The Doctor Is Sick by Anthony Burgess Page B

Edwin, looking down on him from thick goggles, his grey moustache quivering.
    â€˜Gest na var welch purr?’ he said.
    â€œI think that’s very likely,’ said Edwin.
    â€˜Gorch,’ nodded the man and, seeming satisfied, moved out of the ward to the lavatories. R. Dickie said:
    â€˜Doesn’t speak English like you or me. That’s his brain, see. They’ll put that right for him and then he’ll be comin’ out with the King’s English – though it’s the Queen’s English really, ennit? – as good as you or I or anybody here. Poor old man. Mr Ridgeway his name is, and he knows some of the streets round where I used to work. He can’t say the names so good, but you can see what he’s gettin’ at. Standin’ here by my bed this mornin’ he was, recitin’ these names off. Thinks the world of me, you can see that. Marvellous, ennit?’
    The drugged day went by, Edwin listless in bed. In the evening two visitors came for him. One, the big moustached man, he recognised: the belcher of Siegfried’s horn call and crier of ‘Nothung!’ Les, he remembered, was the name. With Les was an exotic woman Edwin needed time to take in. ‘A letter,’ said Les, ‘from your missis. She asked me to bring it. Bruised you a bit round the neck, haven’t they?’
    Edwin read:
    â€˜D ARLING ,
    â€˜Am writing as promised though nothing much to say of course. Hope you all right. Bearded man who is named Nigel and an artist is taking me to sort of wine drinking club this evening. Will try to come week-end. Be good, dearest.
    â€˜S HEILA .’
    â€˜This is very kind,’ said Edwin. ‘Very kind indeed. But you needn’t really, you know, have bothered.’ Les’s companion was a swarthy round-faced woman, obviously Mediterranean, in a blue jumper that strained at the breasts’heavy pressure, a skirt patterned with names of dishes – kebab, risotto, pilaff, chow mien, nasi goreng . She had sharp dark eyes, much blackbird-black hair, and innumerable warts. Her throat was tattooed with a cryptic sign. Edwin awaited an introduction, but Les said:
    â€˜There was nothing on tonight, so I thought I might as well come here as anywhere else. Last night was Sieg and tomorrow night’s Gott , but there’s nothing doing tonight. Heavy work, and you need a night off. Singers go on about what they have to do, but I tell them that they ought to try lugging bloody Valhalla about and making sure that you know where the bloody Rhinegold is, ready for throwing back into the water. Lost it once, and there they were frantic looking for it. That’s why they took me off props and back on the heavy stuff.’ He looked capable of coping with the heavy stuff, thought Edwin – massive oak shoulders, a neck like a chopping-block, a chest like two kettledrums. He had sat down on the bed’s edge, but his lady remained standing, arms folded, smoking.
    â€˜There is, I think,’ said Edwin, ‘a chair somewhere over there.’ The trouble was that R. Dickie had so many visitors: his bed looked like the bed of the dying Socrates.
    â€˜Carmen doesn’t mind standing,’ said Les. ‘That’s not her real name, Carmen, but I first met her when I was doing the opera, and it seemed to fit, somehow. A sod that is for changes – tobacco factories, bullrings, brigands’ caves. But not as bad as Aida . You have to practically set up the whole of Egypt for that, pyramids, Suez Canal and all. This gentleman,’ said Les carefully to Carmen, ‘is ill. That’s why we’ve come to see him.’ Carmen bowed. ‘She doesn’t speak much English,’ said Les. ‘She’d been lured over from North Africa, you see, on the job.’ He winked.‘I got her out of that, though. You’d think she’d be grateful.’
    â€˜ Yo hablo Español, señora ,’ said