19

For the next week I treated Nikki with the delicacy of an unexploded bomb. Every time she stirred in her chair I asked hopefully if she had backache, and every time she woke me by turning over in bed I found myself reaching for the telephone.

My wife’s precarious condition made any social plans impossible, though Grimsdyke paid a charitable call every evening, generally at the hour when he judged that I might be having a drink.

‘The old uncle’s asked me if I’d like to fill in my time by giving a hand with the practice while I’m here,’ he mentioned one evening, as we passed through the midwinter doldrums between Christmas and New Year. ‘I hardly had the heart to refuse the dear old fellow, he seemed so decently hesitant about suggesting it. But my literary work, old lad, comes first. These days I’ve hardly time to leave my bedroom at the Hat and Feathers for a quick one.’

‘What, more jolly articles for the Daily Hypochondriac?’

‘I’ve got a better idea than that,’ he told me proudly. ‘I’m writing a book. I got the idea when I drifted into your local newsagent’s the other day to see when the next edition of Ruff’s Guide to the Turf was coming out. They’d got rows of novels in there with chaps on the cover operating in their stethoscopes. It suddenly struck me how dearly the general public loves tales of gore among the gallipots – after all, you’ve only got to look at the speed they gather round a really satisfactory accident. And it should be pretty easy to write something sensational about hospitals, life and death being their stock-in-trade.’

‘What’s your book about?’

‘Oh, a chap and a girl and another chap,’ he said vaguely. ‘But at least it’ll occupy my exile. God knows how I’m ever going to face that Lulu woman again – did you spot the size of her hands?’

We again discussed Grimsdyke’s emotional enmeshment, but I could think of no way to untangle him before he left, promising to return the following night to see in the New Year with me – Nikki having prescribed herself an early bed and a glass of milk.

As the practice was slack at the time I had the last afternoon of the old year to potter at home among the nappies and feeding-bottles, hoping they wouldn’t disgrace the fearsomely experienced nurse I had engaged once the baby was delivered. Grimsdyke had bought a celluloid duck for the coming infant, and I was enjoying playing with this in the plastic baby’s bath when I was interrupted by a ring at the doorbell. I thought this might be Ann Pheasant coming to seek news, and as Nikki had her feet up in the bedroom I went down to open the door.

I found on the mat a pleasant-looking dark-haired girl, grasping a large brass telescope.

‘Dr Farquarson?’ she asked.

‘I’m afraid not. I’m his partner, Dr Sparrow.’

‘So you’re Dr Sparrow,’ she smiled. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you.’

‘If there’s anything I can do…?’

‘It’s a terribly silly business, really,’ the girl apologised. ‘But this object’ – she held out the telescope – ‘has been on my conscience for months. There’s a Dr Farquarson’s name and address engraved on it, and as I was going through Hampden Cross in the car I thought I’d better return it. I suppose your receptionist sent me down here because he was out.’

‘That’s certainly his old telescope,’ I agreed. ‘He likes to look at the stars and so on with it. But how on earth did you manage to come across it?’

‘My name’s Zoë Mitchel, by the way–’

‘Of course!’ I exclaimed. ‘Dr Grimsdyke – you found it on the boat?’

‘Well…he presented me with it, as a matter of fact.’ She laughed. ‘Oh, there’s quite a story.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard it,’ I said, smiling too.

‘I hope Dr Grimsdyke wasn’t too upset?’

‘I think he was, rather. He came and stayed with us afterwards.’

She suddenly looked concerned. ‘Did he think I’d treated him rather badly? But it was a bit of a shock. I’d never been proposed to in my life before. And coming like that – right in the middle of the games room.’

‘Just one second,’ I said quickly. ‘Do you mean that he – my friend Grimsdyke – actually proposed to you?’

Zoë appeared flustered.’But I thought you told me you knew all about it. I wouldn’t have dreamed otherwise–’

We were interrupted by a cry of, ‘Any sign of the first triplet?’ as Grimsdyke came gaily down the path.

‘Good gracious, it’s Gaston!’ she exclaimed. ‘Fancy running into you.’

I had always admired Grimsdyke’s poise, which I had watched him maintain even in such testing circumstances as having his diagnosis questioned by Sir Lancelot Spratt. But now he stopped dead and seemed to droop all over, like a snowman in a burst of winter sunshine.

‘Oh, hello Zoë,’ he mumbled, after some time.

He stood slowly massaging the gastrocnemius muscle of his left calf with his right toecap.

‘And how are you?’ he managed to ask.

‘I’m very well, thank you,’ said Zoë quietly. ‘And you?’

‘Me? I’m very well, too. Thank you.’

‘Good,’ said Zoë.

There was a pause. A boy went past whistling on a bicycle, sounding like an express roaring through the station.

‘Ankle all right now?’ asked Grimsdyke.

‘Perfectly all right, thank you,’ said Zoë.

‘Good,’ said Grimsdyke.

There was another silence. As the conversation seemed to be getting neither of them anywhere, and I was also feeling chilly standing on the doorstep, I suggested, ‘Perhaps you’d like to come in for a cup of tea, Miss Mitchel?’

