Doctor in Clover (3 page)

The following Saturday morning the Wattles’ house was twittering with expectation.

‘I’d better be off,’ I announced, as the roast pork and stuffing sizzled in the oven. ‘Her train’s due in twenty minutes.’

‘Do greet her with these chrysanthemums, Gaston.’ Mrs Wattle pushed a bunch the size of a sheaf of corn into my arms. ‘They’re fresh out of the greenhouse, and I’m sure she’ll love them. And I’m quite sure we’re both simply going to
adore
her.’

I parked the car in the station yard, bought a platform ticket, and thoughtfully munched a bar of chocolate from a machine. I sat on a bench and read the paper until the train arrived. Peering through the passengers, I soon spotted the familiar red hat.

‘Hello!’ I called. ‘Hope you didn’t have a beastly journey.’

‘It was stinking.’

‘Welcome to Porterhampton.’

‘And what a dump, too!’

‘The city has several charming features, I assure you. Though I shan’t be able to provide much of a conducted tour, as your train home’s at nine-ten.’

‘Thank God for that. What on earth have you got in your arms?’

‘They’re chrysanthemums, from the greenhouse.’

‘You look as though you’ve lost your street barrow.’

‘I think we’d better get off the platform. I might be spotted by one of my patients.’

I led Petunia Bancroft to the car.

‘I’ve had some pretty funny parts in my time,’ Petunia complained as we drove away. ‘But this one makes the Crazy Gang look like the Old Vic.’

‘It’s perfectly simple,’ I reassured her. ‘You’ve only to play The Doctor’s Wife, straight. To an accomplished actress like you, Pet my dear, it’s as easy as selling theatre programmes.’

‘If I hadn’t been out of work I wouldn’t have sniffed twice at the idea, believe you me.’

‘Regard it as a professional challenge.’

‘Costume all right?’

‘Perfect for the part.’

‘I thought I’d better leave off my ankle bracelet.’

‘Can’t say I’ve seen a nurse wearing one.’

‘Supposing this old fellow – what’s his name? – asks a lot of questions with long medical words and that? What the hell am I supposed to say?’

‘Leave it to me. Anyway, all he’s likely to talk about is our epidemic of mumps. Just remember the time you had it yourself.’

‘I haven’t.’

‘Neither have I. Good job, in your case,’ I smiled. ‘Might possibly have mucked up your hormones.’

She asked how, so I gave a brief dissertation on the pathology and virology of mumps until we arrived at the Wattles’ front gate.

‘Petunia,’ I announced. ‘Your cue.’

I was pretty worried about the performance, though I didn’t let on to Petunia. Another of the useful things you learn from studying medicine is radiating cheerful confidence all round while wondering what the devil’s going to happen next. But I must say, she created the part of Mrs Grimsdyke magnificently. In half an hour the old couple were all over her.

‘Where did you train, my dear?’ asked Dr Wattle, as we sat down to lunch.

‘Oh, at RADA,’ said Petunia.

He looked puzzled. ‘That seems a hospital I haven’t heard of.’

‘An affectionate name for the Royal Diabetic,’ I told him.

‘Is it really? Dear me, I never knew. One learns something every day. And what is the trouble with this important case your husband tells us you’re nursing?’

‘Er – foot and mouth disease.’

‘Attacking a human? Good gracious me! How extraordinary. I’ve never heard of such a thing before in my life.’

‘Petunia means the poor fellow is down in the mouth because he’s got one foot in the grave. Quite a common nurses’ expression.’

‘Is it indeed? Of course, you’ve had more recent contact with such things than I, Gaston. How one hates to be thought behind the times! I must try it out at the next BMA meeting. I expect, my dear, you’ve had wide experience nursing cases of mumps?’

But I neatly managed to steer the conversation away from shop, and as the afternoon wore on I felt my troubles were sorting themselves out splendidly. The old couple’s feelings were saved, I was out of the matrimonial target area, and I could make a leisurely exit from Porterhampton as soon as Miles was safely on the St Swithin’s staff. Besides, I now had a handy excuse for nipping down to London any weekend I felt like it.

‘My train goes in about an hour,’ Petunia reminded me, when we’d reached the cold ham supper stage.

‘What a shame you can’t stay longer,’ sighed Mrs Wattle.

‘Petunia has to be on duty at midnight,’ I explained. ‘As a matter of fact, I might as well be getting the car out.’

I opened the front door, and a nasty complication to my little plan rolled all over me.

I suppose this country wouldn’t be the same if it weren’t dosed regularly through the winter with fog. Can you imagine such national heroes as Sherlock Holmes or Jack the Ripper prowling about on nice mild summer evenings? How would Dickens’ characters have looked in the Neapolitan sunlight? Or the dear old Houses of Parliament shining like the Taj Mahal? Our national character gets regularly tested by the frightful complications of fogs, particularly the great big grey thing that rose like a wall of dirty muslin from the front doorstep.

‘I’d better telephone British Railways,’ I muttered.

The word ‘trains’ evoked only a mystified silence on the wire,

‘The midday hasn’t turned up yet from Manchester,’ said the fellow at the station. ‘And where the morning express from Glasgow’s got to, nobody knows. If you want your prospects of getting to London tonight, sir, they’re nil. It’s the biggest and thickest we’ve had this century, according to the wireless.’

‘So now Petunia will have to stay till morning,’ said Ma Wattle, smiling benevolently.

‘But that’s impossible!’ she cried.

‘Has to be back to her case,’ I explained quickly.

‘Surely under such circumstances a replacement could be found in London?’ insisted Dr Wattle.

Petunia stamped her foot. ‘Gaston can drive me.’

‘Only into the first ditch, I’m afraid.’

‘I absolutely and positively–’

I managed to shut Petunia up, the Wattles clearly thinking this rather odd behaviour for a pair of lovebirds.

‘Don’t worry, my dearest,’ I pretended to give her a tender kiss. ‘Leave it to me.’ I hissed in her ear. ‘I’ll get you out of it,’

‘I’m not worrying at all, my sweet. You’d blasted well better,’ she hissed back.

We all sat down and looked at the television.

I spent the rest of the evening trying to concoct some fog-proof excuse. Should I pretend to perforate a duodenal ulcer? Or set light to the house? Or simply make a clean breast of it on the hearth-rug? I rejected each one. They would all upset the Wattles too much.

In short, nothing I could evolve by ten-thirty prevented the pair of us being ushered by Ma Wattle into my room, with two hot-water bottles in the double bed. ‘You dirty little stinker!’ started Petunia, as soon as the door was shut. ‘This is the meanest and nastiest trick – !’

‘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.

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 Gaff.

‘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.