The Doctor Is Sick (8 page)

‘Ye Old Tea Shop is a solecism. The “Y” is a mistake for the Anglo-Saxon letter called
thorn
, which stood for “TH”.'

The conference was silenced. The pullovered youths said they thought they'd better be going down to lunch. Edwin was aware of being watched narrowly by those nearest to him. Oh, well, if they thought he was mad—— Anyway, his mouth was still mobile, as capable of rounding as of spreading; at least he'd proved that.

Another long yawn of a day, a huge mouth into which dull meals were thrown. At visiting-time a small man in an old baggy suit, cap and muffler, shambled in. He had a piece of paper in his hand. This he showed to an Italian ward-maid who was removing chrysanthemums. She
pointed to Edwin's bed. ‘
Il dottore?
' she said, without satire. The man, still capped, shambled over.

‘Told me to come 'ere,' he said, standing at ease. He was a youngish man, though lined, and his incisors and precanines seemed to have been yanked out as a single wedge. ‘'Er. She told me to come.'

‘It's very, very kind,' said Edwin.

‘Beat me at shove-ha'penny at dinner-time. Didn't think she'd beat me, I didn't, and I didn't ‘ave the price of a pint on me. So couldn't buy her one. So she made me come 'ere instead.' He continued to stand at ease, but kept his eyes at attention. They were pale blue eyes and they looked fixedly at the blank wall opposite.

‘You needn't stay if you don't want to,' said Edwin.

‘Got to. It's only fair. She beat me at shove-ha'penny.' There was a lengthy pause. Edwin said:

‘What do they call you?' This, he was sure, was a man with no real name.

‘'Ippo.'

‘Hippo? Why do they call you that?'

‘That's what they call me. 'Ippo.'

‘It's quite a distinguished nickname really, I suppose. Have you ever heard of St Augustine of Hippo?'

The man stood easy. He turned his eyes on Edwin with something like animation, saying: ‘Funny you should say that. That was the school just round the corner from where we was. Sinter Gastin. We used to knock 'em about a bit comin' 'ome. Didn't stay there long, though.'

‘No?'

‘Up and down, we was, up and down for a long time. My old governor was very 'ard. Knocked 'ell out of us kids. So now I can't read nor write. Not proper.'

‘What do you do for a living?'

‘What comes in, you know. A bit 'ere and a bit there. Carryin' the boards about a bit just now. Advertisin'. One front, one back, as it might be a sandwich. Don't know what's written on them, though. Might be anything.'

‘Yes, I see what you mean.'

‘But that's the way it is.'

‘Of course.' There was another very long pause. Edwin said: ‘I've had rather a tough day. I'd like to sleep. You can go now, if you want to.'

‘I'll stick it out.' He was grimly at ease again.

‘There's no need to if you don't wish.'

‘She said I'd got to.'

‘I see. But I'm going to try and sleep, just the same.' Edwin lay on his side, watching this conscientious little man through his eyelashes. But feigned sleep became real sleep: the dull headache was something to escape from. When he awoke all visitors had long since gone. He wondered what the time was and looked painfully towards the locker-top where he normally kept his wrist-watch. The watch was no longer there. Curious. He sat up and looked again. Really anxious, for this watch had been a present from Sheila, an expensive present too, he opened up the locker's two compartments. It was not easy to search through the jumble of towels and discarded dirty pyjamas while still in bed. Very gingerly, Edwin started to get out. The air bounced all over his brain and the pain hammered excruciatingly. On his knees, he searched both locker-compartments, searched beneath the locker, behind it. No watch. Well, serve her damn well right. It was her idea, wasn't it? – sending in the odd disreputable characters she met in the public bar, thieves, adulterers,
possibly murderers too. The pain in his anxious head was now nearly insupportable. He was just dragging himself back to bed when Dr Railton came cheerfully in.

‘Good at disobeying orders, aren't you?' said Dr Railton. ‘Sometimes I wonder how you managed to achieve the rank of doctor.' This was evidently, to this M.B., Ch.B., a sore point. ‘It's a matter of elementary common sense, after all, to avoid pain if one possibly can.'

‘It was my watch, you see. I was looking for my watch.'

