Doctors & Nurses

by Lucy Ellmann

  DAVID was his first patient of the day. He’d come to discuss getting treatment for Hepatitis C. David had only just discovered he had Hepatitis C. He had gone to give blood, as he did every year, and a few weeks later the blood bank called him up to say they didn’t WANT his blood, they didn’t want anything more to DO with him, because he had Hepatitis C (caught apparently from a blood transfusion as a child). David was still in shock.

  Dr Lewis barely knew what Hepatitis C WAS, but told David sternly that he ought to have his WIFE tested as well. But, as David now explained, she HAD been tested, and she too had Hepatitis C! Dr Lewis countered this by advising David to have his three CHILDREN tested. But they had already been tested, and they also had Hepatitis C. This was getting silly! Dr Lewis might have been able to muster up some sympathy for one or TWO cases of Hepatitis C, but FIVE? Come ON.

  Next was MIMI, who was having a nervous breakdown because her husband had run off with a younger woman. Forgetting that the only thing to do in such circumstances is to cut holes in his SUITS and give his WINE away, Mimi had succumbed instead to panic attacks, insomnia and weeping spells.

  ‘But men are PROGRAMMED to lose interest in women your age, Mimi,’ Roger explained. ‘It’s the law, I mean it’s the law of natural selection. You see, in the early days of Man, anyone attracted to older women, past their childbearing days, would lose his chance to contribute genetically to the next generation. So that kind of guy DIED OUT. It’s an evolutionary FACT.’

  He thought he’d put it clearly enough but would have gone on (and ON), had his concentration not been disturbed by JEN’S noisy entrance. She stomped over to the desk and threw a big carrier bag full of papers on to it.

  ‘I couldn’t leave them alone with you for a MINUTE, could I, Roger?’ Jen asked. ‘How could you? How could you kill my brother?!’

  Roger bustled the mystified Mimi out of the room.

  ‘How would you like it if I killed YOUR brother?’ Jen demanded.

  ‘I don’t HAVE a brother,’ quirked Roger.

  ‘What a line!’ said Jen. ‘That’s the kind of thing that KILLED VAUDEVILLE!’ Jen pointed to the carrier bag. ‘Those are death certificates, the death certificates YOU falsified. All THREE HUNDRED of ’em. I’m taking them to the police!’ (A bluff, since she’d just got BACK from the fucking police.)

  Roger sat down again in his swivel chair and idly fingered the corners of some of the pages that were sticking out of the bag. Jen snatched them out of his reach. ‘No funny business, Roger. I’ve made photocopies.’ (Another bluff.)

  ‘Why’re you making such a FUSS?’ he asked gently, genuinely perplexed.

  ‘WHY? Because Nicky and Urma Thurb were all I had!’ Jen cried. ‘Besides YOU. And they were MEDICAL people, Roger. You don’t kill COLLEAGUES.’

  ‘They were in the way,’ Roger offered. ‘They came between us.’

  ‘So you ADMIT it!’ said Jen, momentarily stunned. Then she started to shake. She turned ORANGE with fury, a lifetime’s fury. ‘How DARE you? Now I’m going to have to make a Citizen’s Arrest.’

  But before she could figure out HOW you make a Citizen’s Arrest, Roger jabbed her twice in the ass with a big syringe! Even though her ass was numb, Jen definitely felt two jabs. What was in it? Diamorphine? How MUCH? Was Jen going to DIE before she saw justice done??

  Jen fought like a RHINOCEROS that had just been shot with a TRANQUILLISER dart: fiercely. She tore at Roger’s yellow hair and white coat. She bit his stethoscope in two! She butted him repeatedly with her rhinoceros HEAD, and finally SAT on him with her rhinoceros BUTT. Roger GIGGLED at first but quietened as he searched Jen’s ass more and more desperately for AIR POCKETS. Then he conked out!

  Tenacious of Life

  Roger woke a few hours later to find himself inside the Air Ambulance helicopter! Comforting to see old Charlie at the helm. But where were they going? It seemed a bit dark for one of their missions (Roger preferred morning flights). But always there is DUTY.

  He started to get up, but couldn’t move! He was tied down! What was going on? Then he heard Jen.

