Doctor On The Boil (7 page)

Muriel strode from the café. Terry sat gloomily looking into his tea. His thoughts had become so confused that he was not entirely certain what they were, or if cerebration was proceeding at all. He decided like a good doctor heartlessly to extract the unpleasant truth from the inessentials. He saw first of all that he had been remarkably stupid. He had been in love with Muriel, whom he would much liked to have had as his wife. He had taken a fancy to Stella, whom he would much liked to have had in bed. He supposed glumly that it was a fairly generalized problem. Now he had lost the chance of both.

‘Oh, bloody hell,’ he muttered. He threw some coins on the counter and slouched into the street. ‘Bloody women,’ he grumbled.

Hands stuck in his pockets, he made slowly back to the hospital. The first student he met in the courtyard was Ken Kerrberry. Terry steeled himself to tell the full story.

‘Pity,’ said Ken. ‘I was going to ask you along to my party tonight. It’s the cricket club dinner, and I’m suddenly short of men.’

‘You’ll never find me voluntarily occupying the same room as either of those birds again,’ said Terry sourly.

‘Don’t worry,’ Ken told him kindly. ‘Just in case you should think of picking up the strings again, I’ll see Muriel’s pushed on to some unprepossessing slob who’s unlikely to contaminate her in your absence.’

‘I’m not interested. Not a bit. You know, Ken, it struck me this last week what I came to St Swithin’s for – to learn medicine, not to chase a lot of birds who don’t appreciate it, anyway.’

‘I’m delighted to find that at least one of us in the medical school has some principles.’

‘It’s work, boy, from now on. Work! What was it that Sir William Osler told his own students? “Put your emotions in cold storage.” The old fellow was right.’

‘Yes, keep your testicles on ice until you qualify. Just think how much better the choice will be then.’

‘It’s a blessing in disguise,’ Terry concluded. ‘At least, I can settle down and get some studying done this week-end. I’d almost forgotten the class exam on Monday morning.’

Having so convinced himself, Terry spent the weekend in his room at the students’ hostel staring at a pile of open textbooks, and occasionally reading a few lines from one of them. On the Monday morning, in short white jacket with stethoscope sprouting from the pocket, he made up the main staircase towards the dean’s wards. His step expressed his usual determination. The dean might once have been his prospective father-in-law, but all that could be forgotten. The only item of importance now was not to let the bloody little man bamboozle him.

When Terry’s turn came to enter the side-room, the dean looked up from his baize-topped table with a smile. He was in a good mood that morning. The prospect of examining students always cheered him more than the prospect of a week-end’s golf.

‘Well, now, you’re Mr… ’

‘Summerbee, sir.’

‘Of course, of course. I see you almost every day. I shall be forgetting my own name next. Well, Mr Summerbee, what shall we start off with?’ The dean rubbed his hands at the delightful problems he had in store. ‘Just step over to the viewing-box in the corner and tell me what you make of that X-ray.’

Terry went across to the illuminated screen. X-ray of a chest, he saw. He inspected it long and thoughtfully.

‘Well, Mr Summerbee?’

Terry scratched his chin. Now isn’t that typical of a dirty old sod like the dean? he decided. Luckily, he’d heard in the medical school how this nasty little trick was pulled on the students year after year.

‘You want my diagnosis, sir?’

‘That would be the general idea,’ the dean told him coldly.

‘Very well, sir. Normal, sir.’

The dean put his fingers together. ‘Come, come. Surely you can do better than that?’

Terry gave a slight, confident smile. ‘Perhaps you’re expecting me to recognize some outlandish condition in the X-ray, sir?’

‘You may be getting a little warmer.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. I can’t oblige. I think it’s a normal X-ray, and I’m sticking to my opinion.’

The dean gave a brief sigh. ‘Thank you, Mr Summerbee. That will be all.’

‘But, sir –!’ Terry looked amazed. ‘What about the rest of the exam?’ An idea struck him. ‘Or have I done so well, no more is necessary?’

‘You have failed, Summerbee.’

‘Failed?’

‘If you are unable at this stage of your career to recognize when a radiograph of the chest is grossly
ab
normal, you had better spend the next three months in the X-ray museum.’

‘But it
is
normal, sir.’

‘Good morning, Mr Summerbee. Please do not waste more of my time.’

‘It
is.
I insist you look at it, sir.’

The dean rose angrily. ‘Very well. If you wish to start a clinical argument with me, young man, I shall be delighted to put you in your place. Furthermore, you do
not
address members of the consultant staff in that peremptory manner. I must ask you to come to my office at two o’clock on that score alone. Anyone not totally blind, even a seaside snapshot photographer, could tell you that X-ray is most certainly not–’

The dean stopped. He peered. He leant forward.

