Surgeon at Arms

bedsores, sepsis, you know. Sometimes they just fade out.’
    Clare said nothing. If Maria died, the last obstacle to their marriage would die with her. Well, the last excuse, anyway. Sensing her thoughts, Graham added, ‘I should have gone ahead with that divorce.’ He reached out and took her hand. ‘I know how you feel, and it must be awful. Stepping into a dead woman’s shoes.’
    ‘No, I don’t feel that at all, darling. Maria’s never been more than an abstract quality to me.’
    ‘You should have made me do something about those lawyers.’
    ‘You’d have said I was nagging.’ She laughed. ‘You might have left me.’
    He squeezed her hand and said, ‘Don’t be silly. You know perfectly well—’
    He broke off. A noise. A motor bike in the sky, coming nearer.
    ‘Is that one?’ he asked anxiously.
    ‘Yes, I rather think it is.’
    ‘Crampers told me the one which fell in Maiden Cross yesterday killed about twenty people.’
    The engine stopped.
    ‘It’s a long way off,’ he said, still sounding uncomfortable.
    They stared at each other. The silence seemed to last for an age. Finally there was an explosion far in the distance.
    ‘Some of them glide on for miles,’ Graham observed. The flying-bombs had taken on an ill-natured personality of their own. They were malevolent, winged, fire-spitting beasts, impossible to relate to the busy grey-uniformed squads dispatching them. ‘I hope Desmond’s all right,’ he added in a worried voice.
    But Desmond arrived unaware of his peril. He spent the night in the bungalow, setting off early the next morning with Graham in the Morris. The nursing-home where Maria lay ill catered for a more genteel mental sufferer than once found themselves in Smithers Botham. It was a manor house providing seclusion, fresh vegetables from the garden, and nursing which was unfailingly kindly if not particularly skilful. They were received by the matron, a stout, blue-uniformed north-countrywoman, radiating cheerfulness. ‘The poor soul’s poorly, of that there’s no doubt,’ she greeted Graham. ‘If she went, we’d quite miss her, you know. She’s been with us longer than anyone.’
    Graham was familiar enough with Maria’s room. She had occupied the same one since he had her shut up in the place ten years ago. It was small, bright in the sunshine, with a vase of pink roses beside the bed. Maria was unconscious, breathing noisily. It was too soon after the haemorrhage, which had sprung from a brittle artery amid the microscopic telephone-cables of her brain, to tell the extent of her coming paralysis. Graham noticed she suffered the indignity of a large fly crawling unmolested across her cheek. Her grey hair lay neatly on the pillow in two plaits, each tied with a pink bow, like a schoolgirl’s.
    Desmond stood in the background, looking solemn. However much he had prepared himself, however often he had observed the same clinical state in others, however little he felt for his insane mother, it was a shock to see her like that. Graham went to the bed and felt her pulse. His fingers slipped down to take her flaccid hand. It reminded him of the night when her troubles had started, when she tried to kill herself with an overdose of sleeping-draught and had been saved by the skill of John Bickley. He suddenly felt himself touched. Now his wife lay under his eyes as a dying wreck, he felt a surge of love for her. It was stronger than any he could remember in his life, even before he had married her.
    ‘Isn’t her breathing rather obstructed?’ he complained mildly.
    ‘The doctor will be along by and by,’ the matron told him comfortably. ‘Doubtless he’ll deal with it.’
    Graham nodded. He supposed at that stage it didn’t make twopence worth of difference. ‘Perhaps you’ll ring me at Smithers Botham, Matron, if she takes a turn for the worse?’
    ‘I will that, Mr Trevose.’ In the corridor outside she went on cheerfully, ‘It’s sad, isn’t it, your poor wife should be smitten when there’re such good news on the wireless this morning.’ As Graham looked at her blankly she explained, ‘Haven’t you heard? They’ve tried to blow up Hitler with a bomb. The Germans themselves. It won’t be long now till it’s all over and done with, you mark my words.’
    As they drove away, Graham said to Desmond, ‘I suppose there’re people who ought to know. You’d better try and get hold of your uncle Charles. You can probably find his whereabouts