The Mind of Mr Soames

by Maine, Charles Eric

  He tripped time and time again, to sprawl helplessly on damp earth, but always he picked himself up immediately to continue his headlong flight. He passed the Dutch barn with its bales of straw without even hesitating, for he no longer had any intention of using it as a place of shelter. On and on he ran, across the ploughed field, stumbling and falling over the furrows, until he came to the wooden fence. Once over it he paused to look back and recover his breath in long sighing gasps. There was no longer any indication of pursuit, but he was not prepared to take any risk, and soon set off again at a jog trot across country, away from the farm and the distant arterial road.

  Some twenty minutes later, at the bottom of the hill, he reached another road that curved off in both directions to disappear behind clumps of trees. Here at least was a possible haven of partial shelter, somewhere among the trees but not too close to the road.

  He began to walk towards the trees, crossing the road obliquely, and that instant the second horror of the night came upon him. Something roared behind him. He half-turned to find himself blinded by twin lights sweeping round the bend of the road at incredible speed. Horns blared resonantly and tyres screamed in angry protest against the road surface.

  Something struck him in the side of the ribs. For a moment he seemed to be floating and spinning in the air, and then the ground itself rose up and beat the consciousness from his body.

  ❖

  ‘My God, you’ve killed him,’ she said, white-faced.

  He sat at the wheel, staring blankly at the trees outlined by the headlamp beams. The car had slewed across the road, with two wheels up on the grass verge. The pungent smell of gin sharpened the faint odour of petrol in the car.

  ‘We’d better drive on,’ he said. His voice was little more than a husky whisper.

  ‘Richard, we can’t...’

  ‘We must! after all that drink tonight, and already being disqualified for five years...’

  She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply.

  He glanced towards her, his plump, moustached face pale and blank. ‘I didn’t see him until it was too late, Jenny, you know that. At this time of night...’

  ‘It’s a blind bend. You cornered too fast. You wouldn’t have seen him until it was too late, anyway, even in full daylight.’

  She opened the car door and got out.

  ‘Wait here, Richard. Better straighten the car up on the road in case anyone comes along.’

  He started the engine with fingers that trembled uncontrollably and reversed on to the road in nervous, demoralised movements. In the headlamps he could now see his wife kneeling beside a huddled shape at the edge of the road some twenty yards ahead. As in a dream he engaged bottom gear and trundled jerkily forward until he was close to them, then switched off the engine and got out.

  ‘I think he’s all right,’ she said. ‘Unconscious and shaken, but no blood. His clothes are in a mess.’

  ‘Thank God,’ he murmured.

  ‘We’ll have to take him to hospital.’

  ‘No, Jenny. Another drunk driving charge will mean jail...’

  ‘We can’t leave him here.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘If we could say we’d found him lying beside the road.’

  ‘Nobody would believe you, Richard, the way your hands are shaking and the way your breath smells of gin. You look too much like a ghost, anyway.’

  ‘Then... can’t we just leave him here?’

  ‘They’d track us down. We don’t know what he saw before we hit him. I think we’d better take him back with us.’

  ‘What good will that do?’

  ‘It will give us time to think and sober up, and you’ll have a chance to examine him for broken bones.’

  ‘I’m not a doctor, Jenny.’

  She stood up, now calm and controlled. ‘No, Richard, you’re not, thank heaven. An alcoholic businessman is one thing, but an alcoholic doctor would be unthinkable.’

  Stooping down, she lifted the unconscious man’s shoulders. ‘Come on, Richard. Lend a hand. We don’t want to be here all night.’

  14

  He awoke suddenly, because somebody was patting his cheek. Alarm trembled in his brain, then subsided into anxiety. He found himself lying between white sheets in a comfortable bed looking up at a woman. One side of his body seemed to pulsate with a dull ache as he breathed, and there was a faint throbbing pain in his head. The woman appeared to be friendly, and she was pleasant to look at with her bronze coloured hair and clear blue eyes.

