Slime (7 page)

She gazed down at him as he slept. She’d wanted to make love with him once more; now, some time today, she’d have to face up to it and tell him. Poor Tim. He’d had an awful time with those Welsh jellyfish, though no doubt that girl reporter had been quick enough to comfort him.

And how much truth there was in those other stories he’d told her late last night she couldn’t be sure. That stuff about the abandoned fishing boat with glowing slime over its deck. And his plan to catch a specimen jellyfish to send to a laboratory. Adding garnish to a plain tale, she suspected; she’d caught him out that way before.

Moving slowly, not wishing to disturb him, she swung her legs out of bed and padded into the front room where she lit the gas fire, then stood looking out of the window, rubbing her arms and shivering. The sun sparkled on the sea, inviting her to go in. It would be cold, she knew: but then it couldn’t possibly be as icy as on that mad occasion in the snow when she and Mark had rushed into the waves. A crazy dip that had been, but they’d felt all the
better for it afterwards.

Persuading herself it would set her up for facing Tim later, she got into her bikini, grabbed her bathrobe and went downstairs. Outside, the chilly breeze caught her by surprise, but she’d never been one to turn back once she’d made up her mind. She dashed across the road, scrambled through the rail at the far end of the promenade, jumped down on to the sand, and plunged into the water.

After the first shock of cold she found it exhilarating and began to swim parallel with the shore, rising with the waves and enjoying the vast expanse of the open sea.

‘Sue!’

She had been in the water no longer than two or three minutes when Tim appeared on the beach, shouting and waving to her almost hysterically.

‘Sue, for God’s sake come out!
Sue!
’

He must have spotted her from the window while he was dressing, she thought. As it was, he was wearing only his trousers and was still bare from the waist up. She waved back at him and continued her swim. Tim had always been impatient when he wanted something from her. Probably with his hand in bandages he could not manage his shirt buttons, or something equally silly, but she was determined not to let him spoil her fun; she’d come out in her own good time, not before.

He splashed after her into the sea, wading in until it was above his knees, soaking his trouser legs.

‘Sue – jellyfish!’ he was shouting. ‘Oh, please! Come out!’

That note of fear in his voice sounded too genuine to be ignored. She turned in the water and headed for the shore. The moment she reached him his arm was about her and he hurried her out until they were well clear of the waterline. His face looked pale and drawn with anxiety.

‘Where’s the jellyfish?’ she demanded suspiciously, gazing about her. ‘I can’t see any.’

‘Out there!’ He gestured vaguely. ‘Anywhere! God, darling, don’t you realise what I was telling you last night? When I saw you swimming I had visions of them attacking you, covering you all over… It was horrible.’

‘Don’t be daft!’ She marched across the sand to pick up her bathrobe. ‘All right, so you have a shock when you were in the harbour. Well, it
must
have been a shock, I can understand that, seeing that poor man with a jellyfish over his face, and then finding one on your own hand. That doesn’t mean you’ve a right to stop me swimming.’

She huddled into the bathrobe, tying the sash, her teeth chattering. ‘Let’s get back to –’ she started to say, when unexpectedly he grabbed her around the waist, pulling her violently to one side. ‘Tim, will you leave me alone?’

‘Look!’

Against the groyne some three feet away from where she had left her bathrobe, in a hollow in the sand, lay a pink-and-red speckled jellyfish. Sue gasped as she saw it; then, fascinated, she stepped closer.

‘It’s beautiful!’ she exclaimed.

In the centre, like an eye regarding her, was a deep ruby star pattern. As she watched she thought she saw the whole jellyfish pulsating: or was that just her imagination?

‘Not too close!’ Tim warned, still holding her arm to restrain her. ‘Not with bare feet.’

She noticed his feet were bare, too; obviously he’d rushed out of the house in a panic when he’d spotted her bathing. He’d been right about the danger of jellyfish, she now realised, and her annoyance dissipated.

‘Watch out for those tentacles around the edge, like fine hairs. D’you see them, love?’

‘They can’t really move while they’re not in the water,’ she objected. ‘Can they?’

‘That’s what I thought,’ he retorted grimly. ‘I’m changing my mind.’

