Cutting Down
by Bob Shaw
Herley was awakened by the sounds of his wife getting out of bed. Afraid of seeing her nude body, he kept his eyes closed and listened intently as she padded about the room. There came a silky electrostatic crackling as she removed her nightdress—at which point he squeezed his eyes even more tightly shut—then a rustling of heavier material which told him she had donned a dressing gown. He relaxed and allowed the morning sun to penetrate his lashes with bright oily needles of light.
“What would you like for breakfast?” June Herley said.
He still avoided looking at her. “I’ll have the usual—coffee and a cigarette.” That isn’t enough, he added mentally. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
She paused at the bedroom door. “That isn’t enough. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
“All right then—coffee and two cigarettes.”
“Oh, you!” She went out on to the landing and he heard her wallowing progress all the way down the stairs and into the kitchen. Herley did not get up immediately. He cupped his hands behind his head and once again tried to fathom the mystery of what had happened to the girl he had married. It had taken a mere eight years for her to change from a slim vivacious creature into a hopeless, sagging hulk. In that time the flat cones of her breasts had become vast sloping udders, and the formerly boyish buttocks and thighs had turned into puckered sacks of fat which at the slightest knock developed multi-hued bruises which could persist for weeks. For the most part her face was that of a stranger, but there were times when he could discern the features of that other June, the one he had loved, impassively drowning beneath billows of pale tissue.
It was, he sometimes thought, the mental changes which frightened, sickened, baffled and enraged him the most. The other June would have endured any privation to escape from the tallowy prison of flesh, but the woman with whom he now shared his home blandly accepted her condition, aiding and abetting the tyrant of her stomach. Her latest self-deception—which was why she had begun to fuss about breakfast—was a diet which consisted entirely of protein and fat, to be eaten in any quantity desired as long as not the slightest amount of carbohydrate was consumed. Herley had no idea whether or not the system would work for other people, but he knew it had no chance in June’s case. She used it as a justification for eating large greasy meals three or four times a day in his presence, and in between times—in his absence—filling up on sweetstuffs.
The aroma of frying ham filtering upwards from the kitchen was a reminder to Herley that his wife had yet to admit her new form of dishonesty. He got up and strode swiftly to the landing and down the stairs, moving silently in his bare feet, and opened the kitchen door. June was leaning over the opened pedal-bin and eating chocolate ice cream from a plastic tub. On seeing him she gave a startled whimper and dropped the tub into the bin.
“It was almost empty,” she said. “I was only…”
“It’s all right—you’re not committing any crime,” he said, smiling. “My God, what sort of a life would it be if you couldn’t enjoy your food?”
“I thought you…” June gazed at him, relieved but uncertain. “You must hate me for being like this.”
“Nonsense!” Herley put his arms around his wife and drew her to him, appalled as always by the looseness of her flesh, the feeling that she was wrapped in a grotesque and ill-fitting garment. In his mid-thirties, he was tall and lean, with a bone structure and sparse musculature which could be seen with da Vincian clarity beneath taut dry skin. Watching the gradual invasion of June’s body by adipose tissue had filled him with such a dread of a similar fate that he lived on a strictly fat-free diet and often took only one meal a day. In addition he exercised strenuously at least three times a week, determined to burn off every single oily molecule that might have insinuated itself into his system.
“I’ll have my coffee as soon as it’s ready,” he said when he judged he had endured the bodily contact long enough. “I have to leave in thirty minutes.”
“But this is your day off.”
“Special story. I’ve got an interview lined up with Hamish Corcoran.”
“Why couldn’t it have been on a working day?”
“I was lucky to get him at all—he’s practically a recluse since he quit the hospital.”
“I know, poor man,” June said reflectively. “They say the shock of what happened to his wife drove him out of his mind.”
“They say lots of things that aren’t worth listening to.” Herley had no interest in the biochemist’s personal life, only in a fascinating aspect of his work about which he had heard for the first time a few nights earlier.
“Don’t be so callous,” June scolded. “I suppose if you came home and found that some psycho had butchered me you’d just shrug it off and go out looking for another woman.”
“Not until after the funeral.” Herley laughed aloud at his wife’s expression. “Don’t be silly, dear—you know I’d never put anybody in your place. Marriage is a once and for all thing with me.”
“I should hope so.”
Herley completed his morning toilet, taking pleasure in stropping his open-bladed razor and shaving his flat-planed face to a shiny pinkness. He had a cup of black coffee for breakfast and left June still seated in the kitchen, the slabs of her hips overflowing her chair. She was lingering at the table with obvious intent, in spite of already having consumed enough calories to last the day. There’s no point in getting angry about it, Herley thought. Especially not today…
He walked the mile to Aldersley station at a brisk pace, determined not to miss the early train to London. Hamish Corcoran had lived in Aldersley during his term at the hospital, but on retiring he had moved to a village near Reading, some sixty miles away on the far side of London, and reaching him was going to take a substantial part of the day. The journey was likely to be tiresome, but Herley had a feeling it was going to be worth his while. As a sub-editor on the Aldersley Post he liked to supplement his income by turning in an occasional feature article written in his own time. Normally he would not have considered travelling more than a few miles on research—his leisure hours were too precious—but this was not a normal occasion, and the rewards promised to be greater than money.
As he had feared, the train and bus connections were bad, and it was nearly midday by the time he located the avenue of mature beeches and sun-splashed lawns in which Corcoran lived. Corcoran’s was a classical turn-of-the-century, double-fronted house which was all but hidden from the road by banks of shrubbery. Herley felt a twinge of envy as he walked up the gravel drive—it appeared that becoming too eccentric to continue in employment, as Corcoran was reputed to have done, had not seriously affected his standard of living.
He rang the bell and waited, half-expecting the door to be opened by a housekeeper, but the grey-haired man who appeared was undoubtedly the owner. Hamish Corcoran was about sixty, round-shouldered and slight of build, with a narrow face in which gleamed humorous blue eyes and very white dentures. In spite of the summertime warmth he was wearing a heavy cardigan and a small woollen scarf, beneath which could be seen a starched collar and a blue bow tie.
“Hello, Mr Corcoran,” Herley said. “I phoned you yesterday. I’m Brian Herley, from the Post.”
Corcoran gave him a fluorescent smile. “Come in, my boy, come in! It’s very flattering that your editor should want to publish something about my work.”
Herley decided against mentioning that nobody in the editorial office knew of his visit. “Well, the Post has always been interested in the research work at Aldersley, and we think the public should know more about its achievements.”