SURGEON AT ARMS

instead of Britons, a seat in a London theatre was as hard to come by as a seat in a long-distance express. After the show they went to an Italian restaurant in Soho. In the first black nights of the war Graham had sometimes cheered himself up there by toasting Allied victory in Chianti at the insistence of the proprietor, who by 1942 had been caged up for a couple of years in the Isle of Man. But the elderly head waiter remembered him, and even laid the establishment open to immediate prosecution by letting them consume not only soup and chicken but a slice of fish as well.

Over the meal, they talked about their work. Now Desmond was growing up in medicine, Graham could enjoy the singular satisfaction of a medical parent in watching his child emerge as a professional colleague. They met often enough at Smithers Botham on perfectly easy terms, though coming to talk less of personal things than their cases, or to dissect the characters, abilities, and errors of the other consultants.

'Anything interesting in the annex at the moment, Dad?' Desmond asked across their corner table in the restaurant.

'A lot of oddments. The by-products of the war, mostly. There's a man from the Desert who gave himself a rub-down with petrol-they're short of water, you understand. Then the idiot lit a cigarette. He was an awful mess. There's a naval rating who was working in the engine-room of a destroyer when some fool turned on the superheated steam. Tragic cases. There's not much glory in being run over by your own tank. Anyway, war's a horrible business.'

'Are you getting sick of it?'

'I've never had time to pause and think. I suppose when I get back to bobbing noses, it'll be a relief knowing the patients' real suffering is only in the pocket.' Graham added after a moment, 'Sometimes it's difficult for me to realize our present highly abnormal form of life won't go on for ever. I suppose the same goes for all our generals.'

'Do you expect a lot of changes after the war?'

'I can tell you one.' Graham picked up his small glass of sloe gin, doing wartime duty for cognac. 'I'm going to obtain a divorce from your mother.'

Desmond considered this for some moments. 'That comes as something of a surprise, I must say. After all this time.'

'But surely my decision doesn't mean much to you, does it?' Graham asked, rather over-anxiously. 'Your mother's been ill for so long. You were only a child when she first had to go into hospital. You can hardly remember her when she was…well, as she used to be.'

Desmond said nothing. Graham wondered what Maria would be like had she kept her wits and her money. Doing something energetic in the war, doubtless. She was always the busy type.

'She's a complete wreck of her former self,' Graham added. 'Only I can appreciate the change.'

'She's not in very good shape, admittedly.'

'That's a mild way of putting it, Desmond. I assure you it makes not the slightest difference to your mother if I remain her husband or not. The whole conception of marriage is far beyond her ability to grasp. She's certified, you understand-certified as insane. Of course, I'll see she's looked after. Just as I do now. She'll stay in that home in comfort until the end of her days.'

'But why, Dad?' Desmond looked more solemn than ever. 'Why this sudden decision?'

'Because I'm going to marry Clare. Surely you must have expected that?'

'No. Not really. I didn't think you felt it necessary.'

'It's decidedly necessary,' said Graham, nettled by the remark. 'Clare's pregnant.'

Desmond stared at him.

'It's going to call for a measure of mental readjustment in both of us,' Graham continued. 'But it's a demonstrable fact. The embryo has been created. Your baby half-brother or sister already exists, ectoderm, endoderm, mesoderm, yolk-sac, amnion, the lot. Two or three millimetres long, snug in the mucosa of Clare's uterus. We can't get away from that.'

'What's Alec going to say?'

'Why do you always bother what Alec's going to say?' Graham asked irritably.

'He's always trying to get some sort of hold over me. He's got a nasty tongue when he likes.'

'I'm sure you can cope with Alec'

'It's bad enough his taking my money.'

'I'm certainly not going into that again now,' Graham told him promptly. 'If the cost of his education is coming from your trust fund, it was the least I could do for both the family and for Aunt Edith.'

Alec's father, the medical missionary, had maintained that the rewards of his vocation were to be found not in this world but the next, where presumably he had been enjoying them for seven years since dying, flat broke, in Malaya.

'Anyway, it's only a loan,' Graham pointed out. 'Alec's supposed to pay it all back once he's qualified. In the end you'll be no worse off.'

'What do you suppose Aunt Edith is going to say about your marrying again?'

Graham raised his eyebrows. That delicate little complication hadn't occurred to him. 'Desmond, I'm afraid I've got to go ahead with this divorce. I hope you'll come to see it as the right step.'

'I only see it as being rather hard on mother.'

'That's ridiculous.' Graham became angry. 'You know perfectly well most of the time your mother hasn't even the first idea who I am.'

'Still, she is my mother. I feel sorry for her.'

He really had little affection for his mother. But he was desperately frightened about doing the 'wrong thing'. He was becoming aware of inner forces which could drive him along the same devious paths as his father, and that must be avoided at all costs. Graham's life had already made his son an easy target for ridicule, not only from Alec but from any of the other students disposed to a bit of ragging. For security he must fly into conventionality.

'Now you're just being pompous,' said Graham curtly. Desmond turned red, and Graham rebuked himself. He'd been too savage. Desmond was really very young, and confused with the ways of the world. Just as he had been himself at the same age. 'Come, Desmond,' he added more kindly. 'Try and adjust yourself. Clare won't be more to you than a stepmother in name. She'll be terribly tactful. I promise you that. You'll come to like her tremendously.'

Desmond hesitated, and said, 'I think I prefer to make up my own mind about people, Dad.'

Graham called for the bill. Desmond really could be terribly difficult when he wanted. Just like Maria.

Everyone at Smithers Botham seemed to know about the baby from its conception. Graham had confided in John Bickley, and he supposed Denise had spread the news with enthusiasm. Crampers had grunted something at him-congratulatory, Graham hoped. Even Captain Pile had made the point of repeating that no woman whatever was permitted to give birth within the hospital's glass-topped walls. Graham didn't care about the notoriety. He rather enjoyed it. He told himself more forcibly every day he was delighted with their child. A young life, something to perpetuate himself right to the end of the century, was an anodyne for any painfully intruding ideas about death and extinction. He could have no possible reservations about it whatever, he decided. And it would be wonderful for Clare. He treated her with the greatest tenderness, physical and mental. As for the effect on the mother-to-be of her circumstances in general, and her standing in the eyes of everybody at Smithers Botham in particular, it never crossed his mind to enquire.

All this happened in the busy fortnight following the Sunday when they rang the church bells. Then he had a letter from the Ministry terminating his contract at the annex.

13

'I want to see Brigadier Haileybury,' said Graham to the sergeant in the hall. 'My name's Trevose. I'm a surgeon. The brigadier knows me well.'

'Have you an appointment, sir?'