Doctor On The Brain (13 page)

‘Hotblack’s,’ said Sir Lancelot.

He climbed into the back of the taxi. It was twenty minutes later. He should have been starting an outpatients’ clinic at St Swithin’s, but he had telephoned his registrar to take it instead. It was a ridiculous waste of time, he thought, going down to an employment agency in the West End. But it was an even more ludicrous waste making his own bed and cleaning the floors. I’m a surgeon, he told himself, not a scrubwoman.

The cab stopped at a plain doorway in a dignified stone building at the back of the Burlington House, not far from the bespoke tailors who provided Sir Lancelot with his formal suits and – unflinchingly – his hairy ginger tweeds. A metal plate beside the door said simply,
Hotblack’s
. ‘Looks respectable,’ he muttered, and strode in.

Through an inner glass door was a small, plain office furnished in the inhibited Regency-gentility style of a Harley Street waiting-room. Behind a table with a pair of telephones and a leather-bound diary a young dark-haired girl in a stylish dress eyed him with a mixture of disdain and frank hostility. ‘Have you got an appointment?’

‘Of course not. Did I need one?’

‘It’s customary to telephone first.’

Sir Lancelot stifled his irritation. These days, any tuppenny business seemed to assume toward the public the airs rightful to consultant surgeons. ‘I’m sorry. I imagined that would simply complicate matters. I want you to supply me with a woman as soon as possible.’

‘What!’

Sir Lancelot stared at her. ‘I should imagine you have adequate numbers on your books?’

‘Well…yes. But it isn’t usually fixed up instantly, you know.’

‘I don’t want to take her away with me here and now, of course. Not if that would be inconvenient. But I should certainly like her before tonight.’

The girl slowly fanned herself with a sheet of typing paper. ‘You’re a cool one, and no mistake.’

Sir Lancelot glared. ‘Perhaps it would be advantageous if I saw your principal?’

‘I think it most certainly would.’ She picked up one of the telephones. ‘You happen to be in luck this morning. She’s free. Usually clients have to wait up to a month. Hello! Mrs Hotblack, I’ve a gentleman here I think you’d better handle personally. Very well, Mrs Hotblack. First floor,’ she added to Sir Lancelot.

He went up the stairs. He knocked and entered another small office, businesslike with unadorned green-painted walls and a row of heavy steel filing cabinets. Behind a well-tidied mahogany desk sat a woman about his own size. She was dressed in an expensive bottle-green silk suit, with brilliantly-tinted red hair and a monocle.

‘Do sit down.’

She spoke in a low voice, without opening her mouth very much. He took the high-backed chair opposite the desk, balancing his homburg on his knee. She drew from a folder a long form covered with printed questions.

‘First, your name.’

‘Sir Lancelot Spratt.’

She looked up. ‘Oh, a title?’

‘There is still no law in the country against such indulgences.’

‘Genuine, I suppose?’

Sir Lancelot bit his lip again. But he supposed if he wanted results in a hurry he’d better play their game, without too much sensitivity. ‘I would have no objection to your telephoning the Palace to find out. Though possibly others might.’

Mrs Hotblack made a note. ‘Occupation?’

‘I am a surgeon.’

She looked with new interest through her monocle. ‘That’s curious. We seldom see surgeons in here.’

‘Surgeons need looking after like less adulated mortals.’

‘Naturally. But medical men never seem to require our services.’

‘Perhaps they are less particular than myself?’

‘How very kind.’

Sir Lancelot scratched his beard. Everyone in the building was unbalanced, quite clearly. ‘How long will it take you to fix me up?’

‘You mean, simply to meet a suitable lady?’

‘I mean to get the whole thing cut and dried. I’m an extremely busy man, you know. And a somewhat impatient one. I really can’t carry on by myself any longer, or I shall burst an artery.’

‘But surely you can wait a few days, at least?’

‘I certainly can not.’

Mrs Hotblack gave him another close glance, shook her head, and turned back to the form. ‘Single, divorced, or widower?’

‘Widower. Though I fail to see what that has to do with it, in the least.’

‘We are a very well-established, respectable and exclusive agency. We have to make exhaustive enquiries on both sides.’

