Richard Gordon: DOCTOR IN CLOVER

'Good Lord!' I exclaimed. 'There's a photo of me.'

There was a headline saying MELODY'S MEN, also pictures of Quintin Finn commanding a battleship and Jimmy Hosegood laying on the beach like a jettisoned beer barrel.

I gave a laugh. 'It says, "Dr Gaston Grimsdyke, the fashionable young London physician, is also tipped at the Festival as the future Mr Madder." I wonder what gave them that idea? Lots more about me, too.'

'Good God, man! You actually seem proud of it.'

'Well, I've never had my photograph in the papers before.'

Miles got rather excited.

'The disgrace and scandal of your being mixed up with this-this-'

'Melody Madder's a very decent type, and I won't have anyone being beastly about her.' I helped myself to a cup of his coffee. 'Anyway, you've been advising me to marry and settle down for years.'

'Not to the woman with the most advertised thorax in Britain.'

'But Miles!' interrupted Connie, dusting somewhere in the background, 'nobody believes what they read in the papers.'

'Kindly leave this discussion to us. Far from people forgetting it, I had a most uncomfortable evening of ribald jests last night at the club. As you have deliberately bruited my name abroad-'

'Me? I haven't bruited anyone's name anywhere.' I glanced again at the paper, and noticed something about my cousin, the brilliant Harley Street Surgeon. 'Oh, well, you know what reporters are for getting up a story. I suppose it was that blonde in the hotel. I should have spotted she was a journalist, but I just thought she was nosey and sporting about paying for the drinks. Mind if I have this piece of toast?'

'This happens to be my breakfast.'

'Oh, sorry.'

'And what's all this rubbish about you writing a book?' Mires began again.

Put that in too, did she? As a matter of fact, I've just sent off the manuscript to Carboy and Plover. Jolly good advance publicity.'

'You've really written a book?' exclaimed Connie. 'How terribly clever of you.'

'May I remind you that you were not trained to waste your time scribbling penny dreadfuls? It's high time you made some contribution to the progress of medicine.'

'My best contribution to the progress of medicine, old lad, would be giving it up.'

'Not to mention your obligation to suffering humanity.'

'Suffering humanity's so overstocked with doctors there's always a few of the poor chaps on the dole,' I told him. 'And all of them probably better than me. Now look here.' I started to feel annoyed with my idiotic cousin. 'I may not have written _War and Peace,_ but I'm jolly proud of my modest literary efforts. And I'm not going to have them sneered at by chaps who've never written anything except the footer reports for the school mag., and pretty terrible they were, too, if my memory serves me right.'

'You have utterly ruined my chances at St Swithin's, of course,' Miles went on, staring at me icily. 'It happens that the committee is in an extremely delicate state at the moment. Barefoot has obtained a large grant from the McKerrow Foundation, which he will use for surgical research at St Swithin's if appointed. As you know, Sir Lancelot is combing London to find funds for exactly that purpose. Now the possibility of my becoming related by marriage to a woman with-with her bosom brazened on every billboard in the country, is a stick for Sir Lancelot and every other opponent to batter my chances into nothingness.'

I reached for one of his cigarettes.

'Miles,' I said, 'I'm getting a bit fed up with all your beastly little backstairs bickering at St Swithin's. As a matter of fact, you're a selfish and self-opinionated chump, who thinks everyone in sight's got to drop what they're doing and rally round to help you get exactly whatever you want.You were just the same at school, over the jam cupboard.'

'How dare you!' exclaimed Miles. 'Damnation,' he added, as the telephone rang in time hall.

'Sorry, old girl,' I said to Connie, as he disappeared to answer it. 'Afraid I got a bit out of hand with your old man.'

'But I think you're right.' She put down the duster. 'Absolutely right. I'd hate to think of Miles getting anything except on his own merits.'

'And pretty good merits they are, I'm the first to admit.'

I took another look at the newspaper. 'I suppose he rather got my dander up about the novel,' I apologized. 'Though I expect he's right. It's a bit stupid of me giving up a nice safe profession like medicine. Safe for the doctors, at any rate.'

'Do you know what I think?' Connie sat on the chair beside me. 'Listen to me, Gaston-I've known a lot of writers and artists. Particularly before I met Miles. I suppose I've run across most of the ones who've since made a name for themselves in London. I've darned their socks and stood them meals, as often as not. And I can assure you of one thing. If you really want to write books or paint pictures, a little matter like starvation isn't going to stop you.'

'That's jolly decent of you, Connie.'

This was the first really cheering word I'd had, even from Carboy and Plover.

'Anyway,' she added. 'If you're not suited for being a doctor, you're not. And it strikes me as better to face it now instead of killing a couple of dozen people to find out.'

Miles returned.

'It was Sir Lancelot Spratt,' he announced.

'He wishes to see you in his theatre at St Swithin's as soon as you can possibly get over there.'

I was glad to leave, both Miles and myself becoming a little exhausted by the conversation. But I edged through the traffic across London feeling pretty worried about whatever Sir Lancelot had in store for me. I supposed he took the same view as Miles, and was going to choke me off for disgracing the hospital by appearing in the same newspaper column as poor Petunia. It had been great fun telling my cousin what a pompous little pustule he really was, which I'd been meaning to ever since he confiscated my private bag of doughnuts, but it seemed a bit hard if the old boys at St Swithin's could use my chumminess with Petunia to wreck his hopes of promotion. I decided it was only fair to repair what damage I could. His remarks about my literary efforts had been pretty galling, I admitted, but in this country authors are thought a pretty unproductive class, anyway.

I hadn't been back to St Swithin's for months, and it was pleasant to stroll again through the old gateway and have a word with Harry the porter about the prospects for Goodwood. I took the lift up to Sir Lancelot's theatre, thinking how frightfully young the students were getting, and waited rather nervously in the surgeons' room while he finished off a gastrectomy.

'Right, Mr Hatrick, you sew him up and be careful of that tatty bit of peritoneum,' I heard him booming. 'Nurse! My morning tea and two digestive biscuits, if you please. Ah, there you are, Grimsdyke.'

He appeared in the pair of bright-blue pyjamas he used for expressing his personality under sterile operating gowns.

'Our patient from Long Wotton seems to be making a satisfactory, if not spectacular recovery,' Sir Lancelot began.

'So it would seem, sir.'

'But I want a word with you about another matter.'

'Ah, yes, sir.'

I braced myself. At least he couldn't throw anything handy and messy at me, like he used to inside the theatre.

Sir Lancelot untied his mask.

'I believe you are acquainted with this young Miss Melody Madder?'

'You mean Miss Melody Madder the actress, sir?'

'Naturally. Your cousin buttonholed me in the Parthenon yesterday with some garbled and apologetic story on the matter. I understand there has been something in the newspapers. I only read _The Times,_ of course.'

'I-er, don't really know her, sir. Merely on nodding terms.'

'Oh.'

'Just happened to pass her in a crowd, sir.'