8
‘I am absolutely delighted,’ declared Miles, appearing early the next morning to discover me alone in my dressing-gown. ‘And Dame Hilda’s absolutely delighted, too.’
‘Glad to be spreading so much happiness this beastly foggy weather,’ I sneezed modestly.
‘Anemone is not only such a nice girl, but her experience as a social worker will have an invaluable effect on you. I only hope and pray, Gaston – as your cousin you must occasionally allow me a certain frankness–’
‘Always very refreshing, I assure you.’
‘I pray Anemone will bring you to your senses and restore you to the proper paths of medicine. Instead of frittering away your life ever since publishing that frivolous novel of yours. You have not only found a wife, Gaston. With her you will find your soul.’
Decent of him, except his tone gave the impression a soul like mine hadn’t much market value.
‘Both the delights and duties of married life are, I fear, shabbily regarded in this sinful age,’ mentioned Miles, putting a thermometer under my tongue. He went on to point out how he himself at home was a combination of Queen Victoria’s Prince Albert and the Swiss Family’s Mr Robinson. ‘Now that young Bartholomew has arrived to share with Connie and myself our little nest–’
‘Talking of little nests,’ I remarked, removing the thermometer, ‘I shall be needing a bit of the old grandpa’s cash you’ve been holding in trust for me.’
‘Rest assured, Gaston,’ said Miles, putting it in again, ‘that I shall promptly make over your portion of the estate on your marriage.’
‘But now we’re pretty well ordering the cake,’ I indicated, taking out the thermometer, ‘I expect you’d like to let me have a little on account.’
‘I shall unobtrusively slip the cheque into the tail pocket of your morning coat in the vestry,’ said Miles, popping the thermometer back. ‘Just as soon as you have signed the register. Ninety-eight point four,’ he added. ‘You may go out.’
I felt sorry for old Miles, with that nasty suspicious mind of his. In fact, I had never been engaged before – admittedly, on occasion I might possibly have been party to some perfectly informal arrangement – but once Anemone and I had plighted our troth in The Times I was solidly determined to do the right thing by her. After all, we Grimsdykes have our honour, even if it does need a bit of breathing on and polishing up from time to time. When we pledge our heart – or even our grandpa’s old pocket-watch – we are perfectly sincere about it. Particularly, I kept reminding myself, as I’d picked such a nice girl as Anemone.
‘When, my children,’ asked Dame Hilda over the teacups, during the week-end I spent with the delinquent females before slipping off to New York, ‘are you thinking of naming the happy day?’
‘Ah, yes. The happy day,’ I observed.
‘Mind you,’ Dame Hilda went on, ‘I am not saying that you should in any way rush matters.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘In my work I see far too many tragedies from young people rushing blindly into marriage.’
‘Very tragic, yes,’ I agreed, exchanging a nod of agreement across the table with Anemone.
‘I do indeed often feel we have swung too far from the Victorian concept of long engagements,’ reflected her mother.
‘Jolly wise birds, the Victorians.’
‘But you have,’ murmured Dame Hilda, passing the Madeira cake, ‘now been engaged over eighteen months.’
‘Oh, really?’ I looked surprised. ‘Time does fly, doesn’t it?’
‘Indeed, it does.’
Dame Hilda paused to pour the tea. She was a handsome woman, like one of those old-fashioned opera singers, well nourished on bites of managers and conductors. If I’d been a delinquent female, she’d have scared the daylights out of me.
‘I read in a magazine the other day the Bourbon kings were engaged to their future queens for years and years,’ I remarked, feeling she might be interested.
‘They were, of course, betrothed in early infancy,’ returned Dame Hilda, rather distantly. ‘However, I’m sure you both know your own minds.’
Anemone herself was far too nice to enter a delicate conversation like this, but she now chipped in with,
‘Mummy, isn’t it smashing – Gaston says he can come on our fortnight at Whortleton-on-Sea after all.’
Dame Hilda’s eyes lit up.
‘So you managed to free yourself from all those professional entanglements?’
