before. 'What is it? What's upsetting you?'
'I don't know, I don't know,' Graham told her. 'For once I just can't express myself any other way, that's all.'
Her hand under the bedclothes stroked his penis, that organ of superb anatomical ingenuity.
'I thought I'd lost you for good, Clare-I really did. I could have taken it a few years ago, but not now. Not any longer.'
She said nothing for a minute, then confessed, 'We have a fairy godfather. Someone who came and changed my mind.'
'Oh? And who might that be?'
'Mr Haileybury,' she told him cheerfully.
Graham sat bolt upright. 'Haileybury? My God! That pie-faced fossil Haileybury?'
'He told me you could be relied upon to be a good boy in future,' she added teasingly. 'And of course, nobody could possibly doubt the good word of Mr Haileybury.'
'Good God!' muttered Graham.
But the news was too much. For almost the first time in his life when in bed with a woman, Graham was put off his stroke.
28
At the beginning of June in the hot and thundery summer of 1947, it was starting to sink into the British public that of all the 'shortages' bedevilling the country, which ran from electricity-generating stations to milk chocolate, a lack of United States dollars was the most serious, intractable, and baffling. After all, General Marshall was proposing to give dollars away by the shipload to European countries who had spent the war defeating one another-even to Germany, or the bits that the Russians had left of it. And we were the victors. We had fought the war from the first shot, we had won it (admittedly with a little American assistance), we had paid our whack of it. It was most frustrating. Why, the Government were even contemplating an unbelievable economy-of denying the twenty million weekly cinemagoers their accustomed Hollywood films.
Graham then had a letter from Edith, demurely congratulating him on his marriage. He supposed she had learnt of it from some regular bundle of English newspapers dispatched to soften her exile. But most of the half-dozen pages in her large round hand concerned her son Alec. She was dreadfully worried about him. He had written early in the year explaining he was in hospital with some mild psychological disturbance. She just couldn't understand it. Alec had been a highly strung child, of course, and was still inclined to be excitable, but he was perfectly normal, and very clever, really. There was certainly no madness on _their _side of the family (Graham felt slightly irritated at the barb, but supposed it unintentional). Edith hadn't heard from Alec since. She has no idea if he were still under treatment, or where he was. She hesitated troubling Graham, who must be terribly busy, but she was becoming desperate. It seemed such an awful pity that all Alec's splendid education should go to waste.
Graham tossed the letter on to the desk in his Marylebone flat. Edith was always a great admirer of education, he reflected. Even as a girl she placed it among the noblest of human qualities, when it was only another pair of hands, to be used for good or evil, but mostly for feeding yourself.
But he supposed he had better do something about Alec.
He knew the young man had been discharged from Smithers Botham, taking some new drug which Dr Dency assured Graham would have a tranquillizing effect, rather than a soporific one like the barbiturates. Graham telephoned the psychiatrist's consulting room, to learn that Dr Dency had left for a six-months' lectureship in the Union of South Africa, where he was doubtless enjoying steaks and as many eggs as he cared to eat for his breakfast. He telephoned Smithers Botham, but could get no sense from anybody. The next afternoon he was himself delivering a lecture at Addenbrook's Hospital at Cambridge, and had arranged to dine in hall afterwards with his son. Perhaps Desmond might be able to help, Graham wondered. He had more reason for keeping track of Alec than anyone.
'How did the lecture go?' asked Desmond, welcoming his father amiably enough with a glass of sherry in his rooms.
'I don't really know. It was my standard one. I've delivered it so often it comes out automatically. It's a useful opportunity for me to think about other matters.'
Desmond gave a faint smile. Now that he's started wearing his hair long, thought Graham, he really does look tremendously like Maria.
'How's Clare?' Desmond asked.
'She's splendid! You didn't particularly want to attend the wedding, I suppose?'
'I'd have come if you'd asked me.'
'Then perhaps I saved you some embarrassment by omitting to. By the way, you don't happen to know where Alec's got to, I suppose? His mother's worried stiff about him.'
Desmond looked surprised. 'I was going to ask you the same thing. I heard some sort of rumour that he was doing anaesthetic locums round London.'
'Then perhaps John Bickley might have a clue,' Graham suggested hopefully.
'I'm not going to let him get away with it, you know,' said Desmond more severely. 'The money's mine, and he's showing absolutely no inclination to pay it back whatever. It's just as if he'd put his hand in my pocket and stolen it.'
'My dear Desmond!' Graham leant back in his armchair. 'One of the things you should now be learning in life is the right moment to cut your losses. With either bad debts, bad women, or bad operating techniques. Enjoy your mistakes, but don't lose sleep over them.'
'I agree, but anyway the unpleasant experience will do you good.' Graham sipped the sherry, which was really rather good. It was stupid to worry about grabbing money all the time, he told himself. One of the more depressing of the herd instincts. A wonder he had fallen for the idea for so long. Since marrying Clare he was becoming quite righteous.
'If I'm going to start making self-improving donations to charity I certainly wouldn't begin with Alec,' Desmond declared crossly.
'You've got paranoia about him, haven't you? That's a waste of time, too. Old Haileybury and I were daggers drawn for years, and it didn't get us very far. Only recently I've realized that everyone was killing themselves laughing behind our backs. I'd forget Alec, if I were you.' As Desmond continued looking disagreeable, Graham added, 'All right, all right, once I've got my affairs straight I'll make up the sum to you. Does that make you feel better? Count your blessings. You're set for a brilliant academic career, while Alec will never come to anything.'
Desmond seemed to consider this proposition for some moments, then announced, 'You know I've decided to prepare a new edition of grandfather's book? There's a tremendous amount of work involved, but I think it will be worth while.'
'That's excellent news.' Graham felt deeply gratified. ''Trevose on the synovial membranes'. I remember the old boy writing it, donkey's years ago, when I'd escaped with my life from that sanatorium. He'd be pleased to think the family were keeping it going. There's a weight of medical tradition on your shoulders, you know, Desmond. It gets heavier every generation, like our debts.'
'Perhaps that's why I decided on the task,' said Desmond solemnly. 'It's something for posterity. It doesn't seem I shall father another generation of Trevoses. Our branch of the family will die out.'
'Oh, I don't know,' Graham told him cheerfully. 'You've forgotten about Clare and myself.'
'Good God,' murmured Desmond, looking thoroughly alarmed.
Graham decided to take Desmond's guess about Alec's whereabouts as fact, and wrote Edith a consoling letter saying her son was making his way in the newly flourishing specialty of anaesthetics. He supposed he could have made more energetic enquiries, but he was tremendously busy with plans and committees for the new hospital. For the third time in his life he was starting a new unit from scratch-first at Blackfriars in the twenties, backed by Val Arlott, secondly at Smithers Botham, discouraged by everybody, and now in the abandoned American building with
