Locum Tenens: Portrait of a Welsh Country Doctor
Locum Tenens begins in Liverpool, where Neville flirts with a singing career which displeases his father, a general practitioner, who sends Neville to medical school in Dublin.
Carrying on the family tradition of working as a general practitioner, Neville returns to Mid-Wales where he builds a private practice, adding partners to handle the work load and has a family. His life appears strong and stable, but is far from it. He succumbs to an affair, loses his private practice and is kicked out of his home. Estranged from his wife and family, and in ill-health himself, he returns to his childhood home, now vacant after his mother’s death, and begins working as a locum tenens – a doctor on-call — to support himself and his former wife.
The second half of the novel occurs over Easter weekend while Neville makes nine house calls in rural Mid-Wales. He treats a librarian, a car mechanic, a single mother, a gypsy, a pensioner, a young man threatening to jump off Devil’s Bridge, and a farmer’s daughter. His final call is to an elderly farmer’s widow. Neville arrives moments after she has taken her own life. Throughout these house calls, Neville’s natural born talent as a compassionate, knowledgeable, imaginative physician shines.
After his long Easter weekend on-call, Neville’s attempt to reconcile with his wife and family is unsuccessful, but his gifts as a physician endure.
This book is yet to be published.
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From Locum Tenens: Portrait of a Welsh Country Doctor
Decades of being on call had trained Neville to intuitively hear sounds in another room. When he woke to the phone ringing it was twenty past one. Getting off the futon was painful, but he managed to make it to the end of the hall after only seven rings.
It was Humphries of the local Aberystwyth police forwarded by Radnor Amb.
“Sorry Nev, but I’ve got a Welsh-speaking boy on Devil’s Bridge behaving erratically. Won’t speak English. No coat. Looks like a jumper.”
“You’re in Aberystwyth. I’m in Knighton. How’d you find me?”
“We always find you, sir. Take you thirty minutes this time of night.”
In thirty minutes the boy might be dead on the rocks. On the other hand, he’d had jumpers before who stood out there for hours. While Humphries gave him details, he tried to think of the quickest route. He’d been talking down jumpers for years; not going was unthinkable. Humphries told him what he knew of the scene.
“Do my best.”
“North side.”
He called Radnor Ambulance. If there was a serious emergency, he told them to transport to hospital.
He dressed quickly, grabbed his coat, scarf, watch cap, gloves, keys, black bag and mobile and went carefully down the stairs. Wind whipped his scarf into his face as he walked to his car. The temperature had dropped.
The roads were empty. There was no direct route over the mountains. At least he knew the way, he thought, turning up into the dark hills. What a night.
In north Wales, the Menai Bridge attracted jumpers because of the treacherous currents. In Mid-Wales, Devil’s Bridge was equally notorious for its name and the 300-foot drop onto jagged rocks. If the winds were too strong or coming from the wrong direction, the jumper wouldn’t be able to hear him, even with the loudhailer. He reviewed what Humphries had told him: a woman driver had called around midnight to say she’d seen a distraught boy on the topmost bridge pacing back and forth. When Humphries went out to speak to him, the boy shouted in Welsh and threw a rock, then put one leg over the iron railing. Humphries had wisely backed off.
When he got to Devil’s Bridge, traffic had been stopped on both sides. He counted three police cars and the Aber ambulance. A letter in the local paper had been critical of the money spent lighting all three bridges twenty-four hours a day. Well, those lights now made all the difference. Apparently, the boy was still out there.
“You’ve got your work cut out for you, Nev. He’s got both legs over the rail.”
It was Davies. They walked up the ramp. The boy was visible, about thirty yards away. He was facing into the wind. That was a good sign. A sudden gust would knock him back onto the bridge. The wind would be critical — its direction and strength. Another officer handed him the loudhailer. It was a new model.
“Are we glad to see you! Here’s the switch.”
Neville held it up to his mouth and pressed the button. It was half the weight of the old one. This one would make his job a lot easier.
“What’s he been saying?”
“I’m guessing Leave me alone. Go away. Strange sort of dialect. Can’t sort it out. Feisty. Drunk. Or doped.”
“Or mad,” said a third officer who joined them.
Neville walked down the ramp to be upwind of the boy in order to be heard. But would he be able to hear the boy? He pushed up his watch cap to uncover his ears. He told Davies to tell the others to go back to their cars and to tell ambulance control to turn off their headlights. He wanted the boy to feel alone, not the focus of attention. He needed to isolate him from the commotion and establish a bond. When he leaned against the stone embankment, he could feel the cold through his coat. The wind was whipping the boy’s trouser legs. He was a tall boy with long hair, no cap no coat. The loudhailer was easy to hold even with his gloves and he liked the bright orange handle. He held the mouthpiece in his gloved hand to warm it then put it up to his mouth.
“Ydych chi’n siarad Cymraeg?”
The boy shouted an obscenity. He had a strong voice and he was wound up.
“Meddyg ydw i,” said Neville. He wanted the boy to know he wasn’t a policeman. They continued in Welsh.
“You picked a cold night.”
“I don’t feel the cold, Doc.”
“I do.”
“Then go back to your missus.”
The rubble made it difficult to get a secure footing, but Neville climbed onto the embankment.
“Can you see me?”
“You the fat man on the wall?”
“That’s right. I come from Aberystwyth. Where you from?”
“Cut the crap.”
His Welsh was full of idioms.
“My father was a doctor. And my son is a doctor. And I’ve been a doctor for forty years.” He wanted the boy to know he was not the police.
“I don’t need a doctor.”
“No, you need somebody who speaks Welsh.”
“Don’t need anybody.”
“Let me tell you how it work. You ask a question. I answer it. I ask a question. You answer it.”
Silence.
“What’s your name?”
“Go to hell. Sir.”
“Don’t call me sir.”
“Sorry, Doc.”
“My patients call me — ”
“I’m not a patient.”
“No, you’re what we call a jumper.”
“You’re learning fast, doc.”
“My patients call me Neville.”
“Rhymes with devil. Ha! Ha!”
“That’s right. Now what’s your name?”
“Rhymes with stiff.”
“Griffith?”
Silence.
“Cliff?”
“Bingo.”
The moon came out from behind the clouds. It was nearly full. He could see the boy better. He had both hands on the railing. If the wind got any stronger, they might not be able to hear one another.
“Where’d the coppers go?”
“I asked them to back off.”
“Don’t come out here.”
“Don’t worry. I’m terrified of heights.”
“Me too.”
That was curious.
“So how did you conquer your fear?”
“I didn’t.”
“You scared now?”
“What the hell do you think?”.