The Other Passenger

by John Keir Cross

  She broke off suddenly, with a little “Oh,” and looked past me to the door. I turned round. The Fairweathers were standing framed in the morning sunlight. She was erect, defiant, with her hands folded over her apron—he was shuffling and shaking his head embarrassedly.

  We looked at each other for a long time. Then Mrs. Fairweather said, in a low, cold, even tone:

  “You’d better go, Mr. Campbell.”

  I did not reply. I walked past them into the house. I got my coat and case and went away. I did not look back once as I walked along the street towards the garage where I had parked my car.

  You see what I mean? It’s money—the way it twists your senses of value.

  I’m glad I’m out of insurance. It was beginning to make me think like that myself—I was beginning to assess things in terms of cash. But I don’t think, even if I’d been in insurance for a hundred years, that I would ever have got to the way of thinking the Fairweathers did.

  Think of it—for one extra pound! That little creature lying dead in the attic, waiting to be buried. And they moving her out so that they could let the room!

  I suddenly knew why it was they had wanted me out of the house for half an hour. And I knew—God help me!—why my bed had been so cold.

  Ugh! It’s the idea of the thing, you know . . . And poor little Marjorie, talking quite blithely about the Little House, and about Janet being asleep. And probably thinking it was a doll’s house that Fairweather was making—and playing quite happily with her dolls in it till they put her little sister there . . .

  Well, maybe my friends are right. Maybe I am sentimental and expect too much of folk.

  Esmeralda

  A NIGHTMARE

  Mr. Felix Broome lay on his back, wide-eyed, unable to sleep. Beside him his wife, Nancy, snored raucously—a long complicated snore, starting with a sigh and ending with a staccato nasal grunt. Mr. Broome, with a horrid fascination, followed the sound through all its convolutions, waiting desperately for some variation in the rhythm.

  Mr. Broome was forty-five. A small man, round-faced, with a little brunette moustache. His mouth was thin and loose. He had false teeth but never wore them—he found them uncomfortable: jam pips constantly lodged behind the plate, irritating him beyond endurance. He was bald; and, since Nancy hated him bald, he wore a toupee, slightly curled.

  The room in which he and Nancy were lying was above the little newsagent and tobacconist shop he had. It was in a side street in Notting Hill—not far from the Portobello Road—a bright, neat shop that did good business. Mr. Broome loved it dearly. He loved the smell of it—a smell all compact of newly printed paper, cheap sweets in cardboard boxes for the children (liquorice all-sorts, wine gums, dolly mixtures, sen-sen cachous, chocolate macaroons and whipped cream snowballs)—and, above all, tobaccos: thick black plug for chewing, tangled shag for those who liked to roll their own cigarettes, sickly yellow curly-cut, artificially scented flake, and half-a-dozen goodly mixtures in brown earthenware jars with tops that were moulded in the shapes of negro heads. Many a time, when the shop was empty, Mr. Broome would lift the top of one of these jars and sniff lovingly at the richness within. Many a time, when no one was looking, he would slip a dolly mixture or a jelly baby into his little loose mouth and suck at it noisily and enjoyably. Or he would furtively bury himself in one of the serials in Peg’s Companion.

  He even, on one occasion, wrote a surreptitious letter to a character calling herself Wise Woman in one of the girl’s papers he sold. He signed himself “Worried” and said:

  “Dear Wise Woman,—I have been married for fifteen years but am, I am afraid, very unhappy. It is not that my partner and I have any open differences, it is just that we do not seem suited to each other. We have no children. Our tastes are not dissimilar, but somehow we do not hit it off. Somehow we seem to have very little to say to each other, and so in the house there is often an atmosphere of strain and discomfort. What can I possibly do to relieve the situation?—my partner is a Roman Catholic, so divorce is out of the question, even indeed if there were any ground for divorce, which there certainly is not. Yours sincerely, etc. . . .”

