Doctor On The Job (13 page)

Professor Ding found his usual broad grin. ‘This patient a bit nervous. He spending all week, just waiting for his operation, playing Scrabble, bloody stupid game. Enough to get the old nerves frayed in anyone. This morning comes his big chance. Some stupid bugger gets run over right on St Swithin’s doorstep, by one of them TV vans driving through the gate. Casualty reckon they gotta stiff on their hands. But, “Oh no,” I says. “Ha ha,” I says. “The old ticker in the corpse beat away lub-dup, lub-dup down the old stethoscope, exactly as described in the famous textbook,
The
Student’s Companion
”. I tells them to connect him up to the mains, keep the old breathing going, though bits of him are as dead as a load of doornails. Boy! I says to myself. We’re gonna start the big production number here and now. I goes up to the ward to tell this ungrateful sod –’ He gave his patient a violent shake. ‘Just to put new heart in him –’

Professor Ding paused. His grin widened, his natural good humour bubbled through his professional disapprobation. ‘I put new heart in him! You get it? I make a joke.’

‘You told the theatre porters it was an emergency operation?’ Pip asked.

‘Sure. Our glorious President and Field Marshal and Minister of Health in Shanka, he reckon a heart swap an emergency. Gotta be done quick, to put Shanka on the map afore the next International Health Congress start dishing out the funds for cardiac research and all that jazz. Mind, we don’t have all that much cardiac research going on just this moment in Shanka,’ admitted the professor. ‘But the lolly come in mighty useful for other expenses.’

‘What’s your opinion, Faith?’

‘Look, Mister – the corpse is red-hot, just right,’ Professor Ding told Pip urgently. ‘But what happen after he bin connected to the old respirator a few hours, maybe days? He go off, like bad fish. Heart no good for nothing but cat meat. I gotta slice this carcass right now. Besides, think of all the electric juice what the stiff is consuming at the hospital’s expense.’

‘To my mind,’ Faith said precisely, ‘the emergency concerns the cardiac donor. The recipient you are holding by the back of the neck, Professor Ding, looks in no need of immediate treatment. In fact, he seems to be struggling away very healthily. But as the donor in the respirator is already dead, how can he present the need for a life-saving operation? So it isn’t an emergency, QED.’

Giving a yell, the patient broke from the Professor’s grasp and disappeared with trailing dressing-gown round the corner.

‘Come back, you ungrateful little bleeder,’ shouted Professor Ding furiously, giving chase. ‘You just wait till I got my knife into you, I’m gonna cut off a few bits what’ll spoil your Saturday nights, you just wait and see. And don’t forget that hundred bucks what you borrowed,
and
it’s about time you let me have back my automatically winding self-focusing reflex, which I reckon you gone and flogged at the second-hand shop…’

The noise died away. ‘Come,’ said Pip firmly. ‘It is only ethical that we should turn aside for our professional duties, despite keeping so many busy people waiting downstairs.’ He buttoned up his brown coat and threw back his shoulders. ‘I shall now meet the Press.’

‘No,’ said the dean. ‘Definitely, unequivocably and inflexibly no.’

‘But my dear Dean! Surely you must see how so simple an action would instantly end this distressing and uncomfortable episode in the hospital’s history?’ countered Sir Lancelot.

‘I would no sooner reinstate Chipps in the medical school than invite a Soho vice king round to tea with my family.’

‘But his reinstatement would be hailed as a move of diplomatic brilliance,’ Sir Lancelot urged. The contentious appendix had been removed, and they were standing in the main hall of St Swithin’s during the middle of that afternoon. Sir Lancelot noticed that despite the strike it seemed to contain as many lost visitors as ever. ‘Something worthy of a Disraeli or a Talleyrand or that fat fellow who keeps getting on and off aeroplanes.’

‘No,’ said the dean.

‘You don’t seem to give any thought to the patients,’ Sir Lancelot told him gruffly.

‘I have put my patients first all my life. Despite personal considerations which were at times overwhelming. Now they are irresistibly so.’

‘If you’re so stiff-necked and pig-headed that you can’t climb down for once,’ Sir Lancelot said crossly, ‘then you must have a smaller mind than even I imagined, all these years I have been obliged to listen to its jejune outpourings.’

