Doctor On The Boil (4 page)

‘Officer,’ demanded Sir Lancelot from the window of his Rolls. ‘I would appear to have lost a hotel. Perhaps you’d kindly direct me to the Crécy?’

‘But it’s right opposite, sir. The tall white building.’

A frown congealed on Sir Lancelot’s broad forehead. ‘
That
overgrown silo?’

‘Maybe you’re thinking of the old hotel, sir? That was pulled down.’

‘Good grief. They haven’t pulled down Buckingham Palace yet, I suppose?’

The policeman grinned. ‘No, sir. But from what they’re charging at that little pub opposite, you might find staying at Buckingham Palace a bit cheaper.’

Sir Lancelot drove into the hotel forecourt, which to his puzzlement was crowded with young and noisy females.

‘Some sort of demo, I suppose,’ he decided, slamming the car door. ‘Or a carnival. Though I suppose today they wear those sort of clothes even at funerals.’ His face lit as he recognized the same manager standing in black jacket and striped trousers beside the doorman. ‘Luigi! How good to see you. Though your establishment has undergone a somewhat alarming metamorphosis.’

‘A pleasure to have you staying again, sir.’ The tall, white-haired Italian was a dignified figure suggesting a particularly experienced doyen of the diplomatic corps in some stylish capital. ‘I’m afraid the days of the old-fashioned family hotel in London are over. But I assure you our comfort and service are maintained. We have put you on the sixteenth floor, next to the Picardy suite. And the chicken
à la kiev
in the grill-room is as good as ever.’

‘Is Potter-Phipps still your hotel doctor?’

‘Alas, no. We have a new man – quite young, and very brilliant, so he leads me to understand. The doorman will garage your car,’ he added, as the porter collected Sir Lancelot’s suitcases.

‘Kind of you to come and greet me in person, Luigi.’

The manager looked a shade uncomfortable. ‘I have in fact another guest due any moment. One as important as yourself Sir Lancelot. Eric Cavendish. You know, the film actor.’

‘Is
he
still going? I’m sure I used to see him in a double-bill with the new Buster Keaton.’

The manager laughed. ‘He is as popular as ever – with the teenagers particularly, as you can see.’

‘Odd,’ murmured the surgeon. ‘I suppose Freud has the answer, if I could ever understand what the fellow is talking about.’

As he spoke, screaming broke out in the crowd. Luigi hurried forward as a chauffeur-driven Mercedes drew up. The manager shepherded into the hotel a tall slim man followed by a short fat one, both wearing large dark glasses despite night having fallen.

‘I suppose he’s in the Picardy suite?’ Sir Lancelot asked the porter. ‘I’ll let the fuss die down before I venture up, I fancy. Besides, I’ve had a long day driving from Wales and am in need of the bar, if you still have such old-fashioned nooks among all this functional plastic.’ He stopped in the hotel doorway. ‘Piped music! The country’s getting like Prospero’s isle – “
Sometimes a thousand twanging instruments Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices…
” and I don’t bloody well like it.’

The first action of Eric Cavendish on reaching the Picardy suite was to remove his toupee, which was itching. Then he took off his dark glasses and with care inspected his eyelids for puffiness. Next, he opened a small crocodile-skin hand-case full of plastic containers, and selecting one green pill, one blue, two orange, and another with red and yellow stripes on it, went to the bathroom for a glass of water and swallowed them.

‘That’s better, Ted,’ he announced to the fat man, his British agent who had met the plane from New York. ‘God, it’s great to be back in dear old London Town! The place where I was born, you know. You might call me a citizen of the world – I’ve an apartment in Paris and a production company in Hollywood, I’ve been married in Las Vegas and divorced in Mexico, I’ve my bank account in Switzerland and I pay my taxes in Liechtenstein – but I only feel at home here, right here.’

Ted, who had kept his glasses on, asked, ‘Have you any plans for tonight, Eric? The wife and I thought maybe a quiet dinner after your trip–’

‘My plans are very beautiful.’ He looked at his watch. ‘In ninety minutes the most wonderful little dolly in the world is going to come through that door. I’m entertaining her up here for dinner – just the two of us, quiet after the trip, as you said.’