  And next week, under a reproduction of his letter, he read Wise Woman’s reply in small type:

  “Dear Worried,—Alas, the sort of situation you describe is only too frequent nowadays. In so many lives I see Romance being supplanted by Boredom and Indifference. It is a pity you have no children—it is the tiny hands of children that more than anything else in the world smooth over the difficulties of married life and re-establish it in its full sanctity. They join together hearts that have drifted apart. Is it too late to think of adopting a child, if you cannot have one of your own? If this is not possible the only other thing I can suggest is that you should try to find a common interest. Are you fond of going to the Theatre or the Pictures? Make a habit of going once a week with your partner. I take it you yourself are not a Catholic?—try, nevertheless, to take an intelligent interest in your partner’s religion. Make conversation, plan little surprises. And with luck and determination you will yet succeed, dear Worried, in salvaging your lives. Yours in sympathy—Wise Woman.”

  Mr. Broome remembered this advice with bitterness as he lay listening to Nancy’s snoring. “Make conversation, plan little surprises.” As if it were possible to make conversation with Nancy! As if it were possible to plan little surprises for Nancy! He hated Nancy—the truth of the whole matter was simply that: he hated her. He hated everything about her—he hated her voice, he hated the way she dressed, he hated her vast podgy face with its sagging cheeks, he hated the smell of her. He who was so sensitive to smells—to the rich exotic smell of tobacco and the fresh clean smell of printed paper—how could he be expected to stomach the sweaty odour that came from Nancy?—all mingled with Woolworth’s scent and pink gin? He hated every single thing that she said and did. He hated her very name. Nancy! If ever a name was unsuitable it was that. Nancy! Applied to the vast flabby hulk lying beside him it was grotesque. And names, he knew, were important—either directly or indirectly—ironically. There was his own name, for instance, Felix: meaning happy (there was an example of irony if you liked!). Or there was Miss Ickman upstairs—her first name was Cynthia, and Cynthia had been the Goddess of Chastity—could anything be more ironically suitable for that bleak and rigid virgin? Or there was—but here all irony vanished and Mr. Broome sighed in the darkness—a little sigh that was swallowed up and lost in the vast nasal sigh of Nancy’s snoring—there was Esmeralda . . .

  Nancy stirred and grunted. She heaved the bedclothes more firmly about her, and Mr. Broome’s right foot was uncovered. With a patient sigh he wriggled the blankets over it again.

  He did not want to think quite yet of Esmeralda—not quite yet. There was a deliciousness in holding back—in savouring the moment when at last he would permit himself to think of her. There were many stages to be gone through before he could sink finally into the dream that began: “If only . . .”

  There came a creaking of a door from Miss Ickman’s flat above. Lord, Lord—was she going to play the piano—at that time of night! He strained his ears, dreading to hear the familiar sound of the screwing up of the piano stool (Miss Ickman gave lessons, so the stool was never at the right height when she herself wanted to play). It came—and a moment later the sound of a Strauss waltz drifted down through the ceiling to him, the bass grotesquely magnified. Oh hell, oh hell! Now Nancy would waken—and Nancy awake was just one degree worse than Nancy asleep.

  Yet, as the music went on, he found himself, in a way, welcoming it and enjoying it. The gay dancing rhythm brought into his mind a clear and exciting vision. Never mind if the vision was borrowed from a part of the dream that strictly speaking should come later. Esmeralda . . .

  The snoring stopped suddenly in a long succession of short staccato grunts. Mr. Broome held his breath. Nancy heaved herself over on her back.

  “Felix,” she grunted. “My God, is that bitch at it again! St
op her, Felix—knock on the ceiling.”

  “It’s only eleven o’clock, my love,” said Mr. Broome quietly.

  “It must be later than that. Besides, it’s after half-past ten that you’re not allowed to make a noise. Knock up, Felix—go on.”

  He sighed. But he knew the routine too well. He got out of bed and, shivering, went over to the corner behind the door and picked up a long broom that lay against the wall there. Then he mounted on a chair and thumped with the end of it on the ceiling­.

  “Louder, Felix—louder,” hissed Nancy.

  He thumped again, rhythmically. The playing stopped. The lid of the piano slammed shut angrily. Mr. Broome stepped down, wearily returned the knocker to its place, and crawled into bed again.