‘Things certainly weren’t so strict when I first set up house with my late wife.’

‘You found her through an agency, did you?’

‘That remark was uncalled for, madam. I should not like anyone to give out that I married my housekeeper.’

‘I must apologize,’ she said quickly. ‘I certainly didn’t want to touch a sensitive spot. We take great care to avoid doing so, in fact.’

‘I am not going to answer any more damnfool questions.’ Sir Lancelot rose. ‘I am a knight, a consultant surgeon at St Swithin’s Hospital, and this card has my address. If you consider my moral character and worldly circumstances up to whatever standards you happen to have set yourself, kindly send a lady round to see me. If she dislikes the look of me, or me her, that will be the end of the matter.’

‘At least you have a down-to-earth practical view of the process.’ She couldn’t suppress an admiring glance through the monocle.

‘I am a down-to-earth practical man. Your fee will be paid in any case. Plus, of course, the female’s travelling expenses.’

‘I think that is being altogether too practical.’

‘As you wish. I shall be at home all evening.’

Sir Lancelot stalked out. He noticed a telephone kiosk on the opposite pavement, and hurried across the road. He dialled the number of Frankie’s London flat, but there was no reply. It was the second time he had called since leaving Dr Bonaccord’s. He was anxious to have a little word with her.

In her white coat with stethoscope coiling from the pocket, a note-book under her arm, Muriel came into the students’ common-room at St Swithin’s from the wards that morning just before twelve-thirty. The long, dim ground-floor room, with its worn leather sofas, scratched tables, overcrowded notice-boards, and litter of newspapers, medical journals, sheets of case-notes and abandoned textbooks, though cleaned every morning always managed to look as untidy as a kindergarten. She noticed with satisfaction that the telephone booth in the corner was empty. Then she saw with less contentment her fiancé sitting beside it reading
Principles of Medicine
.

Edgar Sharpewhistle looked up. ‘Hello, love.’

‘Hello.’

‘I was just thinking. Where do you want to go for your honeymoon?’

‘Oh, anywhere.’

‘Cornwall do you?’

‘I don’t mind.’

‘Not much to do down there, of course. But if we’re on honeymoon we’ll be making our own fun, as it were, won’t we?’

‘Will we?’

‘I mean, that’s the point, isn’t it?’

‘What’s the point?’

‘Making fun. Together.’

‘What
are
you talking about?’

‘Bit of a rush, this wedding.’ Sharpewhistle decided not to pursue the subject. ‘There’s my folk to come down from Pontefract. The best man to find. And I suppose you’ll want some bridesmaids?’ ‘On the contrary, I should prefer to perform without an audience. We need only a couple of witnesses. I’d be perfectly happy with two passers-by from the street.’

‘And where do you want to live?’

‘Anywhere.’

‘There’s a two-room flat I heard of near my digs, behind the bus depot. It’s a bit pricey, of course. But everywhere is.’ He still had his index finger on his place in the textbook. ‘Pity I can’t move into your flat in Lazar Row, at least until the baby’s born. Though I suppose you’ll all be moving out, now your father’s vice-chancellor of Hampton Wick.’

‘He isn’t. He turned it down.’

Sharpewhistle looked aghast. ‘What did he do that for?’

‘He felt too many people from St Swithin’s would be after him for jobs.’ The telephone rang. Sharpewhistle started to get up. ‘It’s for me,’ she told him.

‘But how do you know?’

‘Extrasensory perception.’

Muriel went into the telephone box, closing the door. Sharpewhistle turned back to his
Principles of Medicine
. He became aware of someone in a white coat on the leather sofa beside him.

‘And how’s the happy groom?’ asked Tulip Twyson.

‘You know, do you?’

‘Muriel told me. Though you’re keeping it pretty dark in the hospital, I must say.’

‘Muriel’s a bit shy about these things.’

She decided to spare him her knowledge of his paternity. ‘I must say, it came as a bit of a shock to me.’

‘To me too, I suppose.’

‘When did it all start?’

Sharpewhistle kept his finger on his place. ‘The night of the May ball.’

‘Pity I was already booked when you asked me first.’

‘Yes, it was,’ he said feelingly.

She laughed. ‘The trouble with you, Edgar, is that you need someone to bring out the best in you.’

‘You don’t think Muriel would?’

‘Well, did she?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘The night after the ball.’

‘No, not really.’ He moved awkwardly in his seat. ‘I didn’t think you were really much interested in me.’

‘Oh, yes I was. It’s delightful, isn’t it, how one can be frank and open about everything now? The sex game is an awful bore, sometimes, however you play it. But I
was
interested in you, Edgar. Brains are sexy, you know. If you win this
IQ Quiz
thing, you could have almost any girl you wanted.’

Sharpewhistle looked interested. ‘You think so?’

‘You’d be irresistible. It’s biological, isn’t it? Pure Darwinism. A woman wants to mate with best-quality material. I was reading that every actress in London wanted to sleep with George Bernard Shaw, when he was a hundred and fifty years old and only ate nuts.’

‘It’s a bit late now, isn’t it?’ He looked at her complainingly. ‘You should have told me all this before.’

‘Can I come to the wedding?’

‘No. But I can get you a seat for
IQ Quiz
.’

‘That won’t be half so entertaining, but I’ll accept.’

‘You’d better win, you know,’ came a voice.

Sharpewhistle looked up. The tall, stylish figure of Roger Duckham was leaning over him. ‘I can but do my best,’ he said modestly.

‘We all hope, for your own sake, that your best is going to be good enough.’

‘You know, it’s nice how all the boys in the medical school are encouraging me. I never thought I was so popular, honestly.’

Roger Duckham gave a chilling grin. ‘We’ve not fallen in love with your big blue eyes, Sharpewhistle. We’ve got an absolute packet on you.’

He looked mystified. ‘What sort of packet?’

‘Money. Side-bets, of course. Mainly with those cowboys at High Cross. So your IQ had better be sizzling at the next round, hadn’t it? If you let us down…it’s the full treatment, my little man, take it from me. Do you remember, Tulip darling, that student a couple of years ago who let High Cross get away with our rugger mascot?’

‘Oh, yes. The one we all gave the enema to.’

‘What of?’ asked Sharpewhistle faintly.

‘Of Guinness.’

‘There was something else in it, wasn’t there?’ asked Tulip.

‘Turpentine and soft soap, as I remember offhand.’

‘Then we hung him from the railings in the courtyard by his trousers.’

‘I think it was then he saw the error of his ways. What did you say, Sharpewhistle?’

‘I…I’ll certainly cudgel my brains if it’s for the good of the hospital.’

‘You cudgel them, Sharpewhistle. You do that little thing.’

The telephone kiosk door opened. ‘Sorry I can’t stay, Edgar,’ said Muriel, striding off. ‘I’ve just remembered a blood-sugar I have to take in the wards.’

Outside the common-room was Sir Lancelot, walking along the main corridor, hands clasped behind his back, beard sunk on his chest. The sight of Muriel seemed to bring back the real world about him with a jerk. ‘I believe I must congratulate you,’ he said as jovially as possible. ‘I gather you are shortly to be married.’

‘Yes. That’s right. Thanks.’ She fell in beside him, walking towards the main entrance.

‘Your father and myself had a chat about it last night, while we were taking a breath of air before retiring.’

‘Poor Father.’

‘Why so?’

‘He’s had so many worries lately.’

Sir Lancelot nodded sympathetically. ‘But I’m sure a man of his intellectual fibre…of his moral strength…of his absolute refusal to shun any unpleasant duty…will take them all in his stride.’

‘At least he hasn’t got to be vice-chancellor at Hampton Wick.’

Sir Lancelot gave a slight, knowing smile. ‘Where did you learn about the appointment? It’s supposed to be a secret till Monday.’

