Dr Potter-Phipps practised in Park Lane from the first floor of a large modern block of flats, though the only indication of this was a small silver plate with his name on the door, as discreet as the single hat in a Bond Street milliner’s window. Downstairs I was saluted by the doorman, bowed to by the porter, and grinned at by the lift boy; upstairs, the door was opened by a butler. Dr Potter-Phipps himself, who sat in a consulting-room like a film producer’s office, was a slim, good-looking, fair-haired, middle-aged man wearing a grey suit with narrow trousers, a red carnation in his buttonhole, a fawn waistcoat, a white stiff collar, and an Old Etonian tie.
‘A frightful tragedy, dear boy,’ he said languidly, offering me a gold cigarette case. ‘My partner’s perforated his duodenal ulcer, poor fellow. Operated on by old Sir James last night. He’ll be away a good three months. It’s so terribly difficult to get a suitable man to replace him. This is a rather special practice, you understand.’ He held his cigarette with his fingertips and waved it airily. ‘We have rather special patients. To some people the National Health Service did not come quite as the crowning gift of parliamentary democracy. They still like manners with their medicine.’
‘I’d certainly be pleased to meet some of them, sir,’ I said feelingly.
‘Of course, you’ve been out of the country a good time,’ he went on. ‘You must have found that Himalayan expedition quite fascinating. Grimsdyke told me about it when he rang up. I met him at the races last weekend, and rather hoped he could help us when this disaster occurred. A remarkable young man.’
‘Oh, remarkable.’
‘I must be getting old, dear boy, but I find most young doctors today are terribly dull, and they
will
treat their patients like guinea pigs. It must be the result of this frightful slave-driving in medical schools these days. When I was at St George’s, medicine was still acquired slowly, like any other gentlemanly accomplishment. But someone with the Alpine temperament like yourself would be eminently suitable. Did you meet old Charrington in the Himalayas?’
‘Charrington? No, I don’t think I did.’
‘Really?’ He looked surprised. ‘But he’s always shinning up mountains and things.’
‘Big place, of course, the Himalayas.’
‘Oh, of course.’
I had decided to stand up, draw a deep breath, make a confession, and go directly to Queen Square to throw myself at the mercy of Mr Pycraft. Then Dr Potter went on – ‘Consider yourself engaged.’
‘What – just like that?’
‘Just like that, dear boy. I’m rather conceited that I can judge my fellow men.’ He sighed. ‘I wish I could do the same with horses. So much more profitable. By the way, if you want any salary ask the secretary next door. In my family,’ he continued pleasantly, ‘we never discuss money. It’s thought rather vulgar. And forgive me – but perhaps you’ve something a little more formal to wear?’
I looked down at my new suit.
‘I suppose you picked it up in Tibet or somewhere?’ he suggested charitably. ‘Here’s the name of my tailor. Ask him to make you something quickly and charge it to the practice. It’s a chastening thought, but good clothes are more important to the GP than a good stethoscope. You needn’t worry about a car – we run three Rolls–’
‘Three?’
‘We have an extra one for the electrocardiograph. Do you know how to use it?’
‘Oh, yes, sir,’ I said eagerly, glad at last to be able to tell the truth. ‘At St Swithin’s they taught on the heart most thoroughly.’
‘I’m glad. Terribly glad. I’m a little hazy about all those beastly dials and wires and things myself, but I must say once you’ve connected them up to the patient and pulled a few switches it makes them feel very much better. We got it second-hand from a doctor who went abroad, and I thought it worth using. I take it to almost every case. After all, even in neuralgia and appendicitis it’s useful to know what the heart’s up to, isn’t it? And
two
cars arriving at the patient’s door makes so much difference. When can you start? Tomorrow?’
That afternoon I again found myself in a tailor’s, but this time it was a dark, dusty, devout little shop in Savile Row, where the assistants moved with a funereal tread, everyone spoke in whispers, and the customers were measured in cubicles of dark carved wood like choirstalls.