  ‘Don’t try anything, Roger,’ she said.

  She is TENACIOUS OF LIFE, thought Roger: he’d given her enough morphine to kill an ELEPHANT! (But not a rhinoceros.)

  ‘You’re tenacious of life!’ he quirked, looking about for her in the dark.

  Jen turned away in disgust and yelled to Charlie over the hellish din, ‘Our patient seems to have revived.’

  Charlie twisted round in his (NON-swivel) seat, smiling, and said, ‘Hey, mate. We were worried about you!’

  ‘I wasn’t,’ said Jen. ‘By the way, Charlie, there’s been a change of plan. We’re not going to the hospital. That was a LIE.’

  ‘WHAT?!’ Charlie could barely hear Jen, but he didn’t like her TONE. (Jen’s tone never did her any favours.)

  Jen held up a syringe and tested it for air bubbles. ‘One false move and I’ll let you both have it!’ she warned. (Isn’t it great how watching a lot of dull movies prepares you for this kind of occasion? The hoodlum parlance just seemed to come naturally.) ‘This is BOTULIN SERUM,’ she told them (another bluff). ‘The BAD news is that a long and painful death awaits you if you cross me. There’s no known antidote – but I don’t have to tell YOU GUYS that! The GOOD news is you’ll die without a wrinkle on you!’

  Roger tried to wrench himself free of his bonds with the use of his strong biceps, triceps, abductor pollicis longus and brachialis muscles, along with his gastrocnemius, his subscapularis, his brachioradialis, his trapezius, his pronator quadratus, infraspinatus, rectus abdominus, tensor fasciae latae, adductor magnus muscles, and his deltoids. He tried EVERYTHING! But it didn’t work! Jen repositioned him on his stretcher without much difficulty.

  ‘A little cramped in here, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Not that you minded that the FIRST time we met!’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘The first TIME, our first SCREW. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten! In the loo on the PLANE, Woger!’

  The adrenalin produced by his present predicament must have acted as an aide-memoire, for at last Roger did have a dim recollection of their first encounter! He remembered that ASS at least.

  Aeroplanes are the source of all human misery.

  Jen now told Charlie to fly to a well-known local landmark, an isolated COCK of ROCK that lay a quarter-mile offshore.

  ‘But why?’ asked Charlie in dismay. ‘In THIS weather?’ A GALE was blowing.

  ‘Don’t listen to her, Charlie,’ yelled Roger. ‘She’s NUTS.’

  ‘You sure know a lot of crazy women, Woger,’ said Jen. ‘Did it ever occur to you that YOU might be the common denominator? Maybe you drive us all crazy.’

  ‘Red Alert, Charlie! Code N,’ yelled Roger. ‘Six o’clock. About face! STOP!’

  But Charlie turned out to be quite in AWE of botulism. He accordingly changed course and flew judderingly towards the sea. Snow beat against the windscreen as they lost the last of the light.

  There was no hope of landing in such a storm when they reached the rock. The helicopter was jouncing all over the place! Its jerks and jumps were making it hard for Jen to balance the syringe on her knees while she sorted out the ropes of the lowering gear, but she managed somehow. She cautiously released Roger’s limbs, one at a time, just long enough to attach him to his HARNESS. He begged her to reconsider. ‘What about my KIDS? My patients? FRANCINE? They need me!’

  But Jen had also needed him. Opening the hatch below (NOT a euphemism for Jen’s SNATCH), she dislodged him from his comfy stretcher and sent him whirling and twirling into the night, as she slowly unwound the rope. For Jen was at the end of her tether too.

  ‘There you go, Woger,’ she yelled when he finally landed on the rock. ‘Your free trip!’

  Just Jelly

  Roger is all alone in the dark on the brink of time. He feels like the last person on earth! No east or west, no HORIZON. No one to help him. All around h
im only darkness and water. How far to shore? A MILE? Half a mile perhaps. He’ll die of exposure trying to swim. Wouldn’t last FIVE MINUTES in that sea.

  The helicopter has COPPED OUT on him. Little chance of its returning before he PEGS OUT. As an embryo, Roger Lewis was all HYALINE CARTILAGE. Now he’s just JELLY.

