Lizzie Vogel 1 - Man at the Helm

23

The Man List was looking very sparse when suddenly two new doctors came to the village. It wasn’t that Dr Kaufmann was leaving, just that the village had trebled its population due to two housing estates being tacked on and joining up with various little hamlets that had been quite remote before. The village therefore needed more doctors to look after all the extra sick people and their sick children.

My sister and I got the news about these two new doctors from Mrs C. Beard, who told us that one of the doctors was quite handsome and almost divorced and the other was going to be a lady and probably best avoided unless you had a lady’s problem. My sister and I focused on Dr Norman (the man doctor).

‘A man, divorced, experienced, and a doctor!’ I whispered, as we walked away from Mrs C. Beard.

‘We’ll see,’ said my sister, resenting him, in her usual irrational way, for suddenly appearing in the village and not being on the list.

By accident of fate we were the first people in the whole village to meet the new man doctor in his professional capacity, which gave us a head start on anyone else looking for a husband. We’d gone to see Dr Kaufmann with an annoying cut on Little Jack’s elbow, only to discover that Dr Kaufmann had had to dash off to a severed finger and the new doctor – who was just literally moving that day into a temporary dwelling – had rushed over to the surgery to cover.

Dr Norman cannot have heard how awful and irresponsible our family was because he was extremely nice and not at all suspicious. Unless, like Dr Kaufmann, he’d decided to ignore our bad reputation and be nice to us in spite of it. Anyway, seeing how new and nice he was, my sister gave me a nod and a look, which I took to mean he’d gone onto the list (mentally), and because Jack was being very brave about the cut we were able to chat as if nothing was happening.

So, as Dr Norman affixed the stick-on stitches, I jumped straight in.

‘Have you got any children?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘one son, aged nine.’

‘Do you ever see him?’ I asked.

‘Yes, every other weekend – in fact he’s staying with me this weekend.’

There was a small pause and my sister’s eyebrows went up.

‘Do you want to bring him to our house to see the ponies?’ she said.

‘And our tree house,’ I said, thinking any normal nine-year-old might prefer a tree house.

‘And my Romans,’ said Little Jack.

Dr Norman smiled and said, ‘Well, that’s a very kind offer, I might well do that … if Mum has no objections.’

He looked at our mother and she said, ‘That would be splendid.’

‘What’s his name?’ I asked, meaning the nine-year-old son.

‘Well, I call him Tuppence,’ said the doctor, with a little chuckle.

We strolled home, Jack in a bandage, and all had our say about Tuppence’s name.

‘Tuppence?’ said my sister. ‘What a name!’

‘It’s just a pet name. His father probably came up with it,’ said our mother, being fair.

‘Yeah, like Shrimp, Litlun and Freckles,’ I said, naming the three cute American brothers in my story.

‘But it seems such a pitiful amount,’ said my sister, ‘financially speaking – I mean, tuppence? – that’s 2p.’

‘No,’ said Little Jack, ‘tuppence is less than 1 new p.’

‘Oh yeah, OK, well, what can you actually get with less than 1p?’ said my sister. And my two siblings sounded all cynical and critical and seemed to have been infected by the village – wanting to attack a newcomer for something as innocent as a nickname.

Dr Norman was living in one of the newly built chalet-bungalows behind Dr Kaufmann’s that were actually designed for old people and had a rail along the garden path and nothing to trip up on. He’d rented number 10, but it hadn’t been quite ready, so he was in number 16, which was really meant for a lady (who wasn’t quite ready herself).

Mrs C. Beard heard we’d seen Dr Norman and came across the road and gave us extra information that she’d gleaned. One, that Dr Norman had had to leave his ex-marital home in a something of a hurry after he and his wife had started being unreasonable with each other. Plus he needed to be on-call to fulfil the obligations of the new post. Also, that he had a girlfriend who had previously been a patient, or maybe a nurse – either way, it had a whiff of not being entirely above board. And two, that the lady doctor was helpfully called Dr Gurly.

That afternoon my sister wrote to Dr Norman.

