The Citadel (12 page)

Andrew turned to find the landlady at his elbow, watching him sideways, her eyes concerned, apprehensive.

‘I heard you come in, doctor. He’s been like this all day. He’s eaten nothing. I can’t do a thing with him.’

Andrew simply did not know what to say. He stood staring at Philip’s senseless face, recollecting that first cynical remark, uttered in the surgery on the night of his arrival.

‘It’s ten months now since he had his last bout,’ the landlady went on. ‘And he don’t touch it in between. But when he do begin he goes at it wicked. I can tell you it’s more nor awkward with Doctor Nicholls bein’ away on holiday. It looks like I must wire him.’

‘Send Tom up,’ Andrew said at last. ‘And we’ll get him into bed.’

With the help of the landlady’s son, a young miner who seemed to regard the matter as something of a joke, they got Philip undressed and into his pyjamas. Then they carried him, dull and heavy as a sack, through to the bedroom.

‘The main thing is to see that he doesn’t get any more of it, you understand. Turn the key in the door if necessary.’ Andrew addressed the landlady as they came back into the sitting-room. ‘And now – you’d better let me have today’s list of calls.’

From the child’s slate hanging in the hall he copied out the visits which Philip should have made that day. He went out. By hurrying round he could get most of them done before eleven.

Next morning immediately after surgery he went round to the lodgings. The landlady met him, wringing her hands.

‘I don’t know where he’s got it. I ’aven’t done it, I’ve only done my best for him.’

Philip was drunker than before, heavy, insensible. After prolonged shakings and an effort to restore him with strong coffee, which in the end was upset and spilled all over the bed, Andrew took the list of calls again. Cursing the heat, the flies, Thomas’s jaundice, and Denny, he again did double work that day.

In the late afternoon he came back, tired out, angrily resolved to get Denny sober. This time he found him astride one of the chairs in his pyjamas, still drunk, delivering a long address to Tom and Mrs Seager. As Andrew entered Denny stopped short and gave him a lowering, derisive stare. He spoke thickly.

‘He! The Good Samaritan. I understand you’ve done my round for me. Extremely noble. But why should you? Why should that blasted Nicholls clear out and leave us to do the work?’

‘I can’t say.’ Andrew’s patience was wearing thin. ‘All I know is it would be easier if you did your bit of it.’

‘I’m a surgeon. I’m not a blasted general practitioner. GP. Huh! What does that mean? D’you ever ask yourself? You didn’t? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s the last and most stereotyped anachronism, the worst, stupidest system ever created by God-made man. Dear old GP! And dear old BP! – that’s the British Public – Ha! Ha!’ He laughed derisively. ‘They made him. They love him. They weep over him.’ He swayed in his seat, his inflamed eye again bitter and morose, lecturing them drunkenly. ‘ What can the poor devil do about it? Your GP – your dear old quack of all trades! Maybe it’s twenty years since he qualified. How can he know medicine and obstetrics and bacteriology and all the modern scientific advances and surgery as well. Oh, yes! Oh, yes! Don’t forget the surgery! Occasionally he tried a little operation at the cottage hospital. Ha! Ha!’ Again the sardonic amusement. ‘Say a mastoid. Two hours and a half by the clock. When he finds pus he’s a saviour of humanity. When he doesn’t, they bury the patient.’ His voice rose. He was angry, wildly, drunkenly angry. ‘Damn it to hell, Manson. It’s been going on for hundreds of years. Don’t they ever want to
change
the system? What’s the use? What’s the
use,
I ask you? Give me another whisky. We’re all cracked. And it seems I’m drunk as well.’

There was a silence for a few moments, then, suppressing his irritation, Andrew said:

‘Oughtn’t you to get back to bed now. Come on, we’ll help you.’

‘Let me alone,’ said Denny sullenly. ‘Don’t use your blasted bedside manner on me. I’ve used it plenty in my time. I know it too well.’ He rose abruptly, staggering, and, taking Mrs Seager by the shoulder, he thrust her into the chair. Then, swaying on his feet, his manner a savage assumption of bland suavity, he addressed the frightened woman. ‘And how are you today, my dear lady? A leetle better, I fancy. A leetle more strength in the pulse. Sleep well? Ha! Hum! Then we must prescribe a leetle sedative.’

There was, in the ludicrous scene, a strange, alarming note – the stocky, unshaven, pyjama-clad figure of Philip aping the society physician, swaying in servile deference before the shrinking miner’s wife. Tom gave a nervous gulp of laughter. In a flash Denny turned on him and violently cuffed his ears.