Eyebrows rising above the dark glasses indicated Ted’s interest. ‘Do you suppose I’d know her?’

‘No.’ Eric started undressing for a shower. ‘I met her on my TV show in New York. She was over on some sales-promotion trip – Miss Toothpaste or Miss Garbage-cans, or something spine-chilling like that. I made a date. I called her up this morning before take off. And it’s all go.’

‘Where’s she live?’

‘Let me see – I’ve forgotten the geography of this town. Place called Tooting. Quaint name, eh?’ The actor laughed. ‘I guess it’s historical. Fashionable?’

‘It’s had a lot of improvement schemes recently,’ Ted said evasively. He lit a cigarette. ‘How old is she?’

‘Seventeen.’

There was a short silence. ‘Look, Eric – I don’t see so much of you these days, but I was your mate as well as your agent back when you started. So I can talk in a brotherly way. Right? Why don’t you ease up?’

‘Why?’ asked Eric Cavendish gaily, pulling off his shirt and starting to unzip his stays. ‘I like ’em that age, and they like me.’ He paused. ‘Did I remember to take the striped pill?’

‘That’s what I mean. I’m worried about your health. You were pretty sick that time in California.’

‘And do you know how I pulled through? I had an English doctor and an English nurse. They were terrific. I remember one night I just wanted to turn it all in – curl up and die, never look another day in the face again. But that nurse, she sat just holding my hand like a kid and talking to me. I guess she saved my life.’

‘If you need a doctor now, there’s one attached to the hotel. I took care to find out.’

‘Thanks, Ted. But I’ve never felt fitter. Nor younger. Do you mind if I ask you to leave? I’ve got my electric massage, then my medicated bath and my meditation.’

An hour and a half later, Miss Iris Fowler of Tooting Bec, the reigning Miss Business Furnishing, was calmly asking at the porter’s desk for Mr Eric Cavendish.

‘Yes, he’s expecting you, Miss. The page will show you up.’

She was a short blonde girl with delicate, babyish features and large long-lashed blue eyes, wearing a dress which Sir Lancelot would have described as wholly suprapubic. In the lift she took a deep breath.

She was not particularly looking forward to the evening. There were a dozen boys of her own age she would have preferred to spend it with. But she was a clear-headed girl. She wanted to break into modelling or television or the films – anything to get free from a typewriter. Being Miss Office Furnishing, to her disappointment, seemed to lead nowhere. But an hour or so alone with Eric Cavendish might achieve a lot.

‘Hello, there,’ the actor greeted her enthusiastically. His toupee was securely fixed, his eye-lotion applied, his girdle tightly zipped, his skin massaged and medicated, his mind heightened by meditation. ‘And how’s my baby doll?’

‘Very well, thank you, I’m sure.’

He laughed. ‘That sweet British accent! I’m British, you know. At least, I started off that way. I was taken to the States when I was a kid.’

‘Well, fancy that.’

‘Have you seen all my movies?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘You liked them?’

‘Yes, ever so.’ She added, ‘Thank you,’ being a carefully brought-up girl.

Eric poured the martinis. Dinner was served and eaten. He talked about himself while she looked at him with her big soft eyes, and he thought her a delightful conversationalist. When the meal was cleared away and the waiters handsomely tipped, he sat next to her on the sofa and decided to get on with things.

‘Quite a place to visit, London these days.’

‘Oh, yes. There’s the Tower, the Changing of the Guard–’

‘I mean for sex.’

‘Oh, sex. Yes. I suppose so.’

‘If you want to do it, you just do it.’

‘Do what?’

‘Sex.’

Her eyes fell on the electric wall clock. ‘Oo, is that the time? I’ve got to think of my last bus.’

He laughed. ‘You go on a
bus?
There’s democracy or socialism or whatever you label it. Let’s take our time. I’ll hire you a car.’

‘No, I mustn’t be late. My dad will worry that I’ve had an accident.’

‘Shall we get on with it, then?’

She swallowed. ‘All right. Thank you.’

He led her into the bedroom, murmuring, ‘Do you mind if I put out the light? I’m strangely shy.’

‘Please yourself, do.’

In the dark he removed his suit, his girdle, and the copper band he wore against rheumatism. ‘Where are you, baby doll?’

