Doctor in Love (16 page)

“My heavens, darling! You can’t possibly wear that!” said Nikki in horror. After another week of fevered preparation we had reached the day before the wedding. I had just shown her the lilac waistcoat.

“But why ever not?” I felt hurt. “I rather like it. And the man said it would give a festive air to what I always thought was a festive occasion.”

“But I positively refuse to be seen in church or anywhere else with you wearing that.”

“It’s a jolly nice waistcoat,” I said more warmly. “And after all, I don’t make nasty comments about your wedding-dress.”

“I didn’t make a nasty comment, Richard. I merely expressed a reasonable opinion.”

“Oh, all right, all right! I’ll take it back and change it when we get to Town this afternoon.”

“You can’t this afternoon – the Vicar might want us for a rehearsal.”

“Must we really have one? We’ve only got a couple of lines of dialogue in the whole performance.”

“We’ve got to choose the music. I told the Vicar I wanted to make my entry to the
Trumpet
Voluntary
.”

“What’s wrong with old Mendelssohn’s
Wedding March
? Everyone else has it.”

“That’s the point, Richard. Everyone does.”

“Oh, have anything you like,” I grumbled. “Have
The Entry of the Gladiators
if you want to.”

“Richard! You don’t seem at all interested in your own wedding.”

“I hardly look on it as my wedding. It seems to be only yours.”

“
Richard!
”

Suddenly she came close to me.

“We mustn’t have a row, darling,” she whispered. “Not just before we’re married.”

“Of course not, my sweet. Let’s keep them all until just after.”

We laughed, and I kissed her until I heard Dr Farquarson’s footsteps outside the surgery.

“I’ve got to go away and see two or three cases before we can get to London,” I told her. “I’ll meet you back here for a cup of tea, then we’ll be off.”

“I’ll go down to the cottage, darling. Just to see if everything’s all right.”

It is understandable that I didn’t give my patients my most powerful attention that afternoon. I made flashing diagnoses and scribbled my prescriptions, and I was back in the surgery within half an hour.

“There’s a lady wot’s waiting for you inside,” announced the old woman who cleaned our front steps and our brass plate.

“Damn it! A patient?”

“No, she says she’s come for that there receptionist’s job.”

“I’d clean forgotten I’d got to fix that.” The advertisement had appeared in that week’s paper, but was apparently less inviting than Grimsdyke’s charm. “As she’s the only applicant, I might as well let her have the job on the spot if she’s respectable.”

Waiting in the surgery was Sally Nightingale from St Swithin’s.

“Good God!” I cried. “You!”

“Surprised?” she said, with a laugh.

“Surprised? Demoralized!” I took a good look at her. “But what on earth are you doing here?”

“I only live in Barnet.”

“I mean in this surgery.”

“I have come in answer to your advertisement, as the expression is.”

“You mean, you really want the job?”

She nodded. “My nursing career having been brought to an abrupt, end, I tried the stage. Repertory, you know, up north.
Othello
sandwiched between
Charley’s Aunt
and
Where The Rainbow Ends
. But alas! Despite an enviable self-confidence, I soon found I wasn’t as good at acting as I was at nursing. And it was harder on the feet. Then there was a horrible stage-manager who tried to seduce me one night in the interval. When I was playing Hamlet’s mother, too. I used that as an excuse to walk out and abandon the profession for good. So here I am, looking for gainful employment.” She sat herself on the desk and swung her legs.

“But what about Godfrey?” I exclaimed.

“Godfrey?”

“John Godfrey. That pilot fellow you ran off with from St Swithin’s.’’

“Richard, dear, what in heaven’s name are you talking about?”

“Roger Hinxman told me you’d eloped with him to South America. Hence your abrupt departure.”

She laughed. “Roger
is
an old fool, really. I’m sorry I walked out on you both. But it was due to circumstances beyond my control.” Seeing my expression, she explained, “I was chucked out.”

“Chucked out?”

“My second-year report came up, and within ten minutes I was summoned to matron’s office and told politely that continuing my training would be a waste of time all round. To spare my feelings I was allowed to slip away and nothing official was said about it. Hence the mystery, I suppose.”

“But what on earth did they chuck you out for, Sally? You were such a good nurse.”

“It was silly, really. But you know what matrons are. They said I got too friendly with the patients.”

“But how stupid! Why…” Suddenly I paused. “You mean, that ridiculous business with Hinxman and myself had something to do with it?”

“I suppose it did, in a way,” she admitted. “It had got to Matron’s ears, anyway. But it was all my fault. Now,” she said, with determined cheerfulness. “How about the job?”

This put me in as delicate a position as any man since Solomon. There was no doubt, I felt remorsefully, that my behaviour in Sally’s ward had ended her nursing career. But can a bridegroom start employing his old flames the night before his wedding, however well they are extinguished? I realized now the sense of Sally’s remark that convalescent patients should never meet their nurses over the dinner-table. She was a pleasant enough person, certainly, but seen without uniform and from levels above the horizontal she looked like a jolly schoolgirl out for the half-hols.

“Well,” I said guardedly, deciding to say nothing about my own status for the moment. “You may find this sort of job rather difficult.”

“But it’s just my cup of tea! It’s absolutely made for an unfrocked nurse.”

“Yes, but…”

“Seriously, Richard, I
should
like it, if you’ll have me. It’s near home and it’ll give me the evenings free to go and help look after mother. It’ll be wonderful dealing with patients again, and you can’t imagine what it means to work with someone you know after being in that beastly rep.”

What could I say?

“All right,” I told her. “You can start on Monday.”

“Richard! You dear. I feel I want to kiss you.”

“No, no, please! I mean – not…not… You see, Sally, I must explain that many things have happened –”

“Oh, don’t worry, Richard,” she laughed. “But just six months ago you
did
love me to distraction and told poor Roger you wanted to marry me, didn’t you?”

“I suppose I did,” I confessed.

“I was really quite fond of you, too. But from painful experience I knew it wouldn’t last once your temperature was down.”

“Perhaps,” I said anxiously, “you might develop amnesia about the little affair?”

“I promise. But it’s really quite fascinating in retrospect. Your partner thought so, anyway. I said I knew you personally when I arrived, and before I knew where I was I’d told the whole story, proposals and all.”

“To Dr Farquarson, you mean?”

“Is that her name? The nice young lady doctor who was here when I came.”

“I believe you met the girl who came to apply for the receptionist’s job?” I asked Nikki.

It was half an hour later. I had loaded my cases into the car, and for the last time we were starting off to London. Nikki’s manner since returning from the cottage was as remote as the far side of the moon, and just as cold.

“Yes. I did.”

I pressed the starter. “She’s Florence Nightingale.”

“Really, Richard! I –”

“That actually is her name. Didn’t I tell you I knew her at St Swithin’s?”

“You overlooked it.”

“Did I? Funny how I forgot.”

“It also slipped your memory that you proposed to her about a month before you did to me.”

“Nikki, as it happens, I can easily explain that.”

“Please do.”

“You see, I was slightly unbalanced at the time. I was having jaundice, remember. You know you get mental changes, don’t you?”

“I’m wondering whether they’re permanent.”

I edged my way into the London Road traffic.

“I suppose you’ve given her the job?” Nikki asked.

“As a matter of fact,” I said, staring intently at the tailboard of the lorry in front, “I have.”

Nikki said nothing.

“You see, darling,” I went on quickly, “everything was over and done with long ago between Sally Nightingale and me. Well, six months ago, anyway. But I
did
feel I had a sort of debt to her, because it was through me that she got chucked out of the hospital. I mean,” I added, feeling that I was not putting my case at its strongest, “it will be so nice for her to be able to get home to her old mother in the evenings.”

Nikki still said nothing.

“You
do
understand, darling, don’t you?”

“Oh, perfectly, Richard. As you say, it’ll be nice for her mother.”

“Good,” I said, most uneasily.

We crawled along the road for about half a mile without exchanging a word. Thinking I had better restart the conversation as we drew up at the traffic lights, I said “I suppose we’d better make up our minds about the music we want at the wedding.”

In a pointedly normal voice Nikki said “I suppose we must.”

“Do you still want the
Trumpet Voluntary
?”

“I can’t really see anything wrong with it.”

“It’s a very fine piece of music,” I agreed. “But so is Mendelssohn’s
Wedding March
.”

“The
Wedding March
is about the most hackneyed tune in the world. It booms from practically every organ in Britain on a Saturday afternoon.”

“But so does the
Trumpet Voluntary
. It’s what they use at Harringay to get the boxers into the ring.”

“Richard! There’s no need to be insulting.”

“I’m not being insulting. I’m being perfectly reasonable about the serious question of church music.”

“You’re not. You’re being damned annoying and pigheaded. You haven’t been a bit helpful in getting ready for the wedding –”

“A bit helpful! I like that! First of all you’ve ruined me with your outrageous extravagance –”

“Extravagance! Do you know what it’s like to furnish a house on the never-never?”

“I haven’t been able to do any work because I’m always being dragged round some shop or other in London –”

“I suppose you expect me to get a home together entirely by myself?”

“No, but I think we could have done with a flat instead.”

“You do, do you? If you’d married your other girl friend –”

“She’s not my girl friend!”

“Whom you are now installing comfortably in your surgery –”

“I tell you I was sorry for her mother!”

“If you’re so idiotic as to expect me to take that as an excuse for playing fast and loose –”

“I am
not
playing fast and loose! The girl means nothing to me whatever. Anyway, what about you and Grimsdyke?”

“Me and Grimsdyke? What on earth do you mean?”

“The way you were carrying on with him that night in the Bull.”

“Richard! I’ve never heard such beastly rubbish in all my –”

We were interrupted by a fanfare of car horns as the lights changed to green.

“Oh!” cried Nikki. “You’re impossible!” She pulled her glove off. “There’s your ring back. Goodbye!”

She leapt out of the car and slammed the door. I drove steadfastly on to London.

Grimsdyke had taken a small flat in a large block in Chelsea. I left the car outside, stamped into the lift, and banged on his door.

“Here comes the bride,” he greeted me brightly. “All ready for the big day, old boy? Which side are you going to hold your orange blossom?”

“There’s not going to be any wedding,” I told him. I flung Nikki’s ring on the table. “It’s off.”

“Off? But whatever for?”

“We had a row.”

“Good Lord! What about?”

“The music we were going to have in church.”

“The…the what, old lad?”

“I told you – the music. She wanted the
Trumpet Voluntary
. I wanted the
Wedding March
. We had a disagreement about it, and now the wedding’s off.”

“Richard, old man,” he said anxiously. “I always thought you were a bit balmy, but I didn’t know you were quite so cracked as that.”

“Well, you know how these things are. It was like your blasted draughts game at Foulness. One thing led to another. Old scores were raked up. Before I knew where I was, I’d got a spare ring on my hands.”

“You need a drink,” said Grimsdyke.

“I do,” I said.

“But you can’t put the wedding off now, old lad,” he complained, pouring me half a tumbler of whisky. “I’ve laid on a tremendous bachelor party for you tonight. Tony Benskin and all the boys are coming. Even old uncle Farquarson’s appearing, determined to add his Edinburgh repertoire to our usual songs, God help us.”

“You’ll just have to ring up and put them all off. I’ll have to wire all the wedding guests, anyway.”

“But Richard, you chump! Can’t you be sensible?”

“I am being sensible! Perfectly cool, calm, and sensible. It’s perfectly obvious that Nikki and I –”

“But you can’t behave like this!”

“Now at last I can behave as I damn well like.”

The doorbell rang.

“Oh, damn!” said Grimsdyke. He admitted Tony Benskin, who was looking much the same as when suffering incipient fatherhood in St Swithin’s.

“You’re a bit soon for the party, Tony,” said Grimsdyke shortly. “Did Molly let you off the chain early or something?”

“Is that a drink?” demanded Benskin. He grabbed my glass, murmured “Hello, Richard,” and took a long swig. “There isn’t a chain any more, Grim,” he announced. “Molly and I have separated.”

