The Citadel Read online

  ‘And yet I don’t know,’ Andrew worried. ‘It’s full of disadvantages. I hate the dispensing. It’s a baddish locality. D’you notice all these moth-eaten boarding-houses next door. But it’s on the fringe of a decent neighbourhood. And a corner situation. And a main street. And near enough our price. One and a half years’ purchase – and it was decent of her to say she’d flung in the old man’s consulting-room and surgery furniture as well – and all ready to step into – that’s the advantage of a death vacancy. What do you say, Chris? It’s now or never. Shall we chance it?’

  Christine’s eyes rested upon him doubtfully. For her the novelty of London had worn off. She loved the country and now, in these drab surroundings, she longed for it with all her heart. Yet he was so set upon a London practice she could not bring herself to try, even, to persuade him from it. She nodded slowly.

  ‘If you want to, Andrew.’

  The next day he offered Mrs Foy’s solicitors £600 in place of the £750 demanded. The offer was accepted, the cheque written. On Saturday the 10th of October they moved their furniture from storage and entered into possession of their new home.

  It was Sunday before they collected themselves from the frantic eruption of straw and sacking and wondered shakily how they stood. Andrew took advantage of the moment to launch one of those lectures, rare yet odious, which made him sound like a deacon of a nonconformist chapel.

  ‘We are properly up against it here, Chris. We’ve paid out every stiver we’ve got. We’ve got to live on what we earn. Heaven only knows what that’ll be. But we’ve got to do it. You’ve got to spruce things up, Chris, economise –’

  To his dismay she burst into tears, standing palely there in the large, gloomy, dirty-ceilinged, and as yet uncarpeted, front room.

  ‘For mercy’s sake!’ she sobbed. ‘Leave me alone. Economise. Don’t I always economise for you? Do I cost you anything?’

  ‘Chris!’ he exclaimed aghast.

  She flung herself frantically against him. ‘It’s this house! I didn’t realise. That basement, the stairs, the dirt –’

  ‘But hang it all, it’s the practice that really matters!’

  ‘We might have had a little country practice, somewhere.’

  ‘Yes! With roses round the cottage door. Damn it all –’

  In the end he apologised for his sermon. Then they went, his arm still round her waist, to fry eggs in the condemned basement. There he tried to cheer her by pretending that it was not a basement but a section of the Paddington Tunnel through which trains would at any minute pass. She smiled wanly at his attempted humour, but she was in reality looking at the broken scullery sink.

  Next morning, at nine o’clock sharp – he decided he must not be early or they would think him too eager! – he opened his surgery. His heart was beating with excitement and a greater, far greater expectation than on that almost forgotten morning when he took the first surgery of all at Drineffy.

  Half past nine came. He waited anxiously. Since the little surgery, which had its own door to the side street, was attached by a short passage to the house, he could equally control his consulting-room – the main room on the ground floor, not badly equipped with Doctor Foy’s desk, a couch, and a cabinet – to which the ‘good’ patients, by Mrs Foy’s account, were admitted through the front door of the house. He had, in fact, a double net cast out. Tense as any fisherman he waited for what that double cast might bring.

  Yet it brought nothing, nothing! It was nearly eleven o’clock now and still no patient had arrived. The group of taxi drivers standing by their cabs at the rank opposite talked equably together. His plate shone on the door, beneath Doctor Foy’s old battered one.

  Suddenly, when he had almost abandoned hope, the bell on the surgery door tinkled sharply and an old woman in a shawl came in. Chronic bronchitis – he saw it, before she spoke, in every rheumy wheeze. Tenderly, tenderly he seated and sounded her. She was an old patient of Doctor Foy’s. He talked to her. In the tiny cubby-hole of a dispensary, a mere lair halfway down the passage between surgery and consulting-room, he made up her physic. He returned with it. And then, without question, as he prepared, tremblingly, to ask her for it, she handed him the fee, three and six.

  The thrill of that moment, the joy, the sheer relief of these silver coins, there, in the palm of his hand was unbelievable. It felt like the first money he had ever earned in his life. He closed the surgery, ran to Christine, thrust the coins upon her.

