When I came back half an hour later, Sylvia was sitting up reading the British Medical Journal.
“Was it necessary?”
“It depends what you mean,” I said, undressing for the second time. “It was Mr Daly; you know, the chap with the big fat wife who always walks past here with that shopping basket on wheels. He came home from business, fit as a fiddle, went upstairs to undress and collapsed on the floor. He was dead when I got there. Only forty-five.”
“Oh! no!” Sylvia put down the BMJ. “How dreadful. What was the matter with him?”
“Possibly a coronary,” I said, “or a cerebral hæmorrhage. It doesn’t much matter, does it? Have to have a PM in the morning.”
After I had put out the light and got into bed I held out my arms for Sylvia. Her face was wet with tears.
“What is it, darling?”
“It all seems so sad,” she said. “That poor Mrs Daly! One minute she has a husband and the next she’s all alone. One day she’s trotting happily by with that ridiculous basket thing and the next she’s crying for her husband.”
“That’s life,” I said. “We can’t live for ever.”
“Not for ever, but he was only forty-five. I never realised life could be like this before I married you. When I was modelling all we used to think about was clothes; we never worried about what went on underneath them. It reminds me of a ball game I used to play as a child. You had three chances and if you were hit you were first sick, then dying, then dead. Mr Daly didn’t even get his first two chances. Doesn’t it depress you, Sweetie?”
“It used to,” I said, drying her tears with my handkerchief, “but I can’t cry over every man, woman and child. It’s not that I don’t care, but that I believe there’s a reason for it all. There has to be.”
I wasn’t sorry that the day which had brought tragedy to the Melrose family and Mrs Daly had ended.
Eleven
On the morning of the party, standing in front of my shaving mirror, I discovered with a small shock that I was beginning to look like a typical GP. Possibly it was the first time for many months that I had really looked at my face in a detached sort of way. I had usually been too intent on making the customary shaving grimaces in order to reach the farthest portions of my beard to see more than a small portion of myself at any one time.
Bearing in mind the evening’s entertainment, however, I had allowed myself a little longer than usual for shaving, and when the job was finished had stood back a little to admire my handiwork. I wasn’t going to have Sylvia saying “Aren’t you going to run over your face, Sweetie?” ten minutes before the guests arrived. It wasn’t that I had got fat, although I had, it was true, a more solid appearance than I had a year ago. I had got what I can only call a benevolent, married look; a settled down, family man appearance.
I wondered if the patients had noticed it, and felt that they most probably had. At any rate, since I had been married many of my women patients had brought to me the problems which before they had taken to some older practitioner with a wife and family rather than consult a bachelor about their personal problems. Recently the picture had changed, and I could not blame the women for their former reluctance to bring to me non-medical problems which before I could not properly have understood. Now I had some experience from the other side of the fence, and had seen for myself some of the “kitchen sink” troubles with which women had to cope. Now I was also beginning to see the trials and tribulations of pregnancy, my previous experience having been only of the purely medical aspects. I supposed that not until I actually had my own children would I be accepted as the complete family doctor. I had diagnosed measles and treated infected ears, but I still had never had to deal with a child of my own who screamed for apparently no reason in the middle of the night, or who refused to take its feeds. I had that pleasure to come, but knew that when it did I should be able to bring just that much more sympathy and understanding to mothers with similar problems.
The surgery was again packed, and at the end of my visiting list was an address I was unable to read. It was “3” something or other, but I couldn’t make out the name of the road. It was in Sylvia’s writing. She was in the kitchen stirring something over a saucepan of boiling water.
“What is it?” she said. “I can’t stop or the sauce will curdle.”
“Never mind that. I can’t read one of my calls.” I stuck the paper under her nose and pointed to the last line.
“Oh!” she said. “Three bottles of Château Neuf du Pape! The wine; for tonight. You won’t forget, will you?”
“I’ll try not to. I’m frightfully busy, though.”
“Did you leave Mrs Wardell’s prescription?”
“Yes.”
