Love on My List

by Rosemary Friedman

  “Eleven to fourteen days.” Her lips were very close.

  “And is athlete’s foot infectious?”

  “There’s a time and place for everything,” I said, holding her tightly to me.

  We did not discuss athlete’s foot again that night.

  We decided that Bridget was untrainable and must go, and that Miss Hornby, my secretary, was to come for one whole day a week so that Sylvia could go out and enjoy herself sitting under various instruments of torture in the hairdresser’s. I silently thanked Ted Jenkins for seeing me safely over the first hurdle in the marriage stakes. Things begun to run more smoothly.

  When I had first given up the idea of taking my Membership of the Royal College of Physicians and had decided to go into general practice, I had resolved never to let myself decline into the family doctor who, from the time he set foot in his practice to his death or retirement some fifty years later, never read a medical journal or attempted to keep himself up to date. There was always much talk about the declining status of the GP under the National Health Scheme. To keep the family doctor at his former, respected level three things were essential: the trust of his patients, the respect of his colleagues, and the means to do his job adequately. This last point seemed to me most important. Neglect in keeping up to date with recent medical advances could only lead to doing a second-best job. Apart from being unfair to the patients under one’s care, this had never appealed to me. It never amused me when patients said of the old doctor, my predecessor, “He always said, ‘Do what you think best, Mrs Simpkins,’ when I asked him about feeding problems. ‘I always think a mother knows more than the doctor when it comes to feeding a baby.’” Perhaps in nine cases out of ten he had been right. But the tenth case might have turned out better if he had taken the trouble to study the problems of infant feeding and keep up to date with the recent advances in pædiatrics. He managed to gloss over his ignorance by flattering the mother. It was both lazy and dishonest.

  There were not only good medical journals published every week describing any new medical advances and discussions, but also free refresher courses available to general practitioners and held in various parts of the country. Since these courses were always popular and heavily booked (particularly when held in the vicinity of good golf courses) I had reserved a place the year before for a course in General Medicine which was to be held in Edinburgh in two months’ time.

  I hated the idea of leaving Sylvia after we had been married such a short time, and was not too happy about leaving the patients again so soon after I had had time off for my honeymoon. Sylvia and I discussed the problem at length, and came to the conclusion that it would be in the ultimate interest of the patients if I went on the course and that, much as I disliked leaving her and she to be left alone, we should both survive. It was, after all, for two weeks only, and we could write and phone each other every day. Perhaps what we dreaded most were the lonely nights, but we tried to console each other that it was all in a good cause.

  That problem having been decided, the next step was to obtain the services of a locum. I rang the British Medical Association and put my name down on their lists.

  In the surgery I kept a vigilant eye open for my patients who were in the motor-car trade and told them of my requirements. First of all I was interested in a car that was reliable; the starter must respond when I tottered to the garage on the coldest night; it must have a good heater, a windscreen defroster that worked, electric wipers, with water squirt to remove mud, first-class headlamps – not both on the same fuse – and a real fog lamp. It must turn in the road like a taxi and have effortless steering, but not so low-geared that it took five turns of the wheel from lock to lock. It must be draughtproof, both exit and entry being easy for non-contortionists, and, since its owner was one notoriously careless with morphine and phenobarbitone (usually under the seat in my present car) it must all lock securely. These requirements were most probably inherent in any new car, but since I was used to driving round in a leaking, spluttering, rattling, rusting, wiperless box on wheels for so long I felt it necessary to be explicit about my needs. In addition, the said car was to be moderately priced, dignified and by comparison make that of Doctor Archibald Compton slink from the road in embarrassment. Each and every dealer I spoke to assured me they had the Very Thing.

  One morning one of my visits was to the house which I had seen Doctor Archibald Compton leaving the week before. Mrs Warrington and her family had been good patients of mine and I came straight to the point: I wanted to know what had been going on.

