'For Lord's sake don't make so much noise! We're supposed to be a devoted couple.'
'I'd like you to understand, Dr Grimsdyke, that I am most definitely not that sort of a girl-'
'I know, I know! But if you'll only give me a moment's peace I can sort the whole thing out. No one is sorrier than I-'
'Nobody will be, by the time my brothers hear about this.'
'I can't help the ruddy fog, can I? Anyone would think I'd put it there myself.'
Petunia threw herself on the bed and started pounding the eiderdown.
'You've got to get me out of here! At once, I tell you. In five minutes. Otherwise I'll smash the window and scream for the police.'
'Pet, I'm doing my best! There must be some way of-'
'I'll scream. I will. I'll wake all the neighbours. You just listen-' She drew a deep breath.
'For God's sake, Pet-!'
The telephone rang in the hall.
'Hold off the sound effects till I've answered it,' I hissed.
'Dr Grimsdyke?' said a woman's voice on the line.
'Speaking.'
'You swine! You cad! You beast! You bigamist!'
'Now just a second. If you'll tell me who's speaking-?'
'You know perfectly well who's speaking. Avril, of course. I'm only ringing to inform you that tomorrow morning I'm starting a breach of promise suit, that'll blow you out of Porterhampton so hard you won't stop till you reach the white cliffs of Dover, which I hope you'll drop over and break your filthy neck. Let me tell you-'
'But I can explain absolutely everything,' I insisted. 'Can't I come round in the morning and see you?'
'You most certainly can't come anywhere near me. Apart from everything else I'm in bed with mumps, which I caught at your beastly party. And I've changed my cards to another doctor. You just wait till my brother comes on leave from the Commandos. Good night!'
In the space of five minutes I'd been abused by two women and threatened with assault from their relatives, which I felt was a record even for chaps like Bluebeard. But the telephone had given me an idea.
I tapped on the Wattles' door.
'I've been called to a case,' I explained. 'I don't expect I'll be long.'
Wrapping a scarf round my neck and pocketing a tin of cough lozenges from the surgery, I set out to spend the night in the fog while Petunia tucked herself cosily into the double bed.
5
The fog was lifting as I tramped back to the Wattles' home. I'd coughed my way into the darkness, with no particular object except keeping alive till morning. About a hundred yards from the house I'd wandered into the main road to London, where I met a chap who'd lost his lorry. He remembered a place in the area called Clem's Caff, which we found by walking an hour or so along the white line. The Caff sported a coke stove, and was full of lorry drivers in steaming overcoats, resembling overworked horses. I bought a cup of tea, which seemed to entitle me to sleep on the table like everyone else. About five-thirty I woke up, feeling as if I'd just been released from the rack in the Tower.
I crept inside the house, tapped softly at the bedroom door, and Petunia let me in.
'You look as if you've just come off Everest,' she said.
'I hope you passed a good night yourself,' I replied shortly.
'Absolutely adorable. I haven't been so warm for months.' She was already up and dressed, and seemed more amenable than the evening before.
'Poor Gaston! Are you sure you won't catch your death?'
'I wouldn't really care at the moment if I did.'
'I'm sorry-but it wasn't really my fault, was it? Perhaps you could have slept on the floor behind the wardrobe, or something.'
'I think it was a far, far better thing that I did.'
'You know, there really is something of the Sidney Carton about you, dear. No other man I know would have been half so noble.'
'Anyway, it's all over now. The fog's thinning rapidly, and as far as I remember there's a good train about five on Sunday afternoons. If you can stick it out till then.'
'I'm sure I can,' said Petunia. 'It's really awfully cosy here.'
'You do look pale this morning,' giggled Mrs Wattle when I appeared at breakfast. 'I hope you got plenty of sleep.'
The day passed without mishap. Petunia seemed quite to enjoy herself sitting about the house reading magazines, and in the afternoon I drove her to see the Town Hall, the waterworks, the bus depot, and the new abattoir.
'Quite a pretty little place after all,' she remarked, as I pulled up outside the municipal baths. 'It's a wonder I've never been here on tour.'
'Would you like to see the statue of the first Mayor?'
'Yes, please,' said Petunia.