“And remember Mr Glynn’s ambulance? He has to be at the Orthopædic at three.”
“No. I’ll do that now.” I kissed the back of her neck. “I don’t know how I ever managed without you.”
“It’s thickened!” she shouted joyfully, dripping some yellow stuff off the wooden spoon, and I could see that today her mind wasn’t really on the practice.
Sylvia very nearly didn’t get to her own dinner party either. At seven o’clock, having worked hard all day, she had completed all the preparations. The table was laid, with all our wedding-present finery, the house tidy and the dinner practically ready to be served. I was in the bathroom “running over my face” at Sylvia’s request, when the doorbell rang.
“I’ll go,” Sylvia said. “Iris is changing her apron. It’s too early for visitors, anyway.”
I heard her open the front door, and an exchange of voices. Then there seemed to be a long silence. Just as I came out on to the landing to see what was going on a woman’s voice shouted:
“Oy! Is anybody there?”
I leaned over the banisters. “Yes?”
“Oh! it’s you, Doctor. You’d better come down. I think your wife’s took queer.”
Sylvia was sitting with her head in her hands on the bottom stair.
On the doorstep, clutching something in her hands, stood Mrs Bradshaw from the Council estate.
“What happened?” I said.
“I’m ever so sorry, but I must’ve upset ’er. It’s my daughter what was expecting and started losin’ ’eavy this morning. You know you told me to keep it if anything seemed to come away, so I thought I’d save you the trouble of coming round.” She held up the glass jam jar she had been holding so carefully. In it, in a quantity of blood, was a three-months foetus!
I got rid of the well-meaning Mrs Bradshaw and sat on the step next to Sylvia.
“Come on, Sweetie,” I said; “you’re a doctor’s wife.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, leaning against me. “It gave me rather a shock for the moment. I opened the door and she just thrust the wretched thing under my nose. It’s made me feel a bit odd.”
I helped her up the stairs and told her to lie down for a bit until she felt better. I promised to come up as soon as anyone arrived.
In the drawing-room, Faraday was sampling the drinks and warming his backside in front of the electric fire.
“I didn’t hear you ring,” I said.
“I didn’t. I came round the back. I thought Sylvia would be in the kitchen, but all I could see was a mass of vital statistics with red hair. She gave me one of these because I hadn’t had any tea.” He held out the petit four he was eating.
I explained what had happened to Sylvia.
“Does she need a doctor?” Faraday said, helping himself to another drink. “A proper doctor?”
“No. And if you don’t put that whisky bottle down you’ll be maudlin before anyone comes. I hope you haven’t forgotten that this dinner party is entirely for your benefit.”
“My dear fellow,” Faraday drained his glass and smacked his lips appreciatively, “of course I haven’t. That’s why I’m giving myself moral support.” He wandered round the room, then arranged himself carefully on the arm of the chair facing the door.
“How do I look?” he asked. “Appetising?”
“Tessa might think so,” I said.
“I think this will do nicely,” Faraday said, patting the chair. “It’s the first meeting of the eye that’s so important.”
“Sylvia’s made a plan,” I said. “In case you want to talk to Tessa alone she’s borrowed Molly’s record player and I’ve fixed it up in the morning-room.”
Faraday raised an eyebrow. “The etchings routine?”
“Yes,” I said, “only it’s skiffle or rock and roll.”
“Sylvia’s thought of everything.”
“She says it’s difficult to perform these introductions at private dinner parties. It’s better at a dance, where you can wander off on your own.”
“Don’t worry,” Faraday said. “If Tessa’s everything you say, just leave it to me.”
The bell rang and Faraday carefully arranged his face into what he considered was a charming smile. It was Loveday and his wife. Iris, bouncing perkily in, showed them into the room. Faraday breathed a small sigh of relief and got up to meet them. Having made the introduction, I went to fetch Sylvia. She was coming down the stairs, a little pale, but feeling better.
“Fix my safety pin,” she whispered, and held up the bottom of her evening jumper.