‘What sort of suit did you have in mind, sir?’ asked the old man who was pulling a tape measure shakily round my middle.
‘What’s the well-dressed doctor about town wearing these days?’
‘You can’t go wrong with the black jacket and striped trousers, sir,’ he said solemnly. ‘A lot of the younger gentlemen in the medical profession are favouring ordinary lounge suits these days, sir. One surgical gentleman I couldn’t care to mention even goes so far as’ – he dropped his eyes – ‘tweed, sir.’
‘Very well. Black jacket and striped trousers it is.’
‘I
am
glad, sir,’ he said, ‘I really am. Just like old times, sir.’
I took a bedsitting-room in Bayswater, and arrived for work in Park Lane the next morning. As I was still wearing my Oxford Street suit even Dr Potter-Phipps’ good manners did not prevent a pained look crossing his face when I appeared, as though I were suffering from some exuberant skin disease. ‘Perhaps, dear boy,’ he suggested, ‘you should stay in the background for a while. Get to know the practice. Would you like to wear a white coat? So easy to get one’s clothes messy doing clinical tests with strange apparatus.’
For a week I spent my time in the small laboratory converted from a bathroom, performing medical student pathology at five guineas a go. Then my black jacket and striped trousers arrived, and I was allowed to try my hand at Park Lane medicine. I started at the top: my first patient was a duke.
During the morning Potter-Phipps hurried into the laboratory, where I was preparing blood samples. For the first time I saw him looking worried.
‘A terrible thing has happened, dear boy,’ he announced. I prepared to hear that someone had dropped dead in the waiting-room. ‘It’s my morning to visit old Skye and Lewis, and now this damn film actress has gone and got laryngitis. Which one shall I go to?’
He paced the floor, trying to solve this grave therapeutic problem.
‘Couldn’t one wait?’ I asked.
‘Dear boy,’ he said patiently. ‘In this sort of practice no one waits.’
After some minutes he decided, ‘I’ll take the actress. The newspapers will be there by now. Yes, definitely the actress. I can bring the electrocardiograph, too – it’s important to see that the heart will stand the strain in such a nervous creature. You do the duke. And pray, dear boy’ – he laid a hand on my sleeve – ‘Remember constantly that for all practical purposes you and I, at any rate, are not living in an egalitarian society.’
‘I shall not fail you, sir,’ I said stoutly.
‘Good fellow!’ He made for the door.
‘What’s wrong with the Duke?’ I called after him.
‘Just give him his usual treatment,’ he replied over his shoulder, and disappeared.
I drove to the Duke of Skye and Lewis in our number two Rolls, feeling as if I were again going to an examination. One outstanding problem worried me: what
was
the Duke’s usual treatment? Apart from the electrocardiograph, our practice did not own much medical equipment, and I had with me only a stethoscope, a throat torch, a gadget for measuring the gap in sparking plugs, a short plastic ruler advertising a cough mixture, a silver-plated presentation bottle opener, and a small brush for cleaning my lighter, with which to effect my ministrations.
The car stopped outside a door in Eaton Square. As I got out I said to the chauffeur, ‘You must have taken Dr Potter-Phipps here a good few times. I don’t suppose you know what the blue-blooded old boy’s usual treatment is, do you?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sorry, Doctor. There was a Duke what lived round the corner, I remember, and he had varicose veins. There was another with prostate trouble up the road – but come to think of it, he was an earl.’
The door was opened by a young maid.
‘The doctor,’ I said, suddenly feeling that I was delivering the groceries.
‘This way.’ I followed her, tugging at the edge of my new jacket for support. Could I conceivably ask this girl what the usual treatment was? Then it struck me that I should have to start referring to my patient in a more regular manner. This was my second difficulty in the case. Although I had secretly bought the silver-covered book invaluable to young Englishmen wanting to get on –
Titles and Forms of Address
:
A Guide to Their Correct Use
– I had found the paragraphs more difficult to memorize than my anatomy and physiology. I summoned the pages urgently to mind, but in the perverted way that I could always remember in examinations the full structural formula of anhydrohydroxyprogesterone and forget all the signs of pneumonia, I now recalled only that the wives of the younger sons of earls share their husbands’ titles and honorific initials never appear on visiting cards.
