Doctor In The Swim (12 page)

‘Lucy,’ I mentioned, as she started wielding the broom with advanced alopecia. ‘I thought you were booked for that part of Basil’s singing saint?’

She gave a little pout, which brought the sunset back to the pylorus.

‘Oh, he seemed to think my voice hadn’t enough appeal and my legs had too much or something. You know, Gaston – Basil’s a dear, and knows absolutely everyone on the stage – but I sometimes wonder if he might be more interested in my father’s finances than in me.’

‘Oh, come!’ I was quite horrified. ‘Dear old Basil’s one of the best. I’ve been chummy with him for years.’

‘Yes, I suppose it’s only my female intuition, and nothing’s quite so unreliable as that.’

‘Admittedly, of course, he’s rather vain. But then all actors are.’

‘Um, yes,’ said Lucy, raking a harvest of cigarette packets from under the divan.

‘I’d be quite unbearably vain myself if I had his looks. And with all the girls falling for me.’

‘All the girls?’

I laughed. ‘An occupational hazard with actors, you know. Sometimes you can hardly hear his lines in the stalls for the snapping of broken hearts.’

‘Um, yes,’ said Lucy again.

‘And of course, he
does
wear scent.’

‘Scent? But he told me it was some lotion the doctor advised for his skin.’

I laughed again. ‘Basil has very charming manners,’ insisted Lucy, picking up three or four old socks.

‘Yes, that’s what the landlady’s daughter used to say in our digs. Poor girl! I wonder how it all turned out after she’d had her…her holiday.’

‘Gaston!’ Lucy suddenly threw down the broom. ‘Basil expects me to marry him.’

‘Congratulations. Very decent husband, I’m sure. Good provider, always cheerful about the house, careful dresser, tells a good anecdote–’

Lucy stamped her foot. ‘Gaston! Can’t you turn off your insane drivel for one moment? Don’t you see I’m serious?’

‘Here, I say, Lucy, I didn’t realize–’

‘Oh, Gaston! I did promise him, and I don’t really want to now at all,’ cried Lucy.

And there she was, weeping on my shoulder, just like Connie, but a jolly sight nicer.

‘There, there,’ I said, hoping my hanky wasn’t too mucky after the rough night at Whortleton.

‘Dear Gaston,’ sobbed Lucy. ‘You’re – you’re such a psychological aspirin.’

‘Always ready to treat a case of acute distress in the damsel, I assure you.’

Lucy swallowed. ‘I’ve thought about you so much, Gaston dear.’

‘Go on?’ was all I could manage, what with the sunset spreading up the oesophagus and down into the duodenum.

‘I’ve thought about those lovely days we had together as kids in Whortleton. And how you were so frightfully brave about taking that bee off my neck.’

‘Ah, that bee.’

‘The other day Basil wouldn’t even dare kill a mosquito on my collar.’

‘I mightn’t be much cop at mosquitoes myself,’ I admitted. ‘I’m strictly a bee man.’

‘Gaston – do you remember when you kissed me?’

‘Behind the whelks, wasn’t it?’

‘No. By the outfall.’

‘Yes, you were wearing your little one-piece.’

‘I’ve never forgotten it.’

‘As a matter of fact, Lucy,’ I told her truthfully, ‘neither have I.’

‘Kiss me again, Gaston,’ Lucy started to say.

But I already had. ‘What on earth’s going on in here?’ shouted Squiffy through the letterbox. ‘I’ve been knocking for simply hours. Have you lost all interest in drink, or something?’

‘And now,’ smiled Lucy, taking my hand as I opened the door, ‘Gaston’s coming home with us for lunch.’

The next morning I was woken by a terrific knocking on my front door.

I sat up on the divan, feeling confused. I’d just experienced the most wonderful day in my life. I’d lunched in Lucy’s flat, then we’d gone for a walk in the Park, where somehow we’d lost Squiffy. There admittedly wasn’t much to do for the rest of Sunday because of Miles and his moral chums, but I managed to find a restaurant open to buy Lucy dinner, and afterwards she said she’d love to drink beer in a little pub I remembered snuggling among the warehouses on Bankside. Then we walked hand in hand along the Embankment, baring the old soul a bit and looking at the lights sparkling on the bridges, and feeling that Nature was after all creeping up on the late James Whistler. Before I’d even looked at my watch it was already long past midnight.

I now looked at my watch again, and found it was already long past ten. I supposed I’d been pretty tired, not having much sleep the night before on emotional tenterhooks down at Whortleton, not to mention a mattress apparently stuffed with dried seaweed.

‘All right, all right,’ I shouted, as the terrific knocking was repeated. ‘Don’t bash the ruddy thing off its hinges.’