‘I’m on the bed. It ain’t half cold.’

‘I’ll be with you…’ He took off the rest of his clothes, to enjoy it the more. Arms outstretched, starting to breathe heavily, he stumbled through the darkness. ‘Here I am, baby doll.’

He climbed on to the bed. ‘Coo, you
are
hairy.’ She giggled. ‘It tickles.’

‘Where are your lips?’ he asked throatily. His sexual technique, like his acting, had through experience become automatic, though it was polished, if a little old-fashioned, and generally satisfied the audience.

‘Oh, sorry,’ she apologized. ‘I was looking the other way.’

‘I’m going to bite you.’

‘Will you do it where it doesn’t show? The girls in the office–’

‘Or maybe you just want me to go ahead?’

‘Well, there’s no point in wasting time, is there?’

He gave a soft laugh. ‘You London girls! Eager!’

‘I’ve still got to think of my bus–’

He gave a loud cry. She sat bolt upright. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘It’s gone again!’

‘What’s gone?’

He gasped. ‘I’m going to die.’

‘Blimey.’

‘Put on the light.’

‘I don’t know where it is.’

‘Beside the bed, you damn fool.’

She fumbled for the switch. He was sprawled face-down, groaning and holding the small of his back.

‘Fetch a doctor.’

‘I got my first-aid badge in the Guides–’

‘A doctor! Ring down to the desk.’

‘I don’t want nobody to see me like this,’ she told him spiritedly.

‘There’s a bath-robe…in the closet…’

‘This never happens in any of your films,’ she complained.

‘Please! Get a doctor. I implore you.’

She screamed loudly.

‘What in God’s name–’

‘Your head!’ she cried in horror. ‘The top’s coming off.’

He replaced his toupee. ‘Get a doctor, there’s a good little girl. A doctor! I’ll do anything for you, anything…’

Her eyes lit up. ‘My mum says I deserve a modelling career–’

‘All right, all right, I’ll fix it. For both of you. But for God’s sake get the doc before it’s too late. And cover me up with something before I catch pneumonia as well.’

The doctor was quickly found in the grill, where he was finishing dinner at the hotel’s expense. He hurried from the lift to the Picardy suite, his mind already busy with the case – the suite was invariably taken by rich, elderly overseas visitors, and he was calculating what the latest occupant would stand in the way of fees. To his surprise, the door was opened by a young girl in a man’s short dressing-gown.

‘Good evening. I’m Dr Grimsdyke. Are you the patient?’

‘No, there’s a gentleman took queer suddenly in bed.’

‘Oh, what a shame,’ said Grimsdyke sympathetically. ‘Well, I’d better have a look at the fellow, hadn’t I.’

He recognized the actor at once. ‘Eric Cavendish! I’ve always wanted to meet you. But why do you happen to be lying under that candlewick bathmat?’

‘My back,’ he groaned. ‘It’s gone again.’

Grimsdyke assumed a professional manner. ‘Were you putting any strain on the back?’

‘What the hell do you suppose I was doing with that dolly? Mind-reading?’

‘Ah, the old love-muscles sometimes let us down,’ Grimsdyke told him gravely. He poked with his finger. ‘Hurt?’

Eric Cavendish let out a cry.

‘I think we’d better apply traction, if the young lady can help. What’s her name?’

‘I’ve forgotten,’ said the patient distractedly. ‘But she’s Miss…Hardware, or something.’

Iris’ head appeared round the door from the sitting-room. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like my clothes.’

‘Miss Hardware, would you kindly take the patient’s arms while I pull his feet?’ There was a thunderous knocking on the outside door of the suite. ‘Perhaps you’d better answer that first,’ Grimsdyke told her. ‘I’ll give a few preliminary tugs. Tell me if I hurt.’

Eric Cavendish gave another loud howl.

‘Grimsdyke!’ It was Sir Lancelot in a tartan dressing-gown. ‘I might have thought as much. How the devil do you expect me to get a minute’s sleep when the place sounds like Dante’s Inferno? What are you organizing in here? Some sort of sadistic orgy?’

‘Good evening, Sir Lancelot. Case of acute lumbago. Perhaps you’d care to assist me?’