‘That’s very kind of you, Dr Sparrow,’ she said, both seeming relieved by my intervention.

‘But I really ought to be getting on to London, as it’s starting to get so misty.’

‘It’s generally only local.’

I became aware of Grimsdyke making rasping noises with his larynx, which I interpreted as an invitation to Zoë to take a spot of dinner.

She bit her lip. ‘I don’t think I possibly can,’ she said. But after a moment that she could conceal from neither of us contained concentrated cerebration, she added, ‘If you’re quite sure the fog’s only local…and if you don’t mind if I do leave rather early–’

Suddenly looking more cheerful, Grimsdyke suggested showing her round the Abbey, a building I knew that he hadn’t yet entered. After a little more disjointed conversation, they went off together in Zoë ‘s car, leaving me holding the telescope.

‘What on earth do you make of it all?’ I exclaimed to Nikki, telling her the story. ‘Old Grimsdyke’s a deeper fish than even I imagined. From the look on his face there wasn’t the slightest doubt the girl’s telling the truth.’

‘And is she really the horror he made out?’

‘That’s another mystery about it. She doesn’t exactly look like an Italian film star, but she’s quite pretty and strikes me as a very decent sort. In fact, if he really wants to get married she’d be a far better proposition than all those others.’

Nikki frowned. ‘Do you suppose,’ she asked, ‘that Grimsdyke is really just a little bit insane?’

‘Oh, mad as a hatter, darling. Has been for years. Backache?’ I demanded suddenly.

‘Indigestion,’ said Nikki.

I wondered what other plausible story my friend would appear with later that evening, when Nikki went to bed leaving me with an article on gastroenterology in the British Medical Journal, which soon put me into a gentle doze at the fireside. The doorbell woke me with a start, and I noticed that it was already near eleven.

‘I want to unburden my soul,’ said Grimsdyke immediately, entering with swirls of fog.

‘That soul of yours is getting a bit overloaded, isn’t it?’

But he threw himself into a chair so despondently I immediately felt sorry for him.

‘Anyway, Grim,’ I added, ‘after all we’ve been through together, I’m afraid you can always rely on me to give you advice.’

‘All I told you about that boat,’ he admitted at once, ‘was pure ruddy rationalisation, like the psychiatrists keep talking about. You know, the same as when you want to buy a new car and kid yourself you’ll save on train fares. The odd business is, you actually do believe it at the time. Stupid thing, the human mind, isn’t it?’

‘I’m sure no philosopher would disagree with you.’

‘As far as I’m concerned, Zoë’s the fairest blossom on the evolutionary tree,’ he confessed simply. ‘I wanted to marry her, old lad. So I asked her when the opportunity arose, which was during ping-pong. She mumbled something rather confused about thinking it over. Then, of course, I got cold feet.’

He paused to reach for my cigarettes.

‘I suppose I’m a sort of Dr Jekyll and Dr Hyde. On one hand, I saw myself cosy with Zoë in a suburban semi-det. with all the buttons on my shirts. On the other, I was ploughing through stacks of dirty nappies to clip my eldest on the earhole for emptying my only bottle of beer over the other five. I know it’s time I had a steady job and a smile from the bank manager, but it’s dashed difficult to come to the point. Hence my recent erratic behaviour.’

‘I should chose the semi-det. and nappies,’ I told him. ‘Most people do in the end.’

‘Did I tell you old McGlew’s offered me a decent job overseas? But there again, after my Poparapetyl experiences I’m certainly not going without a wife to keep me on the rails and apply the brakes as required.’

‘And Zoë – ?’ I asked.

‘Won’t have me.’

He stared gloomily at his feet.

‘Funny thing, it never occurred to me before that any girl wouldn’t. We broached the subject again tonight – we could hardly help it, could we? – and all we agreed was never to establish contact again. I wouldn’t even know where to find her, except she lives somewhere in Yorkshire. It would be the biggest ruddy county of the lot,’ he added miserably.

‘There are other girls, Grim,’ I said, trying to cheer him up. ‘Apart from Scandinavian masseuses.’

‘But there aren’t! Fact is, old lad,’ he explained, as though confessing some shameful felony. ‘I love her.’

Nikki called from upstairs.

‘She forgot her New Year’s glass of milk,’ I told him. ‘Just a minute while I fetch it from the kitchen.’

But when I reached the bedroom one glance at my wife’s face was enough.

‘Good God!’ I exclaimed. ‘How long – ?’

‘All afternoon…’

She paused, gripping my hand tightly. It was a moment before she could go on. ‘I felt such a fool getting Ann the last time, I really wanted to make sure–’

‘Let me have a look at your tummy,’ I said, deciding it was the moment for professional briskness.

‘Regular and strong contractions,’ I agreed, replacing the bedclothes. ‘Now don’t worry, darling – I’ll ring Ann this very second, and tell her to hurry.’

Grimsdyke jumped to his feet as I rushed downstairs.

‘What’s up?’

‘Nikki. In the second stage.’

‘Good God! Shall I clear off?’

‘No, don’t. You may be useful.’

This time Ann Pheasant was at a New Year’s party in the midwives’ hostel.

