Doctor On The Brain by Richard Gordon

Author:Richard Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Doctor On The Brain
ISBN: 9780755131099
Publisher: House of Stratus
Published: 2012-12-28T05:00:00+00:00

15

Sir Lancelot looked at his watch. His afternoon appointment would be in a few minutes. He rose from the chair, where he had remained since Miss MacNish quit No 3. He could not face entering the kitchen, with evidence of the awful crime still unburied. He went into the hall, where he had dropped his fishing-bag, and removing two miserable trout wrapped them in a sheet from that morning’s Times. He opened the front door and stepped out. Whatever its tragedies, life still had to go on.

This occasion he was too dispirited to conceal his visiting No 1. Besides, he had the obvious excuse of bringing a neighbourly gift of fish. But when Mrs Tennant opened the door, she jumped back with a gasp.

‘I had an appointment.’ Sir Lancelot looked surprised. ‘Weren’t you expecting me?’

‘Well, it was a bit of a surpr – Yes, of course we were expecting you, Sir Lancelot. Dr Bonaccord has just got in. Would you care to go upstairs?’

‘Thank you.’ Why on earth is the young woman staring at me like that? he wondered. She looks as though I was forcing my way in to pinch the silver. But I suppose living in sin must make one somewhat anxious. Her husband might quite easily knock on the door one day with a loaded revolver. That would liven up the street a bit.

Still carrying his fish, Sir Lancelot mounted to the first-floor study. The door was open, but the psychiatrist was absent. Sir Lancelot went inside, idly inspecting a pair of Leonardo prints attached to the walls, Dr Bonaccord bounced in, pinker than ever and breathless.

‘So sorry, Lancelot. Quite frankly, I wasn’t entirely expecting you at this moment.’

‘I had arranged to appear at this particular time,’ Sir Lancelot told him bleakly.

‘Yes, but I thought you might have had second thoughts.’

‘Why should I?’

‘No, of course not… You like my Leonardos? That’s Madonna and Child with St Anne. The original is in the Louvre, I expect you can see the vulture.’

‘Vulture? What vulture?’

‘Slightly subliminal, I suppose, but discernible in the folds of the dress. Haven’t you read Freud’s book on Leonardo? About the dream Leonardo had as a baby, when a vulture put its tail in his mouth and fluttered it? That meant Leonardo was a homosexual, of course.’

‘Oh, of course.’

‘The vulture’s tail cannot possibly signify anything but the penis.’

‘Naturally.’

‘Indeed, the word coda or tail is used by the Italians to mean the male organ. And the Egyptian goddess Mut, which has the head of a vulture, is equipped not only with female breasts but an erect phallus. Very significant, that.’

‘Very.’ This man’s as nutty as a vegetarian’s cutlet, thought Sir Lancelot.

‘Leonardo used to dream of flying, you know. So he invented the aeroplane.’

‘I frequently dream that I am flying myself.’

Dr Bonaccord smiled. ‘According to Freud, that means you have a longing to be capable of sexual performance.’ Sir Lancelot made a suppressed choking noise, ‘But don’t worry, a large percentage of all dreams are set in some form of transport.

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