Fillets of Plaice, by Gerald Durrell (19 page)

“You will probably have it even if I tell you not to,” he said in a resigned manner, so I suppose you can.”

The party was a small one held in an excellent curry restaurant in Soho. It was during the course of the evening that I felt something trickling down my chin and, on wiping my mouth with my napkin, I was surprised to see it stained with blood. It was obvious that my nose was bleeding. Fortunately, both the lighting and the décor of the restaurant lent themselves well to this manifestation and I managed to staunch the flow without any untoward comment. I was not so lucky on the following day.

It was a week before Christmas and it was therefore necessary for me — on my way to Abbotsford — to deviate from my route slightly so as to call in at the Kings Road to deliver an almost life-sized Teddy bear who squatted regally in a transparent plastic bag and wore nothing except a handsome maroon-coloured tie.

I got out of the taxi, clasping the bear round its ample middle, rang the front door bell, and my nose started to bleed copiously. It was well-nigh impossible, I discovered, to hold the bear under one arm while staunching the flow of blood with the other, so I put the bear between my legs, thus freeing my hands.

“What are you
doing
?” inquired my wife from the interior of the taxi.

“By dose is bleeding again,” I said through my blood-stained handkerchief.

With the bear between my legs and the blood streaming down my face, I presented an arresting sight even by Kings Road standards. A small crowd collected.

“Give the bear to the sweet-shop next door and ask
them
to give it to Peter,” my wife hissed. “You can't stand there like that.”

The crowd had hitherto been silent, digesting this slightly macabre spectacle. Now a new woman joined them and gaped upon the mystery.

“Wot's 'appening?” she inquired of the world in general.

“ 'E was bit by 'is Teddy bear,” said a man and the crowd laughed uproariously at the joke.

I dived into the sanctuary of the sweet shop, deposited the Teddy bear and then rushed panting out to the taxi.

“You shouldn't rush about so,” said my wife as the taxi got under way. “You're supposed to take it easy.”

“How can I dake it easy?” I inquired aggrievedly, “when by bloody dose is bleeding and I'm holding a sodding great Deddy bear?”

“Just lie back and relax,” said my wife soothingly.

Relax, I thought, yes, that was it, relax. I would have three glorious weeks to relax in, being ministered unto by kindly nurses, only having to make momentous decisions like what I would have for lunch or the exact temperature of my bath water. Relax, that was it. Complete peace and quiet. So, with this thought firmly in my mind, I entered Abbotsford.

I had little time to register anything (except that the furniture and décor of my room were best Seaside Boarding House, circa 1920, and that the nurses were remarkably pretty) before I was wrapped in a golden cocoon of drugs and remained thus, sleeping and twitching in this delectable hibernation for twenty-four hours. Then I awoke, bright and brisk as a squirrel, and surveyed my new world. My first impression of the nurses had not, I decided, been erroneous. They were all in their individual ways remarkably attractive. It was rather like being looked after by the entrants for a Miss World competition.

Of the day staff there was Lorraine, the Swedish blonde, whose eyes changed colour like a fiord in the sun; Zena, half English and half German, who had orange hair and completely circular and perpetually astonished blue eyes; and Nelly, a charmer from Basutoland, carved out of fine milk chocolate and with a little round nose like a brown button mushroom. Then there was the night staff. Breeda, short, blonde as honey and motherly, and, without doubt the most attractive of them all, Pimmie (a nickname derived from God knows what source), who was tall, slender and elf-like, with enormous greeny-hazel eyes the colour of a trout stream in spring. They were young and cheerful and went about their work with all the gaiety and eagerness to please of a litter of puppies. Their gambollings were presided over by two Sisters, both French, whose combined accents would have made Maurice Chevalier sound as though he had been brought up at Oxford and had worked for the BBC for a number of years. These were the Sisters Louise and Renée. and their blunt French practicality in action was a pleasure to watch and to listen to.

It was on the second day, still slightly drugged, that, partly from desire and partly from a need for new scenery, I made my way down the corridor to the lavatory. Here I squatted, thinking deep thoughts, when suddenly my attention was attracted to a large blob of blood on the floor. Hallo, I thought to myself, with the rapid perception of the semi-drugged, someone's cut themselves… been bleeding. Shaving, no doubt. But, shaving here? In the lavatory? Surely not. At that moment another blob of blood joined the first one on the floor and I suddenly realised that my nose was bleeding again. By the time I had grasped this, my nose was in full flood. Clasping several yards of lavatory paper to my face, I sped back to my room and rang the bell frantically. My nose was now bleeding so fast that a paper handkerchief applied to it became sodden and useless almost immediately.

