Surgeon at Arms
be their friend in health, their ally in sickness, and their companion in death, a relationship previously accorded only to those among them with a fee in their pockets.
Early in 1947 Desmond applied for a research scholarship at his old college, to study anatomy. It was in the blood. The Synovial Membranes , the anatomical thesis by his grandfather the professor, published in the year of Desmond’s birth, lay on his desk in the college rooms. The old boy had a few sound ideas, Desmond decided, though the bulk of the book was nonsense. But the synovial membranes, lining the joints of the body, might be worth a second look, and he decided to spend a year taking it.
He had asked Alec to dinner with no feelings of duty or affection. After living with him for a year in the medical officers’ mess at Smithers Botham, Desmond had allowed the lifelong tepidity of his feelings towards his cousin to cool into frosty dislike. But having him up for the night seemed the only way to pin him down. Desmond wanted his money back, and Alec showed reluctance even to discuss such ungentlemanly a subject.
‘I hope you won’t find that guest room too chilly,’ said Desmond, standing before dinner amid the beams of his own sitting-room. ‘Did my gyp light a fire? I expect he’ll give you a hot-water bottle.’
‘Don’t I need a gown, or something?’
‘Guests at dinner aren’t required to wear them,’ Desmond told him solemnly. ‘What have you there?’
‘Gin.’ Alec produced the bottle from inside his jacket. ‘A brand I’ve never heard of, it’s probably full of methyl alcohol, enough to turn you blind. Not to worry. I was damn lucky to get it. I thought it would be an acceptable present.’
‘I’d rather not risk it, if you don’t mind,’ said Desmond warily. ‘I’ve got some reasonable college sherry.’
‘You won’t mind if I drink the stuff?’ Alec had brought the bottle only with this intention. Desmond was a mean host. ‘Do you remember the trouble we had buying booze at Smithers Botham? That ghastly grocer with his wine counter.’ Alec poured half a tumbler of gin, which he started to sip neat. ‘It was a kindly Act of God which landed him on us with a strangulated hernia. Afterwards I believe he genuinely tried to do his best for his medical customers. He was dead scared he might find himself in our hands again.’
‘Everyone drank far too much at Smithers Botham.’
‘You know, I loved the place. A lot of people were browned off with it, but not me. I suppose it was because you could get away with anything. No stuffiness. Do you remember that party when some fellow kept insisting on lighting his own flatus with a match? It was quite sensational. Amused the girls terribly.’
‘Aren’t you drinking rather a lot yourself, Alec?’
‘I expect I’m an alcoholic. My present employment is enough to make me one.’ Alec had left Smithers Botham for a hospital in the north of England, where he was an anaesthetic registrar. ‘It’s a ghastly hole. The town’s all trains. They seem to go clanking and hooting everywhere, into tunnels, across viaducts, holding up all the traffic at level crossings. The hospital’s dreadful. Not a gentleman in the place. All the residents are Irishmen, Indians, Scotsmen, those sort of people. No intellectual conversation. Anyway, drinking seems to do my asthma good.’
Desmond put his hands behind his back and pursed his lips.
‘I thought you might have given conventional treatment a chance first.’
‘But I did.’ Alec finished his gin and poured himself another. Desmond began to feel worried. His cousin had become dreadfully unreliable socially, and it would never do upsetting the dignity of the dons’ dining table. ‘I was skin-tested, and they told me I was allergic to grasses—crested dog’s-tail, sheep’s fescue, bird’s foot trefoil. Whoever could imagine things with such lovely names doing anyone the slightest harm. It’s ridiculous.’
‘That’s not a very reasonable attitude towards medicine, is it?’
‘Well, medicine’s only a branch of zoology. We mustn’t take ourselves too seriously. But I let them fill me up with grass extracts. They didn’t do the slightest good. Did you know I went to a psychiatrist at Smithers Botham?’
‘There was a rumour to that effect.’ Desmond gave a faint smile. ‘Nobody seemed to think it particularly surprising.’
‘Of course I kept quiet about it. For a Blackfriars houseman,
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