Doctors & Nurses

by Lucy Ellmann

  They had just returned from one of these expeditions when three policemen jumped out at them from a bush. Jen WISHED they wouldn’t DO that. She had just started to LIKE that particular bush, the first hydrangea she had ever properly LOOKED at, and now they were WRECKING it. Jen hadn’t even got her new RETICULE as far as the VESTIBULE yet, and already they were accusing her of having murdered her brother and Urma Thurb! It was intolerable.

  ‘WHY would I kill them?’ she shrieked. She was about to go on, but she couldn’t BREATHE. Jen was suffocating, ASPHYXIATING. She was turning NAVY-BLUE. In acute need of liberation, privacy, OXYGEN, she rushed inside and, with effort, climbed the stairs to the ROOF. She felt like she was coming up for air from the bottom of the SEA, like an aged coelacanth who’d decided to EVOLVE. Out on the widow’s walk she could breathe again. And there, to the still air, the still birds, the still night, Jen sighed, ‘Why would I kill them? I LOVED them!’

  She didn’t think she could be heard by the men below, but there was something about that stillness and the accoustical oddities of the building: Jen’s widow’s-walk words carried down to Roger and the policemen, and they were all REVOLTED to hear that Jen loved anybody. The police didn’t even want her in their CAR now! NOBODY wants to be stuck for long inside a vehicle with someone so fat and so LOVING. The police wanted nothing more to do with Jen! To her amazement and relief, they zoomed off.

  Filled with renewed hope of REPRIEVE, ESCAPE, VINDICATION (RESCUE?), Jen raced down the stairs to Roger’s trim waist, swivelling hips, and cleft chin. He met her halfway. It was an AWKWARD moment, since there was no getting past each other on the narrow staircase, and Roger seemed so ALOOF. Jen offered to make him STETHOSCOPE-shaped PASTA, but all Roger said was, ‘You’re fired.’ Then he did somehow manage to squeeze past her, and stalked upstairs to his flat and his FAMILY.

  It was the latest, and laziest, of betrayals. Jen lurched down to her lair to lick her wounds. The thought of Roger with his kids was EXCRUCIATING. Fuck kids.

  Jen lay on her bed looking up at the few handbags that newly adorned her walls. But now the sight of them made her GAG. She couldn’t imagine handbags any more that were not stuffed with the soft tissues of Nicky and Urma Thurb! How could ROGER bear to look at them? Why did he encourage her to BUY them? Jen turned grey, as grey as her body might have been if she were no longer IN it. For she had finally realised something: HE did it, ROGER killed them.

  And it was true! While Jen was galavanting around eating huge breakfasts and consorting with NAKED GUYS, Roger had been cutting breasts and asses off her nearest and dearest and playing with their ORGANS. Some he ATE, some burned, some buried; some he dissolved in ACID. As a first venture into body disposal (and DISPERSAL), it wasn’t bad. He took a certain pride in his work, and longed to share some of his anatomical findings with Dr Kildare! Murder is such a lonely business (even with THRASH ROCK).

  Not Quite White

  (A Flashback)

  Urma Thurb awoke, the morning after the wedding, filled with the white rage of RIGHTEOUSNESS. She too had read Jane Eyre. EVERYBODY reads Jane Eyre (doesn’t mean it’s a good book!). Before leaving town, Urma Thurb intended to have a WORD with Dr Lewis. She knew how to DO it (she’d passed all her exams). Urma Thurb’s reprimands were dreaded in paediatric departments across the land!

  Dr Lewis was sitting in his consulting room, ready to be CONSULTED – as if nothing had happened! He’d been expecting Martha to turn up but she hadn’t arrived. New boyfriend perhaps. But what good was THAT? Martha needed fifteen new boyfriends a DAY. Dr Lewis had tried everything: steroids, anti-depressants and morphine. Hydrotherapy had proved useless, ELECTROTHERAPY too (he’d considered COMBINING them and finishing her off for good!). And ever since he’d HIT her jokingly once with a bunch of her NOTES, Martha had had a bit of a crush on him. Martha’s crushes were huge aching THROBBING things, SCARY really. He was just too good-looking. Had the time come, he now mused in his swivel chair, to cut the VASAL NERVE?

  Mid-morning. Francine would soon be coming in with his ELEVENSES. He should have been on his HONEYMOON by now. They had planned to drive to KILLIN in the Jag – Jen had vetoed more exotic destinations. A pity, since Roger was owed a free trip somewhere by several drug companies in return for hooking his patients on their products. It would be nice to relax in Hawaii after all this hullabaloo, or the BUSH perhaps. But these daydreams were interrupted by a quiet knock on the door.

