Kiss Kiss (11 page)

anything
, isn’t that right, Cyril? Absolutely anything!”
      
“It could indeed, although it’s most likely to be either a ring
or a watch.”
      
“But wouldn’t it be marvellous if it was a
real
treasure? I
mean something
really
old, like a wonderful old vase or a
Roman statue.”
      
“There’s no knowing what it might be, my dear. We shall
just have to wait and see.”
      
“I think it’s absolutely fascinating! Give me the ticket and
I’ll rush over first thing Monday morning and find out!”
      
“I think I’d better do that.”
      
“Oh no!” she cried. “Let
me
do it!”
      
“I think not. I’ll pick it up on my way to work.”
      
“But it’s
my
ticket!
Please
let me do it, Cyril! Why should
you
have all the fun?”
      
“You don’t know these pawnbrokers, my dear. You’re liable
to get cheated.”
      
“I wouldn’t get cheated, honestly I wouldn’t. Give it to me,
please.”
      
“Also you have to have fifty dollars,” he said, smiling. “You
have to pay out fifty dollars in cash before they’ll give it to
you.”
      
“I’ve got that,” she said. “I think.”
      
“I’d rather you didn’t handle it, if you don’t mind.”
      
“But Cyril,
I found
it. It’s mine. Whatever it is, it’s mine,
isn’t that right?”
      
“Of course it’s yours, my dear. There’s no need to get so
worked up about it.”
      
“I’m not. I’m just excited, that’s all.”
      
“I suppose it hasn’t occurred to you that this might be something
entirely masculine—a pocket-watch, for example, or a
set of shirt-studs. It isn’t only women that go to pawnbrokers,
you know.”
      
“In that case I’ll give it to you for Christmas,” Mrs Bixby
said magnanimously. “I’ll be delighted. But if it’s a woman’s
thing, I want it myself. Is that agreed?”
      
“That sounds very fair. Why don’t you come with me when
I collect it?”
      
Mrs Bixby was about to say yes to this, but caught herself
just in time. She had no wish to be greeted like an old customer
by the pawnbroker in her husband’s presence.
      
“No,” she said slowly. “I don’t think I will. You see, it’ll be
even more thrilling if I stay behind and wait. Oh, I do hope
it isn’t going to be something that neither of us wants.”
      
“You’ve got a point there,” he said. “If I don’t think it’s worth
fifty dollars, I won’t even take it.”
      
“But you said it would be worth five hundred.”
      
“I’m quite sure it will. Don’t worry.”
      
“Oh, Cyril, I can hardly wait! Isn’t it exciting?”
      
“It’s amusing,” he said, slipping the ticket into his waistcoat
pocket. “There’s no doubt about that.”
      
Monday morning came at last, and after breakfast Mrs
Bixby followed her husband to the door and helped him on
with his coat.
      
“Don’t work too hard, darling,” she said.
      
“No, all right.”
      
“Home at six?”
      
“I hope so.”
      
“Are you going to have time to go to that pawnbroker?” she
asked.
      
“My God, I forgot all about it. I’ll take a cab and go there
now. It’s on my way.”
      
“You haven’t lost the ticket, have you?”
      
“I hope not,” he said, feeling in his waistcoat pocket. “No,
here it is.”
      
“And you have enough money?”
      
“Just about.”
      
“Darling,” she said, standing close to him and straightening
his tie, which was perfectly straight. “If it happens to be
something nice, something you think I might like, will you
telephone me as soon as you get to the office?”
      
“If you want me to, yes.”
      
“You know, I’m sort of hoping it’ll be something for you,
Cyril. I’d much rather it was for you than for me.”
      
“That’s very generous of you, my dear. Now I must run.”
      
About an hour later, when the telephone rang, Mrs Bixby
was across the room so fast she had the receiver off the hook
before the first ring had finished.
      
“I got it!” he said.
      
“You did! Oh, Cyril, what was it? Was it something good?”
      
“Good!” he cried. “It’s fantastic! You wait till you get your
eyes on this! You’ll swoon!”
      
“Darling, what is it? Tell me quick!”
      
“You’re a lucky girl, that’s what you are.”
      
“It’s for me, then?”
      
“Of course it’s for you. Though how in the world it ever
got to be pawned for only fifty dollars I’ll be damned if I
know. Someone’s crazy.”
      
“Cyril! Stop keeping me in suspense! I can’t bear it!”
      
