by Pam Crane
nerve-wracking moment when he was almost, he could swear, forced into an overwhelming black chair which mysteriously materialised from the farthest corner, he was merely obliged to remove his spectacles and read the card on the opposite wall.
“H,” he said.
“Yes, go on ...” said the doctor encouragingly.
“That’s all.”
“That’s all?”
“H.”
“Oh.” The medical man, who had never had any cause to complain about his own eyesight, was nonplussed.
“Well then, I suppose you had better listen to the watch.”
He wrote something down in a disconcertingly deliberate manner; then arose, removed his wrist-watch, and pressed it icily against Sebastian’s hot ear. The ear jerked away, deafened ... and the watch retreated.
“Yes.”
A few paces further.
“Yes.”
The doctor backed around the table near the window,
“Yes.”
He flattened himself against the pane.
“Yes.”
Johnston raised his eyebrows, looked anxiously at the drop from the window, and said, “Well, you’d better get up and stand by the door, then.”
Skinner obliged.
“Yes.”
The watch shattered on the lino roughly forty feet from where Skinner was now standing, and its owner advanced unsteadily. He murmured, “Never mind about the ‘H’,” and dizzily shook Skinner’s tangled fingers.
There was a babble of girlish voices in the street below the window to whose environs Skinner had now unwillingly returned, and on looking down his gaze met that of six or seven Young Ladies becomingly draped in college scarves over what could be seen of their outdoor clothing. Turning away with a confused blush, the embarrassed, half-clad youth found himself once more deposited in the terrifying chair and requested to submit his feet to the scrutiny of his tormentor.
“Flat,” muttered the latter, settling himself once more to the unloveliness of his client’s physique. Skinner was hurt. He felt that being subjected to the indignity of being told one’s feet were flat when one knew it perfectly well already was not only an insult to the intelligence with which he was generously credited by his family ... he reflected with modest pride ... but Going a Bit Too Far. The next moment he let out an unearthly shriek.
The doctor looked up enquiringly.
“Uh ... I’m afraid I’m a little ticklish around my insteps ...”
“I’m so sorry. It shall not happen again, I promise you...” (... so that was where they were!) Did Skinner detect a hint of irony in the tone?
Meanwhile his persecutor had turned his attention to Sebastian’s toes.
“Long ... almost prehensile!” he whispered.
The owner of the toes was becoming slowly enraged. Long, yes. But Almost Prehensile? If they had been uncompromisingly Prehensile he wouldn’t have minded so much. After all, prehensile toes are of some use. But to add that injurious Almost ... to intimate that his were digits of unnecessary length and of no use whatsoever except to call for an undeservedly large shoe and to get irretrievably stuck down the bath plug ... this entire affair had been too much for Sebastian Skinner, Jr., and when his adversary blew shatteringly down his toenails, watched them twitch, and then with an amused and delighted countenance had the effrontery to observe under his breath, “Ape-like!” the galled youth was goaded to rare fury. This was the last straw! He did what, in the circumstances, was the only thing a self-respecting human being would do ... belted him one up the bracket with the nearest convenient foot, sending the doctor spinning back in a hail of disintegrating instruments, grabbed what he could of his clothing, and beat it.
As he fled down the steep, polished staircase to the main door he caught his left big toe in a trailing trouser-leg and precipitated himself down the remaining eight steps in an inadvisably irregular and damaging manner. He had no time to search for bruises; behind him he heard strangled roars and stayed no longer to ascertain their origin, but scrambled to his feet in undignified haste, dropping a shoe with an appalling clatter, and bolted into the street. It was full of girls. Blind terror gripped him and he flew down the street like a panicky pink whirlwind. His spectacles jumped under a passing car and the other shoe fell heavily on the toe of an outraged fishmonger. In the youth’s wake thundered a horde of excited females. Lining his path was a blur of gesticulating shoppers, rooted in their tracks in shocked astonishment. Ahead of him was a bus waiting at traffic lights next to the NatWest bank. With an enormous effort the whirling limbs clutched and fastened onto the platform rail just as the lights turned green, and Sebastian more or less fell upstairs.
The top deck was empty, and he collapsed gasping like a homeless goldfish on the back seat. When he had regained a little of his breath he proceeded to cram his jacket on. His shirt had got lost in transit. Suddenly the head of the conductor appeared over the top step.
“’Ere, mate, wot d’yer think yer doin’ undressin’ on my bus? ’Op it, quick!”
“I was just putting my jacket on,” explained Skinner with as much spirit as he could muster.
The bus conductor regarded the pink expanse of bony chest with distaste and remarked, “Yer’ve got no shirt on.”
This was merely stating the obvious, yet it annoyed Skinner intensely. Had he been of a more reckless nature, he would have been moved to sarcasm. As it was, he took refuge in a careful search for his socks, which should have been stuffed up his trousers. The conductor’s gaze descended to Skinner’s knees which somehow, even more than most knees, managed always to look superfluous to the more essential but hardly beautiful regions of his legs.
The legs blushed.
“Where’s yer trousers?”
“Er ... I’m just putting them on,” was the humble reply.
“Why did yer take ’em orf then? Gort up late, did yer?” He waited for an answer but didn’t get one, so went on, “Well whatever yer’ve bin up ter - an’ it looks highly suspicious I must say - yer carn’t go usin’ respectable public transport fer a dressin’-room. Nah, gimme yer fare an’ ’op it quick.”
“I haven’t got any fare.”
By this time Skinner had struggled into his trousers, but on the exploration of various pockets he had brought nothing to light except a drawing-pin (which had been troubling him for days) and an unsavoury-looking handkerchief.
“Look,” suggested the conductor patiently, though that virtue, acquired through sheer necessity in long years of public service, was wearing thin, “If yer’ll git orf my bus nah, I’ll forget abaht it. See?”
Sebastian was grateful, and, being no longer in a state of doubtful respectability, uttering profuse apologies and hearty thanks he tumbled down the stairs and leapt blindly off the bus.
Whether this worthy vehicle was moving or not was of no consequence to a man of Skinner’s mettle; suffice it to say that it was, and this fact, plus the fact that it had no intention of helping him to alight in a normal, unhurried and dignified manner, caused him to land rather ignominiously in the gutter next to a lamp post which in its instant enthusiasm to offer itself as a means of support induced a sweet, dreamless sleep to blot out entirely the afflictions of our weary friend.
When he awoke, something was blocking his view.
He raised his throbbing head from the pillows and squinted at it painfully.
“Go on!” it said, “Ask me where you are!”
“Why should I?” retorted the dazed youth, wondering what was so familiar about this looming white hulk.
“Well, one usually does at such a juncture ... you are abnormal, aren’t you!”
Sebastian fell back foaming in a welter of bedclothes. Life had nothing left to offer him but a nightmare of long, almost prehensile toes and a strange inside. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
He passed out again.
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IRON