  ‘Come in, Francine!’ he called out merrily (marriedly).

  ‘It’s not Francine,’ growled Urma Thurb, stiffly shutting the door behind her.

  He offered her a chair, but she wouldn’t take it. He even offered her a go on his SWIVEL chair, ordered specially from a company in NORWAY that made chairs with lumbar-protecting properties. ‘It’s pneumatically complicated,’ he assured her.

  ‘You have broken that poor girl’s heart,’ Urma Thurb began. ‘What were you thinking? You are not free to MARRY.’

  ‘Norwegian. Best money can buy – what?’

  ‘How dare you put a vulnerable young woman through such an ordeal? What for god’s sake was the POINT?’

  ‘That is a matter for me and my conscience,’ Dr Lewis solemnly replied.

  ‘CONSCIENCE! Don’t give me that,’ snapped Urma Thurb. ‘We’re both medical people!’

  ‘OK. Let’s just say it’s PRIVATE, between Jen and me.’

  ‘Not so private YESTERDAY, when you revealed yourself and your, I must say, appalling circumstances to everyone in the village!’

  ‘It’s HARD bringing up kids on your own,’ whined Roger (a guy who had orphaned DOZENS with his Munchausen theories). ‘I don’t want to be alone.’

  ‘It seems to me you’re not alone ENOUGH, sir. I think Jen was wise to leave and I hope she has the sense never to return.’

  ‘LEAVE? Where’s she gone?’ asked Roger, who hadn’t had a chance to check on Jen’s whereabouts yet that morning: he’d just assumed she was in her office.

  ‘How do I know?’ answered Urma Thurb. ‘She’s disappeared. I haven’t seen her since the wedding. I was talking to a few of your PATIENTS though. A woman named Martha. Also Frieda, the one with the disfigured baby? And a sickly-looking girl named Janet – ring any bells? You gave her father sleeping pills to kill himself with. And then there was someone named Sylvie, a very nice young woman who seems to have doubts about the way her AUNT died during a routine appointment – she wasn’t even ILL.’

  ‘Why are you bothering me with all these worthless people now?’

  ‘Why?! Because, from what I’ve been hearing, Dr Lewis, your practice is scandalous, and possibly ILLEGAL.’

  Roger considered pressing the PANIC BUTTON, another intrinsic feature of his swivel chair (people panic a lot in NORWAY?). But that would have brought Francine (with or without TEA), and Francine would no doubt panic too! So instead he theatrically covered his face with his hands, allowing only his chin cleft to peek through. But Urma Thurb was UNMOVED by Dr Lewis’s chin cleft! Instead, she was gazing loftily at the ceiling with a cold and critical eye.

  ‘You’ve really fucked up!’ she muttered.

  ‘OK, OK.’

  ‘No, I mean THERE, in the corner!’

  ‘WHAT?’ he quirked, looking up in alarm. Urma Thurb pointed out the corner of the cornice which, he now saw, sported a spot of yellowed paintwork – Dr Lewis must have forgotten about that bit when he fell off the ladder on to JEN, all those months back! It looked TERRIBLE. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed it before. How he hated anything OFF-WHITE.

  Urma Thurb, after many happy hours spent with her handyman hubby, was ADEPT at identifying emulsion mistakes. She was not to know this was the LAST such mistake she would ever identify, in fact the last remark she would ever make on interior decoration of any kind!

  It was brave, but foolish, of Urma Thurb to impugn Dr Lewis’s DIY skills. He was TOUCHY about such things. He was crushed, CRUSHED, by her ceiling comment – and Roger Lewis didn’t like bein
g crushed (except by JEN). He now sprang from his swivel chair (lumbar spine in FINE shape), and stuffed a handkerchief into Urma Thurb’s mouth so that Francine would not be upset in any way, should Urma Thurb put up a struggle. He then bound the indignant Urma Thurb’s hands and feet with surgical tape, and injected her with lignocaine, which induces fits, then heart failure.

  Jen’s flat being conveniently VACANT, he dragged the dying Urma Thurb down there and hid her under Jen’s bed for the time being. Busy man. Couldn’t keep patients waiting. He’d decide what to do with the body later. The BODY. The body is such a burden.

  Next!

  (Another Flashback)

  Dr Lewis was just going back upstairs when the door above opened and Nicky came racing down. They met halfway. Nicky did not seem pleased by this convergence – he seemed ANGRY.

  ‘Where’s Jen?’ he asked gruffly.

