Tales of the Unexpected(106)

‘You’re never satisfied!’ he cried. ‘You’re scared stiff when she’s losing and now you’re absolutely terrified because she’s gaining! What’s the matter with you, Mabel?’

The woman got up from her chair with the baby in her arms and started towards the door. ‘All I can say is,’ she said, ‘it’s lucky I’m here to see you don’t give her any more of it, that’s all I can say.’ She went out, and Albert watched her through the open door as she crossed the hall to the foot of the stairs and started to ascend, and when she reached the third or fourth step she suddenly stopped and stood quite still for several seconds as though remembering something. Then she turned and came down again rather quickly and re-entered the room.

‘Albert,’ she said.

‘Yes?’

‘I assume there wasn’t any royal jelly in this last feed we’ve just given her?’

‘I don’t see why you should assume that, Mabel.’

‘Albert!’

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked, soft and innocent.

‘How dare you!’ she cried.

Albert Taylor’s great bearded face took on a pained and puzzled look. ‘I think you ought to be very glad she’s got another big dose of it inside her,’ he said. ‘Honest I do. And this is a big dose, Mabel, believe you me.’

The woman was standing just inside the doorway clasping the sleeping baby in her arms and staring at her husband with huge eyes. She stood very erect, her body absolutely stiff with fury, her face paler, more tight-lipped than ever.

‘You mark my words,’ Albert was saying, ‘you’re going to have a nipper there soon that’ll win first prize in any baby show in the entire country. Hey, why don’t you weigh her now and see what she is? You want me to get the scales, Mabel, so you can weigh her?’

The woman walked straight over to the large table in the centre of the room and laid the baby down and quickly started taking off its clothes. ‘Yes!’ she snapped. ‘Get the scales!’ Off came the little nightgown, then the undervest.

Then she unpinned the nappy and she drew it away and the baby lay naked on the table.

‘But Mabel!’ Albert cried. ‘It’s a miracle! She’s fat as a puppy!’

Indeed, the amount of flesh the child had put on since the day before was astonishing. The small sunken chest with the rib bones showing all over it was now plump and round as a barrel, and the belly was bulging high in the air. Curiously, though, the arms and legs did not seem to have grown in proportion. Still short and skinny, they looked like little sticks protruding from a ball of fat.

‘Look!’ Albert said. ‘She’s even beginning to get a bit of fuzz on the tummy to keep her warm!’ He put out a hand and was about to run the tips of his fingers over the powdering of silky yellowy-brown hairs that had suddenly appeared on the baby’s stomach.

‘Don’t you touch her!’ the woman cried. She turned and faced him, her eyes blazing, and she looked suddenly like some kind of little fighting bird with her neck arched over towards him as though she were about to fly at his face and peck his eyes out.

‘Now wait a minute,’ he said, retreating.

‘You must be mad!’ she cried.

‘Now wait just one minute, Mabel, will you please, because if you’re still thinking this stuff is dangerous… That is what you’re thinking, isn’t it? All right, then. Listen carefully. I shall now proceed to prove to you once and for all, Mabel, that royal jelly is absolutely harmless to human beings, even in enormous doses. For example – why do you think we had only half the usual honey crop last summer? Tell me that.’

His retreat, walking backwards, had taken him three or four yards away from her, where he seemed to feel more comfortable.

‘The reason we had only half the usual crop last summer,’ he said slowly, lowering his voice, ‘was because I turned one hundred of my hives over to the production of royal jelly.’

‘You what?’

‘Ah,’ he whispered. ‘I thought that might surprise you a bit. And I’ve been making it ever since right under your very nose.’ His small eyes were glinting at her, and a slow sly smile was creeping around the corners of his mouth.

‘You’ll never guess the reason, either,’ he said. ‘I’ve been afraid to mention it up to now because I thought it might… well… sort of embarrass you.’

There was a slight pause. He had his hands clasped high in front of him, level with his chest, and he was rubbing one palm against the other, making a soft scraping noise.