Doctor In The Swim (11 page)

‘Perhaps I intrude?’ began Connie.

‘Darling!’ Miles came to life. ‘My beloved! My heart’s easel My angel pie! Have you the car? Take me back home instantly.’

‘That’s exactly why I came down,’ Connie added calmly. ‘Though I didn’t expect to find myself so heavily outnumbered.’

Connie’s arrival, naturally, raised even more interest than the dog’s. The Jellybone Sisters stood in a group and giggled. Dolores gave her a long look and announced, ‘Won’t anyone give me a cigarette?’ The mastiff itself started growling at Miles’ sponge bag. I leant against the hat stand, and I could only feel thankful that at least we seemed to have come to the end of our visiting list.

‘I didn’t know you were intending to settle in the East, Miles,’ Connie continued dryly. ‘You know how the heat upsets you so.’

‘East? Me? What east?’

‘Running off with one woman, I can understand. But I assure you four would never pass in South Kensington.’

‘The whole picture is completely and totally false,’ Miles declared. ‘It was all cooked up, my love, honestly. All for the – well, for the divorce,’

‘So, Miles, you really intend to force me into divorcing you?’

‘No, no, no!’ exclaimed Miles. ‘Not for a moment, really. Nothing was further from my thoughts.’

Connie raised her eyebrows. ‘Then what arc you up to, for heaven’s sake? Running a fresh-air home for the ladies of London?’

‘I told you, it’s entirely a put-up job. It was Gaston who made me do all this.’

‘So.’ Connie eyed me,

‘Here, I say–’ I protested.

‘I begin to see,’ added Connie.

‘Look here, Connie, it’s nothing whatever to do with me–’

‘Did you or did you not organize this present gathering?’ Connie demanded.

‘Well…yes, of course, I organized it,’ I admitted shortly. ‘You don’t suppose Miles could have risen to it, do you?’

‘Oh,’ said Connie quietly.

‘I shall positively expire if I don’t have a cigarette this very minute,’ Dolores informed everyone.

‘Perhaps we’d better be going, dear,’ murmured Gertie.

‘Yes, it’s been lovely,’ agreed Cissy.

The dog finished eating Miles’ sponge bag, and finding itself at a loose end sat under the washbasin and barked.

‘I see,’ Connie went on. ‘You, Gaston, worked your wicked wiles to estrange us, so that you could slip round behind your own cousin’s back and thrust your bestial attentions on me.’

‘What’s all this?’ demanded Miles, advancing on me a bit.

‘I like that!’ I now felt thoroughly narked. ‘I’ve never thrust anything on Connie in my life, except those cheap olives you provide at those rotten parties of yours.’

‘Pustule,’ muttered Miles, who seemed to have made a complete recovery from his attack of vertigo. ‘Pathogenic organism.’

‘Coo,’ said Gertie.

‘If I can’t have a cigarette, I must have a drink,’ remarked Dolores. ‘Do you suppose if I ring the bell it will get up the old man from the hall?’

‘Miles, you fool!’ I brought down my fist on the commode. ‘Surely you can’t really believe I’m a snake wriggling in your front lawn? Dash it, I’m your cousin! I’d never dream of misbehaving myself in the slightest with Connie.’

‘He tried the other week,’ said Connie evenly. ‘Twice.’

‘Leprous bacterium,’ growled Miles, approaching closer.

‘But can’t you understand? I agreed to help Connie with the divorce only for old times’ sake–’

‘Old times
what
, you moral streptococcus?’ muttered Miles.

‘Well…damnation, I mean to say, Connie and I were mildly chummy before you slid her up to the altar…’

‘Gaston, you putrefying abscess! You never told me this.’

‘
Mildly
chummy,’ I repeated. ‘I merely took her up the river when you were on duty at St Swithin’s. I thought you knew? And anyway, what the hell’s the odds at this stage?’

‘It was at this very hotel,’ chipped in Connie, ‘that Gaston and I stayed the week-end he drove me down to Whortleton.’

‘You toxin,’ cried Miles, and caught me no end of a sock in the epigastric region.

The Jellybone Sisters gave a scream, the dog started barking again, and someone in the next room began hammering on the wall.

‘What sort of a hotel is this?’ demanded Dolores. ‘Nobody answers the bells.’