  “Thoughtless old bitch,” grunted Nancy.

  “Go to sleep, my love,” said Mr. Broome absently. “Go to sleep . . .”

  She snorted and turned over on her side. He had a sudden whiff of her loathsome smell. It made him feel sick. But with a curious meekness he lay still, waiting. Her breathing grew slower and heavier. Once more the snoring began.

  Fifteen years of it, he thought—fifteen years of it! Why had he ever married her at all? (Yet he did know the answer to that—it belonged to the later part of the dream.) In any case, at the beginning she had been different. She had not been bulky, the way she was now. She was kinder in disposition, her voice was softer, she dressed quite passably well. On the honeymoon he had even been quite proud of her. He remembered once, as they came in from a bathe, he had overheard two men saying, as they looked her wet figure up and down: “A fine buxom body, that”—and he had thought: “Yes, and it’s mine—all mine . . .” He had thought that too, before, looking sideways at her as they knelt before the priest in the little Catholic Church in Notting Hill: “A fine buxom body, and it’s all mine . . . What if I do have to sign a paper and say that our children are to be brought up in the Catholic Faith? It doesn’t really matter. The main thing is that we should have children—and with that fine buxom body belonging to me, that should be the easiest thing in the world! . . .”

  And now for fifteen years the buxom body had belonged to him. It had steadily grown less attractive—he had wanted it less and less. But conversely, by an irony, he had wanted the fruits of it more and more. And now he knew, finally, that there never would be any fruits from it, he hated the vast bulk with all the vehemence he had. His letter to Wise Woman was the only outward expression his hatred had ever had—and heaven knows that timid effusion was a poor enough index to his feeling.

  Mr. Broome stretched out an arm and took a sip of water from the glass he kept beside his bed. A mouse stirred and scuttled in the quiet room. Outside he heard a late bus go slowly along the street. Nearer at hand a drunk man was singing mournfully, and a policeman’s slow footsteps went clop-clop on the pavement. He closed his eyes. The moment had come at last—he had gone through all the preliminaries. If only . . .

  If only, if only . . .

  . . . She was exquisitely pretty. She was dressed in a diaphanous white frock. Her hair was fair—there was a little ribbon of pink silk in it. She was only thirteen, but not one member of the gigantic audience but was captivated and enchanted by her. She danced on and on, a small delicious figure in the glare of the footlights. A man in one of the boxes threw her a posy of flowers and she acknowledged it prettily, with a little curtsey woven into the dance. Some women behind Mr. Broome in the dress circle put their heads together and began whispering. By straining his ears he could just make out an occasional word of what they said:

  “Exquisite . . . Enchanting . . . Like a little fairy . . .”

  The dance ended. She swept one long and beautiful curtsey and the curtain slowly fell. The applause was enormous, terrifying. The curtain went up again and she was standing there, radiant in the light, blowing kisses to the audience. People were on their feet, cheering and clapping. The stage was covered with flowers. He felt like crying he was so moved.

  And as he mingled with the crowd leaving the theatre, he heard again the two women talking behind him.

  “Yes, dear—her name really is Esmeralda. Esmeralda Broome—the daughter of a little man who keeps a tobacconist’s shop in Notting Hill somewhere. She’s adorable, isn’t she?”

  Oh God, thought Mr. Broome. Oh God! If only . . .

  The snoring went on remorselessly. Mr. Broome was almost weeping. If he turned he could see, in the light that came in from the street, the dark shape of Nancy’s head on the pillow. She lay on her back again, with her mouth wide open. Fifteen years!

  He suddenly drew in his breath in a quick gasp. He lay perfectly still, staring with dilated eyes at the ceiling. Then he quietly raised himself to his knees. Still staring, he picked up the pillow he had been lying on. For a moment he stayed poised, holding it in his hands—then, with a small animal grunt, he lunged forward and crammed it on to Nancy’s face.