  ‘How do you feel, Mr Forsyth?’ she asked.

  He made no reply, for he was trying to assess the meaning of this new development. The room was not overlarge, though bigger than his own room at the Institute, but it was comfortable. The green patterned wallpaper was soothing, and morning sunshine threw bars of liquid light across the fawn carpet of the floor from the tall window across the room. There was a slender wardrobe in light wood and an elegant dressing-table with oval mirrors and a glass top. The air was warm but fresh.

  ‘I’m afraid you have rather a nasty bruise on your left side, and some scratches here and there, but apart from that...’ She regarded him intently. ‘Can’t you remember what happened?’

  He pursued an elusive memory through the confusion of his thoughts. ‘There was a car,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what we thought. My husband and I found you lying unconscious by the side of the road near Benningley Cross—about twelve miles from here. We thought you must have been hit by a car that didn’t stop.’

  ‘Yes, I was hit by a car.’

  ‘I suppose really we ought to have taken you straight to hospital, but it was very late, and Sanderton Hospital was quite a long way off in the wrong direction. We thought it would be quicker to bring you back home to make sure there were no broken bones. As it is, everything seems to be all right. You were very lucky, Mr Forsyth.’

  She crossed to the window to draw back the curtains a little more, brightening the rectangle of sunlight on the floor. He studied her with sombre eyes, noting the lithe grace of her movements and the pleasing lines of her body beneath the yellow and white dress.

  ‘Just rest for a while,’ she said, coming back to the bed and leaning over him to adjust his pillow. ‘I’ll bring you some coffee and breakfast. Would you like bacon and egg?’

  The tenseness returned in a dizzy wave that seemed to permeate his whole body, anaesthetising the pains and aches. He longed to put out his hands and touch her, to seize her and hold her, under the compelling drive of some fantastic bodily magnetism, but he did nothing. Only the heightened pounding of his heart betrayed the sudden surge of feeling that possessed him.

  ‘Yes, I would like that,’ he replied.

  She left the room. Slowly the tension drained from him. Why? he asked himself, not even knowing what he was questioning. Because she is friendly I did not touch her, but what if she had not been friendly? He remembered the scream and the hysterical struggles of his sister when he had held her, and yet she had been friendly, too. He looked around the room. It was comfortable and companionable, the kind of room he would like for himself. Vaguely he wondered why he had been brought here. Something about a car and finding him lying beside the road and a hospital that was the wrong way, she had said, but he had not fully understood—and the strange name she had used—Mr Forsyth. He repeated the name to himself several times, but the mystery remained as deep as ever.

  The memory of the savage dog flooded into his mind like a nightmare, triggering an uneasy apprehension. But I hurt it, he told himself. It was hurting me so I hurt it.

  He inspected his arm and found a strip of sticking plaster near the elbow. Carefully he lifted it, noting the two raw grooves in his flesh where the sharp canine teeth had dragged at the skin, then replaced it. There would be tears in the sleeve of his nice new coat, too, he decided, and that was a pity.

  Step by step he went over the subsequent events of the night to the final point of impact with the onrushing car, and the he
adlong hurtling flight through the air, after which there was only blankness. To be found and put to bed in a nice room with an attractive woman to make breakfast seemed to him to be the ultimate in kindness—certainly more kindness than he could remember having received before.

  But was he safe in staying here? That was the urgent question. The room and the woman might prove to be an unsuspected trap, and even at this moment doctors from the Institute might be speeding in fast cars to recapture him.

  His anxiety increased a little. Restlessly he sat up in the bed and was immediately surprised to discover that he was wearing purple pyjamas with white piping round the collar. This pleased him at first, until it occurred to him that they had obviously taken his clothes away, and then he became displeased and suspicious.

  The woman returned presently carrying a tray with his breakfast on it, which she placed on the bedside table.

  ‘I see you are already sitting up,’ she observed. ‘You must be feeling better.’

