Part 1 of a new short story in two parts:

by Harold Acton

'As long as you go to Professor Nagler you will never need a surgical operation.'

More than one of Aubrey Vernon's friends bad assured him of this as an infallible axiom. An operation was a luxury which so eminent an actor could ill afford. Apart from which he had a gnawing horror of the knife since one of his kidneys had been removed instead of a little stone.

`The whole organ was diseased: you will be better off without it,' his surgeon had blithely explained. 'Nature can be wonderfully econo- mical. The remaining kidney will do the job of two.'

While 'Aubrey had become reconciled to his loss he resented the deep cleft and surrounding bulge which marred the sym- metry of his athletic figure. He had enjoyed a preliminary decade as a matinee idol in the role of everfresh juvenile lead. His stage kisses, infinitely protracted, were in a subliminal class of their own: they would have won the first prize at any competition. Husbands and wives, bachelors and spinsters, craned their necks and wriggled in their seats at the climax when these occurred. The spell they cast was due to a subtle blend of technique and physique, for Aubrey was too self-absorbed to lose his head over a woman. He only indulged in fugitive affairs for the sake of publicity. And all the girls he was advertised with were eager to collaborate. They basked in his glamour and married rich stockbrokers.

The highbrow critics who had praised his competence and good looks with patronising condescension discovered that Aubrey was an actor of the first rank when in a spirit of bravado he had daubed and furrowed his fea- tures beyond recognition and recited the role of Lear in a flowing beard. Overnight he became a leading Shakespearian actor. Othello, Hamlet, Macbeth—he had tackled them all with versatile mastery, and he diversified these with the heroes of Ibsen, Shaw, Sheridan, and a few Restoration revivals, but he never ap- proved of Wilde. He remained a box-office magnet. Foreign visitors to London made a point of seeing him as one of the living sights. Nor were they disappointed: he gave them what they had been led to expect and even more.

In daily life Aubrey Vernon was just a jolly good fellow with tastes conspicuously athletic. The biggest room in his flat was a small gym- nasium where he punched a bag and practised shadow-boxing besides weight-lifting and skip- ping over a rope. He was affluent but far too generous to amass a fortune.

In his theatrical make-up he could still play the role of juvenile lead—or couldn't he? Critically he examined- his features in the shaving mirror. His cheekbones bad a hectic flush and his eyes were faintly bloodshot. As he twitched up an eyelid he could hear the rapid pumping of his heart. Perhaps he should follow the advice of Derek and Mona and submit to a medical check-up. But it seemed absurd to endure a series of tiresome tests when one wasn't definitely ailing. Another round of golf at Samaden banished such neurotic fancies. In his bath, however, be noticed a little swelling below the groin. Gently, then less gently, he pressed and massaged it. Since he changed his clothes as often as if he were engaged on a film set he had ample opportunity to inspect its steady growth. Even when fully dressed he was conscious of this teasing protuberance: his hand explored it through a trouser pocket while he sat in the hotel bar with Derek and Mona. Not that it itched or ached, but its presence made him nervous. Perhaps he had strained himself weight-lifting: he suspected a hernia.

`What's up, old boy?' asked Derek. 'You look out of sorts. Take a tip from me and consult Professor Nagler. All of us over- forties need a periodical check-up.'

Aubrey grinned, knowing that Derek was rounding sixty. 'Everybody recommends Pro- fessor Nagler as a miracle worker,' he answered wearily.

'That's precisely what he is.' Derek reeled off an imposing list of patients whom the Pro- fessor had cured of diseases which had eluded other diagnosticians. He went on to describe a mysterious malady of his own. 'I swear by Professor Nagler. He's expensive, mind you, but he's worth every golden guinea. I regard him as my life insurance. So does Mona. Don't you, darling?'

Perversely, Aubrey conceived a prejudice: the more he heard of the Professor's magic, the more sceptical he grew. But the swelling continued to bother him and when he re- turned to London it was still aggressively there, decidedly bigger. Rather in the spirit of a gambler he suddenly exclaimed: 'Why not?'