  ‘First patient, Chris. It mightn’t be a bad old practice after all. Anyhow, this buys us our lunch!’

  He had no visits to make, for the old doctor had been dead nearly three weeks now, and no locum had kept the practice going in the interval. He must wait till the calls came in. Meanwhile, aware from her mood that Christine wished to wrestle with her domestic worries in solitude, he occupied the forenoon by walking round the district, prospecting, viewing the peeling houses, the long succession of drab, private hotels, the sooted, grimly arborescent squares, the narrow mews converted into garages, then, at a sudden turn of North Street, a squalid patch of slum – pawnshops, hawkers’ barrows, pubs, shop windows showing patent medicines, devices in gaudy rubber.

  He admitted to himself that the district had come down in the world since those days when carriages had spun to the yellow painted porticoes. It was dingy and soiled, yet there were signs of new life springing up amidst the fungus – a new block of flats in course of erection, some good shops and offices and, at the end of Gladstone Place, the famous Laurier’s. Even he, who knew nothing of women’s fashions, had heard of Laurier’s and it did not require the long line of elegant motor-cars standing outside the windowless, immaculately white-stoned building to convince him that the little he knew of its exclusiveness was true. He felt it strange that Laurier’s should stand incongruously amongst these faded terraces. Yet there it was, indubitable as that policeman opposite.

  In the afternoon he completed his inaugural tour by calling upon the doctors in the immediate vicinity. Altogether he made eight such calls. Only three of them made any deep impression on him – Doctor Ince of Gladstone Place, a young man, Reeder at the end of Alexandra Street, and at the corner of Royal Crescent an elderly Scotsman named McLean. But the way in which they all said:

  ‘Oh! It’s poor old Foy’s practice you’ve taken on,’ somehow depressed him. Why that ‘on’, he thought a trifle angrily. He told himself that in six months’ time they would change their manner. Though Manson was thirty now, and knew the value of restraint, he still hated condescension as a cat hates water.

  That night in the surgery there were three patients, two of whom paid him the three-and-sixpenny fee. The third promised to return and settle up on Saturday. He had, in his first day’s practice, earned the sum of ten and six.

  But the following day he took nothing at all. And the day after, only seven shillings. Thursday was a good day, Friday just saved from being blank, and on Saturday, after an empty morning, he took seventeen and six at the evening surgery though the patient to whom he had given credit on Monday failed to keep his promise to return and pay.

  On Sunday, though he made no comment to Christine, Andrew morbidly reviewed the week. Had he made a horrible mistake in taking this derelict practice, in sinking all their savings in this tomb-like house? What was wrong with him? He was thirty, yes, over thirty. He had an MD, honours, and the MRCP. He had clinical ability, and a fine piece of clinical research work to his credit. Yet here he was, taking barely enough three and sixpences to keep them in bread. It’s the system, he thought savagely, it’s senile. There ought to be some better scheme, a chance for everybody – say, oh, say State control! Then he groaned, remembering Doctor Bigsby and the MFB. No, damn it, that’s hopeless – bureaucracy chokes individual effort – it would suffocate me. I must succeed, damn it all, I will succeed!

  Never before had the financial side of practice so obtruded itself upon him. And no subtler method of converting him to materialism could have bee
n devised than those genuine pangs of appetite – the euphemism was his own – which he carried with him many days of the week.

  About a hundred yards down the main bus route stood a small delicatessen shop kept by a fat little woman, a naturalised German, who called herself Smith but who, from her broken speech and insistent s’s, was obviously Schmidt. It was typically continental, this little place of Frau Schmidt’s, its narrow marble counter loaded with soused herrings, olives in jars, sauerkraut, several kinds of wurstels, pastries, salami, and a delicious kind of cheese named Liptauer. Also it had the virtue of being very cheap. Since money was so scarce at 9 Chesborough Terrace and the cooking stove a choked and antique ruin, Andrew and Christine dealt a great deal with Frau Schmidt. On good days they had hot Frankfurters and apfelstrudel; on bad they would lunch on a soused herring and baked potatoes. Often at night they would drop into Frau Schmidt’s, after scanning her display through the steamed window with a selective eye, and come away with something savoury in a string bag.

