Richard Gordon: DOCTOR AT LARGE

'Sit down,' I said dully, hearing another patient enter. 'Name, age, and occupation?'

'Wilkins. Twenty-one. Trades union organizer.' A youth in a tight blue suit sat down, still wearing his hat. 'But I ain't a patient. At least, not at the minute.' He spoke softly and slowly, as though demanding my money and valuables in an alley on a dark night. 'You've upset my mother you 'ave.'

'If that lady outside is your mother, I'd be obliged if you'd kindly take her home.'

'Under the Regulations for the Conduct and Control of the National Health Service,' he continued, staring at the ceiling, 'a patient what receives inefficient service from a doctor can state a case before the local Executive Council, who, if they shall decide the facts proved, shall deduct an appropriate fine from the doctor's remuneration.'

I lost my temper.

'Get out!'

'Take it easy, Doc., take it easy,' he continued in the same tone. 'I'm not saying nothing against you-I'm only quoting regulations, see? It just happens that I know 'em.'

'And I suppose you go round making a damn good thing out of it?'

Picking his front teeth with a matchstick, he continued, 'I'd be careful what I was saying, if I was you, Doc. There's a law of libel in the land, don't forget. As a matter of fact, I've had five cases against doctors. Won every one. All fined. I'm worth near a thousand quid a year to the Executive Council, I'd say.'

'Now look here, Mr Watkins-'

'Wilkins.'

'I don't care who the bloody hell you are or what you intend to do, but if you don't get out of here at once I'll kick your ruddy coccyx so hard-'

'Violence won't get you nowhere,' he said imperturbably. 'I could lay a complaint before the General Medical Council in that case. That you was guilty of infamous conduct in a professional respect.' He rose. 'Don't forget the name, Doc., Wilkins. You'll be hearing more from me.'

When I got home Jasmine was laying the table for our midday dinner.

'Hello,' she said brightly. 'You look like you're a bear with a sore head, and no mistake.'

'At the moment I'd make a pack of bears with sore heads look like a basket of puppies. Where's Dr Hockett, Jasmine?'

'The Doctor ain't in yet. He had to go out to the Vicar.' She laughed. 'That's the first time what you've called me Jasmine.'

I threw myself into a chair and picked up my _Pears Cyclopaedia._ After a while she went on, 'Didn't 'arf give you a start, didn't it? Yesterday at tea.' She giggled. 'Didn't know I was married to the Doctor, did you?'

'If you must drag the incident up again, Mrs Hockett, I will tell you that I didn't. And it did give me a start. Quite put me off my sardine.'

She laid out the last of the plates. 'I'm not blaming you,' she said amiably. 'Fancy me being the wife of a doctor! Phew! I can't get over it yet, sometimes.' As I said nothing, she came nearer my chair. 'Of course, he only married me to save the wages. Or mostly, I suppose. He's a mean old devil, like you said. Still, I acted for the best.'

'My dear Mrs Hockett-'

'Call me Jasmine, ducks.'

'I really cannot give opinions on your strictly domestic affairs. I have had an exhausting-in fact, excruciating-morning, and quite enough trouble for today, thank you.'

'Do us a favour, duckie,' she said.

'No.'

'Yes, go on. Be a sport.' She came near enough to stand over me. 'The Doctor's given you the key of the drug cupboard, ain't he?'

'No.'

'Yes he has-he always gives it to the assistant.'

'And what of it?'

'Be a gent and give us the lend of it a minute.'

'I certainly will not.' I turned to my Cyclopaedia again with finality.

'Oh, go on! I'll give it back. Dr Azziz let me have it.'

'Well, Dr Gordon won't.'

'Fetch us a bit of nembutal from the cupboard, then. I love nembutal.' She rubbed her stomach and rolled her eyes. 'Lovely grub, it is. Sends you to sleep and makes you forget what a bloody old miser the Doctor is.'

'That hardly seems the way for a woman to talk about her husband.'

Suddenly she made a grab for my waistcoat pocket.

'Come on! Give it over!'

'For God's sake, woman-!'

'Ooo! Let go! You're hurting!' she cried pleasurably.

'Damnation! Can't you control yourself?

We struggled over the chair and fell on to the floor. Jasmine was a sturdy girl and obviously experienced in parlour fighting. I had managed to push her from above me with difficulty, when Dr Hockett came in.

I scrambled up. My collar had flown from its stud, my face was red, I was sweating and breathless. Hockett stood in his overcoat in the doorway with his hands behind him, staring at me in the usual way.

'We-er-I had lost something on the floor,' Iexplained.

He nodded.

'Jasmine-Mrs Hockett, that is-was helping me find it.'

There was a long silence, while Jasmine smoothed down her clothes.

'Time for dinner,' Hockett said quietly. 'My dear, it is surely not necessary to have the fire on at this hour of the morning? It is really remarkably warm, for the time of year.'

None of us spoke during the meal, which was sausage and mash. When Jasmine had cleared away the dishes and left, Hockett said in his usual voice, 'Surprising the numbers of doctors who have sinned, isn't it?'

'Sinned?' I looked at him uncomfortably. 'You mean-er, sexually?'

'I mean who have committed murder.'

'Oh, yes?' I said faintly. 'I suppose it is.'

'There was Crippen-Palmer the Poisoner-Neil Cream in London. And many more. Do you remember the Ruxton case? He cut them up in the bath.'

'I suppose it's-sort of tempting to have all the stuff around. To go murdering people with.'

'Exactly.'

'Ah, well!' I said. I stood up, clutching the table for support. 'I must be getting along.'

'Many murderers are never detected, Doctor,' Hockett observed.

I ran to my room and wedged the bed behind the door.

The evening nevertheless passed the same way as the one before. Dr Hockett sat beside the faint-hearted fire and read the Express; Jasmine knitted, and winked every time she caught my eye; I looked at the duck and read my Cyclopaedia. _

We went to bed at ten, parting as amiably as any trio which has shared for supper the same cod fillet. I heard Dr Hockett turn the electricity off at the main. I felt for my torch beside me, and went to sleep.

The telephone rang at one-thirty. As it was my job to take all night calls I automatically climbed out of bed, crept downstairs, and answered it.

'Fifteen Canal Place,' a man's voice said immediately. 'And hurry up.' The line went dead.

I pulled on my clothes, started up Haemorrhagic Hilda, looked for Canal Place on my new map, and bounced over the deserted tram-lines into the night. After losing myself three or four times I found the address at the far end of a long, narrow, twisting street too cramped for Hilda to pass. I walked the rest of the way, and as it was raining again I knocked on the door with my new suit soaked through to the pyjamas underneath.

'You've taken your time, I must say,' said the man who opened the door.

I shone my torch in his face. 'Wilkins!'

'The very same.'

'If this is some sort of joke-' I began angrily.

'Joke? I don't play jokes, Doc. Some people say I ain't got a sense of humour. It's mother.'

'What's wrong with her?'

'She's dying.'

'She is, is she? Well, we'll see.'

I found Mrs Wilkins in bed upstairs, suffering from the wind.

'She wants to go into 'ospital,' Mr Wilkins announced in a threatening voice.

'No doubt she does. So do half the population of the country. She needs a large glass of hot water, that's all.'

'She wants to go into 'ospital,' Mr Wilkins insisted.

'Good night,' I snapped, picking up my stethoscope.