Cardiologist Dr. Bradley Arrives at the Spa Retreat for a Little Rest. Plans to Shave and Join the Evening Social—After All, It’s for Those Over 40 and the Like. Sure, He’s Over 60—But Who’s Counting?

Dr. Clive Bradshaw, a cardiologist well-known in his field, arrived at a countryside spa hotel somewhere outside Oxford, seeking rest from the endless parade of stethoscopes and white coats. He thought hed have a decent shave and put on his smart tweed jacket for the evenings gathering. Over forty and all thatthough he was well into his sixties, but who pays attention to years when youre drifting through these English autumn afternoons?

Suddenly, without warning, a woman barged into his rooma woman so expansive and flamboyant that describing her required the brushwork of some mad Pre-Raphaelite. She looked as if she was made for anatomy lessons: you could point with a yardstick and say, Now, a woman is made of Her presence was like a lecture in itself.

She cried outher East Midlands accent strong and urgentthat it was fantastic luck, absolutely vital, that the famous Dr. Bradshaw should be here at all. Just as fate would have it, the estate manager was wheeling a patient into the treatment room at this very moment. The spas usual cardiologist, it seemed, had slipped out for a pint. Heart attacks dont RSVP, especially not at midnight. But the spa, blessed by Providence, was home to an eminent heart man tonight.

Bradshaw felt a cold ripple of dread. There would be no slipping away. This woman was a force, at least fifteen stone if she was an ounce, with crimson lipstick smeared across her lips like a wax seal on a frosted sconea gothic mark of the Order of Nightingale. These sorts dont surrender their quarry. No use telling her that even a wondrous heart doctor would be out of his depth if his only help was a caretaker and a nurse wearing an ill-advised Snowman-temptress costume.

So Dr. Bradshaw followed her to the treatment room, where she and the estate manager were pacing anxiously, the latter wild-eyed beside a hospital trolley. On the trolley, squashed beneath a medical file, lay a limp, bearded fellow who looked like a lumberjack stuck in a schoolboys framea build often seen in senior scientific staff.

Hes rambling, announced the estate manager. Keeps saying rose this, rose thatreckons hes at a flower shop.

The nurse checked the mans blood pressure and announced a grim reading. Seventy over fifty and falling. Thats not blood pressure, thats the circumference of my arms and legs! she cackled, her laughter shrill and sudden. Bradshaw shivereda spike of discomfort. Yet, the medical notes said for this man, 180 over 100 was merely a brisk walk.

Bradshaw scanned the room for equipment with his eyes when a strange sound reached him, unorthodox for any treatment room. Turning, he saw the nurse weeping, her false snowman nose slightly askew. Bradshaw, befuddled, asked what was wrong.

Its justI feel so sorry for him! she wailed, pressing her knuckles to her cheeks.

A nameless unease fluttered through Bradshaw. He barked orders for adrenaline, cleaning his hands with surgical spirit. Do you know what adrenaline is and how to draw it up? he snapped.

Oh, the poor man! the nurse moaned, leaning against the doorframe and sobbing. Bradshaw rolled his eyes, loaded the syringe himself, and met the terrified stare of the estate manager.

The caretaker had never seen such a needle. With that, Bradshaw imagined, you could fend off pirates. He doubted any human behind ever remained unflinching before a needle like this. The estate manager, wide-eyed and ashen, seemed to melt under Bradshaws gaze. Meanwhile, in the corner, the nurse howled. Bradshaw had half a mind to clap her on the cheekuntil he pictured her careening out the third-floor window, bricks and all.

Bradshaw decided to hell with them both. He found a spot on the patients sunken chest and plunged in the needle. Instantly, the estate manager toppled like a fence post.

Oh, poor caretaker! wailed the nurse.

Whats wrong with you people?! roared Bradshaw. Wheres the smelling salts?

Theyre going to die, arent they! Oh, my eyes cant bear to see!

On the table stood a cast iron lamp, shaped like St. George tending to a lion with a sore throat, and weighing no less than five kilograms. Bradshaw considered knocking everyone out cold just to restore order, but thought better of it. Instead, he pleaded that the chaos must stopno one knew anymore who needed saving from what.

Order! he bellowed. Discipline and calm, please!

Just then, the limp patient sat bolt upright on the trolley with his eyes squeezed shut.

Kindly dont misbehave, sir, scolded the nurse, pressing his head back to the stretcher. Smelling salts are in the cupboard, of course.

The estate manager slumped so far away his pulse was missing. The bearded mans hand flopped off the side againgone, vanished. Good Lord, thought Bradshaw. He shouted for a chest massage, yanking the estate manager from beneath the trolley by the ankle.

The nurse flipped the man onto his stomach, hitched up her skirt, and prepared to leap the trolley.

Cardiac massage, you sanatorium woodpeckers! shrieked Bradshaw. The nurse plopped astride the patients chest, the trolley creaked, and Bradshaw heard an ominous crack. He shoved sniffing salts under the caretakers nose while watching the nurse nearly flatten the patient with her burly frame.

He hoisted the estate manager, floppy as an octopusno right angles about him. Sat him on a couch and turned to see the nurse, wild-eyed, threatening to pulverise the patient. He yanked her off, wagged the salts under her nose, and plonked her beside the caretaker. They sat, dazed as chickens with cotton in their nostrilsone with trousers bunched at the knees, the other with her skirt hitched to the waist. NHS, eat your heart out.

Suddenly, the patient straightened like an aeroplane seat. Eyes shut, he slowly turned his head towards the couch. Seeing this, the caretaker abandoned all sitting and collapsed forward, his brow rebounding off the cold tile in jagged rays.

Friends, murmured the patient without opening his eyes, I respectfully beg youplease stop treating me

He continued in a weary, almost academic tone. He had always been a hypotensivewilting before a blizzard like a deflated balloon, blown across the floor during storms. No fault of his, it was his birthright. His base was 80 over 50. Sometimes lower, but a good cup of strong coffee always did the trick. Certainly not the nurses idea of treatmentclambering astride him like a fate laden with billiard balls. He thought that would finish him, that his wife would return from the loo to find him gone. Shed been the one feeling ill, yet here hed be eulogised instead.

Bradshaw felt himself ageing by the minute. He grabbed the medical file and read: Rose Harriet Yates. Now he remembered: on the way to the spa hed half-fancied meeting a local matron, perhaps a little fun Even something serious. Now the very thought made him recoil.

Whats this about? he asked, waving the file at the nurse.

A file, the nurse replied, eyes glassy, cotton sticking out of her nose.

This is no Rose Harriet, Bradshaw insisted. This is Leo, at the very least.

As the attending doctor, you ought to have noticed, sniffed the nurse, deadpan.

Oh, you

Let me clarify, cut in the patient, eyes still tight shut. My wife is here. I brought Rose some milk.

Shed gone to the loo, left her file by his side, and suddenly hed felt ill. The caretakerwho just disproved the theory that the soft could never flatten the firmhad bundled him up and wheeled him away. Here he was, ill, but now feeling quite splendid. All was blue and crimson around him, but alive and cheery. Hypotension was no longer an issue; it had been conquered. Light a match beneath him and hed rocket into open space, waving back. Never mind whatever it was the valiant doctor injected in himhe figured he wouldnt sleep for a decade, which suited his ambitions for another monograph.

The nurse piped up after Mr Yates and his milk had gone. Right, as far as Im concerned, none of this ever happened.

Bradshaw fancied bopping her with the lamp for a second, but she was quick:

Ill handle the caretaker.

And so, Dr. Bradshaw left the spa as hed arrivedunacquainted and thoroughly baffled, drifting back into the dream from which hed wandered.