In answer to my
cri de coeur
the door opened and chocolate-brown Nelly appeared, dad in an overcoat. She was obviously just going off duty.

“Lord, man,” said Nelly, gazing round-eyed at the bloody apparition. “Lord, yo' is bleeding.”

“I had come to the same conclusion,” I said. “Can you stop it for me, Nelly dear?”

“Wait now… don' yo' move,” Nelly commanded, and rushed off down the corridor. Presently she reappeared looking distinctly distraught.

“I can' fin' dem, I can' fin' dem,” she said, almost wringing her hands in despair.

“What can't you find?”

“De keys, de keys,” wailed Nelly.

Presumably the keys for some cupboard containing medicament for the rapid coagulation of blood, I thought.

“Never mind,” I said soothingly, “can't we use something else?”

“No, no,” said Nelly, “de keys is best for putting down yo' back.” My hopes for the future of European medicine in Africa suffered a severe blow at this remark.

Lorraine and Zena, attracted by the noise, appeared in the doorway.

“You're bleeding,” said Zena in astonishment.

“Yes,” I said.

“I can' fin' de keys, Zena. Have yo' seen dem, Lorraine?”

“Keys? No,” said Lorraine. “I haven't seen any keys. What keys?”

“To put down his back,” said Nelly.

“Don't you burn feathers beneath the nose?” asked Lorraine. “No, no, dat's for fainting,” said Nelly, the expert on modem medicine.

“How about sacrificing a black cock in a chalk circle?” I asked, beginning to enjoy the situation.

“You'd never get that on National Health,” said Zena judiciously and with perfect seriousness.

At that moment Breda and Pimmie arrived to take over the night shift. Pimmie took in the situation with one searchlight-like glance from her huge, liquid eyes.

“On to the bed wit yer,” she said to me. “On to the bed and lie as flat as yer can.”

“But… I…” I began to protest.

“Stop yer blarney and on to the bed wit yer. Breeda, go and get me some one-inch gauze bandage and some adrenalin. Quickly now.”

I lay down obediently and immediately discovered that the blood that had been running out of my nose now ran down the back of my throat and threatened to asphyxiate me. I sat up hurriedly.

“I told yer to lie down,” said Pimmie ominously.

“Pimmie, dear, I
can't
. I'll choke on my own blood.”

I explained. Pimmie flicked a couple of pillows behind my head with practised ease.

“There now, is that better?” she inquired.

“Yes,” I said.

Breeda had returned with a dish containing the things Pimmie had asked for. The bed was now bestrewn with blood-stained paper handkerchiefs and there were five nurses clustered round my recumbent form.

“Kiss me, Hardy,” I implored, holding out my arms to Pimmie.

“Quit yer blathering,” she said severely, “and let me get this up yer nose.”

With great deftness she proceeded to plug my right nostril with a yard or so of bandage soaked in adrenalin as neatly and as impersonally as though she was stuffmg a chicken. Then she pinched the bridge of my nose firmly between finger and thumb, at the same time applying ice to my temples. I now had trickles of blood and water soaking into my pyjamas, but very soon the blood burst through the bandage and fell in great gouts on the sheets and pillow cases. Pimmie replaced the bandage with a fresh one. The bed and the room now looked like a cross between an abattoir and the front parlour of the Marquis de Sade after an evening's soirée. Several bandages later, the blood was still flowing merrily. By this time all the nurses, with the exception of Pimmie and Breeda, had departed.

“It's no good,” said Pinimie, frowning ferociously, “I'll just have to tell the doctor. Lie still now. Breeda, see that he lies still.”

She left the room.

“I hope she hasn't gone to get Dr Grubbins,” I said uneasily. “Charming though he is, I lack confidence in him as a doctor.”

“I hope for your sake she hasn't gone to fetch him,” said Breeda placidly.

“Why?” I inquired, alarmed.

“Well,” said Breeda, “he's not a good doctor at all. Honestly, if I had a patient who was ever so ill, I wouldn't call him in. He'd kill them off for sure.”