Over the telephone Professor Nagler's sec- retary sounded coldly supercilious. 'I'm afraid the Professor is entirely booked up for the next month. If the case is urgent we might squeeze you in between his other appoint- ments. Let me see. What about Thursday fort- night at twelve-fifteen? That is the best I can do for you."

Aubrey was too famous a figure to appre- ciate being squeezed in anywhere, yet he gruffly assented. 'Put me down for Thursday fortnight.'

`Sorry, I didn't catch the surname. Will you be so good as to repeat it?'

Aubrey articulated the familiar syllables with a defiant hauteur.

The secretary caught her breath. 'How ex- citing! If you leave your private number the Professor may be able to fix you up a date next week. I'll have a word with him. Bye-bye.'

Next week, by special arrangement, Aubrey was ushered, after a long bleak session with The Times, into Professor Nagler's huge con- sulting room. Small probing eyes behind gold- rimmed spectacles twinkled at him with per- functory benevolence and a Central European accent invited him to take the chair opposite the monumental desk where the professor sat beside a telephone.

'It is a pleasure and a privilege to meet you, Mr Vernon. My wife, my children, my sec- retary have admired you in many plays and films, but I—alas—am generally too tired after my day's toil to enjoy the theatre. But I would not exchange my profession for any other. It is my joy to heal the suffering.'

Professor Nagler was most communicative about himself. While he talked he scrutinised his new patient; he made copious notes while listening to his heart-beats and taking his blood pressure. The examination was thorough.

'I am happy to tell you that for a man of your age you are in excellent condition. Your liver is wonderful, your heart is splendid, and there is nothing wrong with your kidney. Your blood pressure is low but that is better than high. A course of my injections will increase your animal energy. Let us begin right away.'

As for the swelling, the professor assured him that it was not due to a hernia, it was merely a symptom of sluggish circulation. 'I'll give you my lamp treatment to tone up the system. I will also prescribe an ointment for local application. I am satisfied with your prostate and your urine is beautifully clear. You have nothing to worry about.'

Aubrey was exhilarated by this consulta- tion. Twice a week he repaired cheerfully to Professor Nagler's consulting room to lower his trousers for an injection and recline under a mysterious lamp. Gradually the swelling subsided, and he had to admit that he felt more relaxed. In cold and foggy weather he found himself looking forward to Professor. Nagler's treatment with something like a drug addict's anticipation. The injections stung but they were stimulating, as if they contained a phar- maceutical equivalent to dry champagne; and the rays of the lamp penetrated his belly with comforting warmth. In the meantime the pro- fessor soliloquised about his prodigious achievements, past and present.

'Mine is basically a religious vocation,' he asserted. 'I rescue my patients from the brutal surgeon. Did you see that tall aristocratic gentleman when you stepped out of the lift? He is a retired admiral, eighty-six years old. You would never guess it, would you? Since he visits me regularly he grows younger every year. It was Lord Levy who sent him after giving him up as a hopeless case. "I can do nothing more for him," he told me. "You are the only person in London who may solve this particular problem." And now he is pink as a baby and as straight as a statue.' ' The Duchess of Tonbridge was another of the professor's triumphs and her name cropped up incessantly in his conversation. `I cured her in twenty-four hours,' said the pro- fessor complacently. 'Are you comfortable? Just turn over a little more to the right, please, and undo more trouser buttons. Mein Gott, that is an ugly scar. It is a pity you did not come to me before they stole your kidney.'

Simultaneously the telephone rang. The pro- fessor became flustered: he raced towards the receiver. 'Tell her graciousness I'll be ready to receive her in two ticks,' he stammered into the instrument while Aubrey was buttoning his flies.