Dear Dr Norman,

Please come round for a cup of coffee or tea (or whatever you prefer) so that we can welcome you to the village properly. Feel free to bring your nine-year-old.

Yours truly etc.

I objected to the letter, saying he was probably already coming round on Saturday with the nine-year-old.

‘He’ll cancel Saturday,’ she said. ‘He had no intention of coming and was very careful not to commit.’

I corrected her. ‘No, he said he was coming.’

My sister corrected me. ‘He said, “I might well do that,” which means he probably won’t.’ As well as being philosophical, she’d also become quite analytical and kept noticing what people said and was getting more like our mother every day in her understanding of what they actually meant. In fact, since being at secondary school, my sister had started thinking about things in a very inconvenient way and had stopped believing anything anyone ever said, unless they were crystal-clear and didn’t touch their face when they said it.

There had been some talk of enrolling her at a better school than Flatstone school, but this better one was in town and private and our mother was anti all that and, in the end, our father wasn’t all that bothered.

Dr Norman did cancel on Saturday, or rather he just didn’t come, which was what my sister had expected. And we decided to give it a few weeks and then send an invitation involving the nine-year-old. However, the new letter was not needed, because soon after that first meeting with Dr Norman he became our lodger for six weeks while he waited for his chalet to become ready. This came about as a result of Dr Kaufmann’s suggesting it.

Our mother was glad of the prospect of cash for dinner money and cigarettes (it had come to that), but at the same time she was anxious about the reality of it in the week prior to his moving in. She asked us to get the house in a fit state for a lodging doctor while she jostled with the play and her accounts. She said cleanliness was probably important.

My sister went round with the hoover on an extension lead and did such a good job that the bag filled up twice with dog hair and other bits. I did the kitchen, including the cutlery drawer which had become chaotic and full of things that shouldn’t have been in there, such as bits of macaroni, feathers and horse stuff. Little Jack got the doctor’s quarters tidy and made a display of Subbuteo players along the tallboy in the bedroom. Later, I donated my bedside lamp and we made his bathroom pretty with a potted spider plant which had so many babies dangling, it was like a variegated shooting star. Plus a bar of Knight’s Castile and some Radox bath salts in case he liked having a soak after a hard day’s work.

The evening Dr Norman arrived we invited him to dinner as a welcome gesture, even though it wasn’t part of the deal. The deal was bedroom, bathroom, use of the playroom telly, the garden, washing machine and one shelf in the fridge. The welcome dinner was macaroni cheese and a mixed salad of radish and cucumber with a French dressing. The French dressing was 90 per cent vinegar due to a mix-up and the salad had become pickled, but it seemed deliberate and didn’t matter because the macaroni went down well. We’d consulted My Learn to Cook Book for a nice dish but didn’t have time to do anything from scratch, only poached eggs, and felt they wouldn’t quite do. We used a packet sauce but added extra cheese to make it cheesy, and you’d never have known.

Seeing the table set for four, Dr Norman thought we’d forgotten about the welcome dinner, so we explained that our mother didn’t have dinners. It was thoughtless of us to say that, knowing that doctors are generally keen on people eating, but it just came out and unfortunately he questioned her.

‘What’s this about mothers not having dinners?’ he said.

‘What’s this about lodgers poking their noses in?’ she asked back.

And that made it a bad start and I’m not sure he felt very welcome, and he went upstairs as soon as he could.

The following Saturday Dr Norman went out in the morning and brought Tuppence back to the house. Tuppence was small for his age and seemed younger than his nine years and was loaded with sherbet pips.

‘Hello, Tuppence,’ I called to him, and he looked furious.

‘Say hello,’ said Dr Norman to Tuppence, and he introduced us all by name.

‘I’m not Tuppence!’ said Tuppence. ‘I’m Thruppenny now.’

‘Oh, you’ve gone up a penny,’ said my sister, and Dr Norman patted Tuppence on the head.

‘Yes, he’s gone up a penny, haven’t you, Thruppenny?’

And Tuppence, said, ‘Yes, I have,’ with a little stamp of his foot, like a five-year-old, and we all hated him and had no idea what to call him.