‘Never mind about your watch now. We've more serious things than watches to talk about. Perhaps we'd better have the bed-screens round.' He dragged the screaming curtains-on-wheels to the bed where Edwin now lay again, creating a sinister fragile little private room.

‘You're not going to do anything now, surely?' said Edwin.

‘Not now, no. I want to tell you about the results of the tests you've been having.'

‘Yes?'

‘There's something there all right. That's been amply confirmed. Now we know exactly where it is.'

‘But
what
is it?'

‘Never you mind what it is. It's something that shouldn't be there, that's all. That's all that you need to know. Something that will have to be removed.'

‘It's a tumour, I suppose,' said Edwin. ‘That's what you told my wife, I suppose. You shouldn't try and entrust her with secrets. It's not fair. Why couldn't you tell me?'

‘Why upset you before it's absolutely necessary? Not that it's really anything to be upset about. The operation's a simple enough matter.'

‘Supposing it's malignant?'

‘I don't think it is that. You can never be sure, of course, but I don't think it is that. The layman,' said Dr Railton, depressing imaginary trumpet-valves on the bed-cover, ‘the layman tends to get emotional about medical terms. Cancer, gastric, malignant. Just take it that there's something in your head which is doing you no good at all, and that something can be removed swiftly, simply and painlessly. I'm sorry,' said Dr Railton, ‘that we had to burden your wife with our suspicions. She's a strongly emotional type. But there was the business of getting her permission to operate, if operating became necessary.'

‘You got her permission?'

‘Oh, yes. She was very concerned about you, very anxious that you should be made well again.'

‘And how about my permission?'

‘Well,' said Dr Railton, ‘obviously you can't be dragged into the operating theatre screaming your refusal to be operated on. You're sane enough, and you have the power to choose. But I think you'll see that it's very much in your interests to say yes.'

‘I don't know,' said Edwin. ‘I haven't felt too bad really, despite the collapses, despite other odd things, sex and what-not. I have a feeling that I'll survive somehow without anybody mucking about inside my head.'

‘You can't be too sure of that,' said Dr Railton, still depressing, with vibrant fingers, the trumpet-valves on the coverlet. ‘I'd say it was dangerous the way you are. There's also the question of your job back in Burma.'

‘I could give that up.'

‘You'd have to get another job somewhere. That won't be easy. And do remember that you'll get steadily worse.'

Edwin thought for a minute. ‘There's no doubt about its being successful?'

‘There's always some doubt. There's got to be. But the chances are overwhelmingly in favour of this operation going well. I'd say about a hundred to one. You'll be a changed man when it's all over, you won't be the same person at all. You'll bless us, really you will.'

‘A changed man, eh? A man with a changed personality.'

‘Oh, not fundamentally different. Shall we say a healthy man instead of a sick one?'

‘I see. All right. When?'

‘Next Tuesday. Good,' said Dr Railton, ‘good man.'

‘Supposing I change my mind before then?'

‘Don't,' said Dr Railton earnestly, ‘don't, whatever you do. Trust us, trust me.' He stood with his arms out, a figure to be trusted, looking all too much, however, like a dance-band trumpeter who had put down his instrument in order to take a vocal.

‘All right,' said Edwin. ‘I trust you.'

CHAPTER NINE

On Sunday afternoon Sheila came, only a little tipsy, dragging in by the hand a reluctant young man with a beard. She looked younger and prettier, was smartly made-up, and wore her beige opossum coat swinging open over a new mohair dress. ‘Darling,' she cried. ‘Darling, darling.'

‘Forgive me,' said Edwin, ‘if I don't start out of bed to greet you. It's this air that's still buzzing about inside.'

‘Oh,' said Sheila, ‘of course you two haven't met. Strange, isn't it, really? Nigeledwin. Edwinigel. I'm sure you'd like each other a lot if you got a chance to meet properly.'

‘How do you do.'

‘How do you do.'

‘Look here,' said Edwin, ‘that awful little man pinched my watch. The one you beat at shove-ha'penny who calls himself 'Ippo.'

‘Did he? That's annoying. I haven't seen him since, nor has anybody. He was passing through, resting his sandwich-boards, and the Anchor isn't his local at all. You
are
a fool, Edwin. You're too trusting, that's your trouble. We'll have to get you another, won't we? A good thing that one didn't cost any money.'

