Gerald Durrell - Fillets of Plaice

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 Breeda 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.