'A beautiful lady is the duchess, a veritable grande dame, and so considerate, so grateful for all I have done for her. Every year she sends me grouse and pheasants from her estate. For Easter she gave me a Faberge egg in gold and enamel, and for Christmas this magnifi- cent pocket-book.' He flourished a shagreen wallet with a glittering monogram as he bowed Aubrey out of the room. He always bowed like a courtier. While the door was flung open Aubrey could hear his effusive greeting: 'Good morning, your graciousness. You bring me the sunshine. You are looking marvellous. it is my best reward.'

Nagler had an accomplished pupil in his secretary Miss Kunkel. Curious how a strong foreign accent made the grossest flattery acceptable to the English. If a distinguished patient were kept waiting she entertained him with saccharine compliments and titbits from her personal gossip column. Her mantelpiece was crammed with photographs of celebrities dedicated to the miracle worker.

'I hope we may add yours to our collection,' she remarked pointedly to Aubrey. 'If you don't mind my saying so, you're ever so much handsomer than your photos.'

Though Aubrey had been forewarned the eventual day of reckoning came as a shock. For a supreme artist like you I make extra- ordinary terms but I must beg you to keep this a secret between ourselves. I shall deduct 15 per cent.' Even after the deduction his fee was extraordinary. Moreover the professor re- quested to be paid in five-pound notes. While explaining this indelicate transaction his manner became abrupt, the amiable twinkle became a hostile glare, as if he expected a protest. A grizzled gangster peered through the mask of benevolence. The metamorphosis was so sudden that Aubrey felt embarrassed. He would fork out the five-pound notes but he would not return thereafter.

Preoccupied with a new production of Love for Love, Aubrey soon forgot his resentment.

He needed some other restorative after so many faiths and troths and sirrahs. Derek invited him for a Mediterranean cruise but that was out of the question. Derek also gave him Pro- fessor Nagler's kindest regards: 'the old boy says it is high time you paid him another visit.' Mesmerised like Trilby, Aubrey telephoned Miss Kunkel for an appointment with the pro- fessor. 'We were expecting a call from you,' she replied. 'Professor Nagler had already scheduled you for a refresher course.'

And so the treatments continued. The doctor informed him that he was paler than he ought to be. 'But your colour will soon return,' he said cheerfully patting his back. 'Your liver is still wonderful. While you are under my care you will keep your youthfulness. You will be able to play Peter Pan. Why don't you?'

Aubrey explained that this was a feminine role, but the doctor insisted that a male should interpret it, slim and athletic like Aubrey.

'This time I have given you a new Swedish preparation: it is twice as strong as your pre- %ions injections but it is not yet available in England. As it is only produced in small quantities it is difficult to procure. Therefore, it is costly, but health is far too important to count up the pennies, is it not?' If only they were pennies, thought Aubrey, delivering a larger packet of five-pound notes which the doctor counted with a rapt expres- sion. On his slightly stunned way out he was inveigled into Miss Kunkel's snuggery. She demanded his photograph—'Cecil Beaton's is the one I love best, and please don't forget to sign it. Your signature is so artistic it adds to the beauty as well as the value of such a souvenir.'

By accident or by design his old friend Derek had the next appointment. 'Good for you!' he exclaimed. 'I'm glad to see you've taken my advice.'

Derek was so opulent that he could afford Professor Nagler whereas, in spite of his nominal deductions, his fees burnt a consider- able hole in Aubrey's pocket. But his injections were an effective pick-me-up and Aubrey re- quired every ounce of energy he could muster for his continental tour: Paris next month, then Berlin, Rome and Venice, in a hectic repertory of costume plays from Shakespeare to Sheridan.

It was after a thunderous ovation in Paris that Aubrey felt the return of his swelling below the groin. Next morning he succeeded in telephoning to Professor Nagler, who assured him that it was innocuous; a little of the ointment he had already prescribed and some vitamin complex tablets would cause it to disappear. 'Forget about it, dear Mr Vernon. Nobody else can see it and it does not hurt you, so why do you worry? As soon as your tour is over please pay me a visit. I have a new Bulgarian tonic which I am reserving for you. The duchess says it works like magic. Her gratitude is truly touching.'

