Doctor at Large

8

'Back so soon, Doctor?' asked Mr Pycraft.

'Yes. Dr Hockett 'and I had a difference of opinion about a difficult case.'

'You did, did you, Doctor?' Pycraft looked different from our last interview. He seemed twenty years younger, his sugary benevolence had hardened like the icing on a cheap wedding-cake, his side-whiskers had receded, his spectacles had enlarged, his clothes were cleaner, and his hands were cured of their arthritis. 'Well, now. Surely you won't let a little thing like that come between you and your career? We have gone to great trouble providing you with a start, in a magnificent practice-'

'Magnificent practice! The only thing magnificent about it is old Hockett's minginess. Why don't you give it to one of your medical missionaries? It would suit a chap who could live on a handful of rice a week and take the temptations of women in his stride.'

'I hardly find it a cause for levity, Doctor.'

'If you'd been working there for thirty-six hours like I have, you'd find it even less. I want another practice please, and damn quick.'

'But, Doctor-' He picked up a steel pen and slowly tapped his cheek with it. 'I'm afraid we have no more on our books just at the moment. It's a bad time for inexperienced young men like yourself. Your only course is to return to Dr Hockett immediately, apologize, and continue your career.'

I banged his desk. 'I'd rather work tearing up the bloody road!'

'As you well might, Doctor,' he said calmly, 'Under the agreement you signed with Wilson, Willowick, and Wellbeloved-which I have in the safe there-you agreed to pay us thirty-three and one-third per cent of your salary monthly for twelve months, or the equivalent amount should you through any reason leave your post beforehand. That comes to fourteen pounds _per mensem,_ which incidentally is payable in advance. We should like the first instalment now, Doctor, and if the rest is not forthcoming I assure you we shall have no hesitation in taking out a summons. Then there is the interest on the loan, of course. The publicity, Doctor-most undesirable, don't you agree? Especially at the very beginning of a career. The General Medical Council take an extremely grave view-'

'Oh, go to hell!' I said. I strode from the office, slammed the door, and clattered down the stairs.

I stood in the street for a minute, breathing hard and wondering what the recent floods of adrenalin were doing to my arteries. Then I dived into the pub for a drink.

Over a pint, I assessed my position in the medical profession. I had a diploma, a car, a new suit shrunk in the service of Mrs Wilkins, no spare cash, a debt of a hundred pounds, and the legal obligation to pay one hundred and sixty-eight pounds in the next twelve months to Wilson, Willowick, and Wellbeloved. I wanted a job and money-and unless I was prepared to make Haemorrhagic Hilda my home I wanted them at once. I was gloomily turning over these problems when I thought of Grimsdyke: although I gravely doubted that he could pay back my ten pounds, it would be pleasant to look at someone who owed money to me.

The address on his card was in Ladbrokes Grove, and I drew up Haemorrhagic Hilda a little later that morning before a row of tall frowsy houses by the gasworks. Grimsdyke's apartments were in the basement. I rang a bell beside a blistered brown door under the area stairs, which after several minutes was gingerly opened.

'Yes?' said a woman's voice.

'I'd like to see Dr Grimsdyke, please.'

'He's gone away.'

'I'm a particular friend of his. Tell him it's Dr Gordon, and I've just had a row with Wilson, Willowick, and Wellbeloved.'

Just a minute.'

She shut the door, and returned a few seconds later to let me in. I saw that she was about nineteen, dressed in a dirty pink satin housecoat, and wore a rather vacant look. Inside the door was a small hall full of rubbish, and beyond that a large room with a window just below the ceiling. This contained a bed, a gas-stove, a washstand, and a table covered with dirty plates and empty Guinness bottles. Grimsdyke was in his pyjamas, with his hair dangling over his face.

'I thought you'd gone up north, old lad,' he said in surprise.

'So I had. Now I'm back again.'

'Forgive this squalor-' He waved a hand round the room. 'Fact is, I took these rooms-there's a lot more at the back-to oblige some friends, rather messy people-'

'I wondered if you could let me have my ten quid back?'

Grimsdyke sat on the edge of the bed suddenly. 'Surely you can't have spent the other ninety? In two days?

That's certainly some going! You must have had a hell of a good time.'

'I bought a car.'

'What, that ruddy great thing that's blocking out the daylight? I thought the coal had arrived. A bit on the posh side, isn't it?'

'I felt a big car would be a good investment-to impress the patients.'

