The Breaking Point (11 page)

‘You embarrass me,’ said the voice, ‘staring at me so hard. Are you trying to read my thoughts?’

Marda West did not answer. The question might be a trap.

‘Tell me,’ the voice continued, ‘are you disappointed? Do I look as you expected me to look?’

Still a trap. She must be careful.‘I think you do,’ she said slowly, ‘but it’s difficult to tell with the cap. I can’t see your hair.’

Nurse Ansel laughed, the low, soft laugh that had been so alluring during the long weeks of blindness. She put up her hands, and in a moment the whole snake’s head was revealed, the flat, broad top, the tell-tale adder’s V. ‘Do you approve?’ she asked.

Marda West shrank back against her pillow.Yet once again she forced herself to smile.

‘Very pretty,’ she said, ‘very pretty indeed.’

The cap was replaced, the long neck wriggled, and then, deceived, it took the medicine-glass from the patient’s hand and put it back upon the wash-basin. It did not know everything.

‘When I go home with you,’ said Nurse Ansel, ‘I needn’t wear uniform - that is, if you don’t want me to. You see, you’ll be a private patient then, and I your personal nurse for the week I’m with you.’

Marda West felt suddenly cold. In the turmoil of the day she had forgotten the plans. Nurse Ansel was to be with them for a week. It was all arranged. The vital thing was not to show fear. Nothing must seem changed. And then, when Jim arrived, she would tell him everything. If he could not see the snake’s head as she did - and indeed, it was possible that he would not, if her hypervision was caused by the lenses - he must just understand that for reasons too deep to explain she no longer trusted Nurse Ansel, could not, in fact, bear her to come home. The plan must be altered. She wanted no one to look after her. She only wanted to be home again, with him.

The telephone rang on the bedside-table and Marda West seized it, as she might seize salvation. It was her husband.

‘Sorry to be late,’ he said. ‘I’ll jump into a taxi and be with you right away. The lawyer kept me.’

‘Lawyer?’ she asked.

‘Yes, Forbes & Millwall, you remember, about the trust fund.’

She had forgotten. There had been so many financial discussions before the operation. Conflicting advice, as usual. And finally Jim had put the whole business into the hands of the Forbes & Millwall people.

‘Oh, yes. Was it satisfactory?’

‘I think so. Tell you directly.’

He rang off, and looking up she saw the snake’s head watching her. No doubt, thought Marda West, no doubt you would like to know what we were saying to one another.

‘You must promise not to get too excited when Mr West comes.’ Nurse Ansel stood with her hand upon the door.

‘I’m not excited. I just long to see him, that’s all.’

‘You’re looking very flushed.’

‘It’s warm in here.’

The twisting neck craned upward, then turned to the window. For the first time Marda West had the impression that the snake was not entirely at its ease. It sensed tension. It knew, it could not help but know, that the atmosphere had changed between nurse and patient.

‘I’ll open the window just a trifle at the top.’

If you were all snake, thought the patient, I could push you through. Or would you coil yourself round my neck and strangle me?

The window was opened, and pausing a moment, hoping perhaps for a word of thanks, the snake hovered at the end of the bed. Then the neck settled in the collar, the tongue darted rapidly in and out, and with a gliding motion Nurse Ansel left the room.

Marda West waited for the sound of the taxi in the street outside. She wondered if she could persuade Jim to stay the night in the nursing-home. If she explained her fear, her terror, surely he would understand. She would know in an instant if he had sensed anything wrong himself. She would ring the bell, make a pretext of asking Nurse Ansel some question, and then, by the expression on his face, by the tone of his voice, she would discover whether he saw what she saw herself.

The taxi came at last. She heard it slow down, and then the door slammed and, blessedly, Jim’s voice rang out in the street below. The taxi went away. He would be coming up in the lift. Her heart began to beat fast, and she watched the door. She heard his footstep outside, and then his voice again - he must be saying something to the snake. She would know at once if he had seen the head. He would come into the room either startled, not believing his eyes, or laughing, declaring it a joke, a pantomime. Why did he not hurry? Why must they linger there, talking, their voices hushed?