‘Didn't cost——?'

‘I got it off Jeff Fairlove.
You
remember. I bullied him into giving it to me. For a present for you.'

‘And why,' asked the bearded Nigel, ‘were you able to
bully him? That is to say, what
hold
did you have over him?' Edwin grinned to himself at this sly glint of jealousy. Nigel was a young man untidily trying to make himself look not older but ageless – the ageless maned bearded painter.

‘My beauty,' said Sheila, with Cockney vowels, ‘my infinite attractiveness. No man can resist me when I bully him.' The painter nodded seriously. ‘This afternoon,' said Sheila, ‘Nigel proposes to draw me. Not paint, draw. I'm so glad, darling, that everything's fixed up at last. It'll be such a relief to get things over. You must be pleased yourself.'

‘So they've told you, have they?'

‘That man Railton was down in the hall. He said they're going to operate and that everything's going to be all right. It's such a relief.'

‘A relief not to have to nurse that secret any more?'

‘That too.' She smiled. ‘We can be back in Moulmein for the winter. I hate the cold, you know,' she said to Nigel. ‘I hope this flat of yours is warm.'

‘If I were a painter,' said Edwin, ‘one of the things I'd like to paint is the view you get from the air as you're dropping down to Moulmein. Beauty and utility. All those paddy-fields of different shapes and sizes, not a square inch of waste, a big collective artifact, yet not anything else that's human or even natural in sight. But I suppose it would be too easy to paint.'

‘Nothing's easy to paint,' said the painter. He had a gobbly kind of voice. ‘Take my word for it, painting is absolute hell. That's why I keep on with it.'

‘And what modern painters do you most admire?' asked Edwin.

‘Very few. Very, very few indeed. Chagall, perhaps. Dong Kingman, possibly. One or two others.' He looked gloomy.

‘Never mind,' said Sheila. ‘Don't worry so much about things. Everything will be all right.' She smiled reassuringly at him, patting his arm. He wore very tight trousers. ‘Nigel,' she said, ‘is really a very good painter. When you're well you must see some of his things. Some of them are most effective.'

‘Don't,' snarled Nigel, ‘use that word. They're not effective. That's the most damning word you could possibly hope to find.' He raised his voice. ‘Noise again,' sighed Edwin to himself. R. Dickie's squad of visitors looked over interestedly, assured that there would always be entertainment of some sort or another on Edwin's bed. ‘To say they're effective is to lower them to the level of, to the level of, to the level of a cinema poster. It's bloody insulting.' R. Dickie's visitors nodded to each other, pleased at this fulfilment of the expected.

‘All right,' said Edwin. ‘Shall we say that they're not effective, then?'

Nigel glared at Edwin. ‘You haven't seen any of them,' he said. ‘You're not in a position to make
any judgment whatsoever?'

‘You must remember, Nigel,' said Sheila sharply, ‘that you are speaking to my husband and that my husband is very ill. I won't have this petulance about your art.' Nigel sulked. ‘That's better,' said Sheila. ‘And, Nigel, remember your promise.'

‘What promise?'

‘Just like an
artist
, isn't it?' said Sheila. ‘All take and no give. Your promise about Edwin's laundry.'

‘Oh, that.'

‘Nigel,' said Sheila, ‘is a very lucky boy. There's a Hungarian woman who comes every week and does his washing for him. That's in exchange for English lessons.'

‘What,' asked Edwin, ‘does he know about giving English lessons?'

‘He's learning,' said Sheila. ‘Learning by doing. And one thing he's promised to do is to have all your dirty clothes washed. Where are they?'

‘This,' said Edwin, ‘is most kind.' He was growing tired of always sounding like Mr Salteena, but what else could he say? ‘That locker's stuffed with dirty pyjamas and towels and things, and there's a shirt in the big locker outside.'

‘Good,' said Sheila. ‘We're going straight to Nigel's flat or studio, or whatever he calls it, and we can take those things with us.'

‘We'd better go now,' said Nigel. ‘I've had no lunch, remember.'

‘But you had breakfast.'