Doctor In The Swim (13 page)

‘This is the life,’ said Squiffy approvingly from his deckchair. He stretched out his legs, encased in pepper-and-salt trousers, an old pair of plimsols, and one red and one black sock. ‘Bags of sunshine, fish and chips twice a day, and nothing to do except watch them play off the heats for Saturday afternoon’s beauty contest. I much prefer it to the Carlton at Cannes.’

‘Things are certainly more restful since we got those brats in the cooler,’ I agreed.

It was a couple of afternoons later, and we sat beside the Plage-o-Drome while I got on with my Boswell’s
Johnson
. I’d always had the ambition to read it all the way through, and I still had another six hundred and eighty-four pages to go.

Squiffy scratched his head. ‘I say, Grim – don’t you think we’re being rather hard on the little ones?’

‘
We
are being hard on
them
?’

‘They were a bit high-spirited to begin with, I agree. But what’s the seaside for if it isn’t high spirits? The little dears ought to be playing happily with the rubber ducks in the Kiddies’ Heaven.’

‘They’d be much more likely playing happily with the fruit machines in the Tankard Tavern. Besides, they’d be infecting everyone within spitting distance.’

‘But when I borrowed your key and went to have a chat with the kiddiwinks after breakfast, they said they’d all had German measles except that one.’

‘I isolated them,’ I said firmly. ‘And they jolly well stay isolated until I say so.’

‘I dunno, Grim.’ Squiffy scratched his head again. ‘I just can’t understand you these days. You used to be such a bright and happy character, and now you might be old Job himself sitting sunning his boils. You don’t even seem interested in those lovely girls in the beauty competition.’

I’d noticed the girls wandering round the camp, guarded by a pack of rather sinister chaps. But for years all girls in beauty competitions had struck me as looking like a row of new Bentleys, shiny, expensive, nice to possess, and all exactly alike.

‘Between you and me, Grim, I’ve absolutely picked the winner,’ Squiffy went on warmly. ‘It’s that girl called Pagan Flame. She’s got all the points – lovely thighs, good deep chest, healthy hair, not to mention terrific stamina.’

‘Yes, I noticed that you’d been hanging round the stabling.’

‘Got to keep an eye on the fancy, Grim. Someone might nobble her. You know, puncture her bra, or something.’

‘Hi, there, Georgie-Porgie!’

At that moment Pagan Flame herself appeared round the corner of the Bingo Hall, wearing a black swimsuit.

‘Why, hello,’ returned Squiffy, blinking a bit.

‘How’s my cave man this morning?’ she laughed, slapping him on the shoulder and knocking his glasses off.

Pagan Flame was an Australian, a tall good-looking redhead of the sort who look so smashing lying all bronzed on the Sydney beaches. She was just the chum for one of those lifeguards who drag in a couple of swimmers with one hand while beating off the sharks with the other, but her general effect on Squiffy was making him look like a cornfield just vacated by a herd of elephants.

‘Still working out how to blow up the world, Georgie-Porgie?’ she grinned, giving him a pinch that pretty well amputated his arm.

‘Turning over a few formulae in my head, you know. I’ll he along to the Dubarry Ballroom as soon as they sound the fanfare on the tannoy.’

‘Just you watch for my wiggle,’ laughed Pagan Flame again, blowing a kiss and striding off.

‘Interesting girl, that,’ said Squiffy.

‘And yet another you’ve led up the garden path of the Atomic Energy Authority?’

‘Grim, you
are
a spoilsport. Honestly, you’re like my old man when the bank rate goes up during his lumbago. Everyone shoots a bit of a line in these places, anyway. I impressed her no end in the Bingo Bar last night, holding forth about the new bomb. You know, the really jolly one, which knocks everybody off but leaves the homes and gardens. The opposition just moves in and takes over the lot, Marble Arch, Crown Jewels, and all.’

‘Where did you get all that from, may I ask?’