The door opened, the familiar umbrella and bowler hat the first objects to appear round the corner, then the comforting burly figure, but - God . . . no . . . please God, not Jim too, not Jim, forced into a mask, forced into an organization of devils, of liars . . . Jim had a vulture’s head. She could not mistake it. The brooding eye, the blood-tipped beak, the flabby folds of flesh. As she lay in sick and speechless horror, he stood the umbrella in a corner and put down the bowler hat and the folded overcoat.

‘I gather you’re not too well,’ he said, turning his vulture’s head and staring at her, ‘feeling a bit sick and out of sorts. I won’t stay long. A good night’s rest will put you right.’

She was too numb to answer. She lay quite still as he approached the bed and bent to kiss her. The vulture’s beak was sharp.

‘It’s reaction, Nurse Ansel says,’ he went on, ‘the sudden shock of being able to see again. It works differently with different people. She says it will be much better when we get you home.’

We . . . Nurse Ansel and Jim. The plan still held, then.

‘I don’t know,’ she said faintly, ‘that I want Nurse Ansel to come home.’

‘Not want Nurse Ansel?’ He sounded startled. ‘But it was you who suggested it. You can’t suddenly chop and change.’

There was no time to reply. She had not rung the bell, but Nurse Ansel herself came into the room.‘Cup of coffee, Mr West?’ she said. It was the evening routine.Yet tonight it sounded strange, as though it had been arranged outside the door.

‘Thanks, Nurse, I’d love some. What’s this nonsense about not coming home with us?’ The vulture turned to the snake, the snake’s head wriggled, and Marda West knew, as she watched them, the snake with darting tongue, the vulture with his head hunched between his man’s shoulders, that the plan for Nurse Ansel to come home had not been her own after all; she remembered now that the first suggestion had come from Nurse Ansel herself. It had been Nurse Ansel who had said that Marda West needed care during convalescence. The suggestion had come after Jim had spent the evening laughing and joking and his wife had listened, her eyes bandaged, happy to hear him. Now, watching the smooth snake whose adder’s V was hidden beneath the nurse’s cap, she knew why Nurse Ansel wanted to return with her, and she knew too why Jim had not opposed it, why in fact he had accepted the plan at once, had declared it a good one.

The vulture opened its blood-stained beak. ‘Don’t say you two have fallen out?’

‘Impossible.’The snake twisted its neck, looked sideways at the vulture, and added, ‘Mrs West is just a little bit tired tonight. She’s had a trying day, haven’t you, dear?’

How best to answer? Neither must know. Neither the vulture, nor the snake, nor any of the hooded beasts surrounding her and closing in, must ever guess, must ever know.

‘I’m all right,’ she said. ‘A bit mixed-up. As Nurse Ansel says, I’ll be better in the morning.’

The two communicated in silence, sympathy between them. That, she realized now, was the most frightening thing of all.Animals, birds and reptiles had no need to speak.They moved, they looked, they knew what they were about. They would not destroy her, though. She had, for all her bewildered terror, the will to live.

‘I won’t bother you,’ said the vulture, ‘with these documents tonight. There’s no violent hurry anyway. You can sign them at home.’

‘What documents?’

If she kept her eyes averted she need not see the vulture’s head. The voice was Jim’s, steady and reassuring.

‘The trust fund papers Forbes & Millwall gave me.They suggest I should become a co-director of the fund.’

The words struck a chord, a thread of memory belonging to the weeks before her operation. Something to do with her eyes. If the operation was not successful she would have difficulty in signing her name.

‘What for?’ she asked, her voice unsteady. ‘After all, it is my money.’

He laughed. And, turning to the sound, she saw the beak open. It gaped like a trap, and then closed again.

‘Of course it is,’ he said. ‘That’s not the point. The point is that I should be able to sign for you, if you should be ill or away.’

Marda West looked at the snake, and the snake, aware, shrank into its collar and slid towards the door. ‘Don’t stay too long, Mr West,’ murmured Nurse Ansel. ‘Our patient must have a real rest tonight.’

She glided from the room and Marda West was left alone with her husband. With the vulture.

‘I don’t propose to go away,’ she said, ‘or be ill.’