‘How strange.’ He stroked his chin. ‘Do you know, Mr Summerbee, you happen to be quite correct. Amazing. This X-ray shows a normal chest. Absolutely normal. Just look – heart, lungs, diaphragm perfect. From the bone-structure, a man of latish middle-age. Rather heavy flesh shadow – the patient was somewhat disgustingly overweight. So there we are. Yes, my boy. Splendid. Quite a test, I always think, to make a diagnosis of nothing in an examination, when something difficult and even unusual is expected? And yet…’ He looked round anxiously. ‘I distinctly remember, this time I decided
not
to play that little dodge. Where’s the X-ray envelope?’

‘The patient’s name is marked on the film, sir.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. I always seem to forget that. Everything is packets and labels these days. Let me see – Oh God!’ cried the dean. ‘Oh horror! Oh, Sir Lancelot!’

Sir Lancelot was finishing his lunch in the hospital refectory when Harry the porter came hurrying across the long room crowded with chattering, eating students.

‘Sir Lancelot – the dean wants you in his office. It’s urgent.’

‘Good God, what’s the matter?’ The surgeon noticed the man’s alarmed expression. ‘Has he perforated, or something?’

‘I don’t know, sir. But he sounded proper worried when he gave me the message.’

‘Oh, it’s probably something about my moving in with them today.’ Sir Lancelot drained his coffee. ‘Very well, I’ll put him out of his misery.’

He found the dean alone in his room, bouncing agitatedly on the edge of his chair. ‘Ah! Lancelot. Thank God. Yes. Well. How are you feeling?’

The surgeon gave a broad grin. ‘I might say, my dear Dean, that I have never felt better in my life than at this particular moment.’

‘Splendid!’ said the dean heartily.

Sir Lancelot noisily whisked a pinch of snuff into his nostrils. ‘What’s splendid about it?’ he asked less cheerfully. ‘You told me yourself that’s exactly what I had to expect. A euphoric feeling of well-being – your exact words. Then in six months…woomph.’

‘Woomph,’ repeated the dean weakly, mopping his forehead with his handkerchief.

‘Though I suppose now it’s down to twenty-five weeks,’ Sir Lancelot calculated gloomily. ‘I say, Dean, are you all right?’

‘Yes, yes, I’ve just my usual worries–’

‘Perhaps my disease is catching?’ Sir Lancelot suggested with some enthusiasm. ‘You might have it, too.’

‘That would be impossible. From you, I mean. You see, you haven’t got it.’

‘My dear Dean,’ said Sir Lancelot gently. ‘I appreciate your humanity in trying to leave me with a little hope, but I assure you I am resigned to my fate. There is no need to pull the wool over
my
eyes – even if you could.’

‘But you
haven’t
got it. It was all a mistake. A clerical error.’

Sir Lancelot frowned. ‘Pray explain.’

‘The X-rays got muddled up.’ The dean miserably indicated two sets of radiographs on his desk. ‘I wanted a real stinker for the students in my class exam this morning. So I asked the X-ray department to look out something from the museum. I suggested Asiatic diseases. Rare ones.’

‘H’m,’ said Sir Lancelot.

‘But the girl in X-ray put the films in the wrong envelopes. I thought they were the ones I’d had specially taken of you.’ He drummed his fingers on his desk. ‘Mistakes will happen,’ he added in a faint voice.

‘Good God!’ roared Sir Lancelot. He sprang to his feet and started pacing the office. His expression, which a moment ago recalled a bear who had swallowed a honeypot, now indicated the creature had ingested the bees as well. ‘How in the name of sanity can such malpractice, such muddle, such a bleeding cock-up, occur in a well-organized place like St Swithin’s
?
It’s as bad as cutting off the wrong leg.’

‘I suppose the girl was lackadaisical, as they all are in these times,’ the dean continued uncomfortably. ‘She’s the rather flighty sort, I understand from my house physician. And of course inexperienced, being one of the young radiography pupils.’

‘What’s this witless female’s name?’

The dean glanced at his desk-jotter. ‘A Miss Gray.’

Sir Lancelot grunted. ‘And she condemned me to death.’

‘She’ll have to go, of course. No doubt about that. I’ll see the senior radiologist directly.’

‘Then what was my blasted cough due to?’

The dean looked lost.

‘
I
know!’ Sir Lancelot slapped his waistcoat pocket. ‘I was trying a new brand of snuff.’

‘Look on the bright side, Lancelot. You may have been condemned to death, but now you are reprieved. You will live, doubtless to the ripest of old ages. Surely that fills your heart with joy? Why, you have nothing else whatever to worry about in the world.’

Sir Lancelot stopped pacing. He stroked his beard. ‘I wouldn’t be too certain about that.’