‘Insults will get you nowhere, Lancelot,’ the dean responded primly. ‘Though in fact you might have taken the words from my mouth about yourself. It is not that I refuse to admit 1 was wrong. No medical man would ever refuse that.’

‘No, if only because the necessity seems to happen so often.’

‘But I will not countenance in the medical school the man who…who shacked up my daughter.’

‘We can’t go about bleating like our professional moralists,’ Sir Lancelot said in exasperation. ‘We’ve got to accept human beings as they are. That’s the first thing you learn in medicine, surely? Young persons have been doing what you describe with considerable vigour for centuries. It is merely that they are more open about it than in the days of Little Nell, or Nell Gwynn for that matter. Anyway, an awful lot of it’s boasting. People these days seem to enjoy a remarkable conceit about their abilities at sex or driving.’

‘She is not your daughter,’ the dean said in a vinegary voice. ‘She is mine. Besides, the young man has always struck me as looking highly insanitary.’

‘That’s your last word?’

‘Indubitably.’

‘So the strike will go on,’ Sir Lancelot observed gloomily. ‘Perhaps for years. Some do, even when the pickets have completely forgotten what it was all about.’

‘I am past caring. Civilization is over. Chaos reigns. The Creator has announced
Fiat nox
and switched off. I’m going for my tea.’ The dean slipped into a lift just as the doors closed.

Sir Lancelot gave a heavy sigh. The dean was an obstinate fool, and the opinions of obstinate fools were more trouble to eradicate than greenfly in roses. He took another lift down to the sub-basement car park. He knew that he could blackmail the dean with threats of spiking his pet projects on hospital committees, or revealing his behaviour after the last rugger club dinner. But that took time, and settling the strike was urgent. He crossed thoughtfully to the Rolls in his reserved parking space. He disliked putting to use his influential patients, but the simple coincidence of his professional visit that afternoon was too tempting to be overlooked.

Sir Lancelot drove up the winding concrete slope, stacked on either side with plastic bags of smelly rubbish, the local refuse collectors having ‘blacked’ it. Strange, those emotional words, he ruminated. ‘Black’ or ‘red’ or ‘strike’ itself stirred deep emotions in rugged breasts. So did ‘lock-out’ or ‘victimization’ or ‘boss’, or in a different sense ‘workers’. He could have agreed with Pip that politics was really simple practical psychology. And industrial disputes were founded not upon money, which could only buy things, but upon power, which was pride. Meanwhile, he reflected as he drove westwards, it was useful to play the worm in so many powerful men’s confidences.

Sir Lancelot drew up his Rolls at the kerb. A policeman saluted. Nodding acknowledgement, clutching his square black leather instrument case, he made for the front door. A lurking young man immediately stepped forward with, ‘Excuse me – but you would be Sir Lancelot Spratt the surgeon, I believe?’

‘Well, I don’t look like the Leader of the Opposition, do I?’ he returned testily.

‘Is there any particular significance in your visit?’ his interceptor asked eagerly. ‘I represent the
Daily
—’

‘My dear young man, mine is purely a routine call which is never reported in the Press. The appearance of medical persons on the doorsteps of great men can have effects which are widespread and often devastating. Currencies crumble, stock exchanges collapse, armies march. I have an arrangement to prevent such catastrophes occurring regularly once a month. You should have checked with your editor.’

The front door had already opened, in the hands of a tail-coated butler. Inside was a lean, youngish Civil Servant, dressed with the same formality of the surgeon.

‘Good afternoon, Sir Lancelot.’ The surgeon had got to know the official well over the past few years. ‘I’m afraid Mr Nelson is still in committee. He’ll be with you as soon as possible.’

Sir Lancelot nodded. ‘I assume he’s been keeping well?’

‘As fit as a flea. Or should I say some other insect?’ The Civil Servant smiled, being one of the few in the secret. ‘Mrs Nelson is in the garden tatting. She wondered if you’d care to join her for a cup of tea and a cigarette?’

‘I don’t smoke, and I would not intrude upon a lady’s afternoon’s peace. I’ll go straight upstairs.’