‘Probably not. That’s neither here nor there. These fellows always want safeguards. Anyway, I won’t bore you with it now.’

Could it be that the voice was over-casual? That the hand, stuffing the document into the pocket of the greatcoat, was a claw? This was a possibility, a horror, perhaps, to come. The bodies changing too, hands and feet becoming wings, claws, hoofs, paws, with no touch of humanity left to the people about her. The last thing to go would be the human voice. When the human voice went, there would be no hope. The jungle would take over, multitudinous sounds and screams coming from a hundred throats.

‘Did you really mean that,’ Jim asked, ‘about Nurse Ansel?’

Calmly she watched the vulture pare his nails. He carried a file in his pocket. She had never thought about it before - it was part of Jim, like his fountain pen and his pipe.Yet now there was reasoning behind it: a vulture needed sharp claws for tearing its victim.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It seemed to me rather silly to go home with a nurse, now that I can see again.’

He did not answer at once. The head sank deeper between the shoulders. His dark city suit was like the humped feathers of a large brooding bird. ‘I think she’s a treasure,’ he said. ‘And you’re bound to feel groggy at first. I vote we stick to the plan. After all, if it doesn’t work we can always send her away.’

‘Perhaps,’ said his wife.

She was trying to think if there was anyone left whom she could trust. Her family was scattered. A married brother in South Africa, friends in London, no one with whom she was intimate. Not to this extent. No one to whom she could say that her nurse had turned into a snake, her husband into a vulture. The utter hopelessness of her position was like damnation itself. This was her hell. She was quite alone, coldly conscious of the hatred and cruelty about her.

‘What will you do this evening?’ she asked quietly.

‘Have dinner at the club, I suppose,’ he answered.‘It’s becoming rather monotonous. Only two more days of it, thank goodness. Then you’ll be home again.’

Yes, but once at home, once back there, with a vulture and a snake, would she not be more completely at their mercy than she was here?

‘Did Greaves say Thursday for certain?’ she asked.

‘He told me so this morning, when he telephoned.You’ll have the other lenses then, the ones that show colour.’

The ones that would show the bodies too. That was the explanation. The blue lenses only showed the heads. They were the first test. Greaves, the surgeon, was in this too, very naturally. He had a high place in the conspiracy - perhaps he had been bribed. Who was it, she tried to remember, who had suggested the operation in the first place? Was it the family doctor, after a chat with Jim? Didn’t they both come to her together and say that this was the only chance to save her eyes? The plot must lie deep in the past, extend right back through the months, perhaps the years. But, in heaven’s name, for what purpose? She sought wildly in her memory to try to recall a look, or sign, or word which would give her some insight into this dreadful plot, this conspiracy against her person or her sanity.

‘You look pretty peaky,’ he said suddenly. ‘Shall I call Nurse Ansel?’

‘No . . .’ It broke from her, almost a cry.

‘I think I’d better go. She said not to stay long.’

He got up from the chair, a heavy, hooded figure, and she closed her eyes as he came to kiss her good night. ‘Sleep well, my poor pet, and take it easy.’

In spite of her fear she felt herself clutch at his hand.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

The well-remembered kiss would have restored her, but not the stab of the vulture’s beak, the thrusting blood-stained beak. When he had gone she began to moan, turning her head upon the pillow.

‘What am I to do?’ she said. ‘What am I to do?’

The door opened again and she put her hand to her mouth. They must not hear her cry. They must not see her cry. She pulled herself together with a tremendous effort.

‘How are you feeling, Mrs West?’

The snake stood at the bottom of the bed, and by her side the house physician. She had always liked him, a young pleasant man, and although like the others he had an animal’s head it did not frighten her. It was a dog’s head, an Aberdeen’s, and the brown eyes seemed to quiz her. Long ago, as a child, she had owned an Aberdeen.

‘Could I speak to you alone?’ she asked.

‘Of course. Do you mind, nurse?’ He jerked his head at the door, and she had gone. Marda West sat up in bed and clasped her hands.

‘You’ll think me very foolish,’ she began, ‘but it’s the lenses. I can’t get used to them.’

He came over, the trustworthy Aberdeen, head cocked in sympathy.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘They don’t hurt you, do they?’