‘But I don’t follow? You’re perfectly healthy. Quite as fit as the entire St Swithin’s rugger team.’

‘Do you know where I’ve been this past week?’

‘With your solicitors.’

‘No. With the matron in Le Touquet.’

Sir Lancelot sat down again.

‘Ah, tut,’ said the dean.

‘Look here,’ Sir Lancelot continued earnestly. ‘You and I are lifelong friends. There are no secrets between us, or precious few. I can speak frankly. The matron and I lived together in a small hotel as man and wife. We caught the car ferry plane back to Lydd only this morning.’

‘Well, you got something out of the mix-up, anyway,’ said the dean brightly. ‘I mean,’ he added quickly, ‘I’m sure it was quite excusable under the circumstances.’

‘You don’t understand–’

‘Oh! That reminds me of something,’ the dean interrupted. He made a pencilled note on his desk jotter,
Don’t forget with Josephine tonigh
t.

‘What are you doing, man, taking down the evidence?’

‘No, no, just a little domestic detail.’

‘Dean, I can confess to you. I am conducting something of an
affaire de coeur
with Tottie Sinclair. I implore you to keep it dark in a place like this, with everyone always sniffing for the stink of scandal. But Tottie only agreed to come away with me because…well, because I told her I would have married her, had I been going to live.’

‘Oh, I don’t think I should let
that
worry you,’ the dean told him airily. ‘The times have long passed when a gentleman felt in honour bound to marry a lady just because he’d…he’d…I mean, people are doing it now all the time all over the place.’

‘It is good of you to imbue me with such principles. But there is a little more to it. In Le Touquet last night I did in fact invite her to become my wife, regardless of my perilous state of health. She accepted.’

‘Why on earth did you do that?’

‘Firstly, my accountants seemed to think marriage advisable. Secondly…’ Sir Lancelot took another pinch of snuff. ‘She’s bloody good value, once she sets her mind to it.’

‘Then why
don’t
you marry the matron?’ the dean suggested. ‘After all, she’s not a bad-looking lass.’

‘My dear fellow, don’t be stupid,’ Sir Lancelot told him shortly. ‘A man of my age marrying a much younger woman really would be dead in six months. That week in Le Touquet was about all I could manage at a stretch. We’ve seen that sort of situation in practice time and time again. Even the laity know it well enough – businessmen dishing their wives and marrying their secretaries and collecting a coronary on their honeymoons.’ He paused. ‘Besides, I don’t think I like her all that much,’ he added reflectively. ‘She isn’t my cup of tea at all. I was just taken by the way she waggles her glutei.’

‘Perhaps you could tell her you didn’t mean it?’

‘Dean, I am not wholly bereft of integrity. Besides, it might get in the newspapers.’

‘I know,’ the dean added enthusiastically. ‘You could go away to Wales and pretend you’d dropped dead, anyway.’

‘What happens when I come back next summer for the Lord’s Test Match?’

‘Then for the life of me, I really can’t see what’s to be done.’

‘Nothing’s to be done. Nothing whatever. I shall marry Tottie, that’s all. I trust you will act as best man? A registry office I feel will suffice. Somewhat early in the morning, before the crowds are about.’

There was a knock on the door.

‘Come in!’

Terry Summerbee’s face appeared. The dean looked at his watch. ‘My dear Mr Summerbee, there is now no need to appear before me for insubordination, as I directed. The situation has resolved itself.’

‘Might I have a word with you anyway, sir?’

‘I’m very busy–’

‘I must be on my way.’ Sir Lancelot rose. ‘My new status as a more permanent member of the human race means a good deal of urgent work. I know you, don’t I?’ he demanded in the doorway.

‘Yes, sir. You lent me your car, sir.’

‘Must have been mad,’ murmured Sir Lancelot, leaving the room.

‘Well, well, Mr Summerbee, what is it?’ the dean asked impatiently.

‘About those X-rays, sir. It’s all my fault.’

‘No fault about it. I told you in the ward, you were perfectly right. It
was
a normal chest. I trust you don’t want it in writing?’

‘I mean it was my fault they got muddled, sir. You see, I was in the dark-room with Miss Gray while she was sorting them.’

The dean frowned. ‘Dark-room? What on earth were you doing in the dark-room?’

‘I was distracting her, sir. Had it not been for me, she would never have made the mistake, sir.’

‘Do you realize what you are saying?’

‘I do, sir. I realize that I could have let Miss Gray carry the can, sir. But that wouldn’t have been right. I knew that I had to take the blame.’

‘And the consequences?’ asked the dean sombrely.

‘Exactly, sir.’

‘Well, Mr Summerbee…’ The dean leant back and put his finger-tips together. ‘However much I must admire your honesty and decency, you have been responsible, through interfering with the – er, affairs of the X-ray department, for causing great anguish not only to Sir Lancelot Spratt but to all of us who are his friends.’

