Cardiologist Braithwaite had travelled down to a spa retreat for a long-awaited rest. Hed planned to have a shave and dress in his best for the evening, as gentlemen over forty sometimes fancy. Though in truth, he was well past sixtyyet who was counting in a place like this?
Hed scarcely lathered half his chin when a woman burst into his room. To properly describe her would take the brush of a Turner; lets just say she was perfect for practical demonstrations. One might have pointed out features with a stick and declared: Observe, a woman is comprised of…
She practically sang with delight: How marvellous that a renowned heart specialist had come to stay at their spa! For, as fortune would have it, just that instant the custodian was wheeling a sick man to the treatment room, and the regular cardiologist had stepped out for a spell. After all, no one schedules a heart attack at midnight But, as chance would have it, here sat a famous London cardiologist on holiday.
Braithwaite sensed the inevitablehe was caught up for a second round and there was no polite escape. The woman, bustling and broad in every way, wore a scarlet lipstick centre-stage on her face, like some infernal ecclesiastical wax seal on a powdered pudding. Such ladies never take no for an answer; all arguments about the limitations of a doctoreven a wizard of onefall flat when your only assistants are the custodian and a nurse dressed as a seductive Snowman for some local pantomime.
He entered the treatment room to find the custodian wild-eyed beside a trolley, upon which lay a limp, bearded man, flattened further by a hefty medical filea scholars head on a teenagers body, he thought. The sort often found among senior research fellows.
Hes babbling, reported the custodian. Going on about ‘Rose, Rose.’ Thinks hes in a florists, poor soul.
The nurse checked the patients blood pressure, then shook her head. Alls terribly wrong. Seventy over fiftythough even thats dropping. She tutted. Those numbers are more like my thigh and waist measurements! At that, she burst out laughing, sending shivers up Braithwaites spine. The file, she added, showed that 180 over 100 was something of a warm-up for this gentleman.
Braithwaites eyes scanned the equipment. Then he heard something one seldom hears in a treatment roomsobbing. The nurse was crying.
He asked, Whats the matter? She replied, I just feel sorry for the man.
A faint unease prickled up inside him.
Fetch adrenaline, he said, rubbing his hands with alcohol. You know what that is? Remember how to prepare it?
Oh, the poor man wailed the nurse, sliding down the wall.
Braithwaite took the syringe himself. The custodian, spotting the needle, looked as though hed glimpsed Davy Jones harpoon; surely few posteriors in England could resist flinching at such a sight. The custodians blue-grey eyes seemed to sink into his skull, swaying unsteadily while the nurse howled in a corner. Braithwaite considered a sharp slap to restore orderbut with her, who knew what the reflexes might provoke? She could tumble through a third-floor window like a bundle of bricks, with who knows what consequences.
Hang it all, thought Braithwaite. He found the sunken spot on the mans chest and plunged the needle in. At that, the custodian dropped like a sack.
Oh, the poor custodian! the nurse shrieked.
Is everyone here mad? yelled Braithwaite. Wheres the smelling salts?
Will they die? Will they both die? Oh, that Id never lived to see such a thing the nurse cried.
On the table stood a hefty cast-iron lampfive pounds if it was an ounce, the sort where David Heals the Lions Throat was worked into the base. Braithwaite briefly considered using it for disciplinethen thought better of it. Instead, he bellowed for calm and discipline.
Miraculously, the patient on the trolley sat bolt uprightthough his eyes remained closed.
No roughhousing, sir, the nurse scolded, pressing his head firmly back onto the trolley. Smelling salts are in the cabinet, of course.
The custodian was so far gone his pulse was untraceable. The bearded mans arm slipped again from the trolley. Back into the tunnel.
Start massage! Braithwaite cried as he dragged the custodian out by the ankle.
The nurse flipped the patient onto his stomach, hitched up her skirt, and seemed ready to vault over the trolley.
Heart massage! His heart, you great holiday woodpeckers! Braithwaite shouted.
She set herself atop the bearded patientthe trolley creaked ominously. Braithwaite heard a crunch. He thrust a cotton wad of smelling salts under the custodians nose, peering sidewaysone hundred and fifty kilos worth of nurse atop sixty of scientist, and the room hissing like a faulty bellows.
