Doctor in Love (14 page)

Our first reaction to having a home of our own, or at least a ten per cent deposit on it, was to go back and dance in the garden. Then we went through every room, striking matches in the gathering twilight while Nikki delightedly planned the arrangement of our wholly hypothetical furniture. I insisted that I had my old camping kit sent from home and moved in at once, at last saying good-bye to Mr Walters and my digs. Nikki maintained that all men remain as incapable of keeping themselves fed and clean as at six months, but she agreed and later left for London to organize an expedition of her parents.

“Good heavens, you didn’t pay all that for
this
?” said her brother Robin, as he smoked his way through our four small rooms next day.

I nodded.

“But didn’t you get to know of the Hampden Cross housing estate? The Council are putting one up all the way round here. Heard about it from chap in the City yesterday. Knock the value of the property for six, of course.”

I felt hot and cold sensations travel up and down my spine.

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I muttered.

“Then, of course, the value of property’s going to drop like a stone next Easter, anyway. All the chaps in the City could tell you that.” He jumped up and down on the bare floorboards. “I suppose these joists are all right. Did you have the place surveyed?”

“Ought I to have done?”

“Gosh, yes! Why, you don’t know what might be the matter underneath.” He gave a deep sniff. “I shouldn’t be at all surprised if that wasn’t dry rot.”

It was about this time that I started to sleep badly. My exuberance at joining the landed gentry soon turned into a bleak pessimism that our home was becoming as valueless as an igloo on a hot day. This was particularly serious, because it had now been mortgaged by Mr Robbinson to something called the Spa and Pier Employees’ Retirement and Benefit Society. I knew nothing about mortgages except that they were always foreclosed on Christmas Eve in the middle of the third Act, and I had a vision of Nikki and myself barricading the place against hordes of angry pier attendants in peaked caps demanding their money back. Apart from this, the cottage seemed to attract bills as naturally as a herbaceous border attracts bees. I shortly felt that I had staked my savings and my future in something as risky as a string of racehorses, and a little while afterwards I began to wish that I had.

“We’ll have to get some builders to do a few things,” said Nikki, as I drove her from the surgery to the cottage a couple of days later. “Do you happen to know of any?”

I frowned. “I don’t think there’s one among the patients, worse luck. It’s always a help if you’ve got some sort of hold on these people.”

“How about those on the corner?”

We stopped the car by a small builders’ yard with the notice:

CONTRACTORS

DOGGETT & BUZZARD

“I expect they’re as good as any,” I said, as we went inside.

Mr Doggett was a tall, grey, bony man in a shiny blue suit, behind the lapels of which a pair of serviceable braces peeped coyly. He also seemed to be one of the interesting cases of hat-addiction. Although he removed his bowler in respect for Nikki as we entered, he kept it near him on the desk as we talked and was clearly itching to resume its comforting embrace as soon as we shut the door.

“You leave it all to me,” he said.

“There isn’t really much that needs doing,” said Nikki. “It’s mainly a matter of stopping the water coming through the sitting-room ceiling and starting it coming out of the bathroom taps.”

I remembered the magic word. “Can we have an estimate?” I asked.

“Estimate? By all means, Doctor. Just as soon as you like. I’ll bring it round tomorrow afternoon.”

“This estimate thing doesn’t look too bad,” I told Nikki over the telephone the following evening.

“What do they want to do to the place, darling?”

“Well, the estimate says ‘To well cut out and make good all cracks to ceiling properly prepare line and distemper same bring forward all woodwork the sum of twenty-five pounds’. There’s also another ten quid for something I can’t understand that has to be done to the cistern. But I don’t think it’s going to break us.”

“That’s wonderful, dearest! When are they going to start?”

“Tomorrow, if we like. Old Doggett says he’s putting his three best men on the job. It’s a great advantage, this estimate system, isn’t it? It lets you know exactly where you are. It’s a wonder surgeons don’t do it. You know – ‘To making six-inch abdominal incision, properly securing haemostasis, clamping, dividing, and ligaturing gastric arteries, removing stomach, fully washing down, making good and suturing firmly with best-quality absorbable catgut, the sum of one hundred guineas.”