Within a week the swelling had subsided. but in Rome it cropped up again in a far more sensitive spot. Frantically busy with per- formances, rehearsals and interviews, Aubrey had no leisure for introspection. He applied the professor's ointment and swallowed his tablets as he tanned his face and torso under a sun-lamp before posing with a tennis racket for his photograph. Off the stage he loved to stress his manliness: he took pains to create a popular image that was athletic rather than theatrical. In this frame of mind the swelling was most irksome. The professor's ointment had lost its efficacy: instead of soothing it caused an inflammation. Alarmed by its angry hue, Aubrey decided to consult a doctor recommended by his Italian impresario.

The Italians take virility seriously and Aubrey's swelling was near the main source.

The Italian doctor shook Aubrey's hand limply like a guest at a funeral and in hesitant vocables interpreted the significance of the X-ray. 'I regret to say it is graver than I had suspected. It is not a hernia and it is not malignant—not yet—but it is likely to become so unless . . . unless you have a little operation. I advise you not to postpone it. You said it became noticeable two years ago. It should have been dealt with then.'

Aubrey gasped. 'An operation plumb in the middle of my tour! I can't break contracts. The whole company depends on me : I am the company.'

Aubrey was youthfully ambitious as well as conscientious, and the applause of several capi- tals meant even more to him than his health. He would sooner expire on the stage than in his bed. The operation could wait. In the meantime he recruited his strength with the aid of extra vitimins and champagne.

His tour was a series of spectacular triumphs. Off the stage he looked harassed. The swell- ing invisible to others was only too palpable to himself. His hands could not help touching it. The Italian doctor's warning kept him awake at night. Was it possible that the infallible Nagler had made a mistake? He still cherished a vague hope that the professor would save him from an operation.

Nagler did not keep him waiting as long as usual for an appointment. He congratulated him on his triumphant tour but remarked that he was looking sallow. 'But the roses will return to your cheeks since you have come to me. My Bulgarian serum is miraculous. The duchess was telling me . .

'The swelling has come back,' Aubrey interrupted him. 'I'm afraid it is something serious.'

'Please do not exaggerate. If it had been serious I should have been the first person to tell you so.'

Aubrey had brought his X-ray, which he now produced with a dramatic flourish. 'What about this?' he exclaimed.

Nagler pursed his lips and shook his head. 'I am not persuaded of its authenticity.'

He examined it, however, with a gradual change of expression, scornful at first, then perplexed, but without his customary smile of complacency. He also examined the swelling. 'This is different from the oedema you mistook for a hernia. It is in a different place alto- gether,' he pronounced. 'There is no connec- tion between the two.'

It was the first time Aubrey detected a cer- tain uncertainty in the professor's manner.

Nagler mopped his brow : he was visibly em- barrassed. 'I am well known for my opposition to surgery, but in your case I fear it will be necessary. Against all my principles I must advise you to undergo an operation.'

Aubrey grew hot and cold as he listened to the oracle.

'Fortunately the operation is simple. easy and practically painless. A mild indisposition, a period of rest, and you will return to your rapturous public a new-made man. I'll put yoy in touch with Mr Flanagan, the only surgeon I can recommend.'

Mr Flanagan was breezy, even optimistic. 'It's a straight case of the stitch in time. Mr Vernon. You've been neglecting yourself.'

'Far from it. I've been under special treat- ment for a couple of years.'

'What sort of treatment may I ask?'

'Professor Nagler's injections, rays and ointments.'

Mr Flanagan chuckled. 'It's lucky you came to me: I'll put you right. The Mayfair Clinic is crammed just now but 111 try to smuggle you into St Asaph's.'

'How long will the business take?'

'You must allow for a fortnight bar com- plications. The trouble with those fashionable treatments is that they tend to conceal the virus. It goes underground as it were, to pop out in some other part of the organism. That is just what has happened to you.'

'Am I likely to have complications?'

'As you're not married I don't foresee any.' 'What has marriage to do with it?'

