Skin and Other Stories Read online

  It was some time before the nurse came in. She came carrying a basin of hot water and she said, 'Good morning, how are you today?'

  He said, 'Good morning, nurse.'

  The pain was still great under the bandages, but he did not wish to tell this woman anything. He looked at her as she busied herself with getting the washing things ready. He looked at her more carefully now. Her hair was very fair. She was tall and big-boned and her face seemed pleasant. But there was something a little uneasy about her eyes. They were never still. They never looked at anything for more than a moment and they moved too quickly from one place to another in the room. There was something about her movements also. They were too sharp and nervous to go well with the casual manner in which she spoke.

  She set down the basin, took off his pyjama top and began to wash him.

  'Did you sleep well?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good,' she said. She was washing his arms and his chest.

  'I believe there's someone coming down to see you from the Air Ministry after breakfast,' she went on. 'They want a report or something. I expect you know all about it. How you got shot down and all that. I won't let him stay long, so don't worry.'

  He did not answer. She finished washing him and gave him a toothbrush and some toothpowder. He brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth and spat the water out into the basin.

  Later she brought him his breakfast on a tray, but he did not want to eat. He was still feeling weak and sick and he wished only to lie still and think about what had happened. And there was a sentence running through his head. It was a sentence which Johnny, the Intelligence Officer of his squadron, always repeated to the pilots every day before they went out. He could see Johnny now, leaning against the wall of the dispersal hut with his pipe in his hand, saying, 'And if they get you, don't forget, just your name, rank and number. Nothing else. For God's sake, say nothing else.'

  'There you are,' she said as she put the tray on his lap. 'I've got you an egg. Can you manage all right?'

  'Yes.'

  She stood beside the bed. 'Are you feeling all right?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good. If you want another egg I might be able to get you one.'

  'This is all right.'

  'Well, just ring the bell if you want any more.' And she went out.

  He had just finished eating, when the nurse came in again.

  She said, 'Wing Commander Roberts is here. I've told him that he can only stay for a few minutes.'

  She beckoned with her hand and the Wing Commander came in.

  'Sorry to bother you like this,' he said.

  He was an ordinary RAF officer, dressed in a uniform which was a little shabby. He wore wings and a DFC. He was fairly tall and thin with plenty of black hair. His teeth, which were irregular and widely spaced, stuck out a little even when he closed his mouth. As he spoke he took a printed form and a pencil from his pocket and he pulled up a chair and sat down.

  'How are you feeling?'

  There was no answer.

  'Tough luck about your leg. I know how you feel. I hear you put up a fine show before they got you.'

  The man in the bed was lying quite still, watching the man in the chair.

  The man in the chair said, 'Well, let's get this stuff over. I'm afraid you'll have to answer a few questions so that I can fill in this combat report. Let me see now, first of all, what was your squadron?'

  The man in the bed did not move. He looked straight at the Wing Commander and he said, 'My name is Peter Williamson, my rank is Squadron Leader and my number is nine seven two four five seven.'

  My Lady Love, My Dove

  It has been my habit for many years to take a nap after lunch. I settle myself in a chair in the living-room with a cushion behind my head and my feet up on a small square leather stool, and I read until I drop off.

  On this Friday afternoon, I was in my chair and feeling as comfortable as ever with a book in my hands - an old favourite, Doubleday and Westwood's The Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera - when my wife, who has never been a silent lady, began to talk to me from the sofa opposite. 'These two people,' she said, 'what time are they coming?'

  I made no answer, so she repeated the question, louder this time.

  I told her politely that I didn't know.

  'I don't think I like them very much,' she said. 'Especially him.'

  'No dear, all right.'

  'Arthur. I said I don't think I like them very much.'

  I lowered my book and looked across at her lying with her feet up on the sofa, flipping over the pages of some fashion magazine. 'We've only met them once,' I said.

  'A dreadful man, really. Never stopped telling jokes, or stories, or something.'

  'I'm sure you'll manage them very well, dear.'