She was shivering again from the cold breeze, and pressed back against him in an attempt to warm up. Oddly enough, she found herself reluctant to leave the jellyfish. She hadn’t imagined anything so attractive. It was like an exquisite medallion worked by the finest craftsmen. It was difficult to believe it could be so dangerous.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘there’s the specimen you were looking for, if we can find some way to keep it.’

‘A bucket?’

‘Under the sink in the kitchen!’

They ran back to the flat to change into dry clothes. Sue chose jeans and high boots, with a thick sweater and her ski jacket; she was determined to be well covered in case something went wrong. Then she hunted in the lean-to shed at the back of the house and found a spade.

By the time they returned to the beach she half-expected to discover the jellyfish had disappeared – but no, it was still there, lying close to the groyne.

Tim went down to the sea’s edge to scoop up a few inches of water in the bucket. ‘Just to keep it alive,’ he explained. Then, after considering how best to approach the task, he took hold of the spade.

‘Not with that bad hand of yours – you can’t!’ she cried out in alarm. ‘Let me do it!’

‘I can manage, love.’

‘For God’s sake don’t drop it!’

Biting her lip in anxiety, she watched as Tim eased the spade into the soft sand beneath the jellyfish. Very carefully he began to lift it up. As he tried to hold the spade level she saw how his face bore that set, stubborn look she knew so well; she realised he was probably in agony keeping a firm grip with his bandaged hand. All the wrong thoughts flooded into her head.
Oh, God, why did she have to leave him? Why hadn’t it worked out?

Yet it hadn’t, and she’d only be deceiving herself to
think they could go on. Not any more; it was too late for that.

And there was Mark as well.

Don’t forget Mark.

The spade was above the bucket and slowly Tim began to tilt it. Sitting – cosily, it seemed – on a bed of two or three inches of sand, the jellyfish refused to shift. Tim tilted it a little more… then more still… and only gradually did it at last start to move. Then, in a sudden rush, the jellyfish and much of the sand slithered into the water at the bottom of the bucket.

They both stared down at it as if hypnotised by the sight. The ruby centre-piece, shaped like a starfish, appeared to gaze back at them.

‘Impossible, of course,’ Tim said, reading her thoughts. ‘Jellyfish don’t have eyes. They can’t see.’

‘I wish we knew,’ she whispered.

Sue insisted on carrying the bucket up to the flat herself. At least she was wearing the rubber gloves she used for housework, whereas Tim had nothing to protect his hands. Yet, glancing down from time to time just to reassure herself, she detected no sign of danger. The jellyfish slopped around in the water, apparently lifeless.

‘I’m not having it
in
the flat,’ she announced firmly after they had looked into first the kitchen, then the bathroom, and decided against both. ‘It’ll have to go outside.’

To the rear of the house was a rusting metal staircase for use in case of fire, and they put the bucket out there. Tim fetched an enamel bowl from the kitchen to place on top of it.

‘Just a precaution. Can’t have it climbing out.’

‘Surely that’s not possible?’ She shuddered, her skin tingling with apprehension. ‘Is it?’

Reluctantly, she began to make a simple breakfast, convinced she had no appetite, what with that jellyfish squatting
outside the window in its bucket and the knowledge that somehow – and God knew when, after all this – she had to break the news to Tim that their marriage was over; but once the coffee began to filter through she realised she was hungry after all. She fried two eggs apiece, with plenty of bacon, then dropped a couple of pieces of bread in the pan to use up the remaining fat.

‘Nothing like jellyfish for making you hungry!’ Tim grinned when he saw what she was up to.

‘I don’t believe half of what you’ve been telling me!’ she declared irritably, feeling the tension building up inside her. ‘If I discover it’s all lies, just to get me worked up –’ She left the sentence unfinished. ‘Oh, sit down and eat your breakfast, will you!’

‘Hey, take it easy, Sue!’ He spoke gently, as if he understood what was nagging at her, which obviously he couldn’t. ‘Later on I’ll go out and phone Jane to find out what her sister wants us to do with it.’

‘We have to talk,’ she said.

‘We’ll get rid of it as soon as we can,’ he assured her, dabbling a fold of bacon in his egg yolk. ‘You don’t think I’m happy with it here either, do you?’

‘Not about the jellyfish.’

‘What, then?’

‘Afterwards.’ She sighed. ‘We’ll talk afterwards, Tim. But it’s important. Don’t make it too hard for me.’

When they had finished, he wanted to help her with the dishes but she packed him off to do his telephoning, preferring to get on with it alone. She needed to think. This jellyfish business made the whole thing seem so much more difficult. She’d hoped to have him completely to herself this weekend so she could choose her own moment, but with Tim nothing ever went the way she planned it.

She started to fill the sink with hot water, squirting washing-up liquid into it, and covering the greasy plates
with foam. She’d eaten too much as well, she reflected. Nerves, probably. That was the way it always took her, even before a show. While other actresses could never eat anything, she was always tucking into a doughnut. Or a sandwich. Never put on weight though, luckily; by the last curtain she was always starving again.

From the kitchen, a glass-panelled door led out on to the fire escape. Glancing out, Sue noticed a ginger cat on one of the steps, approaching the old galvanised bucket inquisitively. She opened the door.

‘Away from there!’ she scolded. ‘Shoo!
Shoo!
’

The cat retreated down a step or two, then turned to gaze at her with disapproval.

‘Off you go!’ Sue insisted. She took a pace towards it.
‘Ssssh!’

The cat fled, and Sue went back into the kitchen, leaving the door open in order to get rid of the smell of frying. She washed the plates and was putting them in the rack to drain when she heard a sudden clatter outside. She swung around in time to see the enamel bowl rolling and bouncing down the steps. The bucket had tipped over and the cat, one paw outstretched, was about to investigate its contents.

‘No!’
Sue yelled.

It was too late. Before she could even grasp what was happening, the ginger cat let out a strangled screech which jarred right through her. It turned and shot past her legs, through the kitchen and into the front room. Draped over its neck and back like a cloak was the speckled pink jellyfish.

Hardly knowing what she was doing, hardly even daring to believe what her eyes were telling her, Sue went after the cat. It was rushing around the room, jumping on to the sofa, then over the back, then crawling underneath, mewing pathetically as it emerged once more having failed to brush that
thing
away from itself. For a few
moments it cowered on the hearthrug.

She took a step towards it. Luckily she’d been wearing the rubber gloves again for the washing-up; if only she could get hold of the jellyfish. One more step… The cat backed away; then it turned, scrambled over the armchair, and sprang towards the window which she had opened earlier.

The gap at the bottom was no more than about four inches, but that was enough for the cat to squeeze through. Sue got there as it landed on the crumbling stucco of the front portico below. In two more jumps it was down on the steps; then, with another terrible screech, it dashed crazily along the road, swerving, doubling back and then on again as though possessed, with the jellyfish still firmly wrapped around it.

Sue threw open the flat door, descended the stairs two at a time, and ran out after it. Somehow she had to
do
something to help – yet what? It all seemed too improbable. Tim had warned her and she’d hardly believed him; now she’d witnessed it herself she realised he had been speaking the truth after all.

But he’d managed to pull the jellyfish away from his hand, hadn’t he? Which meant it could be done.

The cat had disappeared down a side road. She hurried on. At the corner she stopped; there was no sign of it anywhere. Opposite was Mrs Wakeham’s dowdy little shop, the words ‘General Stores’ hardly readable on its faded paintwork. The door stood open and she could hear Mrs Wakeham’s voice.

‘Oh, you poor little thing, have the children been teasing you, then? Never mind, I’ll take if off. Just keep still a mo’. Isn’t it naughty of them tying a – oh!’

The sudden note of fear was unmistakable. Sue sprinted across the road and burst into the shop.

‘No, Mrs Wakeham –
don’t touch it
!’ she screamed.

Horror-stricken, Mrs Wakeham was emitting a series
of low, inarticulate moans as she stared at the pink jellyfish she held in her hands. Her eyes were bulging with terror. On the counter in front of her lay the ginger cat, stretched out and obviously dead, its neck naked and raw.

‘Keep calm now, Mrs Wakeham.’ Sue forced herself to speak quietly, although she was shaking all over. ‘Let me take it… slowly… ’

But Mrs Wakeham was not listening. Suddenly stirring herself out of her trance, she cried out at the top of her voice and attempted to fling the jellyfish across the shop in disgust.

It clung to her. Although she managed to free one hand, it settled on the other, snugly embracing her wrist. Again she screamed, shaking her arm violently to rid herself of it, but it did not move. It seemed to have grown on her like a new, gleaming skin.