Sir Lancelot glared at Iris. ‘I take it you’re the patient’s young daughter?’

‘I am
not
! If you want to know, I’m just on my way to catch a bus.’

She snatched up her clothes and made for the next room. Sir Lancelot scratched his beard. ‘I fear that I have perhaps been living in the country too long. I suppose you realize, Grimsdyke, that your treatment is all wrong? As I’m here, you’d better let me have a dekko. Don’t worry, my good sir,’ he said to the patient. ‘I happen to be a consultant surgeon. I well remember how I was called to the old Duke of Skye and Lewis in similar circumstances. Not only had he fractured his ankle, but I had to invoke the services of a carpenter to free him from the wreckage of his own four-poster.’ Sir Lancelot chuckled fondly. ‘The dear old Duke was always a man of considerable ingenuity and enterprise.’

‘My dear, dear Lancelot,’ said the dean of St. Swithin’s. ‘My dear fellow! Little did I think – in all the years I have enjoyed your friendship – that I should have to break such terrible news to you. Well, you’ve taken it like a man. Not that I should have expected anything different from one of your character.’

Sir Lancelot gloomily dropped the X-ray picture on to the desk. It was late the following afternoon, and the pair of them sat alone in the dean’s office.

‘I should never have gone on that blasted tour of the Far East,’ Sir Lancelot said resignedly.

‘It is, of course, an extremely rare Asiatic disease you have contracted.’

‘
That’s
not much ruddy consolation.’ The surgeon squared his shoulders. ‘But I’m fine in myself. I don’t remember being fitter. Despite a very poor night, I feel up to swimming the length of the Serpentine and then running right round Hyde Park. It’s ridiculous.’

The dean sighed unhappily. ‘That’s the tragic part of it. Perhaps you are not altogether familiar with the symptomatology? I confess I had to look it up myself. According to the books, the patient has a euphoric feeling of well-being. It’s a very marked feature of the condition. Until quite suddenly…woomph.’

‘Woomph?’ Sir Lancelot stroked his beard. ‘How long? Twelve months?’

‘Well…’

‘Nine?’

‘I’d say six.’

He nodded slowly. ‘So I am to leave this polluted planet? Well, I’ve had a good life, I suppose. It comes to us all. And despite our own unshakeable inner conviction, the world will spin on as busily and just as happily without us.’

‘You have given so much to mankind.’

‘I don’t know, but I’ve certainly taken a good deal out of it.’

The dean fiddled with the stethoscope lying on his desk. ‘If you have any wishes – any last requests…?’

‘Only one,’ Sir Lancelot said in a firm voice. ‘You may recall that yesterday I mentioned taking over some cases in the wards again, under the provisions of our founding charter. I don’t fancy you took kindly to the idea.’

‘Forgive me.’ The dean was horrified at himself. ‘I was being selfish, quite beastly selfish.’

‘Let us overlook that,’ Sir Lancelot told him handsomely. ‘But I’d like to see a few patients now and then, in such time as I have left. After all, I’ve often been called a surgical carthorse. I might as well die in harness.’

‘Any patients you like,’ the dean invited generously. ‘I’m sure they’ll give their permission. Indeed, they’ll be deeply grateful. They’ll show their incisions proudly to their grandchildren, and say, “Sir Lancelot Spratt did that”. Like war-wounds.’

‘Quite,’ said Sir Lancelot. He produced his spotted handkerchief and coughed gently.

‘I’m sure Professor Bingham will open his surgical wards to you. He’ll be doing his list in the theatre now. Why not put the idea to him?’

‘I have one other small request. I am really rather uncomfortable in my hotel. The place is terribly noisy at night, everyone having sex orgies into the small hours–’

‘Of course, you must move in with us.’

‘I am touched, most touched–’

‘With an open heart, we shall do all we can to make your last days happy.’

‘I shall disappear to Wales to…for the…finally.’

The dean hesitated, and added generously, ‘You may have my electric blanket.’

Sir Lancelot rose. ‘Let’s say, Monday week? I am already booked in the hotel till then, and I will have a lot of telephoning of solicitors and suchlike to put my affairs in order. Now I’ll go and see Bingham.’