On the whole, Dr Norman seemed to be sexually interested in our mother – either that or it was a habit of his to act flirtatiously and look at women’s nipples. And for a short while she seemed interested in him too. But somehow all the sexy nipple-looking and flirty chitchat seemed empty and cold and as though they weren’t keen on each other. And, added to which, somehow my sister and I didn’t even want Dr Norman at the helm. Yes, he was a doctor and knew not to say ‘pardon’ or ‘notepaper’, but he just wasn’t the kind of man we wanted. He had a high-pitched laugh, which came out too often. He flapped his hands nervously around the ponies. Also, having Dr Norman at the helm would mean having Tuppence too (or Tanner as he would no doubt become) and we couldn’t have stood it, we thought.

So after the enthusiasm in the surgery and the excitement at the prospect of his moving in, we were lethargic and just let Tuppence play with the Lego and ignored him while Dr Norman looked at our mother’s nipples a bit more and had cups of coffee and laughed a lot. There were five minutes of drama when Tuppence climbed up into a pear tree, criticized our platform for not being a proper tree house, and then said he was too scared to climb down. Dr Norman could have regained some respect at that point, but instead he became anxious and wanted to call the fire brigade. I climbed up into the tree in my sister’s running spikes to help, but Tuppence made such a fuss and wouldn’t be helped so in the end I gave him a bit of a shove and he tumbled down quite safely into his father’s flapping hands.

Later, having omelettes, Dr Norman asked if it would be OK if he brought his girlfriend, Penny, round.

‘Do as you please, there are no rules here, as you’ve seen. Just do as you please,’ said our mother, ‘do exactly as you please.’ She sounded cross in spite of her reasonable words and a bit like her own mother.

Before we’d finished our omelettes all up, Dr Norman seemed to have hiccups and kept holding his hand to his mouth and saying, ‘Excuse me.’ It went on for some time and we offered the usual procedural help and discussed amongst us the best methods for curing stubborn hiccups. Dr Norman declined all suggestions, including the tremendous shock which my sister put forward as an option.

‘We could turn the lights off and do something shocking,’ said my sister.

‘We could throw a cushion at him,’ said Little Jack.

Tuppence then helpfully explained it wasn’t hiccups as such, but a rare kind of throat spasm where pockets of air get trapped in the folds of the oesophagus at times of stress and are released suddenly when the throat relaxes, causing a series of small painful burps. Our mother looked appalled and it put her right off him sexually (her being squeamish about anything to do with burps, sick or spit etc.). She looked nauseous and suddenly Penny the girlfriend seemed like a good thing.

Over the six weeks that Dr Norman was lodging with us there were many tiny mentions of our mother putting the house on the market, and at the same time Dr Norman grew to really like it and to feel it might be the ideal home for him and Penny and any kids they might have in the future. I thought this before Dr Norman actually did. And sure enough, when our mother finally decided she had too many debts and no money and selling up really was the only option, Dr Norman was first in the queue to buy it and he said how great it would be for him and Penny and any future kids.

Dr Norman brought Penny to see the house one day. Penny was young but had her hair in a bun and pale yellow trousers. They walked around the house, including the bits they wouldn’t normally see, such as our mother’s bedroom. I shadowed them, keen to hear their thoughts.

‘How much do you think she’d accept?’ asked Penny.

‘She’s pretty desperate,’ said Dr Norman.

Dr Norman made an offer considerably less than the asking price. Our mother said the offer was a bit on the low side and Dr Norman said she could take it or leave it.

In the queue, right behind him, was Dr Gurly, the lady doctor who, we guessed, must have heard about the house from Dr Norman, there being no For Sale sign up. Anyway, Dr Gurly came to view the house with a friend called Sheela and a clipboard and they took detailed notes. They measured the height of the kitchen cupboards and asked if the interior shelves were height-adjustable – which they were – them being cereal lovers and cereal boxes getting taller and taller. Our mother left them to roam around outside and waited until they said how lovely the garden was and then told them about Mr Gummo.