I pulled on a dressing gown, wondering who the devil it was. Miles again, to say he’d had a second bust up with Connie and asking me kindly to fix another divorce? Or it might have been Squiffy, after wandering all night in the Park. Or perhaps just Mr Hildenborough come for the empties.

‘Half a jiffy, blast it!’ I called to another burst of terrific knocking. ‘Damn it, what have you got out there? Twelve halberdiers and a battering-ram?’

I threw open the door. On the mat stood Dame Hilda and Anemone.

‘You poor, poor boy,’ cried Dame Hilda.

She enfolded me to her bosom, which was like being trapped in a padded cell.

‘You poor, poor, dear boy.’

‘Er – good morning, Dame Hilda. Lovely day, isn’t it?’

‘You poor dear misunderstood thing!’

‘Good morning, Anemone.’ We Grimsdykes remember our manners, whatever the hour. ‘Would you care to step inside? A cup of coffee? I must apologize for the stubble and slippers, but I forgot to wind my alarm clock. Remarkable how one goes on sleeping–’

‘How can you ever forgive me?’ exploded Dame Hilda.

‘Nothing to forgive, I’m sure,’ I returned politely, reaching for the coffee-pot.

‘I mean, about Saturday night down at Whortleton.’ I gave a little laugh. ‘Oh, that? Yes, rather a ruined evening all round, wasn’t it?’

Dame Hilda gazed at me. ‘Gaston, how I admire the brave gaiety with which you hide from the hard world your inner suffering.’

‘Oh, I don’t know–’

‘Just like Sir Philip Sidney.’

‘It’s a gay sort of morning, with the sun and the birds and all that,’ I pointed out.

‘Then I shall complete your enjoyment of it. I have heard all.’

‘Oh, have you, Dame Hilda? A piece of toast, perhaps?’

‘Sir Lancelot – such a wonderful man in so many respects – seemed to have his suspicions of that cousin of yours, Miles. He went straight to his house on arriving in London, and learned the whole story. When Sir Lancelot telephoned me last night I saw how unjust and unkind I had been. You are unblemished with a speck of blame.’

‘Very decent of you, Dame Hilda. Marmalade?’

‘The whole fantastic affair was merely an emotional storm on the part of Miles’ wife. Quite reasonable in her condition. Before next spring, young Bartholomew will have a playmate.’

‘Good lord, so that’s the diagnosis, is it? No wonder she was so keen on the ruddy coconuts.’

‘As far as you are concerned, Gaston,’ smiled Dame Hilda, ‘all is as it ever was.’

‘That’s fine,’ I agreed. ‘I must say, I don’t much like going about under a cloud. Particularly as I never seem to have my brolly when they start raining on me.’

‘Mummy means about us,’ chipped in Anemone, for the first time. ‘You and me. Everything’s all right again.’

‘Ah, yes,’ I said. ‘You and me.’

It was an odd thing, but somehow I’d rather got to regarding Anemone as all cut and dried.

‘Gaston, my dear child,’ went on Dame Hilda, getting me in the padded cell again. ‘Where’s the ring?’

I fished the thing out of my tobacco jar.

‘Slip it straight back on Anemone’s finger. That’s right. How wonderful to see you two young people so happy again!’

‘We certainly are. Aren’t we, Nenny?’ I asked.

‘We must decide the happy day at once,’ declared her mother.

‘I think I hear the coffee boiling–’

‘Now you are reunited in joy, I would suggest Saturday week. What on earth’s the matter, Gaston?’

‘Nothing, Dame Hilda. Nothing at all. It’s just that Saturday week might be a bit of a rush.’

‘A rush? But you have,’ she indicated, with a touch of the old fire, ‘already had the better part of two years to think about it.’

‘Yes, I suppose I have.’

‘Saturday week would be extremely convenient. Naturally, I cancelled the rooms at the Surfview, so Anemone and I have our two weeks’ holiday completely free to make all the preparations in Yorkshire.’

‘Sure you wouldn’t like a bite of toast? Or I could do you an egg, if you’d care.’

‘No thank you, Gaston. A fortnight’s hard work, with my powers of administration, will have everything absolutely shipshape. A pity my dear husband persists on those long expeditions to South America, but I fancy that I can persuade Sir Lancelot to give Anemone away. Who have you in mind for your best man?’

I felt a bit blank. ‘There’s a friend of mine, an atomic scientist. He’s on holiday at the moment, so I suppose he could make it.’

‘Your end is settled then.’

‘I suppose it is.’

‘Anemone and I shall get on with the job by taking the morning train from Kings Cross tomorrow. I shall order the cake from Fortnum’s this afternoon.’

