Doctor On The Ball Read online

  Jilly was in the office amid a bodyscanner assembly kit. Applebee was a small man with thick dark hair, thick dark-rimmed glasses and a well-pressed dark suit. He was standing behind his desk beating his brow with the palm of his hand and shouting hysterically, ‘This is the end!’

  Jilly gave a little wave. ‘You know our Mr Applebee?’

  ‘The end!’ he repeated.

  ‘Something the matter?’ murmured Windrush.

  ‘Look at this!’ Applebee flourished a flimsy. ‘The scanner I indented from the Department of Health five years ago. It’s arrived. This morning. It’s in crates, down in the storeroom. I still cannot afford to run one scanner. What the hell am I going to do with two?’

  ‘Send it back,’ Windrush pointed out.

  Applebee gave a high-pitched laugh. ‘Send it back? Impossible! You know what they’d do? Dock my budget. Then I’d have to close another operating theatre. I think I shall resign,’ he ended miserably.

  ‘The administration of the National Health Service presents many difficulties, certainly,’ I agreed.

  ‘I know!’ suggested Jilly. ‘Take the new one to London, and distribute it in bits round the Department headquarters at the Elephant and Castle.’

  But Applebee did not seem to possess even a VAT man’s sense of humour. His voice broke. ‘I never want to see another hospital. I’m going to tear up my kidney donor card.’

  I laughed loudly.

  Everyone stared.

  ‘I’ve just remembered! The colonel commanding that ammunition depot ended up with fifty-one machine guns. Dreadfully embarrassing. Took years to get rid of the extra one again.’

  ‘What machine guns?’ asked Applebee sharply.

  ‘Oh, the colonel in the story. The one that gave me the idea of telling Syd Farthingale to put the scanner back on the sly, when he confessed to me in the surgery two weeks ago that he’d stolen it.’

  ‘What’s all this?’ glared Applebee.

  ‘Oh, Daddy,’ sighed Jilly.

  ‘Oh, Daddy!’ grinned Windrush.

  ‘Mr Applebee,’ said Jilly. ‘You’ve had a trying time. Let’s go down to the residents’ bar, shall we, where my father will stand us all drinks.’

  13

  Windrush telephoned during breakfast.

  ‘Syd Farthingale?’ I said at once. ‘Applebee’s had him arrested? Or had the sense to give him a job? Equipment procurement officer, the most economical one in the Health Service.’

  ‘I am calling to congratulate you.’

  I asked on what.

  ‘Your election as president of the Churchford Cricket Club.’

  I was stumped.

  ‘It was decided last night at the club’s annual general meeting, after dinner at the Blue Boar.’

  I pointed out, ‘But I’m not a member of the Churchford Cricket Club.’

  ‘Then the greater the honour.’

  ‘But it’s ridiculous! I don’t know anything about cricket. I’ve only been to Lord’s once, and it rained all day. Everyone got terribly drunk.’

  ‘The consensus of the meeting was to bestow the distinction on a widely respected, indeed beloved, GP. You’re not being very gracious, nitpicking like this.’

  Windrush can be overbearing, I suppose through his job as a pathologist of continually facing fellow-doctors with their mistakes.

  He added emolliently, ‘All the president does is sit in a deckchair in the sun while the batting side keep bringing him pints of hitter. And you know who you’re replacing?’ I warily recognized his wily voice, in which he made helpful suggestions when we played golf. ‘The biggest cricket buff in Churchford. Bill Ightam, your daughter Jilly’s chief at the General.’

  I hesitated. Surgical eminence is like sainthood achieved through finite steps of increasing radiance. Jilly had risen from houseman to Bill Ightam’s registrar. Her ascent to senior registrar depended on the sort of reference he wrote her.

  ‘Good, you’ve accepted!’ said Windrush forcefully. ‘Congratulations. I’ll drop into your house, to present you with your club tie.’

  ‘Aren’t you a little senior for schoolboy games?’ Sandra suggested, when I explained this at the kitchen breakfast table.

  ‘It’s more than a game, it’s a national institution,’ I corrected her. ‘The Men of Hambledon are as much a part of our history as the Tolpuddle Martyrs. They played cricket in Dickens – Dingley Dell v. the All-Muggletons – and surely you remember there’s a breathless hush in the Close tonight, play up! play up! play up! and play the game! Why, the most famous cricketer who ever went to the crease was a doctor.’

