Doctor in Clover (5 page)

Miles turned round and scowled.

‘Oh, hello, Connie. Yes, I am, as a matter of fact. Expecting an old school chum. Chap called Honeybank. Doesn’t seem to have turned up.’

‘Charming little restaurant, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, very.’

‘You seem very dressed up,’ muttered Miles.

‘Going on, you know, A ball, and all that.’

‘I think men look their best in tails,’ remarked Connie. ‘Don’t you Miles? What on earth’s dear Pedro doing?’

I thought dear Pedro was probably putting that knife on the grinding machine, but only murmured something about having to be off,

‘But if you haven’t eaten you must stay for a bite with us,’ Connie insisted, ‘I’m sure Miles wouldn’t mind.’

‘Not a bit,’ growled Miles.

‘It might be a little awkward, actually–’

‘But definitely. Gaston. Tell the waiter to bring another chair. Ah, there you are, Pedro. How is your lovely
canneloni
tonight?’

‘Delicious, madame.’

Pedro came over rubbing his hands. I stood on one foot, leaning against the table. Dashed difficult, striking an attitude simultaneously suggestive of helpful servility and longstanding chumminess.

‘And the
osso buco
, it is excellent,’ Pedro added,

‘Then shall we all have
canneloni
followed by
osso buco
?’ Connie looked inquiringly at Miles and myself. ‘I’m terribly hungry.’

‘Two
canneloni
two
osso buco
,’ snapped Pedro in my ear. ‘Didn’t you ’ear what madame says?’

‘How extraordinary repeating the order like that,’ exclaimed Miles.

‘Just a little joke,’ I explained, as Pedro backed away. ‘I know him very well.’

Connie sighed. ‘How lucky you are! I can’t imagine anything more useful in London than being friends with all the head waiters. But Gaston,
do
sit down. You make me feel uncomfortable, standing about like that.’

‘Just a second, if you’ll excuse me. Phone call – the school chum, you know.’

I slipped back to the kitchen.

‘What the ’ell’s the matter with you tonight?’ demanded Pedro. ‘You stick around with a silly grin on your face like a drunk monkey. How you expect me to run my restaurant if you don’t listen to the customers?’

‘Look, Pedro, I really think I ought to be at home tucked up in bed–’

‘Take that in, and don’ talk so much.’

He handed me two dishes of
canneloni
.

‘Good Lord!’ exclaimed Miles. ‘You’ve brought the food yourself.’

‘Ha ha! Just another little joke. Dear old Pedro, you know. I keep threatening a public health inspection of his kitchen, and just nipped in to take him by surprise. The canneloni was ready, so I brought it along.’

Connie found this terribly amusing.

‘But Gaston, you haven’t a plate. And do please sit down.’

‘I’ll just prop on the back of this chair.’ I edged myself into a position where I might be mistaken for serving the spinach. ‘They get so terribly crowded, I’m sure Pedro hasn’t got a spare seat. I don’t think I’ll try any
canneloni
myself, thanks. But let me help you.’

‘You serve quite professionally,’ exclaimed Connie.

‘Jack of all trades, you know…’

‘Are you sure you’re quite all right tonight?’ demanded Miles.

‘Oh, fine, thank you.’

I felt that the situation was reasonably hopeful, as long as they crammed down their blasted
canneloni
before Pedro came back.

‘What were we talking about? I suppose you’ve heard the story of the bishop and the parrot–’

Just then a voice behind me called, ‘Waiter!’

‘Well, you see, this bishop had a parrot–’

‘Waiter!’

‘And this parrot used to belong to an old lady who bought it from a sailor–’

‘Say, Waiter!’

‘There isn’t a waiter in sight,’ interrupted Connie.

‘Never is when you want one,’ grumbled Miles.

‘I think he’s an American who keeps shouting,’ said Connie.

‘And the old lady always used to keep it under a green baize cloth in the front parlour. Every morning she’d take the cloth off the cage, and every morning the parrot said–’

‘Hey, Waiter, for chrissakes!’

A fat man I’d just served with cigars and brandy appeared at my elbow.

‘Excuse me, folks. I just wanted to tell the waiter here I’ve had a darned fine meal and darned fine service. I reckon it’s the best I’ve struck since I’ve been in Europe. I was just getting on my way when I thought, shucks, I gotta give credit where credit is due. Thanks a lot, son. This is for you.’

The beastly chap stuffed a pound note into my top pocket.

‘But how extraordinary,’ exclaimed Miles.

‘He thought you were the waiter!’ laughed Connie.

‘People never notice the fellows who serve them with food,’ I mumbled. ‘Conan Doyle or Edgar Wallace or someone wrote a story about it.’

‘But he did seem pretty definite.’ Miles gave me a nasty look.

‘Oh, Miles, you know what Americans are,’ said Connie. At that moment, Pedro appeared again. I pretended to be arranging the flower vase.