  Standing in his white coat atop the icy wastes, he stares in disbelief at the gannets and guano. Roger has always been troubled by anything OFF-WHITE, and he’s troubled by it now.

  How DARE she do this to me? After I commingled so willingly in the basement, and my JAG. Even on a PLANE, it seems! Cunt. Why do women have to be such a PAIN IN THE ASS?

  He stumbles along the slippery surface of the ancient imperturbable rock, seeking shelter from the wind and snow. He’s forgotten about the LIGHTHOUSE, if he ever knew of its existence, and fails to see it in his confusion. He sees only CLIFFS, cliffs of fall frightful.

  Every solution seems hopeless. He grips an icy boulder to look over the edge, and can just make out an almost perpendicular SLIDE along one corner of the rock, leading to the dark waves below. The white sea foam forms C-shapes amongst the stones. All Roger can SEE now are these C-shapes.

  It’s too steep and slippery to CLIMB down, and there’s no way of getting back UP. Even if he manages not to fall OFF the slide on the way down, he will probably gather so much speed he’ll crack his head on the rocks at the bottom and hit the water UNCONSCIOUS, never even getting a CHANCE to swim.

  Roger stands up, bracing himself against the wind that seems to come from all directions at once. He’s already numb with cold. He has never been so alone, so angry, so afraid, or so doomed to die. He peers across the water at the shadowy land, near land, DEAR land! His urge to rejoin his species is ACUTE.

  He looks again at the icy promontory with its perilous slide. It’s worth a try.

  Life!

  As soon as he escaped from Jen’s clutches and her fake BOTULIN SERUM, Charlie flew swiftly back to the rock to search for Roger. But he couldn’t find him! Roger’s BODY was discovered by some fishermen weeks later, bloated and offensive. It had been nibbled by coelacanths, but was still recognisable: the chin cleft was intact.

  Jen was tried for helicopter-hijacking, GP-kidnapping, paramedic-frightening, bag-snatching, peace-breaching, and triple homicide. JEN was bloated and offensive too and was sentenced on these grounds alone to Life Imprisonment – the Home Secretary said she’d NEVER get out!

  But for Jen it was a kind of LIBERATION: she was free to hate herself in peace. She celebrated by refusing to wear clothes! The prison authorities, fearing Jen’s misshapen form might incite other inmates to unrest, DISGUST, or an insurrection of like-minded behaviour, kept her in solitary confinement. She LOVED it! She became ALL BODY, one big land mass of off-white FLAB, her flesh dimpled and trembly, her skin covered with suppurating sores that erupted in an unending and unedifying cycle of quiescence and decay. She was despised and demonised to the end of her days, and had to have EXTRA HEAT in her cell.

  But enough of zis talk. Take off your clothes!

  Footnotes

  1 Some of Dr Lewis’s female patients joined a SUPPORT GROUP for victims of medical shenanigans. Every month, they get together for dreary meetings in which pain and anger are addressed, followed by lunch. In the afternoon, they work on developing a POSITIVE ATTITUDE to their misfortunes.

  So Dr Lewis didn’t just mess up their BODIES. He made it necessary for them to go to these AWFUL MEETINGS.

  2 The police had by now taken the Shetland sweater-dryer and the candlesticks away for forensic tests (though killing people with candlesticks is so passé). Thus, for Jen, it was back to the DRAWING BOARD, vis-á-vis drying her cargo pants!

  Acknowledgements

  I refute, abhor, deplore and CONDEMN acknowledgements in novels, as a craven attempt to implicate others in the author’s crimes.

  Otherwise, I would want to proclaim my gratitude to my editor, Alexandra Pringle, who has seen me through many torments, most of them self-induced. She’s better than any grant, bursary, idol, patron, idle patron, or Arse Council endowment. The gal is GOOD.

  (And anyway, she IS to blame for my writing novels.)

  L.E.

  A Note on the Author

  Lucy Ellmann was born in America and moved to Britain when she was thirteen. Her previous novels are Sweet Desserts, which won the Guardian Fiction Prize, Varying Degrees of Hopelessness, Man or Mango? and Dot in the Universe (shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for comic fiction). Lucy Ellmann lives in Edinburgh.