Dr Gurly and Sheela were very friendly towards us and after they’d finished their look around said how much they liked the house and Sheela asked if we’d been happy living there.

What a question. In truth, we hadn’t been very happy, but it would be unfair if that reflected badly on the house. The house, though less marvellous than we’d been led to believe at the outset, had been fine and hadn’t demanded any attention. Its good points had never quite made up for the fact that it was stuck in the old heart of a jittery little village and not in a town. But it was a nice house, roomy and with a grassy paddock, outbuildings, view, beams and whatnot. As the estate agent said, ‘All the features you would expect from a superior dwelling’, meaning gas-fired central heating, a downstairs lavatory and a view of the church steeple.

‘In all fairness, the house has done its best,’ I said, and that caused Sheela to look sad for a moment, so I looked at my sister who was perfect as always and patched it up with, ‘Of course, we’re sad to be leaving, but we can tell you’ll be very happy here.’

And that went down very well and then Little Jack explained about our financial situation, which he was supposed to know nothing about, and it was slightly embarrassing.

Dr Gurly and Sheela then told our mother they would be making an offer, which they did, via the agent, and they offered the whole price and our mother accepted it and reminded them about Mr Gummo.

‘What about Dr Norman and Penny and their future children?’ I asked later.

‘There are plenty of other houses around for them,’ said our mother.

‘Not as nice as this one, which has all the features you’d expect from a superior dwelling,’ I said, and suddenly felt I’d said the wrong thing seeing as presumably we’d be moving to one of the less nice houses which wouldn’t even be a superior dwelling.

The strange thing was, as soon as our mother had accepted Dr Gurly’s offer, the agent, Golbert & Blick, put a For Sale sign up – when it wasn’t even for sale any more. Our mother said that was the norm, and my sister said, ‘What do you expect from an outfit who don’t know how to spell “windows”?’

‘Spacious porch with original tiles and bottle-bottom windoes.’

And then, seeing the sign, other people wanted to look around, including Mrs Longlady and Mrs C. Beard, even though neither had any intention of buying it, but just wanted a little outing. Apparently that was the norm too and you just had to grit your teeth while they gawped at your sleeping arrangements and peered into your bathroom cabinet.

Then, in what seemed like a sudden move but probably wasn’t, our mother made an offer on a two-bedroomed house on the Sycamore Estate. We knew where the Sycamore Estate was but had never been there. Our mother painted a vivid picture. She explained that the estate was a specially designed residential area with a whole lot of slim streets with modern semi-detached houses with garages or carports, saplings and nice bits of grass. It was near the senior school and handy for a parade of shops and a bus stop. She’d never been there either. It sounded ideal.

Dr Gurly and Sheela were very keen to prepare for their move into our house and one or other of them often drifted in between appointments to measure walls, windows and bits of furniture. Sometimes they measured things they’d measured before, thinking the original measurements untrustworthy. They were planning to put up a dividing wall in the kitchen to make an intimate dining room which they were going to fill almost entirely with a large dining table and have a low lamp hanging in the centre. They wanted a scrubbed kitchen table (about the size of ours) in the kitchen and a smarter dark wood table in the dining room for when they were entertaining their doctor and nurse friends.

Our mother planned to offer Dr Gurly and Sheela certain of the larger items of furniture and garden stuff at a price to be agreed – the Suffolk Punch, the four-poster bed (but not the mattress), the walnut wardrobe, the large settee in her sitting room, and other sundry items. Dr Norman came to see our mother to ask if she’d take a higher offer. Our mother said she’d accepted the asking price from Dr Gurly. Dr Norman seemed cross about it and offered a bit above the asking price. Our mother said she couldn’t accept.

Dr Mann: Why have you sold the house to another doctor?

Adele: Dr Lady outbid you fair and square.

Dr Mann: But it’s the perfect house for myself and Penny, my girlfriend cum patient.

Adele: It’s also the perfect house for Dr Lady.

Dr Mann: She had no right outbidding me. Dr Lady’s only a lady doctor.

Adele: She’s two, actually.