Braithwaite propped the custodian on a couch, though dragging him was like moving an octopusalways more arms than one expected. He lookedsure enough, the nurse was about to pulverise the patient.
He hauled her off and wafted smelling salts at her nose, plonking her beside the custodian. There they sat, red-faced, with cotton in their noses, the custodians trousers at his knees, the nurses skirt at her waistbanda proper ambulance crew, if ever one was seen. Not that either seemed at all interested in the salts.
Just then the patient sat up again, eyes still closed, turning his head slowly toward the couch. The custodian, seeing this, fixed his line of sightand then promptly collapsed, forehead striking the stone tile with a starburst.
Good people, said the patient without opening his eyes, I do implore you most earnestly: do not treat me any further
He then explained. He came from a long line of those with low blood pressure. He deflated like a balloon at the hint of snow, and a thunderstorm could roll him right across the floor. It wasnt his faulthed simply been born that way. For him, 80 over 50 was the norm; lower sometimes still, and all it ever took was a cup of fragrant espresso to restore him. What was not prescribed was a nurse, weighed down by the cares of the world and a necklace of billiard balls, plonking herself on his chest. Hed thought it was all overRosa would return from the lavatory to quite a surprise: she was unwell, yet he was the one needing burial.
Braithwaite felt the grey hairs bloom. He snatched up the medical file and read: Rose Yardley. He remembered his hopes on the way to the spaperhaps a pleasant dalliance with a local lady, something spirited to pass the time Even the prospect of something lasting had crossed his mind. But now he felt thoroughly deflated.
Whats this? he asked the nurse, showing her the file.
Thats a patients chart, she replied stiffly, cotton still protruding from her nose.
But this is no Rose Yardley, Braithwaite observed. This is Leon Rose, at the very least.
As attending physician, you ought to have noticed, the nurse pointed out.
You little muttered Braithwaite.
The patient interjected, Permit me to clarify. My wife is herea dear Rosy. I brought her some buttermilk. She popped to the loo, left the chart beside me, and then I started to feel unwell. Next thing, this chap, whos just disproved the idea that the softer never overcomes the harder, dragged me away on a gurney. And here I am. It was dreadful, but now I feel smashing. Lost the will to livenow Im as right as rain. With all these red faces and blue undertones around, its otherwise a day to rejoice. Any talk of low blood pressure is quite overIve conquered it. Set a spark to my toes now and Id rocket into the stratosphere to see whats up there. Whatever the good doctor injected, I shant sleep for a decadejust as well, since I need the time to finish my next research paper.
Heres my suggestion, piped up the nurse as the chap with the buttermilk departed. Lets all agreewe were never here.
Braithwaite would have liked to cuff her with the lamp, but she was a step ahead, announcing:
Ill see to the custodian.
And that, as it happened, was how Dr Braithwaite passed through his spa holiday without meeting a single eligible ladyShe bustled over, scraping the last bits of self-pity off her cheeks, and with a theatrical sniff, hauled the custodian upright. He blinked at her. They exchanged a sheepish glance, followed by a watery smile.
Braithwaite gazed at his trembling hands. He imagined the headlines: World-Famous Cardiologist Saves PeerAnd Nearly Loses Support Staff. The nights absurdity spun in his mind until it struck him aswell, almost magnificent. Come, he declared, voice nearly steady, lets visit the lounge. To our miraculous resurrectionand perhaps a dash of that espresso.
The nurse grinned, fluffing her hair. The custodian patted the bump on his head, eyes shining as if hed just been let in on the worlds private joke. Together, they shuffled into the corridor, their dignity rear-guarded by a cloud of talcum powder and misplaced decency.
The spa, as if in on the conspiracy, was silent and soft around them. Outside, dawn began to breakan unsteady, blushing thing, just as the three of them were. Braithwaite stopped, looked up at the golden edge of the sky, and for a fleeting second, felt as young as his dreams.
He smiled at his companions: mismatched, rumpled, but gallant. If either of you ever needs a reference letter, he announced, do let me know. I shall write: The bravest crew a troubled ticker could desire. And with that, they strode toward the future, hearts (more or less) in the right placeproof that, even in chaos, there is a pulse worth following.
