Richard Gordon - DOCTOR AT LARGE

'Look here,' I said in alarm. 'You're not doing anything dishonest, are you? I mean, false certificates and abortions and things?'

Grimsdyke looked pained. 'Have you ever known me try anything underhand outside the examination hall? No, old lad, it's simple. I'll let you into the secret. Through family influence, I've got myself a good job. Personal doctor to old Lady Howkins-you know, widow of the bloke that grabbed half Johannesburg and has been digging up useful little bits of gold ever since. She lives in a ruddy great house near Gloucester. She's as mean as a tax collector in the usual way, but she's pretty lavish with the cash to yours truly-'

'You mean you're a sort of clinical gigolo?'

Grimsdyke slapped down his glass in annoyance. 'Damn it, I pay your bloody debts-'

'I'm sorry. But you must admit it looks fishy on the face of it. Even you wouldn't admit you're a second Lord Horder.'

'Look, Lady Howkins is ninety-four, and to my mind as crazy as a coot. But fortunately, like my grandmother, she's crazy about doctors. All I do is recite to her the miracles of modern medicine, some of which I know and some of which I mug up in the _Reader's Digest,_ and she thinks it's wonderful. She's fascinated by technical stuff. She knows more about things like isotopes and gastroscopes than I do. And she's bound to kick the bucket any day now.'

'And you'll be out of a job.'

'Yes, and no. I have it on good authority she's left and a terrific packet in her will. Think of it, old lad! Thousands of quids in the kitty, tax-free just like the football pools! And that's where you come in. I thought we might go off for a nose round the Bahamas or somewhere, and set up a little clinic for tired newspaper owners, film stars, and so forth. You'd do the medicine, with your Park Lane touch, and I'd fix the business side-you must admit, even though I may not know an appendix from an adenoid, I've a sharp eye for juggling the cash. What do you say?'

'Say? Damn it, this is a bit startling-'

'Think it over. Coming to the hospital dinner next month?'

I nodded.

'We'll discuss it again then. Don't think you're going to use ill-gotten gains, old lad, because they're not. I dance attendance like any other G.P., and call in specialists to the old dear as needed. If it wasn't for me she might be shared by dozens of Harley Street sharks. Lots of people leave money to their doctors, anyway. Must be damn brave,' he added reflectively. 'Have another?'

I shook my head. 'I've got to see some patients. One thing I've learned in general practice, if you smell faintly of alcohol just once, the word goes round by next morning that the doctor's a drunkard.'

'Have one of these.' Grimsdyke said, producing a tube of tablets. 'Chlorophyll removes all unpleasant odours. Fools patients and policemen alike.'

'Don't delude yourself. The goats round here eat it all day, and you should have a sniff at them.'

The St Swithin's reunion dinner was held every year in the Moorish Room of a huge banquet factory off Piccadilly Circus, and was anticipated by most of the guests as eagerly as Christmas in an orphanage. The majority of St Swithin's graduates were hardworking G.P.s scattered across the country, who faced ruin by being seen in the local pub or having more than two small ones in the golf club; the reunion dinner was their only chance to shed their inhibitions and splash for a while in the delightful anonymity of London.

I had arranged to meet Grimsdyke in the Piccadilly Bar before the dinner, which was five weeks later. He arrived in a new dinner jacket with a red carnation in the buttonhole, smoking a cigar and looking jubilant.

'Well, old lad?' he demanded at once. 'Have you decided?'

'I've thought the matter over very carefully,' I told him. 'I must admit I'm a bit scared of the scheme, but my present system of casual employment is precarious, and I see no future for myself anywhere in England as a surgeon. So I'll come with you.'

'Capital!'

'The only snag seems to be that this patient of yours might quite easily live to be a hundred, and by that time will certainly have found out that you are simply an unprincipled-'

'But haven't you heard, old lad? Haven't you heard? The old dear snuffed it last week. Frightful pity of course, but who wants to live longer than ninety-four? And look at this-' He pulled a long letter from his pocket, typed on solicitor's paper. 'It came this morning-ten thousand quid! Ten thousand! Think of it! All for yours truly. Don't bother to read it all now, it's full of legal stuff. Shove it in your pocket. What an evening we're going to have! Barman! Champagne-the best in the house!'

We arrived in high spirits at the dinner, and found the Byzantine ante-room full of prosperous-looking middle-aged gentlemen in dinner-jackets, all drinking like pirates. The function always followed a strict ritual, and at eight o'clock the Dean himself climbed on a table and announced that dinner was served. This was a signal for the middle-aged gentlemen to cry 'Limerick! Limerick!' until the Dean coughed, and obliged tradition by reciting in his lecture-room voice:

_'Ah-There was an old man of Manchuria_ _Who had the most painful dysuria._ _The unfortunate chap_ _Had not only got clap_ _But haematoporphyrinuria.'_

This brought the house down.

Grimsdyke and myself, with our old friends Tony Benskin and Taffy Evans, sat round the foot of one table with Mr Hubert Cambridge, who was one of the most popular of St Swithin's surgeons through being entertainingly eccentric. While the waiter with the chronic sinusitis was serving the chemical soup, Grimsdyke insisted on ordering champagne for all five of us.

'But, my dear boy, can you afford it?' Mr Cambridge asked. 'I assure you that pale ale is good enough for me.'

'Sir,' Grimsdyke said solemnly, 'it is a token of our appreciation of your tuition at St Swithin's. Within an hour the champagne will be carbon dioxide and water-but your teaching will remain with us all our lives.'

'And the Dean says the standard of our students is dropping!' he said, rubbing his hands. 'Tell me, what are the names of your excellent young men?'

After the soup came the mummified turbot, wearing its funeral wreath of shrivelled shrimps; next, the poor arthritic chicken, the devitaminized cabbage, the vulcanized potatoes; then the deliquescent ice and the strange compost on toast. Afterwards, we faced with British composure the stern British discipline which emphasizes that life is not all feasting and gaiety-the speeches. They were always long at the St Swithin's dinner, because the speakers were in the habit of lecturing for a full hour at a time to their students without fear of interruption. First the Dean told us what jolly good chaps St Swithin's men were; then the visiting medical Lord told us what a jolly good chap the Dean was; then the Senior Surgeon told us what jolly good chaps everyone was. After that we were released into the Gothic Smoking Room to sing the old student songs, while the Dean played the piano and the visiting Lord conducted with a loaf of French bread. We sang about the unfortunate adventures of The Baker's Boy Who to the Chandler's Went, The Honest Woman and the Rogue, The Man Who went Fishing With Line and Rod, and of the wildly psychopathic evening in Kerriemuir. It was difficult to see anyone in the room ever gripping their lapels and declaring, 'No starchy foods, no alcohol, and no smoking-the human body's not a machine, y'know.' But all of them would be saying it tomorrow morning, sterner than ever.

In the excitement of the evening I had almost forgotten that I was committed to an alarming medico-commercial adventure. I was paying the waiter for a round of drinks when Grimsdyke's letter fell from my pocket. Concentrating, I began to read it in the light of one of the Tudor wall-lanterns.