  “As a matter of fact, Doctor,” she said, “he came to see our new maid. Apparently Doctor Compton is a specialist on skins, and it was a rash that was bothering her. I told her that you were our doctor, but she said that her friend swears by Doctor Compton, so she gave me the little card and I rang him up for her. Her English isn’t very good, particularly on the telephone.”

  “Little card?” I said. “What little card?”

  Mrs Warrington led the way up the stairs to where Angela, whose sore throat I had come to see, was ill.

  “Oh! just one of those little visiting cards; you know, with his telephone number on it. Please don’t think it was my fault, Doctor; you know I wouldn’t have anyone for the children or myself except you.”

  I could see she was getting quite upset about my harping on Doctor Archibald Compton. I examined little Angela, a nice seven-year-old with acute follicular tonsillitis, and heard all about the “grilla” she had seen in the Zoo at half term, before I resumed the subject.

  Giving Mrs Warrington the prescription for oral penicillin, I said casually:

  “I suppose you couldn’t find the little visiting card for me, could you?” She looked blank, her mind still on Angela.

  “Doctor Compton’s card; I wanted his phone number; he isn’t in the book yet,” I said wildly.

  “Of course, Doctor. I’ll call Hildegarde.”

  Hildegarde, after much “Ja, Ja-ing,” said, “Ja, I haf him in mein Zimmer,” and plodded teutonically off in her knitted stockings to get it.

  As I thought, the “specialist in skins” had no more qualifications than I. I slipped the card in my pocket. Advertising, in the eye of the General Medical Council, was no joke.

  As I opened the front door with my key and stepped into the hall I heard Sylvia on the telephone in the kitchen.

  “I’m sorry, but he’s out,” I heard her say; “but I’ll tell you what to do. Sit him bolt upright – no, not lying down, Mrs Miffle – bolt upright, and press his nostril tightly the side where the bleeding is, for three minutes by the clock. Yes, I’m sure it will stop; but if it hasn’t, ring up again in half an hour and I expect Doctor will be back. Not at all. Goodbye.” She put down the receiver and it was white with flour from the pastry she was making.

  I put my arms round her and held her tightly. She was powerless because of her floury hands.

  “And since when did you know how to stop a nosebleed?” I said.

  “Remember Mr Boon in the middle of the night last week?”

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “You thought wrong. Let me get this pie in the oven.” She struggled to get away.

  I didn’t release my grip.

  “You did very well, darling. I’m proud of you.”

  “There’s nothing to it,” she said. “I really don’t know why you have to spend six years qualifying!”

  “Any messages or anything?” I picked a cherry out of the pie she was putting together.

  “Only Faraday to invite himself to dinner; and I’ve got what sounds the most wonderful maid coming to see me this afternoon. Oh yes! And somebody brought you a little gift. I put it on your lunch place. I was dying to open it but I didn’t.”

  Curious and somewhat suspicious about my present, I went into the dining-room and removed the package, wrapped in layers of tissue paper and tied with pink string, from my side plate. I undid it and my suspicions were confirmed.

>   In the kitchen Sylvia glanced round from the oven as I held it aloft.

  “Goody! A bottle,” she said. “Is it sherry or whisky? We need both, anyway.”

  “It’s a specimen,” I explained, “somebody’s urine. It’s always best to take anything handed in at the door straight into the surgery. Except perhaps at Christmas time.”

  The pie safely in the oven, Sylvia straightened up, flushed from the heat.

  “Oh, Sweetie!” she said. “Aren’t I an idiot?”

  “No damage done. How could you possibly know? They’re always too embarrassed to say what’s in the parcel.”

  Sylvia giggled. “You should have heard me thanking him. I thought he gave me rather an odd look when I said, ‘Thank you very much indeed. How kind of you. I’m sure Doctor will ring you up and thank you personally.’”

  “Never mind, darling. You did stop the nosebleed. I think I’ll just take this specimen down to the Path. Lab. before lunch. I want to get it analysed quickly, if possible.”

  Outside the Path. Lab. I recognised the snooty face of the shiny black Allard.

