Pulse(37)

He looked at me as if I were mad, which indeed I might be. ‘You must be bloody joking. Mike Sheraton is a complete bastard. He’d even put you through the wings if he thought it would be to his advantage.’

‘So you want him to lose?’ I asked.

Dave gave me a long cold stare that I took to mean that yes, of course he wanted him to lose.

‘Good luck with the TV,’ I said.

‘Yeah. Thanks.’ He didn’t smile.

At least I wasn’t the only one feeling depressed.

Whenever the actual saint’s day falls, Cheltenham decrees the third day of the Festival to be ‘St Patrick’s Thursday’ and there were many in the entrance queue wearing over-large green leprechaun hats, some with attached red beards. It was quite obvious that more than a few had been enjoying a drink or two, or three, in the car park even at this early hour.

I used my ‘Authorised Doctor’ pass to gain entry and made my way towards the weighing room.

Even though I wasn’t acting in an official capacity – I had received an email from Adrian Kings telling me I wasn’t expected back – I was sure he wouldn’t refuse a little extra help if I offered it for free, especially as there were even more runners in the seven races on the card today than there had been on Tuesday. However, as soon as I walked into the medical room, I realised it had been a huge mistake to come.

Adrian Kings was not happy to see me, and that was an understatement.

‘You shouldn’t be here,’ he said crossly. ‘How did you get in?’

‘I walked,’ I said flippantly. ‘I may have banged my head on Tuesday but I’m not an invalid. I’m here to help if I can.’

‘You’re not wanted,’ Adrian said sharply.

That hurt. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes but I fought them back. I would not give him the pleasure of seeing me cry.

‘You should not have hidden from me the fact that you spent a month as an inpatient in a psychiatric hospital with an eating disorder.’ He was loud, and he was angry.

I wondered how he had found out. Not that it mattered.

‘I didn’t hide it,’ I said. ‘I just didn’t broadcast the fact. And it has no relevance to my competence as a doctor.’

‘Of course it’s relevant.’

‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why does having a psychiatric condition make me less able as a doctor?’

He didn’t have an answer. He just waved his hand in a dismissive manner.

But I wasn’t finished.

‘You of all people should know.’

‘And what do you mean by that?’ he demanded furiously.

I had known of Adrian Kings for a very long time. We had both been students at Guy’s Hospital Medical School in London during the 1990s, even though we had never actually met while there. He was some five years older than me and had already qualified as a junior houseman when I was still doing my pre-clinical studies. But stories of the ‘mad doctor’ had permeated down to us lesser mortals. Adrian had suffered with obsessive-compulsive disorder, in particular to do with washing his hands. All physicians are taught to keep their hands clean and germ-free, but Adrian had taken it to extremes, washing his far too often and scrubbing them until they bled. It was said to be the reason why he had gone into general practice rather than becoming the heart surgeon that he’d intended.

‘I was at Guy’s in the nineties,’ I said.

He stared at me. He must have known to what I was referring, but if I thought that, as a fellow sufferer, he might be more understanding of my position, I was much mistaken. If anything, it made him more determined to be rid of me.

‘I don’t want you here, not now, not ever,’ he said loudly and adamantly. ‘Get out and stay out.’ He pointed at the doorway.

He was the senior medical officer and it was his prerogative to have whomever he wanted on his team. I feared that my days as a racecourse doctor might be over for good.

I took just one step out of the medical room, my mind trying to come to terms with how my situation had so suddenly changed when all I had wanted to do was to help.

The tears came back into my eyes, blurring my vision.

The door to the medical room was in one corner of the male jockeys’ changing room and I stood outside it gazing into space, almost as if in a trance.

My life seemed to be moving in an ever-steepening downward spiral. I still wasn’t allowed by the Medical Director to return to my day job and now I had seemingly lost my most enjoyable distraction from hospital work.

I wiped the tears from my eyes and realised that I had been staring into the changing room in general and at Dick McGee in particular. He stood on the far side holding a set of red-and-white-striped silks while wearing just a towel around his waist. He must have felt that I had been purposely looking straight at him. He glowered back at me. I slightly lifted a hand in apology and he responded by removing the towel.

If he thought that a naked male form was going to offend me, he was wrong. As an emergency doctor, I’d seen more willies than he’d had roast lunches.

I laughed, and that didn’t please him either. He made a rude gesture in my direction and mouthed a couple of very ungentlemanly words encouraging me to go away; instead, I looked around to see if I could spot Mike Sheraton or Jason Conway. Not that I particularly wanted to see their willies too, I was just curious to see if they were there so that I could ask them about the man in the photo. But there was no sign of either of them.