Doctor On The Boil Read Online Free PDF Page B

and moved close to her.
    ‘Lover, have you the letters MTF after your name?’
    ‘What’s that? Medical Technology Fellow, or something?’
    ‘Must Touch Flesh. Honestly, you’ve got quite an obsession.’
    Grimsdyke sat down again. There was a knock on the outside door.
    ‘Come in, and mind the double doors,’ she called.
    He sat pulling his moustache in the darkness, annoyed at the intrusion of some other member of the X-ray staff. But a voice said, ‘Stella…where are you?’
    ‘Do you mind? You’re touching me.’
    ‘I was just feeling your face. You know, to recognize you. Like the blind,’ said Terry Summerbee.
    ‘All right, lover boy,’ she said wearily. ‘You know I’ve no warts and I’m female. Well?’
    ‘How about coming out tonight?’ Terry favoured the direct approach to all problems, in medicine and in life.
    ‘But lover man, tonight’s my cordon bleu cookery class.’
    ‘Then tomorrow?’
    ‘Parents, lover man. I’m dutiful, you know. They gave me life.’
    ‘How about Saturday? I’m quite free.’
    ‘Saturday I contemplate. About Sunday. When I fast all day in my bedroom. Sorry, lover boy.’
    Terry swallowed. He decided to persist because Stella kept calling him lover boy. He was unaware that at the time she called everyone lover boy, even traffic-wardens and her father. ‘Let’s go through next week.’
    ‘Listen, lover, if you really want to take me out, we could get it over and done with tomorrow.’
    ‘But I thought tomorrow was your parents’ home night, or something.’
    ‘Did I say that? I must have touched on the wrong button.’
    ‘See you in the courtyard when you get away at six, then?’ Terry said eagerly.
    ‘I’ll be there, lover man. Be careful with the doors as you go out.’
    Waiting until he heard the outer door firmly shut, Grimsdyke gave a guffaw. ‘How sweet.’
    ‘’Terry’s nice. Gentle, you know. Like a puppy.’
    ‘Stella, my pearl shining in the darkness–’
    ‘Take your hands off the jewellery. I’m turning on the lights.’
    She started busily sorting dried X-ray pictures into large manila envelopes.
    ‘But surely, Terry’s not to be taken seriously?’
    She gave a pout of her full lips. ‘Why not?’
    ‘He’s not for you , Stella. You need a man of the world to take you around. A man of experience.’
    ‘Are you trying to pull the generation gap, or something, lover man? That’s new.’
    ‘Anyway, you can’t go out with him tomorrow. You promised to go out with me.’
    ‘Did I?’ She went on sorting the X-rays. ‘I must have flipped the wrong switch.’
    ‘I’ll be there, anyway. Six, at the front door.’
    ‘As you wish, lover, as you wish,’ she said accommodatingly.
    ‘I’m very, very tender towards you, Stella.’ Grimsdyke put his arms round her from behind and started gently biting her neck. ‘Like it?’
    ‘Hardly preferable to mosquitoes.’
    ‘How about a nice–’
    ‘Gaston, lover man, take this packet of X-rays to the dean’s office, will you? He wanted them specially.’
    ‘Oh, all right,’ said Grimsdyke disconsolately. ‘But tomorrow, at six. Lover girl.’

5
    The dean usually reached home at seven. He parked his Jaguar that evening in the mews garage of his house, and carrying his document-case opened the back door with the pleasurable sensation of a man going to break good news, particularly when it is about himself. He hung his homburg in the hall, and with jaunty step opened the door of his small ground floor study. His smile vanished as he found it occupied by his son George.
    ‘What are you doing rummaging in my desk?’
    ‘Oh! Hello, Dad. I was looking for this week’s B.M.J. ’
    ‘Since when have you been so anxious to keep up with the latest medical discoveries? You have quite enough to tax your mind learning those of the past five centuries.’ The dean’s eyes narrowed. ‘You weren’t searching for the class examination questions, I suppose?’
    ‘Me, Dad? But I’m not even