The Others, page 5
“What have you got there?”
The tongue darted and withdrew. The hand stretched out for the scissors. “You might have cut yourself. I’ll put them away, shall I, for safety’s sake?”
Her one weapon was pocketed, not replaced on the dressing table. The very way Nurse Ansel slipped the scissors into her pocket suggested that she knew of Marda West’s suspicion. She wanted to leave her defenseless.
“Now, remember to ring your bell if you want anything.”
“I’ll remember.”
The voice that had once seemed tender was over smooth and false. How deceptive are ears, thought Marda West, what traitors to truth. And for the first time she became aware of her own new latent power, the power to tell truth from falsehood, good from evil.
“Good night, Mrs. West.”
“Good night.”
Lying awake, her bedside clock ticking, the accustomed traffic sounds coming from the street outside, Marda West decided upon her plan. She waited until eleven o’clock, an hour past the time when she knew that all the patients were settled and asleep. Then she switched out her light. This would deceive the snake, should she come to peep at her through the window slide in the door. The snake would believe that she slept. Marda West crept out of bed. She took her clothes from the wardrobe and began to dress. She put on her coat and shoes and tied a scarf over her head. When she was ready, she went to the door and softly turned the handle. All was quiet in the corridor. She stood there motionless. Then she took one step across the threshold and looked to the left, where the nurse on duty sat. The snake was there. The snake was sitting crouched over a book. The light from the ceiling shone upon her head, and there could be no mistake. There were the trim uniform, the white starched front, the stiff collar, but rising from the collar the twisting neck of the snake, the long, flat, evil head.
Marda West waited. She was prepared to wait for hours. Presently the sound she hoped for came, the bell from a patient. The snake lifted its head from the book and checked the red light on the wall. Then, slipping on her cuffs, she glided down the corridor to the patient’s room. She knocked and entered. Directly she had disappeared Marda West left her own room and went to the head of the staircase. There was no sound. She listened carefully and then crept downstairs. There were four flights, four floors, but die stairway was not visible from the cubbyhole where the night nurses sat on duty. Luck was with her.
Down in the main hall the lights were not so bright. She waited at the bottom of the stairway until she was certain of not being observed. She could see the night porter’s back—his head was not visible, for he was bent over his desk—but when it straightened, she noticed the broad fish face. She shrugged her shoulders. She had not dared all this way to be frightened by a fish. Boldly she walked through the hall. The fish was staring at her.
“Do you want anything, madam?” he said.
He was stupid, as she expected. She shook her head.
“I’m going out. Good night,” she said, and she walked straight past him, out of the swing door, and down the steps into the street. She turned swiftly to the left and, seeing a taxi at the further end, called and raised her hand. The taxi slowed and waited. When she came to the door, she saw that the driver had the squat black face of an ape. The ape grinned. Some instinct warned her not to take the taxi.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I made a mistake.”
The grin vanished from the face of the ape. “Make up your mind, lady,” he shouted, and let out his clutch and swerved away.
Marda West continued walking down the street. She turned right, and left, and right again, and in the distance she saw the lights of Oxford Street. She began to hurry. The friendly traffic drew her like a magnet, the distant lights, the distant men and women. When she came to Oxford Street she paused, wondering of a sudden where she should go, whom she could ask for refuge. And it came to her once again that there was no one, no one at all; because the couple passing her now, a toad’s head on a short black body clutching a panther’s arm, could give her no protection, and the policeman standing at the comer was a baboon, the woman talking to him a little prinked-up pig. No one was human, no one was safe, the man a pace or two behind her was like Jim, another vulture. There were vultures on the pavement opposite. Coming toward her, laughing, was a jackal.
She turned and ran. She ran, bumping into them, jackals, hyenas, vultures, dogs. The world was theirs, there was no human left. Seeing her run, they turned and looked at her, they pointed, they screamed and yapped, they gave chase, their footsteps followed her. Down Oxford Street she ran, pursued by them, the night all darkness and shadow, the light no longer with her, alone in an animal world.