‘Everything all ri’?’

‘No,’ said Miles. ‘The waiter hasn’t brought any grated parmesan with my
canneloni
.’

Pedro glared across the table.

‘Zere is no grated cheese with the
canneloni
.’

I glanced round for the cheese thing. I might reach across for it with a little laugh.

‘That’s exactly what I said,’ Miles returned. ‘It happens that I’m particularly fond of grated cheese with my
canneloni
.’

‘So am I,’ said Connie.

‘There is no grated cheese with the
canneloni
!’ shouted Pedro in my direction.

‘Good gracious, man!’ exclaimed Miles. ‘Don’t yell at me like that.’

‘I am
not
yelling at you like that, monsieur. I am yelling at ’
im
like that.
There is no grated cheese on the canneloni!’

Connie jumped up.

‘How dare you address my guests in that manner! I am going to leave this restaurant this very instant.’

Pedro looked as if he’d been hit in the neck with one of his own
canneloni
. ‘Guests, madame? What guests? You’re fired,’ he added to me.

‘I shall never eat here again, and I shall tell all my friends not to eat here either. Come along, Miles. Treating our guest here as one of your waiters–’

But, damn it, madame! ’E
is
one of my waiters. ’E come every night, part time–’

‘Only five days a week,’ I insisted.

‘Gaston!’ Connie gave a little gasp. ‘Is this really true?’

I nodded. The Grimsdyke ingenuity had been beaten back to its own goal-line. I reached for my napkin and automatically flicked the tablecloth.

‘I’m not a doctor, really,’ I murmured. ‘I’m a student. I take this on for a little extra dibs.’

There was a silence. Connie started to laugh. In fact, she laughed so long she almost asphyxiated herself with a stick of Italian bread. In the end we all four thought it a tremendous joke, even Pedro.

But Connie never looked at me the same way again. And a fortnight later got engaged to Miles. I was pretty cut up about it at the time, I suppose. I often wonder how life would have turned out if Miles had been more of a gentleman and taken her somewhere like the Ritz.

The only compensation was that, according to the American chap, if I had to be a waiter I was a damn good one.

‘I’m afraid I was somewhat over-optimistic at the way things would go at St Swithin’s,’ announced Miles.

Connie had left us after providing a charming little dinner, and I was guessing my chances of getting a cigar.

‘The appointment of Sharper’s successor has as usual got mixed up with hospital politics.’

He stared gloomily into the fruit bowl.

‘Sir Lancelot Spratt is making an infernal nuisance of himself on the committee. He is opposing my candidature, purely because Mr Cambridge is supporting it. Sir Lancelot has quarrelled with him, you know. Cambridge refuses to knock down his old clinical laboratory, and Sir Lancelot wants to park his car there. To think! My future decided by a car park.’

‘There’s nothing like a mahogany table and a square of pink blotting-paper to bring out the worst in a chap’s character,’ I sympathized. ‘How about the other runners?’

‘There are thirty other prospective candidates for the post, all as well qualified as I. But we are mere pawns, mere cyphers. Perhaps I should apologize for being short with you earlier, Gaston. The strain, you know. The uncertainty…’

He miserably cracked a nut. I felt sorry for the chap. Personally, there was nothing I’d have liked less than being a consultant at St Swithin’s, having to wear a stiff collar every day and never being able to date up the nurses, but it had been Miles’ ambition ever since he was cutting up that dogfish. And I rather felt that Connie, too, fancied herself in a new hat running the hoop-la with other consultants’ wives at the annual hospital fête. Besides, Miles was the brightest young surgeon St Swithin’s had seen for years, and I should have felt a bit of a cad not helping so worthy a practitioner along the professional path.

‘If you didn’t get on at St Swithin’s,’ I tried to console him, ‘you’d find a consultant job easily enough in the provinces.’

‘But it wouldn’t be the same thing. And, of course, Connie and I would have to leave our home.’

I nodded. Since the waiter episode girls had been in and out of my life like people viewing an unsatisfactory flat, but I’d always retained a soft spot for Connie. The thought of her confined for life to a place like Porterhampton upset me so much I’d almost have had another go at living there myself to prevent it.

‘In such delicate circumstances,’ I suggested, ‘I take it you’d more than ever like me tucked away in some respectable job?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Find me one, old lad, and I will. I can’t possibly face Palethorpe for months, of course.’

‘I have some influence with the Free Teetotal Hospital at Tooting. They’ll be needing a new house-surgeon next week.’

‘And the week after, I’m afraid, as far as I’m concerned.’

Miles stroked his pale moustache.

‘A pity you didn’t keep your position on the
Medical Observer
. At least it utilized your talent for the pen respectably.

‘That was a congenial job,’ I agreed, ‘until the old editor banished me to the obituaries.’