“That was rather the impression I gained,” I admitted. “He had a certain
je ne sais quoi
about him that led me to suppose that he had not as yet passed the stage of pouring boiling pitch over the stump.”

“Ignorant,” said Breeda gloomily. “He thinks pasteurisation is something you do to the meadows that cows feed in.”

“And that Lister is something a boat does when it's badly loaded?” I inquired, entering into the spirit of the game. “Or does he merely think that he was a famous composer?”

“Both, probably,” said Breeda, “and he thinks that Harvey is someone who invented sherry.”

“And that angina is a double-barrelled name for a girl?”

“Yes, and take penicillin,” said Breeda.

“You mean that emporium that specialises in writing materials?”

“The very same. Well, one day…”

But what Breeda was about to vouchsafe will never be known, for at that moment Pimmie re-entered the room.

“Up yer get,” she said to me. “Dr Grubbins says yer to go to the Waterloo Hospital and have yer nose cauterised.”

“Dear God,” I said. “Just as I feared. A red-hot poker to be shoved up my right nostril.”

“Don't be silly,” said Pimmie, getting me my coat, “they'll use a cauterising stick.”

“A
stick
? A
flaming brand
? I was supposed to come here for peace and quiet?”

“Yer can't have peace and quiet until we stop yer nosebleed,” said Pimmie practically. “Here, get this coat on. I'm coming wit yer. Doctor's instructions.”

“And the only worthwhile instructions he's given since leaving medical school,” I said warmly. “How are we to get there?”

“Taxi,” said Pimmie succinctly. “It's waiting.”

The driver, we soon discovered, was an Irishman. He was a tiny, carunculated man who looked like a walnut with legs.

“Where will yer be going?” he asked.

“Waterloo Hospital,” said Pimmie clearly.

“Waterloo Waterloo…” mused the driver. “And where would that be?”

“Westminster Bridge,” said Pimmie.

“Of course it is, of course it is,” said the driver, slapping his forehead. “I'll have you there in a couple of jiffs.”

We bundled into the car and wrapped ourselves in a blanket, for the night was bitterly cold. We progressed some way in silence.

“And I was going to wash me hair to-night,” said Pimmie suddenly and reproachfully.

“I'm very sorry,” I said contritely.

“Ah, don't give it a thought,” said Pimmie, adding somewhat mysteriously, “I can sit on it.”

“Can you?” I asked, imagining that this was some up-to-date method of cleansing hair.

“Yes,” said Pimmie with satisfaction. “It's that long. I was offered seventy pounds for it recently.”

“But you wouldn't look half so attractive bald,” I pointed out.

“That's what I thought,” said Pimmie, and we relapsed into silence again.

The cab stopped at some traffic lights and the driver craned round to examine his fares. The blue and white street lighting lent a weird pallor to my bloodstained face.

“Are you all right in the back there, now?” asked the driver anxiously. “It's an awful lot of blood yer dribbling about in the back there. You wouldn't want to stop for a lie down, would yer?”

I looked at the rain-lashed, freezing pavements. “No, I don't think so, thank you,” I said.

“Have yer tried sticking something up yer nose?” asked the driver, suddenly struck by this powerful thought.

I explained that my right nostril had had so much rammed up it that it closely resembled a municipal rubbish dump. At the hospital, I explained, they intended to cauterise.

“That's what they used to do in the old days, isn't it?” asked the driver with considerable interest.

“How do you mean?” I asked, puzzled.

“Well, they'd hang, draw and cauterise yous, wouldn't they?”

“No, no. That was something quite different,” I said, adding, “I hope.”

We arrived at the hospital after driving up a ramp that had a notice saying (I could have sworn to this) “No Protestants” but which later proved to read “No Pedestrians”. I attributed this misreading to my close association with the Irish throughout the evening.

We bustled inside and found it free of drugged hippies, meths drinkers and little boys with tin potties jammed on their heads. In fact, the out-patients was deserted except for the duty nurse. She ushered us into a sort of tabernacle and laid me tenderly on a species of operating table.

“The doctor will be with you in a minute,” she said with reverence in her voice, as though announcing the Second Coming. Presently, what appeared to be a fourteen-year-old boy clan in a white coat made his appearance.