He added sombrely, ‘He knows?’

‘He knows.’

Sir Lancelot left the dean’s office. He walked slowly into the open, past the hole in the ground to be filled with the new transplant unit. ‘There’s one advantage,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I shall never have to set eyes on
that
monstrosity.’

With gaze downcast, he entered the automatic doors of the new surgical block and took the lift for the top floor. A glance from the anaesthetic-room showed that Bingham was still operating, finishing the minor cases at the end of the list. With movements so familiar, Sir Lancelot took surgical gown, cap and mask from their containers. Visiting an operating theatre in a social way, he did not feel inclined to change his tweed trousers for something more sterile. His technique on these calls was to edge quietly to the operating table, inspect the surgeon’s work for some moments unseen, then make his presence known with a sniff of disapproval which could be heard all over the theatre.

‘It’s Sir Lancelot.’ Bingham looked up. ‘Nurse – push my glasses up my nose, they’ve slipped again.’

‘I suppose you realize you’re doing that all wrong?’

‘Am I?’

‘You’re cutting the gut before you’ve tied off the artery.’

‘As intended. It’s the new technique.’

Sir Lancelot snorted behind his mask. ‘Sounds as if a damn fool invented it.’

‘
I
invented it.’

‘There you are, then–’ He paused. ‘Forgive me, dear boy. As usual, I let my tongue run away with me. I am stupidly blind to the recent advances in surgery, which will carry our profession forward long after I myself am dead and gone.’

Bingham looked up again. ‘I say, that’s very civil of you.’

‘In my time I have not perhaps done all possible to smooth the brief lives of those about me, nor taken account of the little failings which mark us all as human beings. I much regret it now. Sister, I believe you were a junior theatre nurse in my own active days?’

‘That’s quite right, sir.’

‘I may have given you the rough edge of my tongue now and again?’

‘You did once compare me to a chimpanzee with ten thumbs, sir.’

‘I am sorry, deeply sorry.’

‘You finish that,’ Bingham directed his assistant, making for the surgeons’ room and peeling off his gloves.

‘You know I am not much longer for this unruly world, Bingham?’ said Sir Lancelot, following him.

‘I was very upset. As one of your students–’

Sir Lancelot held up a hand. ‘If only more of them had possessed your intelligence, your energy, your endlessly questioning brain! I’m sorry if at the time I thought you something of a small-minded, conceited little prig.’

Bingham started stripping his gown. ‘I wonder if I might ask a favour, Sir Lancelot? I’m sure you’ll agree you’re an exceptional man? Physically as well as mentally.’

Sir Lancelot inclined his head graciously.

‘You know I’m head of the St Swithin’s transplant team. So I wondered if, in I believe six months–’

‘But I’ve got this filthy Asiatic disease,’ Sir Lancelot objected.

‘But parts of you are excellent. You’re quite a curate’s egg, one might say.’ Bingham gave a laugh, hastily stifling it. ‘Coming to the point, could I put a couple of my patients on the list for your kidneys?’

After a moment’s hesitation, Sir Lancelot said gravely, ‘It is only fitting that I should use my remains as I have used my life. To benefit suffering humanity.’

‘I must say, that’s a jolly good spirit. Fine. I’ll get my secretary to make a note of it. And while we’re on the subject, could we have your corneas?’

‘Yes. I agree.’

‘How about your heart?’

‘If you can make as good use of it as I have.’

‘Splendid. Are you planning to – er, end up in St Swithin’s? It would save a lot of those difficult transport problems.’

‘My dear Bingham, I cannot make detailed plans for the location of the event. I am going to perish, not have a bleeding baby.’

‘Of course. Now, then. Liver?’

‘As you wish.’

‘Spleen? Pancreas?’

‘You may.’

‘Thyroid gland? Bone marrow?’

‘Take the lot.’

‘I’ve just remembered something. We owe High Cross Hospital a kidney, which they swapped for a pair of lungs. If you could help us out–’

Sir Lancelot drew himself up. ‘I may, as you say, be exceptional. But not so exceptional as to possess three blasted kidneys. Now if you will excuse me, I shall take your surgical shopping list out to the West End and provide it with a damn good dinner.’