  By the Same Author

  Sweet Desserts

  Varying Degrees of Hopelessness

  Man or Mango? A Lament

  Dot in the Universe

  Mimi

  Further praise for Doctors & Nurses

  ‘You’ve got to admire that kind of insane bloody-mindedness. Her latest novel, a melded spoof of medical romances and Jane Eyre, is as lunatic and splenetic and distinctive as anything that will be published this year … I begin to suspect she may be some sort of genius’ Victoria Lane, Daily Telegraph

  ‘What bizarre comic riffs can the incomparable Ellmann spin from a romantic medical mismatch? Breathtakingly brutal ones, as per usual, but also bright, direct and playful … Ellmann’s latest is not for the squeamish, but it’s a hilarious exaggeration of a profession’s foibles’ Publishers Weekly

  ‘It is somehow hard not to be optimistic in the hands of a writer so angry and intelligent … Doctor’s & Nurses is a novel bracingly alive, making more polite books cadaverous by comparison’ Guardian

  ‘Both a howl of rage and an absolute scream … a short, sharp tale of lust, self-loathing and involuntary euthanasia, with the emotional volume cranked right up throughout and the jokes coming thick and fast. Ingenious and hilarious’ Time Out

  ‘Rip-roaring, outrageous pastiche … Ellmann writes with an acerbic, post-modern wit … Brilliantly funny and controversial, this darkly comic novel will appeal to fans of Kurt Vonnegut, Jane Green and Jasper Fforde’ Waterstone’s Books Quarterly

  ‘Filthy, hilarious, and absolutely furious … The mad plot – affair, betrayal, murder – is just a vehicle for Ellmann’s stunning riffs on everything from the language of handbags to drainage … strange and fascinating’ Entertainment Weekly

  ‘A virtuoso display of absolute chutzpah … Ellmann is nearly always funny, whether she’s pondering the vital role of “A NICE CUP OF TEA” in medical practice or discussing the difficulties faced by hospital romances’ New Statesman

  ‘As fans might expect, Doctors & Nurses reads like a stream-of-consciousness rant after way too much caffeine. Ellmann’s actually far smarter than that. Careful readers will recognise that her work is thoughtfully composed and sharp as a rapier. Most of all, it is hilarously, eye-wateringly funny. It’s blistering and raw … I laughed out loud, many times … Her knack for piling on repulsive absurdity after repulsive absurdity evokes early Martin Amis, except the magnificently talented Ellmann evinces more soul … while is a testament to the author’s depth of empathy and intelligence … I have found a new hero in Lucy Ellmann’ Lee Randall, Scotsman

  ‘Full of saucy exploits with all the double-entendres of a Carry On film, you can’t help but laugh. This is romance with a sharp twist’ B

  ‘A uniquely savage, hugely engaging novelist who sprinkles her work with so many one-liners it’s dangerous to drink or eat while reading her … Oscar Wilde has met his match … the writing is impressively succinct and polished … Her wisdom and perception are so acute that Doctors & Nurses stands proud not only as scintillating and scabrous satire but, for this reader at least, as a text for the day’ Rosemary Goring, Glasgow Herald

  ‘Wonderful … It is undeniably refreshing to find an author who approaches the boundaries of decency and then bulldozes them into oblivion with audible cackles of disdain … Doctors & Nurses should be prescribed to anyone in dire need of a wholly original novel’ Scotland on Sunday


  ‘Ellmann has invented a new comic methodology here, and a brilliant and perplexing one it is too … This is one of the most universally engaged books I have encountered’ Independent

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney

  First published in Great Britain in 2006 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  www.bloomsbury.com

  This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © 2006 by Lucy Ellmann

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  eISBN 978-1-4088-4082-5

  The Origin of the World by Gustave Courbet (1866), Museée d’Orsay, Paris, p. 29. Untitled work by Emily Gasquoine (2005), p. 119. Photograph of Stac Lee, St Kilda, Scotland by Stuart Murray/Scottish Natural Heritage/Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2004), p. 205.

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