  ‘Gone,’ said Roger. ‘She’s disappeared!’

  Nicky alarmingly grabbed Roger by the throat! ‘Understandable after the stunt you pulled, you bastard.’

  Not another one! ‘Hey, watch it,’ choked Roger, still quirking as best he could.

  But Nicky rudely affixed his thumbs to Roger’s CLAVICULAR FOSSA – without even ASKING. Roger now remembered Nicky was a DENTIST: the guy probably had a pretty good idea how to manipulate the NECK. But was it his intention to TWIST or to STRANGLE? Roger was beginning to REGRET letting Jen invite a few of her own people to the wedding. But he hadn’t noticed that Nicky had any FEELINGS for Jen (apart from boredom, shame and irritation). Strange time to be getting an ERECTION, but Roger had one anyway!

  Unlike Urma Thurb’s moral righteousness, Nicky’s resolve was made shaky by GUILT: he had after all been planning to SEDUCE Roger at some point, brother-in-law or not. But that was before he’d seen the state of Roger’s FLAT. The guy’s home-life was a HORROR. He lived like an ape! And into this jungle he had attempted to inveigle Nicky’s one remaining RELATION.

  But now Nicky was torn: he had an enticing view of the old CHIN CLEFT, and, following the line down through Roger’s clavicular fossa, past his STETHOSCOPE, to his ERECTION – Nicky decided to unseam him LATER.

  Sensing a lull in hostilities, Dr Lewis urged Nicky to accompany him to Jen’s bedroom, where they could talk more privately, undisturbed by duty. So down they went, through Jen’s living room, past Jen’s kitchen and Jen’s bathroom, where sat Jen’s jacuzzi, unused, and into Jen’s BEDROOM where, despite every dissuasive JEN FACTOR so far listed, they carried on with their intention to screw, cavorting unthinkingly (as is usually best).

  Afterwards, lying on the bed together, they gazed up at the many hundreds of handbags: it was like a bedouin TENT in there! Taking it all in, Nicky said, ‘My whole family’s insane.’

  ‘Oh, I LIKE those handbags!’ said Roger loyally.

  ‘Did you KNOW our mother was completely off her rocker?’

  ‘Just because she jumped from a train? Probably post-partum depression,’ counselled Roger sagely.

  ‘She did other stuff too,’ said Nicky. ‘This was a woman who threatened to kill herself if the gas man came to read the meter before she’d had a chance to dust inside its CUPBOARD. Easily embarrassed, my mother. And she HATED kids, BABIES especially, the way they SMELL. She used to swing Jen out of the window by her FEET to give her some AIR. She’s had BREATHING trouble ever since!’

  ‘Well, I’M not embarrassed about anything,’ Roger remarked irrelevantly, before realising he WAS embarrassed about something … what was it? Oh yes, the presence of Urma Thurb under the bed!

  Nicky squirmed out of Roger’s arms and stood up to get a better look at the handbags. ‘What the fuck is she doing with all these – hey, that’s MINE!’ Nicky reached up to unhook a red-and-white-checked fanny-pack. ‘Where’d she get this? Must’ve STOLEN it. It doesn’t suit her! She’s got no TASTE, that girl. No fashion sense. Those cargo pants she wears!’

  Nicky’s absorption in the bag gave Roger the chance to study his ASS. But it wasn’t HALF the ass Jen’s was! Nicky’s was undimpled, unAMPLE. No chance of ever being overwhelmed by such an ass, no chance of being SMOTHERED. Roger missed JEN! Come back to me, he called to her in his head, come back! ‘Come back!’ he said out loud, by accident.

  ‘Just a sec.’ Nicky was in the middle of unzipping his fondly remembered bag. ‘What the fu –’ he said as he caught sight of the old POTATO PEELINGS Jen had put in long ago to fester, along with various jottings of scorn and disillusionment. It had obviously been SLIMY in there for a while, but now it was merely ENCRUSTED, like the pouch of a dead marsupial. ‘This is DISGUSTING!’ cried Nicky.

  Dr Lewis was unnerved. Had Nicky found some of Roger’s EMISSIONS in there? (Roger couldn’t remember any more WHICH handbags he’d had carnal knowledge of, there were so many!) To distract Nicky from the bags, Roger pulled him back down on the bed, kissing him and murmuring sweet Latinate medical terms, then launched into his favourite form of pillow-talk: a lecture on FORMICATION (the sensation of ants crawling under your skin). This he accompanied with a dazzling amount of tickling, to illustrate the subject.

