The Breaking Point: Short Stories

  Sick at heart, she left the window and climbed back into bed. She had no further appetite and pushed away her plate, the rest of the chicken untasted. She did not ring her bell, and after a while the door opened. It was not the kitten. It was the little maid with the weasel’s head.

  ‘Will you have plum tart or ice cream, madam?’ she asked.

  Marda West, her eyes half-closed, shook her head. The weasel, shyly edging forward to take the tray, said, ‘Cheese, then, and coffee to follow?’

  The head joined the neck without any fastening. It could not be a mask, unless some designer, some genius, had invented masks that merged with the body, blending fabric to skin.

  ‘Coffee only,’ said Marda West.

  The weasel vanished. Another knock on the door and the kitten was back again, her back arched, her fluff flying. She plonked the coffee down without a word, and Marda West, irritated - for surely, if anyone was to show annoyance, it should be herself? - said sharply, ‘Shall I pour you some milk in the saucer?’

  The kitten turned. ‘A joke’s a joke, Mrs West,’ she said, ‘and I can take a laugh with anyone. But I can’t stick rudeness.’

  ‘Miaow,’ said Marda West.

  The kitten left the room. No one, not even the weasel, came to remove the coffee. The patient was in disgrace. She did not care. If the staff of the nursing-home thought they could win this battle, they were mistaken. She went to the window again. An elderly cod, leaning on two sticks, was being helped into a waiting car by the boar-headed porter. It could not be a plot. They could not know she was watching them. Marda went to the telephone and asked the exchange to put her through to her husband’s office. She remembered a moment afterwards that he would still be at lunch. Nevertheless, she got the number, and as luck had it he was there.

  ‘Jim . . . Jim, darling.’

  ‘Yes?’

  The relief to hear the loved familiar voice. She lay back on the bed, the receiver to her ear.

  ‘Darling, when can you get here?’

  ‘Not before this evening, I’m afraid. It’s one hell of a day, one thing after another. Well, how did it go? Is everything OK?’

  ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘What do you mean? Can’t you see? Greaves hasn’t bungled it, has he?’

  How was she to explain what had happened to her? It sounded so foolish over the telephone.

  ‘Yes, I can see. I can see perfectly. It’s just that . . . that all the nurses look like animals. And Greaves, too. He’s a fox terrier. One of those little Jack Russells they put down the foxes’ holes.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  He was saying something to his secretary at the same time, something about another appointment, and she knew from the tone of his voice that he was very busy, very busy, and she had chosen the worst time to ring him up. ‘What do you mean about Jack Russell?’ he repeated.

  Marda West knew it was no use. She must wait till he came. Then she would try to explain everything, and he would be able to find out for himself what lay behind it.

  ‘Oh, never mind,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he told her, ‘but I really am in a tearing hurry. If the lenses don’t help you, tell somebody. Tell the nurses, the Matron.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes.’

  Then she rang off. She put down the telephone. She picked up a magazine, one left behind at some time or other by Jim himself, she supposed. She was glad to find that reading did not hurt her eyes. Nor did the blue lenses make any difference, for the photographs of men and women looked normal, as they had always done.Wedding groups, social occasions, débutantes, all were as usual. It was only here, in the nursing-home itself and in the street outside, that they were different.

  It was much later in the afternoon that Matron called in to have a word with her. She knew it was Matron because of her clothes. But inevitably now, without surprise, she observed the sheep’s head.

  ‘I hope you’re quite comfortable, Mrs West?’

  A note of gentle inquiry in the voice. A suspicion of a baa?

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Marda West spoke guardedly. It would not do to ruffle the Matron. Even if the whole affair was some gigantic plot, it would be better not to aggravate her.

  ‘The lenses fit well?’

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘I’m so glad. It was a nasty operation, and you’ve stood the period of waiting so very well.’

  That’s it, thought the patient. Butter me up. Part of the game, no doubt.

  ‘Only a few days, Mr Greaves said, and then you will have them altered and the permanent ones fitted.’

  ‘Yes, so he said.’