I fastened the large pin in the waistband of her skirt, which now, in the sixteenth week of her pregnancy, she was unable to do up, and she pulled the black jumper neatly over the rift. She kissed her thanks and we went to make ourselves sociable.
Loveday and his wife were the ideal guests. Loveday, fat, jolly, and ruddy-faced from the golf course, stood by the mantelpiece rubbing his hands, laughing noisily and keeping up a witty flow of interesting small talk. Mrs Loveday, when she could get a word in sideways, as always put everyone at ease with her quiet manner and her genuine interest in the people she met.
Molly and her friend were the next to arrive, and when I had got over my momentary shock at his appearance I went forward to make the introductions. The boyfriend, Eric, was wearing a raspberry-coloured shirt, a green tie, and sandals. He pushed the hair out of his intellectual eyes, told Sylvia how frightfully kind it was of her to ask him to dinner, and sat on the floor. He accepted a glass of sherry with great intensity and said, “What do you think about Dufy?” tossing the remark like a ball to the room at large.
Into the silence that followed, Molly, in her Glynis Johns mood, said huskily to Mrs Loveday: “Eric’s an artist.”
“I would never have guessed,” Mrs Loveday said in her quiet, charming way. “As for Dufy, while no one can deny his superb draughtmanship, he was far too much of the fantasist for my liking.”
Eric, surprised to have his ball picked up and returned, shuffled along the floor until he was sitting at her feet.
“But that’s the whole point,” he said. “He wanted to give a kind of fairytale glamour to contemporary life. His art is a precious concentrate of French life, a sort of civilised hedonism, don’t you think?”
Mrs Loveday didn’t think, but proceeded to cross swords with Eric in a ladylike, debunking manner. I kept an eye on them while talking golf with Loveday, and was pleased to see that Mrs Loveday was more than holding her own.
They had finished with Dufy and returned to Cézanne and the Cubists, Faraday was on his sixth whisky, and Sylvia was looking anxiously at the clock when we heard the doorbell ring.
Sylvia went out to meet Tessa, Faraday took up his rehearsed position on the arm of the chair, and I said brightly: “Ah! Our last guest.”
She came in in front of Sylvia and stood for a moment shyly in the doorway. Faraday nearly fell off the arm of the chair, Loveday straightened his tie and Eric unwound himself from Mrs Loveday’s feet. I had seen Tessa once or twice before, but even I felt the hard-hitting impact of her beauty.
She wasn’t very tall, but what there was of her was perfect. Her figure was obtrusive without being flamboyant, her legs, sheer poetry, her hair silver-blonde and her eyes a curious, luminous green, from which, once you had met them, it was difficult to look away. In her black dress, quite plain except for a fabulously expensive-looking six-row pearl collar, she really was something quite exceptional. I wasn’t surprised that her father was worried about her.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said to me, just nervously enough to remind one she was only eighteen. “I had to wait for the car.”
When she had been introduced she sat down, and I looked to see how Faraday was taking it and what had happened to “the first meeting of the eyes.” He had gone quite pale and was standing, tongue-tied, staring at her while she talked quietly to Mrs Loveday. Molly was trying to talk to Eric, but he was staring spellbound at Tessa, and Loveday whispered to me, mopping his permanently wet forehead, that he wished he was twenty-one again and single.
The dinner went off beautifully. Sylvia had excelled herself and her cooking was appreciated by everyone except Faraday, who didn’t eat a thing because he couldn’t take his eyes off Tessa. I couldn’t blame him. At eighteen she seemed to have everything, revealing at the dinner table a live personality which, with her looks, she could well have managed without.
Iris, in a tiny, frilly apron, nipped smartly in and out with the dishes, only forgetting herself on one occasion when she was unable to stop herself joining in the general conversation. When she realised what she had done she blushed bright red, winked at me and hastily took out her loaded tray, holding the door open with her behind.
Back in the drawing-room after dinner, Eric sat on the arm of Tessa’s chair and, with one hand behind her head, from where he now and again touched her hair, questioned her about the paintings she had seen in Rome where she had recently been on holiday.
