2
Until then Porterhampton was just another entry in my football pools, but a fortnight later I found myself driving past the Town Hall on a morning as crisp as an icicle, and pretty solemn I felt about it, too.
While lunching with Miles, I'd been putting an optimistic face on a pretty desperate situation, which is another of the useful things you learn from studying medicine. I didn't really like the prospect of being a respectable provincial doctor. In fact I didn't really like the prospect of being a doctor at all.
I was a _medecin malgrй lui._ I'd taken up the profession because nobody in the family ever had the originality to think of anything else, and anyway all my uncles and cousins seemed to have a pleasant time of it, with large cars and everyone listening to their opinions at cocktail parties. But with medicine and marriage, the earlier you go in for either the riskier the project becomes. Quite a different chap emerges at the end of the course from the apple-cheeked lad with big ideas who went in. It's great fun at first, of course, being casualty houseman in a clean white coat with all the nurses saying 'Good morning, doctor,' even if the job does consist mostly of inspecting unpleasant things brought along in little white enamel bowls. It's a bit of a shock finding afterwards that you've got to make a living at it, though I suspect a good many housemen feel the same and keep pretty quiet. The public doesn't much care for entrusting their lives to doctors who don't love their profession, even though they entrust them every day to bus drivers and no one expects a bus driver to love his bus.
But as I couldn't go exploring like Dr Livingstone, become a Prime Minister of France like Dr Clemenceau, or play cricket like Dr W G Grace, I had to find a steady job like everyone else. And what of these Wattles? I wondered, as I drove past the Porterhampton fish market. They might at that moment be hopping about like a small boy waiting for the postman on his birthday.
Or they might be plotting to kick me about like a medical tweeny. Fortunately for my low psychological state, I was soon reassured over my conditions of work.
I found the Wattles' house somewhere on the far outskirts, in a road of roomy Victorian villas apparently reserved for prosperous turbine-makers. As I drew up in the 1930 Bentley, the motherly Mrs Wattle herself appeared at the gate.
'Dear Dr Grimsdyke!' she greeted me. 'We're so delighted you've decided to bury yourself in our rather sleepy little town.'
'Charming place, I'm sure.'
'Mr Palethorpe spoke so highly of you, you know. I'm awfully glad he persuaded you to come. But you must be tired after your long drive. I'll show you to your room, and there's a nice lunch ready as soon as my husband gets in from his rounds.'
I slipped off my overcoat.
'Dear, dear! No buttons on your shirt, Doctor! You must let me have it tonight. And any socks and things that need darning, just leave them on the kitchen table.'
My room ran a bit to chintz and watercolours of St Ives, but seemed very cosy. There was a bookcase full of detective stories, a desk, and a large double bed already airing with a hot-water bottle like an old-fashioned ginger-beer jar. Going downstairs after tidying up, I found roast beef and Yorkshire on the table, with apple pie and Stilton waiting on the sideboard.
'I'm sure you'd care for a bottle of beer today,' cooed Mrs Wattle. 'Mr Palethorpe said you took the occasional glass.'
I'd met Dr Wattle himself only for a brief interview in London, and he was a little pink, perspiring chap with a bald head, resembling a freshly-boiled egg.
'Delighted to see you, my dear doctor.' He shook hands warmly. 'We may call you Gaston, may we? I hope you'll be very happy with us. Is that your car outside? Very dashing of you to drive an old open tourer. But do take my wife's Morris when it's raining, won't you? Would you care for an advance of salary? We'll sort out your duties later. If you ever want time off for anything, don't hesitate to ask.'
'Your chair's over here, Gaston. Sure you're not in a draught?'
'I hope you'll find my wife's cooking to your taste.'
'The roast beef's not overdone?'
'Anything special you fancy to eat, do please let us know.'
'Horseradish?' asked Mrs Wattle.
Later we had crumpets for tea and finnan haddock for supper, and in the evening we all three sat round the fire making light conversation.
'Mr Palethorpe revealed you had quite a roguish wit,' said Mrs Wattle, playfully shaking her finger.
So I told them the story about the bishop and the parrot, though of course altering the anatomical details a bit.
'How pleasant to hear a young voice in the house,' murmured her husband.
'We've
'Ever since the dog died,' agreed Dr Wattle.
After years of living on tins of baked beans and packets of potato crisps, and mending my own socks by pulling a purse string suture round the hiatus, it did my physiology no end of good to have regular meals and all the buttons on my shirts. There wasn't even much work to do, old Wattle himself handling all the posher patients and leaving me with a succession of kids in the usual epidemic of mumps. After surgery and supper we all three gathered for the evening in the sitting-room. Sometimes we watched the telly. Sometimes we played three-handed whist. Sometimes they asked me to tell the story of the bishop and the parrot all over again. I was glad to see the Wattles had quite a sense of humour.
But even the Prodigal Son, once they'd used up all the fatted calf, must have hankered to waste just a bit more of his substance on riotous living. As the local amenities ran largely to municipal parks and museums, and so on, and as I couldn't go to any of the pubs because I was a respectable GP, or to any of the pictures because I'd seen them all months ago in the West End, I longed for one final glimpse of the lively lights of London.
'Dr Wattle,' I announced one morning, when I'd been enjoying three square meals a day for several weeks. 'I wonder whether you'd mind if I popped down to Town this Saturday? I've just remembered I've got some laundry to collect.'
'My dear boy! Go whenever and wherever you wish.'
'That's jolly civil of you. Awfully annoying, and all that, but I'd better make the trip.'
The following Saturday evening found me once again in the genial glow of Piccadilly Circus, breathing the carcinogenic hydrocarbons and watching the neon sunrise as the lights came on.
I don't think there's any sensation to compare with arriving in London after a spell of exile, even if it's only your summer holidays. I felt I'd never seen anything so beautiful as the submarine glow of the misty streetlamps, heard anything as cheerful as the nightly torrent ebbing towards the suburbs, nor smelt any perfume so sweet as the reek of a London Transport omnibus.
But I couldn't waste time admiring the scenery, and went to a telephone box, looked through my little black book, then rang up Petunia Bancroft.
Petunia was a little brunette and an actress. I've had a weakness for the stage ever since I was a medical student and nearly eloped with a young woman who was sawn in two twice nightly by a Palladium conjurer, until I discovered that she was in fact a pair of young women, and I'd picked the half with the shocking varicose veins. Petunia had been a chum of mine for many years, though unfortunately her ideas of entertainment rather exceeded her theatrical standing-usually she just walked on the stage and announced dinner was ready, but after the show she knocked back champagne like the great leading ladies when the stuff was five bob a bottle. Also, she had a rather hysterical personality, and was likely to throw the dessert about and bite the head waiter. But after a month in Porterhampton, Petunia seemed just what I needed.
'Darling, I'd love to meet you,' she agreed. 'Don't come to the show, it's lousy and closing any minute, anyway. See you at the stage door after ten.'
The London streets were as deserted as Porterhampton on a Sunday afternoon by the time I took Petunia home to Balham-like most glamorous hotsies these days, she lived quietly with Mum and did the washing-up before