After tea and Dundee cake I looked at my watch and announced to the Wattles, 'Perhaps my wife ought to be getting ready. We're due at the station in half an hour.'
'But isn't there a later train, darling?' asked Petunia. 'I could always catch that.'
'There's the eight forty-two,' I told her, looking surprised. 'And the ten six.'
'I'll take the ten six.'
'A far better idea,' agreed Ma Wattle. 'A few more hours together mean so much at your age, don't they?'
Shortly afterwards we were left alone. As a matter of fact, we were always being left alone, and Dr Wattle must have got awfully tired of sitting in his cold consulting-room.
'What's the idea, Petunia?' I demanded at once. 'I thought you couldn't get out of the place quick enough.'
She helped herself to a cigarette from the silver box.
'Gaston,' she said. 'I've been thinking.'
I flicked the Wattles' table lighter.
'Thinking what?'
'That this is the nicest part I've ever played.'
'You were a great success at it, thank you very much. And now for the final curtain.'
'But do you know why I was a success? I've just realized it myself. It was because I felt the part-here.'
She indicated her mid-sternal region.
'That's essential for all high-class acting, so they tell me.'
Petunia sat on the sofa.
'Do you remember, Gaston, what you told me in that night-club, the last time we were out together?'
Remembering what chaps tell them in night-clubs is another illustration of how women are congenitally defective in sportsmanship.
'That I was the dearest and sweetest girl you'd ever met, and how you wished you could live in my arms for ever?'
'Ah, yes.'
'Perhaps, Gaston, dear, you didn't think I took your remarks seriously?'
'Of course I did.'
As far as I remembered, she was hitting someone on the head with a balloon at the time.
It's terrible how I have to disguise my feelings, my sweet. We actresses must always put our career first. We can never enjoy the simple home life of other women. It's awfully tragic.'
I think you're perfectly right,' I told her briskly. 'Wonderful thing, devotion to one's vocation. You'll never regret it once you're a famous star with half London at your feet.'
I'd never be a famous star. Not someone like Monica Fairchild, with every manager in London fighting over her. It's no good fooling myself. I'd just continue with walking-on parts, and live with Mum year in and year out, except for a few weeks on tour in miserable theatrical boarding-houses.'
'Oh, come! You're just a bit depressive for the moment. I bet Sarah Bernhardt felt exactly the same dozens of times.'
'But seeing you here,' Petunia went on, flicking her ash over the bearskin rug, 'in your dear little home in this sweet little town, has opened my eyes. My racket isn't worth the candle. I want to settle down.'
'But this isn't my dear little home,' I argued. 'It's Dr Wattle's dear little home. As for the town, I came here intending to settle for life and now I wouldn't even touch it for bed and breakfast. It would send a girl like you crackers in less than-'
She got up and stood so near me I could see the arteries in her conjunctivae.
'This last twenty-four hours I've realized how wonderful it is being your wife-'
'But dash it! You're not my-'
'You're so sweet, so modest. So honourable, so upright. So tender, so considerate, Gaston, darling, I've decided to accept you. We can get married secretly in some registry office-'
'Sorry to disturb the nest of lovebirds,' Ma Wattle chuckled, entering at that moment, 'I just wondered if your wife would like some nice hot soup for supper, to brace her for her journey.'
'Mrs Wattle.' Petunia turned to face her. 'I'm not going. I must stay with my husband. I'll send a telegram to London and resign my job. My mother can send on my things tomorrow.'
'I'm absolutely delighted!' exclaimed the old dear, embracing us. 'As I always say, a woman's place is at her husband's side, come what may. Of course, my children, you may stay with us as long as you wish. I'll just put the kettle on for your hot-water bottles.
I expect after such excitements you'll both be wanting to go early to bed.'
If I wasn't keen on marrying Avril, I'd rather have swallowed the entire poisons cupboard before marrying Petunia. An agreeable companion for a gay night out, certainly. But you can't make a life partner of a woman who keeps trying to conduct the band with sticks of celery.
'You haven't eaten your nice soup, Gaston,' said Ma Wattle at supper.
'Not very hungry, I'm afraid.'
'What a wonderful thing love is!'
I was nearly sick over the sliced brawn.
