Читать книгу A Test of Patients - Martin Atkinson - Страница 11

Exotic dancers and pussy cats

Most young vets will find something familiar with this scenario. After all, they are mostly single, easily accessible and are in all probability ‘a good catch’ for potential suitors. Some approaches from ardent admirers may be flattering and welcome and many have no doubt seen romance blossom, but on the whole they are just another daily nuisance which has to be dealt with. Every now and again however, the admirer becomes a little persistent and the approach may be anything but subtle – as in this encounter. Apologies to anyone who may feel offended and view it as sexist, but it is recounted as it was, and it could have happened, indeed probably does more frequently, the other way round.

You may be familiar with a Candy (I’ve forgotten her real name, but this sounds like a good one – no offence to any Candies who may be reading). She was what would be today euphemistically called a pole-dancer, but in the 1970s she was just a plain old stripper down the local pub or, if you wanted to be polite, an exotic dancer. I don’t think poles were a common accessory in those days so she just gyrated by herself with the aid of a python, which was possibly meant to maintain some semblance of modesty, but by all accounts (I can honestly say I never saw her act) rarely did its job properly. Candy was not an unattractive women (for those of a certain age who can remember, she bore an uncanny resemblance to Fenella Fielding of ‘Carry On’ films fame) and was, shall we say, a little top-heavy. For some red-blooded males this may have been an attraction, but I have to say she was not really my type. Unfortunately for me this was not an obstacle for Candy. I cannot recall at what point she had set her fancy on this fresh-faced assistant, but her agenda soon became all too apparent.

Besides the python, Candy owned a cat. What started with one or two apparently routine consultations soon became a bit of a habit. As Candy’s visits became more frequent, the covering power of her clothing decreased in inverse proportion. Her upper body was soon hidden by little more than a skimpy button-up blouse with no visible support for anything underneath. Her favourite trick was to hold the cat against her washboard flat stomach underneath the cornice of her ample upper parts. In order to examine the cat, I then had to negotiate my way past her gaping cleavage, which was (intentionally on her part) made somewhat difficult.

It must have been apparent after a while to Candy that this tactic was not bearing fruit as she requested a house call. Maybe I was being unreasonably naïve, but the true purpose of this request didn’t immediately dawn upon me. It is a not a uncommon occurrence however for a male vet to be called out on a home visit only to find the lady of the house a little more engaging than would be strictly necessary if the only agenda was to treat the family pet.

On entering Candy’s house it transpired that the cat was, by no coincidence, in the bedroom. This was decorated in a way that was a little short of tasteful and resembled an up-market ‘Madame’s boudoir’ (not, I hasten to add, that I’ve ever visited such an establishment it’s just an image from films and TV you realise)! A large president-sized bed, draped in purple satin sheets, was set against a wall while romantic music played on a stereo system.

Strategically, the cat had taken up temporary residence on the far side, which necessitated me having to climb over the bed to examine it. As on most of the previous visits to the surgery, there was little, if anything, of any consequence wrong with the cat and it wasn’t long before Candy lay seductively across the bed next to me. Maybe if I had been more of the afore-mentioned red-blooded type I may have succumbed at this point to her ulterior motive, but I quickly made my excuses and wriggled away, muttering something along the lines of not being able to make a diagnosis in the home and that the cat would need to be brought to the surgery for tests if she didn’t get better.

The next week was February 14^th – St Valentine’s day. The nurses at the practice had picked up on Candy’s amorous advances and had prepared a spoof Valentine’s card for me. However, this trick backfired when I received two cards from Candy – one real and one from them, although I never did discover which one was from whom. Later that day, Candy made an appointment and duly arrived with the cat.

She was a little more modestly dressed this time, perhaps sensing that the up-front (so to speak) tactics were not working and, I have to say, she looked the more attractive for it. Having apparently decided to dispense with the not so subtle advances, she finally took the plunge and made a proposition. She invited me round to her house for dinner and followed it with these immortal words; “don’t worry – it will be just you, me and my pussy”. Despite her obvious deficiencies in the good taste department, I still honestly believe that she meant the cat. After all that euphemism for a certain part of the female anatomy was not in common usage then! Having recovered my composure I quickly made my excuses and thanked her for her kind offer, but had to decline as I was taking my girlfriend out for dinner that very night (which was true).

Clearly undaunted by this setback to her ambitions, Candy tried one last throw of the dice. She once again appeared with the cat at the surgery. This time there was at least something to observe as there were several small, itchy, scaly patches on the cat’s head. I darkened the consulting room and plugged in the diagnostic Wood’s light to examine the lesions in a darkened room. Sure enough, they glowed a satisfying green under the lamp and the diagnosis of ringworm was made.

Candy then mentioned that she had a couple of lesions herself and would be interested to see if they glowed also. Expecting these to be on her hands or arms, I agreed to have a look, at which point she took off her top. At this very moment, a nurse walked unannounced through the door to be faced with the bizarre sight of me examining Candy’s ample breasts through an illuminated magnifying glass in the dark.

This incident could have been very embarrassing, but instead went down into the folklore of the surgery with the boss of the practice the most amused of all (similar things had probably, after all, happened to him when he was a younger man). I can say for the record that there were several suspicious lesions in the area examined, but I declined Candy’s offer to apply the ringworm cream to them. It transpired that not only did Candy let the cat sleep on her bed, but that its favourite position was on her naked chest. I didn’t like to ask which patient had developed the lesions first. I did once have a client who nearly had her cat euthanased on the doctor’s advice because she thought her child had caught ringworm from the cat until I asked the simple question, “which got the symptoms first?” that the doctor had apparently neglected to ask. It turned out to be the child that had developed the problem before the cat.

This also brings to mind the interesting fact that while lice are generally host-specific, human pubic hair lice are the same as gorilla lice because they’ve adapted to live in coarse hair, which gorillas have in abundance. At some point in our early history, with the great apes being close to us on the evolutionary tree, they appear to have jumped species. I once read a review by A. A. Gill in the Sunday Times in which, clearly sharing a similar thought process as that which you – the reader – are now having, he quipped that it wasn’t how the first human caught the lice that intrigued him, but how the gorilla took it when he told her he wasn’t going to see her anymore.

Less of this divergence – Candy must have finally taken the hint and given up her pursuit, or perhaps she found a more receptive target elsewhere, as that is the last I recall of seeing her. Fortunately, I do not remember having to examine the python and I never did find out where that slept at night – perish the thought.