the
idea of a CONSULTANT looked up to by hospital staff . . .
The burst sausage had caught on the pan and was burning. Hastily he
scooped the food on to a plate and turned off the stove. He checked his
next motion and addressed the air.
"God damn it, anyone else I can get away from, but myself I have to live
with till I die! I did go crazy from overwork after two years' studying
medicine and nothing can change that. I did have to waste twelve months
drugged up to the eyeballs and staring at the garden and going twice a
week to see that halfwitted dyed-in-the-wool Freudian bastard Schroff!
And I bloody well ought to have been put in a bin like Chent so I'd
remember I'm as fragile as they are!"
Curiously, hearing his own voice took the poison out of the idea.
He was quite calm while he was eating his scratch meal, and when he went
to bed he dozed off quickly into a deep exhausted sleep.
Later, though, he woke moaning from a dreamworld in which, like Alice in
the woods, he stood helpless before a roomful of the commonest objects
and heard cruel laughter taunting him because he could not remember any
of their English names.
*9*
"Quite a poppet, this Urchin you brought in last night," Mirza said,
crossing Paul's path in the entrance hall of the hospital.
"What?" For a moment Paul, preoccupied didn't get the reference;
then he said, bantering to cover the effects of his disturbed night,
"Oh! I might have known you'd want to size her up."
"Natalie told me about her during breakfast," Mirza said, unruffled.
"I thought I should look her over before this dump wipes out what vestige
of animation she may have."
"What's happened to your insurance against breach of ethics?"
"It's wholly adequate, thank you. But patients are people and so are
doctors -- with some few possible exceptions," he concluded softly,
eyes refocusing over Paul's shoulder. "Morning, Dr Holinshed!"
"Morning," the medical superintendent said curtly. "Oh, Fidler! Come in
for a word, will you?" He brushed past into his office, leaving the door
wide on the assumption that Paul was instantly at his heels.
"Expecting trouble today?" Mirza inquired.
"I am now," Paul muttered, and moved towards the door.
Holinshed was a lean Yorkshireman of middle height, with hair the
colour of tobacco juice receding all around his pate. Mirza's favourite
allegation about him was that he had had to be forced into administration
because an hour closeted with him reduced most patients to tears.
"Close the door, please, Fidler," he said now. "I have no wish that
anyone but ourselves should hear what I have to say. Sit down."
An abridged gesture towards the padded Victorian dining-chair placed
for visitors in front of the ornate leather-topped desk.
-- No doubt this room impresses outsiders: antique furniture,
mock-Chippendale bookcases stuffed with textbooks, photographs of Freud,
Ernest Jones, Krafft-Ebing. . . . But I think his mind is like the room,
furnished with antiques.
"I had a telephone call yesterday evening, voicing rather a serious
complaint about your conduct," Holinshed went on. "I don't imagine I
need identify its source?"
-- Oh.
But Paul was in control of himself this morning in spite of everything.
He said, "What sort of complaint, sir?"
"Are you now aware of having grossly offended a distinguished local
resident last evening?"
"Not that I noticed," Paul said, straight-faced.
"Then either you're singularly insensitive or I've been given a false
account of what you said. The latter I find hard to credit." Holinshed
leaned back, fingertips together. "Mrs Barbara Weddenhall rang me up at
home to say that you'd insulted her in public and furthermore that you
were drunk at the time. Any comments?"
"Well, the second point isn't true at all. And I
idea of a CONSULTANT looked up to by hospital staff . . .
The burst sausage had caught on the pan and was burning. Hastily he
scooped the food on to a plate and turned off the stove. He checked his
next motion and addressed the air.
"God damn it, anyone else I can get away from, but myself I have to live
with till I die! I did go crazy from overwork after two years' studying
medicine and nothing can change that. I did have to waste twelve months
drugged up to the eyeballs and staring at the garden and going twice a
week to see that halfwitted dyed-in-the-wool Freudian bastard Schroff!
And I bloody well ought to have been put in a bin like Chent so I'd
remember I'm as fragile as they are!"
Curiously, hearing his own voice took the poison out of the idea.
He was quite calm while he was eating his scratch meal, and when he went
to bed he dozed off quickly into a deep exhausted sleep.
Later, though, he woke moaning from a dreamworld in which, like Alice in
the woods, he stood helpless before a roomful of the commonest objects
and heard cruel laughter taunting him because he could not remember any
of their English names.
*9*
"Quite a poppet, this Urchin you brought in last night," Mirza said,
crossing Paul's path in the entrance hall of the hospital.
"What?" For a moment Paul, preoccupied didn't get the reference;
then he said, bantering to cover the effects of his disturbed night,
"Oh! I might have known you'd want to size her up."
"Natalie told me about her during breakfast," Mirza said, unruffled.
"I thought I should look her over before this dump wipes out what vestige
of animation she may have."
"What's happened to your insurance against breach of ethics?"
"It's wholly adequate, thank you. But patients are people and so are
doctors -- with some few possible exceptions," he concluded softly,
eyes refocusing over Paul's shoulder. "Morning, Dr Holinshed!"
"Morning," the medical superintendent said curtly. "Oh, Fidler! Come in
for a word, will you?" He brushed past into his office, leaving the door
wide on the assumption that Paul was instantly at his heels.
"Expecting trouble today?" Mirza inquired.
"I am now," Paul muttered, and moved towards the door.
Holinshed was a lean Yorkshireman of middle height, with hair the
colour of tobacco juice receding all around his pate. Mirza's favourite
allegation about him was that he had had to be forced into administration
because an hour closeted with him reduced most patients to tears.
"Close the door, please, Fidler," he said now. "I have no wish that
anyone but ourselves should hear what I have to say. Sit down."
An abridged gesture towards the padded Victorian dining-chair placed
for visitors in front of the ornate leather-topped desk.
-- No doubt this room impresses outsiders: antique furniture,
mock-Chippendale bookcases stuffed with textbooks, photographs of Freud,
Ernest Jones, Krafft-Ebing. . . . But I think his mind is like the room,
furnished with antiques.
"I had a telephone call yesterday evening, voicing rather a serious
complaint about your conduct," Holinshed went on. "I don't imagine I
need identify its source?"
-- Oh.
But Paul was in control of himself this morning in spite of everything.
He said, "What sort of complaint, sir?"
"Are you now aware of having grossly offended a distinguished local
resident last evening?"
"Not that I noticed," Paul said, straight-faced.
"Then either you're singularly insensitive or I've been given a false
account of what you said. The latter I find hard to credit." Holinshed
leaned back, fingertips together. "Mrs Barbara Weddenhall rang me up at
home to say that you'd insulted her in public and furthermore that you
were drunk at the time. Any comments?"
"Well, the second point isn't true at all. And I
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