  I already felt the dignity of office.

  I finished my tomato omelette with grilled tomatoes. It was a Thursday morning in June, when my long evenings were spent in the greenhouse. This was set against the southern wall of our Victorian villa, facing St Alphege’s (vicar low church and low back pain). It was a Christmas present from Sandra, as a tranquillizer. Like my patients, it had endured a winter battle against infection – mealy bug, leaf miner, thrips, wireworms – which I similarly treated with powerful chemicals until it was more sterile than the operating theatres at the General, where Jilly tells me the problem of cross-infection is worse than that of surgical egos.

  In June the greenhouse became as rewarding as the end of a multiple pregnancy, cucumbers dangling as plump as green salami, aubergines as burstingly purple as nasty bruises, tomatoes pressing against the panes like commuters crammed into rush-hour trains. That morning, I had proudly presented Sandra with my first trug of Ailsa Craigs.

  My shrewdness in accepting the presidency was emphasized during the day by my partner Dr Elaine Spondeck, who recounted that Dr Quaggy was desperate for the honour.

  ‘Local prestige, you know, which he confuses with personal advancement,’ I told Sandra that evening. ‘One in the eye for him, eh?’

  I set two piled trugs on the kitchen table, where she was making our spaghetti al pomodoro.

  ‘Tomatoes,’ she murmured.

  ‘Yes, I’m going to need a machete to hack my way in soon,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘I think it’s transfusing the Gro-bags with stale blood. Tomatoes just love getting their roots into juicy human haemoglobin.’

  ‘Perhaps I can do stuffed tomatoes for tomorrow’s lunch,’ she said doubtfully. ‘And tomatoes à la parisienne for dinner. I suppose it’s always nice to lay down a shelf of tomato chutney.’

  The doorbell rang. It was Windrush, flourishing my tie. I thanked him, remarking that the purple and pink stripes went surprisingly well with the primrose.

  ‘Did I mention on the phone yesterday about the donation?’

  ‘Of course, I should be delighted.’ I generously mooted a sum.

  ‘Come off it, Richard,’ he complained ungratefully. ‘This isn’t a kid’s playgroup. It’s our long-standing tradition that the president donates heftily. As we’re badly in the red, I’d rather appreciate the cheque here and now. And you might make a note in your diary of the club’s annual dinner,’ he directed. ‘First Saturday in October, Blue Boar, big do. We always get some first-class cricketer for the speech, maybe Botham, Mike Brearley, Geoff Boycott. To the president falls the honour of introducing him – you don’t mind?’

  ‘Charmed.’

  ‘Also of paying his fee, hotel and travelling expenses.’

  ‘Fine! While we’re at it, why not invite Lillee or Rod Marsh across from Australia?’

  But Windrush is as insensitive to irony as traffic wardens to imprecation.

  ‘You’re attending our local Derby on Saturday v. Beagle Hill?’

  ‘I assure you, I take my duties quite as seriously as the world’s other presidents.’

  ‘Good! We’re so short you can umpire.’

  ‘But I don’t know the rules!’

  He dismissed the objection. ‘The charm of cricket is in the rules being simply an extension of civilized behaviour.’ I handed him the cheque. ‘I say! Thank you, Richard! We were only expecting ab
out half that. While you’ve got your chequebook out, perhaps you’d write one for the tie? Price on the ticket, sorry it’s rather stiff, but they’re hand-made to order.’

  First thing next morning, I found the greenhouse thicker with tomatoes than the Chinese New Year with scarlet lanterns. I brought a plastic sack of them into the kitchen, where Sandra was preparing our breakfast of tomato sausages and devilled tomatoes.

  ‘For chrissake! What am I supposed to do with these?’ she inquired.

  ‘Tomato sauce?’ I suggested uneasily. ‘Much more wholesome than that slimy stuff in bottles. I know it sounds stupid, but I don’t seem able to pick fast enough to catch up with them.’

  She said faintly, ‘I seem to remember an old Mrs Beeton recipe for tomato marmalade.’

  ‘I expect it’s jolly exciting on hot buttered toast.’

