‘That’s right.’ He felt the bathrobe loosen at his waist and looked down to find the knot had come apart. ‘You didn’t tie this very well.’
‘Oh, come here!’ she exclaimed, laughing. ‘Like a baby, aren’t you? Unless you did it deliberately.’
Jane re-tied the knot. As she straightened up, he slipped his arm around her, drawing her to him. For a moment she contemplated him gravely with those cat-like eyes; then she met his kiss, accepting it, yielding to it. Her lips parted, her tongue darting at him… then withdrawing… then actively seeking him again. She pressed her body against his, her hand moving down his spine.
At last she turned her lips away, but stayed close to him, her cheek against his. He needed a shave, she thought; his stubble was rough, like sandpaper. He kissed her eyes, each one in turn; still holding her, he took a step towards the bed, but she twisted away from him unexpectedly, laughing.
‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘That wasn’t what I meant.’
She grabbed her glass and went to the other side of the wide bed and stood there smiling tantalisingly, not taking her eyes off him as she drank.
‘You’re a tease,’ he told her, picking up his own glass.
She shook her head. ‘I’m not. I kissed you because… oh, because I wanted to, because of what that jellyfish did to you, because it was my fault really… but I’m not going to bed with you.’
‘Thank you very much.’ He poured himself more whisky, emptying the bottle. He felt partly irritated, partly aroused, not really sure what to make of her. ‘You puzzle me, Jane. I thought it was what you wanted — honestly, love! I mean, when you agreed to come down here with me.’
‘You have a wife.’
‘True.’
‘I’m not one of your easy lays, you know.’
‘I’m not either.’
‘Oh, come on!’ She laughed.
‘Usually I try to avoid this situation,’ he said. ‘Only with you — well, I thought it would be different. We get on well; in fact I imagined we were becoming fond of each other. Stupidly, perhaps. Anyway, I hoped that you and I, we might have…’
‘A bit on the side?’ she mocked, her voice hardening.
‘You’re terribly bitter about something, aren’t you? You must have been hurt very deeply.’
It was not the first time he’d noticed it. Every so often she would come out with some phrase which seemed to betray a terrible unhappiness and made him wonder what miseries she had gone through.
She changed the subject abruptly. ‘Come on, I’ll drive you back to the hospital. I still have a lot of work to do. I want to interview the local fishermen to see what they have to say, and then I’m going to write it all up, the whole caboodle, everything we know about the jellyfish. Just for the record.’
‘I’ll get dressed.’
‘Can you manage?’ Cool and practical.
Assuring her that he could, he fetched fresh clothes from the wardrobe, then sat on the edge of the bed trying to pull them on with his one good hand. For a few seconds she stood watching him, saying nothing as he wrestled with his underpants about his knees while attempting to keep the bathrobe from slipping. It made him feel like some character in a farce. At last, her lips twitching with suppressed laughter, she came over to help him. No false modesty, either.
In the car — his BMW, which she drove skilfully — she dodged his clumsy attempts to probe into what was bothering her; instead, she stuck to the ‘safe’ subject of the jellyfish.
Warnings would have to go up along this entire stretch of coast, she declared. It meant contacting local councils and they would demand proof; for that she needed to obtain the specimens her sister had requested. They should hunt along the beach first, immediately after the tide had gone out; lifting them off the sands would be easier than trying to scoop them out of the water. If they found none there, the harbour offered the only alternative. Even then, they should hire a dinghy, she suggested, in order to do their fishing well away from the walls.
Reluctantly he agreed. Of course she was right, he knew, although after what he’d experienced so far he didn’t relish the idea of meeting a jellyfish face to face in a small boat.
‘Till tomorrow, then!’ she said, stopping the car in the hospital drive.
She leaned across to kiss him lightly on the cheek before he got out. The rain had passed, leaving the late afternoon sky a bright, washed-out blue. He had turned to stroll across the damp gravel towards the steps when she called him back.
‘Tim!’ She was winding the window down, leaning out. ‘Tim, don’t rush me. Please? Give me time.’
Before he could answer, she’d let in the clutch and the car shot away. He stood gazing after it until it had turned out through the gates, and then he went towards the hospital.
In the entrance hall he was met by a nurse who told him his wife had telephoned twice that afternoon and could he ring her back at the theatre?
Tim nodded. ‘I suppose I’d better do that right away, or I’ll be in the doghouse.’
Dutifully, the nurse laughed. He’d noticed her before — a cheerful redhead with big brown eyes and freckles, who bounced along the corridors rather than walked.
‘I realise this is an awful cheek,’ she went on, going with him to the telephones, ‘but could you do me a favour? My sister is just crazy about Gulliver, an’ there’s been no holding her since she heard you were here. She wants to know, could she come for your autograph? I mean, she’s only eleven. It’d mean such a lot to her.’
‘For you, sweetheart — anything!’
He dialled the number of the theatre, sorting out his coins as he waited for someone to answer. When eventually the phone was picked up at the other end, it was a man’s voice he didn’t recognise. ‘Who? Oh yes — Sue! Darling, tell Sue there’s a call for her, will you? I really must get on!’ Another long wait; to be on the safe side he put in an extra ten pence. Then Sue was there, full of surprise and relief that he’d been allowed out of hospital for a couple of hours.
‘Tim, listen — I can get three days off! We were going to start rehearsals for the Shakespeare, but now we’re not called till Wednesday. So I thought, let’s not go home to London this time. I mean, you don’t need to be back, do you? Not with that hand.’
‘They haven’t said. I suppose it’s all right.’
‘I’ve borrowed somebody’s flat. A holiday flat near Torquay. It’d just be the two of us. Tim, it’s been six weeks. We’ve got to talk.’
‘You’re right,’ he agreed. ‘It is time.’
That night he had another bout of fever. When at last he fell asleep, he dreamed he was sitting in that large, old-fashioned bath again, surrounded by jellyfish. Slowly a tentacle came wavering towards him. It was followed by a second… then a third… creeping over his limbs… One lay across his upper lip; one penetrated a nostriclass="underline" he could even see it as it explored his nasal cavity. It was quite visible, and getting larger, growing to enormous size until it broke out through his face. He could hardly hold back his shrieks of terror.
He woke up drenched in sweat, sitting bolt upright. His terror lingered; before daring to touch the floor with his bare feet he switched on the light to examine the room. Nothing there, of course.
Telling himself not to be such a fool, he went over to the washbasin for a towel and was trying awkwardly to dry himself one-handed when the night nurse came in to see what was wrong. Briskly she rubbed him down, helped him into clean pyjamas and made sure he was safely back in bed again before she left.
In the morning, the Welsh doctor stubbornly refused even to think of letting Tim out of hospital again.
‘Indulged you yesterday, didn’t I, an’ we know what happened!’ He placed a cold stethoscope against Tim’s chest, then shook his head in disbelief. ‘Sounds healthy enough, but we’ll take a look under those bandages to see how the hand’s getting on, shall we? You’re too precious, so I’m told. Not that I’ve ever been one for television myself. With all these pretty nurses swooning over you, I don’t know why you want to leave.’