‘His Grace will see you in a minute,’ said the maid.
His Grace! That was it. But did I call him ‘Your Grace?’ Or was that only for the Archbishops of Canterbury and York?
The Duke of Skye and Lewis was a fat red-faced man with a large moustache, lying on his bed in a yellow silk dressing-gown.
‘Morning, Doctor,’ he said amiably. ‘I had a call to say Potter-Phipps couldn’t come. Pity. Busy this time of the year, I shouldn’t wonder?’
‘Yes, er, your – your – sir.’
‘Have a seat. You’re not rushed for a minute, are you? Potter-Phipps said you knew everything about my case, but I like to have a chat with my doctor. I don’t like being pulled about by someone I don’t know. It’s almost indecent. Doctoring’s a man-to-man business, whatever you cook up these days in test-tubes. Do you play golf?’
We argued about mashie shots for ten minutes, then the Duke said with a sigh of resignation, ‘Well, Doctor, I suppose it’s time for you to give me the usual treatment?’
‘Of course. The usual treatment.’ I stood up and rubbed my hands slowly together. ‘And how,’ I asked craftily, ‘is the usual complaint?’
‘About the same.’
‘I see.’
I nodded sagely. There was a pause.
‘Let’s get on with it, Doctor,’ the Duke continued, settling himself on the bed, a brave man about to face an ordeal. ‘The sooner it’s started, the sooner it’s finished.’
What the devil could it be? Manipulation of the vertebrae? Syphonage of the sinuses? Something internal with irrigation? Hypnosis?
‘Come along, Doctor.’ The Duke was becoming impatient. ‘Potter-Phipps does it in a jiffy, with his bare hands.’
I blurted out, now desperate, ‘Perhaps you will forgive me for asking, sir–’
‘Oh, the new ones? They’re in the box on the chimney piece.’
I shot a glance hopefully towards the fireplace, but met only an unhelpful ormulu clock and some statuettes. ‘Of course, sir, new ones–’
‘They need new ones this time, and no mistake,’ the Duke went on, waggling his feet. Suddenly I saw – I had been summoned to change his corn plasters.
At the end of the operation the Duke said, ‘I suppose you’ll be expecting the same sort of outrageous fee as old Potter-Phipps?’
‘I really couldn’t say,’ I told him, smiling with relief. ‘I never discuss the money side of it.’
‘Neither do I,’ he agreed. ‘In my family it’s thought rather vulgar.’
Dr Potter-Phipps ran his practice as efficiently as a motor car factory. Every morning at eight three men in green overalls arrived with vacuum cleaners; at eight-fifteen a man dressed as a postilion called with the day’s supply of clean towels; at eight-twenty a pageboy brought the waiting- room papers and magazines; at eight-thirty a girl looking like Lady Macbeth with pernicious anaemia came from a West End florist’s to change the flowers; at eight-forty a fat man in a frock coat and bowler entered with Dr Potter-Phipps’ freshly pressed suits; at eight-fifty the chauffeurs, the butler, the secretary, and the nurse appeared, and at nine sharp we were open for business.
The nurse was needed only to show patients from the waiting-room to the consulting-room, and was dressed in a white uniform so crisp and sparkling that she always appeared to have been just unwrapped from cellophane. She was also one of the prettiest girls I had ever met, which had spurred me to start a cosy conversation of hospital reminiscences during my first morning’s work.
‘I haven’t actually been a nurse in
hospital
, darling,’ she told me. ‘Of course, I looked after my poor sister when she was poorly, but I’m not what you’d call an
invalid’s
nurse. Razzy’s such a sweet, he gave me the job because he said I looked the part. I played a nurse once, in
Men in White
. Did you see it?’