  On my way home from surgery for lunch, I stopped in the High Street for a copy of Wisden’s Cricketers’ Almanack. I was horrified to find that the game had not rules but laws, all as unintelligible to me as the complex laws of genetics which professors write about in the BMJ. I turned the twenty-two closely printed pages of them while eating my tomato soufflé. I had discovered that the bat must not exceed 4½ inches in its widest part and be not more than 38 inches in length when the telephone rang. It was Bill Ightam.

  I uttered to the consultant surgeon the same vague, jocular, hopeful remarks about Jilly making satisfactory progress as I had made, with bottled-up fear and fondness, to pedagogues since her finger painting and water play in nursery school.

  ‘Quite one of the best registrars I’ve ever had.’ Bill Ightam was short, dapper, amiable, blessed with the appellation on every lip of ‘a very decent chap’. Also, I sent him private patients. ‘I bet she gets her Fellowship first shot. Er, Richard. Er, you know my youngest daughter, Thomasina?’ He added in a rush, ‘Do you think she could play in the match tomorrow?’

  I made a slight procrastinating noise deep in the larynx. Doubtless the Archbishop of Canterbury does the same when pressed about the ordination of women.

  ‘As you know,’ Bill Ightam continued, ‘I have three other daughters, Edwina, Roberta and Georgina, but alas! No son.’ He gulped. ‘As I might one day hope to see play at Lord’s. But Thomasina’s a remarkable athlete, and dead keen on cricket. She captained the side at school – naturally, I sent her to the right one – and would absolutely adore turning out for Churchford. Oh, I know women’s lib hasn’t made a big stand at the wicket, they seem only concerned with uninteresting things like lesbianism. I put it to Windrush, and he said it was for the new president to decide.’

  ‘My dear chap, as far as I’m concerned, Churchford can field the entire chorus line from the Palladium.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said chokingly. ‘Thank you…thank you…’

  I swear I heard a sob as he rang off.

  I avoided the greenhouse until that evening after dinner (cold tomato mousse). I was instantly gripped with terror. The structure was in danger of exploding and contaminating the district with tomato fallout. I filled a wheelbarrow and trundled it to the back door.

  ‘Perhaps we could crush them in the bath,’ I suggested weakly, as Sandra stared in speechless horror. ‘Then buy a crate of vodka and invite our friends to the biggest Bloody Mary in Churchford.’

  She muttered something about, God, why did I marry the world’s only case of tomato alcoholism? I pushed the barrow to the vicarage. The vicar slammed the door, mentioning that Harvest Festival was not a moveable feast. I supposed his back was annoying him. I had the bright idea of telephoning Mrs Windrush and suggesting tomato sandwiches for tomorrow’s game’s tea interval, but they already had tomatoes as Job boils. I left them in the garage and hoped for vandals. I dreamed of tomato tendrils creeping upstairs like triffids.

  The day of the match dawned grey. I brought Sandra the first trug of aubergines.

  ‘It’s moussaka time!’ She gave a high-pitched laugh. ‘Or maybe ratatouille with everything? Or aubergines au gratin à la catalane, portugaise, toulousaine, grec and Imam Baldi, which is fried with onions and currants, and in Turkish means the fainting priest because it smells so overpoweringly delicious, did you know? Did you know?’

  She burst into tears. I did not mention the greenhouse containing enough ripe cucumbers to make sandwiches for every repertory production of The Importance of Being Ernest since Oscar Wilde got out of Reading Gaol.

  The game started at noon. I was glad to leave home at eleven. Sandra was still sniffing, while filling jars of tomato chow-chow.

  The Churchford cricket ground was delightful. A row of oaks occupied one side with the unassuming dignity of senior members in the pavilion at Lord’s, the other was shielded by a lofty palisade of poplars. The ripe, unblemished green sloped gently to a spacious white-verandahed pavilion, in which I was pleased to notice white-clothed trestle tables with wives busy among cold chicken and strawberries, and equally so to spot on the bar a firkin of Huntsman’s Double Hop, unadulterated since it moistened the jocular lips of Mr Jorrocks.

  Pistol-shot cracks behind the pavilion led me to sinewy Windrush in flannels, practising against a young man’s bowling in the nets with the dedicated air of having been at it since dawn.

