Skin and Other Stories Read online

  He climbed up on to the wide wooden top-rail, stood there poised, balancing for three terrifying seconds, then he leaped - he leaped up and out as far as he could go and at the same time he shouted 'Help!'

  'Help! Help!' he shouted as he fell. Then he hit the water and went under.

  When the first shout for help sounded, the woman who was leaning on the rail started up and gave a little jump of surprise. She looked around quickly and saw sailing past her through the air this small man dressed in white shorts and tennis shoes, spreadeagled and shouting as he went. For a moment she looked as though she weren't quite sure what she ought to do: throw a lifebelt, run away and give the alarm, or simply turn and yell. She drew back a pace from the rail and swung half around facing up to the bridge, and for this brief moment she remained motionless, tense, undecided. Then almost at once she seemed to relax, and she leaned forward far over the rail, staring at the water where it was turbulent in the ship's wake. Soon a tiny round black head appeared in the foam, an arm raised above it, once, twice, vigorously waving, and a small faraway voice was heard calling something that was difficult to understand. The woman leaned still farther over the rail, trying to keep the little bobbing black speck in sight, but soon, so very soon, it was such a long way away that she couldn't even be sure it was there at all.

  After a while another woman came out on deck. This one was bony and angular, and she wore horn-rimmed spectacles. She spotted the first woman and walked over to her, treading the deck in the deliberate, military fashion of all spinsters.

  'So there you are,' she said.

  The woman with the fat ankles turned and looked at her, but said nothing.

  'I've been searching for you,' the bony one continued. 'Searching all over.'

  'It's very odd,' the woman with the fat ankles said. 'A man dived overboard just now, with his clothes on.'

  'Nonsense!'

  'Oh yes. He said he wanted to get some exercise and he dived in and didn't even bother to take his clothes off.'

  'You better come down now,' the bony woman said. Her mouth had suddenly become firm, her whole face sharp and alert, and she spoke less kindly than before. 'And don't you ever go wandering about on deck alone like this again. You know quite well you're meant to wait for me.'

  'Yes, Maggie,' the woman with the fat ankles answered, and again she smiled, a tender, trusting smile, and she took the hand of the other one and allowed herself to be led away across the deck.

  'Such a nice man,' she said. 'He waved to me.'

  The Champion of the World

  All day, in between serving customers, we had been crouching over the table in the office of the filling-station, preparing the raisins. They were plump and soft and swollen from being soaked in water, and when you nicked them with a razor-blade the skin sprang open and the jelly stuff inside squeezed out as easily as you could wish.

  But we had a hundred and ninety-six of them to do altogether and the evening was nearly upon us before we had finished.

  'Don't they look marvellous!' Claud cried, rubbing his hands together hard. 'What time is it, Gordon?'

  'Just after five.'

  Through the window we could see a station-wagon pulling up at the pumps with a woman at the wheel and about eight children in the back eating ice-creams.

  'We ought to be moving soon,' Claud said. 'The whole thing'll be a washout if we don't arrive before sunset, you realize that.' He was getting twitchy now. His face had the same flushed and popeyed look it got before a dog-race or when there was a date with Clarice in the evening.

  We both went outside and Claud gave the woman the number of gallons she wanted. When she had gone, he remained standing in the middle of the driveway squinting anxiously up at the sun which was now only the width of a man's hand above the line of trees along the crest of the ridge on the far side of the valley.

  'All right,' I said. 'Lock up.'

  He went quickly from pump to pump, securing each nozzle in its holder with a small padlock.

  'You'd better take off that yellow pullover,' he said.

  'Why should I?'

  'You'll be shining like a bloody beacon out there in the moonlight.'

  'I'll be all right.'

  'You will not,' he said. 'Take it off, Gordon, please. I'll see you in three minutes.' He disappeared into his caravan behind the filling-station, and I went indoors and changed my yellow pullover for a blue one.

  When we met again outside, Claud was dressed in a pair of black trousers and a dark-green turtleneck sweater. On his head he wore a brown cloth cap with the peak pulled down low over his eyes, and he looked like an apache actor out of a nightclub.

  'What's under there?' I asked, seeing the bulge at his waistline.

  He pulled up his sweater and showed me two thin but very large white cotton sacks which were bound neat and tight around his belly. 'To carry the stuff,' he said darkly.

  'I see.'

  'Let's go,' he said.

  'I still think we ought to take the car.'

  'It's too risky. They'll see it parked.'

  'But it's over three miles up to that wood.'

  'Yes,' he said. 'And I suppose you realize we can get six months in the clink if they catch us.'

  'You never told me that.'

  'Didn't I?'

  'I'm not coming,' I said. 'It's not worth it.'

  'The walk will do you good, Gordon. Come on.'

  It was a calm sunny evening with little wisps of brilliant white cloud hanging motionless in the sky, and the valley was cool and very quiet as the two of us began walking together along the grass verge on the side of the road that ran between the hills towards Oxford.

  'You got the raisins?' Claud asked.

  'They're in my pocket.'

  'Good,' he said. 'Marvellous.'

  Ten minutes later we turned left off the main road into a narrow lane with high hedges on either side and from now on it was all uphill.

  'How many keepers are there?' I asked.

  'Three.'

  Claud threw away a half-finished cigarette. A minute later he lit another.

  'I don't usually approve of new methods,' he said. 'Not on this sort of a job.'

  'Of course.'

  'But by God, Gordon, I think we're on to a hot one this time.'

  'You do?'

  'There's no question about it.'

  'I hope you're right.'

  'It'll be a milestone in the history of poaching,' he said. 'But don't you go telling a single soul how we've done it, you understand. Because if this ever leaked out we'd have every bloody fool in the district doing the same thing and there wouldn't be a pheasant left.'

  'I won't say a word.'

  'You ought to be very proud of yourself,' he went on. 'There's been men with brains studying this problem for hundreds of years and not one of them's ever come up with anything even a quarter as artful as you have. Why didn't you tell me about it before?'

  'You never invited my opinion,' I said.

  And that was the truth. In fact, up until the day before, Claud had never even offered to discuss with me the sacred subject of poaching. Often enough, on a summer's evening when work was finished, I had seen him with cap on head sliding quietly out of his caravan and disappearing up the road towards the woods; and sometimes, watching him through the windows of the filling-station, I would find myself wondering exactly what he was going to do, what wily tricks he was going to practise all alone up there under the trees in the dead of night. He seldom came back until very late, and never, absolutely never did he bring any of the spoils with him personally on his return. But the following afternoon - and I couldn't imagine how he did it - there would always be a pheasant or a hare or a brace of partridges hanging up in the shed behind the filling-station for us to eat.

  This summer he had been particularly active, and during the last couple of months he had stepped up the tempo to a point where he was going out four and sometimes five nights a week. But that was not all. It seemed to me