I said no.
‘After all, darling, it’s not as if anyone we saw here was
ill
. We just don’t have those sort of patients, do we, darling?’
She was right: most of our practice consisted of old gentlemen wondering if they could take out more life insurance, young gentlemen wondering if they’d caught unfortunate diseases, and young women wondering if they were pregnant. Anyone seriously ill was immediately sent north of Oxford Street to the consultants who kept in most successfully with Razzy. It was St Swithin’s casualty room again, first class; but even Dr Hockett’s practice would have been bearable with three Rolls-Royces.
Everyone seemed to like Razzy, and I soon became as fond of him as the rest of his employees. He was a shrewd clinician who had the supreme medical gift of always knowing whether a patient was really ill or not; he was an equally shrewd businessman, whose polite patter about money always made people give him more and accept less. The only faintly shady part of the practice was our electrocardiograph, an instrument for taking electrical records of the heart, which represented the conflict between Razzy the doctor and Razzy the financier: he knew that as a diagnostic aid it was almost useless, but he hated not seeing a return on his capital. It was an old model, as untidy as an experimental television set, but every time he set out on a professional visit the electrocardiograph followed in its Rolls. The only occasion I saw Razzy looking worried after the case of the Duke’s corn plasters was the morning he returned from an urgent call to a newspaper owner, who had suffered a stroke in the bathroom.
‘A near thing, dear boy,’ he told me, as he came through the door shaking his head. ‘A damn near thing.’
‘What, did you pull him through?’
‘Oh, no, the old boy’s dead. But I only got the electrocardiograph there in the nick of time.’
Our most constant, and most profitable, patients in the practice were several dozen neurotic women, all of whom were in love with Razzy. He had long, soothing telephone conversations with them frequently during the day, and they often appeared dramatically at the front door in the evening, dressed up like an advertisement for Cartier’s.
‘Yes, of course, they’re in love with me, dear boy,’ he stated one day. ‘Speaking quite objectively, it’s the only thing that keeps most of them from suicide. What else would you expect me to do?’
‘But surely, Razzy,’ I protested. ‘Don’t you sometimes find it rather awkward?’
‘Not in the least, dear boy. I don’t have to be in love with
them
.’
My spell in Razzy’s practice was delightful; I soon forgot Dr Hockett, Jasmine, and the Wilkins family, and even managed to shift Wilson, Willowick, and Wellbeloved from the front of my mind. Although I was never allowed to treat the aristocracy again, he let me try my hand at a few actors and an MP or two, until I had worked my way so deeply into the practice that a reminder of my impermanence came as a shock.
‘I’m seeing my partner tomorrow,’ Razzy said one Saturday morning, when I had been with him over two months. ‘He’s coming along famously. Absolutely famously. We’ll have him back in another few weeks.’
‘I’m glad,’ I lied.
‘And I expect you’re simply itching to get back to the Himalayas again, aren’t you, dear boy?’
‘Well, not itching exactly–’
‘I’m so pleased you came to help us out. You’ve done terribly well, you know. All my old dears think the world of you. The wife of that Coal Board fellow told me yesterday you were a pet.’
‘I’ll certainly be sorry to leave. I’ve even thought of having a go at a practice somewhere round here myself.’
For a second Razzy’s eyes narrowed. ‘I wouldn’t advise it, dear boy. I really wouldn’t. It’s quite a dog’s life really. The struggle to get started – terrible! And the competition. Most frightful. You’d be far better off in the Himalayas.’
There were no patients waiting, so we stood for a while looking silently out of the window. It was a brilliant spring day, the buds on the trees in Hyde Park were straining like hatching chicks, the passers-by were stepping along jauntily without their overcoats, and even the Park Lane traffic smelt warmly exciting.
