SURGEON AT ARMS

There was a pause. Neither of them felt entirely sure where the conversation was leading. Both were relieved for it to be frustrated by a knock on the door and the news that a child due for release, overcome by excitement, had vomited copiously over the newly cleaned floor.

Two evenings later they met. Graham had chosen a restaurant in Soho, whispered among a small and knowing circle as providing with its generous portions not only butter but crisp, white, mysteriously unrationed bread. By then both he and Clare had found time to adjust themselves, and were perfectly charming to each other. They sat in the corner of the small, rose-lighted room, chatting gaily of pointedly inconsequential generalities. Graham had really no precise idea what he was going to propose to her, and hoped he could rely on her delicacy to raise nothing that would make him feel too uncomfortable. He picked up the wine-list and suggested champagne, adding half-humorously, 'This place is terribly black market,'

'Oh, everyone these days knows someone who can get them something.' Clare smiled. 'Our theatre porter finds us the most lovely nylons-"They dropped off a lorry" is the story. It must have been an extremely large pantechnicon.'

'I'm growing rather tired of all that, you know. I've had some sort of moral conversion. And, like most converts, I was scared into it.' He picked up the evening paper, beside them on the table. Lord Cazalay and Arthur had been charged that morning with a number of offences from bribery of Government officials to possessing unauthorized sweet coupons. To Graham's relief, there was still no mention of currency transactions. 'You've read all about this, I suppose?'

'Is there anyone who hasn't?'

'But I think I can entertain you with some unpublished details.'

Over dinner he gave a frank account of his life since she had walked out of Cosy Cot, with the exception of Liz. In his penitent mood he was half-inclined to throw her in too, but consoled himself that Clare would certainly suspect he had been mixed up with a woman or two, and through natural female pride and vanity imagine them goddesses. If she became increasingly serious and sympathetic, Graham had been smugly confident of as much. His moral weaknesses had always been of as much concern to her as his physical ones, he reflected, and she accepted both with the same resignation. She hadn't changed, he told himself. Though if she had changed towards him was a separate question. When he finished the tale she held his hand under the table, and said, 'Poor Graham! You did get yourself in a mess, didn't you?'

'I didn't have you to keep me out of it.'

He started to talk about his new job, a conversation which drifted naturally back to the annex and Smithers Botham. Her eyes began to sparkle, she gripped his hand tighter than ever, and he felt a sudden glow of relief. It was going to be all right She had forgiven him, they could pick up neatly where they had left off, except this time he really would marry her, just as soon as the little formality could be arranged. He was starting to believe she would go that very night with him to the flat, when she said, 'Graham, it's been simply lovely meeting you. We must have another reunion one day, mustn't we? Perhaps when all this black-market and rationing nonsense is over.'

He looked blank. 'But Clare! Aren't you coming back to me?'

'Don't be silly, Graham.'

'But this time, I mean…we'd be married, it would be different.'

'It wouldn't be different in the slightest. As I told you once before, it wouldn't work.'

'You're being ridiculous.' He sounded quite cross. 'Everything was abnormal in those days'

'Yes, there was a war on.'

'I mean everything about me. I was selfish then, foolish, chasing all the wrong things. I've changed. I know I've changed. I've got my sense of values straight. I don't give a damn for the fripperies of life any more.'

'You sound like Sir Stafford Cripps,' she told him.

By the time he reached home Graham was furious. It was beyond him why Clare had refused to fall gratefully into his arms. All this effort to turn himself into a decent human being, he reflected petulantly, would be absolutely wasted if nobody was going to take it seriously. He poured himself a whisky and sat in the armchair. For the first time there stole upon him the black realization that he had lost Clare for good. A solitary life stretched ahead, as bleakly as the concrete corridors at Smithers Botham. And at fifty-one you needed someone beside you, much more desperately than at twenty-one. But there was nobody who cared a damn about him. Only his son Desmond. At least, he presumed so. The young man had more or less given up speaking to him.