Read Online A Lovely Day to Die by Celia Fremlin - Free Book Online
Authors: Celia Fremlin
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all-day battle rolled towards the walls of Troy …
Once again, with long, slow strokes he swam shoreward in triumph through the blue water; he hadn’t felt so well, so physically perfect, for years. Not for years and years and years. Once again he came striding out of the shallows, the bright drops spilling around him, and once again he stepped ashore like a god—but not, this time, into anyone’s arms. In fact, he had to walk right up the beach, right to where she was sitting.
“You saw that? You saw me? — Now what have you to say?” he cried as he drew near; and now, at last, she raised her eyes from her pattern. She’d been decreasing at the neck-edge, a rather tricky operation, as any knitter knows, and one demanding all of one’s concentration.
“Saw what?” she said.
A STRONG SHOULDER TO WEEP ON
W HAT WOULD you do, friends (and I’m addressing married men everywhere)—what would you do if you were roused from the marital bed at two a.m. by a phone call from a blonde and unhappily-married neighbour, telling you that a flying saucer has just landed in her back garden, and she’s frightened?
Well, go on, what would you do? Don’t all answer at once; think about it, just like I had to think. And remember that in my case I’d just been wrenched out of my first and deepest sleep—what with the Harpers coming round for Scrabble and staying till all hours, we hadn’t got to bed till after twelve—and so my brain was at its lowest ebb.
To clear it, I shook my head feebly from side to side. I rubbed my eyes. I switched on the bedside light and looked down at my wife Pam, still sleeping peacefully. It takes an earthquake to wake Pam once she is really off, this I know well; but then, of course, an earthquake is one thing, and the husky voice of a blonde and attractive neighbour phoning me in the middle of the night is quite another. Still, asleep she was, no doubt about it at all.
And so the options were all open. I could, if I chose, shake her by the shoulder, pull the covers off her, and bellow into her ear: “Darling, Sheila Curtis has just phoned up to say there’s a flying saucer in her garden. What had I better do?”
Well, how would your wife react? I can tell you straight away how Pam would:
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, John!” she’d mumble irritably. “ Do shut up and go to sleep. I told you not to eat all those pickled gherkins last thing at night …” And she’d be dead to the world again before the words were properly out of her mouth.
And so that left the second option.
“I’ll be along right away,” I breathed carefully into the phone.Then I slipped quietly out of bed, pulled on slacks and sweater over my pyjamas, slid my feet into the comfortable old leather slippers at my bedside, and tiptoed out of the room. Pam’s relaxed and regular breathing followed me across the landing and part-way down the stairs, but after that I lost it. By the time I reached the hall I could hear absolutely nothing. The house, as I gently closed the front door upon it, seemed silent as the grave.
I was to wish, later, that this hackneyed little phrase hadn’t slipped into my mind at that particular moment; but there you are, it did. I’m just telling you.
Outside, the moon was just rising—a half-moon, orangey-coloured, and lying almost on its back in the low, star-studded sky. Have you noticed how the moon, if it is visible at all at these strange hours of the night, always seems to be lying at some strange angle? Once, when I was quite young, I used to understand why this had to be so; and I find it touching, somehow, that it’s all still going on, even though the clear and beautiful explanation of it is gone from my mind for ever.
All this sounds like a digression, doesn’t it, a mere irrelevance; but it isn’t really. The phase of the moon that night, and the hour of its rising, was more important than you might imagine; more important, certainly, than I could have imagined as I
Once again, with long, slow strokes he swam shoreward in triumph through the blue water; he hadn’t felt so well, so physically perfect, for years. Not for years and years and years. Once again he came striding out of the shallows, the bright drops spilling around him, and once again he stepped ashore like a god—but not, this time, into anyone’s arms. In fact, he had to walk right up the beach, right to where she was sitting.
“You saw that? You saw me? — Now what have you to say?” he cried as he drew near; and now, at last, she raised her eyes from her pattern. She’d been decreasing at the neck-edge, a rather tricky operation, as any knitter knows, and one demanding all of one’s concentration.
“Saw what?” she said.
A STRONG SHOULDER TO WEEP ON
W HAT WOULD you do, friends (and I’m addressing married men everywhere)—what would you do if you were roused from the marital bed at two a.m. by a phone call from a blonde and unhappily-married neighbour, telling you that a flying saucer has just landed in her back garden, and she’s frightened?
Well, go on, what would you do? Don’t all answer at once; think about it, just like I had to think. And remember that in my case I’d just been wrenched out of my first and deepest sleep—what with the Harpers coming round for Scrabble and staying till all hours, we hadn’t got to bed till after twelve—and so my brain was at its lowest ebb.
To clear it, I shook my head feebly from side to side. I rubbed my eyes. I switched on the bedside light and looked down at my wife Pam, still sleeping peacefully. It takes an earthquake to wake Pam once she is really off, this I know well; but then, of course, an earthquake is one thing, and the husky voice of a blonde and attractive neighbour phoning me in the middle of the night is quite another. Still, asleep she was, no doubt about it at all.
And so the options were all open. I could, if I chose, shake her by the shoulder, pull the covers off her, and bellow into her ear: “Darling, Sheila Curtis has just phoned up to say there’s a flying saucer in her garden. What had I better do?”
Well, how would your wife react? I can tell you straight away how Pam would:
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, John!” she’d mumble irritably. “ Do shut up and go to sleep. I told you not to eat all those pickled gherkins last thing at night …” And she’d be dead to the world again before the words were properly out of her mouth.
And so that left the second option.
“I’ll be along right away,” I breathed carefully into the phone.Then I slipped quietly out of bed, pulled on slacks and sweater over my pyjamas, slid my feet into the comfortable old leather slippers at my bedside, and tiptoed out of the room. Pam’s relaxed and regular breathing followed me across the landing and part-way down the stairs, but after that I lost it. By the time I reached the hall I could hear absolutely nothing. The house, as I gently closed the front door upon it, seemed silent as the grave.
I was to wish, later, that this hackneyed little phrase hadn’t slipped into my mind at that particular moment; but there you are, it did. I’m just telling you.
Outside, the moon was just rising—a half-moon, orangey-coloured, and lying almost on its back in the low, star-studded sky. Have you noticed how the moon, if it is visible at all at these strange hours of the night, always seems to be lying at some strange angle? Once, when I was quite young, I used to understand why this had to be so; and I find it touching, somehow, that it’s all still going on, even though the clear and beautiful explanation of it is gone from my mind for ever.
All this sounds like a digression, doesn’t it, a mere irrelevance; but it isn’t really. The phase of the moon that night, and the hour of its rising, was more important than you might imagine; more important, certainly, than I could have imagined as I
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