“You’ll go mad when you see it.”
      
“What is it?”
      
“Try to guess.”
      
Mrs Bixby paused. Be careful, she told herself. Be very
careful now.
      
“A necklace,” she said.
      
“Wrong.”
      
“A diamond ring.”
      
“You’re not even warm. I’ll give you a hint. It’s
something you can wear.”
      
“Something I can wear? You mean like a hat?”
      
“No, it’s not a hat,” he said, laughing.
      
“For goodness sake, Cyril! Why don’t you tell me?”
      
“Because I want it to be a surprise. I’ll bring it home with
me this evening.”
      
“You’ll do nothing of the sort!” she cried. “I’m coming right
down there to get know!”
      
“I’d rather you didn’t do that.”
      
“Don’t be so silly, darling. Why shouldn’t I come?”
      
“Because I’m too busy. You’ll disorganise my whole morning
schedule. I’m half an hour behind already.”
      
“Then I’ll come in the lunch hour. All right?”
      
“I’m not having a lunch hour. Oh well, come at one thirty
then, while I’m having a sandwich. Good-bye.”
      
At half past one precisely, Mrs Bixby arrived at Mr Bixby’s
place of business and rang the bell. Her husband, in his white
dentist’s coat, opened the door himself.
      
“Oh, Cyril, I’m so excited!”
      
“So you should be. You’re a lucky girl, did you know that?”
He led her down the passage and into the surgery.
      
“Go and have your lunch, Miss Pulteney,” he said to the
assistant, who was busy putting instruments into the steriliser.
“You can finish that when you come back.” He waited until
the girl had gone, then he walked over to a closet that he used
for hanging up his clothes and stood in front of it, pointing
with his finger. “It’s in there,” he said. “Now—shut your eyes.”
      
Mrs Bixby did as she was told. Then she took a deep breath
and held it, and in the silence that followed she could hear
him opening the cupboard door and there was a soft swishing
sound as he pulled out a garment from among the other things
hanging there.
      
“All right! You can look!”
      
“I don’t dare to,” she said, laughing.
      
“Go on. Take a peek.”
      
Coyly, beginning to giggle, she raised one eyelid a fraction
of an inch, just enough to give her a dark blurry view of the
man standing there in his white overalls holding something up
in the air.
      
“Mink!” he cried. “Real mink!”
      
At the sound of the magic word she opened her eyes quick,
and at the same time she actually started forward in order to
clasp the coat in her arms.
      
But there was no coat. There was only a ridiculous little
fur neckpiece dangling from her husband’s hand.
      
“Feast your eyes on that!” he said, waving it in front of her
face.
      
Mrs Bixby put a hand up to her mouth and started backing
away. I’m going to scream, she told herself. I just know it. I’m
going to scream.
      
“What’s the matter, my dear? Don’t you like it?” He stopped
waving the fur and stood staring at her, waiting for her to say
something.
      
“Why yes,” she stammered. “I . . . I . . . think it’s . . . it’s
lovely . . . really lovely.”
      
“Quite took your breath away for a moment there, didn’t
it?”
      
“Yes, it did.”
      
“Magnificent quality,” he said. “Fine colour, too. You know
something, my dear? I reckon a piece like this would cost you
two or three hundred dollars at least if you had to buy it in a
shop.”
      
“I don’t doubt it.”
      
There were two skins, two narrow mangy-looking skins
with their heads still on them and glass beads in their eye
sockets and little paws hanging down. One of them had the
rear end of the other in its mouth, biting it.
      
“Here,” he said. “Try it on.” He leaned forward and draped
the thing around her neck, then stepped back to admire. “It’s
perfect. It really suits you. It isn’t everyone who has mink, my
dear.”
      
“No, it isn’t.”
      
“Better leave it behind when you go shopping or they’ll all
think we’re millionaires and start charging us double.”
      
“I’ll try to remember that, Cyril.”
      
“I’m afraid you mustn’t expect anything else for Christmas.
Fifty dollars was rather more than I was going to spend anyway.”
      
He turned away and went over to the basin and began
washing his hands. “Run along now, my dear, and buy yourself
a nice lunch. I’d take you out myself but I’ve got old man
Gorman in the waiting-room with a broken clasp on his
denture.”
      
Mrs Bixby moved towards the door.
      