The
Medical Observer
was the trade press, which lands on doctors’ doormats every Friday morning and is widely appreciated in the profession for lighting the Saturday fires. It has an upstairs office near the British Museum in imminent danger of condemnation by the health, fire, and town planning authorities, where I’d been assistant to the editor, a thin bird with a wing collar and severe views on the split infinitive.

‘You can’t imagine how depressing it was, writing up dead doctors from nine to five,’ I told Miles. ‘Though I composed my own for the files while I was there, and a jolly good one it will be, too. Yours isn’t bad, either.’

‘I am gratified to hear it. Perhaps you should go abroad? An oil company for which I do insurance examinations are prospecting up the River Amazon in Brazil. They have a vacancy for a medical officer on a five-year contract. The salary would certainly appeal to you. And you just said you could do with some sunshine.’

‘But not five years of it, all at once.’

Miles began to look irritable again. ‘I must say, Gaston, for a man in your position you’re being extremely difficult to please.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. If I’m going to sell my soul I might as well get a decent price for it.’

‘I do wish you’d discuss the subject of your livelihood seriously.

‘I was just about to, old lad. I don’t suppose you could advance me ten quid, could you? Resigning abruptly from Porterhampton left me a month’s salary short.’

‘You know I am against loans among relatives. But I will agree if you accede to my suggestion about the psychiatrist. I am certain that’s what you need. I can easily arrange for you to see Dr Punce, who manages the aptitude tests for the oil company. He rather specializes in whittling down square pegs.’

I don’t share the modern reverence for psychiatrists, mostly because all the ones I know are as cracked as a load of old flower-pots. But the financial blood was running so thinly I accepted.

‘I suppose you have no serious plans at all for maintaining yourself?’ Miles asked, putting away his cheque book.

‘I’ve a few more medical articles on the stocks. I’d also thought of trying my hand at a bit of copywriting – you know, “Don’t let your girdle be a hurdle, we make a snazzier brassière,” and so on.’

Miles winced. ‘Gaston looking for another job?’ asked Connie, appearing with the coffee. ‘That’s no problem anyway. A bright young man like him should he in demand anywhere.’

A bit
infra dig
, I thought, a doctor going to a psychiatrist. Like a fireman ringing the station to say his house was alight. I didn’t remember much of the psychiatry course at St Swithin’s myself, except the afternoon Tony Benskin was left to hypnotize a young woman with headaches, and once he’d got her in the responsible state suggested she took her blouse off. Apparently Tony’s hypnotic powers are low voltage, because the girl clocked him one against the corner of the instrument cupboard. Quite some confusion it caused when the chief psychiatrist came in, to find the patient stamping about shouting and the doctor unconscious.

But I dutifully appeared at Dr Punce’s rooms in Wimpole Street the following afternoon, and found him a tall, thin fellow in striped trousers, a pince-nez on a black ribbon, and side-whiskers. I was shown in by a blonde nurse, which put me in a awkward position at the start – if I gave her the usual once-over the psychiatrist might decide something pretty sinister, and on the other hand, if I didn’t, he might decide something even worse. I hit on a compromise, and asked her what the time was.

I took a seat and prepared for him to dig into my subconscious, shaking the psychopathic worms out of every spadeful.

‘I don’t suppose you treat many doctors?’ I began.

‘I assure you that all professions are fully represented in my case-books.’

‘Psychiatry is the spice of life, and all that?’ I laughed.

But he had no sense of humour, either. ‘The note I have from your cousin mentions your difficulty in finding congenial employment,’ he went on, offering me a cigarette, as psychiatrists always do.

I nodded. ‘Miles seems to think I should find a job with security. Though frankly I rather prefer insecurity. But I suppose that’s a bit of a luxury these welfare days.’

‘H’m. I am now going to recite a succession of words. I wish you to say the first word that comes into your head in reply. Light?’

‘No, it’s going very well, thank you. I’ve got some matches of my own.’

‘That is the first word.’

‘Oh, I see. Sorry. Yes, of course. Er – sun.’

‘Night?’

‘Club.’

‘H’m. Sex?’

‘Psychiatrists.’

‘Line?’

‘Sinker.’

‘Straight?’

‘Finishing.’

‘Crooked?’

‘Psychiatrists. I say, I’m terribly sorry. I didn’t mean to say that at all.’

Dr Punce sat for a while with his eyes closed. I was wondering if he’d had a large lunch and dozed off, when he went on, ‘Dr Grimsdyke, I have had a particularly heavy month with my practice. I fear that I am sometimes tempted to be rude to my more difficult patients.’

‘If it’s any consolation,’ I sympathized with him, ‘I’m tempted quite often too. But don’t worry – the feeling will pass. I recommend a few days in the open air.’

‘Have you heard the story of the donkey and the salt?’ he asked bleakly.

