Family Doctor

(written early 1980s)

Charles Newton-Smith had a wife and two daughters. They lived in a large airy house on the outskirts of a small market town an hour and a half’s drive from London, where he practised as a GP in a thriving group practice. His wife Mary did not work; she was an artist, in a small way, and made watercolours and prints in the studio converted from an old barn next to the house. Their two daughters attended, at great expense, the local private school – which took pupils from wealthy families all over the world. The doctor’s children, however, attended as day pupils.

They lived to a high standard, with regular trips to Glyndebourne and London’s West End; they entertained lavishly and in style. Most of their friends were richer than themselves – which meant that between public excursions and the children’s school bills, money had to be carefully counted. They economized on heating the large rooms, something which the succession of cleaning ladies found intolerable, and left, one after the other.

Both Charles and Mary had wealthy relatives, and had a sense of having come down in the world. But money wasn’t everything, and the girls were receiving the very best education, growing up in cultured surroundings, with the money being found for every cultural extra, dancing and music lessons –at which elder daughter Emma was showing promise.

Dr Newton-Smith’s practice brought him into contact with an entire cross-section of the local population. He was a good doctor; reserved, but sympathetic and conscientious, and popular with patients, particularly the women. He worked very hard, and would come home exhausted in the evenings, wanting only to watch an occasional programme on BBC2, or read an old classic novel.

Mary would want to chatter – the children stayed so late at school these days that they would not be home for another hour – and sometimes the resentment would lead to rows, and Charles would storm off to bed, pleading a world-weary exhaustion . . . .’ Oh Mary, for goodness sake’s not now, dear.’

But he was not communicative at the best of times. He saw so much of life through his practice – he got Christmas cards from every council estate in the district.

She met only the local gentry with whom they went to dinner, his colleagues occasionally, and the jet-setting parents at school open days of the girls’ school-friends. Who she tried to impress, boasting of their achievements.

She was a good wife, religious, with scrupulous moral standards, But that irritated him – why shouldn’t Emma experiment with Sex, so long as she didn’t get pregnant; do her good.

Seeing as they were girls, Mary had monopolised their education and by the time they were twelve years old, they could cook supper and do housework unaided – perfectly trained homemakers.

Fine, but why should they be virgins as well, we are not Muslims . . . .?

She considered such silly things important – while he handled life and death every day. The girls would have to earn their own livings; young women weren’t married off at eighteen these days; and they would have to be worldly – not like you, Mary dear.

But he felt deeply ashamed of his recriminations towards his wife – she was so devoted; although she frequently made oblique but pained references to his taciturnity; he could rely on her till death. She would always be a perfectly feminine housewife, with taste and culture. All their friends knew that she adored him. He could not let his frustration surface.

But a doctor, like a university lecturer, is constantly tempted to marital infidelity. Patients look up at him from the couch in the surgery with seductive pleas. Female medical students – of which there are far more now than there were in his day – flirt boldly and frivolously, promising everything with no strings attached. It would take a saint to resist, and Charles Newton-Smith was not one.

‘But why couldn’t he just have had a few light-hearted flings, and that have been the end of it?’ their friends said. Mary would have been upset but she might never have found out – never needed to.

‘Why did he have to make of each one such a romantic gesture?’

First of all there was the saint-like, virginal nurse – that affair was never consummated; she resigned her job and left town in a noble gesture of self-sacrifice. Then there was the Dutch medical student, on sabbatical in England, hardly older than his eldest daughter, but brisk, experienced and competent. When she went home, he followed her, on some pretext, but she’d taken up with her old boyfriend, a fellow student, and sent him packing.

It was on the rebound from Anja that he encountered Thea. Thea Wheaton was a teacher at his daughters’ school, about 35 years old, looking much younger, unmarried, a good teacher, but at the same time deeply disturbed and lonely.

She was an anxious, feminine woman, with little-girl blonde curls and prettiness. She had been Charles’ patient for five years and had adored him for almost as long. She was part of the school dinner party circle – and everyone but the doctor’s wife knew of the infatuation; his daughters knew, and were old enough not to tell their mother; they were, in their way, worldly young women. It was only a matter of time.

Thea should have married years ago. Although an intelligent and gifted woman she was just of the generation and background that believed marriage the only true and honourable vocation for a woman. And not being of a rebellious nature, and also aware of being extremely pretty, she had never felt inclined to disagree.

Many men had been devoted to her. She could have married many times over, she was quite aware of this, but nothing had ever been quite right. At first, she had felt too young and convinced that if she went to university and took up a career of some kind, she would be able to do much better than some boy next door.

University proved itself a disappointment, in any case she was an inmate of a women’s college, and it was difficult, particularly in her subject, to get to know any men very well – and she was too sensitive a girl to throw her lot in with someone she did not fully trust.

Once she began to teach in schools, she found to her consternation, that a large proportion of her male colleagues were already married – and that those who were not were either too poor, or too unattractive. She had affairs with some married men, two of whom would have been prepared to leave their wives, but something warned her off the responsibility that being both wife and new family would entail. There was still an old adoring family friend – but he was too boring. Still, she might have married him eventually. . .

But if it hadn’t been Charles it would probably have been someone else. As it was, he became for her a symbol of everything her life had lacked, passion, excitement, total commitment. He was perfect for the role, his general reserve leaving room for infinite interpretations by an active and romantic mind; his culture and breeding apparent in every graceful, competent gesture,  his professional expertise underestimated and modestly contained. He was a man of soul and brilliance, in an unappreciative and philistinical society; he accepted his lot with a noble and uncomplaining stoicism, his silly provincial wife, his boring children.

