Doctor at Large

5

The journey north was exciting, for neither the car-which I had christened 'Haemorrhagic Hilda'-nor I had been on the road for some, time. Hilda was originally an expensive limousine, but now she was constructed of so many spare parts that I thought of her fondly as the bastard of some noble line. Her vertical windscreen, which opened horizontally across the middle, was colourful with rainbows and bright with stars; there was worm in the dashboard, where all the dials pointed to zero except the engine temperature, which was stuck at boiling; her furnishings had been replaced by a former owner, and now consisted of a pair of bucket seats from an old baby Austin perched on a fruit-box in front, and an ordinary small domestic horsehair sofa in the back. Behind the sofa were pieces of sacking, some old gnawed bones, a yo-yo, and scraps of newspaper prophesying the fall of Ramsay MacDonald's government. The front windows would not open, and the back windows would not shut. Birds had nested under the roof, and mice under the floorboards.

The mechanical part of Haemorrhagic Hilda aroused my clinician's interest rather than my alarm. The engine produced more rales, sibili, and rhonchi than a ward of asthmatics, and the steering gear, which had a wheel fit for a London bus, was afflicted with a severe type of _locomotor ataxia._ The only pleasant surprise was the horn. This was a long silver trumpet creeping from the windscreen to coil comfortably over the bonnet and front mudguard, which in squeezing the rubber bulb sounded like feeding-time in the seal pool. Hilda's other surprisingly good point was her brakes, which I shortly had a chance of demonstrating.

Outside Stony Stratford a police car waved me to the roadside.

'You the owner of this vehicle?' the policeman demanded, taking my licence.

'And proud of it,' I said cheerfully.

'I suppose you know there are regulations concerning the roadworthiness of motor vehicles?' he said in the tone used by Customs officers asking you to open the other suitcase. 'Is the vehicle equipped with an efficient braking system?'

'Brakes? Absolutely wonderful, officer. She can pull up on a postage stamp.'

'I am going to test the truth of your statement. Proceed along the highway at a reasonable speed. I will follow, and when I blow my horn apply your brakes.'

'Right-ho,' I said bravely.

I swung the engine, wondering what was going to happen: if the police decided to hound Hilda off the road, I would not only arrive late but lose the greater part of my working capital as well.

After I had travelled a few hundred yards my thoughts were interrupted by the urgent blast of a horn behind me. As I drove the brake-pedal into the floorboards I realized that it was not the policeman but a Bentley sweeping past our procession at eighty. There was a crash behind, and my windscreen fell on to the bonnet. As Haemorrhagic Hilda had been built in the same spirit as the Pyramids, she suffered only another dent in the rear mudguard; but the police car lay with its wheels turned out like flat feet, bleeding oil and water on to the roadway.

'You'll hear more about this,' the policeman kept muttering, as I dressed the small cut on his nose. I gave him a lift to the next telephone box, and continued my journey in an unreasonably cheerful frame of mind.

I began to move down the psychological slope towards depression as I entered the district where I was to work. It was a small English industrial town, which like many others stood as a monument to its own Victorian prosperity. There were long solid rows of grimy houses, factories walled like prisons, and chapels looking like pubs or pubs looking like chapels on every corner. There was a Town Hall ringed by stout old gentlemen petrified as they rose to address the Board, the station was a smoky shrine to the Railway Age, the football ground was a mausoleum of past champions, and the streets had not yet echoed the death rattle of their trams. Only the main thoroughfare had been changed, and consisted of cinemas, multiple chemists, tailors, and cheap chain-stores, looking exactly like anywhere else in the country.

Shortly it began to rain, though from the soggy ground and the depressed aspect of the pedestrians it appeared to have been raining there continuously for several years. I became gloomier as I searched for my address on the other side of the town, and finally drove into a long road of gently dilapidating Victorian villas behind caged gardens of small trees shivering in their seasonal nakedness. On the last door-post I spotted a brass plate.

The front door was opened by a cheerful-looking young blonde in overalls, holding a broom.

'Is Dr Hockett in?' I asked, politely raising my hat. 'I'm Dr Gordon.'

'Well, fancy that, now! I said to the Doctor this morning, I said, "I'm sure he ain't coming!"' She grinned. 'Silly, ain't I?'

'I was delayed on the road. I had to give medical attention in an accident.'

'The Doctor ain't in yet, but give us your bags, and I'll show you up to your room.'

As she climbed the dark stairs with my two suitcases, the maid called over her shoulder, 'You ain't 'arf young.'

'Well, I'm-I'm not exactly in the cradle, you know,' I said, wondering whether to feel flattered.

'Garn! I bet you ain't any older than what I am. The Doctor's had some real old fogeys, I can tell you. Old Dr Christmas was the last one-Cripes! He must have been ninety. Real old dodderer. Then there was Dr O'Higgins and Dr O'Rourke and Dr O'Toole-grandpas, they were. And before them there was Dr Solomons and Dr Azzis and Dr Wu-'

I was alarmed. 'There's been quite a number of assistants here?'