  Frau Schmidt soon got to know them. She developed an especial liking for Christine. Her larded, pastry-cook’s face would wrinkle up, almost closing her eyes, beneath her high dome of blonde hair, as she smiled and nodded to Andrew:

  ‘You will be all right. You will succeed. You have a good wife. She iss small, like me. But she iss good. Chust wait – I will send you patients!’

  Almost at once, the winter was upon them and fogs hung about the streets, always intensified, it seemed, by the smoke from the great railway station near by. They made light of it, they pretended their struggles were amusing, but never in all their years at Aberalaw had they known such hardship.

  Christine did her utmost with their chill barracks. She white-washed the ceilings, made new curtains for the waiting-room. She re-papered their bedroom. By painting the panels black and gold, she transformed the senile folding doors which disfigured the first floor drawing-room.

  Most of his calls, infrequent though these were, took him to the boarding-houses of the neighbourhood. It was difficult to collect the fees from such patients – many of them were seedy, even doubtful characters, and adept in the art of bilking. He tried to make himself agreeable to the gaunt females who kept these establishments. He made conversation in gloomy hallways. He would say, ‘ I’d no idea it was so cold! I should have brought my coat,’ or ‘It’s awkward getting about. My car’s laid up for the moment.’

  He struck up a friendship with the policeman who usually took point duty at the busy traffic crossing outside Frau Schmidt’s delicatessen. Donald Struthers was the policeman’s name, and there was kinship between them from the start, for Struthers, like Andrew, came from Fife. He promised in his own style, to do what he could do to help his compatriot, remarking with a grim facetiousness:

  ‘If ever anybody gets run down and killed here, doctor, I’ll be sure and fetch them along to ye.’

  One afternoon, about a month after their arrival, when Andrew got home – he had been calling on the chemists of the district, inquiring brightly for a special 10 cc Voss syringe which he knew none of them would keep in stock then casually introducing himself as the new and vigorous practitioner of Chesborough Terrace – Christine’s expression apprised him of some excitement.

  ‘There’s a patient in the consulting-room,’ she breathed. ‘She came by the front door.’

  His face brightened. This was the first ‘good’ patient who had come to him. Perhaps it was the beginning of better things. Preparing himself, he walked briskly into the consulting-room.

  ‘Good afternoon! What can I do for you?’

  ‘Good afternoon, doctor. Mrs Smith recommended me.’

  She rose from her chair to shake hands with him. She was plump, good-natured, thickly made up, with a short fur jacket and a large handbag. He saw at once that she was one of the street-women who frequented the district.

  ‘Yes?’ he inquired, his expectation sinking a little.

  ‘Oh, doctor,’ she smiled diffidently. ‘ My friend just give me a nice pair of gold ear-rings. And Mrs Smith – I am a customer there – she said you would pierce my ears for me. My friend, he’s very anxious I don’t get done with a dirty needle or something, doctor.’

  He took a long steadying breath. Had it actually come to this? He said:

  ‘Yes, I’ll pierce your ears for you.’

  He did this carefully, sterilising the needle, spraying her lobes with ethyl chloride, even fitting the gold rings in for her.

  ‘Oh, doctor, that’s lovely.’ Peering in the mirror of her handbag. ‘And I never felt a thing. My friend’ll be pleased. How much, doctor?’

  The statutory fee for Foy’s ‘good’ patients, mythical though they might be, was seven and six. He mentioned this sum.

  She produced a ten shilling note from her bag. She thought him a kind, distinguished, and very handsome gentleman – she always liked them dark somehow – and she also thought, as she accepted her change, that he looked hungry.

  When she had gone he did not wear holes in the carpet, as he would once have done, raving that he, too, had prostituted himself by this petty, servile act. He was conscious of a strange humility. Holding the crumpled note, he went to the window, watching her disappear down the street, swaying her hips, swinging her handbag, proudly wearing her new ear-rings.

