Doctor On The Brain (8 page)

‘Are you mad? How can two people seriously talk of marriage when they’re not even remotely in love?’

‘There’s countless examples in history, of princes and princesses betrothed in infancy and being as happy as turtle-doves in the end. A couple of our intellect shouldn’t have any trouble over a little thing like that. It’s only emotional adjustment.’

‘You don’t seem to consider what it would be like for the child, growing up in an atmosphere like that.’

‘Well, it couldn’t be worse off than not being born at all, could it?’

She bit her lip. This seemed unanswerable. ‘I think I’d prefer to die myself.’

‘Rather be dead than wed, eh?’ Sharpewhistle inspected his spleen again. ‘By the way, I saw your dad – our dad – as I came into the hospital. I’m invited to dinner tonight. Your place, seven-thirty sharp. He wanted to tell you, but it seems you left home this morning a little on the early side. Funny, isn’t it, to think that from next Monday you and I’ll be sleeping in the same bed every night for the rest of our lives.’

‘If you must know, Edgar, that is a prospect which fills me with horror, if not outright alarm.’

‘You didn’t seem to mind last time.’

‘You aren’t much good at it.’

‘How do you know? Who’ve you got to compare me with?’

She bit her lip again. This seemed unanswerable, too.

‘See you at lunch in the refectory, then?’

‘Lunch? No, I’m not having any today. I’m too busy. I’ve work to do at home.’

‘Suit yourself.’ He put the spleen back on its shelf. ‘I’m glad the old folk asked me tonight. I’ve a couple of sticky cases I’d like to thrash out with the dean.’

The morning storm was over as suddenly as it had started. The black clouds hurried to continue their business eastwards, and there was the English countryside at its most beautiful, smiling at Sir Lancelot Spratt through remorseful tears. He looked at his half-hunter, seeing it was just on ten o’clock. He stepped from the shelter of an elm, where he had been sombrely calculating the statistics of being struck by lightning. He shook himself, like a dog out of a pond. He flicked his deerstalker, producing a cloud of drops. He was wet all through, right down to his fruit-gums.

The treacherous brightness earlier had conned him into leaving his waterproof at the Pike and Eel Inn, where he had spent the night. He had a bleeding lobe to his right ear, which he had caught with his dry fly. He had caught also that morning two trees, half-a-dozen bushes, a barbed-wire fence and the district nurse cycling across the bridge by the seat of her knickers. Of fish, he had only two miserable brown trout – which he supposed would do for Bonaccord’s pot – which had surrendered with such shaming lack of fight he excused them as having marked suicidal tendencies.

Sir Lancelot was fond of quoting
The Compleat Angler
, that fly-fishing was a rest to the mind, a cheerer of the spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness that begat habits of peace or patience in those that professed and practised it. Or less elaborately, the notice he had once seen up in a riverside pub –

If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk. If you want to be happy for a week, get married. But if you want to be happy for life, take up fishing.

As he now squelched along the grassy river bank, he had to admit that morning had brought his spirits as little cheer, his thoughts as little calmness, as driving down Piccadilly in the rush-hour.

He stopped as he reached the reed-fringed edge of Frying-Pan Pool. Here the river tumbled under a bridge of russet brick which stood beside a handful of weather-beaten cottages, then expanded to a swift-flowing sheet between the rich green water meadows. It was not so exciting as Carrot’s Pool further downstream, believed to hold a trout comparable with the Loch Ness Monster, and probably equally mythical. But there was a plump one or two Sir Lancelot had seen from the bridge, which he felt he had a bone to pick with. He detached the dry-fly from the cork handle of his rod, then with the precision and delicacy of movement which so graced the operating theatre, cast it as lightly as falling thistledown on the water. He gave a deep sigh. When he was fishing, his troubles usually fled like vampires at daybreak, but that morning Miss MacNish and her horrible cats were unbudgeable from his mind. She would have to go, bag, cats and baggage. But he could never find so superb nor devoted a cook, and the prospect of breaking another housekeeper to his ways appalled him. Yet no employer, even in such democratic days, could pass uncensured a dish of tripe and onions thrown at him. Where he would get her replacement was another problem, which Sir Lancelot decided to ponder on later. No man could think with a clear head when his shoes were half-full of rainwater.

‘Any luck?’

Sir Lancelot turned. A young man of about seventeen in a white helmet was grinning at him from a scooter stopped on the bridge.

‘Luck!’ he muttered. On that river, in the finest angling country of England, if not of the world! Where well-bred trout were caught with enormous skill in an atmosphere of dry-flies, well-cut tweeds and clipped accents. ‘There is little luck concerned with the operation, I’m afraid,’ he called back.

‘What you using? Worms?’