  ‘Where are my clothes?’ he demanded uncompromisingly.

  She smiled. ‘I’m afraid they were very dirty, so I’m cleaning them up for you. There’s a tear in the sleeve of the jacket that will need mending. The trousers are going to be a problem, but I’ll do the best I can with them and press them. The shirt is already washed, and I’ll iron it this afternoon when it’s dry.’

  She transferred the breakfast tray to the bed, flicking down the supporting legs.

  ‘Here you are, Mr Forsyth.’

  He nodded his thanks, his suspicions about his clothes largely allayed.

  ‘Richard had to deck you out in a pair of his pyjamas. They’re a bit short, but he’s not so tall as you.’

  ‘Richard,’ he echoed.

  ‘My husband.’

  He picked up the knife and fork and began to attack the bacon and egg.

  ‘There’s one more thing,’ she went on, watching him with an air of satisfaction. ‘We tried to telephone your wife, but found you’re not on the phone, so we sent a telegram instead to say you’d had a slight accident but were quite well, and would be home later today. She should have it by now. We got the address from a letter in your pocket.’

  ‘What wife?’ he asked, chewing egg.

  ‘Mrs Forsyth.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Naturally we didn’t want her to be worried and perhaps call the police. It would only cause a great deal of unnecessary trouble.’

  He eyed her thoughtfully. ‘A wife is a woman?’ he inquired.

  ‘Why, yes.’ Puzzlement entered her expression. ‘Husband and wife, you know.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said solemnly, and continued eating, apparently satisfied.

  She walked to the door and turned back. ‘Oh, when you’ve finished breakfast, Mr Forsyth, perhaps you would like to take a bath, just to freshen you up. There’s quite a lot of mud in your hair, though we did out best to wash most of it out last night.’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do that.’

  ‘It’s the end room along the landing by the stairs. You’ll find shaving things and hair oil on the shelf. I’ll leave my husband’s bathrobe out for you.’

  She went out of the room, leaving him to concentrate on the task of feeding food into a stomach that had not eaten for thirty-six hours.

  ❖

  After the bath he shaved and smoothed down his unruly hair with oil. Already he felt revitalised and supremely happy. This was the kind of freedom he was prepared to enjoy and hold on to, if it proved to be possible. There were certain disquieting elements in the present situation, he realised—the business of the wife and the telegram, for example—but his optimism was now so buoyant that he dismissed the fears as trivial.

  Groomed to his own satisfaction he returned to the bedroom. The breakfast tray had been removed and the bed had been tidied and smoothed over. Through the window he could see a long expanse of fresh green lawn to the rear of the house, edged by flower beds, and more remotely there were fruit trees and shrubs. In the centre of the lawn was a small oval pool reflecting the clear blue sky from the still surface of the water. He stared at it for a long time, unable to resist the fascination that water held for him, then abruptly he turned away from the window and began to pace up and down the room, waiting for the woman to come back.

  But she did not come, and his impatience and despondency increased together, until he felt that he could no longer wait. Pulling the bathrobe tightly around him he went out of the bedroom and down the stairs into a wide hall. On the maroon carpet his bare feet were noiseless. One by one he opened the doors of the rooms leading from the hall—pleasant rooms, furnished with taste and dignity—but they were empty.

  He found her eventually in a white tiled kitchen, wearing a green apron over her dress and peeling potatoes. She was momentarily startled as he entered, but an instant later her characteristic smile warned her lips.

  ‘Well, what a transformation,’ she commented, taking in his clean, tidy appearance. ‘How do you feel now?’

  ‘I feel fine.’

  ‘Good. That’s what I hoped you’d say. I’m just going to prepare some lunch for the two of us. Richard never comes home for lunch. He’s a director of a steel-tube factory near Anderford and it’s really too far away to make the return trip in the middle of the day.’ She hesitated, thinking of something fresh to say. ‘I’ll have your clothes ready in about two hours. If you feel well enough perhaps you would like to read a book, or look through some magazines. You’ll find plenty...’