‘Miles!’ exclaimed Connie, as I bent puffing over the commode. ‘How wonderful you are.’

‘As much as I decry the use of brute force, my love, I would never hesitate to use it to expunge any smear on the name of my dear wife.’

‘Oh, Miles! Just look at Gaston – the way he’s gasping. How strong you must be!’

‘Although I naturally pride myself on my intellectual attainments – even more perhaps than on my strength of character – I assure you that self-appreciation of my physical prowess is curbed only by my natural modesty.’

‘Darling Miles,’ breathed Connie, collapsing on him.

‘Come, beloved. Now let us make our way back to our little home.’

‘Here, I say,’ I protested, rubbing my middle. ‘You two can’t just clear off and leave me alone with the ruddy harem,’

‘Why not, pray?’ glared Miles, shovelling the bits of sponge bag into his case. ‘You got yourself into the mess. You can’t expect me to get you out again.’

‘I am sure,’ added Connie, ‘that a man of Gaston’s type will not be slow to take the utmost advantage of his present company.’

‘I’m about sick and tired of the way you’re carrying on towards me, Connie,’ I exploded, ‘just because you’ve decided you want to saddle old Miles again. It was a different story that evening you came round to my flat with the woolly slippers. You were all over me, to get me in the frame of mind to fix up this ghastly business.’

‘How dare you talk to my wife like that,’ rasped Miles, advancing again. ‘I intend to deal you further trauma in the abdomen.’

‘Don’t waste your strength, my precious,’ said Connie. ‘The creature isn’t worth it.’

‘We really must be going, and that’s a fact,’ announced Gertie.

‘Doesn’t anyone answer the damned bells in this place?’ complained Dolores.

‘I will treat you with the contempt you deserve.’ Miles picked up his suitcase. ‘Please pack up my things in your flat and have them sent round by messenger. How fortunate, my love,’ he continued to Connie, ‘that you found your way here before Gaston dragged me to even murkier depths.’

‘Hey! How the devil did Connie know where you were anyway?’

‘Naturally, I left my address,’ Miles scowled from the door. ‘I am still expecting any moment a summons from Mr Odysseus.’

‘Oh, the summons,’ said Connie. ‘It’s arrived.’

‘Excellent,’ said Miles.

Connie gave a little laugh. ‘Yes, for assault. He was the one you hit in the night-club.’

‘Oh,’ said Miles,

‘He called to see you that day, and I felt the least I could do was agree to show him the sights.’

‘Oh,’ said Miles

‘But I don’t think he’s going to proceed with the case, because he’s gone back to Greece. Taking his money-bags with him, I’m afraid.’

‘Oh,’ said Miles,

‘Which jolly well serves you right,’ I shouted.

He slammed the door.

There was a silence. I gave my middle another rub and rapidly tried to sort things out. I may have had all manner of internal bruising in the abdomen, I reflected, but at least I had the consolation of Miles coming out of the affair worse than me. The Odysseus millions certainly wouldn’t oil his way towards the House of Lords, after a few years sweating it out among the delinquents. And now Miles was out of the room the Whortleton situation began to clear a little. All I had to do was disperse the troops, pass a day recovering in the sea breezes, then meet Dame Hilda and Anemone off the London train on Monday afternoon as arranged, with some story about Miles and his missus having leapt at the chance of a spare bed by the briny. Meanwhile, I had to get some sleep.

‘Right ho, ladies, thank you very much,’ I announced. ‘I think it’s time the party broke up. And so does that chap in the next room, by the way he’s hammering on the wall.’

‘It’s been delightful,’ said Gertie.

‘Yes, ever so,’ agreed Cissy.

‘We hardly ever go out these days at all,’ added Joan.

‘Glad you’ve enjoyed it. If you will now allow me to escort you downstairs–’

‘There’s just one thing,’ said Gertie.

‘Yes, there is, isn’t there?’ nodded Cissy. ‘Just a very little thing,’ concurred Joan.

‘What little thing?’ I asked, rather shortly.

‘Our cash,’ said Genie.

‘The lolly,’ pointed out Cissy.

‘Yes, the crinkly,’ observed Joan. ‘Our hundred quid.’

‘A promise is a promise.’

‘Your friend never gave us the cheque.’