Sir Lancelot choked. It was a word never mentioned among the members of his fishing club. There was one half-forgotten dreadful scandal about a member – a clerical one, at that – who had been unmasked on some quiet reach removing his regulation dry-fly and substituting a juicy maggot. ‘I am using toasted cheese.’

‘Go on? Are they biting today?’

‘They do not bite,’ said Sir Lancelot icily. ‘They suck.’

He cast his line again, scowling fiercely enough to send every fish hurrying in terror up the river. Why, he wondered, had a man’s traditional privacy at prayer or fishing to be violated by itinerant ignoramuses in hard hats?

‘Why don’t you sit down to it? You wouldn’t get so tired then, would you?’

‘I regret that I suffer from a painful condition of the posterior.’

‘Oh, got the Farmer Giles, have you?’ asked the onlooker knowingly. ‘I wouldn’t mind having a go with that rod of yours.’

‘Doubtless.’

‘Doctor – ?’

Sir Lancelot spun round. From the cottage next to the bridge appeared Pilcher the river-keeper, a little man with a pipe who Sir Lancelot felt closely resembled Popeye the Sailor. But Pilcher loved all the fish as his children, and had river-water rather than blood in his veins. ‘Telephone call for you, Doctor. Urgent. From London.’

Sir Lancelot cursed. ‘Who is it?’

‘Don’t know, Doctor. The wife took it.’

Sir Lancelot knew he had an intense suspicion of telephones. He carefully rested his rod in the fork of a small tree. Wiping his hands on his red-spotted handkerchief, he tramped into the cottage parlour and picked up the instrument.

‘Spratt here.’

‘Lancelot dear, you
do
sound in a mood.’

‘Who the hell’s that?’

‘Frankie.’

Sir Lancelot bit his lip. ‘I have had a very trying morning. Among other things being half-drowned in a storm.’

‘Yes, it’s just blowing up over London now. Miss MacNish gave me this telephone number. I’ve invited myself to dinner tonight. Seven-thirty all right?’

Sir Lancelot grunted.

‘I heard you’d be back by lunchtime, and of course I’d love to taste some of her wonderful cooking again.’

‘As you know, Frankie, I am delighted to see you at any time.’

‘Well, you don’t sound as if you’d particularly care to at the moment. But what I’ve got to say when we meet will put you in a much better mood. I’m sure of that. It’s something extremely important, but an official matter, so I can’t mention it over the phone. See you this evening.’

He put down the telephone. He went through the cottage door. He crossed the front garden and the road leading to the bridge. He made down towards the bank of Frying-Pan Pool. He stopped dead, quivering all over.

‘You! Put that valuable rod down this instant.’

The youth from the scooter, still in his white helmet, looked round with a grin. ‘You’re right. It’s more difficult than it looks.’

Sir Lancelot advanced, grabbing the cork rod handle. ‘What the hell do you mean, poaching anyway?’

‘I didn’t think you’d mind.’

‘I do mind. Enormously.’ Sir Lancelot put his free hand over his eyes. ‘Please go,’ he said weakly. ‘Be on your way, on your contraption. Had I the mind to, I could have you prosecuted, and the local bench would undoubtedly view your conduct with the greatest severity. You would probably have to go to prison for several months. As it happens, I have had far too much to put up with this morning already. And I must anyway be off home. Leave an old man in peace. Please. My dear chap.’

‘Okay, dad.’ The youth gave another grin. Sir Lancelot watched him in silence as he mounted his scooter and with an explosion of the engine disappeared. He gave a weary sigh and started to reel in his line from the swirling waters.

‘The bloody fool’s jammed my fly into some underwater weeds,’ he growled. ‘Or a submerged log, by the feel of it.’

He stopped. His mouth fell open. The line of its own accord started to swim about.

‘Pilcher!’

The keeper’s head appeared over the bridge.

‘Pilcher! I seem to have got into something like a baby seal.’

‘Christ!’

An enormous fish leapt into the air then shot powerfully across the pool.

‘Pilcher!’ Sir Lancelot’s fishing-line screamed out. ‘Don’t stand there, man! Come and help me.’ Pipe still in mouth, the keeper scrambled down the bank. ‘Net, man, net!’ shouted Sir Lancelot, as though demanding the artery forceps in a hurry.

‘Your net won’t be big enough, sir.’

‘Then jump in the water and carry him out with your bare hands.’

‘Can’t swim, Doctor.’

‘My God, Pilcher, if I lose this fish up the river you’ll follow it, with a couple of bricks round your neck.’