‘Spring, dear boy,’ said Razzy with a contented sigh, as if hearing that a millionaire had fallen a couple of floors down our lift shaft. He stayed watching the people hurrying away for their weekends. ‘Do you know, dear boy, I haven’t had an afternoon off since I met that fellow Grimsdyke at the races? That’s the sort of practice we’re in, Always on tap. It’s what they pay for I suppose.’ After a pause he added, ‘I know it’s your free afternoon, but I wondered if you’d care to do a little fort-holding?’
‘More than delighted, Razzy. Honestly.’
‘Bless you, dear boy. Then I’m off to Sunningdale. I’ll dine out and turn up about midnight in case there are any messages. Everyone will be out of town on a weekend like this, anyway.’
After lunch he changed into flannels, rang up a well-known film actress and persuaded her to keep him company, picked up his clubs, and set off for the links in the number one Rolls. Alone in the flat, I slipped off my shoes and sprawled on the soft curtained couch used for examining patients in the consulting-room. Beside me I arranged a pile of the
New Yorker
and
Life
,
Recent Advances in Surgery
, a reprint of
The Citadel
, a box of chocolates I’d found in the secretary’s desk, and the bottle of
Cordon Bleu
brandy kept in the medicine cupboard. I hoped that Razzy had an enjoyable day off, but I saw no reason for working on a Saturday afternoon myself in discomfort.
Before he had been away half an hour the doorbell rang. I jumped up, pulled on my shoes, swiftly pushed my comforts under the couch, and opened the door. On the mat was a tall, amiable-looking man with a droopy white moustache, who wore a tweed suit and carried a heavy dispatch case embossed with the Royal cypher in gold.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said pleasantly. ‘I have an appointment with Dr Potter-Phipps.’
I looked puzzled.
‘My private secretary arranged it earlier in the week. I’m afraid Saturday afternoon is my only free time at present. I hope it is not unduly inconvenient for the doctor?’
‘I’m terribly sorry, but there’s been a mistake,’ I said, letting him in. ‘Dr Potter-Phipps is away at the moment. I’m his assistant. Just a minute, and I’ll look at the book.’
‘Thank you. My name is Beecham. It seemed simpler to call here than to ask him to visit me.’ He smiled. ‘And no doubt more economical.’
‘But I’m afraid the appointment was made for
next
Saturday.’
‘Oh, dear! How infuriating. This is not the first time such a mistake has occurred. And next Saturday I shall be in Edinburgh.’ He assessed me. ‘Perhaps I could have a consultation with you instead, Doctor? I did rather want to be off to the country this lovely afternoon.’
‘I should be very pleased,’ I told him, with a brief bow. ‘Kindly come into the consulting-room.’
‘You will be wanting my medical history first, no doubt,’ he went on, as he sat down. ‘I have it specially tabulated in my mind. Age, sixty-one. Married. Occupation, cabinet minister. Usual childhood complaints. I’m not going too fast?’
‘Did you say “cabinet minister?”’ That was flying high, even for us.
‘I am the Minister of Inland Development,’ he added modestly, as though referring to a favourable golf handicap. I suddenly remembered seeing his photograph in the papers a week ago, snipping a tape and giving the country another bridge. He seemed a pleasant old boy, but as I had never even seen a cabinet minister before I wondered how to address him, I decided to play for safety, and treat him roughly like a Duke.
‘Of course, sir,’ I said. ‘I’m – I’m terribly sorry not to have recognized you at once. Please forgive me. Now perhaps you’d be so kind as to allow me to ask you a few questions?’
He folded his arms. ‘Of course, Doctor. Do exactly what you wish. I place myself entirely in your hands. As I was saying to the Minister of Health yesterday, what on earth’s the use of seeing a doctor if you don’t follow his advice, disregarding entirely your own opinion of the complaint? He said your own opinion of the doctor was possibly more important.’ My patient smiled. ‘Of course, he was only joking. He has quite a wit.’
‘Oh, quite. Now what’s the trouble, sir?’