‘Been working at it like a Houdini.’
‘I’m sure a rest by the sea will do you the world of good. You know Whortleton already, I believe?’
I nodded. ‘Though I haven’t had a dip in the briny there for years and years. And I’ve probably quite lost my touch with the local shrimps.’
‘We always stay in that charming hotel overlooking the prom. Anemone and myself share a room, and now I shall ask the management to reserve another for you. I’m sure you young people will find plenty there to amuse yourselves. Perhaps you remember, there is the Aquarium and the Floral Clock, and in the evenings an excellent pierrot show on the pier and bingo in the Winter Gardens.’ Dame Hilda gave a smile. ‘I fancy, Gaston, you won’t leave Whortleton without definitely fixing your wedding day. Not after I’ve had a fortnight’s work on you – I mean, not after a fortnight of its romantic charm has worked on you. Do have one of these little pink cakes. You’d never imagine the girl who made them cut up her baby brother.’
Anemone and myself then went out for a nice game of tennis (she knew some very nice people in the local tennis club). But I must say, I bashed the ball over the net with the faint feeling that Dame Hilda sometimes tried to organize my life rather. Come to think of it, I recalled, watching Anemone’s nice service, ever since I’d been engaged Dame Hilda had treated me as though I were on the strength of her delinquent females. There’d been no end of a row that winter, just because I’d slipped over to Paris with some of the chaps from St Swithin’s for the rugby International. It seemed Dame Hilda somehow disliked my escaping from the respectable network of British Railways, so I didn’t go out of my way to mention I was making for New York.
I hated lying to a nice girl like Anemone, of course. Even when there was a jolly good chance of my never being found out. Now I reflected that two weeks of looking at Dame Hilda in a swimsuit was going to be hell, and that wasn’t to mention those pierrots, but if I’d backed out of their holiday as well, when I was dead and opened they’d have found ‘Whortleton’ written on my heart.
All this didn’t stop me feeling a frightful cad as I put down the telephone after ringing Anemone the morning of my return from New York. I got into the bath deciding that my conduct certainly wasn’t that expected of a man shortly coming up to his second engagement anniversary. Saying you’re in Cheltenham when you’re really in America might be passed off as a mere slip of geography. But making dates with beautiful girls in aeroplanes wasn’t at all the same thing, even if you’d once been sick with them behind the same bathing hut. Odd, I mused, how my sex life over the years had centred round the Whortleton seashore, like the gastropoda. I turned off the hot tap with my toe, making the decision of Sydney Carton under similar circumstances. If by any chance Lucy should happen to telephone, I would merely plead an urgent engagement in Yorkshire and send her a slice of wedding cake.
The telephone rang.
‘Hello?’ I said, dripping a good deal on the carpet.
‘Gaston?’
‘Why, hello, Lucy.’
‘I hope it’s not inconvenient for me to ring?’
‘Inconvenient? Good lord, no. Not in the slightest.’
‘I wanted to say how sorry I was missing you at the airport. I wanted to offer you a lift into Town in my car.’
‘That Customs man was a bit foxed over the tariff on models of the Empire State Building, with snowstorm.’
‘But that isn’t all. I got home to find George had turned up. He’s in a terrible state.’
<
br /> ‘I’d suggest a cup of black coffee and an aspirin for a start–’
‘I mean, the poor dear’s in an awful state of nerves. I’m sure his work is getting far too much for him, Gaston. He really ought to see a doctor, but Mummy’s in St Tropez and Daddy’s organizing a new branch of the bank in Karachi, and of course George won’t do a thing I tell him myself. So I wondered if it would be an awful bore for you to come round and look at him?’
‘Bore? Good gracious, no. Absolutely delighted to have a look at George any time.’
After all, meeting beautiful girls on the quiet for drinks was one thing. But a professional visit to the family was quite another.
‘Gaston, you’re a dear, and I’ll never be able to tell you how grateful I am. Our flat’s in Brook Street, near Claridge’s. If you’re not too exhausted after the flight, why not come round this afternoon for a cup of tea?’