“Lie quite still, Mrs. West, just a small prick, I’m not going to hurt you.”
She recognized the voice of Mr. Greaves, the surgeon, and dimly she told herself that they had got hold of her again. She was back at the nursing home, and it did not matter now—she might as well be there as anywhere else. At least in the nursing home the animal heads were known.
They had replaced the bandages over her eyes, and for this she was thankful. Such blessed darkness, the evil of the night hidden.
“Now, Mrs. West, I think your troubles are over. No pain and no confusion with these lenses. The world’s in color again.”
The bandages were being lightened after all. Layer after layer removed. And suddenly everything was clear, was day, and the face of Mr. Greaves smiled down at her. At his side was a rounded, cheerful nurse.
“Where are your masks?” asked the patient.
“We didn’t need masks for this little job,” said the surgeon. “We were only taking out the temporary lenses. That’s better, isn’t it?”
She let her eyes drift round the room. She was back again all right. This was the shape, there was the wardrobe, the dressing table, the vases of flowers. All in natural color, no longer veiled. But they could not fob her off with stories of a dream. The scarf she had put round her head before slipping away in the night lay on the chair.
“Something happened to me, didn’t it?” she said. “I tried to get away.”
The nurse glanced at the surgeon. He nodded his head.
“Yes,” he said, “you did. And, frankly, I don’t blame you. I blame myself. Those lenses I inserted yesterday were pressing upon a tiny nerve, and the pressure threw out your balance. That’s all over now.”
His smile was reassuring. And the large warm eyes of Nurse Brand—it must surely be Nurse Brand—gazed down at her in sympathy.
“It was very terrible,” said the patient. “I can never explain how terrible.”
“Don’t try,” said Mr. Greaves. “I can promise you it won’t happen again.”
The door opened and the young physician entered. He, too, was smiling. “Patient fully restored?” he asked.
“I think so,” said the surgeon. “What about it, Mrs. West?”
Marda West stared gravely at the three of them, Mr. Greaves, the house physician, and Nurse Brand, and she wondered what palpitating wounded tissue could so transform three individuals into prototypes of an animal kingdom, what cell linking muscle to imagination.
“I thought you were dogs,” she said. “I thought you were a hunt terrier, Mr. Greaves, and that you were an Aberdeen.”
The house physician touched his stethoscope and laughed.
“But I am,” he said, “it’s my native town. Your judgment was not wholly out, Mrs. West. I congratulate you.”
“That’s all right for you,” she said. “Other people were not so pleasant.” She turned to Nurse Brand. “I thought you were a cow,” she said, “a kind cow. But you had sharp horns.”
This time it was Mr. Greaves who took up the laugh. “There you are, Nurse,” he said, “just what I’ve often told you. Time they put you out to grass and to eat the daisies.”
Nurse Brand took it in good part. She straightened the patient’s pillows and her smile was benign. “We get called some funny things from time to time,” she said. “That’s all part of our job.”
The doctors were moving toward the door, still laughing, and Marda West, sensing the normal atmosphere, the absence of all strain, said, “Who found me, then? What happened? Who brought me back?”
Mr. Greaves glanced back at her from the door. “You didn’t get very far, Mrs. West, and a damn good job for you, or you mightn’t be here now. The porter followed you.”
“It’s all finished with now,” said the house physician, “and the episode lasted five minutes. You were safely in your bed before any harm was done, and I was here. So that was that. The person who really had the full shock was poor Nurse Ansel when she found you weren’t in your bed.”
Nurse Ansel … The revulsion of the night before was not so easily forgotten. “Don’t say our little starlet was an animal too?” smiled the house doctor. Marda West felt herself color. Lies would have to begin. “No,” she said quickly, “no, of course not.”
“Nurse Ansel is here now,” said Nurse Brand. “She was so upset when she went off duty that she wouldn’t go back to the hostel to sleep. Would you care to have a word with her?”