‘The science mag I confiscated from one of the brats at the prepper, but she wasn’t to know. And a jolly shrewd move it turned out,’ Squiffy continued. ‘There was a fellow called Whitherspoon or something at the bar, who turned out to be a bookie enjoying his seaside fortnight.’ He laughed. ‘Odd, Grim, isn’t it, you never think of bookies having holidays? Difficult to imagine them at all without their little blackboard and that leather satchel bursting at the seams with the takings. Still, I suppose they have wives and families and are kind to dogs, like ordinary people. That fellow Whitherspoon,’ ended Squiffy proudly, ‘took me for a mug.’

‘Go on?’ I remarked, reaching for my pocket dominoes.

‘Yes, he thought I was some airy-fairy academic type, far too busy blowing everybody up to face the realities of life. So I scraped up absolutely all the cash I could lay hands on and put it on Pagan Flame. And the idiot bookie gave me five to one. Not bad, eh? I’ll pretty well clear off the little amount outstanding to the head beak.’

‘But what,’ I pointed out, ‘if she doesn’t win?’

‘But, Grim, she’s a cert. I have information.’

‘Hell is paved with more good tips than good intentions.’

‘There you go again, Grim. You make Jeremiah sound like the bloke doing the dog-food commercials on the telly. I happen to know that Pagan Flame is going to romp past the post, because Basil told Lucy. All these things have got more rigging than the entire Whortleton Yacht Squadron, believe me.’ A fanfare rang round the camp. ‘Starter’s orders,’ announced Squiffy, rising. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I must nip along and get myself a good place on the rails.’

I turned back to my Boswell. Then I had a go at the dominoes, but you’d be surprised how unexciting it is playing dominoes by yourself. Squiffy was right, of course. If I’d found myself among the prophets of doom, they’d he rallying round trying to cheer me up with funny stories. I began to wonder if I were incubating something like jaundice or a depressive psychosis. Why, I asked myself, was I seeing life through the yellow filter, when in less than a fortnight I should be marrying the nicest girl in the world? I ought to be indistinguishable from one of the Camp’s band of back-slappers.

I gazed out to sea and tried to cheer myself up by picturing the future. We should have a nice house in a nice suburb and Dame Hilda would fix me up with a nice medical job in one of her welfare organizations. Anemone would keep me nice and clean and cook me a nice dinner every night and we should have lots of nice children. Besides, I was jolly lucky getting a mother-in-law who could organize half-a-dozen homes for delinquent females as easily as organizing her spring cleaning. From the morning’s post Dame Hilda had already arranged the wedding down to the last silver-paper horse-shoe, and even saved me the sweat of booking the honeymoon by fixing us up with a chum who ran a home for unmarried mothers in Scotland. And dear old Miles, of course, would choke with delight over his wedding-cake, feeling the match made him and Dame Hilda pretty well blood-brothers.

I pocketed the dominoes. I felt a change of scene might be curative.

I strolled through the camp gate and wandered into Whortleton. I bought a plate of jellied eels. I leant over the rails on the prom. There, I noticed, was the very spot I tackled the bee on Lucy’s neck. There was our romantic outfall. Those senile donkeys were probably the very ones on which I lushed her up with free rides. I gave another of those sighs. Whenever I bit a stick of Whortleton rock, to me it would always have LUCY in letters all the way through.

I treated myself to a lobster tea, a go at the shooting gallery, and the full programme at the local cinema. It was getting late when I reached our chalet, and Squiffy still being out I climbed into bed, had another go at Boswell, and quietly dropped off.

I was shaken awake by Squiffy about two in the morning.

‘Hey! Grim! Congratulate me.’

‘What have you done? Scooped the bingo pool?’

‘No, I’m going to be married.’

He started marching up and down the chalet, arms and legs banging against the fittings.

‘I’ve just proposed to little Audrey. Out there beside the Seaview Skittle Alley. And she accepted me.’

‘Audrey? Who’s Audrey?’

‘Audrey Urridge. That’s Pagan Flame’s real name.’

I rubbed my eyes. ‘You don’t mean to say you’ve actually suggested – ?’

‘Why not? I love her. She has great strength of character, a very affectionate nature, and beautiful teeth.’

