craggy but interesting. He nodded at her in a reassuring fashion.
'Beginning to get your bearings?'
'I - I think so. I - did you - what happened?'
'Don't you remember?'
'The traffic. I - it came at me - it - ' She looked at him.'I was run over.'
'Oh no, you weren't run over.' He shook his head. 'I saw to that.'
'You?'
'Well, there you were in the middle of the road, a car bearing down on you and I just managed to snatch you out of its way. What were you thinking of to go running into the traffic like that?'
'I can't remember. I - yes, I suppose I must have been thinking of something else.'
'A Jaguar was coming pretty fast, and there was a bus bearing down on the other side of the road. The car wasn't trying to run you down or anything like that, was it?'
'I - no, no, I'm sure it wasn't. I mean I-'
'Well, I wondered-It just might have been something else, mightn't it?'
'What do you mean?'
'Well, it could have been deliberate, you know.'
'What do you mean by deliberate?'
'Actually I just wondered whether you were trying to get yourself killed?' He added casually, 'Were you?'
'I - no - well - no, of course not.'
'Damn' silly way to do it, if so.' His tone changed slightly. 'Come now, you must remember something about it.' She began shivering again. 'I thought - I thought it would be all over. I thought - '
'So you were trying to kill yourself, weren't you? What's the matter? You can tell me. Boy friend? That can make one feel pretty bad. Besides, there's always the hopeful thought that if you kill yourself you make him sorry - but one should never trust to that. People don't like feeling sorry or feeling anything is their fault. All the boy friend will probably say 'I always thought she was unbalanced.
It's really all for the best'. Just remember that next time you have an urge to charge Jaguars. Even Jaguars have feelings to be considered. Was that the trouble? Boy friend walk out on you?'
'No,' said Norma. 'Oh no. It was quite the opposite.' She added suddenly, 'He wanted to marry me.'
'That's no reason for throwing yourself down in front of a Jaguar.'
'Yes it is. I did it because-' She stopped.
'You'd better tell me about it, hadn't you?'
'How did I get here?' asked Norma.
'I brought you here in a taxi. You didn't seem injured - a few bruises, I expect. You merely looked shaken to death, and in a state of shock, I asked you your address, but you looked at me as though you didn't know what I was talking about.
A crowd was about to collect. So I hailed a taxi and brought you here.'
'Is this a - a doctor's surgery?'
'This is a doctor's consulting room and I'm the doctor. Stillingfleet my name is.'
'I don't want to see a doctor! I don't want to talk to a doctor! I don't - '
'Calm down, calm down. You've been talking to a doctor for the last ten minutes.
What's the matter with doctors, anyway?'
'Tin afraid. I'm afraid a doctor would' say - 'Come now, my dear girl, you're not consulting me professionally. Regard me as a mere outsider who's been enough of a busybody to save you from being killed or what is far more likely, having a broken arm or a fractured leg or a head injury or something extremely unpleasant which might incapacitate you for life. There are other disadvantages. Formerly, if you deliberately tried to commit suicide you could be had up in Court. You still can if it's a suicide pact.
There now, you can't say I haven't been frank. You could oblige now by being frank with me, and telling me why on earth you're afraid of doctors. What's a doctor ever done to you?'
'Nothing. Nothing has been done to me.
But I'm afraid that they might - '
'Might what?'
'Shut me up.' Dr. Stillingfleet raised his sandy eyebrows and looked at her.
'Well, well,' he said. 'You seem to have some very curious ideas about doctors.
Why should I want to shut you up?
Would you like a cup of tea?' he added, 'or would you prefer a purple heart or a tranquilliser. That's the kind of thing people of your age go in for. Done a bit yourself in that line, haven't you?' She shook her head. 'Not - not really.'
'I don't believe you. Anyway, why the alarm and despondency? You're not really mental, are you? I shouldn't have said so.
Doctors aren't at all anxious to have people shut up. Mental homes are far too full already. Difficult to squeeze in another body. In fact lately they've been letting a good many people out - in desperation - pushing them out, you might say - who jolly well ought to have been kept in.
Everything's so over-crowded in this country.
'Well,' he went on, 'what are your tastes? Something out of my drug cupboard or a good solid old-fashioned English cup of tea?'
'I - I'd like some tea,' said Norma.
'Indian or China? That's the thing to ask, isn't it? Mind you, I'm not sure if I've got any China.'
'I like Indian better.'
'Good,' he went to the door, opened it and shouted, 'Annie. Pot of tea for two.' He came back and sat down and said, 'Now you get this quite clear, young lady.
What's your name, by the way?'
'Norma Res - ' she stopped.
'Yes?'
'Norma West.'
'Well, Miss West, let's get this clear.
I'm not treating you, you're not consulting me. You are the victim of a street accident - that is the way we'll put it and that is the way I suppose you meant it to appear, which would have been pretty hard on the fellow in the Jaguar.'
'I thought of throwing myself off a bridge first.'
'Did you? You wouldn't have found that so easy. People who build bridges are rather careful nowadays. I mean you'd have had to climb up on to the parapet and it's not so easy. Somebody stops you.
Well, to continue with my dissertation, I brought you home as you were in too much of a state of shock to tell me your address.
What is it, by the way?'
'I haven't got an address. I - I don't live anywhere.'
'Interesting,' said Dr. Stillingfleet.
'What the police call 'of no fixed abode'. What do you do - sit out on the Embankment all night?' She looked at him suspiciously.
'I could have reported the accident to the police but there was no obligation upon me to do so. I preferred to take the view that in a state of maiden meditation you were crossing the street before looking left first.'
'You're not at all like my idea of a doctor,' said Norma.
'Really? Well, I've been getting gradually disillusioned in my profession in this country. In fact, I'm giving up my practice here and I'm going to Australia in about a fortnight. So you're quite safe from me, and you can if you like tell me how you see pink elephants walking out of the wall, how you think the trees are leaning out their branches to wrap round and strangle you, how you think you know just when the devil looks out of people's eyes, or any other cheerful fantasy, and I shan't do a thing about it! You look sane enough, if I may say so.'
'I don't think I am.'
'Well, you may be right,' said Dr. Stillingfleet handsomely. 'Let's hear what your reasons are.'
'I do things and don't remember about them… I tell people things about what I've done but I don't remember
