Doctor at Large

4

I descended the stairs feeling as though I had nodded to a friend at an auction and found myself the purchaser of a large suite of Chippendale furniture. At the bottom I bumped absently into someone coming through the door.

'Sorry,' I mumbled.

A violent blow on the back sent me staggering.

'Richard, you old bastard.'

'Grimsdyke!'

We shook hands delightedly. Although we were close companions in medical school, I hadn't seen him since the afternoon he failed his finals..

'What the devil are you doing in this den of thieves?' he demanded at once.

'Looking for work.'

'God help you! Is Father Bloodsucker up aloft?'

I looked puzzled.

'Old Pycraft-the vile criminal in a frock-coat and brass glasses.'

I nodded.

'Damn! Sure it wasn't old Berry? Tall thin character, bald as a pillar-box?'

'No, it's Pycraft all right.'

He frowned. 'I thought it was Berry's day. He's almost human, sometimes. But Pycraft-Oh, hell! We must go and have a drink.'

'In case there's any danger of this developing into an all-day session,' I said as we stepped out, 'I must warn you that I've just been given a job to go to.'

'What, by those people? Then you'll need a drink. Come on, they're open.'

The lights of the pub next door sent a warm yellow welcome through the fog. The bar was old-fashioned and cheerful, with a sprightly young fire leaping in the grate and the landlord screened away behind an arrangement of mahogany and frosted glass that afforded a cosiness contemptible to modern pub architects.

After several minutes' conversational back-slapping, Grimsdyke ordered the drinks and asked through the barrier. 'Have you the morning paper-_Times_ or _Telegraph?_ Thanks.'

He searched for the City page and read closely through it, moving his lips.

'Forgive me, Richard,' he said, glancing up. 'I was all right at the close of yesterday's business, but I'm a bit worried about Cunard and Vickers. However, they're holding their own. Pretty satisfactory all round, I'd say. My brokers are the smartest chaps in the City, but I like to keep an eye on my investments. Ah, the beer!' He folded the paper and poked it back, 'To the happier days of our youth!'

'And our future prosperity!'

After the first draught I lowered my glass and looked at him in puzzlement. As a student he had more money than the rest of his companions together, and had presented a smart and fashionable contrast to the remainder of the medical school. Now he was wearing a torn mackintosh over a baggy Donegal tweed suit, and a frayed yellow-and-green check waistcoat with brass buttons. His shoes were worn, his collar curled, his cuffs were grubby; one of his gayest bow-ties flew from his neck in jaunty defiance of the rest of his outfit. There was a moment of embarrassment as he noticed my look, then he put down his drink and announced, 'I'm qualified.'

'Qualified? Congratulations, my dear fellow! But-but how? There hasn't been an exam. since the one you failed.'

He laughed. 'Not in London, certainly. But I take a broad view of the whole subject of examinations. I am now entitled to put after my name the proud letters "P.C.A.M." I am a Preceptor of the College of Apothecaries of Mayo. Ever heard of it?'

'I can't say I have.'

'You're far from the only one. You know I never saw eye to eye with the examiners here. I take an intellectual view of medicine, old lad, and let's face it-medicine isn't an intellectual subject. Any fool with a good memory and a sharp ear for squeaks and rumbles can become a doctor.'

'True,' I admitted sadly.

'I heard about the Mayo College from a bloke I met in a pub in Fleet Street. Apparently this useful institution is still allowed to award diplomas that put you on the _British Medical Register,_ and no one's tumbled to it. It's like not paying any income tax in Jersey, and all that. I booked a ticket to Mayo and arrived a couple of days later. It was early in the morning, so I walked up and down the street looking for this College, but all I could find was a door with a bloody great brass knocker on it, which I knocked. Inside was an old hag scrubbing the floor. "Have you come to be made a doctor?" she said. "I have," I told her. "Upstairs," she said, and went on scrubbing.

'Upstairs was a sitting-room with a nice fire and a young fellow sitting reading the _Irish Independent_ over his breakfast. When I acquainted him with the nature of my business he said he'd be delighted to accommodate me, and if I'd come back after the week-end I could have the examination. I told him that was ridiculous-I had many pressing engagements in London on Monday morning. He said he was sorry, but he was off playing golf in the country and there was nothing he could do about it. Eventually he said, "Well, the examination consists only of a _viva voce,_ and seeing that there's only one candidate we can just as well hold it in the taxi. Hand me my golf clubs, Mr Grimsdyke, and we'll be off."

'In the back of the cab he started. "Now tell me something about urea?" I asked, "You mean that chemical substance, or are you referring to my lughole?" He said, "Well, we won't go into it further. How would you treat an old woman of eighty who went crazy one Sunday afternoon and fell down and broke both legs?" I thought a good bit, and said, "I would bring about the unfortunate creature's timely demise with the soothing juices of the poppy." He agreed, "I think that's about right. I'm anti-clerical myself." He asked me a few more questions walking down the platform, then took his clubs and said I'd passed and the examination fee was fifty guineas. It happened I had fifty-odd quid on me, so he stuffed them in his mackintosh pocket and wrote out the receipt on a bit of newspaper. As the train left he yelled out of the window that my diploma would follow, and sure enough it did. Damn great thing with a seal on like the Magna Carta. I hear the Government's got wind of the place now, and they're going to shut it down. Shall we have the other half? Your turn.'

When I had ordered the drinks, Grimsdyke continued,

'That was the beginning of my troubles. You remember my grandmother's bequest-a thousand a year during my training to be a doctor? That stopped on the nail, of course. In short, my financial affairs were unprepared for the sudden disaster of my passing, as I had already got through the next three or four years' allowance on tick. A certain amount of retrenchment was necessary. Visits to the pop-shop. The car's gone, and so have the golf clubs. Even some of the suiting. Hence the appearance of having dropped off a hay-cart. Damn unpleasant.'

'But why on earth,' I demanded, 'did you ever bloody well qualify at all? You could have gone on failing and stayed a medical student the rest of your life. At a thousand a year, that's what I'd have done.'

'Pride, old lad,' he explained, looking into his glass sadly. 'Do you know why I failed my finals in London? I was doing damn well in the clinical. It was one of those days when golf-balls look the size of footballs and the greens as big as Piccadilly Circus-you know. The physical signs were sprouting out of my patient like broccoli. I found he'd got an effusion at his left base, and I spotted he was fibrillating. I even heard his diastolic murmur, a thing I'd never been able to accomplish all my years in the medical school. Gave me quite a start. I trotted all this out to the examiner, feeling pretty pleased with myself. He kept nodding and saying, "Quite so, Exactly. Excellent", and I saw myself bowing out in a lofty sort of way to the applause of the assembled company. Then he asked, "Anything else?" And I said, "Impossible, sir!" And do you know,' said Grimsdyke savagely, banging his glass on the bar, 'the bloody patient had a glass eye. And the old fornicator failed me.'

'That really is hard luck,' I said sympathetically.