Tiger, Tiger. Philip Caveney

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СКАЧАТЬ ‘It’s only just been made.’ He leaned over and filled Kalim’s cup to the brim. ‘There now. It’s such a pleasure to sit out here in the afternoon and drink a good tea, don’t you think?’

      Kalim said nothing.

      ‘I er … take it this is just a social call?’ ventured Harry, knowing in his heart that such was surely not the case. Kalim had been his doctor for six years now, and though in that time Harry had never called on the fellow once, Kalim had often taken the initiative himself. The plain fact was that Harry didn’t like doctors or surgeries or hospitals and would have had to be taken forcibly, even after a major accident.

      ‘Indeed, this is not a social call, Mr Sullivan, as I am thinking you must be most aware.’ Kalim talked slowly and emphatically, for despite his years at university he still had problems with his English. ‘Your very good chum, Mr Tremayne, is asking me to be calling on you. He is telling me that you are having a very bad do at the tennis courts, yesterday.’

      Harry smiled, spread his arms.

      ‘Well, here I am, Doctor,’ he exclaimed. ‘How do I look?’

      Kalim clenched his teeth and lifted the corners of his mouth, a device that was supposed to pass for smiling.

      ‘Come, come, Mr Sullivan. As I am sure you are aware, how you look has very little to do with it. Tell me, when did you have last a major physical checkup?’

      ‘Oh, let me see now … that would have been in ’62, when we had the trouble in Brunei. Told me then I had a dodgy ticker, but that if I looked after it, there’d be no problem …’

      A look of supreme annoyance came over Kalim’s usually placid face.

      ‘Oh really, Mr Sullivan! Would you be saying that playing tennis is a particularly good way of looking after this … dodgy ticker, as you call it? Sometimes, I despair of the British mentality, I really do. Mr Tremayne was telling me that you had a very nasty turn. It’s a wonder you didn’t kill yourself.’

      Harry gave a gesture of dismissal.

      ‘Dennis Tremayne is a natural-born exaggerater. Always has been. The fact is, it was hot. I had a bit of a dizzy spell, that’s all.’

      ‘A dizzy spell. Do you not think that I am being better qualified to judge the severity of what was happening to you?’

      ‘My dear Doctor Kalim! You weren’t even there, old man, so how can you be expected to know what was wrong with me? I say, do drink up your tea before it goes cold.’

      Kalim muttered something beneath his breath, but obediently, he picked up his cup and sipped at it a few times. He watched, horrified, as Harry took a cigar case from his shirt pocket. He extracted one, put it into his mouth, and then offered the case to Kalim.

      ‘No, thank you very much, I don’t. And neither should you, if you are not minding me saying so.’

      ‘Say what you like,’ muttered Harry gruffly. He struck a match and lit the cigar. ‘It’s your loss. These are very fine Havanas.’

      Kalim shook his head in mute exasperation. He thought for a moment, then leaned down, opened his briefcase and took out a stethoscope.

      ‘Well you can put that away for a start,’ warned Harry.

      ‘Mr Sullivan … now, it would not be taking me more than two minutes to be having a quick listen to your dodgy old ticker. We could be doing it right here, you will not even have to get out of your chair …’

      ‘Certainly not. I’m not having you listen to my insides, some things are sacred you know!’

      ‘But really, this is being most childish …’

      ‘You can say what you like, I know my rights. If I don’t want to be looked at, then there’s nothing you can do to make me. Now please, Doctor Kalim, stop being a confounded nuisance, sit still, and drink your bloody tea!’

      ‘Well, really!’ Kalim was outraged. He thrust the stethoscope back into his briefcase and sat where he was for a moment, staring out across the garden, a look of dark, impotent fury on his face. ‘When I think of the poor people around here who would give anything to secure a doctor’s help,’ he muttered. ‘And then I am encountering people like you, Mr Sullivan … people who are refusing to help themselves. It is making me most annoyed.’ He sipped again at his tea. ‘Let me tell you the symptoms I think you were experiencing yesterday. You have already spoken of dizziness. I think also there would have been a sharp pain in the chest, a pounding of the heart, an inability to control one’s breathing … shall I go on, Mr Sullivan? Possibly, you were feeling nauseous and could not maintain your balance; Mr Tremayne is already confirming that point with me. He is saying he had to be holding you upright …’ He glanced accusingly at Harry. ‘Well? Are these the symptoms you were having?’

      Harry shrugged expressively.

      ‘Perhaps,’ he said, noncommittally.

      ‘Well then, Mr Sullivan, it is hardly needing a doctor to be telling you that it was most probably a heart attack you were suffering yesterday.’

      ‘A …?’ Harry laughed unconvincingly.

      ‘Oh, so it is ‘a matter for merriment is it?’ cried Kalim. He was getting more and more annoyed and his voice was sliding rapidly higher and higher up the vocal scale.

      ‘Not at all, not at all. But really, Doctor, a heart attack! Why, I’m as strong as a mule. I hardly think I’d be wandering about today, if I’d really had a heart attack yesterday.’

      ‘There are being all different kinds of heart seizures,’ shrieked Kalim. ‘There are earth tremors and earthquakes, but all of them are starting in the same place. That is exactly why I am wanting to examine you, you silly old man! Now I am asking you for the last time, Mr Sullivan. Will you submit yourself to me for a thorough physical examination?’

      ‘I will not,’ replied Harry coolly.

      Kalim stood up, crammed his hat down on his head, and snatched up his briefcase.

      ‘Then I am clearly wasting my time here,’ he announced.

      ‘I could have told you that before you sat down,’ said Harry.

      Kalim gave an involuntary cry of exasperation. ‘You are without doubt the most cantankerous, impossible old fool,’ he concluded, and began to walk away.

      ‘And you, my dear Doctor Kalim, are without doubt the most insufferable quack!’ retorted Harry.

      Kalim stopped in his tracks for a moment. He gazed back at Harry with a look that would have scorched the varnish of a grand piano. Then he strode away, clambered back into his ramshackle car, and reversed carelessly out of the drive, catching the left rear wing on a gatepost and scraping a new area free of grey paint.

      Harry winced, then chuckled. The car lurched around in a ragged circle and accelerated away down the road, making a noise like an electric mixer filled with chestnuts. Pawn came to the door, gazed out in surprise.

      ‘Doctor man not stay very long,’ she observed drily.

      ‘No,’ СКАЧАТЬ