Skin and Other Stories Read online

  It was some time before the nurse came in. She came carrying a basin of hot water and she said, 'Good morning, how are you today?'

  He said, 'Good morning, nurse.'

  The pain was still great under the bandages, but he did not wish to tell this woman anything. He looked at her as she busied herself with getting the washing things ready. He looked at her more carefully now. Her hair was very fair. She was tall and big-boned and her face seemed pleasant. But there was something a little uneasy about her eyes. They were never still. They never looked at anything for more than a moment and they moved too quickly from one place to another in the room. There was something about her movements also. They were too sharp and nervous to go well with the casual manner in which she spoke.

  She set down the basin, took off his pyjama top and began to wash him.

  'Did you sleep well?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good,' she said. She was washing his arms and his chest.

  'I believe there's someone coming down to see you from the Air Ministry after breakfast,' she went on. 'They want a report or something. I expect you know all about it. How you got shot down and all that. I won't let him stay long, so don't worry.'

  He did not answer. She finished washing him and gave him a toothbrush and some toothpowder. He brushed his teeth, rinsed his mouth and spat the water out into the basin.

  Later she brought him his breakfast on a tray, but he did not want to eat. He was still feeling weak and sick and he wished only to lie still and think about what had happened. And there was a sentence running through his head. It was a sentence which Johnny, the Intelligence Officer of his squadron, always repeated to the pilots every day before they went out. He could see Johnny now, leaning against the wall of the dispersal hut with his pipe in his hand, saying, 'And if they get you, don't forget, just your name, rank and number. Nothing else. For God's sake, say nothing else.'

  'There you are,' she said as she put the tray on his lap. 'I've got you an egg. Can you manage all right?'

  'Yes.'

  She stood beside the bed. 'Are you feeling all right?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good. If you want another egg I might be able to get you one.'

  'This is all right.'

  'Well, just ring the bell if you want any more.' And she went out.

  He had just finished eating, when the nurse came in again.

  She said, 'Wing Commander Roberts is here. I've told him that he can only stay for a few minutes.'

  She beckoned with her hand and the Wing Commander came in.

  'Sorry to bother you like this,' he said.

  He was an ordinary RAF officer, dressed in a uniform which was a little shabby. He wore wings and a DFC. He was fairly tall and thin with plenty of black hair. His teeth, which were irregular and widely spaced, stuck out a little even when he closed his mouth. As he spoke he took a printed form and a pencil from his pocket and he pulled up a chair and sat down.

  'How are you feeling?'

  There was no answer.

  'Tough luck about your leg. I know how you feel. I hear you put up a fine show before they got you.'

  The man in the bed was lying quite still, watching the man in the chair.

  The man in the chair said, 'Well, let's get this stuff over. I'm afraid you'll have to answer a few questions so that I can fill in this combat report. Let me see now, first of all, what was your squadron?'

  The man in the bed did not move. He looked straight at the Wing Commander and he said, 'My name is Peter Williamson, my rank is Squadron Leader and my number is nine seven two four five seven.'

  My Lady Love, My Dove

  It has been my habit for many years to take a nap after lunch. I settle myself in a chair in the living-room with a cushion behind my head and my feet up on a small square leather stool, and I read until I drop off.

  On this Friday afternoon, I was in my chair and feeling as comfortable as ever with a book in my hands - an old favourite, Doubleday and Westwood's The Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera - when my wife, who has never been a silent lady, began to talk to me from the sofa opposite. 'These two people,' she said, 'what time are they coming?'

  I made no answer, so she repeated the question, louder this time.

  I told her politely that I didn't know.

  'I don't think I like them very much,' she said. 'Especially him.'

  'No dear, all right.'

  'Arthur. I said I don't think I like them very much.'

  I lowered my book and looked across at her lying with her feet up on the sofa, flipping over the pages of some fashion magazine. 'We've only met them once,' I said.

  'A dreadful man, really. Never stopped telling jokes, or stories, or something.'

  'I'm sure you'll manage them very well, dear.'

  'And she's pretty frightful, too. When do you think they'll arrive?'

  Somewhere around six o'clock, I guessed.

  'But don't you think they're awful?' she asked, pointing at me with her finger.

  'Well ...'

  'They're too awful, they really are.'

  'We can hardly put them off now, Pamela.'

  'They're absolutely the end,' she said.

  'Then why did you ask them?' The question slipped out before I could stop myself and I regretted it at once, for it is a rule with me never to provoke my wife if I can help it. There was a pause, and I watched her face, waiting for the answer - the big white face that to me was something so strange and fascinating there were occasions when I could hardly bring myself to look away from it. In the evenings sometimes - working on her embroidery, or painting those small intricate flower pictures - the face would tighten and glimmer with a subtle inward strength that was beautiful beyond words, and I would sit and stare at it minute after minute while pretending to read. Even now, at this moment, with that compressed acid look, the frowning forehead, the petulant curl of the nose, I had to admit that there was a majestic quality about this woman, something splendid, almost stately; and so tall she was, far taller than I - although today, in her fifty-first year, I think one would have to call her big rather than tall.

  'You know very well why I asked them,' she answered sharply. 'For bridge, that's all. They play an absolutely first-class game, and for a decent stake.' She glanced up and saw me watching her. 'Well,' she said, 'that's about the way you feel too, isn't it?'

  'Well, of course, I ...'

  'Don't be a fool, Arthur.'

  'The only time I met them I must say they did seem quite nice.'

  'So is the butcher.'

  'Now Pamela, dear - please. We don't want any of that.'

  'Listen,' she said, slapping down the magazine on her lap, 'you saw the sort of people they were as well as I did. A pair of stupid climbers who think they can go anywhere just because they play good bridge.'

  'I'm sure you're right, dear, but what I don't honestly understand is why -'

  'I keep telling you - so that for once we can get a decent game. I'm sick and tired of playing with rabbits. But I really can't see why I should have these awful people in the house.'

  'Of course not, my dear, but isn't it a little late now -'

  'Arthur?'

  'Yes?'

  'Why for God's sake do you always argue with me? You know you disliked them as much as I did.'

  'I really don't think you need worry, Pamela. After all, they seemed quite a nice well-mannered young couple.'

  'Arthur, don't be pompous.' She was looking at me hard with those wide grey eyes of hers, and to avoid them - they sometimes made me quite uncomfortable - I got up and walked over to the french windows that led into the garden.

  The big sloping lawn out in front of the house was newly mown, striped with pale and dark ribbons of green. On the far side, the two laburnums were in full flower at last, the long golden chains making a blaze of colour against the darker trees beyond. The roses were out too, and the scarlet begonias, and in the long herbaceous border all my lovely hybrid lupins, columbine, delphinium,