I’m going to kill that pawnbroker, she told herself. I’m
going right back there to the shop this very minute and I’m
going to throw this filthy neckpiece right in his face and if he
refuses to give me back my coat I’m going to kill him.
      
“Did I tell you I was going to be late home tonight?” Cyril
Bixby said, still washing his hands.
      
“No.”
      
“It’ll probably be at least eight thirty the way things look
at the moment. It may even be nine.”
      
“Yes, all right. Good-bye.” Mrs Bixby went out, slamming
the door behind her.
      
At that precise moment, Miss Pulteney, the secretary-assistant,
came sailing past her down the corridor on her way
to lunch.
      
“Isn’t it a gorgeous day?” Miss Pulteney said as she went by,
flashing a smile. There was lilt in her walk, a little whiff of
perfume attending her, and she looked like a queen, just
exactly like a queen in the beautiful black mink coat that the
Colonel had given to Mrs Bixby.

“It worries me to death, Albert, it really does,” Mrs Taylor
said.
      
She kept her eyes fixed on the baby who was now lying
absolutely motionless in the crook of her left arm.
      
“I just know there’s something wrong.”
      
The skin on the baby’s face had a pearly translucent quality,
and was stretched very tightly over the bones.
      
“Try again,” Albert Taylor said.
      
“It won’t do any good.”
      
“You have to keep trying, Mabel,” he said.
      
She lifted the bottle out of the saucepan of hot water and
shook a few drops of milk on to the inside of her wrist, testing
for temperature.
      
“Come on,” she whispered. “Come on, my baby. Wake up
and take a bit more of this.”
      
There was a small lamp on the table close by that made a
soft yellow glow all around her.
      
“Please,” she said. “Take just a weeny bit more.”
      
The husband watched her over the top of his magazine. She
was half dead with exhaustion, he could see that, and the pale
oval face, usually so grave and serene, had taken on a kind of
pinched and desperate look. But even so, the drop of her head
as she gazed down at the child was curiously beautiful.
      
“You see,” she murmured. “It’s no good. She won’t have it.”
      
She held the bottle up to the light, squinting at the calibrations.
      
“One ounce again. That’s all she’s taken. No—it isn’t even
that. It’s only three-quarters. It’s not enough to keep body and
soul together, Albert, it really isn’t. It worries me to death.”
      
“I know,” he said.
      
“If only they could
find out
what was wrong.”
      
“There’s nothing wrong, Mabel. It’s just a matter of time.”
      
“Of course there’s something wrong.”
      
“Dr Robinson says no.”
      
“Look,” she said, standing up. “You can’t tell me it’s natural
for a six-weeks-old child to weigh less, less by more than
two
whole pounds
than she did when she was born! Just look at
those legs! They’re nothing but skin and bone!”
      
The tiny baby lay limply on her arm, not moving.
      
“Dr Robinson said you was to stop worrying, Mabel. So
did that other one.”
      
“Ha!” she said. “Isn’t that wonderful! I’m to stop worrying!”
      
“Now, Mabel.”
      
“What does he want me to do? Treat it as some sort of a
joke?”
      
“He didn’t say that.”
      
“I hate doctors! I hate them all!” she cried, and she swung
away from him and walked quickly out of the room towards
the stairs, carrying the baby with her.
      
Albert Taylor stayed where he was and let her go.
      
In a little while he heard her moving about in the bedroom
directly over his head, quick nervous footsteps going tap tap
tap on the linoleum above. Soon the footsteps would stop, and
then he would have to get up and follow her, and when he
went into the bedroom he would find her sitting beside the
cot as usual, staring at the child and crying softly to herself
and refusing to move.
      
“She’s starving, Albert,” she would say.
      
“Of course she’s not starving.”
      
“She
is
starving. I know she is. And Albert?”
      
“Yes?”
      
“I believe you know it too, but you won’t admit it. Isn’t
that right?”
      
Every night now it was like this.
      
Last week they had taken the child back to the hospital, and
the doctor had examined it carefully and told them that there
was nothing the matter.
      
“It took us nine years to get this baby, Doctor,” Mabel had
said. “I think it would kill me if anything should happen to her.”
      
That was six days ago and since then it had lost another five
ounces.
      
But worrying about it wasn’t going to help anybody, Albert
Taylor told himself. One simply had to trust the doctor on a
thing like this. He picked up the magazine that was still lying
on his lap and glanced idly down the list of contents to see
what it had to offer this week: