Surgeon at Arms

bobbing noses, it’ll be a relief knowing the patients’ real suffering is only in the pocket.’ Graham added after a moment, ‘Sometimes it’s difficult for me to realize our present highly abnormal form of life won’t go on for ever. I suppose the same goes for all our generals.’
    ‘Do you expect a lot of changes after the war?’
    ‘I can tell you one.’ Graham picked up his small glass of sloe gin, doing wartime duty for cognac. ‘I’m going to obtain a divorce from your mother.’
    Desmond considered this for some moments. ‘That comes as something of a surprise, I must say. After all this time.’
    ‘But surely my decision doesn’t mean much to you, does it?’ Graham asked, rather over-anxiously. ‘Your mother’s been ill for so long. You were only a child when she first had to go into hospital. You can hardly remember her when she was... well, as she used to be.’ Desmond said nothing. Graham wondered what Maria would be like had she kept her wits and her money. Doing something energetic in the war, doubtless. She was always the busy type.
    ‘She’s a complete wreck of her former self,’ Graham added. ‘Only I can appreciate the change.’
    ‘She’s not in very good shape, admittedly.’
    ‘That’s a mild way of putting it, Desmond. I assure you it makes not the slightest difference to your mother if I remain her husband or not. The whole conception of marriage is far beyond her ability to grasp. She’s certified, you understand—certified as insane. Of course, I’ll see she’s looked after. Just as I do now. She’ll stay in that home in comfort until the end of her days.’
    ‘But why, Dad?’ Desmond looked more solemn than ever. ‘Why this sudden decision?’
    ‘Because I’m going to marry Clare. Surely you must have expected that?’
    ‘No. Not really. I didn’t think you felt it necessary.’
    ‘It’s decidedly necessary,’ said Graham, nettled by the remark. ‘Clare’s pregnant.’
    Desmond stared at him.
    ‘It’s going to call for a measure of mental readjustment in both of us,’ Graham continued. ‘But it’s a demonstrable fact. The embryo has been created. Your baby half-brother or sister already exists, ectoderm, endoderm, mesoderm, yolksac, amnion, the lot. Two or three millimetres long, snug in the mucosa of Clare’s uterus. We can’t get away from that.’
    ‘What’s Alec going to say?’
    ‘Why do you always bother what Alec’s going to say?’ Graham asked irritably.
    ‘He’s always trying to get some sort of hold over me. He’s got a nasty tongue when he likes.’
    ‘I’m sure you can cope with Alec.’
    ‘It’s bad enough his taking my money.’
    ‘I’m certainly not going into that again now,’ Graham told him promptly. ‘If the cost of his education is coming from your trust fund, it was the least I could do for both the family and for Aunt Edith.’
    Alec’s father, the medical missionary, had maintained that the rewards of his vocation were to be found not in this world but the next, where presumably he had been enjoying them for seven years since dying, flat broke, in Malaya.
    ‘Anyway, it’s only a loan,’ Graham pointed out. ‘Alec’s supposed to pay it all back once he’s qualified. In the end you’ll be no worse off.’
    ‘What do you suppose Aunt Edith is going to say about your marrying again?’
    Graham raised his eyebrows. That delicate little complication hadn’t occurred to him. ‘Desmond, I’m afraid I’ve got to go ahead with this divorce. I hope you’ll come to see it as the right step.’
    ‘I only see it as being rather hard on mother.’
    ‘That’s ridiculous.’ Graham became angry. ‘You know perfectly well most of the time your mother hasn’t even the first idea who I am.’
    ‘Still, she is my mother. I feel sorry for her.’
    He really had little affection for his mother. But he was desperately frightened about doing the ‘wrong thing’. He was becoming aware of inner forces which could drive him along the same devious paths as his father, and that must be avoided at all costs. Graham’s life had already made his son an easy target for ridicule, not only from Alec but from any of the other students disposed to a bit of ragging. For security he must fly into conventionality.
    ‘Now you’re just being pompous,’ said Graham curtly. Desmond turned red, and Graham rebuked himself. He’d been too savage. Desmond was really very young, and confused with the ways of the world. Just