The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl, Volume 1

by Roald Dahl

  9. That we should at once start using the same brand of hair oil and after-shave lotion.

  10. That as both of us normally wore our wrist-watches in bed, and they were much the same shape, it was decided not to exchange. Neither of us wore rings.

  11. That each man must have something unusual about him that the woman would identify positively with her own husband. We therefore invented what became known as "The Sticking Plaster Ploy'. It worked like this: on D Day evening, when the couples arrived back in their own homes immediately after the dinner, each husband would make a point of going to the kitchen to cut himself a piece of cheese. At the same time, he would carefully stick a large piece of plaster over the tip of the forefinger of his right hand. Having done this, he would hold up the finger and say to his wife, "I cut myself. It's nothing, but it was bleeding a bit.' Thus, later on, when the men have switched beds, each woman will be made very much aware of the plaster-covered finger (the man would see to that), and will associate it directly with her own husband. An important psychological ploy, this, calculated to dissipate any tiny suspicion that might enter the mind of either female.

  So much for the basic plans. Next came what we referred to in our notes as "Familiarization with the Layout'. Jerry schooled me first. He gave me three hours' training in his own house one Sunday afternoon when his wife and children were out. I had never been into their bedroom before. On the dressing table were Samantha's perfumes, her brushes, and all her other things. A pair of stockings was draped over the back of a chair. Her nightdress, white and blue, was hanging behind the door leading to the bathroom.

  "Okay," Jerry said. "It'll be pitch dark when you come in. Samantha sleeps on this side, so you must tiptoe around the end of the bed and slide in on the other side, over there. I'm going to blindfold you and let you practise."

  At first with the blindfold on, I wandered all over the room like a drunk. But after about an hour's work, I was able to negotiate the course pretty well. But before Jerry would finally pass me out, I had to go blindfold all the way from the front door through the hall, up the stairs, past the children's rooms, into Samantha's room and finish up in exactly the right place. And I had to do it silently, like a thief. All this took three hours of hard work, but I got it in the end.

  The following Sunday morning when Mary had taken our children to church, I was able to give Jerry the same sort of work-out in my house. He learned the ropes faster than me, and within an hour he had passed the blindfold test without placing a foot wrong.

  It was during this session that we decided to disconnect each woman's bedside lamp as we entered the bedroom. So Jerry practised finding the plug and pulling it out with his blindfold on, and the following week-end, I was able to do the same in Jerry's house.

  Now came by far the most important part of our training. We called it "Spilling the Beans', and it was here that both of us had to describe in every detail the procedure we adopted when making love to our own wives. We agreed not to worry ourselves with any exotic variations that either of us might or might not occasionally practise. We were concerned only with teaching one another the most commonly used routine, the one least likely to arouse suspicion.

  The session took place in my office at six o'clock on a Wednesday evening after the staff had gone home. At first, we were both slightly embarrassed, and neither of us wanted to begin. So I got out the bottle of whisky, and after a couple of stiff drinks, we loosened up and the teach-in started. "While Jerry talked I took notes, and vice versa. At the end of it all, it turned out that the only real difference between Jerry's routine and my own was one of tempo. But what a difference it was! He took things (if what he said was to be believed) in such a leisurely fashion and he prolonged the moments to such an extravagant degree that I wondered privately to myself whether his partner did not sometimes go to sleep in the middle of it all. My job, however, was not to criticize but to copy and I said nothing.

  Jerry was not so discreet. At the end of my personal description he had the temerity to say, "Is that really what you do?"

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "I mean is it all over and done with as quickly as that?"

  "Look," I said. "We aren't here to give each other lessons. We're here to learn the facts."

  "I know that," he said. "But I'm going to feel a bit of an ass if I copy your style exactly. My God, you go through it like an express train whizzing through a country station!"

  I stared at him, mouth open.

  "Don't look so surprised," he said. "The way you told it to me, anyone would think.

  "Think what?" I said.

  "Oh, forget it," he said.

