No Sharks in the Med and Other Stories (52 page)

My husband’s eye,” she said quite suddenly, peering over my shoulder in something of morbid fascination. “Watching us!” She was very calm about it, which ought to say quite a lot about her character. A very cool lady, Angela Cleave. But in view of the circumstances, a rather odd statement; for the fact was that I was making love to her at the time, and somewhat more alarming, her husband had been dead for six and a half weeks!

“
What!?
” I gasped, flopping over onto my back, my eyes following the direction of her pointing finger. She seemed to be aiming it at the dresser. But there was nothing to be seen, not anywhere in that huge, entirely extravagant bedroom. Or perhaps I anticipated too much, for while it’s true that she had specified an ‘eye’, for some reason
I
was looking for a complete person. This is perhaps readily understandable—the shock, and what all. But no such one was there. Thank God!

Then there came a rolling sound, like a marble down a gentle slope, and again I looked where she was pointing. Atop the dresser, a shape wobbled into view from the back to the front, being brought up short by the fancy gilt beading around the dresser’s top. And she was right, it was an eye—a glass eye—its deep green pupil staring at us somehow morosely.

“Arthur,” she said, in the same breathless, colourless voice, “this really makes me feel very peculiar.” And truth to tell it made me feel that way, too. Certainly it ruined my night.

But I got up, went to the dresser and brought the eye down. It was damp, or rather sticky, and several pieces of fluff had attached themselves to it. Also, I fancied it smelled rather, but in a bedroom perfumed as Angela Cleave’s that was hard to say. And not something one
would
say, anyway.

“My dear, it’s an eye,” I said, “only a glass eye!” And I took it to the vanity basin and rinsed it thoroughly in cold water. “Jeremy’s, of course. The…vibrations must have started it rolling.”

She sat up in bed, covering herself modestly with the silk sheet (as if we weren’t sufficiently acquainted) and brushed back a lock of damp, golden hair from her beautiful brow. And: “Arthur,” she said. “Jeremy’s eye was buried with him. He desired to be put to rest looking as perfectly natural as possible—
not
with a patch over that hideous hole in his face!”

“Then it’s a spare,” I reasoned, going back to the bed and handing it to her. She took it—an entirely unconscious act—and immediately snatched back her hand, so that the thing fell to the floor and rolled under the bed. And:

“
Ugh!
” she said. “But I didn’t
want
it, Arthur! And anyway, I never knew he had a spare.”

“Well, he obviously did,” I sighed, trying to get back into bed with her. But she held the covers close and wouldn’t have me.

“This has quite put me off,” she said. “I’m afraid I shall have a headache.” And suddenly, for all that she was a cool one, it dawned on me how badly this silly episode had jolted her. I sat on the bed and patted her hand, and said: “Why don’t you tell me about it, my dear?”

“It?” she looked at me curiously, frowning.

“Well, it has to be something more than just a silly old glass eye, now doesn’t it? I mean, I’ve never seen you so shaken.” And so she told me.

“It’s just something he said to me,” she explained, “one night when I was late home after the opera. In fact, I believe I’d spent a little time with you that night? Anyway, in that perfectly
vulgar
way of his, he said: ‘Angela, you must be more discreet. Discretion, my girl! I mean, I know we don’t have it off as often as you’d possibly like—but you can’t accuse me of holding too tight a rein, now can you? I mean—har! har!—I don’t keep too close an eye on you—eh? Eh? Not
both
of ’em anyway, har! har!’

“So I asked him what on earth he meant? And he answered, ‘Well, those damned
boyfriends
, my dear! Only right you should have an escort, me being incapacitated and all, but I’ve a position to maintain and scandal’s something I won’t hear of. So you just watch your step!’”

“Is that all?” I said, when it appeared she’d finished. “But I’ve always understood that Jeremy was perfectly reasonable about…well, your
affairs
in general.” I shrugged. “It strikes me he was simply trying to protect his good name—and yours!”

