Richard Gordon - SURGEON AT ARMS

'You look sad,' she said teasingly afterwards.

'Do I? It's physiological after an orgasm. Isn't there a classical tag? Though the single one I can remember is _calor, rubor, tumor, dolor, _and that's only inflammation.'

She ran the tip of her finger round his umbilicus. 'That's a strange thing we have.'

'It's only a cicatrix, a scar.'

'What's inside it?'

'Nothing. The remains of the blood-vessels which fed us before we were born.'

'It's quite pretty, really, like a flower. A budding rose.'

'Most are like cabbages.'

Her hand slipped down to his penis, off duty in the at-ease position. 'It's full of tissue like a sponge, isn't it? I remember from our anatomy lectures. It was awfully funny, the sister-tutor was a terribly dried-up old thing. She told us all about an erection, with diagrams on the blackboard, as though she was talking about the moon. She could never have seen one in her life.'

'It's a really most interesting organ. The arteries dilate enormously, quite unlike any others in the body.'

'It must be fascinating to have one.'

'According to the psychiatrists, all women think so. Penis-envy. Though quite where that interesting discovery gets us, I don't know.'

'Did all your women want one?' He felt this reference, under the circumstances, in rather bad taste, and said nothing. 'Have you had an awful lot of women, Graham?'

'You know I'm a married man.' As she gave a small pout he went on, 'My sex life with Maria pretty well ended with the honeymoon. You could hardly blame me for seeking out others, particularly when she went off her head. But none of them meant anything, not one.'

'Not even Stella Garrod?'

'Particularly Stella Garrod.'

'How about Edith?'

'That's rather going into ancient history,' he said quickly. 'Graham, darling, perhaps I'd better give up the annex.'

'Unthinkable!'

'Staff-nurse Jones could easily take over. She's awfully good with the boys.'

'But why this sudden change of heart? I thought you liked the work. You'd get bored all day here.'

'I haven't used the toothpaste once or twice. I didn't think it would matter. I haven't seen anything now for a fortnight. Of course, it may be perfectly all right. Just a delayed period.'

His large eyes stared at her across the pillow.

'If it isn't all right, will you be pleased?' she asked timidly. 'No, don't answer. Wait till we know.' She kissed him and got out of bed abruptly. 'It's Sunday. That means fried eggs for lunch. Something lovely to look forward to, isn't it?'

To find himself confronted with fatherhood on a second occasion filled Graham with the same numb shock as on the first, almost exactly twenty-two years previously. With Maria, their sexual endeavours were so beset with difficulties he somehow felt her reproductive system too inefficient for conception. With Clare, he had put a touching faith in science. As usual, the human element had let him down. It was the same in the annex, when they got a run of infection after the nurses forgot to sterilize the needles properly in carbolic.

Monday was Mr Tim O'Rory's day at Smithers Botham. Graham caught the gynaecologist at lunch in the medical officers' mess and invited him for a stroll on the lawn.

'It's Clare,' he said, once out of earshot. 'I think she's pregnant.'

'Well, now,' said Mr O'Rory. A thick-set, dark-haired, red-faced, humorous Irishman, he looked kindly on feminine failings through his heavily rimmed glasses and seemed to find them an endless source of innocent merriment. 'And what gives rise to this little suspicion?'

'She's a fortnight overdue. She's always been as regular as clockwork before. Of course, it might be a chill, something like that, mightn't it?'

'Sitting on a damp park bench, doctor?' Mr O'Rory chuckled. 'Maybe so.'

'You don't think that's a possibility?'

'You know my low mind, Graham. Any woman outside a nunnery, who misses a period between the ages of fifteen and fifty, must be assumed pregnant until proved otherwise. And I'm not so sure about the nunnery these days, either.'

Graham was in no mood for professional pleasantries. 'Can you do a test in the lab?' he asked irritatedly.

'I will certainly invoke the assistance of a small frog, Graham, if you want. I'll be needing a specimen of the lady's urine.'

'I've got one in the car.'

'But don't get too alarmed,' Mr O'Rory added amiably. 'The lady may have made a mistake in her dates. It's remarkable how unreliable the feminine gender is at its fundamental calculations.'

The telephone at Cosy Cot rang the following evening. 'That was Tim,' said Graham, putting down the receiver. 'It's on.'

Clare turned her eyes back to her sewing. Graham stuck his hands in his pockets and stood in the middle of the small sitting-room, which was filled with books, medical journals, files of notes, photographs of his patients, and had a coloured picture of Bubbles over the fireplace.

'It's wonderful news, isn't it?' he declared.

She looked up again. 'Are you sure you want it?'

'But of course I do! As long as you do?'

'More than anything.'

Graham perched on the edge of her chair and put his arm round her tightly. So, he thought, one of my wriggling little spermatozoa has threshed with its hair-like tail across the black mucoid depths of Clare's pelvis, to sink itself joyfully into the speck of jelly comprising her ovum. The stark object of the most fashionable wedding, with all its elaborate trimmings of an ecclesiastical, legal, floral, and emotional nature, had been simply achieved. No trouble at all. The human race really did surround itself with a lot of fuss over its reproduction. Clare wondered what he was going to say. At least he'd declared he wanted the child, she thought. She didn't dare to question whether he really meant it. Living with Graham, she rarely dared to question whether he really meant anything.

'There'll be a terrible lot of practical details to settle,' Graham announced.

He immediately threw himself vigorously into solving the varied problems set by the new pregnancy. He decided Clare must leave the annex at once. Staff-nurse Jones could enjoy unexpected promotion, he must find someone to succeed the girl as staff-nurse. Appointments must be made with Mr O'Rory. Specimens must be collected. A woman must be sought to help in the bungalow. They would go away for the holiday in Wales, it would do Clare good. Her ration-book must be exchanged at the Food Office for a pregnant woman's green one. Extra milk and vitamins must be applied for, with a dozen Government forms. Pregnancy struck Graham as a highly complicated item of official business. It had been so much simpler last time. Which reminded him, he really must do something about Maria.

Graham had been meaning to do something about Maria for over a year. But there had always seemed a last-minute snag. Whenever he steeled himself to start instructing his lawyers there was somehow a rush of work in the annex, keeping his mind occupied for weeks. The solicitors had anyway been bombed out of the City, and re-established themselves at some inaccessible address near Southend-on-Sea. There seemed then no urgency. Clare appeared perfectly content with their arrangement. Graham couldn't see how ten minutes in a registry office would make the slightest difference to the pair of them. Or perhaps, he sometimes suspected, he still had his fingering reluctance about disowning Maria for good. Or perhaps…perhaps he was afraid of committing himself wholly to Clare? It was too difficult to think about, and the problems of the annex came first. Clare certainly raised the topic of a divorce. He felt it only to be expected, but she never harped on it for long. It never occurred to Graham that she saw how much it distressed him, nor that her silence was the expression of her terror of losing him.