He nodded. 'It's the only way the blasted public chooses its doctors. Did I tell you about a pal of mine called Rushleigh? Good scout, he qualified right at the end of the war, when you couldn't get cars for love, money, or blackmail. Unless you were a doctor, of course. So he filled in the forms, and got a nice new little family bus for about three hundred quid. He'd happened to pal up with a Free French bloke who'd been in the orthopaedic wards, and when this fellow went home with a couple of bone grafts Rushleigh got an invitation to stay at his place down at Nice, buckshee. So he set off in his car, but he'd only got as far as Rouen when it conked out. You know what cars were like after the war. He went to a French garage, where they mumbled a bit about spare parts and so forth, and told him it would take at least a month to get anything to patch it up. However, the British being considered good chaps in France at the time, they sportingly offered to lend him a very old aristocratic English car they had in the back, which hadn't been used for seven years and then only for funerals.

'Rushleigh proceeded towards the sunny south, feeling he was driving a greenhouse. But he got there all right, and a month later showed up at Rouen. This put the garage in a bit of a fix, because there were apparently no spare parts anywhere. So they suggested to Rushleigh they did a straight swap. They could fix up his little family bus some time or other, and such vehicles sold like _gateaux chauds._ Hot cakes, old lad.'

I sat down on the bed myself and asked, 'Did he agree?'

'You bet he did. He'd quite taken to the old hearse. One of the garage bloke's brothers was in the Customs and Rushleigh wasn't averse to a spot of fiddling, so off he went. When he was safely back in England he thought he'd send the thing up to the makers in Derbyshire somewhere and have her done up. A few days later he got a letter from the managing director asking him to come at once and enclosing first-class ticket with cheque for incidental expenses and loss of valuable time. Rushleigh went up there preparing to be led away by the police, but instead he was given a ruddy great lunch and asked what he'd sell the old conservatory for. Apparently this firm had a museum of all its old crocks, and the one he'd picked up in Rouen was the only model of its type ever made, for some millionaire or other in Cannes in 1927. Fortified by the directors' brandy, Rushleigh said he didn't see the point of selling, because where would he get another car to continue his life-saving work? "My dear sir," said the managing director, "if you prefer, we should be delighted to give you one of our brand-new Golden Sprites instead." Rushleigh now drives round his practice in one of these; and the old devil's worth an easy five thousand a year.'

'How about my tenner?' I said.

'Would you like a cup of tea? Virginia will make some.'

Virginia was standing with one foot on the table painting her toe-nails.

'No, thanks. I've just had a pint of beer.'

'Is it as late as that? I must be getting a move on. I've a good many appointments in the City. So if you'll excuse me-'

'At the moment I face bankruptcy, disgrace, and starvation,' I said. 'If you've got any of that ten quid left, I'd regard it as an act of charity if you'd let me have it. I owe Lord knows how much to that agency-'

'I can't exactly give you the cash, old lad, because I haven't got it. The market's been very sluggish of late. But I will tell you what I'll do-Would you like a job?'

'As long as it isn't like the one I got from Wilson and Willowick.'

'This is _bona fide_ and real McCoy. Have you heard of Dr Erasmus Potter-Phipps?'

I shook my head.

'He's about the most posh G.P. in England-high class stuff, you know, none of this bob on the bottle and sawdust on the waiting-room floor.'

'Where's he hang out?'

'Park Lane, of course.'

'What's his wife like?'

'He isn't married.'

I felt encouraged for the first time since driving out of range of Dr Hockett in the middle of the night. 'The only fishy thing that strikes me is-I mean, I've the highest regard for your friendship and integrity, but why haven't you grabbed it yourself?'

'Long-term planning. I'll tell you in confidence-don't breathe it to a soul, particularly anyone in the district-I'm leaving for the country. Big opening. I shall settle down scratching pigs with walking-sticks-'

'Is Miss Virginia coming too?' She had taken no more notice of me and was leaning on the table among the plates plucking her eyebrows.

'No. She's psychologically unsuited for the country. I've found that out-I've been psychoanalysing her for the last few weeks. That's why she's here. You can't psychoanalyse anyone competently if you're not with them day and night. Jung and Adler, and all that. She's got a jolly interesting little ego.'

'I'm sure she has.'

Grimsdyke got up and felt in his jacket pocket. 'Here's the address. Give me half an hour and I'll speak to him on the blower first.

'But how about references? A G.P. like that wouldn't take an assistant out of the blue.'

'Leave it to me,' he said confidently. 'It's all part of the Grimsdyke service.'