In Between the Sheets

by Ian Mcewan

  They both undressed. Lucy hung her clothes neatly in the wardrobe. When O’Byrne stood almost naked before her she wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Is that you smelling?” O’Byrne was hurt. “I’ll have a bath,” he offered curtly.

  Lucy stirred the bathwater with her hand, and spoke loudly over the thunder of the taps. “You should have brought me some clothes to wash.” She hooked her fingers into the elastic of his shorts. “Give me these now and they’ll be dry by the morning.” O’Byrne laced his fingers into hers in a decoy of affection. “No, no,” he shouted rapidly. “They were clean on this morning, they were.” Playfully Lucy tried to get them off. They wrestled across the bathroom floor, Lucy shrieking with laughter, O’Byrne excited but determined.

  Finally Lucy put on her dressing gown and went away. O’Byrne heard her in the kitchen. He sat in the bath and washed away the bright green stains. When Lucy returned his shorts were drying on the radiator. “Women’s Lib, innit?” said O’Byrne from the bath. Lucy said, “I’m getting in too,” and took off her dressing gown. O’Byrne made room for her. “Please yourself,” he said with a smile as she settled herself in the gray water.

  O’Byrne lay on his back on the clean white sheets, and Lucy eased herself onto his belly like a vast nesting bird. She would have it no other way, from the beginning she had said, “I’m in charge.” O’Byrne had replied, “We’ll see about that.” He was horrified, sickened, that he could enjoy being overwhelmed, like one of those cripples in his brother’s magazines. Lucy had spoken briskly, the kind of voice she used for difficult patients. “If you don’t like it then don’t come back.” Imperceptibly O’Byrne was initiated into Lucy’s wants. It was not simply that she wished to squat on him. She did not want him to move. “If you move again,” she warned him once, “you’ve had it.” From mere habit O’Byrne thrust upwards and deeper, and quick as the tongue of a snake she lashed his face several times with her open palm. On the instant she came, and afterwards lay across the bed, half sobbing, half laughing. O’Byrne, one side of his face swollen and pink, departed sulking. “You’re a bloody pervert,” he had shouted from the door.

  Next day he was back, and Lucy agreed not to hit him again. Instead she abused him. “You pathetic, helpless little shit!” she would scream at the peak of her excitement. And she seemed to intuit O’Byrne’s guilty thrill of pleasure, and wish to push it further. One time she had suddenly lifted herself clear of him and, with a far-away smile, urinated on his head and chest. O’Byrne had struggled to get clear, but Lucy held him down and seemed deeply satisfied by his unsought orgasm. This time O’Byrne left the flat enraged. Lucy’s strong, chemical smell was with him for days, and it was during this time that he had met Pauline. But within the week he was back at Lucy’s to collect, so he insisted, his razor, and Lucy was persuading him to try on her underwear. O’Byrne resisted with horror and excitement. “The trouble with you,” said Lucy, “is that you’re scared of what you like.”

  Now Lucy gripped his throat in one hand. “You dare move,” she hissed, and closed her eyes. O’Byrne lay still. Above him Lucy swayed like a giant tree. Her lips were forming a word, but there was no sound. Many minutes later she opened her eyes and stared down, frowning a little as though struggling to place him. And all the while she eased backwards and forwards. Finally she spoke, more to herself than to him. “Worm …” O’Byrne moaned. Lucy’s legs and thighs tightened and trembled. “Worm… worm … you little worm. I’m going to tread on you … dirty little worm.” Once more her hand was closed about his throat. His eyes were sunk deep, and his word traveled a long way before it left his lips. “Yes,” he whispered.

  The following day O’Byrne attended the clinic. The doctor and his male assistant were matter-of-fact, unimpressed. The assistant filled out a form and wanted details of O’Byrne’s recent sexual history. O’Byrne invented a whore at Ipswich bus station. For many days after that he kept to himself. Attending the clinic mornings and evenings, for injections, he was sapped of desire. When Pauline or Lucy phoned, Harold told them he did not know where O’Byrne was. “Probably taken off for somewhere,” he said, winking across the shop at his brother. Both women phoned each day for three or four days, and then suddenly there were no calls from either.

