'Yes, Mum.'
'Here, I say!' I exclaimed. 'Dash it! It's barely midnight.'
'The only advice I require from you is on medical matters, young man. Up you go, Petunia. Don't forget your skin-food on the dressing-table.'
'No, Mum.'
'Or to say good night to Sir Theodore.'
'Yes, Mum.'
'And Adam Stringfellow.'
'Yes, Mum. Good night, Gaston.'
They left me in the middle of the dance floor, feeling pretty cross. I'd been looking forward to a jolly little party with Britain's biggest sex symbol, and here she was pushed off to bed like a schoolgirl on holiday. I stared round, wondering what to do with the rest of the evening. As I didn't seem to know anybody, and Lord Nutbeam was starting to throw Charlotte Russe into the chandeliers, I thought I might as well go up to bed, too.
'Excuse me,' said a voice behind me.
I turned to find a tall blonde with a long cigarette-holder and one of those charm bracelets which make women sound like passing goods trains whenever they reach for a drink.
'You're Dr Grimsdyke, aren't you?'
'Quite correct.'
'Known Melody Madder long?'
'Years and years,' I returned pretty shortly. 'Almost at school together, in fact.'
'Really? How very interesting. Don't you think it's stuffy in here? Shall we go outside for a drink?' She took my arm. 'You can tell me the story of your life in the moonlight.'
'I don't really think you'd be very interested.'
'But I'm sure I'll be very interested indeed, Doctor.' She made for the terrace. 'Let's sit in the orangery, where we'll not be disturbed.'
I didn't see Petunia for the next twenty-four hours, Lord Nutbeam being in such a state after the party we had to spend a quiet day motoring in the mountains. In the end, I'd passed a pleasant little evening with the blonde, who's name turned out to be Dawn something and was one of those sympathetic listeners who make such good hospital almoners and barmaids. After a few glasses of champagne she'd got me telling her all my troubles, including Miles and trying to write a book, though I kept pretty quiet about Petunia and Jimmy Hosegood.
I'd already decided it was as dangerous to go mucking about gaily in people's love affair's as to go mucking about gaily in their abdomens, and to let poor old Pet manage this amorous Tweedledum herself. I supposed I could have told him she was married already with a couple of kids in Dr Barnardo's. I could have said she ground her teeth all night in bed. I could have challenged him to a duel, when at least I'd have stood the best chance of scoring a hit. But these ideas all struck me as leading to unwanted complications.
It was a couple of mornings later when I wandered down to the beach to find Petunia, and discovered Hosegood in the tent alone, on a deckchair that looked as unsafe as a birdcage under a steam-roller.
'Nice day,' he said, as I appeared. 'Great stuff for toning up the system, a bit of sunshine.'
As he was fully dressed except for his boots and socks, I supposed he was drawing up the beneficial ultra-violet rays through his feet.
'Mind if I sit down? I was looking for Miss Madder.'
'Make yourself comfortable, lad. She was called on some photographing lark somewhere.'
He seemed very civil, so I took the next chair.
'Enjoying all the fun of the Festival?' I asked.
Hosegood sighed.
'I'd be happier on the sands at Morecambe, I would, straight. I don't hold with all this flummery-flannery myself, though there's plenty as does. Not that I'm one to interfere with anybody's enjoyment, as long as it's decent.'
'I expect you're a pretty knowledgeable chap about films?' I went on, trying to work up some sort of conversation.
'Me? Don't be daft, lad. I never go to the pictures, unless I can't help it.'
He sat for some time staring at his bunions. There didn't seem much else to talk about.
'What's your line of country?' he asked.
'I'm a doctor.'
'You are, by gum?' He almost rolled off the deck-chair. 'Just the feller I'm looking for.'
'Delighted to be of assistance,' I said politely.
'Tell me, Doctor-how can I get some of this blessed weight off?'
'Losing weight is perfectly simple,' I replied.
'Is it?' He brightened up a bit. 'Then what do I do, Doctor?'
'Eat less.'
'But I don't eat enough to keep a bird alive! Not fattening foods, at any rate.
Nothing like-well, oysters, for instance.'
'One dozen oysters.' I disillusioned him, 'have only the food value of a lightly-boiled egg.'
'Go on? But I thought…I can be frank with you, of course, Doctor? Now that I'm getting married-Melody and me, y'know-and none of us are getting any younger, perhaps a few oysters…'
I disillusioned him about that one, too.
'How about massage?' he asked hopefully. 'Isn't that good for taking off weight?'
'Excellent,' I told him. 'For the masseuse.'
Hosegood looked gloomily at the agreeable combination of blue sea and girls in bikinis frolicking in the sunshine. I recalled a dietetic lecture at St Swithin's, when a professor resembling an articulated meat-skewer explained how he lived on a diet of crushed soya beans, while Sir Lancelot Spratt, who held that no gentleman ever dined off less than four courses, suffered violent trembling attacks and had to be taken out.
'They say in the papers it's dangerous to be fat,' Hosegood added sombrely.
'The commonest instruments of suicide,' I agreed, 'have rightly been described as a knife and fork.'
'But I've led a good, clean life. There's some I've seen in the club eating like steam shovels, and never putting on an ounce. I've only to look twice at the menu myself, and I'm letting out all my trousers again.'
'One of the nastier jokes of Nature,' I sympathized. 'It's all a matter of the appetite-regulating centre, nuzzling in the cranium between your pituitary gland and our sub-conscious fixations about Mother.'
'Then perhaps you can suggest some sort of diet, Doctor?'
'As a matter of fact I can.'
Usually I prefer professional incognito in social surroundings, what with people keeping coming up and telling you all about their ruddy prolapsed kidneys, but old Hosegood struck me as a very decent sort, and even a good bridegroom for a girl preparing to risk getting stuck in the door of the church.
'The St Swithin's Hospital Diet,' I explained, producing the card from my wallet. 'All perfectly simple, as long as you remember to treat potatoes and puddings like deadly nightshade.'
'No fish and chips?'
'Nor alcohol.'
'I'm rather fond of a drop of beer.'
'So am I. That's the bitter pill.'
But he didn't seem in the mood for joking and pocketed the card in silence.
'Thank you, Doctor. I'll give it a go at lunch-time. I'm having a bite with Stringfellow in the Cafй de Paris. I suppose he wants to talk me into more brass for Melody's picture.'
'Talking of Miss Madder,' I went on, 'I certainly wouldn't contemplate marriage until you've lost a couple of stone.'
He looked alarmed. 'You really think so?'
'Without a doubt. Most dangerous.'
This wasn't strictly correct professionally, though I remembered a fat chap brought into St Swithin's orthopaedic department on his honeymoon with a dislocated shoulder when the bed broke.
'Besides,' I went on, 'there's always the risk of-'
