Doctor in Clover

4

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.