  O’Byrne paid no attention. The shop was taking in good money now. In the evenings he drank with his brother and his brother’s friends. He felt himself to be both busy and ill. Ten days passed. With the extra cash Harold was giving him, he bought a leather jacket, like Harold’s, but somehow better, sharper, lined with red imitation silk. It both shone and creaked. He spent many minutes in front of the fish-eye mirror, standing sideways on, admiring the manner in which his shoulders and biceps pulled the leather to a tight sheen. He wore his jacket between the shop and the clinic and sensed the glances of women in the street. He thought of Pauline and Lucy. He passed a day considering which to phone first. He chose Pauline, and phoned her from the shop.

  Trainee Nurse Shepherd was not available, O’Byrne was told after many minutes of waiting. She was taking an examination. O’Byrne had his call transferred to the other side of the hospital. “Hi,” he said when Lucy picked up the phone. “It’s me.” Lucy was delighted. “When did you get back? Where have you been? When are you coming round?” He sat down. “How about tonight?” he said. Lucy whispered in sex-kitten French, “I can ’ardly wait…” O’Byrne laughed and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his forehead and heard other distant voices on the line. He heard Lucy giving instructions. Then she spoke rapidly to him. “I’ve got to go. They’ve just brought a case in. About eight tonight, then…” and she was gone.

  O’Byrne prepared his story, but Lucy did not ask him where he had been. She was too happy. She laughed when she opened the door to him, she hugged him and laughed again. She looked different. O’Byrne could not remember her so beautiful. Her hair was shorter and a deeper brown, her nails were pale orange, she wore a short black dress with orange dots. There were candles and wine glasses on the dining table, music on the record player. She stood back, her eyes bright, almost wild, and admired his leather jacket. She ran her hands up the red lining. She pressed herself against it. “Very smooth,” she said. “Reduced to sixty quid,” O’Byrne said proudly, and tried to kiss her. But she laughed again and pushed him into a chair. “You wait there and I’ll get something to drink.”

  O’Byrne lay back. From the corner a man sang of love in a restaurant with clean white tablecloths. Lucy brought an icy bottle of white wine. She sat on the arm of his chair and they drank and talked. Lucy told him recent stories of the ward, of nurses who fell in and out of love, patients who recovered or died. As she spoke she undid the top buttons of his shirt and pushed her hand down to his belly. And when O’Byrne turned in his chair and reached up for her she pushed him away, leaned down and kissed him on the nose. “Now, now,” she said primly. O’Byrne exerted himself. He recounted anecdotes he had heard in the pub. Lucy laughed crazily at the end of each, and as he was beginning the third she let her hand drop lightly between his legs and rest there. O’Byrne closed his eyes. The hand was gone and Lucy was nudging him. “Go on,” she said. “It was getting interesting.” He caught her wrist and wanted to pull her onto his lap. With a little sigh she slipped away and returned with a second bottle. “We should have wine more often,” she said, “if it makes you tell such funny stories.”

  Encouraged, O’Byrne told his story, something about a car and what a garage mechanic said to a vicar. Once again Lucy was fishing around his fly and laughing, laughing. It was a funnier story than he thought. The floor rose and fell beneath his feet. And Lucy so beautiful, scented, warm … her eyes glowed. He was paralyzed by her teasing. He loved her, and she laughed and robbed him of his will. Now he saw, he had come to live with her, and each night she teased him to the edge of madness. He pressed his face into her breasts. “I love you,” he mumbled, and again Lucy was laughing, shaking, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Do you … do you …”
she kept trying to say. She emptied the bottle into his glass. “Here’s a toast…” “Yeah,” said O’Byrne. “To us.” Lucy was holding down her laughter. “No, no,” she squealed. “To you.” “All right,” he said, and downed his wine in one swallow. Then Lucy was standing in front of him pulling his arm. “C’mon,” she said. “C’mon.” O’Byrne struggled out of the chair. “What about dinner, then?” he said. “You’re the dinner,” she said, and they giggled as they tottered towards the bedroom.

  As they undressed Lucy said, “I’ve got a special little surprise for you so … no fuss.” O’Byrne sat on the edge of Lucy’s large bed and shivered. “I’m ready for anything,” he said. “Good … good,” and for the first time she kissed him deeply, and pushed him gently backwards onto the bed. She climbed forward and sat astride his chest. O’Byrne closed his eyes. Months ago he would have resisted furiously. Lucy lifted his left hand to her mouth and kissed each finger. “Hmmm … the first course.” O’Byrne laughed. The bed and the room undulated softly about him. Lucy was pushing his hand towards the top corner of the bed. O’Byrne heard a distant jingle, like bells. Lucy knelt by his shoulder, holding down his wrist, buckling it to a leather strap. She had always said she would tie him up one day and fuck him. She bent low over his face and they kissed again. She was licking his eyes and whispering, “You’re not going anywhere.” O’Byrne gasped for air. He could not move his face to smile. Now she was tugging at his right arm, pulling it, stretching it to the far corner of the bed. With a dread thrill of compliance O’Byrne felt his arm die. Now that was secure and Lucy was running her hands along the inside of his thigh, and on down to his feet… He lay stretched almost to breaking, splitting, fixed to each corner, spread out against the white sheet. Lucy knelt at the apex of his legs. She stared down at him with a faint, objective smile, and fingered herself delicately. O’Byrne lay waiting for her to settle on him like a vast white nesting bird. She was tracing with the tip of one finger the curve of his excitement, and then with thumb and forefinger making a tight ring about its base. A sigh fled between his teeth. Lucy leaned forwards. Her eyes were wild. She whispered, “We’re going to get you, me and Pauline are…”

  Pauline. For an instant, syllables hollow of meaning. “What?” said O’Byrne, and as he spoke the word he remembered, and understood a threat. “Untie me,” he said quickly. But Lucy’s finger curled under her crotch and her eyes half closed. Her breathing was slow and deep. “Untie me,” he shouted, and struggled hopelessly with his straps. Lucy’s breath came now in light little gasps. As he struggled, so they accelerated. She was saying something … moaning something. What was she saying? He could not hear. “Lucy,” he said, “please untie me.” Suddenly she was silent, her eyes wide open and clear. She climbed off the bed. “Your friend Pauline will be here, soon,” she said, and began to get dressed. She was different, her movements brisk and efficient, she no longer looked at him. O’Byrne tried to sound casual. His voice was a little high. “What’s going on?” Lucy stood at the foot of the bed buttoning her dress. Her lip curled. “You’re a bastard,” she said. The doorbell rang and she smiled. “Now that’s good timing, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, he went down very quietly,” Lucy was saying as she showed Pauline into the bedroom. Pauline said nothing. She avoided looking at either O’Byrne or Lucy. And O’Byrne’s eyes were fixed on the object she carried in her arms. It was large and silver, like an outsized electric toaster. “It can plug in just here,” said Lucy. Pauline set it down on the bedside table. Lucy sat down at her dressing table and began to comb her hair. “I’ll get some water for it in a minute,” she said.

  Pauline went and stood by the window. There was silence. Then O’Byrne said hoarsely, “What’s that thing?” Lucy turned in her seat. “It’s a sterilizer,” she said breezily. “Sterilizer?” “You know, for sterilizing surgical instruments.” The next question O’Byrne did not dare ask. He felt sick and dizzy. Lucy left the room. Pauline continued to stare out the window into the dark. O’Byrne felt the need to whisper. “Hey, Pauline, what’s going on?” She turned to face him, and said nothing. O’Byrne discovered that the strap around his right wrist was slackening a little, the leather was stretching. His hand was concealed by pillows. He worked it backwards and forwards, and spoke urgently. “Look, let’s get out of here. Undo these things.”

  For a moment she hesitated, then she walked around the side of the bed and stared down at him. She shook her head. “We’re going to get you.” The repetition terrified him. He thrashed from side to side. “It’s not my idea of a fucking joke!” he shouted. Pauline turned away. “I hate you,” he heard her say. The right-hand strap gave a little more. “I hate you. I hate you.” He pulled till he thought his arm would break. His hand was too large still for the noose around his wrist. He gave up.

  Now Lucy was at the bedside pouring water into the sterilizer. “This is a sick joke,” said O’Byrne. Lucy lifted a flat black case onto the table. She snapped it open and began to take out long-handled scissors, scalpels and other bright, tapering silver objects. She lowered them carefully into the water. O’Byrne started to work his right hand again. Lucy removed the black case and set on the table two white kidney bowls with blue rims. In one lay two hypodermic needles, one large, one small. In the other was cotton wool. O’Byrne’s voice shook. “What is all this?” Lucy rested her cool hand on his forehead. She enunciated with precision. “This is what they should have done for you at the clinic.” “The clinic …?” he echoed. He could see now that Pauline was leaning against the wall drinking from a bottle of scotch. “Yes,” said Lucy, reaching down to take his pulse. “Stop you spreading round your secret little diseases.” “And telling lies,” said Pauline, her voice strained with indignation.