‘Mummy,’ chipped in Anemone again. ‘What about the girls?’

‘Thank you, my child. I was quite forgetting. Owing to Lady Spratt’s remarkable behaviour, my party of maladjusted teenagers were bitterly disappointed over their holiday in Wales. Before Sir Lancelot telephoned yesterday, I had arranged for them to spend a week at the Whortleton holiday camp instead. As Anemone and I must go north to prepare the wedding, perhaps you – and your best man, if he has no commitments – would like to occupy the chalet we booked for ourselves? I would feel happier if there was someone like you, Gaston, a qualified doctor, to keep an eye on them. Besides, I’m sure a few days at the seaside before you get married will do you the world of good.’

‘I did have one or two odd jobs–’

‘I won’t take no for an answer, you know,’ she smiled. ‘Besides, it will keep you out of mischief – give you something to do – while awaiting the happy day to dawn.’

‘Oh, very well, Dame Hilda,’ I agreed.

‘You must call me Mother. Come Anemone. We have much work to do. Be at the coach station tomorrow at nine, Gaston, to collect the girls. I hand-picked them myself, and you will find them perfectly well behaved.’

They left. I sat on the divan. The sun was still shining, the birds were still singing, the milkman was cheerfully clinking and whistling down in the mews, and the geraniums in the window box were nodding a genial good morning to the cats. But somehow summer seemed to have gone into monochrome. I gave another one of those sighs. What, I asked myself, was I worrying about? After all, I was now quite shortly and quite definitely to be joined in matrimony with absolutely the nicest girl in the world.

‘I say, Grim.’ Squiffy scratched his head with his glasses. ‘What did that fat old woman mean when she said I was your best man?’

‘She meant you were the best man I could find for the job.’

‘Oh, I see. Though it’s not much in my line, this sort of thing, really.’

‘As a practising stinks beak, you ought to have the right touch.’

‘I’ll be glad to get out of Town, though, once we’re started.’ Squiffy twisted his legs on the back seat of the bus, until they looked as if they’d need surgery to untangle them again. ‘Things hang rather heavy at this time of the year. Then there’s always the chance of that chap Yarmouth showing up. Besides, I’ve wanted to go to a holiday camp for years. They look quite a treat in the commercials on the telly.’

I gave a grunt.

‘I say, Grim, what’s up with you today? You look as if maggots were eating into your soul.’

‘Bit preoccupied, that’s all. Sudden welfare job like this. We doctors have to take our responsibilities seriously.’

‘I dunno, it’s lovely weather and everyone seems to be moping about. I left Lucy with a face like a wet Sunday in Scotland.’

‘Oh, yes?’ I said, brightening up a little.

‘She seemed pretty disappointed you were suddenly called away. I think she was looking forward to you taking her to Lord’s and Glyndebourne.’

‘Of course, she’s fond of cricket and opera.’

‘No, she isn’t very much, of either.’

‘Hold on,’ I told him. ‘We’re off.’

Our private bus slid out of Victoria coach station into the sunshine, bearing our dozen girls towards the morally therapeutic breezes of Whortleton.

‘I know with these hand-picked girls it is quite unnecessary to warn you, Gaston,’ Dame Hilda had said, before hurrying away with Anemone to catch their train. ‘But we do have certain little rules I’d like you to observe. Bed by nine, a cold wash every morning, and no smokes, drinks, or of course sex. Here is a pound for you to buy them some sweeties if they’re very good girls indeed.’

‘Good-bye, ma’am, and God bless you,’ cried all the girls at once.

‘Have a lovely holiday,’ Dame Hilda called back. ‘Don’t forget to write.’

I kissed Anemone good-bye while Squiffy was looking for his luggage, which he’d lost already. I somehow hadn’t introduced my fiancée to him. Come to think of it, Anemone was the sort of girl who nobody somehow introduced to anyone. I climbed aboard, relieved to see the girls looking so demure in their white frocks and straight hair. They seemed between about twelve and sixteen, rather given to acne and strabismus, but otherwise presenting the healthy carbolic appearance of any outing from any sort of institution.

‘Odd to be going down to Whortleton again,’ remarked Squiffy, as our driver turned towards South London. ‘I’ve been thinking of the old place a good deal since we met up. And so has Lucy. Last night she even dug out an old photograph of the three of us with our buckets and spades and stuck it up on her dressing table,’

‘Oh, yes?’ I said again.

Squiffy paused, trying to disarticulate his left metacarpophalangeal joints.

‘Grim,’ he exclaimed, ‘is there anything on between you and Lucy?’

‘On? Nothing whatsoever.’