“Sometimes, Arthur,” she pouted then, “you sound just like him! I’d hate to think you were going to turn out just like
him
!”

“Not at all!” I answered at once. “Why, I’m not at all like him! I do…everything he didn’t do, don’t I? And I’m, well, entire? I just can’t understand why a fairly civil warning should upset you so—especially now that he’s dead. And I certainly can’t see the connection between that and…and this,” and I kicked the eye back under the bed, for at that moment it had chosen to trundle out again.

“A civil warning?” she looked at me, slowly nodded her agreement. “Well, I suppose it was, really.” But then, with a degree more animation: “But he wasn’t very civil the next time!”

“He caught you out again?”

“No,” she lifted her chin and tossed back her hair, peevishly, I thought, “in fact it was you who caught me out!”

“Me?” I was astonished.

“Yes,” she was pouting again, “because it was that night after the ball, when you drove me home and we stopped off at your place for a drink and…and slept late.”

“Ah!” I said. “I suspected there might be trouble that time. But you never
told
me!”

“Because I didn’t want to put you off; us being so good together, and you being his closest friend and all. Anyway, when I got in he was waiting up for me, stamping round the place on that pot leg of his, blinking his one good eye furiously at me. I mean he really was raging! ‘Half past three in the morning?’ he snorted. ‘What?
What
? By God, but if the neighbours saw you coming in, I’ll…I’ll—’”

“Yes,” I prompted her. “‘I’ll—?’”

“And then he threatened me,” she said.

“Angela, darling, I’d already guessed that!” I told her. “But
how
did he threaten you—and what has it to do with this damned eye?”

“Arthur, you know how I dislike language,” her tone was disapproving. But on the other hand she could see that I was getting a bit ruffled and impatient. “Well, he reminded me how much older he was than I, and how he probably only had a few years left, and that when he was gone everything would be mine.
But
, he also pointed out how it wouldn’t be very difficult to change his will—which he would if there should be any sort of scandal. Well of course there wasn’t a scandal and he didn’t change his will. He didn’t get the chance, for it was…all so very sudden!” And likewise, she was suddenly sniffling into the hankie she keeps under the pillow. “Poor Jeremy,” she sobbed, “over the cliff like that.” And just as quickly she dried up and put the hankie away again. It helps to have a little cry now and then.

“But there you go!” I said, triumphantly. “You’ve said it yourself: he
didn’t
change the will! So…not much of a threat in that!”

“But that’s not all,” she said, looking at me straight in the eye now. “I mean, you know how Jeremy had spent all of that time with those
awful
people up those
awful
rivers? Well, and he told me he’d learned something of their jojo.”

“Their juju,” I felt obliged to correct her.

“Oh, jojo, juju!” She tossed her hair. “He said that they set spells when they’re about to die, and that if their last wishes aren’t carried out to the letter, then that they send, well,
parts
of themselves back to punish the ones they held to trust!”

“Parts of them—?” I began to repeat her, then tilted my head on one side and frowned at her very seriously. “Angela, I—”

But off she went, sobbing again, face down in the pillows. And this time doing it properly. Well, obviously the night was ruined. Getting dressed, I told her: “But of course that silly glass eye
isn’t
one of Jeremy’s parts; it’s artificial, so I’m sure it wouldn’t count—
if
we believed in such rubbish in the first place. Which we don’t. But I do understand how you must have felt, my darling, when you saw it wobbling about up there on the dresser.”

She looked up and brushed away her tears. “Will I see you tomorrow night?” And she was anxious, poor thing.

“Of course you will,” I told her, “tomorrow and every night! But I’ve a busy day in the morning, and so it’s best if I go home now. As for you: you’re to take a sleeping draft and get a good night’s sleep. And meanwhile—” I got down on my knees and fished about under the bed for the eye, “—did Jeremy have the box that this came in?”

“In that drawer over there,” she pointed. “What on earth do you want with that?”