Sir Lancelot stepped into the narrow automatic lift. Mr and Mrs Herbert Nelson lived in a cramped flat above the official rooms which filled most of the old, oft-renovated building. In the bedroom, Sir Lancelot removed his jacket, rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt, and opened the leather case on a chair. His eye travelled round the now familiar personal items in the room – the group photograph of Mr Nelson in his youthful football team, his framed life-saving certificate and coloured commendation from Sunday school, two texts in pokerwork
Wine Maketh Merry
:
But Money Answereth All Things Ecclesiastes X
19 and
There Are More Ways to Kill A Cat Than Choking It With Cream
. He noticed again the small shelf of well-thumbed books,
Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare
,
The Golden Treasury
,
The Plain Man’s Guide to Wine
,
Teach Yourself Economics
. He genuinely was the simple man he liked to see depicted in the newspapers, Sir Lancelot decided indulgently. The surgeon was inspecting a small ceramic article of baffling use inscribed
Clovelly
, with a year indicating purchase on the Nelsons’ honeymoon, when the bedroom door opened and his patient hurried in.

‘Afternoon, Sir Lancelot. I was at a very long and very tough confrontation with the people from the Autoworkers Union. About the National Bubble.’

‘The little plastic car which threatened to make our streets resemble rivers floating with ping-pong balls?’

‘That’s the snag. No one wants to buy it. We’re thinking of giving ’em away – first to deserving persons, old age pensioners, unmarried mothers and that. Then to anyone prepared to drive ’em off. Trouble is, the Autoworkers’ executive aren’t content with our ban on the import of foreign cars. They want Parliament to pass a law making all foreigners buy British ones. I explained that quite frankly for technical reasons it wouldn’t work.’ He started taking down his trousers. ‘How do these political slogans appeal to you, Sir Lancelot?
Inflation Means More Money. Employment Doesn’t Mean Work. Social Security Secures Socialism
. Quite frankly?’

‘Not enormously.’

‘I rather agree. Mrs Nelson thought of them last Sunday morning, while she was beating the Yorkshire. To cheer the country up at a stroke, you know, in place of strife.’ He removed his trousers and Y-fronts, and draped them on the edge of his dressing-table. Mr Herbert Nelson was short and slight, with bright pink cheeks and bright blue eyes, scanty fair hair and a soft, finely wrinkled skin. He was always smiling. ‘I’m in a bit of a hurry, I’m afraid,’ he apologized. ‘In five minutes I’m meeting some gnomes of Zurich, then I’ve got to join the cocktail circuit with some faceless bureaucrats of Brussels.’

‘We need not be long.’

‘I hope not. But if it’s there, you’ll catch it, won’t you?’ he asked anxiously.

In reply, Sir Lancelot snapped together a long, slim pair of surgical forceps in front of his own nose.

‘It’s most reassuring, your performing these regular examinations.’ Mr Nelson lay on the bed. ‘I could swear on the Bible there was one there, sometimes. Particularly in midsummer. And when the pollen count is high, naturally. I can even hear a buzz, quite distinctly. I turned to the Chancellor yesterday and asked if he could hear a buzz, too. I was most relieved when he couldn’t, though quite frankly it seemed to fill the entire room. I suppose having a bee in one’s bonnet is quite normal, but having a bee in one’s –’

‘Lie on your left side,’ commanded Sir Lancelot. He took from his case a long, narrow glittering tube with a handle at one end. ‘Easy now.’

‘Oh, I’m perfectly used to it. I find it not unpleasant, in fact. Can you see the bee?’

‘Not for the moment.’

‘It never stings, you know. Just buzzes about.’

‘By the way,’ remarked Sir Lancelot, choosing his moment. ‘You know of the trouble at St Swithin’s?’

‘Yes, I heard you were having some little local difficulties with your social contract. What is it? People who’ve never had it so good wanting it rather better? Jobs for all, the sack for nobody, a fatter pay packet every Christmas? It’s the same everywhere, you know. Even among ordinary, decent working-class people. The doctrine of full employment only works without trouble among the Saints. Sure you can’t see the bee?’

‘I’m still looking,’ said Sir Lancelot, applying his eye. ‘I wondered if you might consider personal intervention? After all, we do an enormous export trade in the private part of St Swithin’s. I’m sure the hospital deserves the Queen’s Award for Industry, though perhaps the insignia on the door would look a little discouraging to arriving patients.’

