a GP - a family doctor. I care for my patients as people first, but as cases of medical interest second. I’d recommend you do the same - it makes a great deal of difference.”
“Now, Max, leave her be, leave her be. She’s young and we all had to learn, didn’t we?” Dr Redmond said. “Now, to work. Where’s Barbara? Not in yet?”
Peter, who had stretched himself out on the consulting room couch, laughed lazily.
“My guess is she’s making the first of the day’s coffee. That girl thinks we need coddling like babies,” he turned to me. “She brews gallons of coffee, all day long. You’ll see -” And as though on cue, the door opened, and a girl came in, balancing a big tray on one small hand. She was very pretty, with red gold hair and huge blue eyes, and a tiny neat figure.
“Good morning, doctors,” she said softly, and put the tray down on the desk before starting to bustle with cups and milk and sugar.
“We must introduce our newest partner,” Dr Redmond said. “This is Dr Fenwick, Barbara. Barbara Moon is our prop and stay, Pippa. She sorts out our appointments, plies us with coffee, copes with the phone, soothes irate patients - a complete treasure I assure you.”
“Oh Dr Redmond,” Barbara said, dimpling. “How you do go on, to be sure,” and I heard the pretty lilting accent of the district. “Hello, Dr Fenwick. It’s nice to meet you -” and then she went over to Max Lester and gave him a cup of coffee.
I couldn’t help noticing the way she lingered over him, the look in her eyes as she turned away, and I thought, a little surprised, She’s in love with him - But Max Lester hardly raised his head, and she moved away, disappointed.
Peter, however, made much of her, pinching her bottom in a joky avuncular fashion that made her squeal, and made Dr Redmond beam for all the world like a jolly Mr Pickwick.
She gave me my coffee then, and this amused me a little. Clearly in Barbara Moon’s eyes I was very much the junior partner, and was to be treated as such. No old-fashioned rules about “Ladies first” here!
“I was sorry to hear about the damage to your bag, Pippa,” Dr Redmond said, as Barbara tidied the coffee tray. “I can’t imagine how such a thing happened -”
“Or who could have been so vicious towards Pippa -” Peter said.
I looked across
at Max, just to see what sort of reaction he would show, but he was still staring moodily out of the window, and didn’t seem to hear the conversation going on behind him.
“I can only suppose one of the patients -” Dr Redmond said worriedly. “But why? And who?”
“You never can tell with patients,” Barbara said. “They can do all sorts of things -”
“Anyway, no point in going on about it now, I suppose,” Peter said, “We’ll send your bag to Daniels, Pippa. He’s a leather worker - a great old character. Got his little place in the Square, and if anyone can fix it, he will. I’ve got to visit old Mrs Quale next door this afternoon, so I’ll take it in to him then.”
“That’s very kind of you, Peter,” I said, and smiled at him, and Peter grinned back and said, “For you, my dear, nothing is too much trouble,” and blew me a mock kiss, which made Dr Redmond chuckle.
But Max Lester and Barbara Moon showed no sign of being in the least amused, and I found myself reddening as I looked across at Max and caught the sardonic look in his eyes.
“Now, work, all of us,” Dr Redmond said, opening the big diary on his desk. “Barbara - when the patients come in, will you give the notes of new ones, or new visits after a long gap, to Dr Fenwick? Then she’ll be able to build up her own group of patients while we deal with our own repeat visits and so on. Now, after that, visits - I’ll take you with me, Pippa. I want you to get to know my visiting round, because frankly I want to ease up on visits. I’m getting older, and one of the reasons you’re here is to make life a bit easier for me - so the sooner I show you the ropes, the sooner I can get lazy, hmm?”
It was extraordinary how quickly I slipped into the routine of the day. By the time I’d seen my first half-dozen patients I felt as though I’d been in general practice at Downlands for a month instead of for a day.
I enjoyed the afternoon, too, the visits to old people, and young mothers, and middle-aged housewives, cementing my impression of Tetherdown as a pleasant, pretty town.
We finished the afternoon’s rounds just after four, and Dr Redmond said, as we went back to the car from our last call, “We’ll have tea at the College, hmm? I’ve got a boy I could see there - it’ll save a visit tomorrow morning, and I’d like you to meet Jeremy.”
He chuckled as he let in the clutch and swung the car out into the traffic. “If I get boring on the subject of Jeremy, you must tell me. I’m an old man, and he’s my only boy - born late to our marriage, I’m afraid, and his mother died when he was still just a child - so I’m a bit wrapped up in him, as you can imagine. But he’s a good boy, though I say it myself.”
And indeed, Jeremy was a nice boy. We found him in the cattle sheds, after seeing the boy in the Sick Bay, who had an infected finger following an injury in the market-garden section of the College.
“Why is Jeremy here?” I asked Dr Redmond, as we made our way across the extensive College grounds towards the cattle sheds. “I mean - why did he choose agriculture for a career? Didn’t medicine attract him?”
Dr Redmond shook his head. “No - and in a way he was pushed into this. His mother inherited a very snug little farm from her father, and in turn left it to Jeremy. He comes into full ownership of it at twenty-one - three years from now - so he decided to really learn how to run it! He’ll make a good farmer, I think - got the feel for it.”
As I say, Jeremy was a nice boy - tall and fair, and with a pleasant open way with him which made me warm to him. He cleaned himself up quickly, and changed from his working boots and overalls, and escorted us both into the College dining hall for tea.
It was a magnificent room, high-ceilinged and panelled, and the tea provided was delicious farmhouse fare - home-made bread, and preserves, and scones with rich cream as well as jam.
