Richard Gordon: DOCTOR IN CLOVER

The London streets were as deserted as Porterhampton on a Sunday afternoon by the time I took Petunia home to Balham-like most glamorous hotsies these days, she lived quietly with Mum and did the washing-up before catching the bus to the theatre. We'd had a pleasant little evening, what with supper and a night-club, and even if it did demolish Dr Wattle's advance of salary I was feeling like a sailor after ninety days at sea.

'Lovely time, darling,' said Petunia at the garden gate. 'When are you coming to live in London again?'

'One day, perhaps. When I retire.'

'When you retire! But darling, I won't ever recognize you then.'

'I'll have a chiming clock under my arm,' I told her. 'Night-night.'

The next morning I made my way back to the provinces for good, having wrapped all the Sunday newspapers in a large brown-paper parcel which I labelled THE EVERCLEEN LAUNDRY WASHES WHITER.

This little jaunt of mine was a mistake.

One taste of Metropolitan delights had ruined my appetite for Porterhampton for good. I'd tried really hard to fool myself I could merge with the local landscape. Now I realized I couldn't be comfortable anywhere in the world outside Harrods' free delivery area. I faced endless evenings watching the television and talking to the Wattles, and that night the prospect of both made me feel rather sickly over supper. But I had to stay in the place until the St Swithin's committee had shaken my cousin by the hand and told him where to hang his umbrella, and anyway the dear old couple were so terribly decent I'd never have forgiven myself for hurting their feelings over it.

'Dr Wattle,' I began, when we were alone after the meal. 'I don't know if I've told you before, but I've decided to work for a higher medical degree. I hope you'll not think me rude if I go to my room in the evenings and open the books?'

He laid a hand on my arm.

'I am delighted, dear boy. Delighted that-unlike so many young men these days, inside and out of our profession-you should take a serious view of your work.'

There was a catch in his voice.

'We are all mortal, Gaston,' he went on.

'In another few years I may no longer be here-'

'Oh, come, come! The prime of life-'

'And I should like you to be well qualified when you eventually take over this practice. My wife and I have become very attached to you these few short weeks. As you know, we have no children of our own. As a young man I suffered a severe attack of mumps-'

'Jolly hard luck,' I sympathized.

The mump virus, of course, can wreck your endocrine glands if you're unlucky enough to get the full-blown complications.

'If all goes well,' he ended, 'I hope you will inherit more from me than merely my work. I will detain you no longer from your studies.'

The rest of the week I sat in my room reading detective stories, and pretty beastly I felt about it, too.

Then one morning Mrs Wattle stopped me outside the surgery door.

'Gaston, my husband and I had a little chat about you last night.'

'Oh, yes?'

'We fear that you must find it rather dull in Porterhampton.'

'Not at all,' I replied, wondering if some revelling turbine-maker had spotted me in that night-club. 'There's always something happening,' I told her. 'The Assizes last week, the anti-litter campaign this.'

'I mean socially. Why, you never met any young people at all.'

It hadn't occurred to me that in Porterhampton there were any.

'So next Saturday evening I've arranged a little party for you. I do hope you can spare the time from your studies?'

Naturally, I said I should be delighted, though spending the rest of the week steeling myself for the sort of celebration to make a curate's birthday look like a night out in Tangier. When Saturday came I put on my best suit and waited for the guests among the claret cup and sandwiches, determined to make the evening a success for the dear old couple's sake. I would be heartily chummy all round, and ask the local lads intelligent questions about how you made turbines.

'Here's the first arrival,' announced Mrs Wattle. 'Miss Carmichael.'

She introduced a short girl in a pink dress.

'And here come Miss Symes and Miss Patcham.'

I shook hands politely.

'With Miss Hodder and Miss Atkinson walking up the drive. That's everyone,' she explained. 'Gaston, do tell us your terribly amusing story about the clergyman and the parrot.'

It struck me as an odd gathering. But old Wattle handed out the drinks while I sat on the sofa and entertained the girls, and after a bit I quite warmed to it. I told them the other one about the old lady and the bus driver, and a few more that I hadn't picked up from the boys at St Swithin's, and they all laughed very prettily and asked me what it was like being a doctor. I was quite sorry when eventually midnight struck, and everyone seemed to think it time to close down.

'I'm sure Gaston would drop you at your homes in his remarkable car,' suggested Mrs Wattle.

With a good deal of giggling, I discarded girls at various respectable front doors in the district, until I was finally left with only one in the seat beside me.

'I'm afraid I live right on the other side of the town, Gaston.'

'The farther it is, the more I'm delighted,' I replied politely.

She was the Miss Atkinson, a little blonde who'd given the parrot story an encore.

'Quite an enchanting evening,' I murmured.

'But you were so terribly amusing! I always thought medicos such stodgy old things, even the young ones.'

I gave a little laugh.

'We doctors are only human, you know.'

'I'm so glad,' she said.

After leaving her at another respectable door, I hurried home for some sleep. Nothing takes it out of you quite so much as telling a lot of funny stories.

'I know you'll be pleased,' announced Mrs Wattle a few mornings later. 'I've asked little Avril Atkinson to supper.'

'Very pleased indeed,' I told her courteously.

The fact is, I'd have been pleased whoever they'd asked, even my cousin. By then I'd discovered the dear old Wattles were incapable of conversation about anything except happenings in Porterhampton, which if you hadn't lived in the place for thirty years was like trying to enjoy a play after arriving in the second interval. It did me no end of good to hear another voice at table, even if they did make me tell the story of the ruddy parrot from the beginning.

After the meal I announced that my studies could slide for another evening, and politely joined the company in the sitting-room. Then Dr Wattle suddenly remembered he had a patient to see, and Ma Wattle had the washing-up to do, leaving Avril and me on the sofa alone.

'How about the television?' I suggested, Avril's conversation being almost as straitjacketed as the Wattles'.

'Oh, let's. It's my favourite programme tonight.'

I switched on the set, turned down the lights, and when we'd watched a few parlour games and chaps pretending to get fierce with each other over the political situation, I very civilly drove her home.

'Do you like classical music, Gaston?' asked Mrs Wattle a few mornings later.

'I'm not adverse to a basinful of Beethoven from time to time,' I admitted.

'I'm so pleased. I've got a ticket for our little amateur orchestra next Friday in the Town Hall. Would you care to go?'

I was glad of an excuse to go out in the evening, now being rather bored with all those stories about chaps killing other chaps by highly complicated means. As I sat down among the potted municipal palms, I found Avril in the next seat.

'Quite a coincidence,' I remarked. She smiled.

'You have such a sense of humour, Gaston. Wasn't it nice of Mrs Wattle to give us the tickets?'

'Oh, yes, quite.'

The dear old thing seemed to be getting forgetful, which I put down to the normal hormonal changes in a woman of her age.