The Underground Man (7 page)

Perhaps the variety in speed-of-life from one creature to another is common knowledge and recorded in the great science books. But do they also record the difference in candlepower between the young and old of a single species? For who would deny that a child lives at a rate nothing like that of an old fellow like myself? In a child's eye each day lasts for ever; to an old man the years fly by.

Time's back is bent on the candle flame. For each one of us the sun arcs through the sky at a different speed. For some creatures life must be but a series of shooting suns. Others must have but the one sun which takes a lifetime to rise and fall.

First thing this morning I had a boy run into town with a message for Dr Cox, telling him to come at once. I had woken with an uncomfortable nagging sensation in the small of my back and pain all about my waist. Needed Clement's help just to sit me up in bed.

My belly is quite distended – a most distressing sight. If I were any more distracted I might imagine I was in the latter stages of some unnatural pregnancy.

It was well past lunchtime when Mrs Pledger knocked on my bedroom door. Dr Cox came marching in. He had his ‘I
am a very busy man' written all over his face. That was clearly what was on his tongue's mind, so I swiftly countered with, ‘And I am very sick.'

This knocked the cocky beggar off his perch and before he had hoisted himself back onto it, I followed up with, ‘So what are you to do about it?'

He stuffed his hands deep into his trouser pockets and puffed out his waistcoat, as if I might like to admire its buttons. He held his breath for a couple of seconds, then let the air out noisily through his nose.

‘Clement tells me you've been getting yourself lost in the woods,' he said.

Clement was noticeable by his absence.

‘Something's up with my stomach,' I replied. ‘Now get your stethoscope on the job.'

He turned away and trundled over to his little black bag. Opened it up, gazed inside it for a second or two before removing a large, soiled handkerchief and snapping it shut again. He sauntered back over to my bedside, blowing his nose in a series of short blasts, and deposited his vast, tightly-trousered behind on the edge of my bed so that its springs creaked and groaned with the strain.

‘Did the scrofula clear up all right?' he asked, a coy little smile playing on his lips.

‘Thankfully, it passed of its own accord,' I replied. ‘Must have been a mild attack.'

He made a wide-eyed face at me and nodded. ‘Very good,' he said, unbuttoning my nightshirt and slipping a freezing hand inside. ‘And the lockjaw?'

‘I found it eventually eased with time,' I was obliged to concede.

‘And the meningitis?'

‘That too.'

‘I see,' he announced. Then, having warmed his hand on
my chest, he retrieved it and heaved himself off my mattress to leave me bouncing in his wake. He gestured for me to button up my nightshirt, then threw an arm round Mrs Pledger and marched her off to a corner of the room, where the two of them stood in secret conference with their backs towards me – Dr Cox doing a good deal of whispering while Mrs Pledger nodded her head along. At last, Dr Cox sprang out of their little knot. He seemed to be making for the door.

‘Is that it?' I shouted at him, exasperated.

‘It is, Your Grace,' he said, and was gone.

I was left staring at Mrs Pledger who remembered some soup she had to take care of and scuttled away herself, pulling the door to behind her.

‘He didn't even take his hat off!' I cried.

Later, when I asked Mrs Pledger about her tête-à-tête with Cox, she said he had offered her no diagnosis and when I asked her what in the world all their muttering and nodding had been about she said he had been telling her how best to stew fruit.

‘Stew fruit!' I yelled at the woman. ‘A man lies on his death-bed and the doctor gives his cook tips on stewing fruit!'

Unfortunately, Mrs Pledger is not the least bit afraid of me. I only wish she was. She squared up her ample shoulders as if contemplating charging at me and knocking me out of my bed.

‘He said it will do you good,' she trumpeted and made a grand exit, which involved her slamming the door as she went.

What is the matter with everybody? They keep slamming my bedroom door.

Information is being kept from me. I am being left to die like a dog.

Clement poked his head round the door; rather sheepishly, I thought. He had with him some soup in a small tureen. It smelt fair enough but when I'd taken a mouthful of the stuff it was all I could do not to spit it back into the bowl.

‘Is there fruit in this soup?' I asked him but he just shrugged his shoulders and spooned up some more.

All afternoon I lounged uncomfortably in my bed, bedraggled, like a shipwrecked sailor on his raft. Memories of childhood illnesses came back to me – those unending days of feverish tedium. I remember a stuffed bear which I clung to throughout one particular sickly bout. When, at last, I began to improve a little he was taken from me and put on the fire. Mother reckoned he was full of germs. Quite naturally I assumed that he had caught these germs from me and I was riddled with guilt for weeks afterwards. How many days of my childhood did I spend in a bedroom with the curtains closed, I wonder?
Poorly
… the very word fills the room with its sickly-sweet smell.

The sheets made me sweat which made me restless. They got all tied up in my feet. A crumb somehow found its way in to me and I simply had to get it out. It was trying to penetrate my very skin. Neither properly awake nor properly asleep I lumbered through the day in an irritable stupor. Once in a while I would stir, sit up and glance under my nightshirt but the sight of my swollen belly did nothing but make me feel worse.

I don't mind admitting that after this morning's fiasco with that blasted Cox I feel some essential trust between doctor and patient has been broken beyond repair. Traditionally, when one feels ill one consults a doctor who identifies what
is wrong. Isn't that the way it goes? When the doctor gives a name to one's previously nameless malaise is that not the first step towards recovery? The doctor informs the patient that he is right to say he is sick. The problem is located, some term or title dispensed (
You have a chill, sir
, for instance or,
I
believe you have broke your toe
), then one has something to hold on to and can set about being ill in earnest. The doctor gives permission to act out a specific sick-man's role. It is a small but integral part of the drama of being ill.