‘That’s right! Laugh! Laugh your blasted head off. But I spent five years of my life doing that. God! When I think of it I could die.’ He glared at them, seized a vase that stood on the mantelpiece, and dashed it hard upon the floor. The next instant the companion piece was in his hands and he sent it shattering against the wall. He started forward, red destruction in his eye.

‘For mercy’s sake,’ whimpered Mrs Seager. ‘Stop him, stop him –’

Andrew and Tom Seager flung themselves on Philip who struggled with the wild intractability of intoxication. Then, perversely, he suddenly relaxed and was sentimental, fuddled.

‘Manson,’ he drooled, hanging on Andrew’s shoulder, ‘ you’re a good chap. I love you better than a brother. You and I – if we stuck together we could save the whole bloody medical profession.’

He stood, his gaze wandering, lost. Then his head drooped. His body sagged. He allowed Andrew to help him to the next room and into bed. As his head rolled over on the pillow he made a last maudlin request.

‘Promise me one thing, Manson! For Christ’s sake, don’t marry a lady!’

Next morning he was drunker than ever. Andrew gave it up. He half suspected young Seager of smuggling in the liquor, though the lad, when confronted, swore, palefaced, that he had nothing to do with it.

All that week Andrew struggled through Denny’s calls in addition to his own. On Sunday, after lunch, he visited the Chapel Street lodgings. Philip was up, shaved, dressed, and immaculate in his appearance but, though drawn and shaky, cold sober.

‘I understand you’ve been doing my work for me, Manson.’ Gone was the intimacy of these last few days. His manner was constrained, icily stiff.

‘It was nothing,’ Andrew answered clumsily.

‘On the contrary, it must have put you to a great deal of trouble.’

Denny’s attitude was so objectionable that Andrew flushed. Not a word of gratitude, he thought, nothing but that stiff, hide-bound arrogance.

‘If you do want to know the truth,’ he blurted out, ‘it put me to a hell of a lot of trouble!’

‘You may take it from me something will be done about it!’

‘What do you think I am!’ Andrew answered hotly. ‘Some damned cabby that expects a tip from you. If it hadn’t been for me Mrs Seager would have wired Doctor Nicholls and you’d have been thrown out on your neck. You’re a supercilious, half-baked snob. And what you need is a damned good punch on the jaw.’

Denny lit a cigarette, his fingers shaking so violently he could barely hold the match. He sneered:

‘Nice of you to choose this moment to offer physical combat. True Scottish tact. Some other time I may oblige you.’

‘Oh! Shut your bloody mouth!’ said Andrew. ‘ Here’s your list of calls. Those with a cross should be seen on Monday.’

He flung out of the house in a fury. Damn it, he raged, wincing, what kind of man is he to behave like God Almighty! It’s as if he had done me the favour,
allowing
me to do his work!

But, on the way home, his resentment slowly cooled. He was genuinely fond of Philip and he had by now a better insight into his complex nature: shy, inordinately sensitive, vulnerable. It was this alone which made him secrete a shell of hardness around himself. The memory of his recent bout, of how he had exposed himself during it must even now be causing him excruciating torture.

Again Andrew was struck by the paradox of this clever man, using Drineffy as a bolt-hole from convention. As a surgeon Philip was exceptionally gifted. Andrew, administering the anaesthetic, had seen him perform a resection of the gall-bladder on the kitchen table of a miner’s house, the sweat dripping from his red face and hairy forearms, a model of swiftness and accuracy. It was possible to make allowances for a man who did such work.

Nevertheless, when Andrew reached home he still smarted from his impact with Philip’s coldness. And so, as he came through the front door and hung his hat on the stand, he was scarcely in the mood to hear Miss Page’s voice exclaiming:

‘Is that you, doctor? Doctor Manson! I want you!’

Andrew ignored her call. Turning, he prepared to go upstairs to his own room. But as he placed his hand on the banister Blodwen’s voice came again, sharper, louder.

‘Doctor! Doctor Manson! I
want
you.’

Andrew swung round to see Miss Page sail out of the sitting-room, her face unusually pale, her blue eyes sparkling with some violent emotion. She came up to him.

‘Are you deaf? Didn’t you hear me say I
wanted
you!’

‘What is it, Miss Page?’ he said irritably.