‘I mean, she’s shifted the picture of Basil as Romeo into the bathroom. Though mind you,’ he reflected, ‘she’s still got him as Mark Anthony, King Lear, and Othello. No, come to think of it, she shoved the Othello one away in a drawer this morning.’

‘Lucy is merely one of my dear old chums. Just like you.’

I sat back in my seat. I was determined to do absolutely the right thing by my fiancée, who was the nicest female of the species. Though I couldn’t help a slight feeling like the fatted calf when it heard the Prodigal Son’s footsteps crunching up the drive.

I gave a sniff,

‘I say, Squiff, do you suppose the bus is on fire?’

He sniffed, too. ‘Yes, there is a bit of a pong, certainly.’

‘Look, there’s some smoke coming from up front,’ I exclaimed, hurrying down the aisle with the idea of saving the little victims from the blaze,

In the front seat were two twelve-year-olds, puffing away at a couple of home-rolled.

‘Er – little girl–’ I began to the one with the acne.

‘Aw, go and get yourself stuffed with gooseberries.’

‘Here, I say!’ I felt a bit hot in the cervical region. ‘You two put those fags out immediately.’

The one with the squint chipped in with a few of the words they put in asterisks in the evening papers.

‘I told you to put that ruddy fag out,’ I repeated firmly.

This brought uproar from the bus, the sort of thing described in the Parliamentary reports as ‘Shouts of Oh! and Resign’ and also a few more asterisks from the squint.

‘Oh, all right, Lady Chatterley,’ I told her. ‘Smoke as much as you ruddy well like, and to hell with your bronchial epithelium.’

I stalked back to my seat, feeling nettled.

‘Hey, lover man,’ invited one of the older girls, who had done such a nice curtsey for Dame Hilda. ‘Want a drag?’

‘Thanks.’ I took a couple of cigarettes from her packet. ‘And I’ll have one for my friend, too.’

Squiffy and I lit up, feeling I’d put the little blighter in her place with a show of democratic matiness, while the girls quietened down a bit, possibly because we were passing Wandsworth Jail and quite a few were peering excitedly for their dads.

‘Here, I say,’ complained Squiffy. ‘What sort of a brand of cigarette is this?’

‘I suppose she rolls them herself,’ I suggested, inspecting the thing. ‘It seems the fashion.’

I took a few more puffs.

‘I say, Squiffy–’ I gave a bit of a laugh. ‘This little outing isn’t going to be too bad after all.’

Squiffy gave a bit of a laugh, too. ‘That’s better, Grim! You’re starting to cheer up.’

‘Oh, life isn’t such a rotten institution, when you come to think of it.’

I flicked my ash gaily.

‘It’s odd,’ grinned Squiffy, ‘but I was just thinking myself the world’s a pretty larky place, by and large.’

‘And these kids – not a bad bunch at heart.’

‘Nothing wrong with the coming generation, believe me.’

I laughed again. ‘I do believe the little rascals have got a gin bottle down there.’

‘I say! What fun they’re having.’

‘Does your heart good to see them.’

‘Girls will be girls.’

We both thought this terribly funny.

‘I wonder,’ I went on, wiping the tears away, ‘if you’ve heard the frightfully amusing story of the bishop and the parrot?’

‘I can hardly wait,’ cried Squiffy, slapping his thighs.

‘I’ll tell you,’ I giggled. ‘If we’ve got a moment before we arrive at Whortleton.’

Squiffy roared with laughter. ‘But we haven’t left London, you old chump!’

‘I say, haven’t we?’ I roared back. ‘But we left London at lunch-time.’

‘Lunchtime? I’m sure we didn’t. We left London last night.’

‘Perhaps we did.’ I thought again. ‘No, we’ve got it wrong, Squiffy. We left London tomorrow morning.’

I suddenly noticed Anemone coming up the aisle between the seats, just finishing the Dance of the Seven Veils.

‘I say!’ I exclaimed, sitting back to enjoy the finale. ‘You don’t get this sort of thing on London Transport–’ I grabbed Squiffy’s arm. ‘That cigarette – put the ruddy thing out at once.’

‘Eh? Come off it, Grim. I’m rather enjoying the smoke. Jolly good mind to change my brand.’

‘Put it out, man!’

I was a bit fuddled, but I managed to sort out the diagnosis. Distortion of sense of time and space, I seemed to remember from the pharmacology books, with fatuous cheerfulness and striking visions of a markedly erotic nature. The symptoms of intoxication by
Cannabis Indica
, also known as marihuana, bhang, dagga, hashish, or Indian hemp.