  She broke off abruptly because she was aware that he was not really listening to her. His dark eyes were fixed on hers with curious intentness, and a warning alarm had begun to sound silently in her brain.

  ‘In the other room, Mr Forsyth,’ she said, putting down the potato peeler and wiping her hands on her apron. ‘I’ll show you.’

  She made to push past him to the door but he gripped her arms suddenly and pulled her towards him. For an electric moment they stood thus, staring at each other, both their hearts pounding with equal violence if not for the same reason.

  ‘No,’ she said, attempting to shake herself loose, but his fingers simply tightened on her arms and she was held captive.

  He tried hard to think of something to say to the woman, something kind that would erase the starkness from her wide-eyed expression, but no words came into his feverish mind—there were no words to articulate what was beyond his understanding.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Mr Forsyth,’ she said, relaxing slightly. ‘I’m a married woman and you’re a married man. You keep your hands to yourself and we’ll get along fine.’

  He released her slowly, interpreting her tone of voice rather than the words she used.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said, smiling. ‘For a moment you scared me. Now what’s it to be—books or magazines or both?’

  ‘You,’ he said quietly.

  She raised a quizzical eyebrow, knowing now that she had the measure of him, for the time being, at any rate, and feeling excited rather than afraid now that the initial shock had subsided.

  ‘Well, you can’t have me,’ she stated, leading the way into the hall and into one of the adjoining rooms. A television set peered sightlessly from one corner, sandwiched between a red brick fireplace and a glass-fronted bookcase. Near the window stood a small table covered with a litter of magazines and newspapers. She indicated a sofa.

  ‘Sit down and help yourself to reading matter,’ she invited.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, defeated.

  She was about to leave the room when a thought occurred to her. ‘Would you like a drink?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  She was friendly and amiable now, a little amused at the despondency in his voice.

  ‘Gin, or whisky?’

  He shrugged. The words were meaningless to him.

  ‘You’re a strange man, Mr Forsyth,’ she remarked. ‘I really don’t know whether to take you seriously or not.’

  She poured a gin, added tonic water,
and brought it over to him. He took the glass gratefully enough, answering her smile in a hesitant way, and watched her as she left the room. The water in the glass had tiny bubbles in it, he observed. Sparkling water in a crystal glass, just the thing for a thirsty man.

  He put the glass to his lips and swallowed the contents in one gulp. Next moment he was flat on the sofa, coughing and spluttering as the gin fumes choked his lungs. He recovered suddenly, and sat up as though in a dream, conscious of pungent warmth stretching from throat to stomach. Gin, he thought. I don’t like gin. I won’t drink it. Why did the woman give it to me?

  He stood up and began to walk about the room, framing his thoughts clumsily in an effort to resolve the tantalising frustration that was depressing him. They didn’t tell me about women at the Institute, he told himself. Or if they did then I was not listening at the time. I feel I am right when I want to touch her, yet she made it clear that I was not right. To want is not always right. Dr Conway said that. But he did not say anything about women.

  And then the most exasperating question of all began to obsess his mind. Why should I want to touch her? I never had any wish to touch the doctors or the orderlies, or any men at all. Why is it so different with women?

  The question merely echoed and re-echoed in the cavities of his brain and no answer was forthcoming. Walking round the room he came upon the cocktail cabinet where he had seen the woman pouring the gin. He stopped thoughtfully, looking at the array of bottles and glass. Syllable by syllable he read the words on the labels until he reached the simple announcement ‘gin’.

  His antipathy evaporated. The warm sensation in his stomach was really quite pleasant after all, and the pungency was sweet rather than acrid. He retrieved his glass and filled it with neat gin, not having observed the addition of tonic water on the first occasion. This he sipped experimentally. Oddly enough the flavour seemed different, and it was much hotter, descending his throat like fire, but he supposed that was because he was sipping it cautiously and not gulping it down in a single motion.