  ‘It’s rather disappointing not to observe colour, isn’t it?’

  ‘As things are, it’s a relief.’

  The retort slipped out before she could check herself. The Matron smoothed her dress. And if you only knew, thought the patient, what you look like, with that tape under your sheep’s chin, you would understand what I mean.

  ‘Mrs West . . .’ The Matron seemed uncomfortable, and turned her sheep’s head away from the woman in the bed. ‘Mrs West, I hope you won’t mind what I’m going to say, but our nurses do a fine job here and we are all very proud of them. They work long hours, as you know, and it is not really very kind to mock them, although I am sure you intended it in fun.’

  Baa . . . Baa . . . Bleat away. Marda West tightened her lips.

  ‘Is it because I called Nurse Sweeting a kitten?’

  ‘I don’t know what you called her, Mrs West, but she was quite distressed. She came to me in the office nearly crying.’

  Spitting, you mean. Spitting and scratching.Those capable little hands are really claws.

  ‘It won’t happen again.’

  She was determined not to say more. It was not her fault. She had not asked for lenses that deformed, for trickery, for make believe.

  ‘It must come very expensive,’ she added, ‘to run a nursing-home like this.’

  ‘It is,’ said the Matron. Said the sheep. ‘It can only be done because of the excellence of the staff, and the cooperation of all our patients.’

  The remark was intended to strike home. Even a sheep can turn.

  ‘Matron,’ said Marda West, ‘don’t let’s fence with each other. What is the object of it all?’

  ‘The object of what, Mrs West?’

  ‘This tomfoolery, this dressing up.’ There, she had said it. To enforce her argument she pointed at the Matron’s cap. ‘Why pick on that particular disguise? It’s not even funny.’

  There was silence. The Matron, who had made as if to sit down to continue her chat, changed her mind. She moved slowly to the door.

  ‘We, who were trained at St Hilda’s, are proud of our badge,’ she said. ‘I hope, when you leave us in a few days, Mrs West, that you will look back on us with greater tolerance than you appear to have now.’

  She left the room. Marda West picked up the magazine she had thrown down, but the matter was dull. She closed her eyes. She opened them again. She closed them once more. If the chair had become a mushroom and the table a haystack, then the blame could have been put on the lenses. Why was it only people had changed? What was so wrong with people? She kept her eyes shut when her tea was brought her, and when the voice said pleasantly, ‘Some flowers for you, Mrs West,’ she did not even open them, but waited for the owner of the voice to leave the room.The flowers were carnations.The card was Jim’s. And the message on it said, ‘Cheer up. We’re not as bad as we seem.’

  She smiled, and buried her face in the flowers. Nothing false about them. Nothing strange about the scent. Carnations were carnations, fragrant, graceful. Even the nurse on duty who came to put them in water could not irritate her with her pony’s head. After all, it was a trim little pony, with a white star on its forehead. It would do well in the ring. ‘Thank you,’ smiled Marda West.

  The curious day dragged on, and she waited restle
ssly for eight o’clock. She washed and changed her nightgown, and did her hair. She drew her own curtains and switched on the bedside lamp. A strange feeling of nervousness had come upon her. She realized, so strange had been the day, that she had not once thought about Nurse Ansel. Dear, comforting, bewitching Nurse Ansel. Nurse Ansel, who was due to come on duty at eight. Was she also in the conspiracy? If she was, then Marda West would have a showdown. Nurse Ansel would never lie. She would go up to her, and put her hands on her shoulders, and take the mask in her two hands, and say to her, ‘There, now take it off.You won’t deceive me.’ But if it was the lenses, if all the time it was the lenses that were at fault, how was she to explain it?

  She was sitting at the dressing-table, putting some cream on her face, and the door must have opened without her being aware; but she heard the well-known voice, the soft beguiling voice, and it said to her, ‘I nearly came before. I didn’t dare. You would have thought me foolish.’ It slid slowly into view, the long snake’s head, the twisting neck, the pointed barbed tongue swiftly thrusting and swiftly withdrawn, it came into view over her shoulders, through the looking-glass.