  'And she's pretty frightful, too. When do you think they'll arrive?'

  Somewhere around six o'clock, I guessed.

  'But don't you think they're awful?' she asked, pointing at me with her finger.

  'Well ...'

  'They're too awful, they really are.'

  'We can hardly put them off now, Pamela.'

  'They're absolutely the end,' she said.

  'Then why did you ask them?' The question slipped out before I could stop myself and I regretted it at once, for it is a rule with me never to provoke my wife if I can help it. There was a pause, and I watched her face, waiting for the answer - the big white face that to me was something so strange and fascinating there were occasions when I could hardly bring myself to look away from it. In the evenings sometimes - working on her embroidery, or painting those small intricate flower pictures - the face would tighten and glimmer with a subtle inward strength that was beautiful beyond words, and I would sit and stare at it minute after minute while pretending to read. Even now, at this moment, with that compressed acid look, the frowning forehead, the petulant curl of the nose, I had to admit that there was a majestic quality about this woman, something splendid, almost stately; and so tall she was, far taller than I - although today, in her fifty-first year, I think one would have to call her big rather than tall.

  'You know very well why I asked them,' she answered sharply. 'For bridge, that's all. They play an absolutely first-class game, and for a decent stake.' She glanced up and saw me watching her. 'Well,' she said, 'that's about the way you feel too, isn't it?'

  'Well, of course, I ...'

  'Don't be a fool, Arthur.'

  'The only time I met them I must say they did seem quite nice.'

  'So is the butcher.'

  'Now Pamela, dear - please. We don't want any of that.'

  'Listen,' she said, slapping down the magazine on her lap, 'you saw the sort of people they were as well as I did. A pair of stupid climbers who think they can go anywhere just because they play good bridge.'

  'I'm sure you're right, dear, but what I don't honestly understand is why -'

  'I keep telling you - so that for once we can get a decent game. I'm sick and tired of playing with rabbits. But I really can't see why I should have these awful people in the house.'

  'Of course not, my dear, but isn't it a little late now -'

  'Arthur?'

  'Yes?'

  'Why for God's sake do you always argue with me? You know you disliked them as much as I did.'

  'I really don't think you need worry, Pamela. After all, they seemed quite a nice well-mannered young couple.'

  'Arthur, don't be pompous.' She was looking at me hard with those wide grey eyes of hers, and to avoid them - they sometimes made me quite uncomfortable - I got up and walked over to the french windows that led into the garden.

  The big sloping lawn out in front of the house was newly mown, striped with pale and dark ribbons of green. On the far side, the two laburnums were in full flower at last, the long golden chains making a blaze of colour against the darker trees beyond. The roses were out too, and the scarlet begonias, and in the long herbaceous border all my lovely hybrid lupins, columbine, delphinium,
sweet-william, and the huge pale, scented iris. One of the gardeners was coming up the drive from his lunch. I could see the roof of his cottage through the trees, and beyond it to one side, the place where the drive went out through the iron gates on the Canterbury road.

  My wife's house. Her garden. How beautiful it all was! How peaceful! Now, if only Pamela would try to be a little less solicitous of my welfare, less prone to coax me into doing things for my own good rather than for my own pleasure, then everything would be heaven. Mind you, I don't want to give the impression that I do not love her - I worship the very air she breathes - or that I can't manage her, or that I am not the captain of my ship. All I am trying to say is that she can be a trifle irritating at times, the way she carries on. For example, those little mannerisms of hers - I do wish she would drop them all, especially the way she has of pointing a finger at me to emphasize a phrase. You must remember that I am a man who is built rather small, and a gesture like this, when used to excess by a person like my wife, is apt to intimidate. I sometimes find it difficult to convince myself that she is not an overbearing woman.

  'Arthur!' she called. 'Come here.'

  'What?'

  'I've just had a most marvellous idea. Come here.'

  I turned and went over to where she was lying on the sofa.

  'Look,' she said, 'do you want to have some fun?'

