DOCTOR IN CLOVER

Petunia was a little brunette and an actress. I've had a weakness for the stage ever since I was a medical student and nearly eloped with a young woman who was sawn in two twice nightly by a Palladium conjurer, until I discovered that she was in fact a pair of young women, and I'd picked the half with the shocking varicose veins. Petunia had been a chum of mine for many years, though unfortunately her ideas of entertainment rather exceeded her theatrical standing-usually she just walked on the stage and announced dinner was ready, but after the show she knocked back champagne like the great leading ladies when the stuff was five bob a bottle. Also, she had a rather hysterical personality, and was likely to throw the dessert about and bite the head waiter. But after a month in Porterhampton, Petunia seemed just what I needed.

'Darling, I'd love to meet you,' she agreed. 'Don't come to the show, it's lousy and closing any minute, anyway. See you at the stage door after ten.'

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.'