139
But Bond didn’t want any supper. Any
appetite he’d had had disappeared along with the
realization that for the very first time in his career as a secret agent he wasn’t going to get his way with
a woman, and for a reason that he had never come up against before.
Bond never saw Nurse Penny Marchant again. The following night the short and fat nurse
was back on duty so he never knew what might have happened had Nurse Marchant put in another appearance.
Would he have propositioned her again if she had? Periods didn’t last for ever and Nurse Marchant’s might
have been over by then but her turning him down had given his ego a severe jolt. Apart from that it would
have been embarrassing if he’d propositioned her again and she was still in the same position as she’d been
in the night before. And anyway, he concluded, there would be other Bond Girls, just as there always had
been, so why take the risk of belittling himself?
Dr Snodgrass, the consultant assigned to Bond’s case, had become concerned about
Bond’s bladder problem. When Bond had first come out of his coma he had been confined to bed and when he
had to pass water he had only to ask the nurse for a bottle. However after ten days had passed, Bond
getting stronger by the day, Dr Snodgrass had allowed him out of bed, and now when duty called, which
it did with all its old frequency, Bond had to walk down the passage to the Gents’ toilet some fifty
yards away. The tall and thin nurse had brought this to Dr Snodgrass’s attention, one thing had led
to another, and Bond, against his better judgement, had allowed Dr Snodgrass to talk him into letting
one of the hospital’s specialists, Dr Singh, give him an examination with a view to alleviating the problem.
An appointment was arranged for the following day and the examination was duly carried out, or at least was
carried out until Bond’s head crashed into Dr Singh’s surgery wall and his memory had returned.