  Doctor Compton was talking to my favourite, redhaired technician as I walked in with my bottle. I ignored him completely and gave her my most appealing smile.

  “I wonder if Doctor Benson could spare a few moments to spin this down for me and let me know if there are any pus cells,” I said.

  She smiled back. “I’m so sorry, Doctor. Doctor Benson is busy just now doing a blood count for Doctor Compton, and after that he has twenty cultures to do. It won’t be till late afternoon, I’m afraid. If you’ll just fill the form in and leave it with me and he’ll see to it as soon as possible.”

  Filling in my yellow form, I felt Archibald Compton smirking behind my back and trying to impress my red-haired friend. Turning round I caught her bestowing the same flashing smile upon him as she always did upon me. She went down immediately in my estimation.

  By the time I had completed my form, Doctor Compton’s blood count was ready and we had no choice but to walk down the long, dark, narrow corridor together.

  “Nice girl, that ginger one,” he said chattily. “She was telling me she comes from Southport. She’s getting married next month to one of the orthopædic chaps. They’ve been engaged for two years.”

  Chagrined, I could think of nothing to say. He had found out more about her in his month in practice than I had in a year.

  As we came out into the bright daylight my fingers closed around the little card in my pocket. I brought it out and thrust it under his nose.

  “I see it pays to advertise,” I said.

  “Where did you get that?”

  “From that German maid you went to see.”

  He laughed easily. “Oh! She’s a friend of my housekeeper’s. I gave it to Ilse when she went to register with the police so that she’d get the name and address right. I suppose she passed it on to this other girl.” He held out his hand for it.

  I slipped it into my pocket. “I’d like to keep it, if you don’t mind. You never know when I might need a ‘skin specialist.’”

  He shrugged, but had the grace to blush as he got into his car. I felt that I had more than paid him back for his success with Ginger in the Path. Lab. and for getting to Doctor Benson first with his blood count.

  While I was still pulling at the starter and my engine was spluttering and dying with a dismal whine, he zoomed past me with a boom-boom-boom of eight cylinders and a condescending wave of his yellow-gloved hand.

  I wasn’t so sure that I’d had the last word after all.

  Four

  MY morning post a week later was, as usual, interesting. It was always prolific, and I often annoyed Sylvia by selecting the more lurid items from the daily pile of advertisements from the drug houses and laying them on her plate. She was often greeted, on sitting down at the breakfast table, with a highly coloured, glossy diagram of the lower bowel and the stark-lettered query “CONSTIPATED?” Other equally horrid reproductions showed pictures of haggard men (stomach ulcers), pregnant women (anæmia), irritable children (worms), and fretful babies (inadequate artificial feeding). At times the advertisements took the form of calendars, pseudo-personal letters and tolerably pleasing reproductions of Old Masters; at others there was merely a single, bloodshot eye, the nasty fungicidal growth between two grossly enlarged, knobbly toes or simply a scaly, eczematous lip. In either case Sylvia was unimpressed, and we had now been married long enough for her to toss the morning’s offering on the floor without comment. Her stomach was becoming stronger and she was well on the way to becoming a seasoned doctor’s wife to whom pathological horrors were a necessary adjunct to breakfast, lunch and dinner.

  This morning I found a picturesque rodent ulcer for Sylvia, put aside the rest of the advertisements in their large buff envelopes, and opened my first letter with a threepenny stamp, which was from Faraday, typed on his hospital notepaper, about a patient I had referred to him for his opinion. He thanked me formally for sending him the patient, summarised his findings, and ended “…his liver and spleen were not palpable and Hess’ test was negative. I must therefore congratulate you on your diagnosis and agree with you that this man is suffering from some form of purpura, presumably, as you say, Henoch-Schoenlein in variety.”

  Having signed the letter in his official capacity, he added the PS: “So glad that marriage has not affected your diagnostic skill. Many thanks for the charming dinner and evening with you and Sylvia. Have felt lonely and jealous ever since. Ask Sylvia if she can find me a wife, preferably eighteen, innocent, 36-22-36 or near as poss. I leave the colour to you. PPS: There was albumen in his urine!”

