Skin and Other Stories Read online

  He arrived back at his house in Acacia Road at about half past four and parked his bike in the garage alongside the car. Suddenly he found himself running along the little concrete path that led to the front door. 'Now stop that!' he said aloud, pulling up short. 'Calm down. You've got to make this really good for Betty. Unfold it slowly.' But oh, he simply could not wait to give the news to his lovely wife and watch her face as he told her the whole story of his afternoon. He found her in the kitchen packing some jars of home-made jam into a basket.

  'Robert!' she cried, delighted as always to see him. 'You're home early! How nice!'

  He kissed her and said, 'I am a bit early, aren't I?'

  'You haven't forgotten we're going to the Renshaws for the weekend? We have to leave fairly soon.'

  'I had forgotten,' he said. 'Or maybe I hadn't. Perhaps that's why I'm home early.'

  'I thought I'd take Margaret some jam.'

  'Good,' he said. 'Very good. You take her some jam. That's a very good idea to take Margaret some jam.'

  There was something in the way he was acting that made her swing round and stare at him. 'Robert,' she said, 'what's happened? There's something the matter.'

  'Pour us each a drink,' he said. 'I've got a bit of news for you.'

  'Oh darling, it's not something awful, is it?'

  'No,' he said. 'It's something funny. I think you'll like it.'

  'You've been made Head of Surgery!'

  'It's funnier than that,' he said. 'Go on, make a good stiff drink for each of us and sit down and I'll tell you.'

  'It's a bit early for drinks,' she said, but she got the ice-tray from the fridge and started making his whisky and soda. While she was doing this, she kept glancing up at him nervously. She said, 'I don't think I've ever seen you quite like this before. You are wildly excited about something and you are pretending to be very calm. You're all red in the face. Are you sure it's good news?'

  'I think it is,' he said, 'but I'll let you judge that for yourself.' He sat down at the kitchen table and watched her as she put the glass of whisky in front of him.

  'All right,' she said. 'Come on. Let's have it.'

  'Get a drink for yourself first,' he said.

  'My goodness, what is this?' she said, but she poured some gin into a glass and was reaching for the ice-tray when he said, 'More than that. Give yourself a good stiff one.'

  'Now I am worried,' she said, but she did as she was told and then added ice and filled the glass up with tonic. 'Now then,' she said, sitting down beside him at the table, 'get it off your chest.'

  Robert began telling his story. He started with the Prince in the consulting-room and he spun it out long and well so that it took a good ten minutes before he came to the diamond.

  'It must be quite a whopper,' she said, 'to make you go all red in the face and funny-looking.'

  He reached into his pocket and took out the little black pouch and put it on the table. 'There it is,' he said. 'What do you think?'

  She loosened the silk cord and tipped the stone into her hand. 'Oh, my God!' she cried. 'It's absolutely stunning!'

  'It is, isn't it.'

  'It's amazing.'

  'I haven't told you the whole story yet,' he said, and while his wife rolled the diamond from the palm of one hand to the other, he went on to tell her about his visit to Harry Gold in The High. When he came to the point where the jeweller began to talk about value, he stopped and said, 'So what do you think he said it was worth?'

  'Something pretty big,' she said. 'It's bound to be. I mean just look at it!'

  'Go on then, make a guess. How much?'

  'Ten thousand pounds?' she said. 'I really don't have any idea.'

  'Try again.'

  'You mean, it's more?'

  'Yes, it's quite a lot more.'

  'Twenty thousand pounds!'

  'Would you be thrilled if it was worth as much as that?'

  'Of course I would, darling. Is it really worth twenty thousand pounds?'

  'Yes,' he said. 'And the rest.'

  'Now don't be a beast, Robert. Just tell me what Mr Gold said.'

  'Take another drink of gin.'

  She did so, then put down the glass, looking at him and waiting.

  'It is worth at least half a million dollars and very probably over a million.'

  'You're joking!' Her words came out in a kind of gasp.

  'It's known as a pear-shape,' he said. 'And where it comes to a point at this end, it's as sharp as a needle.'

  'I'm completely stunned,' she said, still gasping.

  'You wouldn't have thought half a million, would you?'

  'I've never in my life had to think in those sort of figures,' she said. She stood up and went over to him and gave him a huge hug and a kiss. 'You really are the most wonderful and stupendous man in the world!' she cried.

  'I was totally bowled over,' he said. 'I still am.'

  'Oh Robert!' she cried, gazing at him with eyes bright as two stars. 'Do you realize what this means? It means we can get Diana and her husband out of that horrid little flat and buy them a small house!'

  'By golly, you're right!'

  'And we can buy a decent flat for John and give him a better allowance all the way through his medical school! And Ben ... Ben wouldn't have to go on a motor-bike to work all through the freezing winters. We could get him something better. And ... and ... and ...'

  'And what?' he asked, smiling at her.

  'And you and I can take a really good holiday for once and go wherever we please! We can go to Egypt and Turkey and you can visit Baalbek and all the other places you've been longing to go to for years and years!' She was quite breathless with the vista of small pleasures that were unfolding in her dreams. 'And you can start collecting some really nice pieces for once in your life as well!'

  Ever since he had been a student, Robert Sandy's passion had been the history of the Mediterranean countries, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Syria and Egypt, and he had made himself into something of an expert on the ancient world of those various civilizations. He had done it by reading and studying and by visiting, when he had the time, the British Museum and the Ashmolean. But with three children to educate and with a job that paid only a reasonable salary, he had never been able to indulge this passion as he would have liked. He wanted above all to visit some of the grand remote regions of Asia Minor and also the now below-ground village of Babylon in Iraq and he would love to see the Arch of Ctsephon and the Sphinx at Memphis and a hundred other things and places, but neither the time nor the money had ever been available. Even so, the long coffee-table in the living-room was covered with small objects and fragments that he had managed to pick up cheaply here and there through his life. There was a mysterious pale alabaster ushaptiu in the form of a mummy from Upper Egypt which he knew was Pre-Dynastic from about 7000 BC. There was a bronze bowl from Lydia with an engraving on it of a horse, and an early Byzantine twisted silver necklace, and a section of a wooden painted mask from an Egyptian sarcophagus, and a Roman red-ware bowl, and a small black Etruscan dish, and perhaps fifty other fragile and interesting little pieces. None was particularly valuable, but Robert Sandy loved them all.

  'Wouldn't that be marvellous?' his wife was saying. 'Where shall we go first?'

  'Turkey,' he said.

  'Listen,' she said, pointing to the diamond that lay sparkling on the kitchen table, 'you'd better put your fortune away somewhere safe before you lose it.'

  'Today is Friday,' he said. 'When do we get back from the Renshaws?'

  'Sunday night.'

  'And what are we going to do with our million-pound rock in the meanwhile? Take it with us in my pocket?'

  'No,' she said, 'that would be silly. You really cannot walk around with a million pounds in your pocket for a whole weekend. It's got to go into a safe-deposit box at the bank. We should do it now.'

  'It's Friday night, my darling. All the banks are closed till next Monday.'

  'So they are,' she said. 'Well th