Free Doctor in Love by Richard Gordon Page B

been a Major in except the Peninsular War, I can’t imagine.”
    “A bit of a waste of medical manpower, wasn’t it?” I asked in surprise. “What became of O’Dooley’s father and that Polish fellow you talked about?”
    “One was dead and the other had gone off with the pub’s chambermaid and started an ice-cream business in Wicklow. Young Paddy himself draws his cash from a brewery or something, and hadn’t been seen for months. The Major was the only patient left. He was as fat as a football, and as he’d been pickling himself in whisky since puberty he had bronchitis, arthritis, prostatic hypertrophy, and I think a touch of the tabes as well. He was pretty pleased to see me.”
    “I bet he was.”
    “Yes,” said Grimsdyke ruefully. “He couldn’t eat his dinner. He’d got toothache.”
    I ordered some more drinks, and Grimsdyke went on. “My first operation was a resounding success. Under the reassuring influence of Power’s Gold Label for both of us, I removed the offending molar. Damn neatly, too, I thought.”
    “What with? A corkscrew?”
    “No, the whole of Paddy’s kit, such as it was, was in the Major’s house – a great rambling place, like living in the Albert Hall – where Paddy had been lodging for some years. So I moved in too. It was quite simple. You just found some blankets and cooked your own food if you could collect anything to start a fire, and there you were. There seemed to be about a dozen other people doing the same thing, and very odd characters some of them were, too. You kept running into new ones round corners. They didn’t seem to know each other very well, but there was usually some whisky knocking about which made for conviviality. The Major was a genial old soul, although the British had apparently been beastly to his aunt’s grandmother, too. I settled down quite comfortably.”
    As it seemed unlike Grimsdyke to refuse a job offering no work and free drinks, I asked why he left.
    “The practice died,” he explained simply. “One night the old boy got more bottled than usual, and passed out under the delusion he was riding in the Grand National and the upstairs bannisters were Becher’s Brook. Caused quite a sensation, even in that household. Soon the whole village were in. Then we got down to the serious business of the funeral. You’ve heard about Irish funerals?”
    I nodded.
    “There hadn’t been so much fun in the place since the night the postmistress went potty and took her clothes off in the High Street. I became a figure of great importance, because the old Major, like a good many people, always worried that he’d be good and cold before he was put in his grave. Thought he might wake up again under six feet of earth. All rather morbid. I had to open veins and things, which worried me a bit, because the last doctor I knew who did the same thing jumped the gun and ten minutes later the blood was running down the stairs. Questions were asked at the inquest.”
    He took another drink, ruffled even by the recollection.
    “Anyway, the old boy was clearly no longer with us. But he’d also been worried about being eaten by worms and so on, and had asked me to fix up some sort of container that would keep him looking in good shape. Until unearthed by archaeologists, I suppose. Fortunately, the local joiner-cum-undertaker was a jovial bird called Seamus, and although he was out of stock in lead coffins we worked out an ingenious method of wrapping the Major in rolls and rolls of lead sheeting, like you put on the roof. Damned expensive, of course, but the Major was paying. Eventually, we boxed him in, there was a good deal of whisky-drinking, and Seamus went round telling one and all that he was going to screw him down. Tears were shed and speeches were made and at last we were ready to move off for the churchyard.”
    “I hope,” I said, “that after such extensive preparations the ceremony proceeded smoothly?”
    “It didn’t proceed at all. When