  Chapter Two

  Through the rigours of the battle he hungered for medical friendship. He had gone to a meeting of the local medical association without enjoying himself greatly. Denny was still abroad. Finding Tampico to his liking Philip had remained there, taking a post as surgeon to the New Century Oil Company. For the present at least, he was lost to Andrew. While Hope, on a mission to Cumberland, was – as he phrased it in his rudely coloured postcard – counting corpuscles for Maniac’s Delight.

  Many times Andrew was taken by the impulse to get in touch with Freddie Hamson, but always, though he often got as far as the phone book, the reflection that he was still unsuccessful – not properly settled, he told himself – restrained him. Freddie was still in Queen Anne Street, though he had moved to a different number. Andrew found himself wondering more and more how Freddie had got on, recollecting the old adventures of their student days, until suddenly he found the compulsion too strong for him. He did ring Hamson.

  ‘You’ve probably forgotten all about me,’ he grunted, half prepared for a snub. ‘ This is Manson – Andrew Manson. I’m in practice here in Paddington.’

  ‘Manson! Forgotten you! You old warhorse!’ Freddie was lyrical on the other end of the line. ‘Good Lord, man! Why haven’t you rung me?’

  ‘Oh, we’ve barely got settled,’ Andrew smiled into the receiver, warmed by Freddie’s gush. ‘And before – on that Board job – we were rushing all over England. I’m married now, you know.’

  ‘So am I! Look here, old man, we’ve got to get together again. Soon! I can’t get over it. You, here, in London. Marvellous! Where’s my book – Look here, how about next Thursday? Can you come to dinner then? Yes, yes. That’s great. So long then, old man, in the meantime I’ll have my wife drop yours a line.’

  Christine seemed lacking in enthusiasm when he told her of the invitation.

  ‘You go, Andrew,’ she suggested after a pause.

  ‘Oh! That’s nonsense! Freddie wants you to meet his wife. I know you don’t care about him much but there’ll be other people there, other doctors probably. We may get a new slant on things there, dear. Besides we’ve had no fun lately. Black tie, he said. Lucky I bought myself that dinner jacket for the Newcastle mines do. But what about you, Chris? You ought to have something to wear.’

  ‘I ought to have a new gas cooker,’ she answered a trifle grimly. These last weeks had taken toll of her. She had lost a little of that freshness which had always been her great charm. And sometimes, as just now, her tone was short and jaded.

  But on Thursday night when they started out for Queen Anne Street he could not help thinking how sweet she looked in the dress, yes, it was
the white dress she had bought for that Newcastle dinner, altered in some way which made it seem newer, smarter. Her hair was done in a new style too, closer to her head, so that it lay darkly about her pale brow. He noticed this as she tied his bow for him, meant to tell her how nice it was, then forgot, in the sudden fear that they would be late.

  They were not late, however, but early, so early that an awkward three minutes elapsed before Freddie came gaily in, both hands outstretched, apologising and greeting them in the same breath, telling them he had just come in from hospital, that his wife would be down in a second, offering drinks, pounding Andrew on the back, bidding them be seated. Freddie had put on weight since that evening at Cardiff, there was heavy prosperity in the pink roll of flesh on the back of his neck but his small eyes still glistened and not a single yellow plastered hair was out of its place. He was so well groomed that he shone.

  ‘Believe me!’ He elevated his glass. ‘It’s wonderful to see you people again. This time we’ve got to keep it up. How do you like my place here, old man? Didn’t I tell you at that dinner – and what a dinner! – I bet we’ll do better tonight – that I’d do it. I’ve the whole house here, of course – not just rooms, bought the freehold last year. And did it cost money?’ He patted his tie approvingly. ‘No need to advertise the fact, of course, even if I am successful. But I don’t mind you knowing, old man.’

  It looked an expensive background, there was no doubt: smooth modern furniture, deep-set fireplace, a baby grand player-piano with artificial magnolia blossom shaped from mother of pearl in a big white vase. Andrew was preparing to voice admiration when Mrs Hamson entered, tall, cool, with a dark middle parting and clothes extraordinarily different from Christine’s.