  "Thank you," I said. I was furious. There are two things in this world at which I happen to know I excel. One is driving an automobile and the other is you-know-what. So to have him sit there and tell me I didn't know how to behave with my own wife was a monstrous piece of effrontery. It was he who didn't know, not me. Poor Samantha. What she must have had to put up with over the years.

  "I'm sorry I spoke," Jerry said. He poured more whisky into our glasses. "Here's to the great switcheroo!" he said. "When do we go?"

  "Today is Wednesday," I said. "How about this coming Saturday?"

  "Christ," Jerry said.

  "We ought to do it while everything's still fresh in our minds," I said. "There's an awful lot to remember."

  Jerry walked to the window and looked down at the traffic in the street below. "Okay," he said, turning around. "Next Saturday it shall be!" Then we drove home in our separate cars.

  "Jerry and I thought we'd take you and Samantha out to dinner Saturday night," I said to Mary. We were in the kitchen and she was cooking hamburgers for the children.

  She turned around and faced me, frying-pan in one hand, spoon in the other. Her blue eyes looked straight into mine. "My Lord, Vic," she said. "How nice. But what are we celebrating?"

  I looked straight back at her and said, "I thought it would be a change to see some new faces. We're always meeting the same old bunch of people in the same old houses."

  She took a step forward and kissed me on the cheek. "What a good man you are," she said. "I love you."

  "Don't forget to phone the baby-sitter."

  "No, I'll do it tonight," she said.

  Thursday and Friday passed very quickly, and suddenly it was Saturday. It was D Day. I woke up feeling madly excited. After breakfast, I couldn't sit still, so I decided to go out and wash the car. I was in the middle of this when Jerry came strolling through the gap in the hedge, pipe in mouth.

  "Hi, sport," he said. "This is the day."

  "I know that," I said. I also had a pipe in my mouth. I was forcing myself to smoke it, but I had trouble keeping it alight, and the smoke burned my tongue.

  "How're you feeling?" Jerry asked.

  "Terrific," I said. "How about you?"

  "I'm nervous," he said.

  "Don't be nervous, Jerry."

  "This is one hell of a thing we're trying to do," he said. "I hope we pull it off."

  I went on polishing the windshield. I had never known Jerry to be nervous of anything before. It worried me a bit.

  "I'm damn glad we're not the first people ever to try it," he said. "If no one had ever done it before, I don't think I'd risk it."

  "I agree," I said.

  "What stops me being too nervous," he said, "is the fact that your friend found it so fantastically easy."

  "My friend said it was a cinch," I said. "But for Chris-sake, Jerry, don't be nervous when the time comes. That would be disastrous."

  "Don't worry," he said. "But Jesus, it's exciting, isn't it?"

  "It's exciting all right," I said.

  "Listen," he said. "We'd better go easy on the booze tonight."

  "Good idea," I said. "See you at eight thirty."

  At half past eight, Samantha, Jerry, Mary and I drove in Jerry's car to Billy's Steak House. The restaurant, despite its name, was high-class and expensive, and the girls had pu
t on long dresses for the occasion. Samantha was wearing something green that didn't start until it was halfway down her front, and I had never seen her looking lovelier. There were candles on our table. Samantha was seated opposite me and whenever she leaned forward with her face close to the flame, I could see that tiny crest of skin at the top centre of her lower lip. "Now," she said as she accepted a menu from the waiter, "I wonder what I'm going to have tonight."

  Ho-ho-ho, I thought, that's a good question.

  Everything went fine in the restaurant and the girls enjoyed themselves. When we arrived back at Jerry's house, it was eleven forty-five, and Samantha said, "Come in and have a nightcap."

  "Thanks," I said, "but it's a bit late. And the baby-sitter has to be driven home." So Mary and I walked across to our house, and now, I told myself as I entered the front door, from now on the count-down begins. I must keep a clear head and forget nothing.

  While Mary was paying the baby-sitter, I went to the fridge and found a piece of Canadian cheddar. I took a knife from the drawer and a strip of plaster from the cupboard. I stuck the plaster around the tip of the forefinger of my right hand and waited for Mary to turn around.

