Doctor in Clover

I slept for twenty-four hours, which Dr Wattle later wrote a letter about to the BMJ entitled 'Unusual Stupor in Epidemic Parotitis'. Petunia spent the morning gargling, then disappeared for London. As soon as my lumps were down I announced I must go to the sea-side for convalescence, and sent a wire from London explaining I'd been summoned to a dying uncle in South Africa.

I felt pretty sorry for myself. I'd broken a couple of girlish hearts, had a nasty illness, and expected hourly to be assaulted by Commandos, and so on, in the street. Porterhampton had thenceforward to be blotted from my atlas. And now I had to explain it all to my cousin.

But at least I never hurt the dear old Wattles' feelings.

6

'From your appearance,' started Miles, 'you would seem to have finished some protracted party.'

'If you must know,' I replied, rather hurt, 'I've had a nasty attack of epidemic parotitis. I've hardly got over it yet.'

'I'm sorry.'

It being one of my principles always to confess my short-comings promptly, particularly if they're likely to be discovered pretty quickly anyway, I'd telephoned Miles on arrival and invited myself to dinner. I now sat in his South Kensington drawing-room wondering how best to explain the retreat from Porterhampton.

'And when are you returning to your practice?' asked Miles.

I shifted on the sofa.

'As a matter of fact, old lad, I'm not.'

'What? Damn it! You've not been thrown out already?'

'Thrown out?' I looked offended. 'I resigned, with the dignity of a high-principled Cabinet Minister.'

Miles fell silent. To fill the gap I reached for a magazine-one of the shiny ones which report the activities of all our best-bred young women and horses.

'That's what I need,' I said, indicating a photograph of people with long drinks on a yacht at Cannes. 'A few weeks in the sunshine to buck me up.'

Miles made a noise like a tearing sheet of canvas.

'Damnation, Gaston! Are you mad? Are you fit for some institution? Here you are-out of work, penniless, a walking disgrace to your family if not to your entire profession, and you ramble about weeks in the sunshine. Really!'

I tossed the magazine aside with a sigh.

'The trouble is, you're perfectly right,' I admitted. 'I'm not the shining figure of the eager young doctor.'

'You're the shining figure of the shiftless young wastrel, and I don't mind telling you. I seriously advise you to see a psychiatrist. He might at least be able to explain your highly unstable occupational history.'

'The fact is, old lad, I don't need a psychiatrist to tell me that I don't like medicine very much.'

Miles stared as though I were Cinderella telling the Fairy Godmother she didn't care greatly for dancing.

'At Porterhampton the dear old couple handed me every chance to settle down as a respectable family man and family doctor. But do I want to be the modern GP, signing certificates for all the uninteresting patients and hospital letters for all the interesting ones? No, I jolly well don't. And neither do a lot of other chaps, judging by the correspondence in the BMJ. As I'll never be a specialist in anything, and I couldn't possibly sit in the Town Hall with a map of the local sewers doing public health, there isn't much left. The trouble is, I'm temperamentally unsuited to my work.'

'But think of all those years of study-wasted!'

'They're not wasted a bit,' I argued. 'Look at all the famous chaps who've benefited from a medical education-Leonardo da Vinci, John Keats, Chekhov, and so on. Not to mention Crippen.'

'You must quite definitely see a psychiatrist. And meanwhile, how precisely are you going to earn your bread?'

'Ah, yes. I agree, that's the problem.'

Further discussion about my professional future was prevented by the appearance of Miles' wife.

'How charming you're back so soon, Gaston,' she greeted me. 'We quite thought you'd gone to seek your fortune up North.'

'I decided that opportunity taps less faintly in London, Connie.'

'I'm so glad. Now we'll see much more of you. What did you say, Miles, dear?'

'Nothing, nothing,' muttered Miles.

I knew Connie pretty well. In fact, once I was in love with her.

This happened when I was a student and Miles had just qualified as Mr Sharper's junior casualty house-surgeon, and pretty pleased with himself he felt about it, too. As I reflected during dinner that evening, Miles and I had never really hit it off at St Swithin's, or even as kids. Miles was the one who didn't get his boots dirty, always had his sums right, wasn't sick at all the parties, and didn't make a fuss about his tonsilectomy. At school he used to make me blow up his football and toast his crumpets. Then I followed him to St Swithin's, and like everyone else started medicine by dissecting the dogfish, which has put me off fish suppers ever since. Miles was already well into the course, and by the time I got as far as the anatomy rooms kept buttonholing me in the corridors with fatherly advice.

'If you spent a little more time dissecting and a little less writing all those stupid jokes for the students' magazine; was his usual line, 'you might show you were taking your career seriously.'

'I thought the last one was rather funny. About the girl who said she suffered from claustrophobia because she had a terrible fear of confinement.'

'Take it from me, Gaston, you'll regret this frivolity one day. You stick to your anatomy. It's the grammar of medicine.'

'Personally,' I disagreed, 'I think they only fill medical students with anatomy like they used to fill kids with brimstone and treacle. The experience is obviously so unpleasant, everybody agrees it must be doing them good.'

'I'm not at all certain it isn't my duty to write to my father,' he generally ended.

My own father having unfortunately perished in the RAMC, I was brought up under a Victorian system of guardians, with Dr Rudolph Grimsdyke as chief paymaster. Uncle Rudolph practising at the time out East, Miles was his nark on the spot, and I suppose he sneaked in the end because halfway through the course the old boy cut my allowance by half. I know that ever since _La Bohкme_ it's been thought rather romantic for students to starve in garrets holding the tiny frozen hands of their girlfriends, but that sort of existence didn't appeal to me at all. Particularly as all the girls I knew seemed to complain shockingly of the draughts even in comfortable cocktail bars.

Shortly after the onset of this financial anaemia Miles qualified, glittering with scholarships and prizes.

'Gaston,' he said, getting me into a corner of the St Swithin's Casualty Department one winter afternoon, 'I want a serious word with you.'

'Oh, yes?'

'I'd be much obliged if you'd try to embarrass me a little less now that I'm on the St Swithin's junior staff. You must realize that I, at least, don't wish the entire family to be made ridiculous throughout the hospital. It's bad enough your always disappearing to the dog-races, but this habit of taking menial employment-'

'My dear old lad, I assure you I don't do it for fun. Anyway, it's all your old man's fault, being so tight-fisted. Surely you know by now I dislike work in any form whatever?'

I was at the time restoring my enfeebled exchequer with such casual jobs as dishwashing in West End restaurants and bar-keeping in East End pubs, and had just finished a profitable though strictly limited run as Father Christmas in an Oxford Street store.

'That's not the point at all. Mr Sharper was certain he saw you the other day. He was extremely blunt to me about it this morning.'

'Oh, really? I thought his keen surgical eye had pierced the whiskers. But I bet he only made a fuss because I told his beastly kids to ask for a complete set of electric trains and a couple of motor-cars.'