‘Look, Squiffy – why don’t you get a bit of sleep now, and we’ll sort all this out calmly in the morning.’

‘Mind you, it wasn’t a push-over,’ Squiffy continued. ‘Far from it. Audrey said, “Go on, cobber, I hardly know you, and I don’t mix with professors anyway.” So I said I wasn’t really a professor – I’d promoted myself a bit during the evening, I suppose – I was merely the worthless only son of a bloke who owned half a bank in the City, and she said, Correction, please, she’d marry me any day I liked. What do you think of that?’

‘As far as I am concerned,’ I told him, lying down again, ‘you can ruddy well marry all twelve finalists and Basil Beauchamp as well.’

‘There you go, Grim. You’re like Scrooge missing the four aways again. Most people sound jolly pleased when other people tell them they’re engaged.’

‘I’m sure your old man will make up for it when he gets hack from Karachi next week.’

‘I’ve thought of that.’ Squiffy sat on his bed. ‘The old man is certainly a bit cagey about my affairs. He’s had to buy off a few girls from time to time, and now he’s definitely out of the market. But with Audrey it’s different. So I’m going to show my Dad and the entire world what a terrific chap I am by nabbing this sinister spy chap, Yarmouth.’

‘What, the comrade from Notting Hill?’

‘That’s it. I’m not at all satisfied with Lucy’s explanation. After all, if Audrey and the bookie and you thought I was a high-class scientist, why shouldn’t he?’

‘Good night,’ I said, rolling over.

‘I’ve still got Noreen’s phone number, so tomorrow I’ll get in touch and tell him to send the onion bloke down to Whortleton on Saturday night. I’ll say I’ve got some absolutely terrific secrets on the transfer list, at rock-bottom prices.’

‘Good night.’

‘And jolly silly he’s going to look waiting by the floral clock, when I march up with half the Whortleton Police Force on my heels. Particularly, of course, with all those onions.’

‘Good night.’

‘You really are being an old frosty-face, Grim. It wasn’t a bit like this the last time we were at Whortleton. I don’t care what you say, I shall finally unmask Yarmouth and get all sorts of medals at Buckingham Palace and put the old man in a wonderful mood and get him to let me marry Pagan Flame. So there.’

‘Good night.’

I wondered what dear Lucy would say if she found her dear brother all over the morning papers, battered to death with Boswell.

The Saturday of the beauty finals was another jolly lovely Whortleton day, with the sun sparkling happily on the silvery sands beside the bright blue sea, the gay little white boats bobbing about, and the pretty little yellow helicopter buzzing above dragging out the people caught by the undertow.

‘And how are the dear little chick-a-biddies today?’ asked Squiffy, returning from queuing up at the cafeteria for his seconds of sausages at breakfast.

‘In rather good form at my morning visit,’ I told him. ‘Quite respectful for once.’

My reception in the isolation hut was usually that of King Herod the Great at the local Mothers’ Union. But that Saturday the little girls were all looking clean and tidy in their white dresses and bobbing curtsies all round.

‘A week in isolation has done them no end of good,’ I suggested. ‘Taken their minds off being teenagers for a bit, I suppose. It must be terrible having to go round all the time remembering what a shocking problem you are.’

‘Well, this is the great day.’ Squiffy helped himself to more tomato sauce. ‘They’re off at two-thirty, and it’ll be a proud moment for me when I’m leading Pagan Flame into the Bingo Bar as the winner. I’ve never seen a woman in better condition. She’s moving well, full of spirit, and taking her food wonderfully. A girl of great talent, Audrey.’ Squiffy reached for the marmalade. ‘Did you know she can sing and do jolly funny imitations of girls performing the belly-dance in the Kasbah?’

‘That should be one way of getting through your long domestic evenings.’

‘Besides, she’s bags of badinage and funny Australian jokes. Though the language is a bit of a snag sometimes. I always thought a wombat was something they played cricket with.’ Squiffy looked at his watch. ‘This Beauchamp perisher is turning up after lunch, I suppose. Though it’ll be nice to see old Lucy again.’