  "I cut myself," I said holding up the finger for her to see. "It's nothing, but it was bleeding a bit."

  "I'd have thought you'd had enough to eat for the evening," was all she said. But the plaster registered on her mind and my first little job had been done.

  I drove the baby-sitter home and by the time I got back up to the bedroom it was round about midnight and Mary was already half asleep with her light out. I switched out the light on my side of the bed and went into the bathroom to undress. I pottered about in there for ten minutes or so and when I came out, Mary, as I had hoped, was well and truly sleeping. There seemed no point in getting into bed beside her. So I simply pulled back the covers a bit on my side to make it easier for Jerry, then with my slippers on, I went downstairs to the kitchen and switched on the electric kettle. It was now twelve seventeen. Forty-three minutes to go.

  At twelve thirty-five, I went upstairs to check on Mary and the kids. Everyone was sound alseep.

  At twelve fifty-five, five minutes before zero hour, I went up again for a final check. I went right up close to Mary's bed and whispered her name. There was no answer. Good. That's it! Let's go!

  I put a brown raincoat over my pyjamas. I switched off the kitchen light so that the whole house was in darkness. I put the front door lock on the latch. And then, feeling an enormous sense of exhilaration, I stepped silently out into the night.

  There were no lamps on our street to lighten the darkness. There was no moon or even a star to be seen. It was a black black night, but the air was warm and there was a little breeze blowing from somewhere.

  I headed for the gap in the hedge. When I got very close, I was able to make out the hedge itself and find the gap. I stopped there, waiting. Then I heard Jerry's footsteps coming towards me.

  "Hi, sport," he whispered. "Everything okay?"

  "All ready for you," I whispered back.

  He moved on. I heard his slippered feet padding softly over the grass as he went towards my house. I went towards his.

  I opened Jerry's front door. It was even darker inside than out. I closed the door carefully. I took off my raincoat and hung it on the door knob. I removed my slippers and placed them against the wall by the door. I literally could not see my hands before my face. Everything had to be done by touch.

  My goodness, I was glad Jerry had made me practise blindfold for so long. It wasn't my feet that guided me now but my fingers. The fingers of one hand or another were never for a moment out of contact with something, a wall, the banister, a piece of furniture, a window-curtain. And I knew or thought I knew exactly where I was all the time. But it was an awesome eerie feeling trespassing on tiptoe through someone else's house in the middle of the night. As I fingered my way up the stairs, I found myself thinking of the burglars who had broken into our front room last winter and stolen the television set. When the police came next morning, I pointed out to them an enormous turd lying in the snow outside the garage. "They nearly always do that," one of the cops told me. "They can't help it. They're scared."

  I reached the top of the stairs. I crossed the landing with my right fingertips touching the wall all the time. I started down the corridor, but paused when my hand found the door of the first children's room. The door was slightly open. I listened. I could hear young Robert Rainbow, aged eight, breathing evenly inside. I moved on. I found the door to the second children's bedroom. This one belonged to Billy, aged six and Amanda, three. I stood listening. All was well.

  The main bedroom was at the end of the corridor, about four yards on. I reached the door. Jerry had left it open, as planned. I went in. I stood absolutely still just inside the door, listening for any sign that Samantha might be awake. All was quiet. I felt my way around the wall until I reached Samantha's side of the bed. Immediately, I knelt on the floor and found the plug connecting her bedside lamp. I drew it from its socket and laid it on the carpet. Good. Much safer now. I stood up. I couldn't see Samantha, and at first I couldn't hear anything either. I bent low over the bed. Ah yes, I could hear her breathing. Suddenly I caught a whiff of the heavy musky perfume she had been using that evening, and I felt the blood rushing to my groin. Quickly I tiptoed around the big bed, keeping two fingers in gentle contact with the edge of the bed the whole way.