I scribbled down the address, climbed back into the bath, soaped myself all over, and sang Rule Britannia.
9
I ran in some more hot water and finished the crossword and my third cigarette, and modestly congratulated myself that life was for once turning over like some well-oiled piece of machinery. I’d enjoyed a jolly good trip to New York incognito, now I’d only an afternoon’s work finishing off my report on the Conference for Sir Lancelot, then I should have the pleasure of once again meeting my dear old friend Squiffy – and possibly I might bump into that charming younger sister of his at the same time.
I reached out of the bath for my model of the Empire State Building in its little globe, and made a few snowstorms. It’s remarkable how contented you can feel soaking in warm water and thinking of nothing. Such a pity the psychiatrists try to spoil it all by insisting it’s only our daily attempt to return to the conditions of the womb.
My peace was exploded by a terrific knocking on the front door.
In my horses’ larder you can pretty well unlatch the front door from the bath, but I lay under the water like a cagey hippopotamus. As the knocking became even louder it occurred to me the Fire Brigade might be standing rather impatiently on the mat, so I jumped from the bath, slung a towel round my waist, and opened up.
Outside was my cousin Miles, with a suitcase.
‘Where the devil have you been?’ he demanded crossly. ‘I was telephoning you almost hourly all yesterday.’
‘Oh, hello, Miles.’ I looked surprised. ‘As a matter of fact I’ve only just got back from New – Cheltenham.’
‘Cheltenham? What the hell were you doing in Cheltenham?’
‘I was looking up our old grandma.’
Miles frowned. ‘Peculiar. When she saw me about her back in Harley Street the other week she didn’t mention you were paying a visit.’
‘Very forgetful these old folk, you know. Senile degeneration of the arteries–’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ snapped Miles.
He came in, chucked down his suitcase, and sat heavily on my divan.
My cousin stared at the floor for some moments in silence. But from the way he was chewing his tie and being unkind to his hat I could tell he was agitated about something. This struck me as peculiar, because however hot Miles got inside he always presented a frozen exterior to the general public, like one of those comic bombes you get in French restaurants.
‘Damn it, what are you doing like that?’ he demanded suddenly. ‘Going round the place all day stark naked?’
‘Just having the morning bath.’
‘Morning bath? But isn’t it lunch-time yet? I seem to have lost all sense of the clock.’
He picked up the Empire State Building and made a few snowstorms, but it didn’t seem to hold his attention much.
‘An American chap gave me that in a pub,’ I explained quickly. ‘I wonder what on earth the white flaky stuff is they put inside to make the snow? Dandruff, do you suppose? Parmesan? I bet your young Bartholomew could tell us.’
‘Bartholomew?’ growled Miles. ‘Bah.’
This struck me as peculiar, too. Miles was generally bursting to pass on young Bartholomew’s obiter dicta, and generally give the impression it was only a matter of time before the lad had the painful choice between a seat in the Cabinet and opening for England at Lord’s.
‘I’ve just had Anemone on the phone,’ I went on brightly, trying to cheer up the conversation.
‘Anemone? Bah.’
‘Here, I say,’ I returned. ‘That’s no way for chaps to speak of the women chaps love.’
Miles kicked his hat into the corner. ‘As far as I am concerned, all women can go to the devil.’
I scratched my head. ‘But dash it! Only the other week you were carrying on again about the duties and delights of married life, and the basinful of bliss you were enjoying with Connie.’
‘I have left Connie,’ announced Miles.
‘Left her?’
Miles snapped his fingers. ‘Like that.’
‘Good lord!
This was even more startling. It was like Darby starting to phone Joan that he was persistently working late at the office.
‘It is unnecessary to go into the distressing details.’ Miles had a bite at his tie. ‘I will content myself with merely mentioning that the whole matter is entirely Connie’s fault.’
‘You don’t mean she’s been larking about with the milkman?’
‘Milkman? Which milkman?’
