Roald Dahl - The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl, Volume 1

"But it is impossible to replace a person one has loved to distraction," Anna had said to him the last time he had brought up the subject. "Heavens above, doctor, when Mrs CrummlinBrown's parakeet died last month, her parakeet, mind you, not her husband, she was so shook up about it, she swore she'd never have another bird again!"

"Mrs Cooper," Dr Jacobs had said, "one doesn't normally have sexual intercourse with a parakeet."

"Well…no…

"That's why it doesn't have to be replaced. But when a husband dies, and the surviving wife is still an active and a healthy woman, she will invariably get a replacement within three years if she possibly can. And vice versa."

Sex. It was about the only thing that sort of doctor ever thought about. He had sex on the brain.

By the time Anna had dressed and taken the elevator downstairs, it was ten minutes after six. The moment she walked into the bar, a man stood up from one of the tables. It was Conrad. He must have been watching the door. He came across the floor to meet her. He was smiling nervously. Anna was smiling, too. One always does.

"Well, well," he said. "Well well well," and she, expecting the usual peck on the cheek, inclined her face upward toward his own, still smiling. But she had forgotten how formal Conrad was. He simply took her hand in his and shook it once. "This is a surprise," he said. "Come and sit down."

The room was the same as any other hotel drinking-room. It was lit by dim lights, and filled with many small tables. There was a saucer of peanuts on each table, and there were leather bench-seats all around the walls. The waiters were rigged out in white jackets and maroon pants. Conrad led her to a corner table, and they sat down facing each other. A waiter was standing over them at once.

"What will you have?" Conrad asked.

"Could I have a martini?"

"Of course. Vodka?"

"No, gin, please."

"One gin martini," he said to the waiter. "No. Make it two. I've never been much of a drinker, Anna, as you probably remember, but I think this calls for a celebration."

The waiter went away. Conrad leaned back in his chair and studied her carefully. "You look pretty good," he said.

"You look pretty good yourself, Conrad," she told him. And so he did. It was astonishing how little he had aged in twenty-five years. He was just as lean and handsome as he'd ever been-in fact, more so. His black hair was still black, his eye was clear, and he looked altogether like a man who was no more than thirty years old.

"You are older than me, aren't you?" he said.

"What sort of a question is that?" she said, laughing. "Yes Conrad, I am exactly one year older than you. I'm forty-two."

"I thought you were." He was still studying her with the utmost care, his eyes travelling all over her face and neck and shoulders. Anna felt herself blushing.

"Are you an enormously successful doctor?" she asked. "Are you the best in town?"

He cocked his head over to one side, right over, so that the ear almost touched the top of the shoulder. It was a mannerism that Anna had always liked. "Successful?" he said. "Any doctor can be successful these days in a big city-financially, I mean. But whether or not I am absolutely first rate at my job is another matter. I only hope and pray that I am."

The drinks arrived and Conrad raised his glass and said, "Welcome to Dallas, Anna. I'm so pleased you called me up. It's good to see you again."

"It's good to see you, too, Conrad," she said, speaking the truth.

He looked at her glass. She had taken a huge first gulp, and the glass was now half empty. "You prefer gin to vodka?" he asked.

"I do," she said, "yes."

"You ought to change over."

"Why?"

"Gin is not good for females."

"It's not?"

"It's very bad for them."

"I'm sure it's just as bad for males," she said.

"Actually, no. It isn't nearly so bad for males as it is for females."

"Why is it bad for females?"

"It just is," he said. "It's the way they're built. What kind of work are you engaged in, Anna? And what brought you all the way down to Dallas? Tell me about you."

"Why is gin bad for females?" she said, smiling at him.

He smiled back at her and shook his head, but he didn't answer.

"Go on," she said.

"No, let's drop it."

"You can't leave me up in the air like this," she said. "It's not fair."

After a pause, he said, "Well, if you really want to know, gin contains a certain amount of the oil which is squeezed out of juniper berries. They use it for flavouring."

"What does it do?"

"Plenty."

"Yes, but what?"

"Horrible things."

"Conrad, don't be shy. I'm a big girl now."

He was still the same old Conrad, she thought, still as diffident, as scrupulous, as shy as ever. For that she liked him. "If this drink is really doing horrible things to me," she said, "then it is unkind of you not to tell me what those things are."

Gently, he pinched the lobe of his left ear with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Then he said, "Well, the truth of the matter is, Anna, oil of juniper has a direct inflammatory effect upon the uterus."

"Now come on!"

"I'm not joking."

"Mother's ruin," Anna said. "It's an old wives' tale."

"I'm afraid not."

"But you're talking about women who are pregnant."

"I'm talking about all women, Anna." He had stopped smiling now, and he was speaking quite seriously. He seemed to be concerned about her welfare.

"What do you specialize in?" she asked him. "What kind of medicine? You haven't told me that."

"Gynaecology and obstetrics."

"Ah-ha!"

"Have you been drinking gin for many years?" he asked.

"Oh, about twenty," Anna said.

"Heavily?"

"For heaven's sake, Conrad, stop worrying about my insides. I'd like another martini, please."

"Of course."

He called the waiter and said, "One vodka martini."

"No," Anna said, "gin."

He sighed and shook his head and said, "Nobody listens to her doctor these days."

"You're not my doctor."

"No," he said. "I'm your friend."

"Let's talk about your wife," Anna said. "Is she still as beautiful as ever?"

He waited a few moments, then he said, "Actually, we're divorced."

"Oh, no!"

"Our marriage lasted for the grand total of two years. It was hard work to keep it going even that long."

For some reason, Anna was profoundly shocked. "But she was such a beautiful girl," she said. "What happened?"

"Everything happened, everything you could possibly think of that was bad."

"And the child?"

"She got him. They always do." He sounded very bitter. "She took him back to New York. He comes to see me once a year, in the summer. He's twenty years old now. He's at Princeton."

"Is he a fine boy?"

"He's a wonderful boy," Conrad said. "But I hardly know him. It isn't much fun."

"And you never married again?"

"No, never. But that's enough about me. Let's talk about you."

Slowly, gently, he began to draw her out on the subject of her health and the bad times she had gone through after Ed's death. She found she didn't mind talking to him about it, and she told him more or less the whole story.

"But what makes your doctor think you're not completely cured?" he said. "You don't look very suicidal to me."

"I don't think I am. Except that sometimes, not often, mind you, but just occasionally, when I get depressed, I have the feeling that it wouldn't take such a hell of a big push to send me over the edge."

"In what way?"

"I kind of start edging toward the bathroom cupboard."

"What do you have in the bathroom cupboard?"

"Nothing very much. Just the ordinary equipment a girl has for shaving her legs."

"I see." Conrad studied her face for a few moments, then he said, "Is that how you were feeling just now when you called me?"