As the Minister seemed to be suffering from pains connected with the spinal column, I pointed to the examination couch and told him to take his clothes off.
‘
All
my clothes, Doctor?’
‘Yes, please. I want a good look at you.’
‘Anything you say, of course.’
I had just drawn the curtains round him as he started unbuttoning his waistcoat, when the bell rang again.
‘Just a minute,’ I said.
On the doormat I found an attractive, tall, dark woman with a mink cape slipping off her shoulders, who clutched at her throat and cried, ‘Oh, God! Oh, God! I’m going to die!’
All I could think of saying was, ‘Here I say, steady on!’ She pushed past me, threw herself on the waiting-room couch, and burst into tears.
I quickly shut off the Minister of Inland Development in the consulting-room.
‘If I can possibly help you, dear lady,’ I said anxiously, ‘I certainly will. But if you could perhaps control yourself a little–’
‘Razzy!’ she cried. ‘Razzy, darling! Where is he?’
‘Dr Erasmus Potter-Phipps happens to have taken the afternoon off He’s playing golf.’
‘He’s with another woman,’ she sobbed. ‘Janet said he’d asked that bitch Helen.’
‘Well, dash it, only golf,’ I murmured. I began to feel I was not showing the mastery of the situation expected from the medical attendant. During my two months in Park Lane I had learned more about handling difficult people than in five years at St Swithin’s, where most of the patients treated the doctors with the same frightened respect they gave the police; but the dynamic women in Dr Potter-Phipps’ unilateral love life were beyond me.
The girl moaned, covered her face with her hands, and cried, ‘What shall I do? What shall I do? I want to die, that’s all. To die – to die–’
As I was deciding what to try next, she suddenly looked up as if she had never seen me before.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘I’m Dr Potter-Phipps’ assistant,’ I said politely. ‘Can I help you?’
‘
No one
can help me!’ Her face was pale, her eyeshadow was streaked down her cheeks, her hat was awry with emotion. Suddenly she threw aside her arms and began to scream.
My visitor had at least no disease of the respiratory system. There was nothing of the wronged woman’s sobs about her: when she screamed, she took a deep breath, braced her larynx, and let fly like the knocking-off whistle in a shipyard.
‘Please, please!’ I shouted. ‘Can’t you compose yourself?’ She immediately drew another breath and started again, now pummelling her forehead with her fists, and hammering her heels on the floor.
By now I was less worried about her clinical condition – she was obviously well filled with the life force – than about my reputation. The most solemn piece of clinical advice we had received in St Swithin’s was never to treat a female patient unless a nurse was present; and any minute now the door would probably be broken down by the porters, the police, or the fire brigade, all thirsting to play St George.
‘Damnation!’ I cried. ‘Stop it!’
She settled herself in a higher key, and continued. Here was a major clinical problem: the gynaecological instruction at St Swithin’s was excellent, but had included no advice on the way to treat hysterical women single-handed. Fortunately, I remembered from reading novels that the traditional remedy was a sharp slap across the face, and overcoming the inhibitions of an English public school education I crouched down and caught her a smart smack on the left cheekbone. Instead of this quelling her, she immediately countered with a powerful left uppercut which knocked me off my balance, and started picking up all the movable pieces of furniture in the waiting-room and throwing them at me.
I managed to struggle to my feet from a pile of broken china and glass, torn magazines, and telephone directories, just in time to prevent her concussing me with the standard lamp.
‘What the devil do you think you’re up to?’ I demanded angrily. I gripped her arms. ‘Are you trying to kill me or something?’
‘You struck a woman!’ Through her redistribution of energy she had thankfully stopped screaming. ‘You cad!’
‘Of course I did! For your own good, you idiotic female. Why, you’re as hysterical as a cat stuck in a chimney pot!’
She looked at me closely, narrowing her eyes. ‘I hate you!’ she hissed. Then she fell into my arms and collapsed into humble tears.