No Cure for Death

by Hazel Holt

  “You can’t get old,” Michael said. “With all you’ve got to do there simply won’t be time.”

  Chapter Two

  “Have you heard about Kenneth Webster?”

  I was resentfully spooning instant coffee into a tray full of cups under Anthea’s watchful eye. I usually manage to avoid the weekly coffee mornings at Brunswick Lodge but Anthea had said it was an emergency (“Marjorie Read’s daughter’s had her baby early so she’s had to go up to Leamington to look after the twins. I tried everyone else – you were the last resort.” Anthea is not known for her diplomacy).

  “No, what about him?”

  “In hospital in Taunton,” Anthea said. “Taken in as an emergency last Friday. Moira is very upset.”

  “How awful. What is it?”

  “Heart attack. He’s in intensive care, it’s touch and go.”

  “Oh dear, how dreadful. I’d no idea he’d been ill.”

  “Nor had he,” Anthea said, filling up a milk jug from the bottle. “He’d had these pains for a long time and they said it was just mild angina, and then he collapsed like that.”

  “But surely…”

  “You’d think so, wouldn’t you, but no, Dr Morrison would have it that it wasn’t anything serious, and now look what’s happened.”

  “That’s terrible!”

  “Mind you, I’ve never liked the man. I had to see him once when Dr Macdonald was away and I thought he was downright rude. Refused to give me an antibiotic for my bad flu and gave me the most impertinent lecture about bacteria and viruses – some such nonsense, I didn’t take in half of it. I’m not in the least surprised he got it wrong in poor Kenneth’s case!”

  “I wonder if that’s why Dr Macdonald was looking so worried,” I said.

  “Worried?”

  “Yes, I saw him at the hospital when I went to have my plaster off.”

  “He might well be worried with mistakes like that being made in his practice,” Anthea said severely. “That’s what happens when you have these group practices. Now when I used to go to Dr Milner things were quite different. A proper family doctor, someone with a real sense of vocation, not like these young things off on courses whenever you want them!” She poured sugar into a bowl and brought out a collection of teaspoons. “Now then, Sheila, we’ll have those cups over there by the urn. Oh no, of course, you can’t manage the tray with that wrist can you? I’ll do it, you just bring the spoons, I imagine you can manage that.”

  “You know Anthea,” I said to Rosemary when she rang to see how I was, “she made me feel that having a fractured wrist was all my fault – though I suppose it was if you come to think of it – but done on purpose to make life difficult for her.”

  Rosemary laughed. “She doesn’t mean it – well you know that – she’s a kind-hearted soul. She’d do anything for you, but I do agree that she can be maddening! But poor old Ken Webster though, what a dreadful thing to have happened!”

  “It does seem a bit off. I mean, if he’s been complaining of pains for some time then I would have thought that Dr Morrison might have done something about it.”

  “I believe angina’s a bit tricky,” Rosemary said. “Jack’s Uncle Gerald had it for ages and then went, just like that.”

  “I suppose. I just hope poor Ken’s all right – it would be pretty awkward for Dr Morrison if he died.”

  “I’ve never seen him – as a doctor I mean – what’s he like?”

  “I only saw him once,” I said, “about a year ago, when I had a chest infection. He seemed all right. A bit morose, I thought, definitely not chatty.”

  “Morose isn’t really what you want in a doctor,” Rosemary said thoughtfully. “Chat does ease things along somehow.”

  “And he was very uncooperative about an X-ray, now I come to think of it,” I said. “I felt he was counting the pennies in a rather grudging way. I mean, I know they’ve got to work to a budget but he seemed to me to be carrying things a bit far! Anyway, I think he’s the sort of person who thinks he’s always right – a bit arrogant and sure of himself.”

  “Perhaps that’s what happened with Ken.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s probably why he put off consulting someone else until it was too late. Well, certainly Anthea doesn’t think much of him, she was very scathing. Oh yes, that reminds me, she asked if I’d put my name down for the theatre party to Bath that she’s organising. Are you going?”

