Free A Surgical Affair by Shirley Summerskill Page A

a surgical registrar like me,” Mark once told Diana, “but he lives outside his hospital, in an apartment in Hampstead. We talk for hours ... a bout work, jobs, the future. I’ll always be grateful to him. He helped me when I was working for the Fellowship. We went over old exam papers together, and he cooked my meals. I couldn’t afford to have them at a restaurant.”
    Sometimes Mark would visit Denise. There might be a dinner party at her Chelsea apartment. She invited models, photographers, all her friends connected with the glossy magazines, and they sat on the floor to eat her special Chinese dishes. Mark had to admit to Diana that she could cook “swell.”
    Denise would sit in the middle of the room, probably dressed in tight velvet trousers and her favorite red satin blouse and dominate the conversation. He never left before two or three in the morning; and Diana usually knew when Denise had one of her parties—because Mark didn’t come down to breakfast the next day.
    Diana was not really interested in this other life of Mark’s. He often told her about it, and she would listen quietly, but she cared more for the Mark she knew, the man she worked with and understood. Perhaps she was afraid to know too much about him in case the picture was spoiled, like finding a hideous monster on the other side of the moon.
    Diana was surprised and excited one day to receive an invitation from Mr. Cole to dinner at his home, more so because Mark had been asked as well.
    “Aren’t we honored, Sister!” Diana said, as the three of them met in the ward office on the appointed day.
    “But I’m going too.” replied Sister. “I’m asked regularly every year. Mr. Cole’s thank-you offering to me—for services rendered.”
    “Very nice, too,” Mark said.
    “What’s his wife like?”
    “Dictatorial, but extremely kind. Sounds impossible, doesn’t it? But you’ll see what I mean when you meet her.”
    “Can’t say I’m looking forward to this dinner. I’ll probably say all the wrong things and lose my chance of a good reference at the end of the year. Anyway, I’ll give you both a lift,” Mark told them.
    Sister raised her eyebrows. “A car, Mr. Royston? Have you been left some money?”
    “No such luck. A friend lends me one, from times to time.” Mark was gazing out of the window.
    “You seem to have very obliging friends,” remarked Sister drily, looking enquiringly at Diana.
    “It’s the thin edge of the wedge,” he murmured. “Sooner or later—you have to do something in return.”
    “Do you?” Diana asked flatly. “There are some people who manage to get through life always taking and never giving.”
    Mark turned around and looked sadly at her. “Yeah, but I guess they’re not the happy ones.” He walked to the door. “We must be getting up to the theater, Diana. We’ll meet you in the front hall, six-thirty. Okay, Sister?”
    “I’ll be there.”
    It was a short operating list that aftern o on, and afterward Diana had time for a hot, leisurely bath before changing for dinner. She wished that she was being taken out by Mark, just the two of them, to dinner at an expensive restaurant, and then to seats in the dress circle at Covent Garden. She had never had this feeling before and was glad he couldn’t read her thoughts. He would probably leave the hospital on the spot if he suspected his house surgeon wanted to go out with him.
    “Things must stay as they are,” Diana decided, as she brushed her hair vigorously. “It’s better that way. It must be strictly a surgical affair, as Mark once said.”
    She could hear “What is this thing called love?” come from Mark’s room. “Denise is different,” she told herself. “She’s playing a game with him, which she enjoys. She must know she’s being hurt, but doesn’t seem to mind. Her tantrums on the telephone, her screams of “Never leave me!” are all a part of the act, forgotten 24 hours later, so Mark said.”
    When he