“What!” we cried together.

“Irrevocably and completely separated,” said Benskin, swallowing the rest of the whisky. “Molly’s gone back to mother. She went this afternoon, taking young Tristram.”

“But why on earth?” exclaimed Grimsdyke.

“Why? Hah! I’ve never known a woman to behave in such a ridiculous, unappreciative, and generally dangerous manner.”

“But what did she do, Tony?” he asked. “Pull a gun on you, or something?”

“Oh, it’s not me. It’s what she’s been doing to poor little Tristram. Do you know, I’ve bought pretty well every book on infant feeding and child welfare there is, and Molly absolutely and completely refuses to do what I tell her. Do you realize, when every single authority says you’ve got to start a baby on a cup at six months, she insists on keeping him on the bottle? Think what she’s doing to the poor little thing’s psychology! He might develop all sorts of frightful unpleasant habits when he grows up. She says the bottle’s easier and he likes it, so there.” Benskin poured himself another drink, “Then there’s the matter of putting him out in his pram. Of course you put children out in their prams, even if it’s bloody well freezing. Stimulates the metabolism no end. But Molly says his feet get cold. Oh, and lots of things besides. Vitamins and immunization and conditioned potting and God knows what. She accused me of interfering. I accused her of ignorance. We had a hell of a row over lunch, and she walked out.”

“You’re not the only one,” Grimsdyke told him morosely. “Richard’s nuptials are off, too.”

“And a jolly good thing,” said Benskin warmly. “Never, never, never get married, old boy! Stick to the single life while you’ve got a chance.”

“What rubbish,” said Grimsdyke. “Now look here, you idiots. I know you’ve always regarded me as the licensed lady-killer of our little band, but I don’t mind telling you that you’re both damned lucky because you’ve got yourselves attached to a couple of wonderful girls who are about fifty times too good for your miserable characters anyway. Richard, you can get into your car and go crawling back to Nikki and crave forgiveness and ask her to wipe her feet on your neck.”

“Never!”

“That’s right, old boy,” Benskin told me. “You stick up for yourself. Let the ruddy woman go and. stew in her own juice.”

“If you do, Richard,” said Grimsdyke, “you’ll end up a repulsive old bachelor with tender memories. And a fat lot of good tender memories are for keeping your feet warm in bed.”

“What the hell can you know about it, anyway?” I said angrily. “You’ve never been married.”

“The spectator sees more of the game, doesn’t he?”

For a second we stared each other in the eye, then I collapsed on Grimsdyke’s divan and said “This is absolutely ridiculous. Six months ago Tony was telling me how wonderful it was to get married, and you were telling me not to touch a wedding-ring with a barge-pole. And now here’s Tony congratulating me on my lucky escape and you’re telling me I’m committing moral suicide.”

“Well, damn it,” said Grimsdyke. “I’ve got more sense than either of you fellows. I’ve never got myself in a mess like this to start with.”

The argument continued. Tony refused to go back to Molly. I refused to grovel to Nikki. Grimsdyke finally refused to have anything to do with either of us. We were interrupted only by another ring on the doorbell and the appearance of Dr Farquarson.

“I thought I’d arrived rather early for the party,” he said to Grimsdyke, putting down his hat among the glasses. “But I see it’s already begun.”

The three of us said nothing. We were all staring in different directions, trying to look as though we’d been having a jolly time.

“But still, now I’m here I’ll take a dram.” We stood in silence, while Grimsdyke hastily poured his uncle a drink. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of meeting your other friend?”

“That is Tony Benskin, uncle,” Grimsdyke muttered. “Tony, Dr Farquarson.”

Tony Benskin nodded absently.

“Well now, you young fellows. I’m a bit of an old fogy, but I still flatter myself I can rise to the occasion when required. We should have a high old time tonight and no mistake, eh? After all, it’s the happiest of occasions. A young man getting married. Who could argue with that?”

“Oh, quite.” I stuffed my hands into my trouser pockets.

