Doctor's Daughters by Richard Gordon

Author:Richard Gordon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-11-03T20:51:50+00:00

11

Freddie and Roland arrived at the Old Chapterhouse Surgery early the following morning. They needed treatment more urgently than any of the patients.

Mr Windows was waiting to give it. On the sitting room table were arranged the eggs, the tomato juice, the tabasco, the Worcester sauce, the red pepper, the tin of liver salts. His hangover cure was famous among the officers and passengers borne by Britain’s Merchant Navy across the Seven Seas.

“Good morning, doctors.” Mr Windows cracked the eggs into a pair of tumblers. “I ascertained from the lady doctors all that transpired in the police station last night.”

Roland held a hand across his eyes. “Someone seems to have burgled my skull and tied a knot in my optic chiasma.”

Freddie gripped his abdomen. “Must have been mad. Mixed liqueur brandy and vintage port. Ravages my gall-bladder.”

“Take your medicine, doctors.” Mr Windows presented two foaming glasses on a salver. “The mixture as before.”

Their choking noises turned into a long sigh of relief as the therapy took effect. Freddie had for years tried to analyse the pharmacological effect of Mr Windows’ potion. He decided that the furnace feeling in the stomach took the mind off the hangover. They looked up as the two young doctors came in, just finished morning surgery.

“Well! You two were flying nicely last night,” Fay greeted them pleasantly.

“The older you get.” Freddie grumbled, “the more you develop a tolerance for people and the less for alcohol.”

56

DoCTors’ DaughTers

“I’m suffering from total amnesia,” Roland confessed. “All I remember,’

said Freddie, “we seemed to rub McTavish’s sporran up the wrong way.”

“Then I must remind you,” Lucy said more seriously. “Dr Hill will be in court on a drink-driving charge.”

Roland nodded, recollecting. “Bad Luck, of course. But it’s happening all the time. To politicians, actors, lawyers, Quite a club.”

“Though isn’t it sad?” asked Fay, matching Lucy’s mood. “After thirty-five years as a dignified Mitrebury doctor?”

“Always kept his nose clean, old Biggin Hill,” Freddie reflected. “Even during the war, at that WAAF depot. He only committed one indiscretion, and he married her.”

“He won’t only lose his licence, but his job,” Fay pointed out. “In the Temperance Rest Home, he’ll smell like grilled chops to vegetarians.”

“That job means a lot to him,” Freddie agreed. “Otherwise, he’d have nothing to do, but stay at home and talk to his wife. I for one see his point,”

“We’ve got to get him out of it,” decided Roland.

“How?” asked Freddie.

“If I may make so bold,” suggested Mr Windows, “by extracting his blood specimen from the police.”

“That would be highly unprofessional,” Lucy dismissed it brusquely.

“Come on. Be a sport,” urged Fay.

“A sport?” she asked in horror. “May I remind you that we are police surgeons?”

“You’re a prig,” said Fay. “I am not!”

“Yes, you are. An argumentative, prissy prig.”

“Not arguing again, surely?” Liz Arkdale bustled through the door.

“Personally, I don’t care if you gouge each other’s eyes out, but the patients don’t care to hear their doctors behaving quite as ill-manneredly as their Members of Parliament. It destroys confidence. Why not employ some catch-word inhibition to break it up? Like Pavlov’s dog, you know.

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