  ‘There’s been a big development,’ he said at once, sticking his bat under his arm and striding from the stumps.

  14

  ‘Do you know who’s captain of Beagle Hill?’ Windrush demanded. ‘Mr Horace Fenny-Cooper! QC! The bastard!’

  The name stirred the uneasiness of Big Brother’s. ‘The barrister who makes a killing bullying doctors in malpractice suits?’

  Windrush nodded fiercely. ‘Who specializes in extorting grossly inflated damages for minor errors. Why, the patients don’t know how lucky they are! Lose the wrong finger or toe, take a world cruise and retire for life. Tax free, too, just like winning the pools. Hand in glove with the judges, of course. They all have a neurotic distrust of doctors.’

  ‘Because they seldom send us to gaol, but we can always tell them to take their clothes off.’

  ‘They make so many mistakes, they keep a special court sitting to correct them. Supposing they’d taken up medicine? My God! We’d have a housing problem with post-mortem rooms.’

  I do not think I really like lawyers. Perhaps because they are trained to be nasty to people and we are trained to be nice to people. And doctors are spared from growing pompous. We have to look up too many fundamental orifices.

  ‘Now’s our chance to get our own back,’ said Windrush warmly.

  ‘That’s up to your team.’

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  ‘But I’m the umpire!’

  ‘Exactly.’

  I objected indignantly, ‘That’s not in the spirit of the game.’

  ‘Look, we’ve no more hope of beating Beagle Hill than Dr Barnardo’s of winning the Cup Final,’ he imparted frankly. ‘Our team’s half doctors, and I hear he’s bringing a flock of lawyers, so this is a professional needle-match. Do you want the legal leech bragging round the Law Courts on Monday morning how he’s pulverized us? Furthermore–’ He eyed me sternly. ‘Bill Ightam has a case pending. Stomach that went wrong.’

  I said unhappily, ‘I see a conflict of loyalties.’

  ‘I don’t.’ Windrush returned to the nets.

  I was left in the moral turmoil of E M (Passage to India) Forster, who speculated on having to choose between betraying his country or betraying his friend. I recalled that he hoped he would have the guts to betray his country, but perhaps he was just being clever. I decided on blunting the horns of the dilemma with a pint of Huntsman’s Double Hop, but Bill Ightam’s Rover appeared.

  He proudly introduced Thomasina. She was quiet, slight, pink, eighteen, with an Adidas bag and two cricket bats, wearing jeans and a Sussex University sweatshirt. She was finishing her first year (artistic studies).

  ‘I was desperately hoping to see her bat,’ Bill said dotingly. ‘But you know how i
t is – half a dozen private cases this afternoon, and Jilly’s just phoned about a nasty abdomen.’ He sighed. ‘How I envy you! I’d still be umpiring, but I kept getting bleeped at the wicket.’

  I became aware of a slight noise beside me. It was Windrush grinding his teeth. A latest-model Rolls-Royce was approaching down the track from the main road.

  ‘That’s him,’ Windrush muttered pugnaciously, as Bill Ightam drove off. ‘Look at that new Roller! Bought at we poor doctors’ expense.’

  Mr Horace Fenny-Cooper QC was six feet tall with shoulders like kerbstones, long thick black hair and a massive blue chin. Put in an identity parade, he would not stand a chance. He wore a bright-buttoned double-breasted blue blazer, with the gold and scarlet MCC tie. He advanced extending a large hand, assessing us under eyebrows like gorse bushes. I expected him to greet us with, ‘Fe fi fo fum,’ but he mentioned amiably, ‘I hope the rain will keep off,’ in the deep voice which could wring from a juryman’s heart hundreds of thousands of pounds of other people’s money.

  Windrush uttered some saw about the swallows being high.

  ‘Then we shall enjoy a grand game.’ Mr Horace Fenny-Cooper QC gave a grin, as the Carpenter to the Oysters. ‘If I always step to the wicket with the same feelings as I enter the court room – to wit, annihilating the opposition – is not this the great glory of our Constitution? Our law, like our games, like our politics, is surely confrontation between two sides, fought unsparingly, but observing manifest rules – some, I submit, unwritten – evolved over the centuries of our magnificent history?’