Richard Gordon: DOCTOR IN CLOVER

'Good Lord, sir, so it is! But-but-dash it! I mean to say there must be some mistake-'

'Get out of this hall this instant! You rogue!

You vagabond! You unspeakable idiot! Never let me look again upon your unbearable-'

'I'm sure there's some explanation-' I was aware that an odd sort of silence had fallen on everybody.

'Get out!' roared Sir Lancelot.

'Oh, yes, sir. Right-ho, sir.'

I left the meeting in some confusion. I think it was the Lord Mayor who had enough presence of mind to jump up and start singing _God Save The Queen._

Twenty minutes later I was throwing open Lord Nutbeam's front door, and bumped into the severe bird in striped trousers I'd last seen emerging from Nutbeam Hall. But I didn't intend to pass the time of day with him and burst into the drawing-room, where I was a bit startled to find Lady Nutbeam next to his Lordship on the sofa wearing her old nurse's uniform.

'Look here!' I began at once. 'If this is another of your stupid jokes-'

'My dear Doctor! What on earth's the matter? You look quite beside yourself.'

'I jolly well am beside myself.' I chucked the cheque at him. 'You've made an absolute booby of myself, Sir Lancelot, and the entire staff of St Swithin's, not to mention all sorts of City nobs. I go along to this jamboree, thinking I'd got the ten thousand quid you'd promised-'

'But my dear Doctor! I feel I never promised any such sum at all.'

'But damn it! You did. I told you ten thousand was wanted to start this blasted fund, and you agreed on the nod. Don't tell me you've simply forgotten. Or perhaps you've just omitted to add the noughts?' I added a bit hopefully.

'I indeed remember perfectly well your mentioning the sum,' Lord Nutbeam continued calmly. 'But I fear I never said I would present Sir Lancelot with it all.'

'But hell! Why on earth one pound four shillings and eightpence?'

'Because, my dear Doctor,' replied Lord Nutbeam simply, 'it is all I have left.'

There was a silence.

'Oh,' I said. 'I see.'

'We wondered why everyone was making such a fuss over the presentation,' added Lady Nutbeam.

'Though I assure you, Doctor, it gives me great pleasure to present my all to such a deserving cause as surgical research.' He took his wife's hand. 'I fear I have been overspending rather of late. But Ethel and I have had a lovely summer, haven't we, my dear?'

'And now I'm going out to get a job and we can start all over again,' said Lady Nutbeam.

'The men will be coming for the cars and the furniture this afternoon. Fortunately, I still have a cottage near Nutbeam Hall, and with my books and my piano no doubt we shall be just as happy. Though I fear, Doctor, I can no longer offer you employment in my household, as much as I should like to.'

There didn't seem anything to say.

'Good-bye, my dear Doctor. And my warmest thanks.'

I put my hand in my pocket.

'I-I don't use this very much,' I said. 'I'd rather like you to have it. It might be able to help you out a little.'

I gave him back his gold cigarette case.

Miles was already in his flat when I arrived.

'Oh, Gaston!' said Connie, opening the door.

He didn't look up as I entered.

'You'd better emigrate,' he remarked quietly.

'Yes, I'd better,' I said.

It had been raining heavily all day. It had been raining heavily all the day before. In fact it had been raining heavily as long as I could remember, and I was beginning to get the feeling of living under water.

I looked through the window of the clinic, which was constructed largely of old petrol tins. There was the River Amazon, very muddy and full of crocodiles. Beyond were some trees. Behind were some trees, and all round were more trees. It struck me what a damn silly song it was they used to sing about the beastly things.

I wondered whenever I'd see London again. I'd had a pretty miserable week while Miles fixed me up with the oil company, mooching round saying good-bye to things I'd hardly thought twice about before, such as Nelson's Column and the swans on the Serpentine. I'd already forgotten how long I'd been in Brazil, the only newspapers coming with the weekly launch, but I supposed it was only a couple of months. That meant another four years or so before I would ever again taste a mouthful of good old London fog. I wondered if Miles had got his job. I wondered if Sir Lancelot had got his cash, I wondered who had won the November Handicap. I wondered if I were going steadily potty, and would see my old chums again only between a couple of those chaps in neat blue suits you sometimes saw lurking round St Swithin's.

My reflections were interrupted by a cry behind me of, 'Hello, Grimalkin, old thing!

How'd you like another little game of rummy?'

I turned to face Dr Janet Pebbley, my professional colleague.

'I suppose so. There doesn't seem anything else much to do for the next five years.'

'Gosh, you're funny! But I always say, there's nothing like a game of cards for passing the time. When my friend Hilda and I were doing our midder at the Femina, I always said to her, "Hilda," I said, "let's have another little game of rummy, and I bet they'll be popping like corks again all over the place before we've even had time to notice it."'

Janet Pebbley and I had arrived together to share the job of looking after the locals' bad feet and yellow fever inoculations, and she was the only Englishwoman I had to talk to. In fact, she was the only person in the whole of Brazil I had to talk to except myself, and I'd tried that a few times already. Personally, I'm generally in favour of female doctors, who these days all wear nice hair-dos and nice nylons, but Janet was one of the standard type whose psychological development became arrested somewhere about the hockey stage. She was a tall, pink-faced girl, qualified a few years before from the London Femina, who looked as if she could rearrange Stonehenge single-handed.

The trouble was, I was falling in love with her.

I suppose that psychiatrist in Wimpole Street would have explained it as a conflict between my id and my super-ego, but as far as I was concerned I knew it was a damn silly thing to do. But seeing Janet every day, I somehow had no alternative. It's like when they stick a pair of rats in a cage in the physiology laboratory. When she emerged from her tiny bungalow for breakfast every morning with a hearty cry of, 'Hello, there, Grimalkin! How's the old liver today?' I knew perfectly well I should lock myself in and tell her to call me in five years' time. But I didn't. I sat at the table, eyeing her like a hungry cat in a cheesemonger's.

'What are you going to do, Grimalkin?' she asked, when we'd finished our meal of pork and beans that evening. 'When your contract's up and you go home, I mean.'

I looked past the oil-lamp through the clinic window, where insects nobody had ever heard of before were jostling in the darkness. It was still raining, of course.

'I don't think I can see quite as far ahead as that.'

'I can. This five years will pass in a flash. An absolute flash. As I said to my friend Hilda the very day we were starting together at the Femina, time always does flash by if you will it to. You know what I'm going to do?'

'No?'

'I'll have a bit of money saved up then.

We'll both have, won't we? Nothing to spend it on here except fags. First I'm going to have a jolly good tramp all over Scotland.

Then I'm going to settle down in practice somewhere in the Midlands. My friend Hilda's up there, and strictly between _entre nous_ she could fix an opening.' She made a little squiggle with her finger on the tablecloth. 'Two openings, if she wanted to.'

I realized I'd taken her other hand.

Janet-'

'Yes?'

'You're jolly nice, you know.'