‘You might give me mine while you’re at it, darling,’ interrupted Dolores, still pressing the bell.

‘Don’t worry about the cheque, girls,’ I said lightly. ‘My friend may be a worm, but I guarantee he’ll be perfectly honourable and send you the money as soon as he remembers in the morning. Otherwise, of course, he’d be scared stiff of you blackmailing him.’

‘I’d rather have it now, please,’ said Gertie.

‘On the nail.’

‘Fair’s fair.’

‘It’s useless asking me,’ I told the three Jellybones. ‘Because I haven’t got a hundred quid.’

‘We’re not leaving till we’ve been paid,’ insisted Gertie. ‘And believe me, we’ve had plenty of experience getting our proper rights from nasty managements before now.’

‘Remember what we did at Blackpool?’ asked Cissy.

‘When they had to call the police,’ Joan reminded her.

‘If no one answers this bell soon I’m going to scream,’ said Dolores,

‘For lord’s sake be reasonable!’ I remonstrated. ‘I promise you’ll all be paid within the next twenty-four hours. If you like, I’ll actually ring up the blasted chap and remind him. Though if you would care to blackmail him, anyway,’ I nodded, ‘it’s perfectly all right with me.’

‘No cash, no go,’ said the Jellybone Sisters at once.

‘If you’re being sticky with the money, darling,’ added Dolores, ‘I’d like to remind you I’ve some very strong-minded gentlemen friends in Town.’

‘Now look here, I’ve had more than enough pushing about for one evening,’ I announced, losing patience with the blasted gaggle. ‘If you ladies want to stay in Whortleton until Doomsday you’re welcome to the room. Personally I’m pushing off to doss down under the pier. Good night!’

As I grabbed my raincoat there was a knock on the door.

The porter appeared.

‘Excuse me bothering you again, sir. But I have a gentleman here who seems anxious to see you. Name of Sir Lancelot Spratt.’

‘Sir Lancelot – ?’

‘All right, porter, I’ll let myself in if the boy’s not asleep,’ came the familiar voice from outside. ‘Ah, Grimsdyke, there you are – What the devil’s going on here? What are all these people doing? Take that damned dog away,’ he added, coming into the bedroom with Dame Hilda and Anemone.

‘Who,’ demanded Dame Hilda generally, ‘are you?’

‘Mrs Grimsdyke,’ said all my four guests.

‘I can explain everything,’ I started.

‘Please don’t.’

‘Look here, Grimsdyke, if I had known you were this type of feller I certainly wouldn’t have taken you to New York last month.’

‘New York? I thought you were in Cheltenham?’

‘Well – er, not quite Cheltenham, actually.’

Dame Hilda turned to Anemone. ‘Please give it to me, my child.’

‘Give you what, Mummy?’

‘The ring, naturally. Sir Lancelot, perhaps you would drive us to some other accommodation? As for you, Dr Grimsdyke, when I imagined you had merely forgotten to cancel these rooms I was blissfully unaware of the depravity concealed below your deceptively witless exterior. Come, Anemone.’

‘I should like to see you, Grimsdyke, in the morning,’ ended Sir Lancelot. ‘You will meet me at nine by the bandstand.’

They left.

‘Will that be all, sir?’ asked the porter.

‘I sincerely hope so,’ I told him.

He sighed. ‘Dear me, sir. We have a lot to learn I fear, sir.’

‘How right you are,’ I agreed.

I managed to get rid of the Jellybones in the end by giving them a cheque for fifty on account. Dolores spent the night in number ten, and I slept in Miles’ room, with the dog. And in the morning the ruddy kippers were cold, anyway.

I was broken-hearted, of course. The evening had bulldozed my life to ruins. Miles and Connie regarded me no longer as their private marriage counsellor, but as a refugee from the Reptile House gone to earth in the family bosom. And instead of being engaged to the nicest girl in the world I had only an ache in my soul and a ring in my pocket, which I bet I wouldn’t get more than fifty per cent back on, either.

Equally galling, I felt, as I made my way back to London alone that Sunday morning, was nobody believing my innocence. I was as shining white as if recently rubbed down by one of those ruddy detergents that kept appearing in the middle of my television programme. And the whole world was insisting on treating me like Jack the Ripper’s little brother.

