The Doctor Is Sick Read Online Free

remainder.’
    â€˜93,’ said Edwin confidently, then, less confidently, ‘86 . . . 79 . . . 72 . . .’ A voice came from a darkened bed, saying:
    â€˜It’s all right if you play darts, ennit? That’s all takin’ away, ennit?’ And he machine-gunned: ‘65, 58, 51, 44, 37, 30, 23, 16, 9, 2. Easy, ennit, if you play darts?’
    â€˜Thank you, Mr Dickie,’ said sarcastic Dr Railton. ‘That will do very nicely.’
    â€˜Have to, wunnit? That’s the end of the numbers, ennit?’ Then the sleeping sneerer next to Edwin began to intone fresh results:
    â€˜Blackburn 10, Manchester United 5.
    Nottingham Forest 27, Chelsea 2.
    Fulham 19, West Ham 3.’
    â€˜I suppose,’ said Dr Railton, sighing, ‘we’ve really done enough for one day.’
    â€˜Pools on his mind, ennit?’ said R. Dickie. ‘Got them on his mind, that’s what it is. Pools.’
    â€˜Do you want a sleeping tablet?’ asked Dr Railton. ‘To make you sleep,’ he explained. Edwin shook his head. ‘Very well, then. Good night, Doctor Spindrift.’ And he went out.
    â€˜Proper sarky, enny?’ said R. Dickie. ‘Proper takin’ the mickey. As if you’d be here if you was really a doctor.’
    Edwin put out his bedlamp, the last. The ward was now dark except for a dim pilot-light overhead and a lamp as dim on the night-sister’s desk, a desk hidden cosily in an improvised hut of bed-screens. The night-sister was having supper somewhere.
    â€˜Tellin’ stories about Nottingham,’ said R. Dickie. ‘I bet he was never in Nottingham in his life. I had a sister got married there. Used to go and see her sometimes, I did. Nice little place, Nottingham. Marvellous the way they talk about what they don’t know nuffin about, ennit?’

CHAPTER THREE
    Edwin sat on the edge of his bed, his heart thudding, dragging on his cigarette hard, wondering why she hadn’t come. Sunday morning had pealed and tolled itself away, rustling with the News of the World , a day without doctors or inflicted pain yawning ahead to be broken by two periods for visitors, an extra helping, a Sunday treat. But not, it would seem, for Edwin. Two struck in the tower across the square, half of the visiting time already gone, and she did not appear. R. Dickie was saying: ‘That’s right, yes, that’s right, true enough,’ to a voluble woman about eighty years old, probably his mother; the sneerer had a crafty-looking small clergyman with him, the one whining, the other sneering, about the love of Jesus; farther down the ward a young man, chinned and humped like Punch, sat up in bed wearing a kind of ski-cap, discussing car engines with a lip-chewing nodding male relative. The two slices of Sunday roast beef had put new life into the patients. Agitated, Edwin found that his bowels wanted to move. It would serve her right, he snivelled, if she came and found him not there, perhaps thinking him wheeled away dead, it would serve her right.
    He sat in the lavatory, trying to remember which hotel she had now moved to, some place near this hospital. He could ring her up, perhaps, in this pub she seemed now to frequent, this pub where she picked up window-cleaners. But it was after two now, and two was closing-time. Then, as his bowels eased, a bolder thought struck him. He woulddress, leave the hospital, look for her. The Anchor, that was the name of the pub, somewhere round there. A restaurant, probably.
    It was easy enough. The lockers were opposite the wash-places. To the music of the lavatory’s flush he opened his own and, trembling, took out his crumpled trousers, his sports jacket, his tie and a shirt. It was no good, of course, seeking permission. But nobody would know. He entered one of the two bathrooms and began to dress. In the mirror he saw a face sane enough looking, young enough, healthy enough, a mass of brown hair only a little