  'What sort of fun?'

  'With the Snapes?'

  'Who are the Snapes?'

  'Come on,' she said. 'Wake up. Henry and Sally Snape. Our weekend guests.'

  'Well?'

  'Now listen. I was lying here thinking how awful they really are ... the way they behave ... him with his jokes and her like a sort of love-crazed sparrow ...' She hesitated, smiling slyly, and for some reason, I got the impression she was about to say a shocking thing. 'Well - if that's the way they behave when they're in front of us, then what on earth must they be like when they're alone together?'

  'Now wait a minute, Pamela -'

  'Don't be an ass, Arthur. Let's have some fun - some real fun for once - tonight.' She had half raised herself up off the sofa, her face bright with a kind of sudden recklessness, the mouth slightly open, and she was looking at me with two round grey eyes, a spark dancing slowly in each.

  'Why shouldn't we?'

  'What do you want to do?'

  'Why, it's obvious. Can't you see?'

  'No, I can't.'

  'All we've got to do is put a microphone in their room.' I admit I was expecting something pretty bad, but when she said this I was so shocked I didn't know what to answer.

  'That's exactly what we'll do,' she said.

  'Here!' I cried. 'No. Wait a minute. You can't do that.'

  'Why not?'

  'That's about the nastiest trick I ever heard of. It's like - why, it's like listening at keyholes, or reading letters, only far far worse. You don't mean this seriously, do you?'

  'Of course I do.'

  I knew how much she disliked being contradicted, but there were times when I felt it necessary to assert myself, even at considerable risk. 'Pamela,' I said, snapping the words out, 'I forbid you to do it!'

  She took her feet down from the sofa and sat up straight. 'What in God's name are you trying to pretend to be, Arthur? I simply don't understand you.'

  'That shouldn't be too difficult.'

  'Tommyrot! I've known you do lots of worse things than this before now.'

  'Never!'

  'Oh yes I have. What makes you suddenly think you're a so much nicer person than I am?'

  'I've never done things like that.'

  'All right, my boy,' she said, pointing her finger at me like a pistol. 'What about that time at the Milfords' last Christmas? Remember? You nearly laughed your head off and I had to put my hand over your mouth to stop them hearing us. What about that for one?'

  'That was different,' I said. 'It wasn't our house. And they weren't our guests.'

  'It doesn't make any difference at all.' She was sitting very upright, staring at me with those round grey eyes, and the chin was beginning to come up high in a peculiarly contemptuous manner. 'Don't be such a pompous hypocrite,' she said. 'What on earth's come over you?'

  'I really think it's a pretty nasty thing, you know, Pamela. I honestly do.'

  'But listen, Arthur. I'm a nasty person. And so are you - in a secret sort of way. That's why we get along together.'

  'I never heard such nonsense.'

  'Mind you, if you've suddenly decided to change your character completely, that's another story.'

  'You've got to stop talking this way, Pamela.'

  'You see,' she said, 'if you really have decided to reform, then what on earth am I going to do?'

  'You don't know what you're saying.'

  'Arthur, how could a nice person like you want to associate with a stinker?'

  I sat myself down slowly in the chair opposite her, and she was watching me all the time. You understand, she was a big woman, with a big white face, and when she looked at me hard, as she was doing now, I became - how shall I say it - surrounded, almost enveloped by her, as though she were a great tub of cream and I had fallen in.

  'You don't honestly want to do this microphone thing, do you?'

  'But of course I do. It's time we had a bit of fun around here. Come on, Arthur. Don't be so stuffy.'

  'It's not right, Pamela.'

  'It's just as right' - up came the finger again - 'just as right as when you found those letters of Mary Probert's in her purse and you read them through from beginning to end.'

  'We should never have done that.'

  'We!'

  'You read them afterwards, Pamela.'

  'It didn't harm anyone at all. You said so yourself at the time. And this one's no worse.'

  'How would you like it if someone did it to you?'

  'How could I mind if I didn't know it was being done? Come on, Arthur. Don't be so flabby.'