I was edgy and jumpy the rest of the evening, which, of course, the idiotic Wattles put down to passion, or the expectation thereof. Worst of all, the mental trauma of the past two days seemed to have beaten my brain into paralysis. Nothing I could contrive by ten o'clock prevented Petunia and myself again being shown into my bedroom.
'Alone at last!' breathed Petunia.
'Yes, but only for a couple of shakes,' I told her smartly. 'As soon as the Wattles have bedded down, I'm going to skip it into the night again.'
'But Gaston! Surely you're not going to leave your wife?'
'Pet, you chump! You're not my wife-only on the programme. Let me make it perfectly clear I'm not going to stay with you up here.'
'How honourable you are!' she breathed. 'How fine! How different!'
The Grimsdykes, of course, have their honour. But I must admit I wouldn't have objected to the same arrangement if we'd been in a hotel at Brighton instead of the Wattles' spare bedroom. Under prevailing circumstances the only place for me was Clem's Caff.
'We'll be married tomorrow if you like,' she said, starting to unzip her dress. 'A girl friend of mine once got a special licence terribly easily.'
'Petunia! You don't understand-'
'I understand everything, darling. You're a wonderfully honest man, and I shall love you more and more as the years go by.'
About twenty minutes later I was sitting again over one of Clem's cups of tea. I woke at five-thirty the next morning, so ill from the effects of prolonged exposure that I would almost have married Petunia on the spot for a comfortable night's rest in my own bed. I got back to the house shivering and with a shocking headache, and found Dr Wattle in the hall.
'Just come in from seeing the Mayor's gout,' he greeted Me. 'I didn't know you'd been called out too. I never heard the phone.'
'It was someone with fits. Difficult diagnosis. Took a lot of time.'
'You don't look very perky, my boy. Are you sure you're all right?'
'Bit chilly, this night air.'
'Perhaps I'd better take your temperature?'
As he removed the thermometer from my mouth he asked, 'Ever had mumps? Well, I'm afraid you have now.'
'Mumps!' I cried. 'But-but that means isolation.'
'I'm afraid so. You'll have to stay in your room. Your wife hasn't had it either? Then you'd better be strictly alone. I'll go up and break the sad news. It's best for you not to breathe over the poor child.'
'Petunia's rather alarmed about it,' explained Dr Wattle, returning with some surprise. 'She seemed remarkably upset over those hormonal complications. I told her how terribly rare they are, but she's still awfully agitated. Keeps saying it would ruin her career. I shouldn't have thought it would have mattered much one way or another to a nurse. However, it's none of my business. We'll make you up a bed in the attic.'
I slept for twenty-four hours, which Dr Wattle later wrote a letter about to the BMJ entitled 'Unusual Stupor in Epidemic Parotitis'. Petunia spent the morning gargling, then disappeared for London. As soon as my lumps were down I announced I must go to the sea-side for convalescence, and sent a wire from London explaining I'd been summoned to a dying uncle in South Africa.
I felt pretty sorry for myself. I'd broken a couple of girlish hearts, had a nasty illness, and expected hourly to be assaulted by Commandos, and so on, in the street. Porterhampton had thenceforward to be blotted from my atlas. And now I had to explain it all to my cousin.
But at least I never hurt the dear old Wattles' feelings.
6
'From your appearance,' started Miles, 'you would seem to have finished some protracted party.'
'If you must know,' I replied, rather hurt, 'I've had a nasty attack of epidemic parotitis. I've hardly got over it yet.'
'I'm sorry.'
It being one of my principles always to confess my short-comings promptly, particularly if they're likely to be discovered pretty quickly anyway, I'd telephoned Miles on arrival and invited myself to dinner. I now sat in his South Kensington drawing-room wondering how best to explain the retreat from Porterhampton.
'And when are you returning to your practice?' asked Miles.
I shifted on the sofa.
'As a matter of fact, old lad, I'm not.'
'What? Damn it! You've not been thrown out already?'
'Thrown out?' I looked offended. 'I resigned, with the dignity of a high-principled Cabinet Minister.'
Miles fell silent. To fill the gap I reached for a magazine-one of the shiny ones which report the activities of all our best-bred young women and horses.
