Richard Gordon: DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE

'I say, old lad,' he called. 'Come and meet Mike Kelly. He's secretary of the rugger club.'

There was a broad young man with a red face standing beside him. He wore an old tweed jacket with leather on the elbows and a brilliant yellow pullover.

'How do you do,' I said respectfully. Kelly was not only rugby secretary but two years senior to myself.

'Pleased to meet you,' said Kelly, crushing my hand.

'You play a bit, do you?'

'A bit. Threequarter.'

'Jolly good. The hospital's going to be short of good threes in a year or so. First fifteen at school, I take it?'

'Yes.'

'Which school?'

I told him.

'Oh,' said Kelly with disappointment. 'Well, there's no reason why they shouldn't turn out a decent player once in a while. We'll give you a run with the extra B fifteen on Saturday and see how you make out. Grimsdyke here's the captain. He'll fix you up.'

'The extra B is a bit of a joke,' Grimsdyke said as Kelly strode off. 'Actually, we are more of a social side than anything. Our boast is that we can take on any team at any game. Last summer we played a dance band at cricket, and I've arranged a shove-ha'penny match with the police for next month. I'll meet you here at lunchtime on Saturday and give you and that fat chap-what's his name…'

'Benskin.'

'Benskin, that's right. I'll give you both a lift to the ground in my car. Don't worry about shirts and things.'

The St. Swithin's ground was in a North London suburb, and the extra B was the only one of the half-dozen teams run by the hospital that was playing at home that week-end. The game was not brilliant and St. Swithin's ended up with a narrow win.

'Well done,' said Grimsdyke, as I was changing. 'You and that Benskin fellow shaped pretty well. You must both be horribly healthy. With any luck you might make the third fifteen before the season's out.'

'Thank you very much.'

'Now get a move on. It's after five and we don't want 'to waste time.'

'What's the hurry?' I asked.

Grimsdyke looked at me with amazement.

'Why, they open at five-thirty! We'll just make the King George, if we step on it.'

'Thank you,' I said. 'But I think I ought to go back to my digs…'

'On Saturday night! Good Lord, old boy, that's not done at all! Hurry up and put your trousers on.'

Afraid of social errors in this new way of living, I obeyed. We arrived outside the King George as the Padre was opening the doors. Both teams pushed into the small saloon bar while a line of glass tankards clinked temptingly on the counter. Everyone was in a good humour, pleasantly tired and bathed. We were laughing and joking and clapping each other on the shoulder.

'Here you are,' Grimsdyke said, pushing a pint into my hand. 'There'll be a five-bob kitty.'

I handed over two half-crowns, thinking it was a great deal to spend on beer in one evening.

'Drink up!' Grimsdyke said a few minutes later. 'I'm just getting another round.'

Not wishing to appear unusual, I emptied the glass. A fresh one was immediately put into my fingers, but I timidly held it untouched for a while.

'You're slow,' said Benskin jovially, bumping into me. 'There's bags more left in the kitty.'

I took a quick gulp. I suddenly made the discovery that beer tasted most agreeable. The men round me were downing it with impunity, so why shouldn't I? I swallowed a large draught with a flourish.

With the third pint a strange sensation swept over me. I felt terribly pleased with myself. Damn it! I thought. I can drink with the best of them! Someone started on the piano and Benskin began to sing. I didn't know any of the words, but I joined in the choruses with the rest.

'Your drink, Mr. Gordon,' said the Padre, handing me another tankard.

I downed the fourth glass eagerly. But I felt the party had become confused. The faces and lights blurred into one another and the voices inexplicably came sometimes from far away, sometimes right in my ear. Snatches of song floated into my brain like weed on a sluggish sea.

_'Caviar comes from the virgin sturgeon,'_ Benskin chanted.

_'Virgin sturgeon, very fine fish._

_Virgin sturgeon needs no urgin'_

_That's why caviar's a very rare dish.'_

I wedged myself against the bar for support. Someone next to me was telling a funny story to two men and their laughter sounded far off and eerie, like the three witches'.

_'That pair of red plush breeches_

_That pair of red plush breeches,_

came from the piano corner.

_'That pair of red plush bre-e-e-ehes_

_That kept John Thomas warm.'_

'Are you feeling all right?' a voice said in my ear.

I mumbled something.

'What's that, old man?'

'Bit sick,' I confessed briefly.

'Hold on a moment. I'll take you back to your digs. Where's he live, Benskin? Help me to get him in the car someone. Oh, and bring something along in case he vomits.'

The next morning Grimsdyke came round to my lodgings.

'How is it?' he asked cheerily.

'I feel awfully ill.'

'Simply a case of hangover vulgaris, old boy. I assure you the prognosis is excellent. Here's half a grain of codeine.'

'What happened to me?' I asked.

Grimsdyke grinned.

'Let's say you've been blooded,' he said.

Even medical students must have somewhere to live. The problem of finding suitable accommodation is difficult because they are always disinclined to spend on mere food and shelter money that would do equally well for beer and tobacco. And they are not, as a rule, popular lodgers. They always sit up late, they come in drunk on Saturdays, and they have queer things in bottles in their bedrooms. On the other hand, there are a small number of landladies who think it a privilege to entertain a prospective doctor under their roof. The connection with the profession raises their social standing in the street, and the young gentlemen can always be consulted over the dinner table on the strictly private illnesses to which landladies seem distressingly liable.

I started off in lodgings in Finchley, which were clean, fairly cheap, and comfortable. The landlady had a daughter, a tall, blank-faced brunette of nineteen, an usherette at the local Odeon. One evening after I had been there about six weeks she tapped at my bedroom door.

'Are you in bed?' she asked anxiously.

'No,' I called through the door. 'I'm studying. What is it?'

'It's me foot,' she said. 'I think I've sprained it or something. Will you have a look at it for me?'

'In the kitchen,' I replied guardedly. 'Take your stocking off and I'll be down in a minute.'

The following week she developed a pain in the calf, and the one after stiffness of the knee. When she knocked on the door and complained of a bad hip I gave notice.

I moved into a top-floor room of a lodging-house near Paddington Station. Its residents represented so many nationalities the directions for working its tricky and uncertain lavatories had to be set up in four different languages, as in the Continental expresses. There was another medical student there, a man from St. Mary's who kept tropical fish in a tank in his bedroom and practised Yogi.

As I had to take all my meals out I saw little of the other lodgers except when they passed on the stairs and said 'Excuse me' in bad English. In the room next to mine was a stout young blonde, but she lived very quietly and never disturbed anyone. One morning she was found strangled in Hyde Park, and after that I thought I ought to move again.

For the following twelve months I lived in a succession of boarding-houses. They were all the same. They had a curly hat-stand in the hall, a red stair-carpet worn grey in the middle, and a suspicious landlady. By the time I reached the end of the anatomy course I was tired of the smell of floor-polish, damp umbrellas, and frying; when I was offered a share in a flat in Bayswater I was so delighted I packed up and moved without even waiting to work out the week's rent.