Molly, Mr and Mrs Loveday, Sylvia and I discussed the theatre, and Faraday wandered around like a caged lion, glaring at Tessa and Eric.
After about half an hour, during which only the conversation in our little group had changed, Faraday could stand it no longer. I got up and stood beside him, leaning against the mantelpiece.
“What the hell am I to do?” he whispered. “She hasn’t even noticed my existence.”
“What happened to the first meeting of the eyes?”
“I drowned.”
“Why don’t you break up the tête-à-tête?” I nodded towards Tessa and Eric.
“I’ve tried. I can’t get them out of the Sistine Chapel.”
“It’ll have to be etchings then,” I said. “Leave it to me.”
I caught Sylvia’s eye and said loudly: “Has anyone heard the latest Tommy Steele record?”
Eric winced. “Oh!” he said. “Rock and roll? Personally, I think it’s an expression of decadence…”
“Your father told me you were one of his fans, Tessa,” I said, ignoring the interruption.
Eric realised his mistake. “Of course, I was only quoting…” He looked frantically at Tessa. “My own opinion…”
“Dr Faraday has a wonderful rock and roll collection,” I went on ruthlessly. “He brought some of them with him.” I looked at Tessa. “Perhaps you’d like to hear them in the morning-room.”
Tessa, who could not, after all, politely refuse, got up. Eric danced round to her other side as she walked with Faraday to the door. He obviously had every intention of going with them.
“Oh! Eric,” Sylvia said, and I looked at her gratefully. “Molly was telling me that you did portraits privately. Now, I have a very good friend who is dying to have her portrait painted. Come and tell me about it.”
Eric hesitated, then seemed to remember that Sylvia, was, after all, his hostess. He closed the door reluctantly after Tessa and Faraday, and came truculently across the room.
For a while we talked against a faint background of rock and roll. Loveday entertained us with some of his stories and Eric sat in a corner sulking.
After a time I became aware that there were no longer any sounds of music filtering through from the morning-room. Sylvia had noticed it, too, and we ex
changed a smile. Half an hour later we were getting anxious.
“Sweetie,” Sylvia said meaningly, “can you come and help me get a new bottle of whisky down? I’m sure Mr Loveday can do with a nightcap.”
Outside in the hall I held Sylvia’s hand and listened. There were no sounds from the morning-room.
“We’d better go and see what’s happening,” I said. “After all, Tessa is our guest and I feel a little bit responsible. You know, your friend Faraday sometimes gets a bit carried away.”
I opened the door and two guilty faces spun round towards me. Faraday and Iris were standing together in front of the fire. I wasn’t sure whether or not his hands had been round her waist.
“Iris had a pain,” Faraday said nonchalantly.
“Really?” I said.
Iris blushed and sidled past me, muttering something about the washing-up.
“Where’s Tessa?” Sylvia asked.
“She asked me to make her excuses to you and to say good night and thank you. She was rather embarrassed to come in and explain in front of everybody, but she had a bad headache. I said it would be all right.”
I looked at Faraday. “Is that the truth or did you frighten her away?”
Faraday sighed. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance. We simply weren’t on the same wavelength. As for the rock and roll, she couldn’t have cared less. She said that was just her father’s idea of what her generation liked. She wouldn’t even let me run her home. Said she wanted to walk, alone!” He lit a cigarette. “Pity. It’ll take me a long time to forget that girl. I shall have to brush up my technique.”
“Is that what you were doing with Iris?”
“I told you. Iris had a pain.”
“Well,” I said, “kindly remember that she’s registered with me.”
In bed, Sylvia and I discussed the evening and Tessa’s odd behaviour.
“I felt all the time she wasn’t really interested in any of us,” Sylvia said.
“Well, we did our best. It just didn’t take. It was a nice party, anyway. Now let’s go to sleep.”
We were just drifting off when the telephone rang harshly in my ear.
Love on My List Page 10
