Cardiologist Mr. Brashley arrived at a peculiar English spa to unwind. He decided to have a shave and step out for the eveningmen past forty and all that, you know. Admittedly, he was over sixty, but surely no one would notice under these dim spa lamps.
Suddenly, a woman stormed into his roomher proportions so splendidly odd, youd need the skills of Turner to sketch her. She was the sort youd wheel out for anatomy practice, pointing with a stick while declaring, Observe: a woman consists of
She wailed in delight, declaring how marvellous it was that the renowned cardiologist happened to be holidaying here and now! For the supply manager was wheeling a critically ill man straight to the treatment room, while the resident spa cardiologist was away. Heart attacks seldom consult the timetable, do they? And as luck would have it, here was an eminent heart specialist!
Brashley sensed she was circling for a second gono escaping. She must have weighed as much as a queen-sized wardrobe, lips painted as red as a pub sign, like some unholy stamp pressed upon a sugar-powdered plinth. Such women relinquish nothing explaining the limitations of medicine to her would have been as pointless as giving dance lessons to a lamppost, especially with her assistant being the supply manager and a nurse dressed as an alluring Snowman.
Presently, Brashley entered the treatment room. There lurked the supply manager, eyes wild, beside a trolley. Upon the trolleya weary, bearded man flattened beneath a bulging medical chart. It looked as if a secondary schoolers head had been grafted atop a woodcutters shouldersa build popularly found among senior lecturers.
Hes delirious, announced the supply manager. Keeps mumbling Daisy, Daisythinks hes lost in a florists.
The nurse took the man’s blood pressure and pronounced it dire: Seventy by fifty and dropping, if it can drop any further. Thats not a readingits the size of my wrists! She burst into inexplicable laughter. Brashley felt a shiver scurry along his spine. The chart stated for this chap, 180 over 100 was merely a gentle warm-up.
Brashley scouted the room with his eyes, searching for essentialswhen, out of nowhere, came noises, alien to treatment rooms. As he looked round, the nurse was dabbing her eyes.
What on earth? asked Brashley.
Its just I feel so sorry for the poor man! she sobbed.
A strange dread tickled Brashleys mind. Fetch adrenaline, he commanded, disinfecting his hands. You do know what adrenaline is? And where to put it?
Oh, I do feel sorrrry! wailed the nurse, slumping against the doorframe, tears puddling.
Brashley seized a syringe and drew it up himself. At that moment, the supply manager caught sight of the needlea size fit for fighting off highwaymen. The supply manager had never encountered a backside that didn’t quiver at such an instrument. Brashley watched his eyes merge into greyish puddles. In the corner, the nurse was howling. He considered slapping some sense into her but hesitated, recalling that one never quite knows what reflexes a slap might stirit might trigger masonry tumbling from the third-floor windows.
Brashley thought to himself: Ive had quite enough of this tomfoolery. He located the spot on the limp chest and plunged the needle in. The supply manager collapsed as if struck by a bowling ball.
Ohhh, I feel so sorry for the supply manager! shrieked the nurse.
You ghoulish creatures! Brashley roared. Wheres the smelling salts?
Theyre doomed, arent they? the nurse moaned. Just as well my eyes have glasses to filter all this out
On the desk stood a heavy cast iron lamp, engraved with David Treats a Lions Sore Throat, weighing in at least five kilos. Brashley considered knocking them both out cold with the lamp, but thought better of it. He ordered them all to stop this nonsense, for he could no longer tell who was treating whom, or why.
Order! Discipline and decorum! he called.
At that, the patient sat up, eyes closed, on the trolley. The nurse scolded him, Sir, kindly keep your mischief in check, and firmly pressed his head to the stretcher. The smelling salts are, as ever, in the cupboard.
The supply manager was too far goneno pulse. The bearded mans hand flopped off the trolleygone again. What madness, Brashley thought.
Start compressions! he barked, as he hauled the supply manager from under the trolley by the ankle.
The nurse flipped the man onto his front, hoisted her skirt and prepared to vault the trolley.
Chest compressions, you daft lot! Brashley hollered.
The nurse set herself atop the bearded man; the trolley groaned, something somewhere gave a splintering crack. Brashley pressed smelling salts to the supply managers nose and glanced over150 kilograms perched on a man barely sixty. The bearded fellow released air like a wrecked concertina.
Brashley pulled the supply manager uphe moved like an octopus, no edges or corners to gripand plopped him onto the couch. The nurse was still poised to crush the invalid. Brashley yanked her off and wafted smelling salts under her nose, setting her beside the supply manager. There they sat, hunched like sulky henscotton in their nostrils, one in a skirt hitched to her waist, the other’s trousers at half-mast. The paramedic team from some feverish farce. Smelling salts drew no reaction.
Suddenly, the patient straightened up like a flip-seat, eyes shut, turning his head towards the couch. The supply manager noticed and, in horror, toppled forwardthe point of his brow sent spidering cracks across the tile.
My friends the patient intoned without opening his eyes. I must implore you, please do not treat me further.
He then explained his side: he was a hereditary low-blood-pressure case. A cloud-crossing and he wilted like a daisy in drought; thunderstorms would sweep him across the floorboards like an old cricket ball. It wasnt his faulthe was born this way. His usual was 80 over 50. Occasionally it dipped lower, and a nice cup of strong English tea put him right. But nothing could help if that womanwhose necklace resembled billiard ballsever sat atop him again. He had almost resigned himself. Daisy would return from the loo and be astonishedhere she was, the one who felt ill, but it was him needing a burial.
Brashley felt the hairs on his head grey. He snatched the medical chart: Rosemary Daisy, née Rosewellhe recalled thinking on arriving, he might meet a charming local lady, perhaps enjoy a tumble Brashley had even hoped for more. Now that desire withered away.
Whats this? he asked, shoving the chart at the nurse.
A chart, she replied, staring blankly, cotton dangling from her nose.
This isnt Rosemary Daisy, Brashley observed. If anything, its Lionel Rosewood.
Really, as prescribing physician, you should have noticed, replied the nurse.
You! Brashley spluttered.
My friends, let me clarify, the patient interrupted. My wifes here. Id brought her a little bottle of kefir
Shed nipped to the bathroom, leaving her records beside him. Suddenly, hed grown faint and this gentleman, who had just disproved all laws regarding the soft besting the hard, heaved him onto the trolley and hauled him away. So thats how he ended up here; felt dreadful, and now, splendid. If not for the surrounding blue-tinged faces, it was almost a party. Blood pressure troubles were behind himovercome completely. If someone lit a match near him now, hed blast off into the stratosphere to peer at the country estates from above. Whatever that valiant doctor had injected, he would likely not sleep for a decadejust as well, as he had another monograph to write.
Best if we all pretend weve never been here, the nurse suggested, once the man with the kefir had tottered off. Brashley eyed the lamp again, but the nurse outpaced him, declaring,
Ill sort the supply manager.
Mr. Brashley never found companionship at the spa after thatnot with any local ladies, or even with a lost sense of calm.