“It’s as well I don’t eat like this every day!” I said, laughing at Jeremy. “I’d be hideously fat if I did - “
“You could never be hideous,” Jeremy said gravely, looking at me approvingly. A nice boy, I thought again, so like my own brother David, and smiled warmly at him.
“Well, bless you for that!” I said gaily. “After last night and the lack of sleep it entailed, I’m lucky I don’t look like my own grandmother!”
“And that must be our cue to go,” Dr Redmond said, and stood up reluctantly. “This young lady needs some rest, and you have to get back to work, I daresay. I’ll see you again soon, Jeremy - “
“Of course, Dad,” Jeremy said, and put an arm round the older man’s shoulders and hugged him briefly. “There’s the dance on Saturday week remember.” He turned to me then.
“Could you come, Dr Fenwick? It’s our annual spring do, and great fun. I’d be very happy if you could join our party - “
“An excellent idea, Jeremy,” Dr Redmond said approvingly. “Of course you must, Pippa. We’re making up a party from Downlands - we’re all going, the Coopers, and Max Lester, and Barbara Moon - and now you too.”
“I’d love to, Jeremy. Thank you for asking me,” I said, turning to the boy. “And you must call me Pippa if we’re to be friends - Dr Fenwick sounds so - starchy, doesn’t it? Goodbye until Saturday week then - “
On the way back to Downlands, driving through the pleasant countryside with its gently rolling fields and neat woods and cosy farmhouses, I found myself telling Dr Redmond all about David, just a year younger than his Jeremy, and what a worry he was to me sometimes with his impulsive ways.
“He’s a good boy at heart, you see,” I explained, “but he doesn’t always think before he acts - and he’s shockingly extravagant, too.”
“Boys - they’re always a worry of some sort,” Dr Redmond said soothingly. “Take my Jeremy, now. Hardworking, and certainly not extravagant - you’d think he’d give a father no worry. But he does, he does. Very shy, you see, shy. Never goes out with girls, to the best of my knowledge, and never kicks up his heels at all. I tell him - I’d like to see him marry young and make a grandfather of me before I die, but there - “
“He didn’t seem all that shy to me!” I said, laughing.
“No - and glad I was to see it!” Dr Redmond said, and leaned over and patted my hand. “A nice sensible girl like you could be a real help to him. Take him out of himself, don’t you see.”
“Dr Redmond, I’m seven years older than he is!”
“My dear, I’m not match-making like some old country wife! Of course not. But if you could be friendly to the boy - teach him how to socialize - well, I’d be a grateful old man - “
“Not so old!” I said, and he laughed too.
Anyway, I promised him I’d try to “bring Jeremy out of his shell” as he’d asked, although I wasn’t quite sure how he expected me to do it, and for the rest of the journey we talked about the practice and the town, and I found myself getting more and more fond of my senior partner.
For the next few days, things were busy but quiet at Downlands. I took surgeries of my own, went out on visits, finding my way around the town surprisingly easy, and getting to know the running of the place. I learned quite a lot about the people of Downlands, too.
I discovered, for example, that Dr Redmond was universally liked by the patients, and, surprisingly, that the least popular with them was Peter Cooper. I decided that this must be due to his sometimes abstracted manner - and that this in turn was due to the complications of his life with Judith.
It was also a little surprising to discover how many of the patients adored Max Lester. Several, when shown into my consulting room by Barbara Moon, in fact flatly refused to be seen by me, making it very clear that as far as they were concerned Max Lester was the only doctor in the world they would consider. Not that I was short of work, for I found that the word had gone round the town very rapidly, and several patients, mostly older women and young mothers, specifically asked to see me.
I also learned a little about Barbara Moon. She had always worked for the doctors of Downlands, ever since leaving the children’s home where she had grown up. She was an od
d girl, alternately friendly and confiding and sharp and withdrawn. She was as volatile as a child, and I could never be sure how I’d find her at the start of each day.
But by the end of the first week, I did know what made her tick - the way she felt about “her” doctors. She seemed to have poured out on to the three men every atom of feeling she had, the feelings she had probably been unable to express for anyone during her growing-up years in the home. Dr Redmond she treated as she would a father, Peter Cooper as a cheeky older brother, and Max Lester - clearly the way she felt about him was very complex and very deep. I was more than ever convinced that she was in love with him.
As for Judith Cooper - I saw her every day, but made no progress at all towards getting to know her. Sometimes she appeared at breakfast, but more often she didn’t, and Peter’s face would tell me, with its weary pallor, that she had had another bad night.
Every evening she sat silently beside the fire watching television or listening to records, while Peter and I chatted desultorily over her head.
Certainly nothing was ever said about my occupancy of the turret room, and I told myself optimistically that she had accepted me. If it had been she who had damaged my bag (which Daniels had managed to repair beautifully, I’m glad to say), doing so seemed to have exhausted her malevolency.
So, by my second Friday in Tetherdown, I felt really at home, and was happy - as far as Tetherdown went. I’d written to Charles - a light-hearted friendly letter - but I’d had no reply yet; still, I told myself, he’s a busy man. I’d also written to David, and had two letters from him, both asking, with beguiling charm, for a short-term loan. Loan, I thought ruefully, as I wrote out a cheque for him. Some loan! I’ll never see this again!
But, as I say, I was happy. The thought of staying in general practice for three years wasn’t nearly as agonizing as it had been. Until that Friday afternoon.
I came in from my visits, gratefully closing the front door behind me, to keep out the chill of an unexpectedly cold snap that was shrivelling the early April flowers with frost. As I rubbed my chilled hands together in front of the hall fire Max Lester’s door opened sharply, and he came out into the hall.
The Doctors of Downlands Page 5