Tales of the Unexpected(72)

He tried to imagine what his own feelings would be if it were his wife’s brain lying there and her eye staring up at him out of that capsule.

He wouldn’t like it.

‘Shall we go back to my room now?’ he said.

She was standing by the window, apparently quite calm and relaxed, puffing her cigarette.

‘Yes, all right.’

On her way past the table she stopped and leaned over the basin once more. ‘Mary’s leaving now, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘And don’t you worry about a single thing, you understand? We’re going to get you right back home where we can look after you properly just as soon as we possibly can. And listen dear…’ At this point she paused and carried the cigarette to her lips, intending to take a puff.

Instantly the eye flashed.

She was looking straight into it at the time, and right in the centre of it she saw a tiny but brilliant flash of light, and the pupil contracted into a minute black pinpoint of absolute fury.

At first she didn’t move. She stood bending over the basin, holding the cigarette up to her mouth, watching the eye.

Then very slowly, deliberately, she put the cigarette between her lips and took a long suck. She inhaled deeply, and she held the smoke inside her lungs for three or four seconds; then suddenly, whoosh, out it came through her nostrils in two thin jets which struck the water in the basin and billowed out over the surface in a thick blue cloud, enveloping the eye.

Landy was over by the door, with his back to her, waiting. ‘Come on, Mrs Pearl,’ he called.

‘Don’t look so cross, William,’ she said softly. ‘It isn’t any good looking cross.’

Landy turned his head to see what she was doing.

‘Not any more it isn’t,’ she whispered. ‘Because from now on, my pet, you’re going to do just exactly what Mary tells you. Do you understand that?’

‘Mrs Pearl,’ Landy said, moving towards her.

‘So don’t be a naughty boy again, will you, my precious,’ she said, taking another pull at the cigarette. ‘Naughty boys are liable to get punished most severely nowadays, you ought to know that.’

Landy was beside her now, and he took her by the arm and began drawing her firmly but gently away from the table.

‘Good-bye, darling,’ she called. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

‘That’s enough, Mrs Pearl.’

‘Isn’t he sweet?’ she cried, looking up at Landy with big bright eyes. ‘Isn’t he heaven? I just can’t wait to get him home.’





The Way Up To Heaven


All her life, Mrs Foster had had an almost pathological fear of missing a train, a plane, a boat, or even a theatre curtain. In other respects, she was not a particularly nervous woman, but the mere thought of being late on occasions like these would throw her into such a state of nerves that she would begin to twitch. It was nothing much – just a tiny vellicating muscle in the corner of the left eye, like a secret wink – but the annoying thing was that it refused to disappear until an hour or so after the train or plane or whatever it was had been safely caught.

It was really extraordinary how in certain people a simple apprehension about a thing like catching a train can grow into a serious obsession. At least half an hour before it was time to leave the house for the station, Mrs Foster would step out of the elevator all ready to go, with hat and coat and gloves, and then, being quite unable to sit down, she would flutter and fidget about from room to room until her husband, who must have been well aware of her state, finally emerged from his privacy and suggested in a cool dry voice that perhaps they had better get going now, had they not?

Mr Foster may possibly have had a right to be irritated by this foolishness of his wife’s, but he could have had no excuse for increasing her misery by keeping her waiting unnecessarily. Mind you, it is by no means certain that this is what he did, yet whenever they were to go somewhere, his timing was so accurate – just a minute or two late, you understand – and his manner so bland that it was hard to believe he wasn’t purposely inflicting a nasty private little torture of his own on the unhappy lady. And one thing he must have known – that she would never dare to call out and tell him to hurry. He had disciplined her too well for that. He must also have known that if he was prepared to wait even beyond the last moment of safety, he could drive her nearly into hysterics. On one or two special occasions in the later years of their married life, it seemed almost as though he had wanted to miss the train simply in order to intensify the poor woman’s suffering.

Assuming (though one cannot be sure) that the husband was guilty, what made his attitude doubly unreasonable was the fact that, with the exception of this one small irrepressible foible, Mrs Foster was and always had been a good and loving wife. For over thirty years, she had served him loyally and well. There was no doubt about this. Even she, a very modest woman, was aware of it, and although she had for years refused to let herself believe that Mr Foster would ever consciously torment her, there had been times recently when she had caught herself beginning to wonder.