  'I'll have to think about it.'

  'Maybe the great radio engineer doesn't know how to connect the mike to the speaker?'

  'That's the easiest part.'

  'Well, go on then. Go on and do it.'

  'I'll think about it and let you know later.'

  'There's no time for that. They might arrive any moment.'

  'Then I won't do it. I'm not going to be caught red-handed.'

  'If they come before you're through, I'll simply keep them down here. No danger. What's the time, anyway?'

  It was nearly three o'clock.

  'They're driving down from London,' she said, 'and they certainly won't leave till after lunch. That gives you plenty of time.'

  'Which room are you putting them in?'

  'The big yellow room at the end of the corridor. That's not too far away, is it?'

  'I suppose it could be done.'

  'And by the by,' she said, 'where are you going to have the speaker?'

  'I haven't said I'm going to do it yet.'

  'My God!' she cried. 'I'd like to see someone try and stop you now. You ought to see your face. It's all pink and excited at the very prospect. Put the speaker in our bedroom why not? But go on - and hurry.'

  I hesitated. It was something I made a point of doing whenever she tried to order me about, instead of asking nicely. 'I don't like it, Pamela.'

  She didn't say any more after that; she just sat there absolutely still, watching me, a resigned, waiting expression on her face, as though she were in a long queue. This, I knew from experience, was a danger signal. She was like one of those bomb things with the pin pulled out, and it was only a matter of time before - bang! and she would explode. In the silence that followed, I could almost hear her ticking.

  So I got up quietly and went out to the workshop and collected a mike and a hundred and fifty feet of wire. Now that I was away from her, I am ashamed to admit that I began to feel a bit of excitement myself, a tiny warm prickling sensation under the skin, near the tips of my fingers. It was nothing much, mind you - r
eally nothing at all. Good heavens, I experience the same thing every morning of my life when I open the paper to check the closing prices on two or three of my wife's larger stockholdings. So I wasn't going to get carried away by a silly joke like this. At the same time, I couldn't help being amused.

  I took the stairs two at a time and entered the yellow room at the end of the passage. It had the clean, unlived-in appearance of all guest rooms, with its twin beds, yellow satin bedspreads, pale-yellow walls, and golden-coloured curtains. I began to look around for a good place to hide the mike. This was the most important part of all, for whatever happened, it must not be discovered. I thought first of the basket of logs by the fireplace. Put it under the logs. No - not safe enough. Behind the radiator? On top of the wardrobe? Under the desk? None of these seemed very professional to me. All might be subject to chance inspection because of a dropped collar stud or something like that. Finally, with considerable cunning, I decided to put it inside the springing of the sofa. The sofa was against the wall, near the edge of the carpet, and my lead wire could go straight under the carpet over to the door.

  I tipped up the sofa and slit the material underneath. Then I tied the microphone securely up among the springs, making sure that it faced the room. After that, I led the wire under the carpet to the door. I was calm and cautious in everything I did. Where the wire had to emerge from under the carpet and pass out of the door, I made a little groove in the wood so that it was almost invisible.

  All this, of course, took time, and when I suddenly heard the crunch of wheels on the gravel of the drive outside, and then the slamming of car doors and the voices of our guests, I was still only half-way down the corridor, tacking the wire along the skirting. I stopped and straightened up, hammer in hand, and I must confess that I felt afraid. You have no idea how unnerving that noise was to me. I experienced the same sudden stomachy feeling of fright as when a bomb once dropped the other side of the village during the war, one afternoon, while I was working quietly in the library with my butterflies.

  Don't worry, I told myself. Pamela will take care of these people. She won't let them come up here.

  Rather frantically, I set about finishing the job, and soon I had the wire tacked all along the corridor and through into our bedroom. Here, concealment was not so important, although I still did not permit myself to get careless because of the servants. So I laid the wire under the carpet and brought it up unobtrusively into the back of the radio. Making the final connections was an elementary technical matter and took me no time at all.