‘I mean, you could easily change your dairy–’
‘I was sitting at my fireside, perfectly inoffensively reading The Times, which I am fond of doing after my day’s work – I had been through a particularly trying operating list at St Swithin’s, I will add – when Connie suddenly rose from her chair and started to throw coconuts at me.’
I felt a bit lost. ‘Coconuts?’
‘Yes,’ said Miles. He went on to describe how she followed the coconuts up with The Encyclopaedia of Medical Sciences (volume Guts to Hydrophobia), and while he dodged behind the piano made for the kitchen to find the eggs.
‘Meanwhile, young Bartholomew, attracted by the noise appeared downstairs with his teddy-bear,’ Miles ended. ‘I fear the painful scene will leave a permanent scar on the child’s personality. Though fortunately he seemed to be laughing heartily at the time. I then hid myself in the broom cupboard, and I have not spoken to Connie since.’
‘But my dear old Miles!’ I gave a laugh. ‘You can’t just up-stakes because Connie chucked a few coconuts at you. Anyway, it’s probably only some new parlour game she’s seen on television.’
Miles tightened his lips. ‘There’s more to it than that. During the last few weeks Connie has been deliberately trying to kill young Bartholomew and me, not to mention herself. Now where do I sleep?’
I was by then feeling thoroughly confused, let alone half-frozen, but I could only point out there was hardly room in my flat to swing a kitten.
‘I am of tidy habits and can manage perfectly well in a confined space,’ Miles countered. ‘You will remember at school I was always in charge of the camping.’
He started to unpack.
‘Look here, Miles, old lad, I already have to open the window for elbow room when cleaning my teeth–’
‘Surely you don’t expect me to sleep on the Embankment?’
‘I just thought you might be rather more comfy on the Embankment, that’s all.’
‘You still have my old camp bed, I believe? Then we can set it up and take turns to sleep on the divan. Week on, week off.’
I didn’t much like the sound of all those weeks. It was typical of my cousin Miles, expecting everyone to dash round and help whenever he got into a jam. It was just the same at school, every time he lost his footer boots or got gummed up with his algebra. And I supposed that being a surgeon made it worse, because once you’re scrubbed up in the theatre there’s so many nurses scurrying about to tie up your gown and wipe your brow and order your coffee and biscuits, after a while you’re apt to confuse asepsis with your own importance.
‘That is no problem. After last night, which I could fortunately spend in St Swithin’s on emergency duty, I started my summer holiday. Six weeks official National Health Service leave. Pity, I was rather looking forward to it.’
There seemed no alternative to picking up some clothes and wedging myself in the kitchenette to dress. When I got back I found Miles had spread his belongings all over the divan and was rummaging among them anxiously.
‘I’ve left my woolly slippers behind,’ he complained.
‘It isn’t far to go back and get them.’
‘I certainly shall not. Never in my life do I intend to speak to that woman Connie again.’
I suddenly had one of those bright ideas of mine, which over the years have earned me a few quid at long odds just as they’re coming under starter’s orders. A few well-judged words from Uncle Grimsdyke, I felt, might settle their idiotic quarrel as quickly as my Empire State snowstorm. And that would not only restore Miles to a lifetime of bliss, but give me enough room for a bit of sleep as well.
‘You make yourself at home,’ I invited warmly, ‘and I’ll nip round to your house to collect the slippers. Or do you suppose Connie will start on me, too? Though if she’s still got those eggs to throw, I haven’t had my breakfast yet.’
‘Oh, very well,’ agreed Miles testily. ‘And while you’re there you might as well bring along my dinner jacket, and my set of Dickens and my special shaving lotion as well.’
10
After a night in an aeroplane it made a nice walk round to Miles’ place. The English summer, with its genius for stage effects, had switched off the blasted heath scene and relit the set with soft golden watery sunshine, glistening prettily on the green leaves of the trees and the red sides of the buses and giving the pavements the look of freshly swabbed decks. I took a deep breath of damp London air. There’s no place like home, I reflected, though it would be rather nicer if it had the New York licensing laws.
Doctor In The Swim Page 5