‘I must say, Grimsdyke, your stature has grown considerably in my estimation,’ Sir Lancelot had started genially at the bandstand. ‘To take one girl to the seaside under the nose of one’s prospective mother-in-law is quite an achievement. But four! My dear feller, Don Juan himself would have thrown up the sponge. And that’s not even taking account of the dog.’

‘I assure you, sir,’ I insisted hastily, ‘there is a perfectly proper explanation.’

‘It is quite unnecessary to try it on me. I am no schoolboy, Grimsdyke. I understand these things. It is, incidentally,’ he added, ‘equally unnecessary for you to try it on Dame Hilda. She simply wouldn’t listen.’

‘I rather felt that would be the case, sir,’ I said dully.

‘All bad luck on you, of course,’ Sir Lancelot continued cheerfully, as we strolled in the early breezes along the prom.

‘I still can’t understand,’ I confessed, feeling like the remains of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, ‘exactly why you three turned up here at all.’

‘I rather fear you must lay the blame for that on my wife.’

‘On Lady Spratt, sir?’

‘Yes. When Dame Hilda’s party of delinquent teenagers followed us down from London, she promptly sent their motorbus back again. It was very strange,’ remarked Sir Lancelot, exchanging a glance with the stuffed shark outside the Aquarium. ‘I had always believed my wife and Dame Hilda to be such firm friends. But my wife was behaving oddly the entire two days before the girls joined us. I must confess she made something of a scene just because Dame Hilda kept inviting me to tell my favourite fishing stories and show her how delightful the rose garden looked in the moonlight. I fancy the stay in Majorca did my wife no good. As the atmosphere became somewhat strained and I had business in London anyway, I agreed, after telephoning you vainly, to drive Dame Hilda down here. With her daughter – who, let me tell you, my boy, is not one quarter the woman that her mother is.’

‘Quite, sir.’

Sir Lancelot paused to set his watch by the floral clock. ‘I must confess that I should have preferred to pass the night as arranged in the room reserved for yourself, instead of a commercial hotel with beds I intend to report to the British Travel Association and sanitation I intend to report to the Medical Officer of Health. But doubtless you put the accommodation to better use.’

‘Really, sir, I swear there was nothing–’

‘You are returning to London by rail? I fear I can hardly offer you a lift. My car is not nearly large enough for all your wives and their luggage.’

There was one compensation, I reflected, as I made my way from Victoria Station towards my horses’ larder. At least I’d got rid of Miles, just as it was coming up for his turn on the divan again, too. I had a couple of hours’ hard work ahead packing up the chap’s junk, I calculated as I mounted the narrow stairs and felt for the key, then for the first time in weeks I should be able to lay back and spread myself and take as long as I liked in the bath.

I opened the front door. Lying on the divan in his shirt sleeves with a box of my special Christmas cigars was Squiffy. ‘How the devil did you get in?’ I demanded crossly from the threshold.

‘Grim, my dear chap!’ Squiffy leapt up, spilling the cigars. ‘Thank heavens you’ve arrived! Through the window, of course,’ he added.

‘Through the window? And why, pray?’ I asked, as icily as a morning dip at Whortleton.

‘But the front door was locked,’ he explained.

I sat on the divan.

‘Grim, I simply had to see you,’ Squiffy went on, taking off his glasses and scratching his head with them. ‘I got your address from Lucy. Though she hasn’t the first idea I’m round here. Or about the beastly jam I’m in. But, honestly, you’re the only chap in the world who can possibly help me. I’m being persecuted by the Kremlin.’

Paranoia, of course, I diagnosed. Persecution mania. A lot of it about. I’d always thought Squiffy was mad, since he’d painted pink the pet hedgehog he kept in the dorm and wrote poetry to it. I decided I’d better quietly humour the poor chap and hope he wouldn’t go berserk, not that there was much room in my flat for anyone to go berserk decently, anyway.

‘Grim, I desperately need advice.’

‘You desperately need a drink first, if you ask me,’ I told him, making for the kitchen sink.

‘My old man will kill me.’

‘You mean, he’s turned up and discovered that instead of telling the Government where to put its atoms you’re telling grubby little boys that sugar with sodium chlorate makes a hell of a bang?’