But if a fellow's complaints are simply dismissed with a wave of the hand, if he is not even properly consulted, then the whole relationship is in danger of completely falling apart.

I mean to say the man didn't even get out his stethoscope! His bowler stayed on his head like it had been glued there. The only thing he took out of his bag the whole time he was here was a damned handkerchief! How is one supposed to have faith in a man like that?

Well, there's an end to it right there. I am done with the medical world!

The only thing to cast some light on an otherwise dismal day was the return of the Sanderson map from Watson and Blakelock, the framers. They've done a first-rate job and I had them hang it on the wall right beside my bed. Now,
there
is order,
there
is sense,
there
is reason. There is observation put to use.

I've been blowing down the tube like an elephant. I want some food which tastes of something other than stewed fruit.

By six o'clock this morning I was wide awake, my stomach filled to bursting with the most incredible ache. It has hardly let up the whole day, like a steel plate strapped tight around me – a cummerbund of pain.

Words fail me. I
hurt.
That is established easily enough. And I can immediately locate the discomfort all around my waist. But in no time at all, it seems, words disappoint me. I may endeavour to dream up more cummerbunds, more steel plate – and knives and spears, come to that – but none conveys the sensation sufficiently to diminish it in any way. Words, evidently, aren't up to sharing pain out. They fall well short of the mark.

Dozed off again and slept fitfully until around midday. Blew down to Mrs Pledger for some tea with honey and asked her to bring up a quantity of hot towels. These I placed across my distended belly and they gave me some small relief.

For my distraction and entertainment this afternoon kind Clement rounded up various members of staff to play a game of Association football. He has heard that Worksop have started up a team and thinks it might be an idea for the estate to do the same. The lawns were nowhere near long enough so they were obliged to use the cricket pitch. Unfortunately, it is several hundred yards from the house and as I had no intention of venturing out in my present state it was through the cold lens of a telescope that I watched my cooks and keepers and stable lads congregating for the match.

They were quite a collection of shapes and sizes, I must say, and practised kicking the leather ball between them with tremendous apathy, managing to waste a further five minutes arguing over how they were to divide themselves into two
teams. But once these shenanigans were finally settled and the ball had been passed around for inspection they began stretching and warming up a little more earnestly. Makeshift goals were marked out on the ground with piles of discarded jackets and one forlorn chap from each team delegated to stand in between them as last defence. Then, when Clement, who was umpiring the match, peeped on his whistle and the football was finally placed and kicked, every man – about sixteen in all – set upon it like a pack of wolves.

They ran from one end of the pitch to the other. They ran in one great screaming and kicking mob, while I surveyed the whole bloody battle through my telescope, like a general up on a hill.

After ten minutes or so the older men had grown tired of running around and tried to compensate by resting strategically about the field, so that if a colleague happened to win possession of the ball they shouted that he should kick it over into their acre of space. Thus the game was gradually transformed from a scene of outright pandemonium to one involving at least a modicum of skill, as members of each team attempted to pass the ball without the intervention of their counterparts. As time went by and weariness took a firmer hold it became apparent which of the men had some talent and which of the men had none. Once or twice some unspoken manoeuvre would develop between fellow players and a pleasing piece of kick-about would result. Lobbed balls and passes wove cat's cradles. Angles slowly unfolded and were a minor joy to behold.

Keeping my telescope firmly on the action, I began to anticipate possible feints and runs from my vantage point. Several times I was obliged to shout out some advice, little minding that none of the footballers were likely to hear. At some point, the leather ball was kicked high into the air and the game slipped briefly into limbo as one brave young gardener positioned himself right under it so that his head would
interrupt its descent. But with the ball having gone so far up in the first place it picked up a good deal of velocity on its way back down and when it finally made contact with the gardener's head he was knocked to the ground in a crumpled heap. He seemed about to change his mind at the very last moment. But by then it was too late. The other players all flinched in horror and a great chorus of ‘Oh' went up as he was felled. Needless to say, the lad's foolishness was well heeded and after he had been carted off the field there were no more acrobatics of that sort.

All in all, though, the ball was given a sound kicking and by the time the last man had run himself into the ground and a truce had been agreed, everyone looked very proud of the fact that they had covered themselves from head to foot in mud. Even as a spectator I found it a pleasant way to waste an hour, although I can't say I remember the score.

When they had all trooped off to wash and have their lunch I took to wondering about the young boy who was hit on the head with the ball. I wondered what particular pain he suffered, what sensations currently addled his mind. But, try as I might, I was forced to acknowledge that I could not summon them up. A ball on the head, that's a nasty thing. I had no trouble picturing him but whichever way I came at it could not quite manage to climb into his boots. Perhaps I had enough on my plate with my own discomfort – mine is certainly much more vivid and real to me. His fellow-gardeners had probably dumped the chap in some darkened room to recuperate. That is usually the way. It was with a certain glumness that I concluded that all pain-sufferers are doomed to be shut away in quiet, shadowy places and that each one of us must suffer our pain alone.

Spent the rest of the day in near agony, rifling through an old medical dictionary after a label for my malady. At first I had suspected appendicitis and spleen trouble later on, but under closer examination both hypotheses proved somewhat unsustainable. Then, around five o'clock when I was deep into the dictionary and the sun had all but given up on the day, my finger came to rest by some odd-looking entry and the next moment I was exclaiming a small ‘Eureka!' to myself.

Under
Stones
I found a whole range of fascinating information. It appears that given half a chance, these stones will make a home for themselves in just about any organ in the body of the unsuspecting man. And when I came down to Stones,
of the kidney
I saw at once what Dr Cox had chosen to ignore. My symptoms correspond exactly with those in the medical book. ‘A band of pain extending from the base of the spinal column, towards the groin' … and so forth. Well, that is me all over. My symptoms were tailor-made for ‘kidney stones'.