  “I’d have loved to but Jilly has to take Delia to the dentist that day and I promised I’d fetch Alex from school. Are you going?”

  “I wasn’t sure – I seem to have seen The Seagull so many times, but it is a pre-London production and it is Sonia Marshall and she’s always worth seeing. Anyway, I didn’t really have a choice. Anthea said they needed some more people to fill the coach so that was that!”

  “I expect you’ll enjoy it,” Rosemary said. “And it’s always nice to go to Bath.”

  I arrived at the coach stop rather late (trying, unsuccessfully, to get Foss in before I left) and the only remaining seat was the one next to Anthea, who spent the journey complaining about the difficulties of organising anything (with special emphasis on the problems of block booking for a matinée and the vagaries of the coach company) and vowing she would never take on such a thankless task ever again. Since this was standard procedure for such occasions, I let it all flow over me, simply saying “How awful” and “Poor you” at intervals and occupied the journey with my own thoughts and anticipation of the treat to come.

  I do love what I always think of as a Proper Theatre. Modern provincial theatres are splendid and give those of us who live outside the big cities a chance to see some sort of dramatic entertainment. But I do miss the plush, the gilt and the brilliance of the chandeliers, the atmosphere, in effect, of an old theatre. The Theatre Royal in Bath is so full of history that you feel it would be quite natural for the curtain to rise on Kean’s Othello or Mrs Siddons’ Lady Macbeth. In the old days Peter and I used to have what we called Theatre Week, when we’d have a glorious splurge and spend a whole week in London, going to a matinée and an evening performance every day. We ended up with a sort of cultural indigestion, but it was wonderful, and now that I get up to London so rarely – and even then for more mundane reasons than theatre-going – I do miss the sheer pleasure of just being there and watching the curtain (provincial theatres often don’t have a curtain) slowly rising, a thrill that takes me back to those magic moments in my childhood when I could hardly breathe for excitement.

  It was a really good production and we all reassembled in the coach feeling well pleased with our day. Determined to avoid a return journey with Anthea, I made my way to the back of the coach and found a seat next to Susan Campbell’s daughter Fiona.

  “Hello,” I said, “do you mind if I sit with you.”

  “Please do,” she said. “Would you rather sit by the window?”

  “No this is fine. Did you enjoy the play?”

  “Oh yes. Sonia Marshall was wonderful – I’ve only ever seen her on television before – that hat she wore, fantastic! And I thought the end where the girl comes back was very well done and where the young man shoots himself, that was very sad.”

  “Yes,” I said, slightly taken aback by this rather prosaic appreciation of Chekhov’s masterpiece. “It was, wasn’t it? I was so pleased to see you here,” I went on. “I’m sure you deserve a treat after all your splendid work in looking after poor Alan. How is he?”

  “It’s good news,” Fiona said. “Dr Morrison referred him to a consultant and they’re going to do a by-pass. They reckon that will make a lot of difference.”

  “I’m sure it will,” I said warmly. “I’ve known several people who’ve had it done and it’s completely transformed their lives. When are they going to do it?”

  “Quite soon, he’s having it done privately in Bristol.”

  “Well, I do hope all goes well. It should make life easier for you and your mother. How is she,
by the way? I saw her in X-ray last week. A problem with her knee, I think she said.”

  “Oh that’s all right – it was just a pulled ligament. She’s a bit tired and run-down.”

  “Not surprising! Well, let me know how the operation goes.”

  “Perhaps you’d come and see him when he gets home – he always likes to see visitors.”

  “Of course. I’d like that.”

  “Well,” Rosemary said, “Dr Morrison’s obviously taken fright after what happened to Ken – so he isn’t taking any chances with Alan.”

  “What’s happened to Ken?”

  “Haven’t you heard? He died two days ago.”

  “No!”

  “Another massive heart attack.”