Mr Flanagan looked faintly embarrassed. 'Your sexual potency might be affected for a while. I don't expect it will be in your case, Mr Vernon, not if you have the operation soon.'

The fee was discussed : it was modest com- pared with the professor's.

Aubrey had to sign an ominous document of submission for admission to St Asaph's but he was able to drop the stage name by which he had won celebrity. Nobody had heard of Percy Pringle since his school days in Tas- mania. He spread the rumour that he was flying to Barbados for a rest. This was plausible after his continental tour.

His room in the hospital overlooked an inner courtyard where white-clad figures flitted like ghosts in a churchyard. Consequently it was peaceful as well as austere. Though he felt more depressed than ill his temperature was taken frequently and he was given a diet of liquids and Epsom salts for two days run- ning. He had to pose for more X-rays in a sombre cellar to which he was escorted in his dressing gown by a limping attendant.

He was never allowed to enjoy solitude for more than half an hour at a time. A nurse would pop in to offer him tea or medicine as soon as he dozed off with fatigue and under- nourishment. The nurses were chirpily cheerful. Tomorrow morning at six o'clock you'll take a nice hot bath. Complete abstinence after midnight I'm afraid—not even a glass of water. At eight o'clock the anaesthetist will be calling. He's sure to give you a heavenly sensation.'

The sister on night duty, a hockey-playing type, surprised him by turning on the radio.

soon be over. I can see that you're as brave as a lion. Let me give you a soothing sedative. Would you prefer hot milk, tea or cocoa to send it down? Nighty-night, Mr Pringle.'

Throughout the night there was a constant ringing of bells and pattering of feet down the corridor. The walls seemed to be made of cardboard, for the whimpering and moaning of a woman next door was distressingly audible. `Nurse, nurse, nurse! Oh dear, oh dear, oh dee-eear! I can't stand this pain. God help me. Help!'

The moaning died down but the misery of it haunted him and he tossed and turned restlessly before the sleeping draught stole over his jaded limbs. He was fast asleep when he was roused for his six o'clock bath. His swelling resembled a plover's egg since the surrounding area had been cropped. Would a scar be any improve- ment? His mouth was so dry when the anaes- thetist called that he longed for forbidden water: he could hardly articulate.

The pricking needle dispatched him into prompt oblivion. When he opened his eyes it was evening. His right arm was stretched out rigid under what seemed an inverted jam jar half full of liquid which slowly, very slowly, dripped through a winding tube into his veins. `Do you fancy a drop of tea?' said the nurse.

His efforts at speech were cramped by catarrh: he coughed and it was as if his intestines were being wrenched, but he could only grip his belly, a bulge of bandages, with his left hand as he stilled an agonised groan. All the nurses on duty peeped in to see how he was doing, and he was aware of dozens of eyes peering through the glass partition in the door, winking and twinkling eyes. He seemed to hear smothered giggles down the corridor—seemed, for he could not be certain of anything in his actual state.

The sister on night duty bustled in as from a game of hockey. 'Congratulations, so the worst is over and done with. Doesn't he look splendid considering what he's been through?'

He woke up blinking while she rearranged his pillows. 'Do you know who you remind me of? Aubrey Vernon. You're a good deal older of course, but you've got his features.'

`That's not my name,' Aubrey protested feebly.

`I know, Mr Pringle, but somehow you remind me. Oddly enough the matron told me that Pro- fessor Nagler has been pestering her on the phone to speak to Aubrey Vernon, insisting that he's a patient of Mr Flanagan. It's a queer coincidence, isn't it?'

`Very strange. Who is Professor Nagler?'

`He's the hospital headache, one of those fashionable private practitioners. Mr Flanagan can't stand him.'

Aubrey shut his eyes and yawned. 'Forgive me, sister, I can hardly keep awake.'

`Happy dreams!'

The nights and the days melted into each other without any apparent distinction. Mr Flanagan came in at curious hours to examine the wound, followed by the staff nurse and an auxiliary with a rattling trolley piled with para- phernalia. Aubrey turned away when they changed his dressing and gritted his teeth when they ripped off the elastoplast like another layer of skin. He suffered dumbly.