‘You’re quite sure, old thing?’

‘Sure? Of course I’m sure. She’s terribly far gone.’

‘Oh, all right. Give her some pethidine and I’ll bring the midwife with me. I haven’t time to see the New Year in, I suppose?’

‘You certainly haven’t!’

I boiled up a syringe in a saucepan and gave Nikki a hundred milligrams of pethidine. Afterwards I divided my time between holding her hand and getting things ready for Ann Pheasant. Grimsdyke meanwhile sat downstairs, looking more frightened than either of us.

‘Hasn’t the damn woman come yet?’ I demanded, bursting again into the sitting-room.

‘Only twenty minutes since you rang her, old lad,’ murmured Grimsdyke uncomfortably. ‘Nikki all right?’

‘A bit too all right.’

But after forty minutes had passed even Grimsdyke couldn’t try to reassure me. When the telephone rang we both jumped like shot rabbits.

‘Hello?’

‘Had a bit of trouble starting the car, old thing,’ said Ann calmly. ‘But it’s all right. I’ve warmed up the plugs in the autoclave.’

‘For God’s sake do hurry,’ I implored her. ‘Things are really going on fast.’

‘Don’t look so worried, old lad,’ said Grimsdyke, trying to raise a smile as I put down the telephone. ‘After all, there are three doctors in the house. But why not ring up the old uncle? As a sort of insurance policy, in case this Pheasant woman blows a gasket.’

‘What a good idea!’ I exclaimed, clasping him gratefully.

I rang the flat over our surgery, but the call was taken by a sleepy receptionist.

‘What’s the trouble now?’ asked Grimsdyke, noticing my face.

‘He’s out,’ I explained briefly. ‘On a maternity case.’

We passed another fifteen minutes. Nikki was now trying to reassure me as much as I tried to reassure her. Grimsdyke looked like someone invited to a party which turns out much rowdier than he expected.

The telephone rang again. Ann Pheasant was lost in the fog.

‘That’s the trouble with female doctors!’ I exploded unfairly. ‘They always let you down in a crisis.’

I gave our obstetrician another ten minutes, then I made my decision.

‘Yes, it is a bit hot in here, old lad,’ said Grimsdyke, watching as I took my jacket off.

‘Not as hot as it’s going to be for all of us in a minute. I’m going to do the delivery myself.’

His eyebrows shot up.

‘I suppose it’s our own fault for putting the wind up Ann Pheasant last time,’ I said. I felt surprisingly calm once I knew what I had to face. ‘Could you give me a hand?’

Grimsdyke didn’t hesitate. ‘Of course, Simon. For all our fooling about over the years, we’ve never let the old profession down over a job of work, have we?’

‘I’ll boil up some scissors and needles in the kitchen,’ I told him. ‘You go and collect the trilene inhaler from the boot of the car.’

But I had hardly left the sitting-room when Grimsdyke appeared from the garage with a shout of, ‘It’s all right, old lad! Panic over. She’s here. Look – two ruddy great headlights in the fog.’

‘Thank God!’ I cried.

I ran to the front door. A figure came stamping through the darkness.

‘I have just undergone the most insulting experience of my life,’ declared Sir Lancelot Spratt.

‘That preposterous woman!’ he continued, coming straight inside. ‘How the devil Cambridge ever married her is totally beyond me. She threw me out. Me! After I had been putting up with their extremely indifferent hospitality, not to mention taking considerable pains to be of no trouble to anyone, she had the effrontery to hurl ill-mannered abuse at my head and order me out of the house. Can you imagine such behaviour among civilised human beings? And on such a trivial excuse! Just because I wanted to see something on channel nine, when she for some reason insisted on watching some rubbish on channel one–’

‘For God’s sake shut up!’ I snapped.

My godfather stared at me.

‘Have you taken leave of your senses too, boy?’ he roared.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said shortly. I told him the situation in the house.

Sir Lancelot immediately became grave. He looked round like a new commander in a demoralised garrison.

‘And if your obstetrician remains lost,’ he asked, stroking his beard, ‘who, pray, will do the delivery?’

‘I will.’

‘You will not. For a doctor to take clinical responsibility for his wife in childbed is wholly unfair to all three participants. Where is the patient?’

‘The room at the top of the stairs.’

‘Right. It is perhaps fortunate that I have always regarded myself as a general surgeon in the widest sense. You are unaware that I delivered a woman in a somewhat similar situation while holidaying in Ireland last year? I fear,’ he continued with some satisfaction, ‘it might be beyond the abilities of some of my younger colleagues who now charge more and more for treating less and less. I am glad to see you have the latest automatic inhaler there,’ he continued, catching sight of my friend.

‘You will take charge of it, Dr Grimsdyke. The apparatus is claimed by its designers to be foolproof, and now we shall have a chance to find out. Sparrow, you will stay out of everybody’s way. Fetch me a surgical mask, some hot water, and a clean hand towel.’

With a step that bore a lifetime’s experience of life and death, of men and women, and of the greatest joys and tragedies human beings can experience, Sir Lancelot Spratt went calmly upstairs.