  O’Byrne laughed uncontrollably. “Telling lies … telling lies,” he spluttered. Lucy took the scotch from Pauline and raised it to her lips. O’Byrne recovered. His legs were shaking. “You’re both out of your minds.” Lucy tapped the sterilizer and said to Pauline, “This will take a few minutes yet. We’ll scrub down in the kitchen.” O’Byrne tried to raise his head. “Where are you going?” he called after them. “Pauline… Pauline.”

  But Pauline had nothing more to say. Lucy stopped in the bedroom doorway and smiled at him. “We’ll leave you a pretty little stump to remember us by,” she said, and she closed the door.

  On the bedside table the sterilizer began to hiss. Shortly after, it gave out the low rumble of boiling water, and inside the instruments clinked together gently. In terror he pumped his hand. The leather was flaying the skin off his wrist. The noose was riding now around the base of his thumb. Timeless minutes passed. He whimpered and pulled, and the edge of the leather cut deep into his hand. He was almost free.

  The door opened, and Lucy and Pauline carried in a small, low table. Through his fear O’Byrne felt excitement once more, horrified excitement. They arranged the table close to the bed. Lucy bent low over his erection. “Oh dear… oh dear,” she murmured. With tongs Pauline lifted instruments from the boiling water and laid them out in neat silver rows on the starched white tablecloth she had spread across the table. The leather noose slipped forwards fractionally. Lucy sat on the edge of the bed and took the large hypodermic from the bowl. “This will make you a little sleepy,” she promised. She held it upright and expelled a small jet of liquid. And as she reached for the cotton wool O’Byrne’s arm pulled clear. Lucy smiled. She set aside the hypodermic. She leaned forwards once more… warm, scented… she was fixing him with wild red eyes … her fingers played over his tip … she held him still between her fingers. “Lie back, Michael, my sweet.” She nodded briskly at Pauline. “If you’ll secure that strap, Nurse Shepherd, then I think we can begin.”

  Reflections of a Kept Ape

  Eaters of asparagus know the scent it lends the urine. It has been described as reptilian, or as a repulsive inorganic stench, or again, as a sharp, womanly odor … exciting. Certainly it suggests sexual activity of some ki
nd between exotic creatures, perhaps from a distant land, another planet. This unworldly smell is a matter for poets and I challenge them to face their responsibilities. All this … a preamble that you may discover me as the curtain rises, standing, urinating, reflecting in a small overheated closet which adjoins the kitchen. The three walls which fill my vision are painted a bright and cloying red, decorated by Sally Klee when she cared for such things, a time of remote and singular optimism. The meal, which passed in total silence and from which I have just risen, consisted of a variety of tinned foods, compressed meat, potatoes, asparagus, served at room temperature. It was Sally Klee who opened the tins and set their contents on paper plates. Now I linger at my toilet washing my hands, climbing on to the sink to regard my face in the mirror, yawning. Do I deserve to be ignored?

  I find Sally Klee as I left her. She is in her dining room playing with used matches in a musty pool of light. We were lovers once, living almost as man and wife, happier than most wives and men. Then, she wearying of my ways and I daily exacerbating her displeasure with my persistence, we now inhabit different rooms. Sally Klee does not look up as I enter the room, and I hover between her chair and mine, the plates and tins arranged before me. Perhaps I am a little too squat to be taken seriously, my arms a little too long. With them I reach out and stroke gently Sally Klee’s gleaming black hair. I feel the warmth of her skull beneath her hair and it touches me, so alive, so sad.

  Perhaps you will have heard of Sally Klee. Two and a half years ago she published a short novel and it was an instant success. The novel describes the attempts and bitter failures of a young woman to have a baby. Medically there appears to be nothing wrong with her, nor with her husband, nor his brother. In the words of The Times Literary Supplement, it is a tale told with “wan deliberation.” Other serious reviews were less kind, but in its first year it sold thirty thousand copies in hardback, and so far a quarter of a million in paperback. If you have not read the book you will have seen the cover of the paperback edition as you buy your morning paper at the railway station. A naked woman kneels, face buried in hands, amidst a barren desert. Since that time Sally Klee has written nothing. Every day for months on end she sits at her typewriter, waiting. But for a sudden flurry of activity at the end of each day her machine is silent. She cannot remember how she wrote her first book, she does not dare depart from what she knows, she does not dare repeat herself. She has money and time and a comfortable house in which she languishes, bored and perplexed, waiting.