'That's what I need,' I said, indicating a photograph of people with long drinks on a yacht at Cannes. 'A few weeks in the sunshine to buck me up.'
Miles made a noise like a tearing sheet of canvas.
'Damnation, Gaston! Are you mad? Are you fit for some institution? Here you are-out of work, penniless, a walking disgrace to your family if not to your entire profession, and you ramble about weeks in the sunshine. Really!'
I tossed the magazine aside with a sigh.
'The trouble is, you're perfectly right,' I admitted. 'I'm not the shining figure of the eager young doctor.'
'You're the shining figure of the shiftless young wastrel, and I don't mind telling you. I seriously advise you to see a psychiatrist. He might at least be able to explain your highly unstable occupational history.'
'The fact is, old lad, I don't need a psychiatrist to tell me that I don't like medicine very much.'
Miles stared as though I were Cinderella telling the Fairy Godmother she didn't care greatly for dancing.
'At Porterhampton the dear old couple handed me every chance to settle down as a respectable family man and family doctor. But do I want to be the modern GP, signing certificates for all the uninteresting patients and hospital letters for all the interesting ones? No, I jolly well don't. And neither do a lot of other chaps, judging by the correspondence in the BMJ. As I'll never be a specialist in anything, and I couldn't possibly sit in the Town Hall with a map of the local sewers doing public health, there isn't much left. The trouble is, I'm temperamentally unsuited to my work.'
'But think of all those years of study-wasted!'
'They're not wasted a bit,' I argued. 'Look at all the famous chaps who've benefited from a medical education-Leonardo da Vinci, John Keats, Chekhov, and so on. Not to mention Crippen.'
'You must quite definitely see a psychiatrist. And meanwhile, how precisely are you going to earn your bread?'<
br />
'Ah, yes. I agree, that's the problem.'
Further discussion about my professional future was prevented by the appearance of Miles' wife.
'How charming you're back so soon, Gaston,' she greeted me. 'We quite thought you'd gone to seek your fortune up North.'
'I decided that opportunity taps less faintly in London, Connie.'
'I'm so glad. Now we'll see much more of you. What did you say, Miles, dear?'
'Nothing, nothing,' muttered Miles.
I knew Connie pretty well. In fact, once I was in love with her.
This happened when I was a student and Miles had just qualified as Mr Sharper's junior casualty house-surgeon, and pretty pleased with himself he felt about it, too. As I reflected during dinner that evening, Miles and I had never really hit it off at St Swithin's, or even as kids. Miles was the one who didn't get his boots dirty, always had his sums right, wasn't sick at all the parties, and didn't make a fuss about his tonsilectomy. At school he used to make me blow up his football and toast his crumpets. Then I followed him to St Swithin's, and like everyone else started medicine by dissecting the dogfish, which has put me off fish suppers ever since. Miles was already well into the course, and by the time I got as far as the anatomy rooms kept buttonholing me in the corridors with fatherly advice.
'If you spent a little more time dissecting and a little less writing all those stupid jokes for the students' magazine; was his usual line, 'you might show you were taking your career seriously.'
'I thought the last one was rather funny. About the girl who said she suffered from claustrophobia because she had a terrible fear of confinement.'
'Take it from me, Gaston, you'll regret this frivolity one day. You stick to your anatomy. It's the grammar of medicine.'
'Personally,' I disagreed, 'I think they only fill medical students with anatomy like they used to fill kids with brimstone and treacle. The experience is obviously so unpleasant, everybody agrees it must be doing them good.'
'I'm not at all certain it isn't my duty to write to my father,' he generally ended.
My own father having unfortunately perished in the RAMC, I was brought up under a Victorian system of guardians, with Dr Rudolph Grimsdyke as chief paymaster. Uncle Rudolph practising at the time out East, Miles was his nark on the spot, and I suppose he sneaked in the end because halfway through the course the old boy cut my allowance by half. I know that ever since _La Bohкme_ it's been thought rather romantic for students to starve in garrets holding the tiny frozen hands of their girlfriends, but that sort of existence didn't appeal to me at all. Particularly as all the girls I knew seemed to complain shockingly of the draughts even in comfortable cocktail bars.
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