Surgeon at Arms

23

Graham was startled how old Denise looked. Then he remembered she had been ill. As she opened the front door she stared at him with surprise, quickly trying to find a smile.

'Could I see John?' Graham asked at once. 'The Clinic told me he'd gone home.'

'Yes, of course, Graham. Come in. How are you keeping?'

'Oh, pretty well.'

'The weather's ghastly, isn't it?'

'Yes, ghastly.'

'And all this dreadful austerity we're supposed to put up with.'

'Yes, yes,' said Graham.

He came into the cold hall of the Bickleys' flat overlooking Regent's Park. It was barely an hour since his confrontation with Lord Cazalay.

John was in the sitting-room, reading the evening paper and tickling the dog. He stood up as Graham entered, saying amiably enough, 'An unexpected pleasure. Or have you come for a contribution towards the damage the boys did to that restaurant?'

'I won't stay a moment.' Still in his overcoat, Graham looked pointedly at Denise.

'Would you like a cup of coffee or something?' she asked with great reluctance.

'Please. That would be very kind.' As the door shut he turned to John and said, 'I wonder if you'd stuff a case for me? Tomorrow morning.'

John knocked his pipe on the fireplace. 'I expect I could squeeze it in, if it's early enough. Has everyone else let you down?'

'It's a special case.' Graham hesitated. 'It calls for a great deal of discretion. I'm going to do it at that little nursing-home place out at Ealing.'

'Graham!' John laughed. 'Don't tell me you're branching into the abortion racket?' Seeing Graham's troubled expression, he added seriously, 'But what is it? Some actress with a secret scar? Stella Garrod all over again?'

'Oh, it's a much nastier business than the Stella Garrod affair. I've got myself in a bit of a mess.'

John raised his eyebrows. Hardly the first time. At Graham's age, he really should start to learn. Perhaps Clare was right about the maladjusted child.

'A woman, you mean?'

'No, not this time.'

Graham explained about Arthur King.

'I see,' said John calmly when he had finished. 'So you're going to do the case?'

'I've no alternative, have I? I was a fool having anything to do with that Cazalay bastard. He tried to bring me down once before. This time he's going to make a proper job of it.'

'But if you do it, and the fact comes out in the papers, it's going to look pretty nasty for you.'

'Perhaps nothing will come out'

'These things generally do.'

Graham looked more uneasy, and said, 'It isn't the first time, you know. Before the war I did a couple of patients like this. I had my doubts about them, but didn't delve very deeply. I just blinded myself to the fact they were a pair of crooks. I was disgusted at myself afterwards. I don't want to repeat the experience, quite apart from risking my neck. But if I don't…why the hell did I buy that villa, anyway? I've never had a chance to use it'

'I don't think I can really give the anaesthetic for you, Graham.'

'No, I didn't expect you would. It was selfish of me to ask. I wanted the moral support, I think, that's all. I'll see what I can do under local. Probably I can manage more than I expect We get spoiled, with good general anaesthetics always available from experts like you. Some of our more unfortunate brethren manage to run a flourishing practice in cosmetic work under locals. The ones who get themselves struck off for advertising.'

'Won't you take my advice and not touch this case, Graham?'

'You mean to substitute the certainty of trouble with the law for the possibility?'

'It's two sorts of trouble. The operation would spoil everything you gained for yourself during the war.'

'What did I gain? A knighthood. For services to publicity.'

'You know that's not true.'

'Not completely so, perhaps. But it's near enough to the mark.'

'I was speaking to Clare about you two or three weeks ago,' John remarked unexpectedly.

Graham looked at him sharply. 'I thought she'd disappeared off the face of the earth?'

'She's at the Kenworth. Children's ward sister. I do a list there once a week.'

Graham made a wry expression. 'How is she?'

'Very well. She likes her job.' John paused and added, 'Do you want to see her again?'

'She'd hardly want to set eyes on me,' Graham told him impatiently.

'I'm certain she would.'

'No, that's ridiculous. Not after the way I treated her.'

'Is it ridiculous? You'd know. You've had more experience of women than me.'

Graham stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and started pacing the room. 'Everything's wrong, isn't it? You see things differently as you go through life, and often enough you realize all the time you've been seeing them wrong. When I was young I could view the way ahead, and I tramped up it not caring overmuch how I muddied my boots. Things didn't go all that smoothly-Maria, all that fuss. But I got where I wanted. In the war, I didn't really want anything for myself and I was happy. Now I'm trying to worship my old gods, but they don't represent anything any more. They're like native idols discovered in some jungle. Incomprehensible, frightening to look at, make you wonder at the simplicity of the people who venerated them. I'd got no proper sense of values. The war imposed one on me.'

'Graham, you're making yourself sound a horrible type,' smiled John.

'Well, I am. Though let's hope it's not because I can't help it, but because I try to be.'

'Because you think it's smart?'

Graham shrugged. 'I can't even contemplate meeting Clare again. Not at this particular crisis in my life.'

'She might be glad to help you. She did during several others.'

'I suppose she loved me.'

'You loved her, surely?'

'Deep down, I told myself I didn't. It was the same with every woman I've got mixed up with. I never wanted to give myself to them completely. At the age when you can face these things, it's too late to rectify them.'

Denise appeared with the coffee.

'Graham wanted to discuss a case he's doing tomorrow, darling,' John explained.

'I'm not doing it,' said Graham briefly. 'I've decided it's inoperable.'

He'd forgotten about Denise and her coffee. He then had to sit down and make conversation of some sort while he drank it, and she always made dreadful coffee, anyway.