  Nicky had always been a sucker for doctors. MESMERISED by Roger’s antics, he lay with his eyes shut and an arm dangling over the side of the bed. When he felt a hand in his, he squeezed it passionately. But there was no reaction. Playing the aloof doctor, eh? Nicky brought the hand to his mouth and BIT it playfully. STILL nothing! This wasn’t ALOOFNESS, this was total INSENSIBILITY! Nicky opened his eyes and stared at the hand. It had RINGS on it, rings put there by Urma Thurb’s HUSBAND. For this was URMA THURB’S HAND, connected to Urma Thurb’s BODY no doubt, which was lying, red and dead, under the bed!

  Way down at the other end of the bed, tirelessly trying to simulate formication on Nicky’s toes, Roger somehow knew the game was up. He could tell Nicky knew something, and Roger didn’t feel comfortable knowing that he knew that Nicky knew that Roger knew that Nicky knew that Roger knew he KNEW something. Not comfortable at all. Dr Lewis’s settled life was at stake, his lucrative medical practice, his kids, his standing in the community. HOT DRINKS. (Trips to Belize.) Dr Lewis had a SYSTEM, and he was sticking to it.

  Worthless

  Fired and furious, Jen leapt from her bed and began to pace her den. Like a FOX, she sulked and skulked. She tried to believe Roger INNOCENT of the murders of her brother and Urma Thurb. When that proved impossible, she decided to seek JUSTICE. But the police would never believe her and her INTUITION, the intuitions of the prime suspect! They’d think she was just griping because she’d been fired.

  Also, Roger was a DOCTOR. Nobody likes to think ill of a doctor! Even though HE thought all his patients were WORTHLESS, they thought he was worth a great deal. Roger’s patients were willing to DIE to protect his right to kill them! They were like those people who went on defending their BUTCHER – even buying MEAT from him – after he’d already admitted fatally poisoning thirty customers with e coli!

  The loyalty of Roger’s patients gave Jen an idea. She had no evidence on the murders of Nicky and Urma Thurb, but upstairs were hundreds of dubious DEATH CERTIFICATES (Jen had filed them herself!) of trusting patients who’d died surprisingly soon after seeing Roger. Now, Jen was no PURIST. She had killed the odd BABY herself, but never on this SCALE, never so systematically. Roger had killed whole SWATHES of people. Without him this rural backwater might have been a TOWN by now!

  Jen snuck back upstairs at five in the morning and stuffed a carrier bag full to BURSTING with the dubious death certificates. Then she lugged it over to the police station a couple of miles away. She was kept waiting for HOURS. She felt like she was already in JAIL: the hot drinks machine was LOUSY. By the time she was finally allowed in to see the inspector, she was having trouble BREATHING.

  ‘I know who did it,’ she gasped. ‘At least, I have an INKLING.’ They plonked her in a chair and, sitting as close as they could bear to, tried to hear what she had to say. But they refused to countenance any nasty insinuati
ons against Dr Lewis. He was a GP! (Even the police need their authority figures.) So then she whacked them with the death certificates. But the police weren’t interested in death certificates! (They TOO hated paperwork.)

  So Jen hauled her sorry ass out of there while the going was still good – they said they’d be arresting her any day now, they were just waiting for a few more lab results (the police are like DOCTORS with their fucking LAB RESULTS). Exhausted from the torments of the night, and FREEZING in her summer cargo pants, Jen looked longingly at a taxi as it sped through a puddle, splashing her. But she couldn’t afford a TAXI. She had no job! I HAVE NO JOB.

  Unbeknownst to Jen, the taxi driver himself had doubts about Dr Lewis! He had often had to drive people to the surgery, people who never came out! Francine would walk over to the car and say, ‘Don’t bother waiting, so-and-so’s dead. We’ve called the morgue.’ It happened so often that the taxi driver had begun to DREAD taking anyone to Dr Lewis’s surgery! He dreaded the turrets, the widow’s walks, the strangely elongated chimney pots, and the hydrangeas. But he never TOLD anyone – he was scared of being sued.

  A Citizen’s Arrest

  Dr Lewis was on call as usual, the morning after he fired Jen. He had no idea she was out REPORTING HIM TO THE POLICE. He thought she was sleeping in, the LAZY COW, now that she was JOBLESS.

  Roger felt oddly TRIUMPHANT for so adroitly extricating himself from Jen’s clutches and distancing himself from the prime murder suspect at the same time! It made him look WHITER THAN WHITE, or so he HOPED. He had always WANTED to look whiter than white. He should have done it before. But he’d been swayed by that ASS. Yes, the swaying of that ass had almost been his RUIN. It interfered with his all-important WORK.