‘Then why can’t I smoke?’
‘Because I disapprove, that’s why.’
He had also disapproved of children, and as a result they had never had any of them either.
Where was he now, this William of hers, the great disapprover?
Landy would be expecting her to call up. Did she have to call Landy?
Well, not really, no.
She finished her cigarette, then lit another one immediately from the old stub. She looked at the telephone that was sitting on the worktable beside the television set. William had asked her to call. He had specifically requested that she telephone Landy as soon as she had read the letter. She hesitated, fighting hard now against that old ingrained sense of duty that she didn’t quite yet dare to shake off. Then, slowly, she got to her feet and crossed over to the phone on the worktable. She found a number in the book, dialled it, and waited.
‘I want to speak to Dr Landy, please.’
‘Who is calling?’
‘Mrs Pearl. Mrs William Pearl.’
‘One moment, please.’
Almost at once, Landy was on the other end of the wire.
‘Mrs Pearl?’
‘This is Mrs Pearl.’
There was a slight pause.
‘I am so glad you called at last, Mrs Pearl. You are quite well, I hope?’ The voice was quiet, unemotional, courteous. ‘I wonder if you would care to come over here to the hospital? Then we can have a little chat. I expect you are very eager to know how it all came out.’
She didn’t answer.
‘I can tell you now that everything went pretty smoothly, one way and another. Far better, in fact, than I was entitled to hope. It is not only alive, Mrs Pearl, it is conscious. It recovered consciousness on the second day. Isn’t that interesting?’
She waited for him to go on.
‘And the eye is seeing. We are sure of that because we get an immediate change in the deflections on the encephalograph when we hold something up in front of it. And now we’re giving it the newspaper to read every day.’
‘Which newspaper?’ Mrs Pearl asked sharply.
‘The Daily Mirror. The headlines are larger.’
‘He hates the Mirror. Give him The Times.’
There was a pause, then the doctor said, ‘Very well, Mrs Pearl. We’ll give it The Times. We naturally want to do all we can to keep it happy.’
‘Him,’ she said. ‘Not it. Him!’
‘Him,’ the doctor said. ‘Yes, I beg your pardon. To keep him happy. That’s one reason why I suggested you should come along here as soon as possible. I think it would be good for him to see you. You could indicate how delighted you were to be with him again – smile at him and blow him a kiss and all that sort of thing. It’s bound to be a comfort to him to know that you are standing by.’
There was a long pause.
‘Well,’ Mrs Pearl said at last, her voice suddenly very meek and tired. ‘I suppose I had better come on over and see how he is.’
‘Good. I knew you would. I’ll wait here for you. Come straight up to my office on the second floor. Good-bye.’
Half an hour later, Mrs Pearl was at the hospital.