She took her infatuation as deeply serious, although all her colleagues knew about it, she never joked about it, or tolerated anyone else’s playfulness in her present. She did not see it as something for ridicule; she knew with a profound conviction that eventually the doctor would realise that she, and only she, appreciated him for what he was, could give him the passion and devotion that he deserved.

She came to him every week for psychiatric counselling; she felt depressed, unwell, a vacuum in her life.

He confessed, at last, that he felt the same.

Together they rented a flat in the town. She practically abandoned the cottage she had lived in just outside the school, two miles away, returning only to feed the cats, and lived in the apartment, working there as well, waiting for when he might have half an hour free. They never went out together, when they had to socialise separately, she was always abstracted and vague, he even more taciturn than usual. Everyone they met knew about it, but no-one dared talk; Mary of course did not know.

Charles and Thea were in the curious position of being known by everybody and spoken to by no-one. Neither of them had close friends, their emotions were totally absorbed in each other. They were like an island in the middle of a sea full of spectators. The doctors and teachers, all their society friends, watched and tut-tutted, but said nothing.

But Thea, terrified Charles might abandon her, became increasingly demanding. She wanted to get married, and move away from all the gossips.  She wanted to start a new life with her true love. But Charles’ gentlemanly nature would never forgive him for abandoning his family, not so much the girls, who were almost grown up anyway and had developed into quite resilient characters, but Mary, so devoted, so helpless.

He had to tell Thea that though he loved her to distraction, such betrayal would destroy him, would leave her only the shell of the man she loved. There was no future in it and they must accept that. Also it would not be so easy for him to find another job; the recession had set in; who would employ an ageing GP with no reference?

Thea was distraught. She had waited all her life for Charles, reserved for him all her passion and romance, given everything, her entire being, and now he was talking of leaving her! It was unthinkable. She pleaded desperation, didn’t he know how much she needed him? He was silent. You do love me, I know you do . . .Yes, he admitted it.  But . . . She threatened to kill herself. He looked at her, still mute, but alarmed. It was just possible she would . . . realising her advantage, she pushed it, yes, yes, I would, there’d be nothing to live for, and she looked at her life, how bleak it had been, only her hope and her infatuation providing her with sustenance; to return to that, with no hope, all her passion spent . . . no, it was true, better to die.

But Charles had made his decision. He couldn’t leave his wife, though as he left the flat he knew he wanted to, more than anything in the world. His life too, was bleak. He’d worked in the same place for twenty years, lived in the same house, met the same people. He took pleasure in his work and the service he did to the community, but you do wonder sometimes, why life, the essence of your job, is considered so precious. For so many people, it was misery; and yet to doubt the sacredness of life was heresy in his profession.

His sporadic affairs had provided some excitement, but it wasn’t the sex itself – it was the promise of a different world, a different life, awaiting somewhere far away, that can be touched only by achieving intimacy with the person who lives it. And to be understood, not just twittered at adoringly, as he had to put up with at home – all his paramours had been so understanding – they all knew what frustration and a sense of inadequacy were, he felt close to them, as he’d never felt close to anyone else in his life.

It was because they sinned together, so they were damned together.

Mary, on the other hand, was not capable of understanding sin, let alone committing it.

But there was no going back. His life had been mapped out for him, ever since he had married Mary as a gawky graduate and she had become pregnant almost immediately. He could not change tack now however tempted he might be – he would never be forgiven.

And as for Thea – he didn’t dare think about what she might do. He could only do what he had to.

But in the middle of the night, in a frenzy of guilt and anxiety he drove back to the flat and knocked on the door. No answer. He drove to her cottage. Again no answer. He drove home, calmed by the tranquillity of the summer night and resolved to contact her in the morning.

In the morning she was found dead, poisoned, with letters accusing him. The following day her parents, who lived a hundred miles away, also received a letter accusing the doctor. He had to appear in court, and gave his evidence, numbed – ‘but I did really love her’, he added.

Her parents tried to get a conviction; they didn’t succeed, but he lost his job, and knew he would have to sell his house. Perhaps he would lose his family too, he gave Mary the option of divorce, not knowing what she might say. The proceedings had brought out a strength in her no-one knew she had; she was tight-lipped and brisk, as she never was before, fending off the press with ruthless efficiency.

She didn’t reproach her husband, it wasn’t necessary, he was reproaching himself enough. The most painful moment for her, she told my mother, who is her closest and most loyal friend, was when her husband insisted in court that he really had loved Thea.

Mary was never the same afterwards; though they stayed together, moving to another town three miles distant. She was shyer after that, kept more to herself, did not frequent and dominate community activities as she had done in our town. She walked the dog, read and painted.

Charles got another job; a sympathetic colleague acquired a post for him in the local men’s prison. The other doctors nodded sagely and considered it very suitable; there would be no women.

When I met him again, I thought him much more open and friendly than he used to be. His daughter was continually teasing him about being the ‘dirty doctor’ and he took it with complete equanimity. Perhaps he feels he has nothing to hide anymore; we all know what he was capable of.

And as far as I can gather,  in public opinion he has come off rather well, much better than Thea, who is locally denounced as a ‘neurotic clinging bitch’ – even though she’s dead, and must have paid her price.