Surgeon at Arms

fall into anarchy otherwise. As for their other common interest, Graham decided she enjoyed a greater talent than any woman he had met for copulation, with all its ancillaries, which he was apt to describe as ‘novelties’.
    As the church bells died away he said, ‘You’ve given me something to live for, darling. A unique gift.’
    ‘You always had your work.’
    ‘Only a fool or a saint lives for his vocation. Do you know, before you came along I was the prey to horrible and gloomy thoughts. Doom, impending death, extinction. Most uncomfortable. Such things don’t even enter my mind now. You’ve exorcised the ghosts. Perhaps the magic charm is finding myself with a girl of your age. Or perhaps it’s just the flattery.’
    She gently kissed his unshaven cheek. ‘It isn’t flattery.’
    ‘Is the distinction important? At my age, flattery’s a workable substitute for love.’
    ‘Now you’re being silly.’
    ‘Yes, I hope I am.’ He looked up at the ceiling, which had a large crack running across it. ‘Do you think we should have another week at that place in Wales?’
    ‘They were awfully awkward about our identity cards.’
    ‘They might have grown more accustomed to such irregularities by now.’
    He had taken her to a village hotel, remembered from before the war, for what he liked to remember as their honeymoon. Their first sudden contact in the office, the day he had met Sheila Raleigh, he told himself was like the unexpected symptom of some smouldering disease. He had been attracted to Clare almost since setting eyes on her. But he was immediately disconcerted to discover there was another—a Royal Marine lieutenant, stationed in India, to whom she was unofficially pledged. Graham declared to himself hastily that any monkey business was out of the question. Her lieutenant was abroad in the service of his country, like the Crusades, exactly the same principle. A man of his own standing couldn’t possibly stoop to such things. But he wondered how strong the psychological chastity belt was. It might be fun to try the lock. In the end it sprang open with an ease which surprised both of them, the severest difficulty being the locale. His house in Mayfair was bomb-damaged beyond habitation, and he could hardly smuggle Clare upstairs in the pub like one of the students. It occurred to him he hadn’t taken a holiday since the war started. Afterwards, she declared she couldn’t possibly go back to the nurses’ home. In a place like Smithers Botham, everyone would know of their adventure. The other sisters were unkindly enough already, and anyway had a tendency to kiss each other good-night. They moved into Cosy Cot, and she wrote to her Royal Marine, a dreaded epistle known as a ‘Dear John’.
    The rest of the Smithers Botham staff thought sharing a bungalow with your ward sister rather rich, even for Graham. He didn’t care. It never occurred to him to ask if Clare did. Denise Bickley was particularly outraged, about which Graham cared even less. In peacetime, Graham’s goodwill represented a large slice of her husband’s income, and Graham reflected grimly the war couldn’t go on for ever. As for Clare’s parents, who lived in Bristol, they were gratified to learn from her letters that their daughter had moved from the hospital to comfortable and apparently altogether satisfactory lodgings.
    ‘Why don’t we have our own celebration of the victory in the Desert?’ Graham asked her from the pillow. ‘We’re alone in the house, no one’s likely to call and disturb us.’
    Clare laughed and got out of bed, throwing back her blonde hair and starting to take off her red-and-yellow spotted cotton pyjamas. She really had an admirable figure, Graham reflected. Her breasts were wonderful. He couldn’t have made anything better himself.
    ‘Must I keep using this toothpaste stuff?’ she asked, squatting to insert her diaphragm.
    ‘My God, yes,’ said Graham hastily. ‘It’s terribly risky without the spermicidal jelly. All that cap does is to hold it round the cervix.’
    ‘It’s awfully messy.’
    ‘You can’t have everything, my love,’ he told her, a shade primly.
    ‘And I shall have to keep it in half the day, won’t I? It’ll give me backache.’
    ‘I’ll sit rubbing it with Sloan’s liniment.’
    She laughed again, and came back to him.
    In the sexual line Graham was, as Haileybury would have put it, an enthusiast. After all, he told himself, he had a deep knowledge of