Mr Flanagan made the V sign. 'You're doing well, very well indeed. We'll soon have you run- ning around with your plastic bag pinned to your dressing gown. I hope you're getting used to that ingenious contrivance: you needn't feel shy about it. Get him up before dinner, nurse. And let him take a bath tomorrow, a good soak for twenty minutes.'

Sleep was the only pleasure left, but uninter- rupted slumber is the rarest of luxuries in a hospital where the patient is constantly roused under one pretext or another. Somehow Nagler had discovered his real name and rung up the matron to inquire about his condition. That wise woman had replied that he was doing very comfortably, thank you.

Fortunately St Asaph's Hospital was a very long way from Harley Street.

When his private nurses were no longer re- quired Aubrey saw more of the regular staff, a rich variety of preponderantly cheerful women who took turns in dressing his wound. He had not the courage to look at the mutilated area until a nurse. whose mischievous eyes always seemed to be mocking him remarked: 'Why not face up to it? You'll jolly well have to when you take your bath. For a wound of that size it's neat and rather pretty. Reminds me of the petal of an azalea.'

Aubrey gathered the strength to look. He shuddered at what he saw, and fell back on his pile of pillows with a stifled cry. He only had one kidney and now—oh horror piled on horror! —he only had one . . . He could not bring himself to pronounce the word for this gland, so essential a part of his virility. He did not speak for several days, and he only ate and drank because he was threatened with the drip machine.

`Come, come, be a man!' Mr Flanagan exhorted him.

At last Aubrey spoke : 'But I don't feel a man—not after what you've done to me.'

`You'll manage to rub along just the same on one, that I can promise you.'

He who had been justly proud of his physique and endowment with all the manly attributes felt profoundly desecrated and unclean. When

he tried to explain this the surgeon remarked: `You've been lucky. Had you not come to me

in the nick of time you'd have lost the other one. When you're fitted with a truss nobody will be any the wiser.'

Not even my girl friends?'

Mr. Flanagan was taken aback. 'You needn't make love with the light on. Just pull the sheet over you.'

Aubrey uttered a shrill cackle (what had hap- pened to his voice?) and Mr Flanagan was even more disconcerted when he confessed : `I always make love with the light on.'

Aubrey sank into a lethargy from which he was roused by the tittering of nurses. They were giggling at him, he imagined. No doubt they nicknamed him 'One Ball Pringle.' Luckily they had no inkling of his identity. The secret must be kept at all costs : he had asked the surgeon to take every precaution. In the meantime he decided to grow a beard, but the stubble was stubbornly static and his voice assumed a

squeaky timbre as if he were entering a second puberty. This made him exceedingly nervous

since it was not due to a chill. Plumb in the middle of a sentence—'Sister, would you kindly hand me the—bottle?'—crack, squeak, it was almost high falsetto.

`What has got into your whistle?' asked the nurse with the mischievous eyes. 'Sounds as if you had swallowed a fishbone. Open your mouth and let me see. I wish you'd have a shave. I'm not an expert with a razor but I'm ready to have a try if you won't send for the barber.'

'On one condition,' said Aubrey.

`And what might that be?'

`That you kiss me on the lips.'

`Where do you think you are, Mr Pringle? Perhaps when you've had a clean shave I might oblige, but not when I'm on duty.'

The monkey had suddenly turned prim. She handed him the bottle with an air of genteel dis- taste.

`Be a good girl and kiss me,' he repeated. `Mr Pringle, I'm surprised at you—a man of your age. You're old enough to be my father. Did she think him so old? He glanced at his mirror and was appalled by the ravages of the last few weeks—were they weeks or months?

—pouches under his eyes, wrinkles at the corners, a drooping sagging mouth. Even in the role of Shylock he had never appeared so squalidly unappetising. Nobody could have re- cognised Aubrey Vernon. He was thoroughly disguised.

To be concluded next week.