Nikki laughed on the other end of the line. “They’d have to put ‘Errors and Omissions Excepted’, of course. There go the pips again. Ring me tomorrow, darling one.”

Mr Doggett’s three best men arrived at the cottage the morning after I had gone into residence myself with a camp bed, a primus, and the surgery oil stove, after burying several pounds’ worth of broken chinaware in the garden. There was a tall thin man with a sharp bald head, a long pale face, and the expression of painful despair with mankind seen in paintings of martyred saints; there was a fat jolly man in a striped sweater and an American baseball cap; and there was an old, bent man with long moustaches and bloodhound’s eyes, who shuffled slowly about the rooms and was clearly recognized by his companions as being far too senile for work of any sort.

The men greeted me kindly, putting me at ease, then started their day’s work. With a private supply of sticks and coal they lit a fire in the bare sitting-room grate, put on a kettle, and settled round reading bits of the
Daily Mirror
.

“Like a cup, Guy?” called the fat man, as I finished dressing. “We’re just brewing up.”

I had to hurry away to the surgery, where Dr Farquarson was sportingly giving me breakfast, but the temptation to sneak back at lunchtime to see what they had done was irresistible. I found the three still sitting round the fire, now eating sandwiches. I wondered if they had been there all morning, but as the room was littered with paint-pots and buckets I supposed that one of them must have stirred some time.

“We’re waiting for the ladders, Guy,” explained the fat man cheerfully, his mouth full of bread and beetroot. “They’ve got to send ‘em on the other lorry.”

I apologized for disturbing them, and retired to tidy up my own quarters. Through the open sitting-room door I heard the thin one announce, “Surprisin’ what people will buy for ‘ouses these days, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” agreed the fat one. “I can’t say I think much of this job. Cor! It’s as draughty as a chicken run.”

“Them windows is all wrong as well. Warped.”

“And look at them floors.”

“Well,
I
wouldn’t live in it, that’s straight.”

“We don’t ‘ave to, thank Gawd. Still, I suppose the people knows what they’re about. He’s a doctor, ain’t he?”

“Doctors is made of money,” said the old man. “You’ve only got to look at the stamps on your ‘ealth card.”

They then started a brisk argument on football pools, which I hoped would occupy them until it was time to knock off work.

“They’ve established a bridgehead,” I told Nikki on the telephone in the evening. “They spent today consolidating their positions, and tomorrow they might begin active operations. There’s one thing, thank God – even though we have to live with this trio for the first five years of our married life, Mr Doggett can’t charge a penny more for it.”

I put down the instrument and was surprised to find the builder himself in the hall, looking worried and clutching his hat as though it were some sort of moral life-belt.

“Might I have a word with you, Doctor?” he asked anxiously.

“Well…is it urgent, Mr Doggett? I’m just starting my surgery.”

He said it was, so I suggested “Perhaps you’d like to slip into the consulting-room for a minute?”

He sat down with his hat on his knees and announced, “I’ve been looking at them there soffits of yours, Doctor.”

“Soffits?” It sounded like some sort of French confectionary.

He nodded. “They’re a bit of a joke, you know,” he continued solemnly. “They’ll all have to come off.”

“Oh, really? Would it be a big job?”

“Few shillings only, Doctor. But I thought you ought to know.”

“That’s perfectly all right, Mr Doggett,” I said with relief. “Just add it to the bill. Is that all there is?”

“Yes, that’s all, Doctor. Thank you very much.” He replaced his hat and left me with the prospect of a life free of soffits, whatever they were.

When I looked into Floral Cottage during my rounds the next morning, I was glad to see that the trio had at last started work. You could tell that because they were singing. I doubted if they sang purely from the joy of artistic creation as they slapped distemper on the ceiling but rather to occupy their nervous system, because they each seemed to know only one tune. The fat man repeated
You Made Me Love You
, the thin one alternated with the first four lines of
Underneath The Arches
, and the old man whistled a bit of
William Tell
as he discharged his duty of watching the kettle boil.

“I hear you’re getting married, Guv,” said the fat one as I opened the front door. They now accorded me the privilege of accepting me as an equal.

“That’s right.”

“I’ve been married eighteen years,” remarked the thin one, between strokes of his brush. “I wouldn’t if I was you.”