‘Yes, it will be nice to see old Lucy again.’

‘Look here, Grim,’ suggested Squiffy, ‘you’re so down in the mouth these days you need taking out of yourself. Next Saturday, when we’re all back in Town, how about you and I and Lucy and Pagan making up a foursome? We can go on a picnic somewhere with a hamper absolutely stuffed with food, and end up with a bite of dinner at a quiet spot on the River. I can easily play host, of course, on Pagan’s winnings. What do you say?’

‘Next Saturday I’m afraid I’ve got an engagement.’

‘Oh, rotten luck. I just thought it might be fun. I suppose we’ll have to take that Beauchamp bird instead. I’d better nip along and see Pagan,’ Squiffy ended, wiping up the remains of the tomato sauce with his bread and marmalade. ‘She always breakfasts in bed, to conserve her strength. Sure you wouldn’t like to put a bit on her, too? Though I don’t suppose Whitherspoon now would give you better than evens.’

He hurried off, leaving me prodding my scrambled egg. I seemed to be losing my appetite. Like Miles and everyone else in the profession I’m a bit of a hypochondriac, and I wondered if I were cooking up some really nasty complaint. Then they’d have to postpone the wedding, I reflected solemnly. The invitations would be cancelled, the presents put in the attic, the Vicar given the afternoon off, the cake cut up and distributed to the poor. ‘The poor chap,’ everyone would say. ‘Languishing in some beastly hospital when he should be having a jolly time of it getting married.’ There I’d be, behind screens at the end of the ward, all pale with Anemone holding my hand, the nurses passing on tiptoe and the consultant outside scratching his head and saying, ‘Tell George to be sure to get a post mortem.’

I suddenly realized I’d finished my scrambled egg and was feeling rather more cheerful.

‘Grim,’ Squiffy burst through the Dining Hall doors. ‘Grim! Come at once. It’s Pagan. She’s coughing.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Worse than that, she looks all peculiar. She’s lying in bed crying her eyes out and saying she wishes she were back in Australia.’

‘Peculiar? How do you mean, peculiar?’

‘All red and blotchy and hot to the touch.’

‘Oh, she’s got German measles,’ I told him. ‘I’d better go and have a look.’

‘A pink macular rash,’ I was observing in her chalet a few minutes later. ‘On the face and spreading to the trunk. Ah, yes. Do you itch, Miss Flame?’

‘I feel lousy all over.’

‘That’s right. General malaise, coryza, slight conjunctival infection. Temperature’s up, of course. May I feel behind the ears? As I thought. Enlargement of the posterior cervical and suboccipital glands.’ I replaced the stricken beauty’s head on the pillow. ‘Never had German measles before? Rubella it is, then. Lot of it about this summer.’

‘But what are you going to do, Grim?’ demanded Squiffy, jumping about at the bedside.

‘Nothing, old lad. There isn’t any treatment. I’ll tell the Camp Commandant you’ll be in dock for a few days, Miss Flame. Take plenty of fluids and don’t worry. Good morning.’

‘But the beauty contest,’ hissed Squiffy, as soon as we stepped outside.

‘I’ve never heard of a girl winning a beauty contest covered with spots.’

‘But if she’s scratched I’ll lose my cash.’

‘So you will, Squiffy. Too bad.’

‘But damn it, Grim!’ Squiffy held his head with both hands. ‘I’ve laid a thousand quid with Whitherspoon on that woman.’

I stared at the chap. ‘A thousand quid? But you never had anything like that sort of cash hanging about. You haven’t been burgling your own bank, have you?’

‘Not exactly. But I thought I was on such a cert, if I could really collect a packet I’d not only pay off the head beak but snap my fingers at the old man, should by any chance he raise objections to my marrying Audrey. Then I noticed this terribly sporty offer in the personal column of the local paper.’

‘You’re not entering for the cross-Channel race?’

