Madness Read online

  ‘A what?’ Billy said.

  ‘His skin was just like a baby’s.’

  There was a pause. Billy picked up his teacup and took another sip of his tea, then he set it down again gently in its saucer. He waited for her to say something else, but she seemed to have lapsed into another of her silences. He sat there staring straight ahead of him into the far corner of the room, biting his lower lip.

  ‘That parrot,’ he said at last. ‘You know something? It had me completely fooled when I first saw it through the window. I could have sworn it was alive.’

  ‘Alas, no longer.’

  ‘It’s most terribly clever the way it’s been done,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t look in the least bit dead. Who did it?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘And have you met my little Basil as well?’ She nodded towards the dachshund curled up so comfortably in front of the fire. Billy looked at it. And suddenly, he realized that this animal had all the time been just as silent and motionless as the parrot. He put out a hand and touched it gently on the top of its back. The back was hard and cold, and when he pushed the hair to one side with his fingers, he could see the skin underneath, greyish-black and dry and perfectly preserved.

  ‘Good gracious me,’ he said. ‘How absolutely fascinating.’ He turned away from the dog and stared with deep admiration at the little woman beside him on the sofa. ‘It must be most awfully difficult to do a thing like that.’

  ‘Not in the least,’ she said. ‘I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away. Will you have another cup of tea?’

  ‘No, thank you,’ Billy said. The tea tasted faintly of bitter almonds, and he didn’t much care for it.

  ‘You did sign the book, didn’t you?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘That’s good. Because later on, if I happen to forget what you were called, then I could always come down here and look it up. I still do that almost every day with Mr Mulholland and Mr … Mr …’

  ‘Temple,’ Billy said. ‘Gregory Temple. Exuse my asking, but haven’t there been any other guests here except them in the last two or three years?’

  Holding her teacup high in one hand, inclining her head slightly to the left, she looked up at him out of the corners of her eyes and gave him another gentle little smile.

  ‘No, my dear,’ she said. ‘Only you.’

  Pig

  First published in Kiss, Kiss (1960)

  I

  Once upon a time, in the City of New York, a beautiful baby boy was born into this world, and the joyful parents named him Lexington.

  No sooner had the mother returned home from the hospital carrying Lexington in her arms than she said to her husband, ‘Darling, now you must take me out to a most marvellous restaurant for dinner so that we can celebrate the arrival of our son and heir.’

  Her husband embraced her tenderly and told her that any woman who could produce such a beautiful child as Lexington deserved to go absolutely any place she wanted. But was she strong enough yet, he inquired, to start running around the city late at night?

  No, she said, she wasn’t. But what the hell.

  So that evening they both dressed themselves up in fancy clothes, and leaving little Lexington in care of a trained infant’s nurse who was costing them twenty dollars a day and was Scottish into the bargain, they went out to the finest and most expensive restaurant in town. There they each ate a giant lobster and drank a bottle of champagne between them, and after that, they went on to a nightclub, where they drank another bottle of champagne and then sat holding hands for several hours while they recalled and discussed and admired each individual physical feature of their lovely newborn son.

  They arrived back at their house on the East Side of Manhattan at around two o’clock in the morning and the husband paid off the taxi-driver and then began feeling in his pockets for the key to the front door. After a while, he announced that he must have left it in the pocket of his other suit, and he suggested they ring the bell and get the nurse to come down and let them in. An infant’s nurse at twenty dollars a day must expect to be hauled out of bed occasionally in the night, the husband said.

  So he rang the bell. They waited. Nothing happened. He rang it again, long and loud. They waited another minute. Then they both stepped back on to the street and shouted the nurse’s name (McPottle) up at the nursery windows on the third floor, but there was still no response. The house was dark and silent. The wife began to grow apprehensive. Her baby was imprisoned in this place, she told herself. Alone with McPottle. And who was McPottle? They had known her for two days, that was all, and she had a thin mouth, a small disapproving eye, and a starchy bosom, and quite clearly she was in the habit of sleeping much too soundly for safety. If she couldn’t hear the front-door bell, then how on earth did she expect to hear a baby crying? Why, this very second the poor thing might be swallowing its tongue or suffocating on its pillow.

  ‘He doesn’t use a pillow,’ the husband said. ‘You are not to worry. But I’ll get you in if that’s what you want.’ He was feeling rather superb after all the champagne, and now he bent down and undid the laces of one of his black patent-leather shoes, and took it off. Then, holding it by the toe, he flung it hard and straight right through the dining-room window on the ground floor.

  ‘There you are,’ he said, grinning. ‘We’ll deduct it from McPottle’s wages.’

  He stepped forward and very carefully put a hand through the hole in the glass and released the catch. Then he raised the window.

  ‘I shall lift you in first, little mother,’ he said, and he took his wife round the waist and lifted her off the ground. This brought her big red mouth up level with his own, and very close, so he started kissing her. He knew from experience that women like very much to be kissed in this position, with their bodies held tight and their legs dangling in the air, so he went on doing it for quite a long time, and she wiggled her feet, and made loud gulping noises down in her throat. Finally, the husband turned her round and began easing her gently through the open window into the dining-room. At this point, a police patrol car came nosing silently along the street towards them. It stopped about thirty yards away, and three cops of Irish extraction leaped out of the car and started running in the direction of the husband and wife, brandishing revolvers.

  ‘Stick ’em up!’ the cops shouted. ‘Stick ’em up!’ But it was impossible for the husband to obey this order without letting go of his wife, and had he done this she would either have fallen to the ground or would have been left dangling half in and half out of the house, which is a terribly uncomfortable position for a woman; so he continued gallantly to push her upwards and inwards through the window. The cops, all of whom had received medals before for killing robbers, opened fire immediately, and although they were still running, and although the wife in particular was presenting them with a very small target indeed, they succeeded in scoring several direct hits on each body – sufficient anyway to prove fatal in both cases.

  Thus, when he was no more then twelve days old, little Lexington became an orphan.

  II

  The news of this killing, for which the three policemen subsequently received citations, was eagerly conveyed to all relatives of the deceased couple by newspaper reporters, and the next morning, the closest of these relatives, as well as a couple of undertakers, three lawyers and a priest, climbed into taxis and set out for the house with the broken window. They assembled in the living-room, men and women both, and they sat around in a circle on the sofas and armchairs, smoking cigarettes and sipping sherry and debating what on earth should be done now with the baby upstairs, the orphan Lexington.

  It soon became apparent that none of the relatives was particularly keen to assume responsibility for the child, and the discussions and arguments continued all through the day. Everybody declared an enormous, almost an irresistible desire to look after him, and would have done so with the greatest of pleasure were