‘You want me to have a gritty confrontation with this Mr Crisps, or whoever he is? Make him feel the smack of firm Government?’ continued Mr Nelson, half into his pillow. ‘Get him to call off the strike at a stroke?’

‘He’s a very impressionable young man. From my own experience of him as a medical student, a little skilful bullying will bring him to heel.’

‘Very well,’ Mr Nelson agreed. ‘I’ll see him tonight, then. Nine o’clock? Then they’ll have the film clips in good time for
The News At Ten
. No bee?’

‘You’re absolutely bee-free, take it from me,’ said Sir Lancelot, withdrawing his instrument.

‘Well, that’s certainly a great relief. It always is, every time you stick your little scope in and look. Yet on occasions I could imagine I’d a whole hive up there. When we were at one of those Oriental embassies last week they offered me a ceremonial gift of honey. Mrs Nelson had to laugh. Their Ambassador wondered why, and got a bit shirty.’

He reached for his trousers. ‘Excuse me. The wind of change. Tell me, Sir Lancelot. Do you think that I am perhaps a shade abnormal, imagining that I have bees buzzing about up there? I mean, a man in my position. Not that I should ever have any intention of resigning, of course.’

‘Bizarre delusions involving animal or insect life are not unusual in great men,’ Sir Lancelot reassured him, washing his hands in the adjoining small bathroom. ‘Sir Winston Churchill sometimes had the feeling of being followed by a large black dog.’

‘There’s no known remedy, I suppose?’ Mr Nelson pulled the trousers on.

‘It is a condition admittedly resistant to treatment,’ Sir Lancelot admitted. ‘I had a similar case, much more severe than yours, who got himself into the most peculiar contortions by insisting on feeling for his bee with his fingertip. I exhorted him to pull his finger out. In the end, I was obliged to administer a general anaesthetic and assure him afterwards that I had performed a successful apisectomy – as I suppose the surgical removal of bees should be correctly termed.’

‘That effected a permanent cure?’

‘Alas, no. I shortly discovered the patient in exactly the same contorted position. He explained that having been put to such trouble ridding himself of the insect, he was keeping the route blocked in case it tried to get back. I shall tell young Chipps to present himself at nine sharp.’

The interview with Pip that evening was not the brightest bloom in Mr Nelson’s convoluted garland of successful negotiations. As the pair sat down in the official reception room, the tail-coated butler placed at Pip’s elbow a silver tray bearing a covered silver dish and a bottle of brown ale.

‘Beer and sandwiches,’ explained Mr Nelson in the armchair opposite. ‘They’re a traditional offering for these sort of late night, last minute, strike-averting talks. The employers’ side get whisky, but it’s the same principle.’

‘I’m not very hungry or thirsty at the moment, I’m afraid,’ said Pip, who refused to be dutifully impressed with his surroundings.

‘Mrs Nelson can wrap them up, and you can enjoy them later,’ he said kindly. ‘Well, lad. What’s the trouble? Trying to fight the Three Day Week War all over again?’

‘I only want justice.’

‘That’s right, lad,’ he agreed encouragingly. ‘So do we all. By gum, we do. The lifeblood of democracy, that is.’

‘I represent the reasonable aspirations of the down-trodden proletariat.’

‘Have a fag.’

‘Don’t smoke, thanks.’

‘Neither do I. Except cigars. And these days it doesn’t do to go round in public with a big fat cigar in your face. Not like the times of Sir Winston Churchill. Always with his cigar, and his top hat, and his big black dog,’ he continued fondly. ‘Ah, you missed something during the war, lad. Mind, it was terrible with the bombs and that, and people being killed. I fought all the way through it you know,’ he added with a note of defiant pride. ‘As an Air Raid Warden. Bit of medical trouble kept me out of the Army. But the great spirit in the country! The Dunkirk spirit, the Alamein spirit, the spirit that cheerfully accepted shortages, rationing, the blackout, sing-songs down the shelters…’ He hummed a few bars of
We’ll Meet Again
. ‘We were one big happy family in those days, lad. It was our finest hour. I call for us all, lad, to relive that hour now, whatever the sacrifice, whatever the inconvenience. Well, that’s settled then,’ he said, holding out his hand and rising.