‘No, there are some coves with an office round the back of the Town Hall, who apparently think it a crying shame chaps like me with fathers bursting with cash should go about with hardly enough to keep body and soul on the same spot. So they just let you have the stuff on tick until convenient. A very useful arrangement all round. A wonder a lot of other people haven’t thought of it. They were all for giving me five thousand once they’d established who I was, but I’m a pretty careful bird in many respects, Grim, and kept it down to one. And now – Oh, gosh!’

‘Look here, you idiot. I’m sure this sort of bet isn’t recognized at Tattersall’s. You can get this Whitherspoon to give you your stake back again.’

Squiffy gazed at me. ‘Have you ever known anyone anywhere to get their money back out of a bookie?’

‘You have a point,’ I agreed.

‘Can’t you give her something, Grim?’ he pleaded. ‘Surely you medical coves these days have all sorts of wonder drugs up your sleeves?’

‘German measles isn’t in the wonder drug class.’

‘But damn it! How on earth did she catch it in the first place?’

‘From the kid who was sick in the swimming bath, I suppose. Four days is just about the incubation period.’

‘I’m going to chuck myself off the pier,’ announced Squiffy.

‘Yes, I suppose that’s about the best thing you could do,’ I told him, not only thoroughly fed up with the chump but having worries of my own.

I strode back to the chalet to prepare a nice little speech for next Saturday’s wedding. As I’d already lined up the Ascot outfit from Mr Moss and his invaluable brothers, and as Dame Hilda had bought the ring and sent me the bill from Asprey’s, this was all that remained for me to contribute to the proceedings. I sat down at the bedside table with a sheet of paper. As I remembered from acting as second on these occasions, the happy bridegroom first brought merry chuckles all round by referring to ‘My wife’, then he thanked all the uncles and aunts for the cut glass and silverware, and ended up with a funny story to leave them in tucks over the champers. I went on staring at the paper. For the life of me I couldn’t think of a funny story. Even the one about the bishop and the parrot, which cleaned up a bit might do, seemed to have gone from my mind like last week’s cricket scores. I sat smoking cigarettes and gazing at the happy campers cavorting in the sunshine. But of course, I was happier than any of them. Lucky me was shortly going to marry the nicest, etc.

I was interrupted by the reappearance of Squiffy.

‘Grim,’ he announced. ‘I’m a changed man.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘Totally.’ He sat on the bed and twisted his legs. ‘A few minutes ago I was about to end it all, by chucking myself off the top board into the swimming pool.’

‘I thought it was going to be the pier?’

‘Yes, but the pool’s heated,’ Squiffy explained. ‘No point in being uncomfortable about it, is there? As I gazed in the swirling waters beneath I suddenly saw the error of my ways.’

I picked up my pencil. I fancied I’d once heard a funny story about an old lady and a bus-conductor, and wondered if that might do.

‘Here am I,’ Squiffy continued. ‘Born with every advantage a child could want, including a wise father who saw the folly of placing in my youthful hands the agent of dissipation and self-destruction. I refer, of course, to the rhino.’

I lit another cigarette.

‘Instead, my thoughtful pa placed in those hands the very key to the universe – the key of science. I’m quoting from that magazine I confiscated. And what did I do, Grim? I burnt the ruddy lab down, that’s what I did. I’m a fool.’

I agreed.

‘Now I’m going straight back to Mireborough to beg forgiveness, and I’m going to work like stink and get a degree and benefit humanity. I might take up medicine after all, Grim. Are there any beastly medical jobs still going? Leper colonies, and so on?’

I doodled a bit on the paper.

‘I should like now, Grim, to give a little talk to the girls on the subject. I feel they would find it very improving.’

‘I’m sure they would.’

‘I think they, too, might see the errors of their ways, and all go home and sing in the choir.’

‘Possibly.’

‘And so, Grim, if you will kindly let me have your key to the isolation hospital–’

‘There you are,’ I told the chap shortly. ‘Now for heaven’s sake clear off. I’m busy.’

‘Thank you, Grim. Beside their little beds at night, for years to come, they will bless your heart. Just you wait and see.’

Squiffy left. I sat over the paper, smoking more cigarettes and wondering what on earth it was the bishop said to that parrot, and
vice versa
.