‘Where’s the girl with those cigarettes?’ I demanded. ‘Here, you – you little horror. Do you realize you’re smoking reefers?’

She gave me a look. ‘Lover boy, ain’t you learnt nuffink? You don’t get no kicks out of a packet of Woods when yer bin on the drag as long as yours truly.’

‘Hand over that packet at once. Do you hear me? Don’t you realize it’s a dangerous drug?’

‘Garn. Cost me a quid, these did. Buy your own, you old skinflint.’

This argument being taken up by the rest of the meeting, there wasn’t much for it except retreat. On the back seat I found Squiffy struggling with a girl on his knee, who was trying to bite his ear.

‘Grim! For lord’s sake get this sex kitten out of my hair,’ he cried pitifully.

‘Stop that at once,’ I commanded.

She gave me a look of contempt. ‘Be yer age, Mister, be yer age.’

Luckily, at that point the Lady Chatterley girl distracted everybody by starting a sing-song.

Mind you, I used to be pretty useful at the old hospital singing, particularly late at night when all the girls had disappeared and the chaps could let themselves go with some of the sporty old favourites. But the ripe clinical songs round the beer barrel, compared with the repertoire of our little passengers, sounded like the Salvation Army. After a bit the bus driver drew up, and complained that he might be a married man with children but he refused to drive any further unless they toned it down a bit, Then fortunately three of the girls were sick all at once, and this quietened the rest down until we breasted the South Downs and saw Whortleton spread below us, with its usual appearance of a pile of smoking rubble tipped beside the sparkling sea.

‘Dear old Whortleton,’ observed Squiffy, recovering from his dose of hashish. ‘Quite charming.’

‘At this distance you don’t get the smell of the chips and sewage,’ I reminded him. ‘Not to mention the juke boxes and the trippers screaming up and down the roller coaster.’

The holiday camp had been built on a reclaimed refuse dump outside the town, and looked just like any other holiday camp you see on the posters all summer – the Lucullus Dining Hall, the Mediterranean Swimming Pool, the Jive Dive, the Darby and Joan Snuggery, rows of red and yellow chalets, and chaps in funny hats going about slapping people on the back to make sure they were happy.

We stopped at a gate in the high wire fence, plastered with the news that Basil Beauchamp was appearing on Saturday in Person. Our pocket Amazons, making a sudden recovery from the emesis, slid back the door and dashed for the red and yellow buildings screaming, apparently for men.

‘Is this the only gate in the camp?’ I asked the guard chap.

‘That’s right, mate.’

‘If any of my little friends try to get out of it, clock them with the nozzle of your fire hose. Come, Squiffy. After all that marihuana I feel I want a bit of a quiet lie down.’

Squiffy and I found our chalet, but we’d hardly time to test the beds and wonder who’d left behind a black bra and a pair of brown boots, before there was a knock on the door and a military-looking cove in a blue blazer appeared.

‘Dr Grimsdyke? I am the Camp Commandant.’

‘Oh, how d’you do…sir.’

‘Look here, this won’t do at all. This party you’ve brought down from London. They’ve already wrecked the Olde Tyme Tudor Bar and upset the Fish and Chiperie, and now they’re chasing a lot of young men up and down the Mickey Mouse Golf Course. Also,’ he added, ‘one is being sick into the swimming pool.’

‘All right,’ I told him wearily. ‘I’ll do my best. Perhaps we’d better start with the little vomiter,’ I suggested, putting professional things first.

The patient at the pool turned out to be Lady Chatterley’s friend, the one with the acne.

‘I was took queer,’ she explained.

‘Why the devil can’t you take queer in the proper place, like everyone else?’

‘I feel proper poorly’

‘I bet you do. Everyone does after too much gin at lunch-time.’

‘I don’t arf itch.’

I took another look.

‘How many of these spots are permanent features?’ I asked.

‘Wassay?’

I turned to the Commandant, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a Camp hospital, have you? With an isolation ward?’

‘Of course we have, Doctor, we have all facilities here. We use it quite a bit at each end of the season.’

‘I mean, it really is isolated? Barbed wire fence all round? Good. How about nurses?’

‘We are lucky enough to employ two former sisters from the Army Medical Service.’

‘And I expect you’ve got one or two hefty chaps among your back-slappers? Ex-Commandos? Wrestlers enjoying a summer let-up?’

‘We have three or four former members of the Military Police on our staff, certainly.’

‘Well, you can put the lot in charge of the isolation hut.’

‘What! To control one little girl?’

I shook my head. ‘This patient has German measles, but I’m putting the rest of the party in strict quarantine. Now if you can rustle up a few cricket bats and a length of stout rope, we’ll admit the cases to hospital.’