  Marda West did not move. Only her hand, mechanically, continued to cream her cheek. The snake was not motionless: it turned and twisted all the time, as though examining the pots of cream, the scent, the powder.

  ‘How does it feel to see yourself again?’

  Nurse Ansel’s voice emerging from the head seemed all the more grotesque and horrible, and the very fact that as she spoke the darting tongue spoke too paralysed action. Marda West felt sickness rise in her stomach, choking her, and suddenly physical reaction proved too strong. She turned away, but as she did so the steady hands of the nurse gripped her, she suffered herself to be led to her bed, she was lying down, eyes closed, the nausea passing.

  ‘Poor dear, what have they been giving you? Was it the sedative? I saw it on your chart,’ and the gentle voice, so soothing and so calm, could only belong to one who understood. The patient did not open her eyes. She did not dare. She lay there on the bed, waiting.

  ‘It’s been too much for you,’ said the voice. ‘They should have kept you quiet, the first day. Did you have visitors?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nevertheless, you should have rested.You look really pale. We can’t have Mr West seeing you like this. I’ve half a mind to telephone him to stay away.’

  ‘No . . . please, I want to see him. I must see him.’

  Fear made her open her eyes, but directly she did so the sickness gripped her again, for the snake’s head, longer than before, was twisting out of its nurse’s collar, and for the first time she saw the hooded eye, a pin’s head, hidden. She put her hand over her mouth to stifle her cry.

  A sound came from Nurse Ansel, expressing disquiet.

  ‘Something has turned you very sick,’ she said. ‘It can’t be the sedative. You’ve often had it before. What was the dinner this evening?’

  ‘Steamed fish. I wasn’t hungry.’

  ‘I wonder if it was fresh. I’ll see if anyone has complained. Meanwhile, lie still, dear, and don’t upset yourself.’

  The door quietly opened and closed again, and Marda West, disobeying instructions, slipped from her bed and seized the first weapon that came to hand, her nail-scissors. Then she returned to her bed again, her heart beating fast, the scissors concealed beneath the sheet. Revulsion had been too great. She must defend herself, should the snake approach her. Now she was certain that what was happening was real, was true. Some evil force encompassed the nursing-home and its inhabitants, the Matron, the nurses, the visiting doctors, her surgeon - they were all caught up in it, they were all partners in some gigantic crime, the purpose of which could not be understood. Here, in Upper Watling Street, the malevolent plot was in process of being hatched, and she, Marda West, was one of the pawns; in some way they were to use her as an instrument.

  One thing was very certain. She must not let them know that she suspected them. She must try and behave with Nurse Ansel as she had done hitherto. One slip, and she was lost. She must pretend to be better. If she let sickness overcome her, Nurse Ansel might bend over her with that snake’s head, that darting tongue.

  The door opened and she was back. Marda West clenched her hands under the sheet. Then she forced a smile.

  ‘What a nuisance I am,’ she said. ‘I felt giddy, but I’m better now.’

  The gliding snake held a bottle in her hand. She came over to the wash-basin and, taking the medicine-glass, poured out three drops.

  ‘This should settle it, Mrs West,’ she said, and fear gripped the patient once again, for surely the words themselves constituted a threat. ‘This should settle it’ - settle what? Settle her finish? The liquid had no colour, but that meant nothing. She took the medicine-glass handed to her, and invented a subterfuge.

  ‘Could you find me a clean handkerchief, in the drawer there?’

  ‘Of course.’

  The snake turned its head, and as it did so Marda West poured the contents of the glass on to the floor.Then fascinated, repelled, she watched the twisting head peer into the contents of the dressing-table drawer, search for a handkerchief, and bring it back again. Marda West held her breath as it drew near the bed, and this time she noticed that the neck was not the smooth glow-worm neck that it had seemed on first encounter, but had scales upon it, zig-zagged. Oddly, the nurse’s cap was not ill-fitting. It did not perch incongruously as had the caps of kitten, sheep and cow. She took the handkerchief.

  ‘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?