‘No, I don’t think I have.’ I settled down to listen, knowing that psychiatrists pick up quite a few good ones in the run of their work.

‘I’d like you to follow it carefully. There was once a donkey who fell into the water, crossing a stream on a very hot day with a load of salt. Eventually he got to his feet, feeling greatly relieved because the water had dissolved his burden. The next day he was crossing the stream loaded with sponges. This time he deliberately fell, but the sponges soaked up so much water the donkey was unable to rise at all. The animal succumbed. What do you think of that?’

‘Ha ha!’ I said. ‘Jolly funny.’

In fact, I thought it a pretty stupid story, but one has to be polite.

‘You think that the story is funny?’

‘Oh, yes. Best I’ve heard for weeks. I suppose you know the one about the bishop and the parrot?’

‘Dear me, dear me,’ said the psychiatrist, and started writing notes.

After a good many questions about the Grimsdyke childhood, which was just the same as any other beastly little boy’s, he asked, ‘Any sexual difficulties?’

‘By Jove, yes.’

I told him the story of Avril Atkinson, but he didn’t seem impressed.

‘Your trouble, Dr Grimsdyke,’ he finally decided, wiping his pince-nez, ‘is that you find yourself in uncongenial employment.’

I asked him what I was supposed to do about it, but he only said something about it being a consulting-room and not the Labour Exchange.

‘I mean, being a doctor doesn’t train you for anything else much, does it? Not like some of those barristers, who get fed up standing on their feet drivelling away to judges and collect fat salaries running insurance companies.’

‘There have been medical bishops and ambassadors. Rhodesia had a medical Prime Minister. Goethe and Schiller were, of course, once both medical students.’

‘Yes, and Dr Gatling invented the machine gun, Dr Guillotin invented the guillotine and Dr Dover became a pirate. I don’t think I’ve much qualification for any of those professions, I’m afraid.’

‘I suggest some non-clinical branch. How about entymology? Are you fond of insects?’

I thought deeply. ‘Well, if I’m really no good as a doctor I suppose I could always end up as a psychiatrist. I say, I’m terribly sorry,’ I added. ‘Just for the moment I was forgetting–’

‘Good afternoon, Dr Grimsdyke.’

‘Right-ho. Do you want to see me again?’

‘No. I don’t want to see you at all. The nurse will show you out.’

I left him shaking his head and fumbling nervously with his pince-nez. The poor chap looked as though he really ought to have seen a psychiatrist.

‘How did you get on?’ asked Connie, answering the door when I called to report.

‘Well, I think I won.’

‘I hope he recommended shock treatment. Your Uncle Rudolph’s in the sitting-room.’

‘Good Lord, is he really? Where’s Miles?’

‘Out on a case. But don’t worry – Uncle only wants to offer you a job. One of those rich patients who’ve been buying up the local country houses has asked him to Jamaica for a holiday. As he’s got twenty-four hours to find a locum for the next three months, I suggested you.’

‘That’s really very decent of you, Connie.’

Since returning from the East, the old uncle had settled at Long Wotton, a pleasant niche in the Cotswolds with thatched roofs and draught cider and cows in the High Street. My session with the psychiatrist not producing much alternative to a lifetime of GP, and Miles’ ten quid already having undergone severe amputation, I felt glad of a decent job anywhere. I consoled myself that half rural practice is veterinary medicine anyway, and I’m rather fond of animals.

‘My daughter-in-law talked to me for thirty minutes before persuading me to take you as my locum,’ Uncle Rudolph greeted me. He was smaller and bristlier than Miles, with hair and eyebrows like steel wool under the influence of powerful magnets, and an equally prickly ginger tweed suit.

‘That’s very civil of you, uncle,’ I told him, ‘but as a matter of fact, you’re not putting me to any trouble, as I’m quite free at the moment.’

‘If you come to Long Wotton on Thursday, I can hand over. My Mrs Wilson will look after you adequately. Though she is attuned to the habits of an elderly widower, so don’t expect champagne and caviar for breakfast.’

‘Good Lord, no. I couldn’t possibly manage anything heavier than cornflakes in the morning, anyway.’

‘Kindly remember, Gaston, that there are a large number of important people in the neighbourhood. Most of them are my patients, and I wish them to remain so. Now listen to me. I understand from Miles that you are short of cash?’

‘I am rather undernourished in the pocket at the moment,’ I admitted.

‘You know I have certain funds under my control which I saved you dissipating as a medical student. If you behave sensibly and efficiently at Long Wotton I am prepared to release them. If not, you will have to wait until my demise. And I can assure you that my blood-pressure is excellent.’

‘All that matters, uncle,’ I told him, ‘is giving you satisfaction. In fact, you might just as well advance me the cash now.’

But he didn’t scent to grasp the point, and hurriedly asked Connie to fetch him another whisky and soda. Shortly afterwards Miles came in, and nobody took much notice of me any more.