‘I’m fully aware of that, sir.’

‘You have particularly distressed me–’ The dean broke off. ‘What exactly were you doing to the girl? No, it doesn’t matter, these days nothing is left to the imagination in either literature or life. And, Mr Summerbee, you have distressed even more our new matron.’

‘The matron, sir?’ Terry was perplexed.

‘Yes, on the strength of it all, Sir Lancelot – Nothing, nothing. I’m afraid this is a very serious offence. You will assuredly have to come before the full disciplinary committee of the hospital – not the usual subcommittee, you know, which deals with your student pranks. And the full committee will certainly punish you severely, if only to justify the inconvenience to its members of being summoned to sit on it.’

‘They’ll throw me out, you mean, sir?’

The dean nodded. ‘That might well be the likely outcome.’

‘Well…I suppose I’ll leave with a clear conscience, at least.’

‘I’m sure you’ll make your way in some other career, with such shining honesty,’ the dean told him kindly. ‘Perhaps the Church?’ There was a knock on the door. ‘Come in.’

‘Do I interrupt?’ asked Grimsdyke cheerfully.

‘What is it, what is it?’ snapped the dean.

Grimsdyke closed the door. ‘I gather there’s been something of an imbroglio about Sir Lancelot’s X-rays. I came to say that it was all my fault.’

The dean looked bemusedly from one to the other. ‘What?’

Grimsdyke nodded. ‘You see, I was in the darkroom with Miss Gray while she was sorting them.’

‘How big is this bloody dark-room?’ complained the dean.

‘Had it not been for my distracting her – delicacy prevents my giving more details in your presence, sir – she most certainly would not have made so uncharacteristic a mistake. I’m aware that I could easily have let poor young Miss Gray take all the blame. But I knew in my heart of hearts it was only right and proper that I should–’

‘
He
says
he
was fiddling about with the girl,’ shouted the dean, pointing at Terry. ‘What are you? A pair of cat’s-eyed Casanovas?’

Grimsdyke made a gentle gesture of amused tolerance. ‘I’m afraid Summerbee is simply carried away by gallantry. Miss Gray is a most attractive young lady, sir. Summerbee just wanted to save her from the inevitable push. Didn’t you, old man?’

‘I did
not
,’ Terry said irately. ‘I was only telling the truth.’

‘You were nowhere near the dark-room,’ Grimsdyke insisted smoothly. ‘You were in the X-ray museum. I saw you go there myself. Let’s put it to the dean. Which of us do you believe?’

The dean sat for some time with his head in his hands. At last he announced, ‘Dr Grimsdyke – I accept your word rather than Mr Summerbee’s. And don’t look so smug. I do so solely because long experience of you in the hospital, as a student and member of the junior medical staff, makes the notion of your trying to rape girls in X-ray darkrooms not only plausible but highly likely. As you are one of our doctors, my only course is to demand your instant resignation. Which will also save no end of trouble,’ he added thoughtfully. ‘If it had been Summerbee, I’d have had the fuss of convening that bloody committee.’

‘The letter will be on your desk in the morning,’ Grimsdyke promised with dignity.

‘Good. Now get out, both of you. And you might tell your fellow-students, Mr Summerbee, to confine their attentions to the nursing staff, who are very wisely always kept fully illuminated.’

In the corridor outside, Terry asked with amazement, ‘What did you do that for?’

Grimsdyke laid a fatherly hand on his shoulder. ‘My dear fellow, you stand only on the threshold of your career. I have at least got a foot in the door. It is of little consequence to me, leaving this dump. As a matter of fact, because of unexpected engagements elsewhere, I have been rather wondering these last few days how to get out of the place without being sued for breach of contract or something. You’ve had a narrow squeak – but go on your way rejoicing.’

‘I can never thank you enough–’

‘Please. You embarrass me. But you won’t be offended by a little advice?’

‘Of course not–’

‘Stay away from the X-ray department.’

Terry grinned and hurried down the corridor towards the students’ common room. Grimsdyke watched him disappear, a knowing look on his face. Then he turned and made quickly for the front hall. To his gratification, Stella was hurrying up the stairs from the X-ray department in her white overall, with an armful of films.

‘Stella. So glad I caught you.’

‘Oh, hello, lover man,’ she greeted him without enthusiasm. ‘I’m just going to orthopaedics.’

‘Mind if I accompany you?’

‘Please youself, lover boy.’

They started down the corridor. ‘All is well. About those X-rays you muddled up. You have not a little thing to worry about.’

‘I don’t get you, lover.’

Grimsdyke slapped the chest of his white coat. ‘
I
took the blame.’