  “How dreadful. Awful for Moira. And for their son.”

  “Richard? Yes, he came down from London when Ken first went into hospital. He’s in a terrible state – talking about suing the practice, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh dear. That will upset Moira even more.”

  “I’m afraid so. And, of course, it might have happened anyway – I think they’d have a job to prove negligence.”

  “Still,” I said, “they’ll always say it was Dr Morrison’s fault, no matter what, and I must say I don’t really blame them. I wonder how he’s feeling now?”

  As it happened I saw Dr Morrison a few days later. I was in the surgery waiting to arrange for a new prescription when he came through on his way out – a tall man though slightly built, really rather good looking if you like that dark, saturnine type, in his early forties I suppose, though he could be any age. He strode through the waiting room, looking straight ahead, ignoring the dozen people sitting there, where the other doctors would have acknowledged their presence with a smile or a nod.

  “He’s a funny sort of man,” a voice behind me in the queue at the reception desk. It was Mrs Fielding, an elderly woman I knew slightly from Brunswick Lodge. “I wouldn’t fancy him as my doctor. That Dr Morrison, the one who’s just gone out. You hear all sorts about him.”

  “Really?”

  “Thinks a lot of himself, won’t ever admit he might be wrong. They say he’s lost several patients through that.”

  I saw that the rumours were already flying about and I was just about to ask what she’d heard, when it was my turn at Reception so I had to move on.

  Alan Johnson had his operation, and when he was back home again, Susan rang me and asked if I’d go and see him.

  “I wonder if you’d mind coming tomorrow afternoon?” she asked. “Only I’ve got an appointment to have my eyes tested and Fiona’s at work and I’d feel better if someone could be here.”

  “No that’s fine,” I said. “What time?”

  “Oh that is good of you. Would about half past three be all right?”

  When I arrived she greeted me warmly. “Thank you so much for coming. He’s been really looking forward to seeing you. He gets very fed up just sitting about watching TV and it’ll do him the world of good to see an old friend.”

  Susan was wearing her coat when she opened the door to me.

  “Forgive me if I dash off straight away, won’t you,” she said, “only I’d like to do a bit of shopping before my appointment. I’ve only just made the tea and I’ve left it all ready in the sitting room if you wouldn’t mind helping yourself…”

  I found Alan sitting in front of the television watching a garden make-over programme.

  “No don’t try to get up,” I said as he cast aside the rug over his knees and made as if to rise. “How are you?”

  “Better I suppose,” he said grudgingly. “No, that’s not fair – I’m much better – just that I get bored hanging about the house like this watching rubbishy television programmes. I ask you – fancy covering your garden with gravel and planks of wood – decking,” he pronounced the word with loathing. “What’s wrong with a nice bit of grass, that’s what I’d like to know!”

  I laughed. “Oh I do agree. I can’t bear to think how many creepy-crawlies might be living under all that wood! Never mind, you’ll soon be out and about. You’re looking so much better.”

  “Yes, well,” he said reluctant quite to relinquish his invalid state. “I’ve a way to go yet, but they’re pleased with how the operation went.”

  “It’s a pity you couldn’t have had it before.”

  “Dr Morrison said it was the last resort, he wanted to try medication first.”

  “Still…”

  “I know some people don’t like him but I’ve always got on well with him. Doesn’t say much but he knows what he’s doing. He explained a lot about heart conditions. Of course, there’s always been that problem in my family. I told him, my father and his brother both died of heart and then there’s Susan.”

  “Susan?”

  “Yes, she’s had a problem for years. She had to have a pace-maker fitted when she was in Canada.”

  “Really? I never knew that.”

  “Well, you know Susan, not one to make a fuss. Anyway, Dr Morrison was very interested – he’s doing some sort of research for a pharmaceutical company about genes or something.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Oh yes. That’s why it’s more difficult to get an appointment to see him, he’s only in two days a week.”

  “That’s not very satisfactory, surely.”