“Your very good health, Richard my boy.” Dr Farquarson raised his glass. “On this most joyful occasion.” He looked round at us. “Aren’t you young fellows drinking at all?”

We hastily found glasses and gave the toast, with the enthusiasm and the expressions of men honouring a suicide pact.

“On the whole,” said Dr Farquarson, filling his pipe. “I’m in favour of weddings. If a couple can survive the emotional strain, hard work, and demands for tact and self-discipline they involve, they can overcome pretty well anything else in their married life to come.”

I said nothing.

“Marriage,” Dr Farquarson continued, “is a strange psychological cat’s-cradle. And as you know, it’s generally easier to make a cat’s-cradle if you don’t worry yourself stiff whether it’s going to collapse before you’ve started. Och, I’m not saying that every main road in the country should be signposted to Gretna Green. But it’s a good idea to take the complications of modern marriage in your stride, like you take the complications of modern motoring. Try and reduce it to its simplest essentials. It’s just another example of my favourite theory about civilization being too much for us. Any of you fellows got a match?”

The three of us offered him matchboxes.

“Hello,” he said, picking up Nikki’s ring from the table. “Haven’t I seen this somewhere before?”

“Yes,” I said quickly. “But it wasn’t fitting very well, so Nikki gave it to me to take down to the jewellers and get it altered.”

“I see. What was I rambling on about now? I remember. But fortunately, marriage is about the only thing left in our lives that can be reduced to its essentials by the thought of a moment. You just have to ask, Do I love the girl? Then you have to ask, Does she love me? Page one, chapter one, any biology textbook. If the answer’s ‘yes’ in both cases, you needn’t worry about incompatibility of temperament and whether you like your eggs boiled or scrambled.”

I wished heartily that Dr Farquarson would finish his drink and get out.

“Or even,” he continued, “who you give the job of receptionist to.”

For the first time I noticed his eyebrows quivering.

“Dr Farquarson – !”

“The young lady of yours is in my car,” he said. “I met her in the surgery and dried her tears and exercised an old man’s privilege of talking the hind leg off a donkey.” As the bell rang, he added, “That’ll be her now. I just wanted time to say my piece, that’s all.”

“Nikki darling!” I exclaimed, throwing open the door. I nearly embraced Molly Benskin and her baby.

“Tony angel!” she cried, pushing past me into the room.

“Molly, my sweet!”

“How can you forgive me, Tony? You were absolutely right about the cup and the potty and putting him out in the cold.”

“No, no, no, darling! How can you possibly forgive
me
? I was absolutely wrong about everything.”

“Tony, no!” she said, bursting into tears. “It was all my fault. Every bit.”

As I started to rush downstairs, I heard Grimsdyke exclaim “I knew women made chaps a bit soft in the head, but I never quite thought I’d run into benefit night at Bedlam like this.”

“Nikki, my dearest, sweetest, little lovely one!” I said, embracing her wildly on the pavement, to the alarm of a man delivering the milk.

“Richard darling! My beautifullest loveliest little bunny-wunny!”

“How can I ask you to forgive me? How can I cringe enough? Won’t you please wipe your shoes on my neck?”

“But darling, the whole thing’s been my own silly stupid fault.”

“Yours? Nonsense, Nikki! I’m to blame all along. I was a ridiculous silly idiot.”

“Sweet Richard.” She ran her fingers through my hair. “How can you want to marry such a shrew as me?”

“If you’re a shrew, may you never ever be tamed.”

“I love you so much, darling one.”

“So do I. To distraction.”

‘Do you two mind if I have my car back?”

We jumped apart at Dr Farquarson’s voice behind us.

“I’ll be seeing you later this evening, Richard my lad,” he added, opening the door. “I’m off to Mappin and Webb’s to buy a wedding present.”

“But you’ve already given us one, Farquy.”

“But didn’t I tell you? Our Miss Wildewinde went back to old Dr McBurney, and would you believe it they’re getting married next week. It’ll do them both a power of good. Yes, there’s a lot of it about at this season, as we say to the patients when there’s nothing we can do to stop it.”