''Undreds and 'undreds of 'em.'

'Oh.'

'Here's your room,' she said brightly, opening a door at the top of the last flight of stairs. It was a bedroom the size of a cell, and furnished as sparsely. She dropped the cases and flicked briefly at the enamel washbasin with her duster. 'Bit chilly this weather, but it's comfy enough in summer.'

'Home from home, I assure you,' I murmured, looking round.

'You can get a nice fug up if you keep the window shut. Dr Wu, now-he used to burn incense and things. You won't be doing that, will you?'

'Not very much.'

'The light's switched off at the main at eleven, you pays your own laundry, it's extra if you've got a wireless, and you can have a bath on Saturday, mornings,' she went on cheerfully. 'That's the Doctor's orders. He likes to keep an eye on the housekeeping.'

'I should ruddy well think he does!' This seemed too much to tolerate, even as a junior locum. 'Far be it for me to judge a man in advance,' I told her, 'but I must say he seems a bit of a mean old devil.'

'He can be a bit stingy sometimes, that's straight. Likes to look after the pennies.'

I sat down on a bed as unresilient as a park bench, and contemplated the discouraging start to my career as a general practitioner. The blonde continued to grin at me from the doorway, and I wondered if she was waiting for a tip; but as I felt in my pocket she went on, 'I must say, it is nice to see someone from London Town again. How's the old place getting along?'

'About the same I suppose. I thought you weren't a local girl,' I added.

'Not me! I ain't one of them provincials. 'Ow did you guess?'

I hesitated. 'You have a sort of sophisticated air about you.

'Go on with you! I suppose you don't know the old "Bag o' Nails" in Ludgate Circus, do you? I used to be behind the bar there for a bit.'

'What, old Harry Bennett's pub? I know it very well. Often went there with a lot of chaps from Bart's.'

Her face took a tender look. 'Dear old Harry Bennett! After all these years! Funny you should know it, ain't it? We'll have a good old pijaw about it as soon as you're settled in. It'll be just as good as a holiday for me.'

'Have you been out here long?'

'Near on four years. I've got an old mum, you know-' A door slammed. 'The Doctor!' she gasped. 'Cheery-bye,' she whispered. 'I'll say you'll be down in a minute.'

I found Dr Hockett in the gloomy living-room, where the table was laid for high tea. He was standing in a green tweed overcoat in front of the gas fire, which was unlit. He was a tall, stooping man of about fifty, with a thin lined face and a thick grey moustache. His hands were clasped behind him and his gaze was fixed on his toes; his only movement as I entered was turning his eyes sharply up and glaring at me beneath his eyebrows, which hung across his face like a tuft of steel wool.

'Good afternoon, sir,' I said politely.

'Good afternoon, Doctor. I had expected you a little earlier.' He spoke in a soft monotone, as though saying his prayers. Taking one hand from behind his back he shook mine flaccidly and replaced it.' Remarkably warm for the time of year, isn't it?'

'Well, it strikes a little chilly up here after London.'

'No, I don't think it does,' he went on. 'I always wear wool next to the skin, Doctor. That is much more hygienic than filling the house with the fumes of combustible gases. If that is your car outside, you will have to leave it in the open overnight. There is only room in the garage for mine, and as it is no more than a few years old I don't intend to expose the coachwork. I often do my nearer visits on bicycle-it is much more healthy to take exercise in the open air. You might like to follow my example, though as you're paying your own petrol bills it's entirely up to you. We could make an arrangement by which you had part use of the bicycle, and I would make the appropriate deduction from your salary.'

As I said nothing he continued muttering, 'You've not been in general practice before, I believe? No, I thought not. The work here is hard, but the experience will be sufficient reward in itself.'

The door opened, and the blonde maid entered with a tray containing a large brown enamel teapot, a loaf of bread, a packet of margarine, and a small tin of sardines, half-empty.

'It is much healthier for the alimentary tract not to be overloaded with a heavy meal at night,' Dr Hockett continued, still looking at his feet. 'I never take further food after this hour, but if you wish to buy yourself some biscuits or suchlike for later consumption, of course I have no objection. Shall we sit down?'

He took off his overcoat and sat at the head of the table. Seeing a third place, and suddenly remembering Grimsdyke's warning, I broke the silence by asking, 'Are you married, sir?'

He gave me another glance under his eyebrows.

'I didn't quite catch your remark, Doctor,' he muttered. 'I thought you said, "Are you married?"' As the blonde took the third chair he went on, 'Pour the doctor his tea first, my dear. Possibly he likes it weaker than we do. Will you take a sardine, Doctor? I see there are one and one-third each. What, nothing at all? Perhaps after the excitement of your journey you are not very hungry? Well, it is best in the circumstances not to overwork the metabolism.'