  The snoring stopped. He lay on the pillow, grunting and moaning, pressing it down with all his strength. She began to struggle—little inarticulate sounds came from beneath him. She heaved her enormous bulk on the bed—his nostrils were filled with the smell of the sweat and cheap scent. Still lying on her face, and grunting in little ecstatic gasps, he pushed his hands down under the pillow and fumbled for her throat. He felt the muscles of it twitching convulsively beneath his fingers. He squeezed with all his strength, and his fingers went deep into the flaccid flesh.

  He lay like that for a long time. There was a mounting, rushing noise in his ears, like wind, or tumultuous applause. Outside he heard the clop of the feet again, as the policeman repassed the house. And he realised suddenly that all was quiet—there was no movement at all beneath him.

  He rolled himself back into his own place in the bed. He listened to the silence. Then, exhausted, but with, somewhere inside him, the applause going on, he fell into a deep stupid sleep.

  * * * *

  He opened his eyes at a quarter-past six. For a moment he lay looking at the creeping dawn light that came through the window. Then, quite quietly and detachedly, he remembered all that had happened the night before.

  He turned and looked at Nancy. The pillow lay over her head. Curiously he lifted a corner of it—then replaced it with a shudder: the face beneath was swollen and ugly—the veins stood out in purple ridges, the teeth showed right through the upper lip, so great had been the pressure.

  Mr. Broome got out of bed. He went over to the window and stood there thoughtfully, scratching his backside. His striped flannel pyjamas hung from him loosely—he was a small and grotesque figure in the sick light.

  A few people were astir in the street. A man with a bonnet and muffler passed briskly, a blue enamelled tea-bottle sticking out of his pocket. A little hawker’s cart went by, the pony nodding dejectedly in the shafts, the driver half-asleep. A lean dog sniffed round the dustbins.

  Mr. Broome was surprised that he did not seem to have any feelings. According to the magazines in the shop downstairs, what he had done was spectacular—people wrote stories about murderers. And here was he, in real life, a murderer—and he felt nothing—nothing at all. He had even, he remembered, fallen asleep after killing Nancy. Fallen asleep! There was no end to mystery—things never worked out in life the way they did in books.

  He dressed slowly and carefully, spending a long time in settling his tie at the mirror. Before him, on the dressing-table, was Nancy’s array of scent bottles. He smiled wrily as he uncorked one of them and held it to his nose. But there was work to be done, he suddenly recollected, and he set the bottle down again and went briskly out of the room.

  Underneath the shop there was a deep earth-floored cellar where Mr. Broome kept old boxes and papers. Here he worked furiously for about an hour. At the end of that time there was a hole some three feet deep in a corner of the room. Mr. Broome surveyed it with satisfaction, then he went upstairs to the bedroom again.

  Nancy still lay quietly on the bed. This almost surpri
sed him—he had half expected to find her sitting at the dressing-table making herself up. But the enormous bulk was quite motionless—the pillow was still in position.

  He stood surveying her for a little time. Then, bracing himself to the effort, he put his hands under her armpits and dragged her from the bed.

  She was enormously heavy. He thought with irony, as he looked along the bulging figure, swathed in a nightgown of pink chiffon, of the remark the two men had made on the beach: “A fine buxom body, that . . .” Well, it was buxom no longer—mere clay and no more. Nancy could no longer demand his services for her body, when she had been drinking too much pink gin. There would be no more weeping agonies of resentment—no more vows of “I won’t give in to her, I won’t, I won’t”—and then giving in to her, and regretting it, and feeling ashamed and weak next morning. It was all over now. He had beaten her at last, after fifteen long years.

  Somehow he got the huge sagging lump down the stairs to the cellar. He dragged it heavily, walking backwards at an angle—Nancy resting on her heels, her huge yellow toes pointing to the ceiling. With a final heave he toppled it into the damp hole he had prepared, then stood back panting.

  He went up into the shop to look at the time. It was a quarter to eight—in a quarter of an hour’s time the shop should be open, if all was to seem normal. With a feverishness in his movements now, he rushed downstairs and shovelled the earth over the body. Then he replaced the boxes and papers he had cleared from the corner when he was digging the hole. A last look round to see that all was normal and he went upstairs, smoothing his jacket and straightening his tie as he climbed. By two minutes past eight the shutters were down and the shop was open.