  All I had to do now was get in. I did so, but as I put my weight upon the mattress, the creaking of the springs underneath sounded as though someone was firing a rifle in the room. I lay motionless, holding my breath. I could hear my heart thumping away like an engine in my throat. Samantha was facing away from me. She didn't move. I pulled the covers up over my chest and turned towards her. A female glow came out of her to me. Here we go, then! Now!

  I slid a hand over and touched her body. Her nightdress was warm and silky. I rested the hand gently on her hips. Still she didn't move. I waited a minute or so, then I allowed the hand that lay upon the hip to steal onward and go exploring. Slowly, deliberately, and very accurately, my fingers began the process of setting her on fire.

  She stirred. She turned on her back. Then she murmured sleepily, "Oh, dear…Oh, my goodness me…Good heavens, darling!"

  I, of course, said nothing. I just kept on with the job.

  A couple of minutes went by.

  She was lying quite still.

  Another minute passed. Then another. She didn't move a muscle.

  I began to wonder how much longer it would be before she caught alight.

  I persevered.

  But why the silence? Why this absolute and total immobility, this frozen posture?

  Suddenly it came to me. I had forgotten completely about Jerry! I was so hotted up, I had forgotten all about his own personal routine! I was doing it my way, not his! His way was far more complex than mine. It was ridiculously elaborate. It was quite unnecessary. But it was what she was used to. And now she was noticing the difference and trying to figure out what on earth was going on.

  But it was too late to change direction now. I must keep going.

  I kept going. The woman beside me was like a coiled spring lying there. I could feel the tension under her skin. I began to sweat.

  Suddenly, she uttered a queer little groan.

  More ghastly thoughts rushed through my mind. Could she be ill? Was she having a heart attack? Ought I to get the hell out quick?

  She groaned again, louder this time. Then all at once, she cried out, "Yes-yes-yes-yes-yes!" and like a bomb whose slow fuse had finally reached the dynamite, she exploded into life. She grabbed me in her arms and went for me with such incredible ferocity, I felt I was being set upon by a tiger.

  Or should I say tigress?

  I never dreamed a woman could do the things Samantha did to me then. She was a whirlwind, a dazzling frenzied whirlwind that tore me up by the roots and spun me around and carried me high into the heav
ens, to places I did not know existed.

  I myself did not contribute. How could I? I was helpless. I was in the palm-tree spinning in the heavens, the lamb in the claws of the tiger. It was as much as I could do to keep breathing.

  Thrilling it was, all the same, to surrender to the hands of a violent woman, and for the next ten, twenty, thirty minutes how would I know?-the storm raged on. But I have no intention here of regaling the reader with bizarre details. I do not approve of washing juicy linen in public. I am sorry, but there it is. I only hope that my reticence will not create too strong a sense of anticlimax. Certainly, there was nothing anti about my own climax, and in the final searing paroxysm I gave a shout which should have awakened the entire neighbourhood. Then I collapsed. I crumpled up like a drained wineskin.

  Samantha, as though she had done no more than drink a glass of water, simply turned away from me and went right back to sleep.

  Phew!

  I lay still, recuperating slowly.

  I had been right, you see, about that little thing on her lower lip, had I not?

  Come to think of t, I had been right about more or less everything that had to do with this incredible escapade. What a triumph! I felt wonderfully relaxed and well-spent.

  I wondered what time it was. My watch was not a luminous one. I'd better go. I crept out of bed. I felt my way, a trifle less cautiously this time, around the bed, out of the bedroom, along the corridor, down the stairs and into the hall of the house. I found my raincoat and slippers. I put them on. I had a lighter in the pocket of my raincoat. I used it and read the time. It was eight minutes before two. Later than I thought. I opened the front door and stepped out into the black night.

  My thoughts now began to concentrate upon Jerry. Was he all right? Had he gotten away with it? I moved through the darkness towards the gap in the hedge.

  "Hi, sport," a voice whispered beside me.

  "Jerry!"

  "Everything okay?" Jerry asked.

  "Fantastic," I said. "Amazing. What about you?"