  I wondered if his hospital had a full copy of the letter, and handed it to Sylvia so that she could deal with his request.

  There was a note from the BMA informing me that at the moment they had very few locums on their books for the period I had mentioned, since there was a large demand for them at present, but they had written to a Doctor O’Brien, who had applied to them, and he would be contacting me in about a week.

  The next few letters were from various hospitals concerning patients, and the last was addressed to me on a pale blue envelope in a semiliterate, backward-sloping, hand. Sylvia looked at it curiously.

  “Who’s that from?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t opened it yet.”

  Taking it out of my hand and examining it, she said: “It’s from a woman and it smells of scent. Cheap scent. Your past is catching up with you. Can I open it, Sweetie?”

  “If you wish.”

  I drank my coffee while Sylvia’s eyes grew wider. Once as she read she said: “Sweetie!” in amazement. Then, “Sweetie, really!” Finally: “Well, who’s Renee Trotter?”

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Really? She says she’s ‘Yours always’! She also says, ‘God Bless’ and ‘sleep well’!”

  I held out my hand for the letter.

  MY DEAREST BROWN EYES, I read, and looked again at the envelope to make sure it was addressed to me, or should I say Doctor? You will probably put on a superior air and say “Poor Girl,” “Woman,” whatever you wish to call me, “is slightly worse for wear.” One way I am. Anyway, how are you? I am very worried about you, darling. Working too hard, handsome one.

  Seeing my Medico going round each day gives me moral support, if you get what I mean. When I awake from my slumbers I worry, do they know about us? Do not write to this address, you will understand why.

  This is all for now,

  Love to you my very dear,

  God Bless, Sleep well,

  Yours always,

  RENEE TROTTER.

  PS How is your wife?

  “The girl’s nutty,” I said.

  Sylvia laughed. “I believe you, Sweetie. How long has this been going on?”

  “I couldn’t say. I think I’ve only seen her once in the surgery. I can’t even remember what she looks like.”

  “What are you going to do abo
ut it?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Does this sort of thing happen often?”

  I stood up and kissed the back of her neck. It was time to start the surgery. “Frequently,” I said. “That’s what you have to put up with if you marry a ‘handsome Medico.’ ’Bye for now.”

  “Cheerio, ‘dearest Brown Eyes,’” Sylvia said, and went to fetch the wastepaper basket from behind the curtain so that she could clear away some of the rubbish I had left on the breakfast table.

  “Hey!” she shouted suddenly.

  I came back into the room. “What is it, Sweetie? I’m late.”

  “You must have some wealthy patients.”

  I joined her by the window. Outside the surgery entrance, together with the usual assortment of small cars, motorcycles, bicycles and prams, were three opulent-looking cars: a pale blue American convertible which looked about half a mile long, a bottle-green snazzy-looking MG and a gentlemanly black Rover.

  They looked most impressive, and I wished I had taken the trouble to put on a stiff white collar.

  The surgery was busy one. Ten minutes were taken up by arguing with Mrs Rumbold. We had been spoiling for a row for a long time and I wondered that it hadn’t come before.

  While approving in general principle of the National Health Service, its administration very often proved a tricky and time-consuming matter. I usually tried to find a happy medium in dealing with the countless demands made upon me; to keep the patients happy without incurring unnecessarily heavy charges on the Health Service. Sometimes, however, this was not so easy, and I often felt myself a kind of Roman dictator seeking popularity by distributing free corn to the masses; only in my case it was not corn I was doling out, but free sleeping pills, slimming pills, cough cures, cold cures, nerve tonics, “pick-me-ups,” notes for work, notes for school, notes for coal, sunray lamps, corporation houses and corsets.

  On the whole I found the patients co-operative when I tactfully chided them about excessive demands. Not so Mrs Rumbold.