‘No, I’m on hols from the beastly prepper at the moment,’ Squiffy sat trying to detach his left hand at the radiocarpal joint. ‘And Father’s been held up in Karachi for another month, which is just as well, as they’ve sent in the bill for the lab I burnt down in Mireborough. I suppose you couldn’t lend me five hundred quid, could you?’

‘There, there,’ I said, offering a sympathetic glass and shifting a few of my breakables out of his reach. The chap was clearly having delusions as well. ‘Why can’t you just ring up the bank and ask them to send a boy round with it?’

‘My old man would kill me in a rather more painful way, that’s all. You know his odd ideas of keeping me and the millions separated? I had to borrow five hundred for day-to-day expenses from the head beak at the prepper – a mean blighter, counts the nibs and chalk – on the strength of Father’s name. Though mind you,’ Squiffy added, the family financial acumen showing through, ‘if you could raise only fifty quid and we put it on a real cert at ten to one, it would do just as well, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes, but what’s all this got to do with you being persecuted by chaps with beards and snow on their boots?’

Squiffy paused. ‘Do you suppose that actor chap, Basil Beauchamp, when he’s finished being Hamlet for the evening goes home and moons about muttering Alas! poor Yorick, and so on?’

‘No, he generally goes out and has no end of a time of it with your sister.’

‘That’s the point. Once he’s given the customers their moneysworth of Hamlet he goes on being Basil Beauchamp again – not that I’ve much to say in favour of that.’ Squiffy took a gulp from his glass. ‘My trouble, Grim, is being carried away by my part. It was fair enough covering up that little trouble at Mireborough by spreading the rumour I’m a top scientist round the family. But… well, when you go to a party and some girl asks you what do you do in life, you can’t just explain your days are dedicated to teaching a bunch of kids how the hall barometer works. You say you’re a scientist, and her eyes light up and she says, How fascinating, I suppose you make hydrogen bombs and space ships, and you say, Naturally, and in no time at all you’re out in the garden pointing out the galaxies.’

I remembered that Squiffy was quite a one for the girls, and in the old days at Whortleton had a terrific pash on some little blonde number with a plastic windmill,

‘I was holding forth like this at an odd sort of party out in Notting Hill to a girl called Noreen – very decent type, works one of those wonderful machines in an espresso bar, all steam, I wish I could. Then this little fellow Yarmouth oiled up,’ Squiffy explained. ‘A funny bird, largely moustache and glasses. But he’s an absolutely top-of-the-bill secret agent.’

‘Look here, Squiffy, you can’t really expect me to believe–’

‘Damn it, Grim, you’re always reading about them in the papers. Ordinary looking fellows who walk into the Admiralty saying they’ve come to clean the windows and stuff all the plans up their jumpers. I was expanding a bit about life at Woomera–’ Squiffy suddenly scratched his head. ‘Where is Woomera, by the way? I suppose I’d had a few noggins, because I was holding forth on the international situation as well when Yarmouth went a bit shifty and asked if I’d like to meet his comrades. I thought he meant for a game of darts or something, so I said, Yes, and he said, Go to the British Museum next Sunday with a copy of the Telephone Directory E to K and a string bag containing three oranges – or it may have been lemons, I forget, or even grapefruit – and approach the chap with the Telephone Directory L to R and a string of onions, and say that your grandmother has broken her spectacles. He’d reply that home-made brawn was very nourishing, and we’d be in business.’

‘My dear Squiffy,’ I explained. ‘This is only some fellow-maniac–’

‘What do you mean, “fellow”?’ Squiffy looked offended. ‘All this started before Lucy got back from New York. Naturally, I never turned up that Sunday, and a weekend or so later Yarmouth phoned me. Got my number from Noreen, you see. He seemed pretty narked, too. Beastly place for anyone to wait about, the British Museum, I suppose. He still rings up wanting me to meet his chum with the onions – what was that?’

It was a knock at the door. Squiffy plunged behind the divan.

‘My dear old lad, don’t panic! It isn’t the bloke from Moscow, it’s only the neighbours come to scrounge some cigarettes. Why, hello,’ I smiled, opening the door. ‘Quite a surprise.’

‘Hello, Gaston,’ Lucy smiled back from the mat. ‘I’ve come to find my brother.’

‘Your brother?’

‘Yes, he’s the man with his foot sticking up behind your divan.’