‘Oh, Father told us the day before yesterday. He’d had lunch with Dr Humble – she used to be his house-physician, but now she’s an MP, of course – and she offered him the job. He was so dreadfully worried, and I don’t blame him after all the terrible things the students do to their vice-chancellors there. The thought of him facing it made me feel quite sick. It isn’t a job suitable for a man of intelligence, I’d say. They just want some big academic bully in to handle them. Anyway, thank God he got out of it. I don’t know how, but he’s been going round chortling at his cleverness all morning.’ Sir Lancelot had stopped dead. His eyebrows were moving up and down and he had gone purple. ‘I’m afraid I must go now, Uncle Lancelot. I’ve got to see someone off Piccadilly in half-an-hour. I’ll tell Father how kind you were about him.’

She trotted away, peeling off her white coat, making towards the women students’ cloakroom. Sir Lancelot stood opening and closing his fists. He turned and strode across the main hall, thrusting aside the plate-glass doors, pushing unseeing into the sunshine through startled students, nurses and patients. Hands jammed in jacket pockets, head down, he charged across the courtyard. He mowed his way through the shoppers in the main road, turned into Lazar Row, mounted the steps of No 2, put his finger on the bell and kept it there.

The dean had decided to lunch at home, and was just sitting down with his wife to a tasty-looking grilled sole with black butter and tomato. He put down his fish-knife and fork. ‘That’s odd – the bell’s stuck. Never known it go wrong before.’

‘These houses are really awfully badly made, dear.’

The dean went through to the hall. He opened the front door.

‘You traitor!’ shouted Sir Lancelot. ‘You Judas! You rat!’

‘Lancelot! Someone might overhear.’

‘And a bloody good job, too. The more people who see you in your true colours the better. You false friend. You stabber in the back. You hypocrite. You slyboots.’

The dean grasped the situation. ‘I suppose you got to know Frankie first offered the vice-chancellor’s job to me?’

‘And you got her to push it on me. Because you were too big a coward to take it yourself.’

‘But I was doing you a favour, Lancelot. Be reasonable. You always wanted that job. Five years ago you behaved like a kid with no Christmas presents when you didn’t get it.’

‘That’s beside the point. You deliberately deceived me on this very doorstep, barely twelve hours ago. You are no gentleman.’

‘As usual, you’re making far too much fuss about this. If I was Frankie’s first choice for the job, what of it? You’re jealous, that’s all. A remarkably childish reaction, if I may say so.’

‘Listen, cocky, don’t flatter yourself. You weren’t the first she offered the job to.’ Sir Lancelot jerked a thumb. ‘That was Bonaccord.’

‘What? I can’t believe that for one moment.’

‘Then go and ask his secretary. She made a point of telling me as much this morning.’

‘That’s absolutely outrageous of Frankie. She let me understand most definitely that I was her very first choice. How a woman like her could for one moment envisage a wet like Bonaccord in the job, and then go to him ahead of me…why, she must have been out of her mind.’

Sir Lancelot smirked. ‘Jealousy is a remarkably childish reaction.’

‘I’m not jealous. Not at all. Me? Of Bonaccord? Don’t be ridiculous. Anyway, what are you going to do about it?’

‘Tell Frankie she can put her job where Cromwell told them to put the Mace.’

The dean began to recover himself. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I shall continue with my luncheon. My fish will be getting cold.’

‘I never want to speak to you again, Lychfield.’

‘I can assure you the opportunity will never arise, Spratt.’

The dean shut the door.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Josephine in alarm.

‘Oh, it was Lancelot. Frankie Humble’s made a fool of us both. I’m sorry, dear,’ he added quickly, sitting down. ‘I know it distresses you when I mention her name.’

‘But why should it, Lionel? We’ve known Frankie for years, and I’m very fond of her. I think the more you see of her the better. It livens you up.’

The dean stared at her for a moment, but decided to make no comment. Instead, he said, ‘Do you mind if I get on with my fish in silence, dear? I have a little work to get through before my clinic this afternoon.’

He drew from his pocket four sheets of foolscap paper. He scored with heavy strokes through alterations made that very morning. After a moment’s thought, he substituted,
His testiness, his egotism and his jealousy of his colleagues during his final years assumed such proportions that they were obliged to watch helplessly the ultimate demolition of the splendid ruin he had already become
.

Next door, Sir Lancelot was sitting down at his study desk, uncapping his fountain-pen, and squaring his shoulders.