“Go on with you,” said the fat one. “There’s nothing like marriage. Buttons on your shirt and hot dinners every Sunday.”

“And that’s about all,” said his companion.

“I only hope,” I told them, “that you’ll be finished here before you see me carrying the bride over the threshold.”

“Don’t you worry, Guv. There ain’t all that much more to do.”

But that evening I was surprised to find Mr Doggett again in the hall. He was still clutching his hat and looking anxious.

“It’s that there plumbing of yours, Doctor,” he said, when he had sat down.

“Plumbing? What about it?”

“Well… It’s a bit of a joke, you know. It’ll all have to come out.”

“Good God! Won’t that be terribly expensive?”

“Not so much in your job, Doctor. Just a few quid, that’s all.”

“If it must be done it must, I suppose. Put it on the bill.”

“Thank you, Doctor. Then there’s them there fylfots of yours.”

“Fylfots!”

“They’re a bit of a joke, you know. They’ll all have to come out.”

“But isn’t that a tremendous operation?” Fylfots sounded like something fundamental in the foundations.

“Only a few shillings, Doctor.”

“Oh, well, take them out, then.”

“Thank you, Doctor. It’s a pleasure to do business with a straightforward man like yourself, if I may say so.”

The next day he appeared to tell me that the lavatory was a bit of a joke, and the one after it was the front door and something called the architraves. The following morning I was horrified to get a letter from Messrs Doggett and Buzzard respectfully requesting advance payment of seventy-five pounds in respect of work carried out at above site.

“Seventy-five pounds!” I exclaimed to Nikki on the telephone. “Think of it! Why, the whole estimate was quids less than that. That rogue and swindler Doggett! He’s been sticking it on right and left. I’ve a damned good mind to get Mr Robbinson to issue a writ.”

“But darling, does it matter so long as we get a nice little home of our own?”

“We’ll never get a nice little home of our own. We’ll get a nice little home of the Pier Attendants’ Benefit Society, or whatever it is. And at this rate we won’t even have enough left to buy a frying-pan and a tin-opener as well. You wait,” I added, banging the phone book with my fist. “Just wait till I see that Doggett fellow again.”

“Don’t be too angry with him, dear. He seemed such a nice man.”

“Angry with him? I’ll shake the blighter to his very soffits!”

I summoned Mr Doggett to see me at the surgery that evening. He sat in the patient’s chair looking more miserable than usual.

“Of course, all them items mount up,” he admitted, gripping his hat.

“Mount up! I’ll say they do! Why, at this rate we don’t need a house at all – we can spend our entire married life at the Savoy for about half the price.”

He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Doctor.”

“If you think I’m going to hand over seventy-five pounds just like that, Mr Doggett, you’re damned well mistaken. I’m going into this matter. I’m going over your work with a magnifying glass. I’m going to get my solicitor in London –”

To my alarm, two large tears spilled from Mr Doggett’s eyes down his cheeks.

“Don’t be too hard on me, Doctor,” he sobbed.

“But my dear Mr Doggett, I’m so sorry. I’d no idea I’d –”

“Times are very bad with me.” He wiped his eyes lavishly on his sleeve. “I dunno, Doctor. Once I was full of vim and go, but now I feel that miserable I don’t know where to turn. I can’t sleep and I can’t eat proper. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t here at all. I can’t even have a pint to cheer myself up because of this here pain in my stomach.”

“Pain?” I looked interested. “How long have you had it?”

“A year, on and off. I’m not signed on with any doctor, you see.”

I looked at him earnestly. “As you’re here, perhaps you’d better lie down on the couch and slip off your things,” I suggested. “Do you get the pain before or after food? And is there any sickness?”

“Of all the builders in Hampden Cross we had to pick the neurotic one,” I told Nikki when she came up the next day. “Why, the poor chap’s a melancholic. And he’s got a functional dyspepsia, or even a duodenal ulcer, into the bargain. Damn it! I ought to have spotted it when I first set eyes on him.”

“What did you do, dear?”

“What could I do? I couldn’t just say, ‘It’s a bit of a joke you know, it’ll all have to come out’. I took him on as a patient.”

“And you paid his bill?”