The battle started. The monster fish produced every trick from several million years’ evolution to detach itself from Sir Lancelot. The huntsman used every trick from the comparatively few years he had evolved from his prey to keep him on. Both were fighting in their own element – one with the better brain, but the other with the better instincts. For half an hour the fight continued without slackening, as the fish reared and plunged, buried itself under blankets of weed, sprang into the air, wound itself round the bridge, shot abruptly in the direction of the sea or turned and charged Sir Lancelot’s boots as he crashed anxiously through the weeds, soaking up to his thighs, spirits rising and falling like the temperature-chart of some terrible fever. At last the great fish surrendered. It rolled wearily on its handsome back, it allowed itself to be reeled unresistingly towards the bank, where Pilcher had fetched a bigger net and was jumping up and down uttering anguished cries of unheard advice.

‘My God,’ muttered Sir Lancelot, as the trout made its fatal transition from water to grass. ‘Now I know how Ahab felt on sighting Moby Dick.’

‘Eight pounds, sir,’ exclaimed Pilcher wonderingly.

‘Oh, more than that. Ten at least. Possibly fifteen.’

‘Biggest in my memory of the river, Doctor.’

‘And in the memory of your grandfather, too, I’d imagine.’

‘How’d you catch him, sir?’

‘Why, I–’ Sir Lancelot paused. He stroked his beard. ‘When I came back from the telephone I’d my eye on him, moving over at the far side of the bridge. I shot a low cast under the arch.’

Pitcher chewed his pipe thoughtfully. ‘Long cast.’

‘Very.’

‘Difficult, too. Into the wind.’

‘Pitcher, I have had a good many years’ experience at this sport, you know.’

‘I’d say it was a cast which would win a championship record for distance.’

‘Perhaps it was a little nearer than it looks.’ Sir Lancelot was aware that Pilcher knew more about angling than he about surgery.

‘Funny how you managed to miss hooking those overhanging willows, Doctor.’

‘Skill, Pilcher, sheer skill. Here – buy yourself a bottle of scotch to celebrate.’

‘Thank you, Doctor. Well, this trout’ll make you a fine dinner.’

‘Good God, I’m not going to eat it. I’m going to tie it to a board and take it back to London to be stuffed. Then you may hang it in a glass case in the club’s rod-room. And all the other fishermen can come and look at it. By God, I can just see the old major and the vicar now, absolutely sick with envy.’

‘I still don’t see how you could notice it moving behind the bridge. Not from here, Doctor.’

‘Pilcher, buy yourself a second bottle of scotch.’

‘Thank you, Doctor,’

‘No point in celebrating by halves. Take this – buy a case.’

‘Thank you, sir,

‘Now I must be off to London. I’ll have to drive like stink as it is.’

‘But you’re wet through, Doctor.’

Sir Lancelot at last gave a broad grin. ‘Am I? To tell you the truth, I really don’t notice it.’

The storm reached London about noon. It was still raining about an hour later, as Muriel hurried out of No 2 Lazar Row, where she had slipped unobserved to fetch her white belted mackintosh. Her way along the main road brought her past the gates of St Swithin’s itself, where she looked anxiously for Sharpewhistle. But he was a man of industrious and regular habits, who would be working in the wards until his refectory lunch. Stepping along briskly, staring straight ahead, she went into the underground station and bought a ticket for Piccadilly Circus.

She emerged from the tube by the Shaftesbury Avenue entrance, looking anxiously at her watch. Almost one fifteen. A girl of Muriel’s conscientious mind always liked to be on time. It was still spitting with rain as she hurried into the tawdry criss-cross of narrow Soho Streets. The pub was on a corner, next to a pornographic bookshop and an open doorway with the invitation
Young French Model Walk Up
– probably not French, nor young and certainly not a model, she reflected. She hesitated. It would be the public bar. She pushed open the door and saw she had guessed right.

‘Hello, Muriel. Do you mind mixing with the peasants?’

‘No, of course not…’

‘They tend to look askance at my appearance in the saloon bar. Besides, it’s cheaper here. What’ll you have?’

‘What are you drinking yourself?’

‘Tomato juice, as usual.’

‘I’ll have a double whisky.’

‘Well! That’s depraved for a sober and studious girl like you, isn’t it?’

‘I need it. I’ve something difficult to tell you. Something awful.’

He ordered the drink. He was a man of her own age, pale, fashionably covered with drooping hair, thin, taller than she. Though dressed in a pair of faded, patched jeans, a white round-necked undervest, and a worn quilted green anorak he presented a refreshingly hygienic appearance, as though himself and his underclothes were well-scrubbed daily – as they were. ‘What’s the awful news, Muriel? You’ve fallen in love with somebody else?’

‘Well…no. But…oh, Andy! I can hardly tell you. I’m getting married to somebody else.’

‘That might lead to our seeing rather less of each other.’

‘It’s happening on Monday.’

‘That certainly shows enthusiasm for the married state on your part.’