“I’m simply putting it away,” I told her, “so that it won’t bother us again.” But as I placed the eye in its velvet lined box I glanced at the name of the suppliers—Brackett and Sanders, Jewellers, Brighton—and committed their telephone number to memory…

The next day in the City, I gave Brackett and Sanders a ring and asked a question or two, and finished by saying: “Are you absolutely sure? No mistake? Just the one? I see. Well…thank you very much. And I’m sorry to have troubled you…” But that night I didn’t tell Angela about it. I mean, so what? So he’d used two different jewellers. Well, nothing strange about that; he got about a fair bit in his time, old Jeremy Cleave.

I took her flowers and chocolates, as usual, and she was looking quite her old self again. We dined by candlelight, with a background of soft music and the moon coming up over the garden, and eventually it was time for bed.

Taking the open, somewhat depleted box of chocolates with us, we climbed the stairs and commenced a ritual which was ever fresh and exciting despite its growing familiarity. The romantic preliminaries, sweet prelude to boy and girl togetherness. These were broken only once when she said:

“Arthur, darling, just before I took my draft last night I tried to open the windows a little. It had got very hot and sticky in here. But that one—” and she pointed to one of a pair of large, pivot windows, “—wouldn’t open. It’s jammed or something. Do be a dear and do something with it, will you?”

I tried but couldn’t; the thing was immovable. And fearing that it might very well become hot and sticky again, I then tried the other window which grudgingly pivoted. “We shall have them seen to,” I promised.

Then I went to her where she lay; and in the next moment, as I held her in my arms and bent my head to kiss the very tip of a brown, delicious…

Bump!

It was perfectly audible—a dull thud from within the wardrobe—and both of us had heard it. Angela looked at me, her darling eyes startled, and mine no less; we both jerked bolt upright in the bed. And:

“What…?” she said, her mouth staying open a very little, breathing lightly and quickly.

“A garment, falling from its hanger,” I told her.

“Nevertheless, go and see,” she said, very breathlessly. “I’ll not be at ease if I think there’s something trapped in there.”

Trapped in there? In a wardrobe in her bedroom? What could possibly be trapped in there? She kept no cats. But I got out of bed and went to see anyway.

The thing fell out into view as soon as I opened the door. Part of a mannequin? A limb from some window-dresser’s storeroom? An anatomical specimen from some poor unfortunate’s murdered, dismembered torso? At first glance it might have been any of these things. And indeed, with the latter in mind, I jumped a foot—before I saw that it was none of those things. By which time Angela was out of bed, into her dressing-gown and haring for the door—which wouldn’t open. For she had seen it, too, and unlike me she’d known exactly what it was.

“His leg!” she cried, battering furiously at the door and fighting with its ornate, gold-plated handle. “His bloody
awful
leg!”

And of course it was: Jeremy Cleave’s pot left leg, leather straps and hinged kneejoint and all. It had been standing in there on its foot, and a shoe carton had gradually tilted against it, and finally the force of gravity had won. But at such an inopportune moment. “Darling,” I said, turning to her with the thing under my arm, “but it’s only Jeremy’s pot leg!”

“Oh, of
course
it is!” she sobbed, finally wrenching the door open and rushing out onto the landing. “But what’s it doing there? It should be buried with him in the cemetery in Denholme!” And then she rushed downstairs.

Well, I scratched my head a little, then sat down on the bed with the limb in my hands. I worked its joint to and fro for a while, and peered down into its hollow interior. Pot, of one sort or another, but tough, quite heavy, and utterly inanimate. A bit smelly, though, but not unnaturally. I mean, it probably smelled of Jeremy’s thigh. And there was a smear of mud in the arch of the foot and on the heel, too…

By the time I’d given it a thorough bath in the vanity basin Angela was back, swaying in the doorway, a glass of bubbly in her trembling little hands. And she looked like she’d consumed a fair old bit of the rest of the bottle, too. But at least she’d recovered something of her former control. “His leg,” she said, not entering the room while I dried the thing with a fluffy towel.