Ordinary Thunderstorms

31

WHAT IS IT ABOUT DOCTORS’ WAITING ROOMS IN THIS COUNTRY, INGRAM thought? Here he was, about to pay £120 for a brief ten-minute consultation with one of the most sought-after and exclusive general practitioners in London and he might as well be sitting in a two-star provincial hotel in the 19508. Chipped, bad reproduction furniture, a worn, patterned carpet, a job-lot of dusty hunting prints on the wall, a couple of parched spider plants on the window sill, and a two-year-old pile of magazines on a coffee table with a spavined leg. If this were New York or Paris or Berlin it would all be clean, new, solid, glass, steel, lush greenery — the decor saying: I’m very, very successful, I’m high tech, cutting edge, you can trust me with your health concerns. But here in London, in Harley Street…

Ingram sighed, audibly, causing the other waiting patient in the room — a woman with a veil up to her eyes and a head-scarf down to her eyebrows — to look up at him. She had a small boy with her, his arm in a sling. Ingram smiled at her — perhaps she smiled back: he thought her eyes crinkled slightly, acknowledging the absurdity of the situation, but he couldn’t be sure, that was the problem with veils — indeed, that was the purpose of veils. He picked up a copy of Horse and Hound and flicked through it, tossed it down and sighed again. Perhaps he should simply leave — he felt a bit foolish — just a few tiny drops of blood and these potent, fearsome itches: why bother the doctor at all?

“Ingram, old chap. Come away in, laddie.”

Ingram’s doctor, Dr Lachlan McTurk, was a Scot, through and through, but a Scot who did not have a Scottish accent, except when he decided to affect one from time to time. He was very overweight, not quite clinically obese, had a head of thick, unruly grey hair and a flushed, ruddy face. He wore tweed suits in various shades of moss-green, winter and summer. He was married with five children and, although Ingram had been his patient for some thirty years now, he had never met Mrs McTurk or any offspring. He was a cultured man whose keenness to explore and consume every art form available was undiminished. Ingram sometimes wondered why he had bothered to become a doctor at all.

“Will you have a ‘wee dram’, Ingram? It’ll soon be noon.”

“Better not, thanks. I’ve got a rather important meeting.”

Lachlan McTurk had done all the obvious physical tests: blood pressure, pulse, palpation, reflexes, listened to his heart and lungs and could find no sign of anything wrong. He poured himself a generous three fingers of whisky and topped it up from the cold tap at his sink. He sat down behind his desk and lit a cigarette. He began to scribble notes down in a file.

“If you were a motor car, Ingram, I’d say you’ve passed your MOT with flying colours.”

“But where’s this blood coming from? Why? What about these infernal itches?”

“Who knows? They’re not symptoms I recognise.”

“So I’ve nothing to worry about?”

“Well, we’ve all got plenty to worry about. But I would say you could push your health to the back of the queue.”

“I suppose I should be pursued.” Ingram put his jacket on. “What am I saying? I mean relieved. I should be relieved.”

“Do you smoke?”

“Not for twenty years?”

“How much do you drink, roughly?”

“Couple of glasses of wine a day. Approximately.”

“Let’s say a bottle. No — you’re in pretty good nick, in my professional opinion.”

Ingram thought. “Perhaps I will have a small Scotch.” He might as well get something for his £120, he calculated. McTurk poured him his drink and handed it over.

“Have you seen the new production of Playboy of the Western World at the National?” McTurk asked.

“Ah, no.”

“It’s a must. That and the August Macke at Tate Liverpool. If you do two things this month do those. I beg you.”

“Duly noted, Lachlan.” Ingram sipped his Scotch. “I have to admit I’ve been a bit tense, lately. Lot going on.”

“Ah-ha, the Dread Goddess Stress. Stress can do the strangest things to a body.”

“Do you think stress might be the answer?”

“Who knows? ‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horatio’.” McTurk stubbed out his cigarette. “So to speak. Do you know what?” he said. “I’m going to run some blood tests. Just so you sleep easy.”

This is what happens, Ingram thought, a simple visit to the doctor and suddenly you discover medical conditions, health problems, you were completely unaware of. McTurk took a good syringe-full of blood from the vein in his right elbow and made a series of samples from it.

“What tests?” Ingram asked.

“I’ll just run the gamut. See if any flags are flying.”

Oh good, Ingram thought, another £500.

“You don’t think,” he began, “I mean, these couldn’t be, I mean, symptoms of a — what would you say? — sexually transmitted disease…”

McTurk looked at him, shrewdly. “Well, if there was blood dripping from your back-side and your cock was itching — or vice versa — I might have my suspicions. What have you been up to, Ingram?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Ingram said quickly, instantly regretting this course the diagnosis had taken. “Just wondering, perhaps, if a misspent youth was catching up with me.”

“Oh yes, the pox. No, no — we’d sort that out immediately. No mercury baths for you, laddie.”

Ingram left feeling weak and considerably iller than he had when he arrived. He also had a mild headache from the whisky. Fool.