Apprehension seized the patient. What had she said to Nurse Ansel in the panic and fever of the night? Before she could answer, the house doctor opened the door and called down the passage.
“Mrs. West wants to say good morning to you,” he said. He was smiling all over his face. Mr. Greaves waved his hand and was gone, Nurse Brand went after him, and the house doctor, saluting with his stethoscope and making a mock bow, stepped back against the wall to admit Nurse Ansel. Marda West stared, then tremulously began to smile, and held out her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “you must forgive me.”
How could she have seen Nurse Ansel as a snake! The hazel eyes, the clear olive skin, the dark hair trim under the frilled cap. And that smile, that slow, understanding smile.
“Forgive you, Mrs. West?” said Nurse Ansel. “What have I to forgive you for? You’ve been through a terrible ordeal.”
Patient and nurse held hands. They smiled at one another. And, oh, heaven, thought Marda West, the relief, the thankfulness, the load of doubt and despair that were swept away with the new-found sight and knowledge.
“I still don’t understand what happened,” she said, clinging to the nurse. “Mr. Greaves tried to explain. Something about a nerve.”
Nurse Ansel made a face toward the door. “He doesn’t know himself,” she whispered, “and he’s not going to say either, or he’ll find himself in trouble. He fixed those lenses too deep, that’s all. Too near a nerve. I wonder it didn’t kill you.”
She looked down at her patient. She smiled with her eyes. She was so pretty, so gentle. “Don’t think about it,” she said. “You’re going to be happy from now on. Promise me?”
“I promise,” said Marda West.
The telephone rang, and Nurse Ansel let go her patient’s hand and reached for the receiver. “You know who this is going to be,” she said. “Your poor husband.” She gave the receiver to Marda West.
“Jim … Jim, is that you?”
The loved voice sounding so anxious at the other end. “Are you all right?” he said. “I’ve been through to Matron twice, she said she would let me know. What the devil has been happening?”
Marda West smiled and handed the receiver to the nurse.
“You tell him,” she said.
Nurse Ansel held the receiver to her ear. The skin of her hand was olive smooth, the nails gleaming with a soft pink polish.
“Is that you, Mr. West?” she said. “Our patient gave us a fright, didn’t she?” She smiled and nodded at the woman in the bed. “Well, you don’t have to worry anymore. Mr. Greaves changed the lenses. They were pressing on a nerve, and everything is now all right. She can see perfectly. Yes, Mr. Greaves said we could come home tomorrow.”
The endearing voice blended to the soft coloring, the hazel eyes. Marda West reached once more for the receiver.
“Jim, I had a hideous night,” she said. “I’m only just beginning to understand it now. A nerve in the brain-”
“So I gather,” he said. “How damnable. Thank God they traced it. That fellow Greaves can’t have known his job.”
“It can’t happen again,” she said. “Now the proper lenses are in, it can’t happen again.”
“It had better not,” he said, “or I’ll see him. How are you feeling in yourself?”
“Wonderful,” she said. “Bewildered but wonderful.”
“Good girl,” he said. “Don’t excite yourself. I’ll be along later.”
His voice went. Marda West gave the receiver to Nurse Ansel, who replaced it on the stand.
“Did Mr. Greaves really say I could go home tomorrow?” she asked.
“Yes, if you’re good.” Nurse Ansel smiled and patted her patient’s hand. “Are you sure you still want me to come with you?” she asked.
“Why, yes,” said Marda West. “Why, it’s all arranged.”
She sat up in bed, and the sun came streaming through the window, throwing light on the roses, the lilies, the tall-stemmed irises. The hum of traffic outside was close and friendly. She thought of her garden waiting for her at home, and her own bedroom, her own possessions, the day-by-day routine of home to be taken up again with sight restored, the anxiety and fear of the past months put away forever.
“The most precious thing in the world,” she said to Nurse Ansel, “is sight. I know now. I know what I might have lost.”