‘What is it, indeed.’ She could scarcely breathe. ‘ I like that. You askin’ me? It’s me that wants to ask you somethin’, my fine Doctor Manson!’

‘What, then?’ Andrew snapped.

The shortness of his manner seemed to excite her beyond endurance.

‘It’s
this.
Yes! My smart young gentleman! Maybe you’ll be kind enough to explain this.’ From behind her back she produced a slip of paper and without relinquishing it, fluttered it menacingly before his eyes. He saw it was Joe Morgan’s cheque. Then, raising his head, he saw Rees behind Blodwen, standing in the doorway of the sitting-room.

‘Ay, you may well look!’ Blodwen went on. ‘I see you recognise it. But you better tell us quick how you come to bank that money for yourself when it’s Doctor Page’s money and you know it.’

Andrew felt the blood rise behind his ears in quick surging waves.

‘It’s mine. Joe Morgan made me a present of it.’

‘A
present!
Indeed! I like that. He’s not here now to deny it.’

He answered between his shut teeth.

‘You can write to him if you doubt my word.’

‘I’ve more to do than write letters all over the place.’ In a still louder tone she exclaimed, ‘ I do doubt your word. You think you’re a wise one. Huh! Comin’ down here and thinkin’ you can get the practice into your own hands when you should be workin’ for Doctor Page. But this shows what you are, all right. You have no one’s interest at heart but your own.’

She flung the words at him, half-turning for support to Rees who, in the doorway, was making sounds of expostulation in his throat, his face sallower than usual. Andrew indeed, saw Rees as the instigator of the whole affair, dallying a few days in indecision, then scurrying to Blodwen with the story. His hands clenched fiercely. He came down the two bottom steps and advanced towards them, his eyes fixed on Rees’s thin bloodless mouth with threatening intensity. He was livid with rage and thirsting for battle.

‘Miss Page,’ he said, in a laboured tone. ‘ You’ve made a charge against me. Unless you take it back and apologise within two minutes I’ll sue you for damages for defamation of character. The source of your information will come out in court. I’ve no doubt Mr Rees’s board of governors will be interested to hear how he discloses his official business.’

‘I – I only did my duty,’ stammered the bank manager, his complexion turning muddier than before.

‘I’m waiting, Miss Page.’ The words came with a rush, choking him. ‘And if you don’t hurry up I’ll give your bank manager the worst hiding he’s ever had in his life.’

She saw she had gone too far, said more, far more than she had intended. His threat, his ominous attitude, sobered her. It was almost possible to follow her swift reflection: Damages! Heavy damages! Oh, Lord, they might take a lot of money off her! She choked, swallowed, stammered:

‘I – I take it back. I apologise.’

It was almost comic, the gaunt angry woman, so suddenly and unexpectedly subdued. But Andrew found it singularly humourless. He realised, all at once with a great flood of bitterness, that he had reached the limit of his endurance. He could not put up with this impossible situation any longer. He took a quick deep breath.

‘Miss Page, there is just one thing I want to tell you. It may interest you to know that last week a deputation of the men approached the manager, who invited me to put my name on the Company’s list. It may further interest you to know that on ethical grounds – which you couldn’t possibly know anything about – I definitely refused. And now, Miss Page, I’m so absolutely sick of you, I couldn’t stay on. You’re a good woman, I have no doubt. But to my mind you’re a misguided one. And if we spent a thousand years together we should never agree. I give you a month’s notice here and now.’

She gaped at him, her eyes nearly bursting from her head. Then suddenly she said:

‘No, you don’t. No, you don’t. It’s all lies. You couldn’t get near the Company’s list. And you’re
sacked,
that’s what you are. No assistant has ever given me notice in his life. The idea, the impudence, the insolence, talking to me like that. I said it first. You’re sacked, you are, that’s what you are, sacked, sacked, sacked –’

The outburst was loud and penetrating, and at the height of it there was an interruption. Upstairs, the door of Edward’s room swung slowly open and, a moment later, Edward himself appeared, a strange, bleak figure, his wasted shanks showing beneath his nightshirt. So strange and unexpected was this apparition Miss Page stopped dead in the middle of a word. From the hall she gazed upwards, as also did Rees and Andrew, while the sick man, dragging his paralysed leg behind him came slowly, painfully, to the topmost stair.

‘Can’t I have a little peace.’ His voice, though agitated, was stern. ‘What’s the matter?’

Blodwen took another gulp, launched into a tearful diatribe against Manson. She concluded, ‘And so – and so I gave him his notice.’