‘It’s got to be done as soon as possible. You see, I’m having a baby. There, I’ve got it all out, right at the start,’ She picked up her glass and swilled the whisky at a gulp.

‘Have another.’

‘Thank you.’

‘How did it happen?’

‘It was after a dance. One of the students. The stupid thing is, it was all over in a flash… I really
did
believe it went on for rather longer. I didn’t enjoy it. Not at all. It’s beyond me how everyone all over the world seems to get so excited about it.’

He sipped his tomato juice. ‘Poor, poor Muriel.’

‘Oh, Andy! I knew you’d say something like that.’ She smiled her gratitude. ‘That’s why I just had to see you today. I could have just left you in ignorance, couldn’t I? I could easily have avoided ever meeting you again.’

‘But I’ve nothing but compassion and sympathy for you, Muriel. I don’t see why I should modify my philosophy of life just because something painful affects me so personally.’

She dropped her eyes, leaving her second drink untouched. ‘You’re an angel. A saint.’

‘I hope not – you’ve got to be far too aggressive and bossy and generally interfering to be a saint. It’s simply that I believe in gentleness and purity in life. That’s all.’

‘It’s a lovely outlook.’

‘It’s a depressing one. Everyone who’s tried it from Our Lord onwards has come to a sticky end.’

‘Perhaps that was our trouble – you and me. We were too pure.’

‘Oh, purity’s dead kinky these days.’

‘I mean, if we’d
done
it, like everyone else…’ She looked at him imploringly. ‘Why didn’t we get married, Andy, months ago?’

‘It would have wrecked your career.’

‘Why should it have done? Nearly all the girls at St Swithin’s are married.’

‘Yes, but to respectable students and wage-earners, not to oddments like me. And it would have wrecked your family. I wouldn’t have liked the responsibility for that. I don’t think your father would entirely approve of my total rejection of society. Nor of your meeting me on a sociology course – as material.’

‘I don’t care tuppence about my father, or anyone else.’

‘Perhaps not now, when you’re rather desperate.’ Muriel said nothing. ‘You’re going ahead with the baby?’

She nodded. ‘I’d resolved to get rid of it – it wasn’t easy, you know, like it always seems in films and novels. But then he said he wanted to go ahead and have it.’

‘I suppose I can only say I hope you’ll be very happy.’

‘Oh, Andy, thank you.’ She suddenly started to cry loudly. Andy clasped her tightly. The other drinkers pointedly tried to pretend nothing abnormal was happening. Couples got up to all manner of things in pubs these days. ‘But what am I going to
do
?’ she implored.

‘You haven’t left yourself much room to manoeuvre, dear, I must say.’

‘But I don’t love him. Not a bit. That business after the ball…it meant no more than kissing someone in the dark. I know all the other girls go about it the same way, but I’ve learnt my lesson, I don’t mind admitting.’

‘What’s he like?’

‘Oh…about five feet tall, tubby, with small feet and a large head.’

‘Sounds charming.’

They fell silent. She looked up at him, dabbing her cheeks with a handkerchief from her large handbag. ‘So it’s goodbye, Andy. It must have upset you tremendously. I’m sorry. But I had to tell you about it. It was only right and fair, wasn’t it? Besides, it’s made me feel so much better, just talking to you like this.’

‘No, it isn’t goodbye. I don’t agree at all.’

She smiled wanly. ‘We can hardly ask you to the wedding.’

‘Today’s Tuesday. So there’s almost a week for something to happen. Of course, there’s always the chance he may walk under a bus, or at least see reason.’

‘He’s far too canny for either, I think.’

‘Let me think up something.’

‘What?’

Andy shrugged his thin shoulders. ‘I don’t know but can I get in touch with you tomorrow?’

‘Ring the phone box in the students’ common-room at twelve-thirty. I’ll be waiting. And I’ll make sure he’s somewhere else.’

‘Don’t you want the whisky?’

‘No, not really. I’ve work to do this afternoon. Sorry I let you in for buying it.’

‘Money is meaningless when you live on faith, hope and charity.’ They went outside. The rain had stopped and the sun had come through, raising steam from the glistening pavements and the roofs of the crawling traffic. ‘Look at Nature’s frugal housekeeping,’ Andy observed. ‘What the skies send down they take back again in due course. As it was and ever shall be. The world doesn’t change, you know. No more than a wheel changes, going faster and faster along a bumpy track. Tell me, your father the revered dean of St Swithin’s. Is he a healthy man?’

‘He seems to be. He’s been a bit depressed recently, that’s all.’

‘I mean his heart is strong?’

‘Yes. He had a test the other week.’

‘He wouldn’t succumb to a sudden shock?’

‘He seems proof against them, poor man.’

‘Good. I’ll telephone you tomorrow, my love. Without fail.’

He gave her a pure kiss, and she hurried back to the hospital.