‘How on earth did you know I was here?’ demanded Squiffy crossly, restoring himself among those present.

‘My dear, it was as obvious as Nelson in Trafalgar Square from the way you wanted the address.’

‘I just called to have a chat with Gaston. About my work, you know. In the laboratory.’

‘Exactly. And I have just called to say your laboratory has rung urgently to complain that you’ve left with the keys to the tuck-shop.’

‘Ah, yes,’ explained Squiffy. ‘“Tuck Shop”. Code name for our latest secret bomb. Very destructive.’

‘I couldn’t find the keys in your room,’ Lucy went on levelly. ‘Only an exercise book containing some formulae corrected by you in red ink – extremely untidily, if I may say so –with a remarkably lifelike sketch of you on the back page and the caption “Stinkers is a Fool”. May I come in?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘You are heartless, Gaston,’ Lucy added sweetly to me. ‘Not so much as phoning to say what happened to that lovely divorce.’

‘I just thought you’d be terribly occupied with charity matinées and Basil Beauchamp, and so on.’

‘Basil’s away at the moment. He’s having quite a time, going round judging seaside beauty contests looking for his musical Saint Joan.’

I remembered noticing through the haze that Basil was visiting the Whortleton Holiday Camp to judge the national finals the following Saturday.

‘Lucy, I can explain everything,’ burst out Squiffy, who had been making asphyxiated noises on the divan.

‘Please do.’

‘You see, Lucy–’ He scratched his head. ‘Oh, hell! You tell her, Grim.’

I briefly described her brother’s standing in scientific and espionage circles,

‘George,’ Lucy summed up. ‘You’re a fool.’

‘That’s all very well, but I can’t even ask for police protection, or whatever it is. Then the cats would be out of the bag and being sick all over the carpet by the time the old man got home.’

‘I can assure you this Yarmouth is simply pulling your leg,’ said Lucy calmly.

I must say, I admired the cool way she took charge of the proceedings. I remembered Lucy had a great knack for handling awkward situations, even in those days at Whortleton when Squiffy somehow managed to sit on himself while putting up a deckchair.

‘You don’t know how nasty he can seem on the phone, particularly rather early in the morning,’ grumbled Squiffy. ‘I’ve never known anyone who could give the words “British Museum” such a sinister ring.’

‘It so happens that all the British Museum business is exactly the same as an episode of the mystery serial that Basil did on television weeks ago.’

‘Really?’ Squiffy brightened up. ‘Of course, I always watch the puppets on the other channel.’

‘Even to the telephone directories and the oranges.’

‘Then it sounds as if the chap really is a spoof?’

‘Making two of you,’ I remarked.

‘George,’ said Lucy firmly. ‘You need a rest.’

‘You’re jolly well not getting rid of me to our country place. You know the butler down there gets his wages put up every time he reports to the old man something nasty I’ve done.’

‘You could go abroad.’

‘My passport has been in the vaults since the business of that girl on the Costa Brava. Anyway I can’t go away,’ Squiffy pointed out. ‘Now Basil’s haring round the coast, I’m supposed to be taking you to Lord’s and Glyndebourne this week.’

Lucy smiled. ‘I’m sure Gaston would take me instead – if you’ve no other commitments.’

‘Who me?’ That sunset broke out again inside. ‘Yes, of course, Lucy. I’ve got no other commitments at all. None whatever. I say, let’s have a lunchtime drink,’ I suggested eagerly. I glanced round. ‘Except that George seems to have killed the bottle.’

‘I’ll get another from the pub on the corner.’ Squiffy leapt up. ‘After the terrific relief about Yarmouth it’s absolutely the least I can do.’

‘Gaston, you certainly lack the woman’s touch,’ remarked Lucy, looking round as Squiffy disappeared.

‘Bit untidy, I admit. Had a relative to stay.’

‘I insist you let me smooth the surface, anyway.’ She pushed up her sleeves. ‘What on earth do you do with this ghastly thing in a bottle?’

‘That’s my relative’s, it came out of a High Court judge.’

‘Ugh,’ said Lucy, and started to sort out the crockery. I could never have entertained Lucy alone in my flat while still engaged to the nicest girl in the world, of course. But now, I reflected as I fingered the obsolete ring in my pocket, I could entertain all the women in London I liked, though even a few of them would have made quite a crowd.