Nurse Ansel, hands clasped in front of her, nodded her head in sympathy. “You’ve got your sight back,” she said, “that’s the miracle. You won’t ever lose it now.”
She moved to the door. “I’ll slip back to the hostel and get some rest,” she said. “Now I know everything is well with you, I’ll be able to sleep. Is there anything you want before I go?”
“Give me my face cream and my powder,” said the patient, “and the lipstick and the brush and comb.”
Nurse Ansel fetched the things from the dressing table and put them within reach upon the bed. She brought the hand mirror, too, and the bottle of scent, and with a little smile of intimacy sniffed at the stopper. “Gorgeous,” she murmured. “This is what Mr. West gave you, isn’t it?”
Already, thought Marda West, Nurse Ansel fitted in. She saw herself putting flowers in the small guest room, choosing the right books, fitting a portable wireless in case Nurse Ansel should be bored in the evening.
“I’ll be with you at eight o’clock.”
The familiar words, said every morning now for so many days and weeks, sounded in her ear like a melody, loved through repetition. At last they were joined to the individual, the person who smiled, the one whose eyes promised friendship and loyalty.
“See you this evening.”
The door closed. Nurse Ansel had gone. The routine of the nursing home, broken by the fever of the night before, resumed its usual pattern. Instead of darkness, light. Instead of negation, life.
Marda West took the stopper from the scent bottle and put it behind her ears. The fragrance filtered, becoming part of the warm, bright day. She lifted the hand mirror and looked into it. Nothing changed in the room, the street noises penetrated from outside, and presently the little maid who had seemed a weasel yesterday came in to dust the room. She said, “Good morning,” but the patient did not answer. Perhaps she was tired. The maid dusted and went her way.
Then Marda West took up the mirror and looked into it once more. No, she had not been mistaken. The eyes that stared back at her were doe’s eyes, wary before sacrifice, and the timid deer’s head was meek, already bowed.
Shipshape Home
by Richard Matheson
“That janitor gives me the creeps,” Ruth said when she came in that afternoon.
I looked up from the typewriter as she put the bags on the table and faced me. I was killing a second draft on a story.
“He gives you the creeps,” I said.
“Yes, he does,” she said. “That way he has of slinking around. He’s like Peter Lorre or somebody.”
“Peter Lorre,” I said. I was still plotting.
“Babe,” she implored. “I’m serious. The man is a creep.”
I snapped out of the creative fog with a blink.
“Hon, what can the poor guy do about his face?” I said. “Heredity. Give him a break.”
She plopped down in a chair by the table and started to take out groceries, stacking cans on the table.
“Listen,” she said.
I could smell it coming. That dead serious tone of hers which she isn’t even aware of anymore, but which comes every time she’s about to make one of her “revelations” to me.
“Listen,” she repeated. Dramatic emphasis.
“Yes, dear,” I said. I leaned one elbow on the typewriter cover and gazed at her patiently.
“You get that look off your face,” she said. “You always look at me as if I were an idiot child or something.”
I smiled. Wanly.
“You’ll be sorry,” she said. “Some night when that man creeps in with an axe and dismembers us.”
“He’s just a poor man earning a living,” I said. “He mops the halls, he stokes the furnaces, he-”
“We have pil heat,” she said.
“If we had a furnace, the man would stoke it,” I said. “Let us have charity. He labors like ourselves. I write stories. He mops floors. Who can say which is the greater act?”
She looked dejected.
“Okay,” she said with a surrendering gesture. “Okay, if you don’t want to face facts.”
“Which are?” I prodded. I decided it was best to let it out of her before it burned a hole in her mind.
Her eyes narrowed. “You listen to me,” she said. “That man has some design in being here. He’s no janitor. I wouldn’t be surprised if …
“If this apartment house were just a front for a gambling establishment. A hideout for public enemies one through fifteen. An abortion mill. A counterfeiter’s lair. A murderer’s rendezvous.”