  “Oh a lot of them are doing it now. I suppose it’s all extra money. Mind you, I think some of the other doctors in the practice are a bit annoyed about it.”

  “I’m not surprised if it’s all extra work for them.”

  “I suppose so, or else they’re jealous that they didn’t get in there first!”

  I laughed. “It could be that. Now then, shall I pour the tea?”

  Susan had laid out the tea things on one of the small Oriental tables that were scattered about the room. In his young days Alan had worked as an engineer in India and the Middle East.

  “Such a pretty table,” I said as I put milk into the cups and cut slices of the ginger cake that Susan had left. “You have some lovely things.”

  “Yes, some of the high-ups in the Gulf were always giving us presents – quite embarrassing sometimes. I remember, one of our chaps was presented with a couple of hawks – it was considered a tremendous compliment and a deadly insult to refuse. Poor Trevor had an awful job getting out of that one! I came back with all that lot,” he said, indicating a cabinet full of gilt bowls and various other objects richly decorated and enamelled. “I had to get a cabinet to put them in, poor Mary got fed up with dusting them and Susan has never really liked them – too showy she says!”

  “They are rather exotic,” I said, getting up to examine them more closely, “but very beautiful. Do you miss that life?”

  He thought for a moment. “Not really,” he said. “Certainly not now. It’s a young man’s life – no, give me good old England any day.”

  “I gather Susan feels the same, or do you think she misses Montreal?”

  “I don’t think so. She doesn’t talk about it much. Nowadays we talk a lot about the old days, when we were children and things like that.”

  “I suppose we all do that as we get older,” I agreed, handing him his tea.

  “It’s been very good the way she’s settled back here, and Fiona too. She’s a lovely girl, more like a daughter to me than a niece. Poor Mary would have loved her – it was always a sadness to her that we never had children of our own.”

  “She seems very happy in her job,” I said.

  “Took to it like a duck to water. I knew that George Lewis – he’s my solicitor – was looking for someone for the office and Fiona is marvellous with computers and things like that. Anyway, she’s fitted in wonderfully well there and they want her to train as a legal exec.”

  “That’s splendid.”

  “Yes, we’ve got a lot to be thankful for – especially me. Do you know, I think I could manage another piece of that cake!”

  Chapter Three
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br />   “You must be really glad to have that strapping off,” Thea said folding a pair of small bright red dungarees and putting them in the laundry basket. “You know she’s almost out of these and I only bought them for her a few months ago.”

  “They grow in bursts,” I said. “They go along just the same size for ages and then suddenly they’ve grown out of everything all at once – it happens, especially with shoes, just you wait.”

  “Oh don’t. That’s started already – how I wish she could have stayed in knitted bootees forever!”

  I laughed. “Still, it’s such fun buying clothes for little girls, little boys’ clothes are so boring, all they want are camouflage trousers and jackets.”

  “Girls wear those too – though fortunately not at Alice’s age. But about the wrist,” Thea continued, “how is it?”

  “Oh much better,” I said, “Thank goodness. It’s still not very strong. I’ve got to have physio and do exercises and things.”

  “Will you go to Jean?”

  “Oh yes, she’s very good.” Jean is Anthea’s elder daughter and used to be head of the physio department at the hospital, but she’s recently set up on her own. “And even if she wasn’t I’d never hear the last of it from Anthea if I went to someone else.”

  Our medical practice – or I suppose I ought to call it a medical complex – is housed in a purpose-built collection of buildings. The general practice side is arranged round a courtyard with corridors on all four sides and a general entrance that is shared with the other, alternative medicine section. All very modern and holistic in concept and in practice. Jean and her physiotherapy are on the alternative side along with the reflexologists, homeopathists, chiropractors, aromatherapists, hypnotherapists and all the other (to me) exotic practitioners.

  Jean is a nice girl, cheerful and friendly, only a hint of her mother’s domineering nature evident in her brisk and professional manner.